Fallout: Equestria - Utopia

by dystopia8

Rating: mature
Tags: Crossover, Fallout, Profanity, Gore, Violence, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Dark, Death, Alternate Universe, Main 6, Original Character, Adventure
Length: 953114

Chasing after a group of cyber ponies, Amber finds herself in the ruins of the once great city of Manehattan and the unwilling pawn in a long forgotten secret

Stable 25 was the testing ground for a new Stable-Tec invention called the A.A.S.S. A device created to keep ponies alive without the need for food. What was once considered to be the pinnacle of pony engineering, turned mundane and little more than a passing thought in the lives of the Stable ponies that live there. Living out her painfully boring and dull existence in the Stable, Amber Aura does little else but look after the device.

But few things stay the same in the wasteland, and even places locked away that most ponies thought to be untouchable are bound to change in the most unexpected of ways. Thrust out from their relatively safe Stable and hunting down a group of terrifying cyber ponies, Amber Aura and her fellow Stable Dweller Brisk Spark, find themselves struggling for survival in the bombed out ruins of the once great city of Manehattan.

But the cyber ponies they pursue are only the tip of the iceberg in a much larger play. Waring factions threaten the desolate Manehattan streets, Red Eyes forces grow in his hellish city of Fillydelphia and old prewar secrets long since buried stir beneath everyponies hooves... Secrets that may once again play a role in Equestria's fate...

(Warning, may contain spoilers for Fallout Equestria and small spoilers for Project Horizons.)

Fallout: Equestria was created by Kkat, and can be found here.
Fallout: Equestria - Project Horizons was created by Somber, and can be found here.

Published 2019-05-11 12:50:01 UTC
Last updated 2024-07-03 07:33:03 UTC

Chapter II: Welcome to Manehattan

“Tis better to be alone, then of bad company”

Dead.

Dead was the only word I could think of to properly describe the desolate skyline that lay before us. Many words seemed fitting, such as horrid or decaying. Even Tartarus seemed like a logical description for what lay ahead, but dead was the only word that could perfectly encapsulated the foul view of the collapsing city of Manehattan.

Once grand and mighty skyscrapers now lay in crumbling ruins along the streets, many having completely collapsed in on themselves or against other structures. Muck and grime coated the concrete city walls and graffiti depicting graphic scenes and foul profanities seemed to cover most of the cities surfaces. A large elevated monorail ran throughout the city, though like most of the surrounding area, much of the monorail had begun to collapse. Off far in the distance, I could see a looming tower, almost tall enough to reach the clouds, the massive statue of a pony head built atop it only adding to its tremendous height. A ghastly green fog wafted around the bases of the crooked, grey structures, making the whole city look like some form of nightmarish landscape from a horror story.

The Geiger counter on my pipbuck began clicking furiously. I had never seen such high levels of radiation before. I thumped my hoof against my pipbuck to make sure that it wasn’t just broken. To my dismay, it continued to click ominously.

“We should probably get out of here, we are collecting rads faster than I’d like,” I declared, looking over to Brisk, who was staring up at the sky grinning like a maniac.

I followed his gaze up above the broken building to… to nothing! Holy fucking shit there was nothing above me! I dropped to my haunches and tried to flatten myself against the ground as much as possible. They sky was so big and vast! I couldn’t even see the ceiling above the thick curtain of clouds that hung above the city. I shut my eyes tight, wishing for the safe walls of Stable 25 to return. I dared to let an eye sneak a glance back up. Yup, there was still no roof and I still felt like I was going to fall up into that oblivion.

Brisk glanced down at me pitifully. “What are you doing?” He asked, reaching a hoof down, and pulling me back up.

“Hoping the ceiling will come back,” I cried, making sure my eyes stayed fixed on the ground. “I don’t like how big the sky is.”

Brisk gave let out a wild whoop. “Well I love it!” He exclaimed, practically bouncing on the tips of his hooves. “It’s so free! I mean, just smell that air!”

I gave a quick sniff and instantly regretted it. The whole area smelled like a mix between sewage and rotting flesh. I wrinkled my snout. “It smells like shit.”

“It smells like air that isn’t being recycled!” He insisted, taking a large whiff of the air. He coughed a little at the radioactive fog filled his lungs. “Granted, it could smell a little nicer I suppose,” His eyes wandered to something else and he began darting forward. “And look at this!” he pointed to something small, and close to the ground.

I looked closely at the small object protruding from between the cracks in the concrete. It took me a solid minute to figure out exactly what I was looking at. “Is that… grass?”

It was. Dead grass, specifically. The wasteland wouldn’t allow for anything more. It only stood about a half inch tall. Had Brisk not pointed it out, it is doubtful I would have even noticed it.

“Exactly! Grass!” Brisk was practically whinnying with excitement. “Bet you never saw that inside the damned Stable!”

“I didn’t know you were so interested in flora,” I smirked, glad for the distraction from the vertigo inducing sky above me.

“Flora what?” Brisk asked, glancing from the singular blade of grass to me. “The fuck is a flora?”

I glared at him flatly. “Plant life idiot.”

Brisk looked back at the grass in interest. “Hmm, yeah. It’s kinda cool,” then to my surprise, he leaned in closer, opened his mouth and ate the grass in a single quick bite.

“Wha- why did you just do that?” I asked in bafflement as he chewed on the grass thoughtfully. “I thought you found it interesting?!”

Brisk swallowed slowly. “I found it interesting enough to eat,” He smacked his lips together in consideration. “It’s not bad actually.”

I shook my head. “You’re weird.”

“You’re the one that followed me out here,” Brisk countered, leaving the spot behind and walking down the road. I followed close behind him, glancing around nervously. I didn't like how quiet it was out here. Brisk scanned the broken down buildings that surrounded us. “So what do we do now that we have a whole world to explore? Where do we go? I’ve heard Canterlot is pretty cool!”

I punched his foreleg gently. “We have a mission to do remember?” I reminded him. “We need to find those cyber ponies that took the A.A.S.S and bring it back to the Stable.”

Brisk rolled his eyes and slouched a little. “Really? But there is so much other cool shit we can do.”

“I tell you what,” I said, finally falling in step with him. “We can go exploring this place as long as we keep finding the A.A.S.S as our main priority. Deal?”

Brisk scoffed at the suggestion, but still nodded in response. “Fine. Who knows, maybe this quest of yours will be exciting.”

“Hopefully it’s just easily,” I replied lamely. “Now I guess we just gotta figure out what way to start walking. I don’t want to get lost out here”

In the distance, the flickering light of a fire began illuminating the road. I could see the forms of five or so ponies sitting around the flame, their backs slouched and facing away from us. I excitedly pointed them out to Brisk, glad to see another living pony.

“Hey, maybe they saw the cyber ponies,” I suggested as I began walking faster towards them. “Excuse me!” I called out to the ponies around the fire. “I’m looking for some directions, can you help us?” I noticed Brisk had stopped dead in his tracks. I turned back to him. “Hey, are you coming or what?” I asked him, trying to figure out what he was doing. He had the strangest expression on his face, wide eyes and slack jaw. The colour in his face slowly draining to a pale white.

“Amber,” His voice was so shaky it didn’t even sound like his anymore. “I… I think we should get going…”

I arched my eyebrows and glanced back at the group of five ponies that were slowly approaching us. Now facing towards me, I could make out their features a lot better. They were all muscular, with scores of jagged scars shooting across their matted and blood soaked hide. They wore makeshift armor comprised of chains, slabs of metal, and to my stomachs displeasure, pony flesh.

I dared myself to glance down at the EFS on my pipbuck (the Eyes Forward Sparkle, which is another thing every pipbuck has that no one ever thought they would need). To my horror, I saw five red bars. I had only ever seen red bars on my EFS once, and that had been when there was a small Radroach infestation in the Stable a few years back. Red bars meant that whatever was approaching was hostile, and I really didn’t want to fight anypony looking as horrifying as that.

I took a step back, my nose finally picking up on the smell of rot and blood that accompanied the newcomers. I glanced at the weapons they carried. The Mare in the front, the only unicorn of the group, wielded a large serrated machete in her magic. The other four simply carried large knives.

“Well well well!” the lead raider cackled, her voice similar to that of a high pitched whine. She pointed the tip of her blade at my throat. “What do we have here?”

“Uh… we’re just looking for some ponies that might... uh, might have come through here,” I sputtered, my eyes transfixed on the rusted blade and bits of pony flesh hanging from their armor. “But… um, I think we will be going now.”

One of the raiders in the back curled back their lips and revealed their sharpened teeth, giving us a low hiss. Both Brisk and I jumped back slightly at the hostility.

“Oh you cunts won't be going anywhere,” The lead raider grinned, licking her lips slowly. She flicked her head at the raiders behind her, ordering them to advance. “Skin ‘em alive!”

I had never been in a fight before. Once I had gotten my cutie mark I had been beaten plenty of times sure, but I had never dared to fight back. I had always just laid there and taken my punches. Even while trying to escape Stable 25, I had only run away. The most I had ever done was break that one guards legs. But now, as five psychotic, blood soaked raiders charged me with drawn knives, I took up my baton and swung with all my might.

The heavy baton crashed against the first raiders head with a solid thwack! He toppled sideways, stumbling into the raider beside him. I didn’t have time to celebrate my successful hit as the third raider swung her large blade at my throat. I ducked low to the ground, doing my best to avoid decapitation. I targeted her legs in S.A.T.S and sent my baton crashing into her fetlock.

The raider dropped her knife with a howl of rage as the baton broke both of her front legs. I grabbed at the blade and stabbed it upwards, digging the rusted edge through her lower jaw and up into her brain.

Blood and viscera rained down onto me as the raiders body spasmed above me before falling limp and collapsed to their side.

Fuck, did I just… shit I just killed a pony!

I stared in horror at the bloody blade, bits of flesh and brain matter still clinging to the serrated edge. I let the blade fall to the ground and tried to pull my gaze away from the crumpled corpse that lay next to me.

A gunshot pulled me back to my senses. I glanced over to Brisk who was doing his best to avoid the swinging machete and knife of the two raiders that had chased after him. The barrel of his 10mm pistol was smoking after having just been fired, but it didn’t appear as if he had managed to hit either of the raiders. To my confusion he held his pistol in his mouth. Why wasn’t he just using magic?

I started charging towards the two raiders assaulting Brisk when one of the raiders I had previously knocked over slammed into my side, sending me sprawling across the ground. As I tried to rise, he pinned me to the ground with his hooves and aimed his dagger at me. His right eye was blood red where he had been struck by my baton.

“I’m gonna fuck the shit out of you!” The raider screeched. His words were muffled by the handle of the knife in his mouth, but still clearly audible.

I wrapped a field of telekinesis around his knife and yanked it from his mouth, slicing the skin around his lips into a gruesome smile. The raider lurched his head back and howled, trying to stop the blood with his hooves to no avail.

I targeted his head in S.A.T.S and rammed the end of my shock baton into his face. There was a loud crack, then the baton pushed it’s way straight through his head and came out the other side, causing his head to explode in a shower of brain and skull fragments.

I turned to my final attacker, who was grinning at me manically as she pulled herself to her feet. For the first time I noticed she had sharp claws strapped to the ends of her hooves. How did I miss something like that?

I gulped as she lunged at me, her long claw like weapon extending towards me in the hopes to cut me into ribbons. I rolled out of the way, whacking my head against a large rock that protruded from the ground as I did. I rubbed my head and groaned, trying to pull myself back to my hooves.

I backed up against one of the buildings as the raider advanced on me, her smile growing more menacing by the second. Her makeshift claws clicked against the asphalt as she walked.

I readied myself for her attack, crouching lower and raising my baton.

Her attack never came.

Before she could lunge a bullet lodged itself in her forehead with a ear splitting bang, coating my face in her blood. She wobbled for a second before falling limp to the ground, the blood from her wound reaching out and mingling with the slowly spreading blood of the previously fallen raiders.

I looked over to Brisk, his 10mm pistol still clamped tight in his mouth. The two raiders that had attacked him now lay dead at his hooves. The machete that the lead raider had wielded was now strapped across Brisk's back. I supposed that having a collection of weapons to change to in a fight could come in very handy.

Unlike me, the raiders had managed to get a large number of cuts in on Brisk. His front legs now resembled that of a zebra with deep gashes zigzagging across his flesh where the serrated machete had cut into him. The cuts were deep, he was lucky that his front legs hadn’t been cut off completely. Blood oozed from the wounds and pooled around his feet.

“I think I need help,” He muttered, looking down at his legs and trying to take a wobbly step forward, only to fall flat on his face. “I don’t think I can walk much like this.”

I rushed over to him and pushed up against his side, giving him something to lean on. Brisk was a lot bigger than I was, so I wasn’t able to give him that much support, but I could try and give him what little I had.

“We need to find some healing potions,” I muttered, looking down at the lesions on his legs. “Any suggestions?”

Brisk gave a slow shake of his head. “Let's just get somewhere safe. We’ll figure it out from there.”

I nodded. That seemed reasonable enough.

We began our slow descent down the road. Brisk held back a whimper with every step. We had only be in the wasteland for a few minutes and we were already on the verge of death. Perhaps my father hadn’t been wrong.

A small round sphere of metal on wings bobbed up and down across the street as we walked, playing some weird tuba heavy song.

Brisk chuckled a little as we cautiously drew near. “Fuck, even outside the Stable we get stuck with shitty music.”

The metallic sounding song was eerily similar to the Stable-Tec March we had heard every day while inside of Stable 25. Did the wasteland really need to be this cruel?

As the song slowly faded out, the smooth voice of a male pony began to speak. It didn’t have the mechanical tinny sound like the song before it.

“Ponies, friends. This world of our is desolate, and lonely. I understand your strife, but know that we can make all the pain in this world end - must make all the pain end. You’re contribution to the cause will grant us the ability to move mountains, to ascend to a better tomorrow, a better Equestria. We will be able to rebuild our great nation and become the utopia we were always meant to be. We will create a unity among our fellow friends, all pony kind. This I promise all of you.”

The voice cut out and the floating metal bug robot continued playing it’s annoying song and it drifted into the ruins. Brisk and I stared in shock at where the robot had gone.

“What the fuck?” Brisk blurted, echoing my very thoughts. “The hell was that? Create a unity among our fellow friends? What?”

I shrugged, adjusting my position on Brisk’s side. “Everything out here is weird.”

Bang!

A cloud of dust erupted in front of us as an unseen sniper took a shot at the ground in front of our hooves. The two of us stumbled backwards, ducking behind the wreckage of a large sky bandit to avoid getting shot. Really? Could we not walk a few feet without getting shot at please? Because that would be great if we could!

“That was a warning shot!” somepony called out, a male by the sounds of it. I was unable to pinpoint exactly were the voice was coming from.

Brisk and I raised both of our weapons as we waited for them to show themselves or shoot at us again.

“How many shots do you have left in that thing?” I asked, gesturing to Brisk’s gun.

He looked down at the 10mm pistol in his hooves. “No idea, I don’t even know how to reload this thing,” he explained as he started fiddling with the gun, trying his best to understand the intricacies of it.

“Come out with your weapons holstered and we won't kill you!” The voice shouted out again, slightly closer this time. We wont kill you? So there was more than one of them. Great!

“They don’t sound like raiders,” I whispered, peeking out from around the broken sky bandit. I could see two ponies slowly walking towards us. One held what appeared to be a sniper in their mouth. I couldn’t see what the other pony had.

Brisk winced and he put pressure on his front legs. “That doesn’t mean they won't kill us,” He reminded me, sitting hard on the ground and trying to remove his weight form his forelegs. “At best it just means they’ll keep our death quick and not hang us on the walls like paintings.”

“Do raiders do that?” I squealed nervously.

He glared at me with his usual stare. “Did you not see the bodies?”

I didn’t get time to answer as the two ponies rounded the corner of the sky bandit and aimed their weapons at us.

They were two earth pony stallions. Like the raiders, they were covered in a layer muck and their coats were marked up by a multitude of scars. Unlike the raiders however, these ponies were dressed in leather barding and were much less blood soaked. They didn’t look overly intimidating, or even look like they fully knew what they were doing. I suppose this was probably one of their first times raiding ponies.

The Stallion with the sniper had a dark brown coat with a bright purple mane. A long scar stretched from one side of his face to the other.

“Well look what we have here brother,” The brown stallion grinned, pointing the sniper at my head and looking over to the other pony. “Couple of Stable dwellers decided to come crawling out of their little hole in the ground.”

The earth pony beside him, a tall lanky looking stallion with a grey coat and a jet black mane chuckled. “Couldn’t have found ourselves a easier target for our first catch,” I guess that confirmed my first time raiding theory. I noticed that the grey pony only carried a clipboard at his side. The fuck was up with that?

The brown earth pony turned back to face us. “The two of us are going to be taking all of your stuff,” he grinned. “And if you don’t give it to us, we’re going to shoot you.”

All our stuff? We didn’t have anything except for a some flimsy Stable barding, a baton, and a pistol. Of course one of these ponies was planning to fight with a clipboard, so I supposed a gun and a baton were a pretty large improvement.

“Sure,” Brisk respond coldly, raising his pistol up with his mouth. “Have this.”

Blam!

Brisk fired, clearly catching the bandits off guard. Hell, he caught me off guard. His bullet ripped through the brown stallions leg and sent him crashing to the asphalt with a thud.

“You’re going to fucking pay for that!” The gray pony yelled, swinging his clipboard at Brisk’s head.

I brought my baton up and slammed it against his back, staggering him. Unfortunately for me, he was faster than I was and managed to recover and bash me across the face with the clipboard.

I reeled back in pain, my vision spinning from the impact. The fuck was that clipboard made of? Solid metal? Getting hit by it hurt like hell.

Brisk whacked the bandit across the face with his gun, knocking him down and forcing him to drop his clipboard. I quickly kicked the clipboard away from him, not wanting to be hit by it again.

The Brown stallion with the sniper slowly pushed himself of the ground. “You two are fucking dead!” he yelled around the mouthpiece of the gun.

I brought my shock baton flying at the sniper, knocking it from his mouth and sending it sliding across the road. There was a sickening ripping noise as the bandits teeth, which were clamped tightly around the gun, shattered from the impact and flew from his mouth like shrapnel from a grenade. Blood oozed over his lips as he suppressed a scream.

Brisk’s gun was aimed at him faster than I could have imagined. My green unicorn friend grinning as he placed the tip of his gun on the bandits forehead.

“Now I think we will be taking all of your stuff,” Brisk said, gesturing to the saddlebag that hung from the bandits side. “Then we will figure out what we are going to do with you two.”

“What the fuck are you doing?” I demanded, waving my hooves at Brisk. “We don’t just go around robbing ponies!”

Brisk just kept grinning. "Oh, but we do Rob ponies," he replied evenly, not taking his gaze away from the brown stallion. "When we run across assholes like these, we do whatever the hell we want with them."

I grit my teeth. "Brisk, put the gun down and let them go," I demanded sternly. "We do not rob other ponies!"

Brisk whirled on me. “We do if they attack us first!” He shouted. “This is the wasteland Amber! Not a fucking Stable! I haven’t been out here long, but it’s becoming pretty damn clear that when somepony has something you want, you take it!”

I stared at him with a mix of shock and growing anger. “That’s not how this fucking works Brisk! It’s shitty enough out here, we don't need to make it any worse by becoming just as bad as them!” I gestured to the grey earth pony who was still struggling to pull himself to his hooves after the last hit.

“What do you think will happens if we go around trying to be nice to every pony we meet Amber?” Brisk shouted back, his face growing ever so slightly red. “You don’t save the wasteland, bandits and raiders aren’t going to give you a fucking gold star if you let them live! All that happens is you end up getting skinned alive by some psycho and the wasteland gets to claim another victim.”

I slapped him; I couldn’t help myself. His head snapped to the side from the sudden impact. I wasn’t very strong so it couldn’t have hurt that much, but it was enough to take him by surprise. “We! Are not! Raiders!” I shouted, waving my baton at him.

I spotted the brown earth pony now a few feet way raising his sniper in his bleeding mouth. I hadn’t seen him move for it while I was distracted by Brisk. Brisk must have seen me react to this however, because he spun around and fired at the bandit without a second thought.

Blam!

The brown stallion dropped dead, blood oozing from the bullet hole in his forehead. I stared at the broken body of the pony in horror. Damn it, we were killing so many ponies already. There was so much blood on our hooves.

"Just because we need to kill to survive, doesn't make us raiders," Brisk retorted coldly, as he shoved his way past me and slowly limped towards the grey pony. The Stallion tried to back away from him, but before he had time to properly react Brisk raised his pistol and sent a bullet through the ponies skull. “Grab their stuff, let’s get going,” Brisk’s voice was low and steady.

I looked at the dead ponies around me. I’m not going to say they didn’t deserve to die, but we could have at least tried to save them. I slowly retrieved the sniper from the ground and began combing through his saddlebag.

I found a couple of bobby pins and a grenade. I made sure not to be to aggressive with the grenade; being this close to an explosive made me nervous. There was something else at the bottom of the bag as well. I reached in and felt around, finding ten or so Sparkle-cola bottle caps. I guessed this guy liked Sparkle-cola or something.

Not finding any use for the caps, I tossed them aside and dumped the rest of his supplies into my saddle bag. I winced slightly as I remember the grenade and proceed to place the remainder of the stuff into my bag much more gently.

I marched over to Brisk who was lying flat on his stomach, clearly trying to reduce the amount of pain he was in.

“Are your legs okay?” I asked, sitting down beside him.

He gave me a quick, pained glance. “Oh yeah, I’ve never felt better,” He coughed, his voice dripping with sarcasm. He raised his scarred forehoof and pointed at a building a few feet away from us. “I think I found a place for us to lay low for a bit though.”

I looked closely at the building. It did appear to be in much better condition than the rest of the toppling structures we had past, though that wasn’t saying much. The building was a tall narrow structure, shoved between two other less sturdy looking skyscrapers. Though much of the paint on the front of the building had corroded away over time, I could still make out bits of the white, orange and blue designs that once adorned the front of the structure.

Hanging on a now crooked and precariously dangling sign read the words ‘Carousel boutique: Manehattan branch’.

“The clothing shop?” I asked, glancing back down at Brisk.

He nodded slowly. “Yeah, looks more sturdy than anywhere else around here and it doesn’t look like there are any raiders inside.”

“How can you tell?” I asked, squinting my eyes at the building and trying to make out the finer details through the green haze.

Brisk looked up at me. “You really didn’t see all those bodies, did you?” I shook my head in response. Brisk gave out a low and pained sigh. “Let’s hope you never need to.”

He pushed himself off the ground and tried to take a step forward, stumbled and almost fell back to the ground. I rushed forwards and helped support his weight. I was really starting to wish I had some form of physical strength.

Brisk’s legs were getting worse. The more he walked, the more blood began to spill from the multitude of incisions. I really hoped there was some healing potions inside of that fashion store.

“So tell me about yourself,” I ask Brisk as we slowly made our way down the road to the boutique in the distance.

Brisk gave me a weird glance. “Why?” he skeptically answered between heavy breaths.

“Because,” I started. “It seems we are going to be sticking together out here, and I feel like I should know more about the pony I’m traveling with.”

Brisk nodded in agreement. “Well, what do you want to know?”

I thought for a moment. “Tell me about your cutie mark,” I asked, quickly glancing at the multi coloured cone on his butt. This time I could make out some black letters on it as well, though I couldn’t see exactly what they read. “Is it a party hat?”

He gave a low chuckle. “Sort of. Back when I was in school I was always a bit of a class clown.”

I snickered. “And you aren’t now?”

He rolled his eyes, but smiled all the same. “Well my teacher didn’t tend to find my jokes very funny, so it wasn’t uncommon for me to get in a lot of trouble,” Brisk sighed. “One day my teacher decided to be extra cruel and tossed me in the corner with a big ol' dunce cap on my head. Course before she knew it I was decorating it with crayons and stickers and making it a fun and exciting party hat. Then Kaboom, this little mark appeared on my butt.”

“Soooo,” I glanced at his cutie mark again. “Your cutie mark is a dunce cap?”

“A decorated dunce cap,” he quickly corrected with a slightly defensive tone. “But yeah, it's technically a dunce cap.”

I nodded slowly, but I had no idea what a decorated dunce cap cutie mark meant. Was it that he got in trouble a lot? That he couldn’t be discouraged? That he was simply really annoying? That last one seemed the most probable to me.

“So you’re teacher?” I continued. “Did you have Ms. Dry Chalk as well?”

Brisk grinned deviously. “No way! Dry was her first name?”

I nodded, not really knowing how to respond to that answer. “I’m guessing that’s a yes?”

“Fuck yeah I had Dry Chalk,” Brisk whinnied gleefully. “She had the most dry and uninteresting lectures! Am I right!” He laughed again. “Damn, thinking about pieces of work like her remind me why I’m so much happier out here.”

I chuckled nervously, not mentioning how Ms. Chalk had been my favorite teacher.

I glanced down at Brisk’s legs. “You are still happier out here? Even after being so badly hurt?”

“I told you back in the Stable, I’d be happier out here even if I dropped dead within seconds of leaving. I live for adventure Amber, and this is the greatest adventure there is,” He gave me a wink, making me blush. What the fuck? Why did I blush like that?

Before I could think more about why I had reacted to his wink the way that I did, Brisk turned the questioning around on me. “Alright, now it's your turn. How did you get your cutie mark?”

I folded back my ears at the question. “I fixed a generator… I don’t really like to talk about it?”

Brisk stopped limping and turned to me. “Oh come on now, I answered your questions. What’s the story behind it?”

I flushed. “I’m assuming you’ve heard about my families hereditary cutie mark, yes?” I asked, nodding towards the building and making him continue walking. Brisk nodded. I sighed. “Well, when I didn’t get the same cutie mark and my dad realized I wasn’t going to become the next Overmare he… well…”

“Became really disappointed?” Brisk offered in a monotone voice, though hints of sarcasm were still present.

I nodded. “That’s a rather blunt way of putting it, but yeah. He was disappointed in my existence. I’m sure he still loved me and all, he just wished I was somepony else and not the failure that I am.”

Brisk shrugged. “Well you managed to escape the Stable and survive a group of raiders and bandits, so I’d say that you can't be that big of a failure.”

I gave him a small smile. “Thanks, I appreciate the effort, but that just kinda makes me a bigger disappointment in dads eyes. He probably hates me more now for leaving the Stable the way that I did.”

We finally arrived at the ruins of Carousel boutique. It looked just about the same up close as it did from a distance, though now the blue and orange patterns on the wall were a little more visible. In the cracked and dusty window on the right I could see a mannequin dressed the tattered remains of what was once a beautiful dress.

I stiffened as I looked at the mannequin. It was probably just a coincidence, but it just so happened to be positioned in a way that made it’s hollow eyes stare straight at us. It was spooky.

We pushed open the half broken door and stumbled into the boutique, the top of the door hitting a rusted bell that made a pathetic clank as it opened. We half limped, half fell into the center of the room.

Brisk had been right, the building did appear to be in better condition than everywhere else. Unlike the rest of the building, the roof seemed almost perfectly intact with only a few small holes in it. A curved staircase lead up to a second floor and piles of stained and ripped clothing lay in large heaps on the floor.

There we also mannequins. Lots and lots of mannequins. The creepy, faceless, beige pony models were everywhere you looked. Some stood in normal spots, displaying clothes like you would expect to find in a boutique, but others stood in random places such as the middle of the floor or hanging from the ceiling.

“Wow, you couldn’t have picked a creepier spot, could you?” I scolded, picking myself up off the floor and looking closer at the mannequins.

“At least we are off the road where somepony might attack us,” Brisk reminded, sitting back on his haunches and keeping his front hooves off the ground.

There was a sudden crash of thunder and the beginnings of rain began to drizzle from the cloud layer above us. I stared at it in confusion for a second at the water droplets descending down, taking a few moments to understand what I was looking at. I had read about rain in books, but to see it in person was absolutely fascinating.

Brisk pointed towards the rain. “And we are out of whatever that is, so I’d say coming in here was a good idea, regardless of how creepy it is.”

“It’s called rain,” I informed him, still staring at the weather outside. “And it’s harmless.”

“Whatever, I didn’t listen to all that stuff in school,” Brisk replied. “I’m not even sure why they taught that in the Stable, you know, with the lack of sky and weather in there.”

There was a small thump upstairs, catching both of our attentions, shortly followed by a small yelp and another small thumping noise.

Really, this place couldn’t just be abandoned? It just had to have something in it, didn’t it?

Brisk and I exchanged a glance. He groaned. “No, we are not checking it out,” he complained, seeing the clear determination in my eyes.

“What if somepony is in trouble up there?” I questioned in a low whisper. “We can’t just leave them.”

“If we go up there then we might be in trouble as well,” Brisk retaliated, glancing up at the roof. “I say we sneak off into this rain thing that is apparently harmless and get out of here,” He turned towards the door and froze.

A hunched over figure stood twitching in the doorway. It appeared to be a pony, except it seemed wrong. Though hard to make out in the dim light, I could see large scars and blisters marking up wrinkled and rotting skin. Small tufts of greasy hair sprouted from the top of the pony creatures head and its eyes had a strange whitish glow to them.

Oddest of all, it didn’t appear to be looking at us, but rather sniffing the area around it as if trying to make sense of the situation.

I checked the EFS on my pipbuck. Red bar. Whatever this was, it wasn’t friendly. Then I spotted the green bars. Lots and lots and lots of green bars were all around us. I gulped and looked at the mannequins.

For Celestia’s sake, please tell me my EFS wasn’t picking up those mannequins.

Brisk quickly checked his pipbuck as well. “Not friendly,” He whispered to me. He glanced back down at the EFS on his pipbuck and his eyes widened in surprise as he spotted all the green bars as well. Brisk quickly glanced at the mannequins as I had just done mere moments before, the same thought I had just had no doubt running through his mind.

I nodded and pulled out the sniper rifle with my hooves, not wanting the light of my horn to catch the zombie ponies attention. I stared down the scope at the creature, making out more of its features with the magnified scope. I could clearly make out a set of razor sharp rotting teeth and large gashes that revealed bits of bone and muscle underneath the creatures already peeling skin.

The creature turned and looked down the barrel of my sniper, spotting the two of us for the first time. It curled back it’s lip and screamed.

Blam!

The sniper fired and put a bullet right between the zombie ponies eyes. It’s head exploded causing blood, brain matter, and bits of skull fragments flying everywhere.

Then the green bars on my EFS turned red.

Fuck, that was bad. Very bad.

I glanced around at the mannequins, expecting them to start moving. Instead, the piles of shredded dresses on the floor began to rise, revealing the small army of zombie ponies that had once been sleeping beneath them.

“Now would be a good time to get out of here!” Brisk yelped, forcing himself to his hooves and limping to the door as fast as his injured legs could carry him.

I prepared to follow him when three zombie ponies blocked the exit and began advancing. Brisk whirled around on his back legs and began rushing up the stairs as fast as he could, doing his best to ignore the pain.

“Where are you going!” I shouted, quickly chasing behind him as the zombie ponies pulled themselves to their hooves and began shuffling towards us.

I would have expected them to be slow due to their decrepit and beaten appearance, but shit they moved fast. A few lunged at me, grasping onto my back hoof and pulling me back down the stairs.

My baton was out in a flash, bashing them all over the head as they quickly sprang at me. Each hit of the baton bursting one of their head open or shattering one of their limbs. At least they didn’t seem very durable.

“Upstairs, hopefully there are less up there!” Brisk replied hastily, as he bolted towards the iron door at the top of the steps and forcefully yanked it open.

I kicked the final zombie pony off of me and scuttled after him into the room upstairs. I slammed the door behind me and bolted it shut with a rusty lock that had clearly seen better days. I could hear the zombie ponies scratching at the door behind me, but for the time being they seemed to be being held at bay, but who knew how long that would last.

I turned from the door and surveyed the room. And it looked as if I had just stepped out of one nightmare and into another.

Like the last room, this one was filled with mannequins. Some stood like they were supposed to, while others hung from the roof by sloppily tied nooses. In this room however, none of the mannequins wore any dresses.

In the center of the room was a petite looking zombie pony with the tangled remains of a light cyan mane. She wore a ripped sailor collar with a scarlet tie and the remains of a floppy hat cutie mark could still be seen on her decaying rump. Worst of all however was that she was tied down to a table with large chains held together by a rusted lock and had bits of fabric sewn onto her, creating a permanent makeshift dress. Bruises across her body showed the signs of multiple beatings. A multitude of sewing needles had been stabbed into her flesh as if she were a pincushion.

I glanced down at my EFS. Her bar was green. I guess not all zombie ponies aren’t out to eat you.

Her cyan eyes met mine, and for a second I wanted to rush over and unite her. Then I saw her lips move ever so slightly through her tight gag. I squinted to try and make out the words.

“Run,” She seemed to be trying to say.

My eyes started darting around the room. Run? From what? My eyes landed on a small door at the far end of the room. I checked my pipbuck. There was a red bar behind it. I saw the the door open a crack.

Shit! We didn’t need more things trying to kill us.

I pushed Brisk down to the floor behind a pile of mannequins just as the door fully opened to reveal a pale orchid zombie pony with a violet mane and a cutie mark of three buttons. I pulled out my sniper and tried to get a shot on her, but all the mannequins kept getting in my line of sight.

“Shut up out there!” The zombie pony yelled at the door where we had just come through. There were a few scratches, but almost instantly it died to almost nothing. The zombie pony gave a big false grin. “That’s much better. You are all so kind, m'kay.”

The orchid zombie pony slowly approached the tied up mare in the center of the room. The tied up mare squirmed, but seemed otherwise unable to break free of her bonds.

“Alright Coco, I do hope you are feeling alright today,” the zombie pony flared up her horn and pulled one of the needles out of Coco’s foreleg. Coco squirmed as the thin piece of metal was removed, but didn’t make much more than a small squeak of pain. “I’ve got a lovely dress idea that you are simply going to adore, 'kay? m'kay.”

I didn’t like how much this zombie pony said the word okay.

I slowly began creeping around the side of the mannequins, hoping to be able to line up a clear shot at the zombie ponies head. Before I got the chance however, Brisk quickly pulled me back behind the shelter.

“What the fuck do you think you are doing?” He whispered in a startled voice. “Do you want to get us killed?”

“I’m trying to save that poor pony,” I replied in an equally low whisper. “We can’t just leave her like that.”

Brisk pointed to an elevator only a few steps away from us. “Yes we can, lets just hop into that and get the fuck out of here before we get into any more trouble.”

“Oh, come on. There are two of us and only one of her,” I pointed out, trying to move back into a position where I could get a clear shot at the hostile zombie pony. “Let’s save that thing and then get to safety.”

Brisk just stared at me in awe. “You’re crazy,” He muttered.

I grinned. “Hey, you’re the one that decided to followed me on my quest or whatever.”

Brisk crossed his forelegs and snorted. “Don’t mock me.”

I looked back over the top of the mannequins. Holy fuck, the hostile zombie pony was literally sewing dresses onto Coco. I had to cover my mouth to stop myself from vomiting. That was horrifying.

I began moving closer to the ghastly scene. A floorboard creaked under my hoof, causing me to stop and check to make sure the zombie hadn’t noticed me. To my relief, the hostile zombie pony hadn’t seemed to hear anything. Coco on the other hand was staring at me with wide pleading eyes as a large piece of fabric was sewn onto her chest, the metal sewing needle piercing her flesh over and over again as it weaved between her and the soon to be dress.

Goddesses how long had she been like this?

“I’m coming to save you, don’t worry,” I mouthed to her as I slowly took a few steps closer. I raised the sniper and aimed it at the hostile zombie ponies head.

You got this Amber, don’t fuck up now.

I took a deep breath and pulled the trigger.

Blam!

A bullet burst from the barrel of the sniper with such force I was knocked onto my rump. The hostile zombie ponies ear exploded in a bloody burst of flesh and cartilage.

Fuck! How do I miss a perfectly lined up shot like that!? This is why I was a mechanic and not Stable security of anything else that would required me to be useful at something.

The zombie pony whirled around to face me, snarling at me with it’s rotten teeth. Shit.

I pulled the trigger on the sniper again.

Click.

It was empty. Of fucking course it was empty! Why would my luck allow for anything else?

“Looks like I found somepony new to help me make my dresses,” the zombie pony sneered, taking a few steps towards me. Radioactive blood dripped from the now bloody stump of her ear and down her face. “You are going to be perfect for my new line, m'kay.”

Then she lunged at me. Really damn fast. Why do these rotting ponies move so fucking fast!

I jumped out of the way as the zombie pony barreled past me and slammed into a cluster of mannequins I had been standing in front of, knocking most of them off their flimsy base and sending them toppling to the floor. She had hardly come to a halt when the zombie pony pulled itself back to its hooves and lunged at me again.

I tried to dodge to the side again, only to trip on my own hooves and fall flat on my face. The pale orchid zombie pony reared up in front of me, its sharp teeth glinting in the dim light of the room.

Blam!

A shot from Brisk’s pistol ripped through her leg, forcing the appendage to buckle at the joint. The zombie pony collapsed to her knees from the impact, hot blood spurting from the bullet wound. The creatures head snapped toward the pile of mannequins that Brisk cowered behind, her milky eyes locking onto Brisk’s.

I could see Brisk struggling with his gun. Shit, looked like he was out of ammo as well. Just our luck. He began slowly backing away as the zombie pony advanced on him.

I whipped out my shock baton and slammed it against the creatures back leg. There was a snap as the zombie ponies back leg broke. Somehow, the two broken limbs didn’t seem to slow it down much as it spun around and slashed at me with uncomfortably sharp hooves.

A searing pain shot across my face as her hoof struck me. I could feel blood trickle down my cheek as a small gash spread across the area the zombie pony had struck.

I raised my baton to protect myself as the crazed zombie pony went to strike again when Brisk leaped over the mannequins and stabbed his machete into the creatures side, his blade still clenched tightly in his mouth. The serrated blade piercing the squishy flesh and protruding from the other side of her body.

The zombie pony spun back around to him snarling, pulling itself from the metal blade “Would you both stop doing that? m'kay!” It howled at him, enraged. It lashed out at Brisk, knocking him off his already unsteady hooves and sending him sprawling across the floor.

It began limping towards him again, only for me to knock the zombie pony back down with a whack of my shock baton across its back. The zombie pony collapsed to the ground screaming.

Screaming that brought a lot of trouble with it.

The zombie ponies outside began banging and scratching on the door at the sound of the screaming, reminding me of their presents. The door began to shake violently as the rotting hoard threatened to rip it off its hinges.

We needed to get out of here quickly.

I swung my baton on the pale orchid zombie ponies head, hoping to finish her off before the other zombie ponies managed to break down to door, only for the zombie pony to swiftly knock the baton away with her two remaining good legs. The baton flew from my telekinesis and landed next to the tied up zombie pony.

The orchid zombie pony lashed out at me again, creating a slightly larger gash across my cheek in the other direction. This time however, Brisk’s machete flew forward to meet her outstretched hoof, slicing the decrepit limb right off.

The zombie pony howled in pain as she watched the severed stump of her foreleg fly from her body and land with a pathetic thump on the floor next to her. She growled at Brisk and lunged at him again, digging her teeth into the flesh of his neck. Brisk tied to stab at her with the machete, but found it impossible with the blade still in his mouth.

I screamed… something, I’m not exactly sure what, before lunging at the two of them myself. I grabbed onto the writhing pile of rotting flesh that was the zombie pony and began prying her off of Brisk. There was a disgusting popping sound as the creatures rotting teeth dislodged themselves from his neck.

Brisk fell backwards, applying pressure over his neck with his injured hooves to prevent the bleeding. He pushed against the floor with his hind legs to scoot away from the raging zombie pony who was struggling to escape my grasp. Finally it gave a rather large jerk and clamped its teeth around my forehoof. I loosened my grip both from shock and pain just long enough for it to wriggle free of my grasp.

I took a quick step back to avoid the creatures gnashing teeth and glanced over at my baton halfway across the room. Far to far away for me to get to. Brisk caught my glance and began limping towards my fallen weapon for me.

I jumped sideways as the zombie pony swiped at my neck in an attempt to rip open my throat, giving me enough time to pull out my empty sniper and use it as a shield as the creature regained its stance and lunged at me again.

I really wanted to know how it managed to move so fast with only three legs.

I pushed my sniper against its chest hard, staggering it for long enough to move a bit closer to where my baton lay before the creature pulled itself back to its feet and stumbled towards me.

I could see the door leading to the horde of zombie ponies outside the room was almost off its hinges, the flimsy lock on the door seemingly the only thing keeping it from completely breaking down.

I heard Brisk shout something and saw my baton sliding across the floor towards me out of the corner of my eye. I scooped it up with my magic and slammed it against the zombie ponies face, shattering a part of her skull and making the entire left side of her face go slack.

The zombie pony however continued advancing, though notably slower than before. I raised both my baton and sniper with my magic and began bashing the creature over and over with the blunt objects. With each hit some part of the zombie pony broke. First their still functioning legs, then their body, then their head. Finally I crushed the creatures neck between both of my weapons.

At last the rotting pale orchid zombie pony went slack and fell over dead.

I took a second to breath, relieved that I wasn’t under attack. Then the banging against the door grew louder. Right, small army of zombie ponies outside… I’m still under attack.

I rushed over to where Brisk was slowly bleeding out on the floor. “Are you alright?” I asked, quickly looking over the new bite wounds on his neck. Between his neck and legs, Brisk was losing a lot of blood. I was surprised he was still able to keep conscious.

Brisk glared at me dumbly. “What do you think Amber?” He asked sarcastically, pushing himself up off the ground and wadding over to the tied up zombie pony.

I followed him and began trying to pull the large chains that held her down off of her. The chains did little but shift position as if mocking me.

“You’re not just going to be able to pull them off,” Brisk stated, looking over the chains. “You'll need to pick that lock if you really want to get her out of there,” He pointed to the large lock connecting the chains together.

“I don’t know how to pick locks,” I responded, looking the lock over myself. “Can you pick it?”

Brisk looked at me in shock. “What? Pick it?” I raised my eyebrow at him skeptically. I remembered him saying something about picking locks back in the Stable. “I mean, sure I probably can, but not before those crazy zombie ponies outside get in. We are going to need to just leave her here and save ourselves,” I could see Coco’s eyes widen in horror at his words.

I stopped my hoof down hard. “No! We are not leaving her like this Brisk!” I shouted, pointing at the lock. “Now get picking, I’ll hold off the zombie ponies when they come in.”

Brisk narrowed his eyes at me, clearly disapproving of my choice and not liking my rather bossy attitude, but bent down and started picking the lock anyway. I approached the tied up zombie ponies head and pulled the gag off of her mouth, allowing her to gasp for air.

“Please, don’t leave me,” Coco pleaded, with a trembling voice.

I shook my head. “We aren’t going anywhere until you are out of these chains,” I declared sternly, giving the tied up pony a small reassuring smile.

Brisk grunted. “We might never be going anywhere if those freaks break down the door,” Brisk complained around the mouth of the bobby pin he had slid into the lock.

I gave him a quick warning stare before returning my attention to the scared zombie pony. “Don’t worry, everything is going to be okay… What is you name?” I asked, trying my best to calm her down. I was never very good dealing with ponies emotions, or my own emotions for that matter.

Thankfully, the conversation seemed to be helping. Her shaking was slowly decreasing. I wondered how long it had been since she had talked to someone that wasn’t trying to torture her. “Coco Pommel,” she replied quietly.

“How long have you been here?” I continued, trying to keep her calm.

Coco Pommel thought for a second, before finally shaking her head. “I don’t know, it’s hard to keep track of things after the bombs fell. I feel like I’m losing my memory more and more every day,” she replied. “A few years, I think.”

Since the bombs fell? She wasn’t talking about… there was no way that?

“200 years?!” I exclaimed, staring at her in shock. “You’ve been alive for over 200 years!”

The zombie ponies eyes widened. “Goddesses has it really been that long?” she sounded just as surprised as I was. She pointed over to the zombie pony we had just killed. “Suri Polomare was always talking about never having enough time to finish her fashion line… It couldn’t have been that long.”

I guessed Suri Polomare was the name of that monster we had just killed. Great, now there was a name to the body. As if I wasn’t going to have enough nightmares about all of this.

The zombie ponies outside bashed against the door even harder, causing the door to break off from its hinges at the top and dangle at a slant, allowing us to see the milky eyes of the numerous zombie ponies outside the door. To my surprise, the door somehow managed to hold them back a little longer and simply refused to collapse completely.

There was a click and the lock fell away, allowing Coco Pommel to slowly rise to her hooves. She swayed slightly for a second as if she we about to fall over before looking at the two of us.

“Thank you,” Coco said shakily, glancing at the door.

“Alright, great! We saved her!” Brisk bristled. "Can we get out of this deathtrap now!” He pointed to the elevator, urging me to hurry up.

I nodded quickly and gestured for Coco Pommel to follow. “Yeah, come on. I don’t think that door will last much longer.”

Coco Pommel glanced at the door as another wave of banging caused it to nearly fall in completely. “No, you two go. I’ll try and keep them from coming after you.”

“What?” I replied, dumbfounded. “We can’t just leave you here. Not after all of that!”

“It’s okay,” Coco Pommel replied, oddly calm. “They won't attack me. Besides, I’ll try and see if I can get this shop up and running again. Maybe try and make the wasteland a better place.”

I was going to argue, but Brisk grabbed my leg and began pulling me towards the elevator. “Be careful,” I shouted back at her as Brisk shoved me into the elevator.

Coco Pommel gave me a quick smile. “I will, thank you!”

The zombie ponies finally broke down the door and began flooding into the room. To my relief, Coco Pommel seemed to be right. Not a single one seemed to bother her other than a quick sniff.

With a squeal of metal on metal as the elevator began descending to the floors below. I was unsure exactly where it was going, as I thought there we only two floors to the boutique and we sure as hell weren’t going to go back to floor one.

I turned to express my concerns on the matter to Brisk when there was a loud crash and the elevator shook violently, then fell far past where the bottom floor should have been.

Everything was dark. I slowly pulled myself to my hooves and brushed the dust and rubble off of my coat. I looked around. Nothing, everything was just black. I reached down and turned on my pipbuck flashlight, expecting it to illuminate the room. Again nothing.

“What the fuck?” I muttered examining my pipbuck closer. I Brushed my hoof across the screen and wiped away a thick layer of dust that had obscured it. A bright green light burst from behind the dust and lit the room up.

It was a small room made out of a mix of broken concrete and rock. Most likely it wasn’t even supposed to exist and had simply been created due to a mix of balefire detonation and erosion. A rusted pipe hung from the roof slowly filling up the room with a gross sludgy brown fluid that I really really hoped was just water. The broken remains of the elevator lay in ruins halfway through the wall, separating me from a larger room beyond.

Something was missing from the room however. I glanced around to make sure I hadn’t just missed him lying still in one of the shadowy corners.

“Brisk?!” I shouted, looking about the room. “Brisk are you there?!”

There was a small sound of coughing from the far side of the elevator, but nothing more.

I Sighed. He was still alive. That was a relief. “Hold on Brisk,” I shouted, quickly approaching the crashed elevator and beginning to climb through it into the room beyond. “I’m coming for you.”

As I pulled my way through the wreckage I could begin to make out the faint flickering sound of music playing. Fuck, don’t tell me it was the damned Stable-Tec March song!

As I climbed into the dark room beyond I began make out slight differences in the song. Not the Stable-Tec March, but the song that dumb robot bug had been playing when we had first escaped the Stable. The light of my pipbuck landed on the broken remains of one of the metal robots, half buried under a pile of rocks.The song coming from the robot kept cutting in and out as the robot attempted to keep itself running. The bot was lying next to a long tunnel that looked like it had once been some form of sewage for the city before the war.

I glanced around the room and saw the pile of green fur below me, lying in a large pool of his own blood. I hopped off of the ruined elevator and looked over Brisk closely.

His front two legs had gotten stuck underneath the elevator. As if his legs weren’t broken enough. Most of his body was covered in large purple bruises and a few long scratches ran across his body. He did not look good.

He slowly tilted his head up towards me and caught my eye. “Hey,” his voice was so frail, so not like the Brisk I had met.

I gave him a reassuring smile. “Hi,” shit, I couldn’t let him die now. “We need to get you some medication,” I said, glancing down at his legs. “Can you walk?”

He looked at the broken limbs, now stuck underneath the elevator. He gave a grunt and shook his head. “I don’t think so,” he glanced over at the broken robot that continued to hum it’s annoying tune. “Damn, I ran away from that Fucking Stable, hoping to get away from that damn song,” He paused so that he could cough. Blood came out of his mouth. “Yet here I am, about to die listening to that goddess damned tune.”

“You aren’t going to die here,” I tried to reassure him. “I’ll think of something.”

Brisk tried to pull his legs out from the collapsed metal, only to find them very much stuck. “No offense Amber, but I’m pretty sure you won’t be getting me out of this one.”

The music coming out of the robot finally began to die down as the song came to a close. Both Brisk and I gave a sigh of relief as we welcomed the eerie silence of the room.

And then the song started up again, this time louder and more annoying than ever. Brisk finally snapped. “Shut up you stupid machine!”

Silence. The music shut off at his request. We both froze, staring at the broken robot lying on the ground. Could it hear us? Was it listening?

Slowly I approached it. “Um, can you hear us?” I asked, tapping my hoof against the cracked metal sphere.

There was a quick buzz of static, followed by a synthetic voice coming out of the robot. “Yes, I can hear you.”

I scuttled back from the robot with a small shriek. "Holy shit!" I took a second to calm down. I took a deep breath and looked closer at the robot. "Who are you? Why are you listening to us? Are you a robot? And what the fuck are you?"

“My name is Watcher,” the synthetic voice replied. “No I am not a robot, I’m somewhere else and am just speaking to you through this Sprite Bot, and you don’t need to know why I am listening to you,” any emotion that he might have had was obscured by the synthetic voice. Odd, hadn’t a real ponies voice come out of this robot before?

“What do you want,” Brisk grunted from behind me, still trying to dislodge his legs from below the wreckage.

“To help you,” Watcher replied, a small camera on the bottom of the Sprite Bot attempted to flare to life, but with a small shower of sparks, it shut out.

“How can you help us?” I asked, slowly approaching the Sprite Bot again.

Watcher was silent for a long time. For a second I began to wonder if he had left or if the Sprite Bot had finally shut down for good. Right when I was about to give up hope that he would return, his voice came back over the speakers. “Alright, down the hallway and to your left there should be an abandoned bunker originally planned as a possible escape for Rarity if she were to be in her boutique when the bombs fell. It should be clear of any ghouls, I can see no records of it ever being opened in the last 200 years,” Watcher said, another shower of sparks erupting from the Sprite Bot and making the voice flicker in and out for a second. “You should be able to find medical supplies in there.”

“Thank you Watcher,” I responded, looking down the hallway he had mentioned. Save for the light of my pipbuck, it was completely black, so I had no idea if the bunker he was talking about was actually down there. Watcher remained silent. I turned back to him and tapped on the Sprite Bot. “Hello? Watcher?” Nothing.

I glanced back nervously at Brisk who looked equally as confused. Hopefully Watcher was trustworthy, I didn’t really have any other choices. Without wasting any more time I began trotting down the dark tunnel. Hopefully I could get the medical supplies in time for Brisk, I didn’t want to know how much time he had left.

As Watcher had said, after only a minute of walking down the hallway I came across the metal bunker door with an access terminal beside it. Thank Celestia the door was locked with a computer and not a lock and key. I can hack a terminal and I think I've made it pretty clear that I can't pick a lock.

It only took me two minutes to hack the terminal, getting the pass code on my second attempt. Though honestly, ‘image’ wasn’t the hardest password to guess.

The door slid open with a screech. Almost instantly the Geiger counter on my pipbuck began clicking furiously. Shit, that was a lot of radiation.

I took a step back from the door to avoid further radiation and peered into the room. There wasn’t much inside, just a small fold up bed, a sink and a shelf full of supplies against the far side of the room. I searched for medical supplies from the hallway, not wanting to be in that room any longer than I had to. The idea of radiation wasn’t a pleasant one to me.

At last I spotted the medical box sporting the image of three butterflies on the bottom shelf at the far end of the room. I took a deep breath. “Alright, here goes nothing,” And I dove head first into the room.

My Geiger counter exploded with clicking. I watched the rads I was taking in increase from 5 rads a second to 20 to 30. I could feel my skin slowly beginning to boil in the radioactive air.

I grabbed onto the medic pack and threw it into my saddlebags. No time to check on what is inside, I was just going to have to make do with whatever was within. I was about to dart out of the room when I saw it lying against the wall behind where the medic pack had once been.

A small statuette of Rarity. There was something about the small statuette that drew me to it, I simply had to have it. At the bottom of the statuette was a small inscription reading ‘Be Unwavering’. Without thinking, I picked it up in a field of telekinesis and threw it into my saddlebags. As soon as it was in my possession I felt better somehow, as if the whole world could be fixed with just the right touch of a creative mind. Maybe it could. Maybe I could.

I glanced down at my pipbuck. 70 rads a second, fuck! I bolted out of the room, accidentally slamming myself into the far wall of the tunnel. I hadn’t been inside of the bunker for half a minute and I was already well over 200 rads.

I pulled open the medic pack and looked inside. Two slightly glowing bags of RadAway looked up at me among an assortment of other medications. I quickly pulled the bags out and gulped down the vile fluid inside. I watched my rad levels slowly drop down to around 40 rads. Not completely rad free, but much better.

I pulled out the Rarity statuette and looked it over more closely. It was so lifelike, as if someone had shrunk the old ministry mare and placed her on a tiny stage. It felt nice to, having something that looked similar to Shade from my Stable, a small way to remember home. Turning it over, I found a small note pinned to the bottom reading, ‘If we never meet again Coco, Thank you’. I would have to make sure to give this to Coco Pommel if I ever saw her again.

I picked myself up of the ground and slowly made my way back to Brisk.

As I came to the wreckage of the elevator, I saw that Brisk had managed to finally pull his forelegs free of elevator and had pulled himself into the corner of the room as he attempted to stop the bleeding to no avail.

He looked up as I approached, eyeing the medic pack I held aloft in my magic. “I’m taking it that Watcher was telling the truth,” It wasn’t really a question.

I nodded as I pulled out three healing potions from the pack and levitated one of them to his lips. He quickly drank the liquid, the skin and muscle on his forelegs and neck slowly began patching their way back together. It took two healing potions for the skin around the wounds to fully heal over, leaving only a gross looking patch of hairless skin.

Unfortunately, while the wound itself healed, his broken legs remained broken. I handed him the final potion, but he raised a hoof and gestured for me to have it. I looked down at my body. I wasn’t doing to hot myself. Granted my legs weren’t broken, but I still hand numerous cuts and bruises form the fall in the elevator and the fight with Suri Polomare had left quite a few gashes on me, including a large bite mark on my forehoof.

I lifted the healing potion to my own mouth and took a long swig of the magical fluid. I could feel the itchy feeling of my flesh slowly beginning to mend itself back together as the potion took effect.

I don’t suppose you have something for broken limbs, do you?” Brisk asked, much of the life that had been in his voice had returned, though he still sounded tired.

I dug through the bag, looking for something that might do that. There were a few bandages and some gauze. I could probably make a makeshift cast, but then he wouldn’t be able to walk. Finally I found a jar of some yellowy orange coloured tablets. A label across the bottle read ‘Buck’ and below that in smaller lettering read ‘Isosteroprophenhol’.

I held up the jar of anabolic steroids for him to see. “These won't fix your legs, but I think they should make it easier to walk,” I floated the jar over and he popped a tablet into his mouth.

His eyes widened as the tablet hit his tongue. He chewed on it thoughtfully for a second, then to my surprise, stood up as if his legs were fine. They weren’t of course, the bruising and odd angle of the joints were a dead giveaway of that, but at least he was standing.

“Well aren’t those handy,” He grinned, spinning in a circle and almost laughing at his ability to walk again.

I winced as he carelessly twirled. “Careful, your legs are still broken. The Buck is just a way of ignoring the pain and being strong enough to continue carrying yourself,” I warned, turning from him and dumping the contents of the medic pack into my saddlebags. “Just make sure you have one of those when you feel it starting to run out until we can find an actual doctor or a medical brace of some form.”

Brisk just grinned like the idiot that he was and did another small twirl, this time falling flat on his rump. “You got it,” He chuckled.

I rolled my eyes and turned back to the tunnel. “Well I guess we are going to need to figure out where this tunnel goes,” I said, beginning to walk down the tunnel as Brisk pulled himself up and began to follow me. “There has got to be some way out of here.”

Footnote: level up.
New perk: Daddy's Girl -- +5 Science and +Medicine

Author's Note

And there is chapter 2, I hope you all enjoyed.

The word Isosteroprophenhol originates from Somber's Project Horizons (ch61), so I'm just going to credit Somber here for that and any other references to his fan fiction that may arise throughout this story. There will definitely be more PH references to come, so be ready for that.

As usual, huge thanks to kkat for creating the wonderful world of Fallout: Equestira

Chapter III: Xayah

“Ha! Now that’s what this Wasteland needs; More women with spunk! ...And explosives”

Pathetic.

I had been called pathetic many times throughout my life. You could say that it had practically become a second name to me. The first time somepony had dared to call me that was on the first day of school, just over 17 years ago. One of the more bold bullies in my class whom hadn't consider the repercussions of bullying the Overstallions daughter had said I was a ‘pathetic know it all that hid behind her daddy’. I’ll be honest, that had been so long ago that I don’t even remember the bullies name.

I can remember his face though. He had a brown coat with a turquoise mane and bright orange eyes. The colour palette had looked absolutely ridiculous on him, and I had reassured myself that anyone that looked as dumb as that surely had no right to be calling me pathetic and must clearly just be insecure about them self. Goddesses I was so naive back then.

Of course, once it got out that I would never become Overmare of the Stable, that word pathetic suddenly got thrown around a lot more. I was called pathetic for cowering behind my dad, pathetic for taking my punches instead of fighting back, pathetic for trying to stand up for myself on the off chance I tried to avoid a beating, pathetic for ruining my families legacy.

That last one was what always got to me the most. I could take being a coward, I could even take a beating or two, but I couldn’t stand knowing that I had failed so many others so badly. My father had never called me pathetic, but everypony in the Stable, including myself knew full well that that was exactly what he thought of me.

And now the bullies didn’t need to worry about the repercussions of picking on the Overstallions daughter, because the sad fact was that the Overstallion simply didn’t care.

I was slammed against the Stable wall with such force I nearly dropped the small stack of papers I had been carrying in my telekinesis. I had been thrown upwards slightly, my side smashing into the wall just high enough that my hooves couldn’t touch the ground. Almost as if in a cartoon, I slowly slid down the side of the wall and lay in an aching pile on the floor.

Two ponies stood over me. A dull grey earth pony stallion with a light green mane and a silver unicorn mare with an annoyingly cute, yet intolerably smug smile. I had thought they had both looked rather attractive when I had first spotted them; not anymore though, that was for sure.

The unicorn mare’s horn flared up in a small flash of green light and ripped the stack of papers from my magic; tossing the pages about the room and scattering all of my carefully organized generator schematics. I tried to reach for the falling pieces of paper, but before I could, the earth pony bucked my in the breast and sent my flopping back onto my back, my legs flailing above me like a flipped over Radroach.

The two ponies chuckled at my display of helplessness and turned from me, walking down the hallway in the direction they had been heading before they had decided to give me a beating. As they turned the unicorn mare’s tail flicked me across the face. It wasn’t painful, but it hurt my pride like crazy.

“Your daddy is a fucking cunt,” The mare said in a mocking tone, not bothering to look back at me as they two of them left.

I rubbed my face where the tail had hit me. I could have sworn that I still felt the soft hairs that had slapped me across the face only seconds before. I began sulking about the hallway, doing my best to pick up scattered papers. I could feel tears slowly forming in my eyes, though I was unsure if they were from pain or broken pride.

“Amber? What in Luna’s name happened to you?” I heard Shade say as she approached me from the direction the two ponies had just gone. “You look like you just got ploughed a few times the wrong way.”

I looked up at her, teary eyed. I caught her worried look and returned my gaze to the papers on the floor. “Nothing, I’m fine.”

“You could have fooled me,” Shade shook her head disapprovingly, her white mane bouncing atop her head as she did. She glanced down at a bottle of whiskey she had in her possession before raising it to me. “Here, I always have some whiskey when I’m feeling down.”

I eyed the bottle suspiciously. “Um, Shade… I’m like, 11 years old?” I informed her, pushing the bottle away from me with a hoof. “I’m pretty sure dad would kill me if he found out I was drinking whiskey.”

Shade made a weird spitting noise with her mouth. “Oh please, I drank plenty of times when I was your age. Your dad won’t even know.”

“Really?” As we talked I could hear the quiet vapors of the A.A.S.S. Seeping through the ventilation system and into the air as it gave the Stable its second daily dose of nutrition. Most ponies didn’t even notice the noise that it made, it was just something I had begun to notice more after having worked with the A.A.S.S. for so long.

Shade squished up her face. “Well, he probably won't know. I mean my dad didn’t run the place and have access to all the security cameras. So it was probably easier for me to get away with.”

I took a deep sigh and floated the bottle over to me, setting down the papers with my magic to allow myself to levitate the bottle more easily. I was still working on managing to levitate more than one thing at a time. I put my eye to the bottle and looked at the liquid inside.

“Amber, time to eat up,” Shade said with a grin, her voice slightly deeper than usual.

I looked at her with a raised eyebrow. “You mean drink up? Right?” Eat up? What does that even mean?

Shade looked confused. “Nope, this is definitely food,” wait a minute. That wasn’t Shade’s voice. It was Brisk’s!

I opened my eyes to see Brisk standing over me with a large grin on his face. Of course I wasn’t a filly back in Stable 25. Goddesses, dreams felt so real sometimes.

“Talking in your sleep huh?” Brisk commented, moving away from me and to a small fire he had made in the center of the tunnel. I was surprised he had been so successful setting up the fire with all of the sewage water on the floor.

I propped myself up and looked into the fire. To my surprise I saw two long stick with skewered pieces of meat on them. “What are you doing?” I asked, eyeing the meat.

Brisk picked the two sticks up with his mouth and gave one of them to me. “It’s food, to eat and stuff.”

I stared at him blankly. “Food?” What was he talking about? That stuff ponies used to eat back before the bombs fell? Besides, weren’t ponies vegetarian or something? My stomach seemed to growl at me as I thought about it, giving me a bit of a scare. I jumped a little as it made another menacing noise. “What the fuck! I think My stomach just growled!”

Brisk chuckled. “Yeah, mine too. I’m pretty sure it’s because we’re hungry.”

I gave him another funny look. “Hungry? But the A.A.S.S. should keep us from…” I trailed off as what he was implying hit me like a brick wall. We weren’t in the Stable anymore, and we didn’t have the A.A.S.S. keeping us alive! We were going to need to eat or we would starve and die! The thought of that scared me more than the endless vast expanse of sky that hung over Manehattan.

I grabbed the stick that Brisk had held out to me and began chewing on the weird lump of meat. It was oddly stringy, but not awful. I gnawed on the meat thoughtfully for a moment, trying to figure out exactly how to properly devour it. Do you swallow it like water? How long do I need to chew it before it is ready to be swallowed.

Brisk looked at me with mild amusement, as if I had just done something really weird. I weird feeling washed over me as I began to realize exactly what I had just taking a large bite out of.

It was a Radroach head. I had just bitten, chewed and swallowed a Radroach head. I tried to spit up the meat, but it was to late. Down my throat it went.

I stared up at Brisk in horror. “Oh goddesses, why did you make me eat that?” I gasped.

He chuckled. “I didn’t make you eat anything,” he cooed, looking down at his slab of Radroach meat in disdain. “And for what it’s worth, you probably would have had to eat that anyway, so perhaps getting some down before you knew what it was wasn't the worst thing.”

He was right, of course. I looked down at the charred insect head and gulped. Welp, here goes nothing. I bent my head down and took another bite. The taste hadn’t changed, but now knowing what it was I couldn’t help but gag.

Brisk turned his nose up in disgust and began eating his Radroach meat as well, though he seemed to be a little less disgusted by it than I was.

We ate in silence for a few moments, not really knowing what to say. At last, Brisk Spark spoke up. “So what were you dreaming about? You seemed to be grunting and moaning a lot, wasn’t anything to spicy was it?” He wiggled his eyebrows at me.

I blushed. “No! Of course not!” I snapped quickly, taking another bite of the mutated bug. “I just had a nightmare about some of the ponies that beat me back in Stable 25.”

“What? That’s all?” Brisk asked. I raised an eyebrow at him; he shrank back away from my gaze, clearly hiding something from me.

I quickly connected the mental dots and gave out a low sigh. “Tell me about it,” I said flatly, placing the small remainder of bug down beside me and looking at him closely.

Brisk looked both confused and nervous. “Tell… you? I… I don’t know what your talking about.”

I continued to give him my best suspicious face. “About your nightmare? I’m assuming you had one right?”

Brisk gulped. “Well, Uh…”

“Oh come on,” I demanded impatiently. “You can tell me. Was it about the zombie ponies? Raiders?”

Brisk glanced down at his forelegs. “It was about the fight we had yesterday,” his voice was so quiet I almost didn’t hear him. I waved a hoof for him to continue. “The dream started off normal, I just re watched us arguing about if it was morally okay to rob ponies that attack us,” He continued. “But then, after I shot them and told you to grab their stuff, you just walked away. I tried to follow you, but I couldn’t move. Then you were gone and I was all alone out there.”

I stared at him blankly, not knowing how to take this. “So what? You’re scared of me leaving you out here?” I asked lamely.

Brisk’s usual smile returned, though this time the smile did look a little forced. He gave me a small, almost lazy shrug. “Who can say. For all I know, it was just a crazy dream. But yeah, it scared me a little I suppose.”

I gave him a small smile in return. “Just don’t do something stupid like that again and I promise I’ll stick around,” I reassured him, though I doubted I would leave him even if he did do something like that again. I don’t know what I would do in the wasteland if I was alone.

We returned to eating our roasted bug in silence, neither of us really knowing how to continue the conversation from there. Suddenly my face grew bright red as I realized something.

“Wait a second! What exactly did you mean by nothing to spicy?!” I demanded, lowering the stick and staring at him wide eyed.

He gave a small chuckle. “I just kinda assumed you were reliving some kinda sex thing you did back in the Stable, that’s all,” he raised his hooves innocently, trying to move the subject along.

“Sex thing I did back in the Stable? What?” I shouted in alarm, scooting back a little bit. “What kind of sex things do you think I did?!”

Brisk looked at me with a weird look. “Well I mean, I’m assuming you got a fair amount of action in the Stable or whatever.”

I blushed an even deeper shade of red. “What! Why the fuck would you think that! No one in the Stable even liked me with the exception of Shade! And she’s like… 20 years older than me!”

“Okay, okay, I get it! You never had any fun in the Stable,” Brisk replied smugly. “You’re just really cute and smart and shit, so I assumed that somepony would try and get a piece of that or something.”

I flattened my ears against the side of my head. “I am not cute,” I flushed. “And no pony wanted a piece of that, okay.”

“Noted,” Brisk grinned back at me. Who did this guy think he was anyway? Calling me cute like that.

I picked up my stick and quickly finished off the Radroach meat. We didn’t even try to start up a conversation after that train wreck. Once we were finished we grabbed our saddlebags, doused the fire and continued on down the tunnel.

The tunnel, we were quick to learn, was far longer than we had expected. The dark sludge like fluid that at one point had swirled around the bottom of our hooves had slowly risen until it reached just above out fetlock, slowing both of us down dramatically. The weight of the slime seemed to be effecting Brisk the most, making him struggle to pull his injured front legs forward. We had to take multiple rests down the tunnel to let him catch his breath. Within only a few minutes of walking we were already drenched, miserable and smelling like shit.

As if all that wasn’t enough, it was also pitch black in the tunnel. The only light that we had was the dim, flickering green light of my pipbuck. To my annoyance, Brisk’s pipbuck seemed to have gotten damaged somewhat in the elevator crash, and while most of its functions still worked perfectly, the flashlight was not among them.

Leave it to Stable-Tec to create a piece of technology that can survive being crushed under and elevator.

The eerie green light of the pipbuck cast unsettling shadows across the rounded, rust covered walls. I kept looking around to see what the shadows belonged to, but I was unable to spot whatever it was. I hated how the whole wasteland felt completely empty, yet for some reason you could never shake the feeling that you were being watched.

We walked in silence for a very long time, the only noise in the tunnel was the slashing of our hooves in the murky liquid and our ragged breath echoing off the walls. After a while, Brisk spoke up.

“So, tell me about those cyber ponies,” He said, staggering slightly to keep from falling. “What are they like? How many are there?”

I thought back, trying to recall the details from the Stable. “Well, there were four of them in the Stable,” I started. “Three cyber earth ponies and one cyber alicorn. They were… Well they were just really damn scary.”

“There was an alicorn cyber pony?” Brisk questioned, raising an eyebrow. “Like two wings and a horn sort of cyber pony?”

I nodded slowly. “Yup, and two really big Tesla canons attached to their side.”

“Are we sure we actually want to go and fight those things?” Brisk asked. “I mean, there might have only been four in the Stable, but who knows how many there will be out here.”

I shook my head. “We need to Brisk. If we don’t, everypony in the Stable will starve!” The thought horrified me. I picked up my pace, more determined to escape this tunnel. “We cannot let that happen.”

Brisk took a deep breath. I knew what he was about to say even before he said it. The same thoughts had been going through my head ever since I left the Stable. “But do we really need to? I mean, what has the Stable ever done for you?”

I sighed. I wasn’t even angry at him for suggesting that because in truth, the Stable hadn’t been kind to me. “Because this isn’t about me. It’s about doing what’s right,” I didn’t know where this heroic side of me was coming from, it just felt right.

“I suppose...” Brisk trailed off.

I slowed to a stop and turned to face him. “What is it?”

“Well, it’s just that,” He tried to figure out how to word what he was about to say. “Your dad isn’t just going to let everyone starve, right? They will figure out some way to eat, and if they don’t they would just be forced to open the Stable to get food. So they would have to be really stupid to starve out.”

I pondered what he said for a second. “True, but we are having a hard enough time trying to survive out here as it is. I don’t know how long they would be able to survive in the Manehattan ruins before some raider gang decided to go in and wipe them all out.”

Brisk simply nodded at my response, but he seemed unconvinced.

I turned to continue down the tunnel when I saw a shift in movement ahead of us. I glanced down at my EFS. Red bars. Shit!

I turned off my pipbuck flashlight and placed my hoof over Brisk’s mouth as he was about to speak. Unlike before, the tunnel didn’t go completely dark. Down the tunnel I could make out the soft flickering of firelight bouncing off of the metal walls.

It didn’t take Brisk long to spot the light and the red bars on his EFS as well. He very quickly kept his mouth shut on his own accord.

I motioned for us to move down the hallway towards the light as slowly and quietly as possible as to avoid detection. It was a lot harder than I expected to say the least. The sludge around us kept making splashing noises and I began to notice with creeping horror that the closer we got to the light, the larger our shadows became. Brisk turned out to be much sneakier than I was, not only moving a little faster and lower to the ground to prevent his shadow from showing, but the splashing sounds around his hooves almost sounded muffled. He even managed to pull out a tablet of Buck and place it in his mouth without making any noise.

As we grew closer we began to see that the light was coming from behind a corner in the tunnel. I gave a quiet sigh of relief. I wouldn’t need to worry about my shadow of the present moment.

We also began to make out the sounds of ponies talking. Raider ponies specifically.

“Cut out his tongue next!” We heard a raider exclaim joyously.

"Fuck you you bitch!" A second voice screamed, though the voice sounded pained.

I exchanged a quick look with Brisk before peeking my head around the corner of the tunnel.

The tunnel itself didn’t look much different from the tunnel we had just come from. What was different however was what was inside.

In the center of the tunnel was a large metal barrel spewing fire out the top. Around it, sat four large cages, each one almost a third submerged in the vile sludge on the tunnel floor. Multiple wooden platforms connected by plywood planks had been erected around the tunnel, supplying the seven raiders in the tunnel with a means of moving around without needing to be in the sludge.

Worst of all however were the bodies. I had been too shocked in my first encounter with raiders to notice them the first time, but now that I had time to process what I was seeing there was no hiding them from me.

Multiple mangled pony corpses hung from the roof of the tunnel by rusted looking meat hooks. A few of the corpses were missing limbs or had been cut open so that their innards would dangle from the ceiling like grotesque wind chimes. Multiple pony heads had been impaled on long pikes that nearly reached the top of the tunnel.

I had to cover my mouth to keep from vomiting.

In the cages were five or so ponies, three of which now lay in a puddle of filth as tortured and mutilated corpses. Only two of the prisoners remained alive, and even they seem like they weren't going to be alive for much longer. All of the raiders had their attention on the cages as the only female raider present slowly carved pieces of flesh off of a male prisoner whom she had aggressively tied to the cage.

Something about the female raider seemed wrong, but I couldn’t quite place my hoof on it.

“Cut out his tongue you say?” The female raider responded around the handle of her large knife, slowly sliding the blade along the prisoners cheek and leaving a thin cut from the bottom of his right eye to the corner of his lips.

The six raiders around her cheered and laughed as she drove the dagger into his mouth. The prisoner squirmed in protest, but he wasn’t going to be making noises again any time soon. blood poured from the ponies lips as the raider withdrew the knife.

"Much better," The female raider soothed, giving the prisoner a quick kiss on his bleeding lips. "Now that is the kind of mouth ya should be kissing your mother with."

I ducked back around the corner, not able to take anymore of the graphic sight. I found Brisk looking equally shaken and pale.

“Do we go back and try and find another way out?” Brisk whispered to me quietly.

I shook my head. “There isn’t another way out,” I responded. “This is the only tunnel,” I glanced back around the corner and spotted what we had been looking for. A crooked metal ladder ran up the side of the far wall to a circular opening in the roof. I quickly moved back behind the corner again. “And there is an exit on the wall behind there camp.”

Brisk groaned. “Of course it’s on the other side. Why can’t it just be on our side?” He gave a second groan and put his broken hoof to his face. “Damn it. Alright, here is the plan, we stay low to the ground and sneak past them. Hopefully we can use this brown sludge to our advantage,” He quickly started rubbing the sludge into his mane and over his face.

“What are you doing?” I asked as he began covering the rest of his body.

“Making camouflage,” He whispered. “Do the same.”

I wrinkled my nose at the thought and began copying him. It didn’t take long to be completely covered from head to hoof in foul smelling sludge.

“And what are we going to do about the prisoners?” I asked as the two of us began slowly inching around the corner.

Brisk stared at me in shock again. What? Had he expected me to just let them die? Finally he just sighed.

“I’m not risking my neck for those two,” A round of laughing and cheering from the raiders drew our attention. The prisoner that they had currently been torturing now lay in two halves on the ground. “I’m not risking my neck for a prisoner,” Brisk corrected himself. “I’m going to go for the exit. If you want to risk your life to save some pony that you don’t even know then help yourself, just make sure I’m out of the tunnel first.”

I narrowed my eyes at him, but I understood. I don’t even know why I was risking my life for this pony.

I saw the female raider tapping her hoof on the edge of the cage, causing the prisoner inside to jump backwards in fright. “You’re next missy,” The raider said in a voice far more calming that I was comfortable with. The prisoner inside shrank farther back against the edge of the cage.

The female raider cackled and began dragging the remains of the prisoner she had just killed over to an empty meat hook that hung from the ceiling and began hanging him from the roof.

I gulped. I really did not want to get caught by these crazy ponies.

Brisk had almost completely submerged himself under the sludge and was moving fairly quickly across the tunnel. If I hadn’t known he was there, there is a good chance I wouldn’t have been able to spot him. Seemingly without difficulty, he managed to reach the ladder without any of the raiders spotting him.

Holy that pony was sneaky, I thought to myself. I supposed he must have been sneaky enough to steal all those passwords from security back in the Stable, so I guess it made sense.

I glanced back and forth between the ladder and the cage that held the remaining prisoner. It would be so easy to just leave her there and escape. If I were to die here, no pony would be able to get the A.A.S.S from the cyber ponies, and I doubted that Brisk would continue hunting them down if I were to die. Wouldn't it be more beneficial to everypony if I just cut my losses and left her?

But then who would I be? Not Amber Aura, that was for sure. I’d just be some cold husk of the pony I use to be. I couldn’t let the wasteland break me. Not so soon.

I began moving towards the cage, keeping as much of myself under the fluid as I could. None of the raiders seemed to spot me. Since the entertainment in the tunnel had shifted to a different location, all the raiders were currently busy looking at the mangled body being hung to the roof and had their backs to the cages.

That gave me time to get her out, but not long.

I pulled up to the cage and placed my hooves around the door. It was locked. Of course it was locked, it was a fucking prison cell, what had I expected. I examined the lock closely, it was just like the one that Brisk had picked when we freed Coco Pommel.

I gritted my teeth and pulled a bobby pin from my saddlebags. If Brisk could do it I could do it.

I was about to raise the bobby pin with my magic when I saw the pony inside staring at me and shaking her head quickly. Thankfully, what she was trying to tell my clicked instantly. My magic would produce both light and sound. I’d need to do this with my mouth.

Then I saw the pony inside, or at least what I had thought was a pony. She stood a little bit taller than me with dazzling green eyes and a beautiful, though understandably muddy white coat and mane. What really caught my attention however were the dark black strips that covered her body.

A zebra?

I almost dropped my bobby pin into the sludge in shock. I was risking my life for a zebra? I didn’t know very much about them outside of a small picture in my textbook I had seen years ago and how they had been Equestria's enemies in the war that had inevitably ended in balefire detonation.

Murderers, that’s what zebra were. Savages that believe in weird star gods and destroyed the beautiful land of Equestria. I had heard a story when I was younger that the war had begun because a zebra had released some form of bomb or something inside a school and killed everyone. I couldn’t remember the exact details, but just the thought made me a little queasy.

I glanced back at the cackling ponies as they hung their latest victim to the ceiling where they had displayed all of their other crude art.

Zebra’s weren’t evil just as ponies weren’t evil. But Zebra’s weren’t good either, just as ponies weren’t good. They are simply alive, and no living thing can be categorized with something as black and white as good and evil, because everything was a bit of both.

I could see fear reflected in the zebra’s eyes as she noticed my hesitation. No doubt other ponies had had the same thoughts about her that I had just had.

I gave her a reassuring smile and slid the bobby pin into the lock. She gave me a nervous smile in return and began pretending to not see me as to avoid suspicion.

Snap!

The bobby pin broke in my hoof. Seriously? Can’t I just not fail at something for once?

I glanced down at my bobby pins. I only had five left. Crap.

I placed another pin into the lock and began twisting it slowly. I heard a small tapping sound inside. Alright, that sounded like a good sign. I slowly began twisting the bobby pin back, copying what I had seen Brisk do the day before.

Snap!

Shit! I wanted to scream at the stupid lock. Just open damn it!

I spotted Brisk staring at me from the ladder. Our eyes met. We didn’t say anything, or even gesture for the other to do something, we both just knew.

Brisk sunk lower and began moving back towards the cage. I smiled a little. He wasn’t completely selfish.

I pulled out another bobby pin and my shock baton and waited for him to reach us. I might not be able to pick the lock, but I could defend him if the raiders spotted us. He quickly pulled himself up next to me and took the bobby pin from my mouth, sliding it into the lock and pulling out a red screwdriver that looked uncomfortably like my cutie mark.

I turned to face the raiders as he began picking the lock. They still didn't seem to notice us. This was going to well, something bad was bound to happen soon.

Ironically, that bad thing was actually Brisk successfully picking the lock and door of the cage open with a loud screech. The three of us froze and glanced over at the raiders. At the same moment the raiders froze and glanced over at us. All of our eyes locked for a solid five seconds.

“Make them bleed!” One of the raiders shouted, then everything went to hell.

The group of raiders charged us. Brisk leaped off of the wooden platform he had been standing on and dove into the murky water, obscuring himself from view. I glanced between the raiders and the zebra, trying to figure out what the best course of action would be.

The zebra sprang past me, slamming her hind hoof into the head of one of the oncoming raiders. Both of them fell flailing into the water. Okay, that left me and six raiders.

Great, just… great…

I dodged the swing of the first raiders machete, whacking my baton against one of his back legs, making him stumble. I didn’t however avoid the second raider who slammed a baseball bat over my head. The whole world whirled as the impact knocked me off my hooves and crashing into the water below.

My whole body was submerged, foul sludge pouring into my mouth and rushing into my lungs. I pushed up off the ground, pushing my head above water and trying to both get a breath of air and spit out large quantities of what I could now confirm as a mix between urine, shit and garbage.

Blam!

I bullet whizzed past me, splashing me with more sewage. I ducked back below the waves to avoid getting shot as I heard the muffled sound of gunfire above me.

Then a heavy force slammed into me from above, making me inhale more of the sludge. I rolled to the side and pushed upwards, knocking the raider who had jumped onto me onto his back.

The other raiders were beginning to jump down as well, pulling out their knives and lunging at me. I guess they realized it was hard to shoot a target that they couldn’t see very well.

The next raider to jump into the water was met with a powerful swing form Brisk’s machete as he jumped from the water and with one mighty stroke, severed the raiders head clean off. Blood spewing from the stump of his neck and covering both Brisk and I in gore.

Neither of us had time to celebrate however as the female raider swooped down at us with what looked like a tiny chainsaw. I did a double take as I took in her wings. That was why she had looked odd, she was a mother fucking Pegasus! Of fucking course she was!

I jumped to the side as the chainsaw came down at me, searing off a large chunk off the flesh on the side of my front leg. I screeched in pain and tried to swing my baton up at her, only for her to fly up above where I was able to reach.

“I hope you like the sight of your own blood!” the Pegasus screamed down at me as she flew back down for another swing at me. Really? Do these raiders just yell whatever screwed up thing they can think of?

I readied my baton as she approached. Instead of attacking my again however, the Pegasus lurched back upwards as soon as she got within my range.

“What the…” as I had readied for her attack, I hadn’t seen the unicorn raider with a knife charge up and stab at me. Shit, she had been distracting me!

The knife pierced my already skinned foreleg. Pain erupted throughout my body and I collapsed to the ground. I telekinetically ripped the knife from the unicorns grasp and jabbed it back at him and into his eye. Gross yellow fluid mixed with blood spurted from the damaged eye as the raider reeled back and tried to dislodge the blade.

“Sorry,” I muttered under my breath as I watched the unicorn struggle. I grabbed the handle of the knife with my magic again and shoved it further into the unicorns head, stabbing the blade into his brain. His body twitched uncontrollably as the bade dug into him before falling into the sludge and out of view.

I spotted Brisk clashing machetes with another raider and the zebra dodging a multitude of attacks from three other raiders on the far side of the fire. How she managed to hold off so many at a time was beyond me. I saw her strike out with her foreleg and strike a raider across the chest, knocking him to his side. It was hard to tell, but it looked like she broke a few of his ribs with the kick. Alright then, that just left me and the Pegasus.

I looked around, trying to spot the insane chainsaw wielding flyer. I could hear the chainsaw, I just couldn't see… the sound was coming from above me! Shit!

I dove beneath the sewage and rolled to my right. Only seconds afterwards I saw the chainsaw cut through the water where I had just been standing. I rolled back to my hooves and swung my baton at her, using my telekinesis to extend my reach.

Unfortunately she was fast. Really, really fast. My baton met air as she swooped up and came flying back at me again. I flung my baton in the way of the chainsaw, sparks went flying everywhere at the spinning chain continuously battered my baton. The spinning blade stopped only inches away from my face. I had to put all my strength into keeping the chainsaw from knocking my baton aside.

The Pegasus gave a powerful shove with the chainsaw and sent me sprawling onto all fours, once again completely submerging me in opaque water. I began rolling away as fast as I could as she began stabbing the chainsaw into the water.

Not being able to see me, I managed to roll behind her and leaped up with my baton, swinging it as fast as I could at her head. Once again she proved to be too fast and soared up above where I couldn't reach her.

I was never going to be able to beat her if I just kept swinging at her, she was clearly faster and stronger than I was. If I was going to win, I was going to need to think of something else.

She dove at me again, her chainsaw coming scarily close to cutting my front legs off. I leapt to the side, glancing around the room looking for something to use against her. My eyes landed on the large pikes standing straight out of the murky water. They were to big to fight with and there was no way I could trick her into impaling herself. I started thinking about a spell I had started learning a few years ago. I had mostly only ever used it on myself, but I had been able to use it on my Stable barding once. Granted I had almost gone unconscious from the effort and concentration required to make the spell work.

The Pegasus did a loop in the air and began diving at me again. Well, I guess it was now or never. I flared up my horn and concentrated. I imagined the Pegasus and in my head and then pictured the large pike.

The Pegasus and her chainsaw came less than an inch away from my face when they disappeared in a small flash of light. I glanced over at the pike to find the Pegasus now dangling from it, the large pointed shaft protruding through the center of her now broken body. Her legs flailed for a few moments before finally going limp, the chainsaw dropping from her grasp and landing in the sewage with a splash.

I placed my hoof on my head to try and stop the world from spinning. From the bash over my head with the baseball bat and the use of using teleportation my head felt like it might just split in two. Or at the very least I was going to pass out.

I looked over at Brisk and the zebra who had managed to kill their respective raiders. Brisk had evaded the fight with only a few scratches along his back, and surprisingly the zebra had managed to leave the fight practically unscathed despite taking on and taking out the most raiders out of all of us. It would appear that I had taken the most damage during the fight.

I stared down at my injuries. They weren’t nearly as bad as the wounds that Brisk had received the night before, but the Pegasus had taken a large chunk of skin off of my foreleg and the knife cut in the same leg was making it really hard to walk. Black spots had began swimming before my eyes. I wobbled slightly on my hurt leg as I tried to take a step forward and the pounding in my head threatened to send me into unconsciousness.

“Remind me not to get on her bad side,” The zebra said to Brisk with a small chuckle in a soothing and exotic, yet strangely methodical voice. “Lest save myself from being teleported into a pike as well.”

“My thoughts exactly when I first saw her fight,” Brisk commented, taking in the zebra for the first time. I was surprised at how casually he took her appearance. “Once saw her bash her baton straight through a ponies face.”

For a weird second I almost felt proud, like I was some sort of wasteland bad ass that could kick serious butt in a fight. Then I fell unconscious and landed face first into the large pool of literal shit.

When I awoke my leg felt itchy. I reached down to scratch it only for Brisk to reach forward and push my hoof away. I looked up at him and saw him shaking his head.

Shit! I shouldn’t have looked up at him. We were outside again, sitting in the middle of the street by the looks of it. And above us was once again the goddess damned sky. I averted my gaze to my leg to avoid the horrifying sight and dizzying vertigo .

The itching it turned out was due to a large amount of bloody gauze that had been wrapped tightly around my foreleg. It looked like my leg had stopped bleeding, but only recently as much of the blood on the off white fabric was still wet.

“We couldn’t find any healing potions, so we just did our best to patch it up ourselves,” Brisk said, looking down at my leg as well. “I found some of gauze in the medic pack you found yesterday. Thank the goddesses for that Watcher guy, right?”

I nodded solemnly. “What did I miss while I was out?” I asked, looking around us. A small metal ponyhole was a few feet away from us and it’s top sat a few feet away from that. I assumed it was the entrance to the sewers we had just left.

“Not much,” Brisk replied evenly. “After you passed out Xayah helped me pull you out of the sewers. It’s a lot harder to pull a pony up a half broken ladder than you would expect.”

“Xayah?” I questioned.

He gave me a silly look. “The zebra you rescued. Don’t tell me you forgot about that already?”

I shook my head and glanced around again. “Where is she?”

“Back in the sewer,” Brisk answered. “Looting the raider camp. Hopefully we can find some healing potions or ammo. I stayed up here to keep an eye on you.”

I nodded. So not only was I a failure, but now I was being an inconvenience to ponies.

Brisk was quiet for a moment, chewing quietly on his bottom lip as he clearly tried working up the courage to say something. “By the way, for what it is worth Amber. I think saving that zebra was the right thing to do.”

I gave him a smile. Maybe I wasn’t the biggest failure and inconvenience ever.

I looked up at Brisk’s horn atop his head. “Hey, is it okay if I ask you a question? I'm not sure if it is personal or not.”

He raised his eyebrow, but nodded.

“Why didn’t you just levitate me out of the sewer? I’ve noticed you don’t use magic.”

Brisk gave me a sheepish smile. “That’s ‘cause I can’t use magic.”

Before I could question him on that any more, Xayah climbed out of the sewer holding a knife and a small handful of bullets and Sparkle-Cola bottle caps in her hooves.

“There were no health potions I am afraid,” The zebra said, walking over to us and placing the ammunition down beside me before taking the knife for herself. “But perhaps these can aid you in other ways.”

Brisk grinned down at the 10mm ammunition and began loading it into his pistol. “Thank you, these will help a lot,” I glanced down at the small pile of bullets. I was able to count about nine. Hopefully that would be more than enough to keep us alive for the next bit.

“No, thank you two,” Xayah said, bowing her head slightly. “For without you both I would be dead right now.”

Brisk gave a small cough. “Don’t thank me, I was just going to leave you there.”

Xayah smirked at him. “Then you are smarter than your friend here,” She said in her soothing voice, giving me a quick wink. “But I am thankful you saved me all the same.”

I pointed a hoof at the small pile of ten bottle caps that Xayah had pulled out of the sewer with her. "Why the fuck did you grab those?" realizing I sounded a little rude and blushed. "Sorry, just interested."

Xayah chuckled. "New to the wasteland?" She said sarcastically.

"What gave us away?" Brisk smirked, looking over the caps himself.

"Mostly the stable barding," Xayah shrugged. "But your lack of understanding for caps was a pretty big giveaway as well. You see we use bottle caps as currency in the wasteland."

Had I been drinking something, I would have spit it out everywhere. "You use bottle caps as currency? Why?!"

"They are plentiful and yet not endless, giving it value," Xayah replied, scooping the caps up and placing them in a blood soaked saddlebag she had thrown over her back. I assumed she had taken it from the now dead raiders in the sewer as well. "Save for appearance, caps are no different from the bits used back in the olden days if you really think about it."

“How did those raiders catch you?” I asked, slowly pulling myself back to my hooves and gesturing to her newly acquired saddlebag. My leg hurt a little, but the pain was tolerable. Brisk offered me a Buck tablet, but I shook my head. I wanted to be able to focus and he still needed them a lot more than I did. His legs, though healed on the outside, didn’t seem to be improving much. If anything they were only getting worse.

Those raiders attacked me and my family by surprise on our way to Friendship City. They killed my family very quickly. They were not much for fighting,” Xayah said softly. “I managed to take one of them out before that Pegasus took me down. Then I woke up inside that cage, you know the rest from there.”

Brisk and I stared at her in shook. She had just described the recent slaughter of her family so casually. Fuck, she was handling the recent slaughter of her family so casually.

“How, um… How are you holding up?” Brisk asked in concern, taking a cautious step towards the zebra. “With your family, um… gone and all.”

Xayah gave him a sad smile. “I miss them, but my mother always told me not to fear death, for if we fear that, then what is the point is living? Living only makes you face that fear longer.”

I nodded, but I wasn’t exactly sure if I understood what that meant. “What are you going to do now?”

Xayah tapped her striped hoof on the bottom of her chin. “I am not exactly sure. Perhaps I will go to Friendship city, but without my family it seems a little foolish.”

“Well, you are always welcome to come with us,” I offered, extending my hoof to her. “We could always use some help.”

“She can?” Brisk gawked. I gave him a warning stare to make him back off.

Xayah glanced between the both of us for a few seconds. “If you two will have me, I will gladly accept your offer,” She replied, nodding her head thoughtfully. “Where are you two going?”

“Well, we aren’t exactly sure,” Brisk said bluntly, shrugging his shoulders.

“We are looking for a group of cyber ponies that invaded our Stable,” I followed up. “But we aren’t exactly sure where they’ve gone.”

Xayah thought for a moment. “Perhaps it would be wise to go to Friendship City anyway,” she said. “That or Tenpony Tower, but they are more exclusive and farther away I hear.”

“What is at Friendship city?” Brisk questioned, flicking a fly away with his tail.

“For you? Answers hopefully,” Xayah explained. “If you want to find somepony that might know where these cyber ponies are going, then a settlement is your best chance of finding one. At the very least it will give you a way to safely rest your head and stock up on better gear than what you currently have.”

That explanation made sense to me. “Alright, to Friendship City then,” I declared, pointing my injured hoof into the air. Of course that was when I realized I had no fucking idea where Friendship City even was. I turned back to Xayah and gave her a nervous grin. “Would you uh… lead the way? We’re kinda new to the wasteland.”

Xayah looked around at the towering remains of the Manehattan skyscrapers. “I would, though I fear I do not know the way myself,” Xayah responded. “My mother was the one who was leading us there, she had been there once before you see.”

Well shit, we still didn’t know where we were going. I looked up and down the road. It split into about four different direction in both directions and the height of all the ruins made it impossible to tell what was around each corner.

“Wonderful, now we just need somepony that knows where they’re going,” Brisk replied sarcastically, kicking a small rock with his hoof. “Any takers?”

As if answering his question, a sprite bot began bobbing up and down the street past us, playing it’s chipper tune. All of our ears perked up as we heard the noise.

“No way,” I uttered breathlessly, almost chuckling at our possible good fortune. I began running towards the Sprite bot, waving my injured foreleg frantically. “Watcher! Hey! Hey Watcher!”

From behind me I could hear Xayah turn to Brisk. “So this friend of yours, is she mad?” She asked softly. “She is aware that that is a sprite bot? Yes?”

I grabbed onto the floating bot and spun it around to face me. “Hey Watcher? You home?”

The music cut out. I grinned and tapped my hoof on the top of the bot. After a few seconds of waiting the synthetic voice I had heard before came from the speakers. “Hey… you. What do you want? Sorry, what was your name again, I don’t believe I caught it last time.”

I heard a small gasp of surprise escape Xayah's lips from somewhere behind me.

“Amber Aura,” I replied, quickly escalating the conversation forwards. “We are trying to find Friendship City, do you know where it is?”

“Friendship City? Yeah sure,” Watcher replied with his synthetic voice. “It’s not to far from here actually. If you just head north east for a bit you should be able to see the city. Giant statue of a pony, you can’t miss it.”

“Thank you Watcher,” I replied. I didn’t know who the hell his guy was, but damn I was thankful for him. Brisk and I hadn't been in the wasteland for two day and he had already saved us twice. A thought crossed my mind. “Hey Watcher, you haven’t seen any ponies made out of metal walking around have you?”

“What, like the Steel Rangers?” I just stared at him blankly. A metallic sigh escaped the machine. I wasn’t sure how you synthesize a sigh, but Watcher somehow managed to pull it off. “A group of ponies in a suit of metal power armor.”

I shook my head. “No, not ponies in a metal suit. We are looking for some cyber ponies. Ponies made out of metal.”

Watcher was silent for a moment, letting his sprite bot bob up and down in front of me. “None that I can think of. There are a few cyber ponies in Fillydelphia, and I can think of one causing trouble out in the Hoofington area, but nothing in Manehattan,” Watcher replied.

Damn, none of those sounded like they could be the cyber ponies we were looking for. “Well, thanks for your help anyways Watcher,” I said, preparing to turn back to Brisk and Xayah who were waiting patiently a few steps away from us.

“Any time Amber,” Watcher replied, his voice slightly obscured by a sudden buzz of static. Before I could turn away from him completely he spoke up again. “I see that you are already making friends in the wasteland. Not everypony is that lucky. Keep it up.”

“Keep it up?” I questioned, but the sprite bot was already floating away.

I turned back to my friends to see them low to the ground with scared expressions on their faces and gesturing for me to do the same. I looked at them in confusion. Understanding they probably saw something I didn’t I ducked down low and crawled over to them.

“What is it?” I hissed, keeping my voice low. Brisk pointed in the direction I had just come with a hoof. I turned back and saw what all the fuss was about. Not to far from where I had been standing only moments before were ponies. Lots and lots of ponies.

The fact that I hadn’t been spotted was a miracle that I simply could not explain.

They weren’t raiders. Or at least, I didn’t think they were. They were all dressed a little bit better. Instead of chains, leather straps and pony flesh, these ponies dressed in sturdy green combat armor and carried some pretty intense fire power, from machine guns to rocket launchers. A few carried large flag poles that held crimson flags depicting the image of a large eye.

I took a few steps back from the group. I was able to count about twenty ponies, all heavily armed. “Who are they?” I whispered, slowly pulling out my baton.

“Red Eye’s slavers,” Xayah replied, glancing down at my baton. “I would recommend we do not engaged in combat with them, I fear that would end out less than pleasant for the three of us.”

Brisk nodded vigorously in agreement. We began to creep away from the group when I saw it. Holy Celestia it was horrifying!

An alicorn stood amongst the Slavers. Tall and majestic with a flowing mane and huge elegant wings. Exactly how I had always imagined the princesses looked like. But this alicorn was not one of the royal sisters. It felt wrong and unholy. It’s hawk like eyes held slits instead of pupils and its coat was a dark shade of sickly green instead of the flawless white or beautiful blue I had been told that princess Celestia and Luna had had.

The alicorn slowly turned it’s head and stared directly at me. I froze, seemingly unable to move under the gaze of the creature. The two of us locked eyes and held our gaze for what felt like an eternity. Then, slowly the not goddess raised it’s hoof and pointed at us. The group of slavers all followed her hoof with their gaze until they spotted us as well.

“This is the part that we run, yes?” I heard Xayah whisper from behind me. I nodded in agreement. Then we were bolting down the road. Running, goddesses I hated running. My injured leg began seemingly screaming in protest as we charged as fast as we could down the street. I could hear the sounds of ponies shouting and hooves pounding on the cracked asphalt behind us.

Really? They couldn’t just let us go peacefully? Was two random ponies and a zebra that they didn’t even know really worth dropping everything and giving chase?

I glanced back to see the group of ponies galloping a few feet behind us. Yup, apparently we were worth the work… but wait? Where was the green alicorn? Then I spotted her flying above the rest of the group, closing in on us far faster than I would have liked. Damn it, I hated winged enemies! The ability to fly was so unfair!

I could see Brisk’s legs beginning to shake as we charged onwards. The buck must have been starting to wear off and there was no way that he could take another tablet while running for his life like this. My leg was also starting to hurt enough that I was beginning to wonder if I should have taken Brisk up on his offer and taken a buck earlier.

“How do we lose these guys!?” I shouted as we raced forwards and around a corner.

Xayah, who clearly didn’t seem to have very high endurance, simply panted as she struggled to keep pace with us. I turned to Brisk who looked just as concerned as I felt. “Same thing we did last time we needed to get somewhere safe?” Brisk suggested between pants.

“Right, because that worked out perfectly for us least time!” I replied. Xayah just looked confused. I would need to explain to her what had happened to us before we saved her at some point.

As we turned a second corner, Brisk slammed into my side, knocking both myself and Xayah into the doorway of a large nameless, faceless skyscraper. The three of us slammed the large double doors shut and ducked below all the windows just as the large group raced past. We took a moment, panting and out of breath.

I let out a slow deep breath and peeked over the edge of the window. It had been a miracle that the flying alicorn hadn’t seen us, however it was clear that the ponies had noticed something about our disappearance was wrong. They had all stopped in the middle of the street, looking around and peering into as many doors and windows as they could.

We had currently escaped them, but it was only a matter of time before they were on our trail again.

I turned back to my two friends. “Alright, we need to find a back door out of here or something.”

“Don’t think you can hide, little ponies,” I heard a sinister voice whisper in my ear. All three of us jumped as we heard the voice. “I know you couldn’t have gotten far. I will find you,” The voice was so calm, yet so very, very threatening. To my growing horror, I realized the sound was coming from within my own brain.

I glanced out the window to see the green alicorn standing in the center of the group of ponies, her horn ablaze with light and her eyes glowing an ominous white. The other slaves were scratching at their head, clearly hearing the spooky voice within their own brains as well.

Well this was just perfect, the alicorn had fucking telepathy. Because why wouldn’t it? Damn it, I hate the wasteland!

Brisk crept away from the front of the building. “Yeah, lets get as far away from that thing as fast as we can,” we all quickly nodded in agreement.

Turning to face the large room we had entered, I found myself staring into the huge face of Pinkie Pie plastered onto the wall, her mouth twisted into a playful and yet uncomfortably devious smile. ‘Pinkie Pie is Watching You!’ The large sign read. And above that, in smaller letters read. ‘Ministry of Morale Headquarters’.

I turned and scowled at Brisk. “Really? You couldn’t have chosen a building that is just a building? Why do you always need to pull us into creepy places,” Brisk just shrugged at me innocently. That was it, I was picking what building we entered next time.

There was no obvious back door to the building, because once again the wasteland was incapable of just letting us have the easy way out. We found ourselves slowly climbing the stairs to the floors above us. I wasn’t sure exactly what exit we were going to find upstairs, but I supposed if worst came to worst we could just hide up there until the alicorn and slavers decided to give up on chasing us.

The further into the building we went the more posters seemed to clutter the walls. As if the decrepit building wasn’t creepy enough, every poster just so happened to depict the exact same thing. A smiling picture of Pinkie Pie reminding us that she is always watching. I shivered every time my eyes made contact with the long dead, smiling ministry mare.

“Why do you think those slavers were so determined to catch us?” I asked as we finally hauled ourselves up the last bit of stairs and entered the third floor.

“I am unsure, as I am not a slaver,” Xayah replied. “Though I have heard rumors that unicorns are particularly useful to their cause.”

“Their cause?” Brisk asked, peering into the first room he saw before quickly moving onto the next. “What exactly is this cause of theirs?”

Xayah shrugged. Propping open the next door and entering it. Brisk and I swiftly followed her. “I do not know. I have not talked to very many slavers as it would be foolish of me to spend any time around such company.”

The room Xayah had lead us into held what appeared to be a large pile of labeled safes. A few crooked shelves lined the far wall covered in burned and water damaged folders. My eyes lingered on the multitude of safes scattered about the room.

“What is this place? A treasury?” I joked trying to knock a safe over with my hoof. To my embarrassment, it was far too heavy for me to move and refused to budge even and inch.

“Looks like a storage locker of some form,” Brisk replied, giving me a small grin and knocking over a safe. I narrowed my eyes at him. Damn, why did I have to be the weak one. “Though honestly, a treasury would be a lot cooler.”

“Not a treasury,” Xayah stated, scanning her green eyes over the safes. “This looks like some form of file and information room used to keep tabs on all of the ponies and zebras in Equestria.”

That was less funny.

Xayah walked over and looked at a very specific safe with a large dent in the side. The label, though mostly covered in dust, read ‘Zarina’.

“Zarina, I heard about her back when I was young,” Xayah said, tapping the door or the safe with a hoof. “She was a pre-war assassin, tried to kill the white ministry mare.”

“Rarity?” I offered, trying to picture the different ministry mares in my head. I remembered the statuette in my saddle bags and pulled it out. “Her?”

Xayah nodded. “Yes, that is the one. Zarina was apprehended by Rarity fairly early in the war. Her capture and alleged death saved many pony lives and cost many zebras theirs,” she tapped the safe with her hoof again. “It is a shame these are locked, I would find seeing what the Ministry of Morale had about her very interesting.”

Brisk grinned deviously. For a second I could have sworn his grin matched the picture of Pinkie Pie behind him. “Well it’s your lucky day,” The green unicorn declared. “Because picking locks that I probably shouldn’t be picking is my specialty.”

Before long the three of us had crowded around the safe and watched as Brisk began working his magic.

“Do you mind if you teach me how to do that?” I asked, looking over his shoulder as he worked.

“I am surprised you do not already know,” Xayah stated, watching Brisk with equal interest. “With your cutie mark being a red screwdriver and everything.”

I sighed. “Nope, never picked a lock before.”

Brisk looked up at me. “Yeah, sure I’ll teach you,” He said with a grin. “I mean, this is like, what? The fourth lock we have had to pick in the last two days? I’d say it’s about time you learned.”

I knelt down and watched carefully as he explained what he was doing.

“Alright, so step one is easy, just slide the bobby pin and the screwdriver into the lock,” Brisk started, his actions copying his words. “Once placed, just kinda wiggle the bobby pin around until you hear a click. That means it’s close to being in the right spot.”

I nodded and watched as he wiggled it around. He abruptly stopped and began rotating the bobby pin and screwdriver. I hadn’t heard a click, but he apparently had.

“Then just slowly turn the screwdriver counterclockwise. If you feel the lock starts to resist you, you know that while you were close, you were in the wrong spot,” sure enough, the lock began to shake a little. Brisk quickly stopped moving the bobby pin and slowly placed it in a slightly different position. “Then just try a slightly different spot and….” He twisted the bobby pin again, but this time the safe swung open. “Voila!”

Inside the safe sat only two things. A sheet of paper with a long list of names and a black cloak that the paper rested upon. I pulled out the piece of paper and scanned a bunch of the names.

“What are these names?” I asked as I held the page up to Xayah, assuming she would understand it’s contents best.

The zebra chuckled darkly. “A list of the ponies she had killed I assume.”

The paper slid out of my hoof and gently drifted towards the floor. Holy shit that was a lot of names.

Xayah reached into the safe and pulled out the cloak. “It is this that I am more interested in,” She said, holding the fabric between her hooves before draping the dark material over her body. She looked over it for a second before tapping a purple gem on the cloaks clasp and disappeared from view.

‘What the hell!” Brisk exclaimed, taking a step back in shock as our zebra companion vanished from sight. I wasn’t any less surprised.

A few seconds later, Xayah flickered back into view. “Zebra stealth cloak,” She explained. “Very useful for sneaking,” Now we just needed to find two more of those handy things.

Brisk handed me a bobby pin and the screwdriver. “How ‘bout you give one of those safes a shot? Get some practice while we aren’t being shot at.”

“That alicorn could still be looking for us,” I replied, but I took the lock picking tools from him anyway and moved over to a safe labeled ‘Silver Ace’ that had been shoved into the corner of the room.

“Maybe,” Brisk grunted. “But she hasn’t found us yet, so I think we should be fine.”

I knelt down in front of the safe and placed the bobby pin inside. I was about to move on to step two when I spotted an orange holotape resting on top of the safe.

It couldn’t hurt to have something to listen to while I embarrassed myself, right?

I inserted the holotape into my pipbuck and listened to it as I began to follow the steps Brisk had just told me.

“I don’t trust him!” A grumpy, yet bubbly voice said from the recording. “He is a bad bad pony, I’m telling you! He is up to no good!”

“Calm down Pinkie,” Another bubbly voice said. The voice was very similar to the first one, though clearly belonging to a stallion. “How do you know he is a baddy?”

“My pinkie scene goes crazy every time I see him!” Pinkie exclaimed, making an exasperated huff. “I haven’t been able to catch him at anything yet, but I will! Hear me! I’ll get him!” The mare broke into an unsettling psychotic laughter. An abrupt hiccup ended her chuckle.

“What do you need me to do?” The stallion said.

“I need you to use your cheesy sense on him,” Pinkie instructed. “He is already watching out for me, so whenever I’m around he has his guard up super high. But he doesn’t know you. You might be able to get something on him.”

There was silence between the two voices for a second, allowing me to pick up on the subtle sound of static in the background.

I was about to take out the holotape, thinking it was done when the stallion spoke up again. “Alright, I’ll use my cheesy sense, but where can I even find this no good pony?” my bobby pin snapped as I tried to open the safe. I groaned and pulled out another one. I noted that I only had three left. Better try not to break any more.

“He has been working with Fluttershy a lot lately,” Pinkie answered, her voice almost a low growl. “I don’t know what he has to do with the Ministry of Peace, but I know it can't be good.”

I began turning the bobby pin in the lock again. Once again I was met with resistance. I wanted to yell at the lock and storm away; how the hell did Brisk make it look so easy!?

“I don’t know Pink, the Ministry of Peace seems like one of the less suspicious places for him to be working in,” the stallion said.

I heard Pinkie huff and stomp her hoof on the ground. “No, Working with Twilight in the Ministry of Arcane Sciences would make sense! But with Fluttershy? What does the MoP want with a magic expert?!”

“There is actually a lot of magic involved with…” The stallion started, but Pinkie quickly cut him off.

“I don’t trust him! I don’t trust him! I don’t trust him! I don’t trust him!” Pinkie shrieked. I could hear her stomping up and down as if she was having a fit. “I don’t trust him and I want to catch him now!”

The recording cut out; at the perfect time too because as soon as it did, the lock clicked and the safe swung open. I stared at the open safe for a few minutes before giving a wild whoop with glee.

“Oh my goddesses! Did you two just see that!” I exclaimed, bouncing on the tip of my hooves. “I just picked a lock! The lock is open!”

Both Brisk and Xayah who were currently busy looking at a particular sinister poster of Pinkie Pie turned their heads and looked at me.

“Oh? Uh… congrats,” Brisk answered nonchalantly before turning back to the poster.

I turned back to the safe and looked over the contents excitedly. Like the last safe, this one only held two things. A piece of paper and a glowing orb. I stared at the orb, unsure exactly what it was.

“What is this thing?” I asked myself, reaching out with my magic to pick it up. The second my telekinesis enclosed around it the whole world swirled away into oblivion.

I was in some sort of jungle. Wait? What the fuck? How did I get here? And why do all the plants look so alive? I tired to express my wonders verbally, but found myself unable to speak. What the fuck was happening!

I turned my head to look at the group of four ponies that walked beside me. Except I didn’t turn my head, it just moved on it’s own accord. Celestia fuck me, I was freaking out!

My body felt weird as well. Slightly bigger and heavier. The space between my back legs also felt… what the fuck! Was I a stallion!

“I’m not exactly sure why you need my expertise?” I said, or rather the pony I was looking through the eyes of said to a light brown mare that was leading the group. He had a calm, soothing voice that made me feel more relaxed just listening to it. “You say you found some sort of temple?”

The brown mare nodded. “We found a large amount of magical runes, we thought that you might be able to give us some insight on them Silver.”

My host frowned, but continued walking forwards.

Ahead of us I could see a large clearing in the overgrowth. The trees parted for us and I found myself standing at the edge of a massive pit with multiple caves speckling its steep sides. Long bridges comprised of seemingly living roots connected many of the cave entrances together, while a few other entrances led to beautifully crafted wooden balconies. Two foaming waterfalls cascaded off the sides of the pit and pooled somewhere far below me beyond my sight.

“What is this place?” My host questioned. He sounded almost unimpressed, though clearly interested. I on the other hoof was having trouble even comprehending the beauty of what I was seeing. “Some sort of ancient zebra temple?”

“We aren’t exactly sure,” The brown mare responded. “And the zebra’s aren’t either. If they knew what this was, it is doubtful they wouldn’t have let us come to their homelands so easily. Especially not after what happened with the Wonderbolts last month.”

My hosts eyes scanned the walls of the temple until his eyes came to rest on a small stone by his hoof. Multiple glowing blue runes had been carved onto the stone. I couldn’t seem to make any sense of the strange shapes.

My host picked it up and turned it over. “These runes are old,” My host muttered, looking over the stone again. “Predating any pony or zebra language I’ve seen.”

I saw the group of ponies exchange a glance behind me. The brown mare turned back to me. “But can you read it?”

My host grunted. “Perhaps, if given time. Do we have permission from the zebra’s to take samples back to Equestria?” The brown mare shook her head at my hosts words. “Alright then, I guess we had better start deciphering these now then.”

I hadn’t even placed the stone back down when a large shadow flew over my head. A second later, the shadow was accompanied by an ear-piercing roar that shook the surrounding area.

The group of ponies stared up at the sky in horror as a massive red dragon flew above them and landed with a mighty crash on the path they had just come from. I could hear a scream of terror from one of my four companions, though I was unsure which one it was. Not that it mattered, I was more focused on the humongous monster that now towered above us.

The great dragon curled back it’s neck and I could see a burning gold light glinting from behind it’s scales as it prepared to breath fire down upon us.

“Scatter!” my host shouted, diving off of the trail and into the thick vegetation that surrounded us. I saw the brown mare and one of my other companions do the same right before the dragon let loose a blast of scalding fire. The two ponies that had frozen in fear at the sight of the dragon went up in a blaze of light, their flesh quickly burning away and leaving behind little more than two piles of charred bones.

The dragon approached closer, it’s heavy claws making the ground shake with every step. It brought it’s head closer to me, until it’s eye stared directly back into mine. My host started backing away, trying to get away from the beast.

The dragon opened its maw again, golden light shining from the back of its throat. My host shut his eyes, waiting for death.

A large javelin was sent flying through the air and impaled itself in the dragon's eye. The monster reeled back, trying to claw the large shaft out of its face.

A group of seven or so zebra, all wielding javelin’s of their own burst into the clearing and charged the dragon. Two more javelins were thrown, each one piercing the dragons muscular front legs.

Clearly taken by surprise, the dragon flapped its wings and took off from the ground. To my surprise, two of the zebras managed to leap vertically upwards high enough to grab onto the dragon and begin climbing their way up to its wings.

The dragon began spewing random bursts of fire from its maw as the two zebras straddled its back and began cutting at its wings with large daggers. The three creatures struggled against each other in the air for a long, suspenseful moment, then the dragons wings fell from its body, causing the dragon to begin free falling towards the ground.

The two zebras leaped from its back and landed softly on the tops of the trees.

The dragon spiraled downwards, until at last it crashed into the ground, its severed wings landing beside it. The dragon attempted to rise, slowly hauling itself back onto its feet.

The monster let loose a blast of fire that rocketed towards the group of zebra. One zebra got caught in the fire, meeting a very similar fate to my two deceased companions. The rest of the group managed to leap to the side, only suffering minor burns from the beast lethal attack.

A zebra clad in sturdy leather barding rushed at the dragon, a long, thin sword clutched tightly in his mouth. The dragon lashed at the oncoming zebra with his whip like tail, only for the zebra’s sword to slice through it and sever yet another one of the dragons limbs. Blood spewed from the stump that had once been the dragon’s tail.

The dragon roared, preparing for another blast of fire. The zebra too the opportunity and stabbed his sword through the dragon’s mouth and up into the creatures brain. The dragon lashed from side to side, hopelessly trying to dislodge the sword.

After struggling for a few moments, the dragon finally collapsed to the ground, it’s blood spilling from its body like a waterfall and staining the ground red.

My host watched in awe from the cover of the overgrowth. There was no denying it… zebras were awesome!

I found myself lying on the cold, dirty floor of the MoM building. The first thing I did upon returning to my body was reach my forelegs between my haunches and make sure everything was in order again.

I had a pussy again! Oh thank Celestia I had a pussy again! I don’t know how Stallions managed to walk around all day without any space between their legs. I'd have to ask Brisk about it... or wait, maybe I shouldn't do that.

I took a moment to enjoy the feeling before noticing that Xayah was standing over top of me and looking straight into my eyes with her stunning bright green ones. I blushed and gave her a small nervous chuckle as I slowly moved my hooves back to my sides. “Uh… hi?”

“Hello,” Xayah replied flatly, continuing to stare down at me.

My eyes darted around the room. “Um… why are you staring at me?”

Xayah was quiet for a moment. “Brisk got bored of waiting for you to wake up, so he told me to watch over you while he goes and explores the building.”

I nodded as I listened to her explanation. “Okay… you can um… you can stop staring at me now.”

Xayah averted her gaze and walked away, leaving me lying on the ground.

“What happened?” I asked, slowly pulling myself back to my hooves. “I saw this really weird thing with a dragon and some jungle temple…”

“You went into a memory orb,” Xayah explained, pointing to the glowing orb that now lay beside me with her striped hoof. “If you interact with those orbs with magic you will see the memories of a pony or zebra that has been placed inside of the orb.”

I picked the orb up and looked it over, careful not to use any magic on it. ”So I just experienced a memory from a pony before the megaspells?” I asked. Xayah gave me a quick nod. Interested in the piece of technology, I gently placed the glowing orb into my saddlebags.

Xayah walked towards the door. “Come, we should probably meet up with Brisk. That pony seems to get bored very quickly. It would be foolish to allow him wander off to far on his own. ”

Before I followed her out I grabbed the piece of paper that had been inside of the safe with the memory orb and scanned the page with my eyes. At the top of the page it read ‘Silver Ace’, the rest however was covered over in black ink.

Finding the page to be useless, I placed it back into the safe and joined Xayah outside the room. We walked through a handful of hallways in silence together, stopping only to check inside rooms to see if Brisk was within.

"So what did you see inside of that memory orb?" Xayah asked. "You said there was a dragon?"

I nodded. "Yeah, I was in the body of some Stallion called Silver Ace, I think. He was some kind of magic expert before the war," I said, checking inside the next room. The room was empty save for the large quantity of Pinkie Pie is watching you posters taped to the wall. "I was exploring some temple in the zebra homelands or something when a dragon attacked us. thankfully I was saved by a group of zebras."

"Yes, some zebra tribes had mastered the art of dragon slaying," Xayah commented. "I was told it was because of the zebras incredible ability to kill dragons so easily that the dragons chose to side with the zebras during the war, simply out of fear of death."

"Can you kill a dragon?" I asked, fairly surprised by my striped companions words.

"Me? No," Xayah said with a small smile. "The art of dragon slaying was not as well known by zebras as most of the dragons thought. Only a few zebras actually had the knowledge and skill to pull off such a feat. Furthermore, the art has been dead for almost two hundred years; I would be surprised if any zebras were still able to attack with such ferocity."

We ascended another set of stairs to find Brisk Spark trying to hack a terminal that was keeping him locked out of a room.

"Unlock damn it!" He grunted, slamming his hoof on the top of the terminal.

“Need a hoof?” I offered, moving up next to him and looking the glowing green screen over.

Brisk rubbed the back of his neck with a hoof and backed away to let me at the terminal. It wasn’t a hard terminal to crack, it’s password only being five letters; ‘Party’.

I pushed enter and the large door slid open, and to my growing anger at the wasteland, a zombie pony lunged at us from behind it.

Damn it! I need to remember to check my EFS more often.

Unlike the last zombie pony we had fought however, this one was dressed in mud stained yellow shirt and was wielding a large triple barrel shotgun in its mouth.

Blam! Blam! Blam!

Brisk, Xayah, and I all dove different directions as the explosive shells burst form the gun and sprayed us all with shrapnel.

I pulled out my baton as the zombie pony began reloading and bashed him across the head. I was surprised to see the zombie pony had a high enough intelligence to reload the shotgun. So far I had seen two types of zombie ponies, ones that were crazy and tried to eat your face off, and intelligent ones like Coco pommel that might just as well have been ponies if not for their decaying skin. Unfortunately for us, this one must have been somewhere in between. Not quite mindless, but mindless enough to want us dead.

The zombie pony fell back as my shock baton came in contact with its head. As it climbed back to its hooves, I saw that the strike had left a large dent in the side of the zombie ponies head. It growled and began firing another three rounds from its triple barreled shotgun.

Blam! Blam! Blam!

Once again, the three of us managed to dodge the violent barrage of fire. This time Brisk leaped forward, swinging his machete at the zombie ponies head. The zombie pony shivered for a second, then dodged the attack with uncanny speed and agility.

Brisk stumbled forward as his swipe missed, using all of his effort to keep himself from falling flat on his face. Xayah and I rushed past him, our own melee weapons drawn. Once again the zombie pony vibrated slightly before swiftly evading both of our attacks.

The creature lashed out with hits hoof, scrapping me across the side. I called out in pain as I twisted away to avoid any further injury.

Brisk finished stabilizing himself and joined me at my side. I glanced around the room as the zombie pony reloaded and approached us. Where had Xayah gone? She was here just a second ago.

I spotted a ripple in the air behind the zombie pony. Xayah popped back into view and stabbed at the creature with her knife. Before the blow to hit however, the zombie pony whipped around and bashed her in the face with the end of his shotgun.

Xayah stumbled back, grabbing at her nose to stop the blood that had begun to flow freely from it.

Brisk and I rushed forwards; swinging both the machete and the baton at the zombie pony. As I had expected, the zombie pony lurched out of the way, but this time I was one step ahead of it. I telekinetically slammed my baton against the barrel of its shotgun as the creature tried to move out of our reach, knocking it from its grasp and sending the weapon spinning across the floor.

The zombie pony dove for the weapon, but no amount of speed was faster than magic. I picked it up in my telekinetic grasp and spun it around to face the oncoming zombie pony. Clearly aware of what was coming, the zombie pony leapt into the air seconds before the shotgun fired. While the creature narrowly avoided death for the moment, it could not avoid injury.

Blam! Blam! Blam!

The shotgun fired three times, three shots made their mark. The front two legs and the back leg of the zombie pony were ripped from its rotting body and reduced to little more than bloody piles of flesh. The zombie pony shrieked and fell to the floor, attempting to lash at us with its remaining back hoof as it flopped around like a fish out of water.

Brisk approached it and quickly slid his machete across its throat, ending the tormented creatures suffering. There was a gurgling noise in the back of its mouth followed by a large amount of yellowish red blood spilling from its throat and pooling around the legless corpse.

I looked around at the group. Save for a bloody nose and a small gash on my side we had managed to get out of that fight pretty unharmed.

I admired the triple barreled shotgun that I held in my magic. It was a beautiful thing, with elaborate golden pattern down the three barrels. Along the side of the gauge read the word ‘Boneless’ in equally elegant writing to match the designs.

I approached the body of the zombie pony and searched through the pockets on it’s yellow shirt for ammunition. I found seven shells tucked neatly inside of the front, three of which I quickly loaded into the gun.

It wasn’t until after I had looted the body that I actually looked at the pony like creature that I had killed. It had once had a curly brown mane that looked like it had been falling out for quite some time and a small damaged name tag on the front of his shirt. I leaned forward and read the name. ‘Cheese Sandwich’.

‘I need you to use your cheesy sense,’ I remembered Pinkie saying in the audio recording. This must have been who she was talking to.

I looked over to see Brisk and Xayah eyeing me suspiciously. "What?” I asked turning to face them. I swear, if they had spotted another goddess damned thing that was about to attack us-

“It’s just that…” Brisk started, looking at the shotgun in my magic. “Are you planning on fighting with that gun?”

I looked down at the beautiful triple barrel shotgun. “Yeah, why? Do you want it or something?”

Brisk shook his head. “No, it’s just that… Never really imagined you as the kinda pony to fight with a shotgun.”

I blinked, not fully understanding. “What do you mean?” I asked in confusion, holding the gun up higher.

“Well, it’s just that you’re the small, smart one, so I assumed you would use something more precise or whatever,” Brisked tried to explain, stepping nervously back. “You know, like a pistol or a sniper or something.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “What...”

“I think he is trying to say you are cute and that the shotgun is not very becoming of you,” Xayah bluntly stated, confirming my suspicion.

I snorted. “I’ll use whatever type of gun I want,” I replied with a huff. “Besides, I think this is a very elegant gun.”

Brisk shrugged, showing that I had made my point.

I approached the door that the Cheese Sandwich zombie pony had come from. The room beyond seemed to be some form of security control room. It was a large pentagon shaped room with three windows facing out in different directions. Metal owls lined the top of the room and multiple terminal covered desks lined the walls. A large monitor in front of the largest window displayed hundreds of static filled images of the Manehattan ruins. I quickly realized that I was looking at video camera footage from all over the area.

Yikes, I guess Pinkie really was always watching!

I turned to a window facing out the eastern wall of the building. Far in the distance I could see a large tower connected to the monorail that loomed over the city ruins. I pointed it out to my friends.

“What is that?” I asked, trying to make out the details.

Brisk and Xayah approached and stood on either side of me. “That is Tenpony Tower,” Xayah explained, nodding to the massive tower. “I hear it is one of the few habitable structures in the Manehattan area,” after all that had happened to me in the wasteland the last two days, I could believe it.

I turned and looked out a second window. Not to far away I saw a massive pony statue towering above the wrecked skyscrapers. Small wooden and metal houses seemed to have been built into the sides of the statue, primarily around the base.

“That must be Friendship City,” I commented, pointing the large statue out as well. “It’s not very far from here.”

I turned to the third and final window that overlooked the street we had entered from. Instantly my eyes connected with the slitted eyes of the green alicorn hovering behind the pane of glass.

“There you are,” The alicorns malicious voice pounded in our heads as the monstrosity drew closer to the window. "The Goddess is always pleased to invite more unicorns into unity with us.”

Shit.

There was a blinding flash from the alicorns horn. I felt Xayah push both Brisk and I to the ground as the window exploded, shards of shattered glass flew over our heads, many shards cutting long scratches into our backs. Xayah took the worst of it, many of the pieces lodging themselves into her striped hide.

The green alicorn gracefully glided into the room and landed before us. “Now tell me,” The alicorn mocked in her cruel and booming voice, a thin smile slowly carving its way across her face. “Will you join us in Unity willingly, or will I need to force you to join us myself?”

Footnote: level up.
New perk: Black Widow -- You have been the other sex, +10% damage to the opposite sex and unique dialogue options with certain characters

Author's Note

This chapter took me longer than I expected. Originally I was worried it was going to be to short, but the farther into the chapter I got, the more I realized that it was way to long.

As usual, huge thanks to kkat for creating the wonderful world of Fallout: Equestira

I hope you enjoyed and have a better day then the characters in my story!

Chapter IV: Learning to Dance in the Rain

“Welcome to Friendship City, please wait while the bridge extends.”

Goddesses.

I had been told that thousands of moons ago, the magical land of Equestria had been ruled by two royal alicorn sisters named Princess Celestia and Princess Luna. They had been powerful, wise, beautiful, and most importantly, fair to the ponies that lived under their rule. These goddesses had the power within them to raise and lower the sun and moon at the beginning and end of each day, never faltering in their duties.

I had always wanted to see the royal sisters, see if they were truly as magnificent as the stories had claimed.

The alicorn that now stood before us was not what I had imagined the goddesses to be like, and it wasn’t just because this one was green instead of the white and blue coats I had been told about. It was the malice in the creatures slitted eyes that proved it was no Celestia or Luna. It was a mockery of what they had once been. An insult.

An insult that I did not take very kindly to.

I slowly pulled myself to my hooves, raising my newly acquired shotgun and faced the not goddess. I wiped my hoof across my face to wipe away the blood that had begun to trickle out of the corner of my mouth. Brisk crawled back to his hooves beside me, helping Xayah up as well.

“Well?” The alicorn demanded, taking an intimidating step forward. “Will you join willingly?”

I growled. How dare she attack me and my friends. “How about fuck you?” I retorted, firing a shot from Boneless at the alicorn's head. It wasn't the wittiest insult, but I didn't care about that too much right now.

In an instant, a light green bubble shield appeared around the alicorn. The burst shells refracted off the surface of the shield, spraying me with small amounts of shrapnel. I took a step back and covered my eyes as I was assaulted by my own attack.

Really? A force field? So this thing could fly, shoot lasers, use telepathy, and make force fields!? I was calling it right here, alicorn’s sucked!

The alicorn grinned at us from behind its shield. “Fine,” it replied. “We will do this the fun way.”

The alicorns shield dropped just long enough for a beam of burning energy to flash from her horn and lash at us. The three of us scattered, doing our best to avoid the lasers as the alicorn began firing multiple rounds from her horn at a time.

My foreleg screamed in pain as I landed heavily on it to avoid having a hoof sized hole torn through my chest. I glanced down at it quickly. The gauze had peeled away to reveal a disgusting scab. Half of the scab had peeled off as well, oozing a weird orange slime.

“Sorry,” I muttered to my leg. “I’ll heal you up as soon as we get to Friendship City,” I dodged to the side again as another magical lance of energy flashed towards me.

Xayah had fallen onto all fours, revealing the bloody gashes across her back from the shattered window. Brisk stood over her protectively, his pistol clamped tightly in his mouth. He fired a shot at the alicorn. Once again, the creatures shield flared up and deflected the bullet before any harm could be done to her.

Bullets were useless against this thing unless we could find a way to get her shield down. If I was able to fight her up close, perhaps I would be able to get a hit in when she lowered her shield. I pulled out my shock baton with my mouth and raced towards the alicorn.

The alicorn shot a blast of energy towards me. I ducked under it and swung the baton at her head. Instantly her shield was up again, making my baton simply bounce off without harm.

Damn it, I hate alicorns!

Brisk had picked up on my train of thought and began sprinting towards the alicorn with his machete drawn.

The alicorn flapped its wings, shooting up towards the roof and moving out of reach of our close range weapons. This movement however, forced her to temporarily drop her shield.

Boneless swiveled around in the air to face her.

Blam!

Boneless fired, spraying the area above us in shrapnel. A bloody hole was ripped from the alicorns left wing. She flailed in the air for a second, before crashing back down towards the ground. Her shield flared back up as she came in contact with the ground, preventing her from breaking any limbs.

Brisk lunged at the fallen alicorn with his machete, only for a blast of energy from the alicorns horn to tear through his front leg and send him flying backwards five feet where he crashed against the wall next to Xayah.

The alicorn climbed back to its hooves and glared at me, murder in its eyes. “You will not get the pleasure of Unity,” The alicorn screamed into my brain. “I will rip you apart myself!”

Then she was lunging at me. I rolled to my side, just narrowly avoiding being impaled on her horn. As I recovered I felt a small tugging in my chest. I looked down to see a telekinetic glow around where my heart was. I realized with horror that the alicorn was trying to rip out my heart.

I grasped at my chest and gasped for breath as I felt the telekinetic grip tighten

I raised Boneless again and fired at the alicorn. Her shield flared to life again, deflecting the shot, but it forced her to release her grip on my heart.

Xayah had finally pulled herself to her hooves and rushed at the alicorn with surprising speed considering she had shards of glass sticking out of her back. As Xayah got closer to the looming alicorn she tapped the gem on her stealth cloak and vanished from view. The alicorn showed signs of surprise, quickly followed by anger as Xayah appeared atop the alicorns back and began trying to stab at it with her knife. With each strike of the knife, the alicorns horned flared up, creating a smaller shield to deflect the blows.

I swung my baton at the alicorn again, hoping Xayah would be a big enough distraction for the alicorn to not notice me. Unfortunately the alicorn noticed me anyway.

Still deflecting Xayah, the alicorn wrapped my baton in a field of telekinesis and flung my own weapon at my face. The impact sent me flying back and crashing into the large terminal against the wall, my back hitting a large red button as I landed.

The eyes of metal owls that lined the ceiling above us began glowing a crimson red and the mechanical birds began flying down from the ceiling.

Seriously? This building had security owl robot? Oh come on!

The Alicorn bucked Xayah off her back and put up a shield to avoid being disintegrated by the multitude of lasers that began raining down on us from the owls above.

Xayah, Brisk and I however did not have the luxury of magic shields. We began racing for the doorway, doing our best to dodge any and all robot bird lasers.

A handful of birds continued to fly in circles around the room, shooting at anything that moved, while the rest began flying out the door and into the rest of the building. I heard shouting coming from two floors below as the owls began attacking the slavers that were on their way up.

Shit, I had forgotten that the alicorn had dragged a small army of well armed ponies into the building with her. The owls had saved us some time, but I estimated that it would only take a few more minutes before the rest of the slavers pushed through the buildings defenses and made it to the fourth floor.

The three of us ducked behind the door frame as the alicorn began battling with the remaining metal owls.

“We need a plan,” I said quickly as I tossed two shotgun shells into my gun. “Any Ideas?”

My companions shrugged helplessly.

“We need to do something, just attacking it isn’t doing us any good,” I said in a panic. I had no idea how we were going to kill this thing. “That alicorn is to strong, none of our attacks can get through it’s shield.”

Xayah rolled something around inside of my saddlebag which rest on the floor beside me. “What if we attack it from inside of its shield?”

Before I had time to question what that meant, I heard the alicorn blast the last owl in the room to bits. “Alright my little ponies,” The alicorn screamed. I covered my ears to try and block out the noise in my head. I really didn’t like ponies talking inside of my brain. “Come out, come out wherever you are!”

Xayah just looked between Brisk and I. “Just distract her. I have a plan,” And with that she tapped the gem on her cloak and disappeared with my saddlebags.

I glanced over at Brisk. “You ready?”

He gave me a smug smile and pulled out his pistol. “There are worse ways to die.”

We jumped back around the door frame and into the room. The alicorn narrowed its eyes as it saw us, its horn began glowing with light.

Blam!

Boneless fired a shot. As I had expected, the alicorns shield flickered into view and deflected the shot. But I wasn’t trying to hit her now; now I was simply trying to distract her.

I telekinetically rammed the stock of my gun into the force field, making the alicorn rock to the side. At the same time, Brisk swung his machete in a large arch towards the alicorn. The heavy blade made contact with the shield, making the alicorn lose focus a little.

“Enough of this!” The alicorn yelled. The force field dropped and several rays of light lashed out from her horn. Brisk dropped to the ground, the beams of energy streaking over his head and singeing the ends of his tail.

I was less lucky. Multiple rays struck me, sending me flying backwards and knocking the breath out of me. I tried to pull myself back to my hooves to find my injured foreleg had finally given out and refused to hold my weight.

Damn it leg! Not now!

The alicorn took two steps towards us. “As if you three actually stood a chance against me!” The alicorn declared in triumph, a crazed tone in her voice. Then she stopped and glanced around. “Where is the zebra!”

A ripple in the air behind the alicorn gave her her answer. The alicorn swung around and blasted the invisible zebra with another laser before quickly bringing up her shield again. Xayah flashed back into view as she was hit by the burning laser. The blast struck her shoulder and knocked her backwards where she lay in a crumpled heap on the floor.

The alicorn laughed. “Did you really think you could sneak up on me! Your plan has failed!” But our plan hadn’t failed. As I stared at the alicorn I finally understood what Xayah had meant by attacking her from inside her shield.

I grinned and pulled myself to my hooves. My leg gave out again and I tumbled back to the floor with a thud. “Oh yeah? Guess again,” I taunted, struggling to hold back a smug grin.

I pointed to the alicorns hooves where a small grenade lay trapped within the alicorns force field. The alicorn glanced down at her hooves with just enough time to see the explosive and drop her shield before the grenade went boom!

A cloud of dust erupted from around the alicorn as the grenade went off, obscuring our view of everything that wasn’t within a few inches of our face. Shrapnel rained down around us, forcing me to cover my eyes and take a step back.

I spotted the pale glow of light around the alicorns horn through the cloud of dust. Small and obscured, but still very clearly there.

You have got to be kidding me! How was she still not dead!?

I raised my shotgun to what I imagined to be the alicorns head level and advanced towards the flickering light. The dust settled as I approached, revealing the alicorn standing in a large pool of blood and flesh.

The alicorn had seen better days. Half of the creatures face had been torn off by flying shrapnel and she was missing her left eye. Both of her wings were filled with holes and her legs were a broken bloody mess. But shockingly, she was still standing.

As the alicorns horn glowed I watched in amazement as her muscle and skin tissue slowly weaved itself back together. Her eye began reforming in her socket and the holes in her wings began to patch themselves back together. The only proof of the wounds ever existing was a collection of silver scars all over her body.

“Oh come on!” I yelled at the alicorn. “Is flight, magic, and fucking force fields not enough! You have to have healing magic too! That’s just cheating!”

There are a lot of upsides to healing magic. The main reason of course being that you could heal most of the wounds you receive in battle with the exception of broken limbs. The downside however (and this applies mostly to dumb fucking alicorns that don't know when to die) is that while you are healing yourself, you aren’t able to use any other kind of magic due to the amount of concentration required to cast such a spell. Unable to use magic like a shield to be specific.

I targeted her head in SATS, raised boneless, and fired three shots point blank into the alicorns face. The first shot ripped away the remaining flesh, the second took out both of the alicorns eyes as well and pulverized the exposed muscle, and the third and final shot burst open the monsters skull and sent brain matter flying across the room in every direction.

The alicorn staggered slightly, managing to remain on all fours for a few seconds even after death. Then, the headless corpse of the alicorn fell to the floor.

Brisk and Xayah walked over and looked at the ruined body. “That could have gone much worse,” Xayah stated, her eyes lingering on the bloody remains of the alicorn. “I’ll be honest, I almost forgot to pull the pin. I have never used a grenade before.”

Before I could comprehend that Xayah simply forgetting the pin of the grenade could have killed us all, I heard a slaver shout. “They’re in here!” Crap, I had forgotten about them. Again.

A slaver in combat armor and a sniper rifle came charging around the corner of the door. I raised my shotgun to shoot him, but before I could do anything one of the mechanical owls flew from above him and sent a red laser straight through his chest. Almost instantly, the slaver turned into a fine red dust.

Instinctively, I swept up his saddlebag in my magic with one quick motion and dumped out the contents. Ten bullets for his sniper rifle dropped to the floor along with twenty or so caps. Perfect. I tossed the caps into my bag and loaded the bullets into my sniper before handing the gun over to Xayah. Now we all had guns.

Xayah took the gun in her hooves and gave me a quick nod.

“We need to get out of here,” I declared, spinning in a circle and trying to spot a way out. We couldn’t fight our way past twenty or so slavers, and while Xayah might have a stealth cloak, all three of us probably wouldn’t be able to sneak past them either.

Brisk stuck his head out the window the alicorn had destroyed. “Hey, let’s go out here!” he shouted, hauling himself onto and out of the window.

“Are you crazy!” I exclaimed, racing over to him. “This is the fourth floor!”

Brisk shook his head. “There is a thin ledge out here. We can scale the walls to the roof,” I glanced out the window. He was right. A thin ledge ran along the outside of the building at a steep slope. A few feet down the building I could make out what appeared to be another ledge that we could use to climb up to the floors above. Well that was oddly convenient.

“So we can get to the roof,” Xayah deadpanned. “What do we hope to do once we are up there?”

Brisk shrugged and continued to climb out the window. “We’ll cross that bridge when we get there I suppose,” His back hooves touched the ledge and he began inching along the side of the skyscraper.

This is insane. I thought to myself; watching as Xayah began to follow Brisk out and onto the ledge. The sound of shouting as the Slavers closed in reminded me that there were worse things we could be doing.

“There are worse ways to die,” I muttered to myself, rephrasing what Brisk had said only moments before.

I began making my way over to the window and glanced down at the street below. Even only four floors up, it was a lengthy drop. Goddesses I hated heights.

As I was pulling myself onto the window sill, my eyes landed on I stack of five orange holotapes next to three empty tins of Party-time Mint-als. Out of simple curiosity, I swiped them up and tossed them into my saddlebags.

“There they are!” A slaver shouted as he burst into the room and spotted me half out of the window. He pulled out his machine gun and opened fired on me.

Shit, this was the part where I get the fuck out of there.

I dropped to the ledge as a barrage of bullets whizzed above me. Keeping low to the ledge I began inching my way towards the far side of the building.

The slaver poked his head out the window and watched with astonishment as we scaled the walls of the building. He sent a few shots our way before calling to the rest of the slavers.

“They are heading for the roof! Cut ‘em off!” as soon as he finished his command, he hopped out the window himself and began climbing towards us.

Fuck these assholes were persistent.

Brisk reached the far ledge and began pulling himself upwards with his forehooves. I could see his injured front legs start to shake as he hauled himself up. I supposed Buck can only do so much. As he made it to the second floor, he reached his hind hoof down to help Xayah up. As she seemed to be scaling the building better than the rest of us, I doubted she needed help, but she took his hoof anyway.

The slaver was closing in on me faster than I would have liked. I glanced behind me to see two more slavers climbing out the window with pistols.

Multiple shots flew past me as I raced for the far edge of the building. I reached up and grabbed onto Xayah's hoof, allowing her to pull me up. I grasped onto the second ledge and began to inch across again.

The second ledge was only about half the width of the first, making it much harder to climb. I spent less time trying to run forwards and more time trying to keep from falling.

The first slaver to climb out after us began firing at us with his machine gun again. I had to push myself as tight as I could against the wall to avoid being filled with lead. Holes were blown straight through the bottom of the ledge and I could feel it start to crumble away.

Clearly realizing that he might be able to make the ledge collapse, the slaver began focusing his weapon on the structure.

Yup, I definitely needed to get rid of this guy.

Reaching out with my magic, I wrapped his hind leg in a telekinetic field and gave it a good ol’ yank. As expected, the hoof was pulled out from under him and he was sent screaming towards the ground. A second later there was a horrifying thump and the screaming stopped.

I heard the two other slavers yell with surprise as they began tucking themselves closer to the side of the wall before I could do the same thing to them. At the same time, three more slavers pulled themselves out of the window. Holy shit, they just didn’t stop coming.

As we reached the end of the ledge we found a small flaw with our plan. The end of the ledge stopped only half way up the building with no obvious way to keep climbing up.

“Shit,” I heard Brisk mutter as he glanced down at the street below us.

I allowed myself to glance behind me to the two slavers. They had pulled themselves onto the second ledge and were approaching with alarming speed.

Xayah looked up the wall with a frown. She began trying to look up the wall at a strange angle, as if looking for something the rest of us couldn’t see.

“Either of you have a plan?” I asked, looking back and forth between the two of them. We really needed to start thinking our plans through better. We tend to come up with a basic concept and then start winging it about halfway through.

Xayah nodded. “Yes, I think we can scale this wall here,” I looked over at the brick wall we were standing beside.

“How?” Brisk asked, trying to spot what the zebra could see.

Xayah put a hoof on a brick that stuck out an inch or so from the wall. “Just follow what I do, the bricks should be able to act like a ladder,” without saying more, Xayah began climbing up the side of the vertical wall.

“No you fucking don’t!” I heard one of the slavers yell. I turned around to see them only a few feet way, pistols drawn and ready to fire.

I raised Boneless and checked my ammo. Only one shot left, better make it count. I aimed my gun between the slavers. They saw me readying to fire and pushed themselves up against the wall as to save from plummeting to their doom. I grinned. Checkmate.

Boneless fired my final shell at the wall, showering them with dust, shrapnel, and tiny bits of debris. The slavers stumbled, rubbing their eyes with their hooves as their sight got obscured by dust and rubble.

I telekinetically swung my baton at their heads, knocking both of them over the side with one quick motion.

I glanced up the wall. Xayah and Brisk had already made it a few feet up. I placed my hooves on the wall and began to climb after them.

The three slavers had begun to pull themselves onto the second ledge, their weapons clamped tightly in their mouths. They had used a similar tactic to us, helping each other climb up. Needless to say, they were climbing really fast.

As I pulled myself upwards I came to stop next to a large window. I peered inside to see a terminal and the charred remains of what had once been a pony lying in the corner. Interested, I squinted my eyes at something I saw tucked up against the skeletons chest - A twilight Sparkle statuette, very similar to the Rarity one I had in my possession.

The statuette seemed to be calling out to me, as if it desperately wanted to connect with the tiny white pony in my saddlebag.

I reached out towards the window. Maybe I could just…

A volley of bullets peppered the wall beside be, nearly making me lose my grip on the bricks.

Okay fine wasteland! Have it your way!

I began climbing again, leaving the small statuette behind. Maybe I could come back for it some time. Though, if time in the wasteland continued the way it had been going, I doubted I would be coming back this way.

Xayah and Brisk pulled themselves onto the top of the building. Brisk turned back and lowered his hoof for me to grab on. Unable to let go of the bricks without falling, I reached up with my mouth and bit onto the bottom of his leg.

Brisk winced as my teeth enclosed around his broken hoof, but he didn’t complain. I supposed he probably felt he didn’t have the right to complain, as leaving the Stable was his idea.

Brisk pulled me up onto the roof of the MoM building. I flopped onto the floor and lay there panting for a few seconds.

I looked up to see Xayah barricading the door to the roof with a broken piece of piping.

“That will not hold the slavers for long,” Xayah said, returning to us. “Once they reach the top floor, I give us about two minutes before they break through,” I was unsure if she knew that because she had been in a similar situation before, or if she was simply good at guessing.

“So, what now?” I asked, glancing around the roof. I spotted a giant red scooter that had once been atop the building beside us, had since fallen and now become a fairly sturdy bridge to cross to the next building. Again, it was oddly convenient, but hey! I’m not complaining.

I pointed out the scooter to my friends, though they seemed to have already spotted it as well.

Pounding started coming from the door to the building, drawing our attention. The broken pipe was already struggling to hold against the weight of the slavers ramming into the door. Xayah might have said we had two minutes, but I only gave us one.

“Welp, no time like the present, am I right,” Brisk laughed as he charged across the bridge. I had no idea how he kept a cheerful attitude in times like this.

Xayah and I began to follow him across. The scooter rocked under our weight, but seemed to hold. As we ran, I could hear the door burst open as the remaining slavers rushed onto the roof. I could hear their yells of frustration as they fired round after round at us.

The wasteland is a funny thing. It's a very diverse place, where you really can’t predict what is about to happen. One minute you were talking to your mysterious robot friend, the next your fighting and alicorn, and shorty after that you get chased by a bunch of slavers across a giant scooter.

When a giant, winged lion scorpion thing lunged from the sky and began attacking the slavers, things had already gone so far out of left field that I wasn’t even surprised.

The slavers attention quickly turned from us and onto the oncoming beast as it ripped and gnawed its way through the slavers. There were screams of “Kill it! Kill it!” and “Manticor!” then only the sounds of ripping flesh and gunfire.

I didn’t bother checking behind me as we raced into and down the building across from us. We didn’t stop running until both the slavers, the MoM building, and whatever the fuck a Manticor was, were far behind us.

When we finally did stop, we just flopped onto our backs and caught our breath.

“That’s it, I hate the wasteland!” I declared, resting the back of my head against the ground.

Xayah chuckled. “Yes, it is a rather unpleasant place.”

I checked the map on my pipbuck. We were still heading in the general direction of Friendship City, but our run had put us off course a little. I guessed it would be a few hours walk at most. Which wouldn’t be so bad if we didn’t keep running into stuff that wanted to kill us.

I groaned. “Well, let's get going. I really don’t want to be in the middle of Manehattan when it gets dark out,” Everyone thoroughly agreed.

“...And that's when we met Watcher for the first time,” Brisk explained. He had been retelling our adventure to Xayah as we walked. I walked a few paces ahead of the two of them, scouting out for danger and making sure we stay on track. “He told Amber where to find some medication. Then we just followed the tunnel until we found you.”

“An exciting tale,” Xayah applauded. “That is a rather harsh way to enter the wasteland. Though it is never a friendly place, you two seem to have gotten a particularly rough start.”

There was an awkward silence between the two of them.

“Soooooo,” Brisks voice piped up. “What do you do for fun out in the wasteland? Or is it always just a struggle to survive.”

“There are plenty of things to do in the wasteland,” Xayah replied. “My family often passed the time by telling stories or funny jokes. Though I suppose different groups do different things,” I thought I heard her voice catch at the mention of her family, but I wasn’t sure.

“Jokes!” I heard Brisk exclaim excitedly. “I love jokes. Oh! Here is one you might like! What is black and white and black and white and black and white and green?”

Xayah thought for a moment. “I am unsure,” She finally replied in a puzzled tone. “What is it?”

Brisk chuckled. “Three zebra’s fighting over a pickle!”

Both Xayah and I groaned at the joke.

“Oh Oh! I have another one!” Brisk declared, still clearly trying to stop himself from laughing. Xayah groaned again.

I pulled out the holotapes I had found and quickly put them into my pipbuck. I didn’t know what was on them, but anything was better than listening to Brisk’s jokes. I pushed play on the first recording and listened as the sound of static sprang to life.

“Happy Birthday Pinkie!” I heard the bubbly voice of Cheese Sandwich say. “You missed your party and I know that your busy with your ministry and all, so I thought I would send you an audio recording telling you how special you are! Tell her everypony!”

I could hear a few other ponies in the background yelling “Happy Birthday!”

“Did you get that present I sent you?” I heard Cheese Sandwich say. “I know you’ll just love it! You always do! Anyhow, I will get Derpy to send you this holotape as soon as I can. I’ll even save you a slice of cake or two, I know it’s your favorite! Triple chocolate and cherry!”

The audio recording cut out for a second, but after a short interval of static, Cheese Sandwich’s voice came back on. “...and so I hope everything goes well and that I can see you soon. It's been so long since we've thrown a party together, we really should do another one sometime. Oh, and make sure to say hi to you friends for me! I hope they are all having a super duper good time as well! And Happy Birthday!” there was a loud burst of static as the recording cut out.

I hit play on the next one and started listening to a slightly more somber sounding Cheese Sandwich. “I looked into that Silver Ace pony you kept telling me about Pinkie. I can’t find anything, but you’re right. That pony is up to no good. My Cheesy sense went crazy around him. Other than that though, he had his guard up at all times. I couldn’t find any way to get through to him. Have you tried talking to Fluttershy? She seems to be working with him a lot. I’ll update you on if I find anything, sorry I haven’t been the biggest, most super awesome help you wanted Pink,” once again, the recording shut out.

I looked at the pile of holotapes. Only three remained unplayed. I turned back to my friends a few feet behind me to see Brisk still in the middle of one of his jokes, Xayah’s expression was a mix of boredom and complete and utter despair.

Our eyes locked and Xayah’s gaze seemed to read ‘save me!’ I gave her a sympathetic smile that meant ‘I don’t want to be dragged into whatever that is.’ Xayah’s ears drooped in defeat.

Before I could hear the punchline of Brisks next joke, I loaded the next holotape and pushed play.

For a long time there was just silence, then I heard the faintest sound of breathing as what I assumed was Cheese Sandwich trying to figure out what to say next.

“I’m sorry to hear about Twilight,” Cheese Sandwich started. He hesitated as he said Twilight's name, as if he was afraid it was a landmine that could go off at any second. He sounded so sad, as if he were on the verge of tears himself. “I can go talk to her if you would like, but I don’t really know if that would be a good idea.”

There was another long silence. It was becoming very clear that Cheese Sandwich didn’t know what to say. “I hope to see you again soon Pinkie,” He finally said. “I can’t remember the last time the two of us spent time together,” and with a final buzz of static, the audio recording came to a close. the recordings were all short and awkward. I was getting the feeling that Cheese Sandwich was trying very hard to hold together a long broken friendship. I was beginning to feel really sorry for him.

Without bothering to see what my companions were up to, I inserted the second to last recording and pushed play. There was an echoing sound in the distance of the recording, almost like haunting drums. Aside from that however, it was eerily silent. There were no ponies talking in the background or the bustle of the busy Manehattan streets. Not even a bird called out. A silence had fallen over the land of Equestria.

There was a faint cough, to quiet to hear well, but loud enough to be heard. “Hey Pinkie, I got locked in this room when the bomb went off and I don’t think I’m going to be able to open it from the inside,” It was Cheese Sandwich’s voice again, though this time he sounded weak and in pain. “I think you're upstairs, so I doubt I will ever be able to give this to you, but I just wanted to let you know that…” He stopped just long enough to cough a few times. I could have sworn I heard the sound of blood dripping from his lips. “Let you know that you were right. About everything. Those crazy four star nuts… everypony…” He started coughing again, this time the coughing went on for a few minutes. “Not that it really matters anymore anyway. It’s all over now. I don’t even think that… that you’re even… goddesses! How did I not see this coming!”

I had to bite back my own tears as I heard the sound of Cheese Sandwich choking on something. I had been wrong, this was far worse than any of Brisk’s jokes.

The gagging ended and I heard Cheese Sandwich collapse to the ground. “You never did receive that party recording I made you, I still have it with me… I never found the right time…” He tried to laugh his bubbly, contagious laugh, only for it to be interrupted by a fit of coughing and sputtering. “I… I don’t know how long I have left… I’m taking in more radiation than any sane pony should… I’ll probably drop soon, it’s just a matter of time… not that that’s a bad thing. I could use a little sleep. It's been a long few months for all of us. Besides, the last thing I want is to be stuck in this ol’ room forever…” He choked back his own tears and made a strange noise in the back of his throat that sounded like a mix between a scream and a gargle. "What do you say Pinkie? Ready for one last party? Lets make it our best one yet..." He started coughing again and this time, he didn’t stop until the recording finally shut out.

As the audio file came to a close I found myself crying. I had managed to stay strong for so long in the wasteland. Inside of the Stable, crying had been no stranger to me. I had cried plenty of times. But the moment I had stepped past the giant steel door of Stable 25, I had changed. I was stronger, more emotionally stable. I had been attacked, I had killed ponies, I had been injured and chased and probably had more existential crises than I had my entire life. Yet somehow, I had pushed forward and held back my tears, because I knew that if I were to start crying… I probably wouldn’t be able to stop.

Not now though. Now I stood stopped in the middle of some desolate, long abandon street in the middle of the goddess damned wasteland and wept. I cried for myself, for Brisk, and for Xayah and her lost family. I cried for Cheese Sandwich and Pinkie and everypony else who's lives had been ended by the war for no fault of their own. Cheese Sandwich’s words had hit me harder than I could have imagined. What had I done!

I remembered the body of the zombie pony lying legless on the floor of the MoM Building. He had been a good pony once. A great pony. He had recorded a birthday party of Pinkie, just because she was busy…

And I had killed him…

“You alright Amber?” Brisk asked, placing a hoof on my shoulder, shaking me from my trance like weeping. I hadn’t heard him walk up, I had been to distracted with these jumbled emotions that had sprung on me out of seemingly nowhere. “What’s wrong?”

I turned to him, tears streaming down my face. I must have looked terrible, all red eyed like that. “I killed him Brisk,” I sobbed, pointing to the holotapes. “He was a good pony and I killed him!”

Brisk just looked confused. “Who are we talking about?”

“Cheese Sandwich!” I shouted, trying to hide my tears. “He’s dead because of me!” Brisk still looked just as confused as he had before, if not more so. I let out a slow shaky sigh. “The zombie pony at the Ministry of Morale building.”

Understanding crossed Brisk’s face, though he still looked a little confused. “But you didn’t kill him Amber… I did.”

I looked back up at him. “What?”

“I killed him remember?” I shook my head even though I did. I could clearly remember taking his gun, blowing off his legs, and then looting his body. I hadn’t even checked to see who it was I had just killed until after I had taken all of his stuff. Brisk might have dealt the final blow, but that didn’t make me any less of a murderer. If anything, it just meant that his blood was on both of our hooves.

“That ghoul had most likely been insane for two hundred years,” Xayah commented. I hadn’t seen her approach either. “Killing him was most likely a favor.”

I nodded slowly, fighting back my tears. I could keep going. I had to keep going.

Something about what Xayah had said didn’t seem right though. Cheese Sandwich had reloaded his gun, which told me there was still a bit of who he once was left in him. Who had actually attacked first? Was he still sane and simply trying to defend himself against us? That didn’t quite sound right either though.

I took a deep breath and looked towards where I was finally able to see Friendship City peeking over many of the toppled skyscrapers. I could do this…

“Alright… I’m okay now,” I lied, continuing my walk forward. I caught Brisk and Xayah exchange a quick concerned glance in the corner of my eye. I doubted they fully believed me.

We continued on our way. As we walked I looked at the final holotape. I shook my head and placed it back into my saddlebag, figuring that I probably wasn’t ready to listen to whatever content it held.

The ordeal about Cheese Sandwich had gotten me thinking about all the other ponies I had killed since I left the Stable. Had some of them been good ponies too? What had Suri been like before the bombs? Did the raiders have family and friends? Did the Slavers? They might have… I didn’t know anything about them besides they were lying dead at the base of the MoM building. What about the bandits that Brisk shot? They had only been trying to survive… If I had managed to save them, could they have become our friends?

I pushed the thoughts from my mind. If I kept thinking like this, I was going to drive myself insane. I had to keep going.

We walked in silence for around an hour. Brisk attempted to make conversation a few times, but after all that had happened, no pony could seem able to keep the conversation going.

At last we approached Friendship City. It was exactly as I had seen it from the MoM Building, though now that I was up close, I could make out a bunch of other details. The settlement was actually across a large body of water, with the only way across being a large, fairly well maintained bridge. A few smaller structures were set up on our side of the water. I assumed they were there as some form of security measure, though I wasn’t exactly sure how or why.

The wooden structures that I had seen from the MoM building I was now discovering to be more for defense than actual living area. All the housing itself seemed to be almost entirely inside of the statue.

A large sign beside the bridge read, ‘Welcome to Friendship City. Friendliest place in the wasteland!’

As the three of us approached the bridge, we were confronted by two guard ponies in matching security barding.

“Welcome to Friendship City,” The guard on the right said, rephrasing what the sign already stated. I was almost unsettled by how friendly they were. Regardless of if I was wandering the wasteland or back in the dull halls of Stable 25, no one had simply acted nice to me. I did notice a strange glance at Xayah though.

They were friendly, but not completely free of prejudice.

Xayah seemed to notice their glances as well and pulled up her hood in an attempt to conceal her face. I’d have told the guards to be more inviting to zebras, had I not been tempted to leave her in a cage for raiders when I first saw her.

Shit, I guess almost abandoning Xayah was another thing to add to the list of cruelties I had committed since leaving the Stable.

Thankfully, the guards didn’t argue as the three of us gave them small smiles and nods and began walking across the bridge, even if they did seem nervous about a zebra with a stealth cloak entering the city.

“This place seems friendly,” I commented once we were halfway across the bridge and well out of earshot of the guards.

Both Brisk and Xayah nodded in agreement. “Indeed, that is why my family and I intended to come here,” Xayah said. “We were told they try to be less prejudice towards zebra kin.”

The fact that they had let Xayah in proved that, though I did note that Xayah used the words ‘try to be’ instead of ‘are less’.

As we reached the end of the bridge, three more guards stood outside the entrance to the city. Two stood on either side of the door, while the third approached us with a smile.

“Greetings,” the guard said, as we stepped off of the bridge and onto the island that Friendship City was built into. “Names, Lantern. I’m afraid you will need to turn in your weapons before you enter the city. Friendship City is a friendly place after all, and we would like to keep it that way.”

I pulled out Boneless and my baton and levitated the weapons over. “We will get these back right?” I asked as Lantern took them and placed them in a large safe.

Lantern smiled. “Of course. All of your belongings will be returned on your way out. We just can’t afford to have ponies walking around the city waving guns around. We are having enough internal problems going around as it is, we wouldn’t want violence to get involved.”

I shared a glance with my friends. “What kind of internal problems?” Brisk asked as he relieved himself of his pistol and machete. “Anything interesting?”

Lantern shook their head. “Black Seas and Raspberry Tart are just havin’ a little spat about the politics of Friendship City. Nothing some newcomers like you need to worry about. You three just do your best to have a good time in the city,” Lantern turned to Xayah who quickly handed over her sniper and knife. Lantern hesitated for a moment before clearing their throat. “Um… We will need to take you’re stealth cloak as well, if you don't mind.”

I could see Xayah’s clear hesitation as she looked down at the black fabric she had draped over herself, clearly hoping to keep it to avoid too much attention. Finally she pulled of the gem on the front and handed it over to the guard.

Lantern pondered if that was enough for a second before nodding and letting us pass. Before we entered, I pulled Lantern aside for a quick second.

“So, What can you tell me about friendship City?” I asked. Brisk and Xayah motioned to me that they would be waiting inside when I was done. I gave them a quick smile in return.

Lantern nodded. “Well if you are looking for a place to rest your head, I’d recommend the Warm Smiles Inn. Great place. Course if you need something a little cheaper, there is always the Common room for free. Though I would steer clear of there, Raspberry Tart runs the area you see. Been told she runs it a little more dirty than the rest of us here in Friendship City would like,” They said. “If you're looking for a place to buy or barter, the market area has got pretty much everything you could want… Is there anything specific you are looking for?”

I nodded. “Yeah, I’m looking for some ponies that are traveling through the Manehattan area. I was hoping I could find somepony that might have information.”

Lantern thought for a second. “You might just be in luck actually. See there is this old buck named Tales that comes by every now and again. He makes it his business to know just a little bit about everything going on in Manehattan. Crazy old pony, but he knows his stuff when he can separate it from his conspiracies,” Lantern replied. “He ain’t hard to miss, tall frail buck with a black stetson, usually talking about what the institute plans to do next, or when the Enclave is going to finally decide to come down from the sky.”

“Thank you, this has been a lot of help,” I said, turning from lantern and entering the city.

Friendship City was massive. Concentric rings rose up the walls of the massive statue, each ring holding a collection of different stores and homes. A large spiral staircase ran up the center of the structure, with multiple walkways and platforms branching out from the steps to merge with the rings.

A majority of the structures were built from scavenged parts of ships that they had most likely pulled from the harbor, giving the city the feel of a boat cemetery. I noticed that a few of the shops were simply boats that had been disassembled, brought inside, and then reassembled to their entirety.

It wasn’t until I realized I was currently standing on the deck of a large barge that I realized how truly enormous the city actually was. From outside I could tell that the statue stood above most of the other structures in Manehattan, but I hadn’t quite realized how much bigger it was. For a pony that had spent her whole life inside of a Stable where the roof was only about a foot above your head, it was almost hard to comprehend.

Friendship City was also the largest gathering of ponies I had ever seen. Large groups of ponies moved about the city, going about their day to day lives in the makeshift buildings. There were ponies in almost every direction I looked, some walking across the catwalks while many others stood around talking or bartered with merchants at the many vendors.

Brisk stood in shock as well, his jaw slightly slack as he stared up at the enormous city. He might not have been as afraid of the sky as I was, but he was still awestruck by Friendship City.

I gave him a smirk and extended my hoof to give the bottom of his jaw a tap. “Keep your mouth closed there buddy, we aren’t even through the front gates yet.”

Finding this Tales fellow was harder than I expected. The marketplace that Lantern described wasn’t just one floor, but several. And if that didn’t make it hard enough to find him, the fact that there were more ponies than I had seen in my life was making it damn near impossible.

After almost half an hour of searching, we came to a stop in a large cafeteria area and sat at one of the empty tables.

“What does this Tales buck look like again?” Brisk asked, glancing around the crowd. As the sun outside began to set, many of the ponies had begun to return to their beds, making the place look a little less crowded. “He has a stetson? Not really much to go off of there.”

“He’s frail and probably spewing conspiracy theories,” I replied. “Lantern said he would be hard to miss. So we will probably know when we see him.”

“And yet he still remains unfound,” Xayah commented, joining us at the table with three Sparkle-colas and some weird looking meat on a stick. “A pony gave this to me for only 3 caps,” Xayah said as she handed us the food and beverage. “The ponies here are rather kind, and they do seem to be very negotiable.”

I took the meat skewer and eyed it suspiciously. “This isn’t Radroach is it?” I asked, hoping that fried insect wasn’t the main food choice out in the wasteland.

Xayah chuckled softly. “Oh no, most ponies come to places like Friendship City or Tenpony Tower simply to escape the need to eat such things,” Well that was a relief. “This is Radigator meat. It comes from a town called Arbu up by Bucklyn Cross.”

I didn’t know what Bucklyn Cross was, so that detail didn’t help much, but Radigator sounded more appetizing than Radroach, so I wasn’t going to complain.

The meat didn’t taste bad either. I was still wrapping my head around the idea that I had to digest food to survive and I would have much preferred to just be in a Stable being fed by the A.A.S.S. but if I had to eat, this would do fine.

“Friendship City seems a lot more exciting than the Stable, Aye,” Brisk said, looking up at the rings that we were still yet to explore. “You don’t get to see the sky either. Place is practically perfect for you.”

I followed his gaze and gave a sad smile. “Perhaps, but I still want to go home after all of this is done. No place in the wasteland can replace the Stable.”

Brisk frowned. “Can’t it though? I mean, you’d probably be happier out here…”

I shook my head. “Happy? In the wasteland? I don’t think the wasteland even knows what happy is,” Brisks face fell. I got the sinking suspicion that he was trying to convince me to stay out here with him when we final returned the A.A.S.S. I recalled the conversation we had had in the morning. He was probably afraid of being left alone. “But hey, I bet they don’t need to listen to that goddess damned music every morning.”

He perked up at the thought. “Fuck yeah! No more of that stupid tune!”

Xayah raised her eyebrows. “Why would they play it in the morning? We can listen to the music whenever we want?”

Brisk and I just stared at her. “Oh goddesses! Don’t tell me they play the fucking parasprites song in Friendship City too!” Brisk exclaimed in anguish. “If that song starts playing I am grabbing my gun and shooting every damn speaker in this city! To hell with the whole no guns policy!”

“The parasprite song? Oh Celestia no!” Xayah replied quickly, calming Brisk down. “I mean the radio… You have heard the radio, yes?”

Brisk and I exchanged another glance. “There is a radio in the wasteland?” I asked.

Xayah nodded. “I am surprised you haven’t listened to it yet, I assumed you can pick it up on the pipbuck of yours,” She reached forward and tapped my hoof.

I began quickly going through all of the radio signals on my pipbuck. Static, static, static, static, no wait! One of the radio channels was broadcasting something. I clicked it and out of my pipbuck came music.

I was no stranger to music, or so I had thought. I had heard it every morning of my life since long before I could remember. But this wasn’t anything like the Stable-tec march, or even the eerily similar tune of the Spritebots. This song was beautiful.

Melodies rose and fell, only to later mingle seamlessly with other flowing sounds. There was a pony singing too, her voice soft and sweet and full of more emotion that I though any one pony could convey. I couldn’t make out the words though, I had been hypnotized by the enchanting song from the second it reached my ears. The longer the song went, the harder it became to hold back tears.

At some point, I found the strength to turn my head and look at Brisk. He had frozen in place, his tear filled eyes locked onto my pipbuck.

He had left the Stable to try and live a life worth living. In his eyes, this music must have been proof that he had managed to do just that.

As the music slowly began to fade out I managed to form words. “Wha… what was that!”

As if answering my question, the smooth voice of a stallion came out of my pipbuck. “Ah, that was Sweetie Belle with ‘I’ll love you always’. That one always brings a smile t' my face.”

My eyes widened in surprise. “Holy Fuck! There is a buck in my pipbuck!” Brisk looked equally started by my revelation.

Xayah giggled at our reaction. “No, you foolish ponies,” She chuckled. “That is DJ Pon3, he runs the radio.”

Well now I just felt stupid.

“Now listen up children, it’s time for the news… Today is a busy day it seems ponies, I got lots of things t' report. First and foremost I’d like to rephrase what I said earlier today. It seems Blackwing and her talons are still suck up in Horseshoe tower. Is no pony able t' help them? Or does no pony simply want t' after their last few stunts? hard t' say for sure, but I’m guessing the latter. In other news, it would seem that there are a bunch of Canterlot ghouls walking about Manehattan near Fetlock. What are they doin’ so far away from their mighty castle of pink cloud you ask? Once again, it’s hard to say, but I’d put my money on it being connected to all the shenanigans that have been going down in post apocalyptia these last few days.

“Is that all? I hear you yell. What else could possibly be happening in the goddess damned wasteland? Well let me tell you, and this one has me excited! See I have it under good authority that everypony's favorite Stable dweller has made her way t' Manehattan. Maybe I’ll finally be able t' share more than just her actions with you, but her thoughts as well. I think the wasteland could use a little more of what she has to say, don’t you? Until next time children, this is DJ Pon3, bringing you the truth, no matter how bad it hurts…”

I turned off my pipbuck and looked between my two friends in shock. “How the fuck does he know who we are?” I blurted, waving my pipbuck in front of both of their faces.

“He must be working with those Red Eye slavers!” Brisk agreed, casting my pipbuck a dirty look. “They are the only ponies that have seen us and are still alive!”

Xayah looked almost alarmed. “Working with Red Eye? Whatever do you mean?”

“How else would DJ Pon3 know that we were walking around in Manehattan?” I demanded, almost angry at whoever this DJ was. “No one else even knows we are out here… except maybe Watcher…”

Xayah just stared at us for a long second, completely dumbfounded. Then, realizing what we were saying, slapped her striped hoof against her face. “He was talking about a different Stable dweller,” She said bluntly, removing her hoof from her face. “He has been talking about this heroine for just over a month now.”

Silence.

“Wow…” Brisk muttered, taking a bite of his Radigator. “We’re dumb,” I couldn’t have agreed with him more.

I looked at our food. “So, how many caps do we have left? We had 30, right?”

Xayah nodded. “The number of caps we have left to spend remains unchanged.”

Brisk glanced around. “I thought our meal was three caps?” He leaned in closer and whispered. “You didn’t steal this food, did you?” He was grinning while he said that last part. Part of me though he almost wanted our zebra friend to have committed theft.

Xayah shook her head. “No, the pony was simply foolish enough to forget to remove the caps on our Sparkle-colas.”

As we began laughing at our good fortune, I spotted a flash of metal amongst the ponies around us. I squinted in the direction of the metal until I spotted the cyber pony walking through the crowd.

He didn’t look like the cyber ponies that had invaded my Stable. Unlike the other cyber ponies, he was more flesh and blood than metal. He was a heavily scarred grey earth pony stallion with a jet black mane and matching tail. The only cybernetic part of him that I could see was a pair of metallic wings attached to his side. Each wing was a little bit larger than the average Pegasus wing and was comprised out of sharp blades where others would have feathers.

He was different enough to make me believe he wasn’t one of the same ones, but my eyes lingered on his blade like wings.

“They’re identical,” I muttered to myself, more impulsive than anything else.

Brisk raised his eyebrow. “What is?” He asked.

I pointed a hoof to the scarred cyber pony. “His wings… they look just like the ones the cyber alicorn in Stable 25 had.”

“What should we do then?” Brisk said, looking at the half metal pony. I ignored his question and began trotting over to the cyber pony. “Wait, Amber! What if it’s dangerous?”

“Amber seems to forget there are other ways to approach things other than head on I find,” I heard Xayah comment thoughtfully.

Brisk simply grunted. “I’ve noticed…”

I slowly approached the cyber pony. “Um… hello, I was wondering if I could talk to you for a second?” I asked. The cyber pony turned and glared at my with steel coloured eyes, but remained silent. This was already getting uncomfortable.

You gotta do this Amber. I reminded myself. The whole Stable is counting on me.

I puffed my chest out and tried again. “I’m looking for some cyber ponies that have very similar wings to yours, do you know anything about them?” again, the cyber pony remained silent. Though I noticed he was looking a little annoyed.

I was about to try a different tactic when I heard a voice behind me. “Can I help you with something?”

I turned to see the fattest mare I had ever seen. Her form was almost comparable to that of a large blob instead of a pony. She had a pomegranate coat with a mustard yellow mane. She smiled at me with a charming grin that fit neither her appearance or her tone.

“Uh, no…” I replied cautiously. “I just need to talk to this cyber pony here…”

“Gizmo here is my bodyguard, so if you want to talk to him you will need to talk to me,” the mares voice practically dripped with a mix of honey and malicious sarcasm.

I paused. “Um… sorry, who are you,” Shit, that came out ruder than I had wanted. Before I could rephrase myself I saw the mare narrow her eyes.

“My name is Raspberry Tart,” She replied coldly. “You had better remember it.”

I shrunk back. “Sorry, I was just…”

Raspberry Tart flicked her tail in the direction of Gizmo. “Come now, we have things to do,” The cyber pony nodded and began following her towards the staircase in the center of the city.

I cursed under my breath. I was about to give chase to them when an old, eccentric voice piped up. “You lookin’ for a buncha cyber ponies?”

I turned to see an elderly brown buck rocking back and forth on an old rocking chair, which was most peculiar since he was in the middle of the room. He was frail, practically skeletal and his wrinkled hide was covered in dark black tattoos depicting a bunch of historical moments from Equestira’s history that I had learned about back in school. The left side of the bucks face had been burned away, revealing soft, pink fleshy skin and atop his head sat a black stetson.

“Tales?” I asked, slowly approaching the stallion. Tales gave me a slow nod. I gestured for Brisk and Xayah to join me as I approached him.

“Ya ever heard of the Institute?” The old stallion asked, waving his forehoof in the air. “Those maniacs are snatchin’ ponies all over the wasteland up. Probably using them for some sorta sick twisted experiments too! Enclave is doin’ the same! Those buggers are going to swoop down from the sky alright, but I assure you, it ain’t to help.”

I shook my head. “I’m looking for some cyber ponies that are somewhere in Manehattan,” I said, brushing off his question. Then I scratch the back of my head awkwardly. “Which you already knew…”

Tales grunted gruffly. “Ignore the signs all ya want, but don’t say I didn’t warn ya,” The older buck gave a small cough. “Let me tell you, there ain't many cyber ponies roamin’ the wasteland these days,” Tales said, leaning back in his rocking chair and putting a corncob pipe into his mouth. “Plenty down in Filly, but in Manehattan? Ya got Gizmo, but that’s ‘bout it.”

“Do you know where some might be going?” I asked. Brisk and Xayah finally pulled up next to me, looking the old stallion over.

Tales gave a low, shaky laugh. “Do I know where some might be goin’?” I chuckled to himself again. “I can do you one better, I’ll let them tell ya!” He reached down and picked up a clunky black contraption that had been resting beside his rocking chair.

It took me a second to identify what the contraption was. I had seen one in my Stable only once, and it had been behind a thick pane of glass.

Or Stable had what one might call a museum. It consisted of around twenty pre-war artifacts and a handful of audio files for your pipbuck that give you the ‘complete’ history of the great war. Among those artifacts, was the rusted remains of what had at one point in time been something called a camera.

Now the black box that Tales held in his hoof was a much sleeker design, and lacked the rust that the camera I had seen had been adorned with, but it was definitely the same kind of device.

Brisk however, definitely did not go to Stable 25’s infamous museum, and if he had I would imagine he probably spent more time trying to steal from it than listen to what the audio recordings had to say.

“What in the name of Luna is that supposed to be?” He asked pointedly. “A paper weight?”

Tales simply scowled at the young green unicorn. “I can assure you, this is not as effective of a paper weight as your thick skull.”

I grinned. I liked this pony.

“Give ‘em hell!” the cyber alicorn on the flickering projection commanded, pointing his metal hoof towards a group of blue and green alicorns. It startled me to see there was more than just the one alicorn we had fought in the MoM building. It out right horrified me that the four cyber ponies I was hunting were so willing to fight a group of such powerful adversaries. Worse, they seemed to be killing the alicorns with ease.

Tales had invited us over to his living quarters at Friendship City. It was a small room consisting of an old mattress that didn’t look like it had been cleaned in years and about twelve or so shelves that held weird trinkets he had collected from all over the wasteland.

Tales had grabbed us some tea and attached his camera to an old, dusty projector. Before long the four of us were watching the flickering video recording of the four cyber ponies that I had encountered only two days ago.

Brisk shuttered when he saw the large canons on the cyber ponies sides. Had I not seen them before, I would have shuttered too.

The four cyber ponies bast there way through alicorn after alicorn. Explosive blue blasts of energy lanced from their canons and blew holes right through the alicorns shields. One cyber pony even had the audacity to laugh maniacally as he continuously stomped on an alicorns head.

One by one, the alicorns fell until only one remained. It turned and tried to fly away, but the cyber alicorn was faster, rocketing towards it and lashing out at the creatures neck with its blade like wings. There was a snap and the alicorns head was severed from its neck with a single clean cut.

I winced as the alicorn fell and crashed into the ground. I had been right, those were the exact same wings as Gizmo.

The cyber ponies chuckled as they stepped over the broken carcass.

“Almost a shame we are meeting them at the halfway point,” The cyber pony who had been laughing in the middle of the fight soothed in his metallic voice. “I’d love to fight our whole way there.”

The two cyber ponies behind him chuckled in agreement. “It’s been too long since we were all able to fight alongside each other like this,” one of them said, this cyber pony carried two large flamers at its side. “I say when all of this is over, we go back to that Stable and blow it all to hell. Lot of ponies to use as target practice in there.”

Again, there was a round of laughter from the group as they nodded in agreed.

I froze. They wouldn’t! How could they even suggest wiping out the whole Stable… for fun? I could feel a strong anger rising inside of me. I couldn’t let them do that.

“Why do you think he wants this thing so badly anyway?” the cyber pony continued, pulling out the case that the A.A.S.S. rest in and tossing it into the air before catching it on the tip of his muzzle. “He not want to eat anymore or somethin’?”

The cyber alicorn turned and growled at him, finally breaking his silence. “Careful with that you moron!” He snarled, his eyes glowing a deep red. “I don’t care why he wants it, all I know is that he is paying all of us a lot of caps to get it to the Ponypalooza Hotel,” He glare at the cyber pony that had tossed the A.A.S.S. into the air darkened. “And only if we get it to him in one piece!”

The other cyber ponies all took a step back. The A.A.S.S. was very quickly returned to the cyber ponies side.

“Let’s get going,” The cyber alicorn grunted. “I fucking hate the wasteland.”

They began to walk away, but the cyber alicorn suddenly stopped. The other cyber ponies looked confused for a second, but they suddenly froze too.

After a suspenseful pause, they cyber alicorn spoke up. “There are a lot of advantages to being made out of wires and gears you know,” the cyber alicorn chilled in its deep, intimidating voice. He slowly turned his head to face the camera. I could almost feel Tales hold his breath in the recording. The cyber alicorn began to slowly approach us through the screen. “One of the greatest, among many other things, is that we have a built in EFS,” with that all four cyber ponies began bounding toward where Tales stood shaking.

Then Tales ran. And my Celestia, he could apparently run really damn fast. There was the sound of metallic shouting in the distance, followed by pounding metal hooves. Finally, the screen went blank.

Tales walked over to the projector and shut it off, darkening the room exponentially.

“How did you escape?” Brisk asked in awe as the flickering light shut off.

Tales chuckled. “Wasn’t easy; it's hard to hide from something that can pick up your life force through walls. But this ain’t my first rodeo I tell ya! Once had to hide from a whole army of raiders with pipbucks. Spent three days in a Radroach pit just so they couldn’t detect me on their EFS.”

“Where is the Ponypalooza Hotel?” I asked abruptly. The whole idea of the cyber ponies coming back to wipe out the rest of my Stable had left a bad taste in my mouth and left me in no mood for small talk.

“Just outside of Fetlock, I believe,” Xayah said. “Though I have never been there myself.”

Tales nodded, confirming our zebra friends statement. “Damn place is a death trap, more feral ghouls in there than I can shake a stick at, and I shake a lot of sticks!” he glanced down at my pipbuck. “Here, let me mark it on your map.”

The second I had the exact location of the hotel on my pipbuck I was racing out the door and towards the spiral staircase that lead out of Friendship City.

Brisk and Xayah raced out after me. “Amber wait? Where do you think you’re going?” Brisk demanded, taking a few steps down the stairs after me.

“The Ponypalooza Hotel!” I shouted back. “You heard those cyber ponies, once their done there going to go back to Stable 25. I can’t let that happen.”

“Amber, the sun is going to set soon. Besides, the three of us are so exhausted and battered from the last two days that I doubt we would be any use in the wasteland,” Brisk retorted. “ At least let us buy some medication for our legs and get some rest. We can go and kill those sons of bitches in the morning.”

My legs were shaking and I was more than aware of the burning pain in my foreleg where the raider had cut into my flesh with a chainsaw. No doubt medicine and a good night's rest would do us some good, but I scowled at Brisk anyway. “No! The longer we wait, the further away they get and the closer they get to turning around and killing everypony we have ever known!”

“It would be foolish to fight them in our current state,” Xayah commented calmly. “You saw how lethal they can be. You will need something to fight them with, and as far as I can remember, you are out of ammo.”

I instinctively reached for my new gun Boneless, only to remember they had taken it at the front gate of Friendship City. I sighed, of course they were right. They were always right.

“Alright, I’ll wait until tomorrow,” I grumbled, pulling myself back up the steps. "But no later than that."

Brisk nudged my shoulder with his muzzle. “We will leave as soon as we can in the morning. I promise.”

Caps… We had only thirty caps to spend. That was thirty caps to buy a room for the night, get enough ammo to get all the way to the Ponypalooza Hotel and kill the cyber ponies, and get medical help for both of Brisks front legs as well as my own.

“A room costs how much?” I asked in disbelief as I talked to pony in charge of the Warm Smiles Inn.

The gruff looking stallion gave me a sympathetic look. “Twenty five caps, no more no less,” He said sternly. “Sorry, I can’t lower the price for you any. You and your friends can always sleep in the common room if you like. That's free for all ponies,” He gave a quick glance at Xayah. “An uh… and zebras too.”

I nodded and walked away from the hotel. “We cant do twenty five caps,” I told my friends. “Not if we want to send money on other things as well.”

“We could always sleep in the common room as that pony said,” Xayah stated. “It seems foolish to pass up on a free place to sleep.”

I grimace. “I suppose, but I heard that Raspberry Tart runs that, and honestly, I don’t think I feel safe in anything involving her.”

Brisk looked at my quizzically. “Raspberry who?”

“Raspberry Tart,” I restated. “I ran into her already, not the friendliest face in Friendship City.”

“Well it seems to me that medicine and ammo seems to be the most important thing to get at the moment, so let's go buy that and see where that leaves us, sound good?” Brisk asked, turning and walking towards the market area on the ring below us.

Xayah and I agreed and followed closely behind him.

It turns out that where that left us was about twenty shotgun shells for Boneless, ten additional shots for both Brisk’s pistol and Xayah’s sniper, a medical brace for both of Brisk’s legs, three healing potions, and about two caps remaining.

I looked at the remaining two bottle caps in my hoof. Definitely not enough to get a nice place to sleep. Not that I had expected to have such luck.

“So… Common room it is then,” I said with a pout. “Couldn’t be that bad. Right? You two sure we can’t just skip sleeping and go straight to the Ponypalooza Hotel?”

Brisk gave me a death glare. “No, we are getting our rest. We aren’t saving anypony how we are now. We need a good night's sleep.”

“Compared to the wasteland, I am sure that the common room isn’t that bad,” Xayah assured me, walking up to my side. “You’ve killed an alicorn now, it would be foolish for anyone to attack you.”

“It’s not an attack you need to worry about,” A pale grey buck said from the shadows beside me. “It’s the backstabbing and manipulation that’ll get to you.”

We turned to face the buck. It was hard to make out his features in the dark, but I could see that he wore a dark black suit and and wide brimmed fedora atop his head.

“I’m sorry, do I know you?” I asked, hoping the stallion would take a step forward. To my relief, he did.

He was tall, a decent amount taller than I was, but only a foot or so above Brisk. He had a dark pair of shades over his eyes and a bright silver tie. He reminded me a lot of a side hero in a ‘Power Ponies’ comic I read back in Stable 25 named the Silver Shroud.

“No, we haven’t been introduced before,” The buck started, extending his hoof to shake mine. I gave it a quick shake, not fully sure how to take this pony yet. “My name is Emissary.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” I replied sheepishly. “My name is Amber Aura, and these are my friends, Brisk Spark and Xayah,” Each of my friends gave a small wave as I said their respective names. “What can I do for you?”

“I’ll get right to it,” Emissary said, giving me a charismatic smile. “I have a friend named Flask out in Fetlock and I need to get a package delivered to him,” Emissary pulled out a small metal box with his mouth and placed it on the floor in front of us. “I heard that you three were heading out to Ponypalooza Hotel tomorrow, just so happens that Fetlock is right along the way. I was hoping that you could deliver it when you are in the area, or once you are done your business and on your way back.”

I was about to agree to his request when Brisk put out a hoof. “And what do we get in exchange?” He asked with a curious looking grin.

Emissary chuckled. “Of course, don’t think I didn’t have something in mind for that,” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small key. “I’ll be leaving Friendship City tonight for Tenpony Tower. I won’t be needing my room for a bit and I heard that you were looking for a place to sleep,” he passed Brisk the key. “Room is yours if you except my request.”

Free, private room in exchange for bringing a box to somepony out the direction we were already going? Seemed almost too good to be true. Perhaps the wasteland was finally giving us a break.

We all piled into Emissary’s room. It was a decent size, with one large bed in the corner and a small side room holding a small guest bed. The only other furniture in the room was a small desk pushed up against the corner adjacent to the master bed, leaving a large portion of the room empty. A round window on the far wall gave us a beautiful view of the harbor. It was clear that Emissary had hardly ever used the room.

I looked around the room. “So, who is going to sleep on which bed? I mean there are only two.”

Brisk bounced up and down and waved one of his brace enclosed hooves in the air. “I call the single bed to myself!” goddesses, he was practically a foal. His childishness did manage to put a small smile on my lips though, so I wasn’t complaining.

Xayah nudges me with her foreleg. “Guess we’re sharing then,” The zebra said before tossing herself down on the bed and sitting on her hindquarters.

Brisk raced over to the window and looked out at the water below us. He just stared for a long time, before finally turning back to face us. “You know, the wasteland doesn’t look to bad at night from up here. Kinda peaceful to be honest.”

I chuckled. “I think I’ll avoid the window, I can’t stand the sky as it is. The last thing I need is to see the ground from all the way up here.”

Brisk looked up at the sky and grinned. “I hope you can appreciate the sky one day, it's rather stunning I think.”

“I suppose you never saw the sky in the Sable, did you,” Xayah said, as if realizing that fact for the first time. “It is strange to think of a life that is confined to such a small area.”

“It ain’t all it's cracked up to be,” Brisk replied with a snort. “Just boring old grey walls with even more boring rules. The wasteland is where all the fun is at!”

“What did you ponies even do in the Stable?” Xayah asked. “I can’t imagine there was much to do.”

Brisk snorted again. “You got that right. Pretty much everything I did that was even remotely entertaining just got me thrown in a cell.”

“Well you two must have had hobbies?” Xayah insisted. “When you were bored, what did you do?” She turned to me for the last part.

I scratched the back of my neck awkwardly. “I don’t know, I just spent the day taking care of the generator room and sleeping,” I replied slowly, realizing how lame that sounded. “I mean I read lots of books and stuff… though usually those were just about machines as well - Sorry, you guys kinda just ended up traveling with the most boring pony ever…”
Xayah shook her head. “I do not think you are boring. I have known you for less than a day, and you are already one of the more interesting ponies I have met.”

I blushed and looked down at my hooves, letting my light pink and blue mane hide my face. “Thank you, but I’m really not.”

“Well is there anything you ever wanted to do?” Xayah asked in interest. “I’ve always wanted to be a singer.”

“Oh? You can sing?” Brisk asked, looking away from the window.

Now it was Xayah’s turn to blush. “Oh no, not at all. I said I always wanted to. My singing sound like hellhound giving birth, trust me when I say you do not want to hear it.”

I didn’t know what a hellhound was, or what it sounded like while giving birth, but I didn’t think I wanted to find out. “Well, I’ve always wanted to do painting…” I said shyly.

Xayah’s eyes widened. “Oh? I love painting? Have you painted anything before?”

I shook my head. “Nope, never tired, but it sounds like fun,” I turned to Brisk. “What about you? What do you like doing?”

Brisk gave us a devious grin. “Causing trouble and having adventures,” He said with a smirk, trying to fold his forehooves above his head. His braces made the act impossible however so he just kept his hooves at his sides. "And jokes of course. want to hear another one!?"

Xayah shook her head furiously, her eyes pleading for him to do anything but another joke. Brisk ignored her obvious distaste for his humor and laughed. "Here it goes, what is black and white and black and white and black and white and green?"

"You already told me this one," Xayah complained, grabbing the pillow beside her and shoving her head under it.

"No no, it's different this time, I promise," Brisk declared with a grin. "Do you want to know what it is?"

Xayah shuttered. "No, but you're going to tell me anyway..."

"It's you!" He said joyously, pointing a hoof at her green eyes. Xayah and I groaned. I was beginning to think that Brisk was intentionally making his jokes bad, just to annoy us. though by the way he was laughing at his own joke, I doubted that was the case.

I rolled my eyes. “Alright, but what else did you enjoy? Tell us something we don’t know?”

Brisk looked around the room for a moment, as if making sure we were alone. “Well… there is one thing…”

Xayah and I leaned in in anticipation.

“I… I, um,” Brisk stumbled, now blushing as much as the rest of us. His eyes started darting around the room even faster. "I don't know, it's kinda stupid..."

I threw my hooves in the air. “Well? Out with it!”

“I like dancing,” He finally mumbled. Okay, not what I was expecting from him, but still cool.

Xayah grinned. “Can you show us a dance?”

Brisks already red face grew even redder. “Show you a dance? Uh… I don’t know about that. Besides, I’d need music to dance to.”

Xayah reached over and pushed a button on my pipbuck. Music from DJ Pon3’s radio station came from my pipbucks speaker and filled the room. Brisks ear flattened against his head.

“Fine, But y’all are dancing with me,” He groaned, pulling himself away from the window.

I grinned and approached him. “Sure, though you’ll need to teach me some of the moves.”

Brisk rolled his eyes and gave a groan. “Fine…” He looked over at Xayah whom was still lying on the master bed. “You too Xayah.”

The zebra shook her head with a laugh. “No, I think I will just sit back and watch for now. I am not a very good dancer.”

“Oh no you don’t,” I said with a giggle, grabbing Xayah's hoof and pulling her into the middle of the floor with me. She struggled a little, but didn’t seem overly put out when I pulled her next to me.

“Alright,” Brisk said as the next song started to play. “Just start walking and follow what I do, you should catch on pretty quick.”

To put it nicely, we didn’t catch on at all. We spent the next five minutes tripping on our hooves as Brisk tried to teach us how to do a pirouette. Xayah and I might have been terrible at dancing, but Brisk seemed to be a natural, gliding around the room like a Pegasus in the air. Before long however the three of us had simply devolved into simply throwing the idea of dance moves out the window and just moved our bodies to the music however we felt.

We spun and jumped and waved our hooves above our heads like a bunch of mad ponies. Brisk waltzed and Tangoed around the room gracefully, switching between dance styles every few minutes. I couldn’t imagine what the ponies in the rooms beside us thought, but I really didn’t care.

I found myself laughing despite myself. The threat looming over Stable 25 had me in a bad mood, but at least I could enjoy myself for the time being. For the first time the wasteland didn’t seem like such an awful, inhospitable place.

The song on the radio changed to a slower, more somber tune. I found myself swept up in Brisks hooves as we slow danced across the floor. We spun in slow circles, making our way slowly across the room and back. He raised his hoof outwards, I spun outwards. He brought his hoof back in and I spun back in.

I spotted Xayah by the bed watching us and reached out with my hoof for her to join us. She gave a sad smile and reached out as well, joining the rotating circle.

As the song inched towards its end, Brisk spun out of the circle before showing off his pirouette that we had so helplessly failed to do earlier. I stuck my tongue out at him playfully and continued to spin and sway with Xayah. I looked into Xayah's stunning green eyes, then looked over to Brisk, his green mane flailing like crazy around his head as he leaped around the room. My blush deepened. I had defiantly picked the right friends.

The zebra chuckled, took a step back and did an elaborate flip. It might not have been dancing exactly, but it was still more impressive than anything I could do.

Brisk and Xayah joined hooves and spun in a quick circle of their own. I sat back and watched them, the first real smile on my face in a long time. Suddenly I rushed forward and wrapped them both in a tight hug, drawing their dance up short.

“What’s this?” Brisk asked playfully, though he didn’t sound as sarcastic as usual.

I smiled. “I’m just glad that off all the ponies I could have gotten stuck with in the wasteland, I ended up with you two.”

They both gave me a smile and returned my hug. Perhaps the wasteland really wasn’t so bad after all. Watcher had been right, keep making friends. Keep making friends and maybe, just maybe, I’d be able to win.

As the song came to a close the soothing voice of DJ Pon3 came from my pipbuck. “And that children, is one of my favorites. This is DJ Pon3, wishing all of you out in the wasteland a good night.”

Footnote: level up.
New perk: Cherchez La Femme -- +10% damage against same sex, plus unique dialogue options.

Author's Note

Don't really have anything to say here. I hope you all enjoyed this chapter and have a good day or night (whenever it is you read this).

As usual, huge thanks to kkat for creating the wonderful world of Fallout: Equestira

Chapter V: The residence of Four Star

“Hear me, and obey! Oh sorry, that’s that other radio station.”

Sleep.

I hadn’t realized how much I actually needed to have a good long sleep. Within seconds of my head touching the pillow, I had fallen completely unconscious. My whole body sighed with relief as I finally allowed myself to sink into the soft cushions next to Xayah. My legs hurt, my back hurt, my head hurt, but most of all my heart hurt.

But my heart was also feeling a lot less heavy as well, as if many of the weights that had been placed over it while traveling through the Wasteland had simply fallen away. For the first time since leaving the Stable, I didn’t feel like I was among strangers forced together to survive. I felt like I was among friends who genuinely wanted to be on this quest with me.

Watcher had told me to keep making friends, and after last night, I understood why. I wondered how many ponies he had watched wander the Wasteland alone, only to be slowly driven insane by the harsh worlds many vices and become monsters. With friends like these, I might be able to evade that fate. I had to keep going. I had to win.

When my amber eyes finally drifted open I felt better than I had since I had entered Manehattan. Everything was just a little less sore and the large scar on my leg had healed far more than I could have expected. I examined it a little closer, trying to figure out exactly how it had miraculously healed so much.

I swear, it felt like if you slept long enough you can mend broken bones.

I pushed myself up and looked towards the window across the room that Brisk had looked out the night before. White light was streaming through the window and the sun peeked through the dull cloudlayer from somewhere above my line of sight. I glanced to the far side of the bed to find Xayah had already gotten up and was nowhere to be seen.

It was already morning, late in the morning by the looks of it. Shit! I slept it!

I pushed the blankets off of me and quickly scrambled to get out of bed. My hoof slipped and I ended up crashing into the ground face first. Again.

I groaned in a daze. I really needed to stop falling out of bed.

I heard Brisk chuckle and felt his hooves pull me up. I blushed as he helped me stand and my stomach started feeling all fluttery for some reason. I was probably just hungry or something.

“Morning Amber,” He said, walking away and returning to his favorite spot at the window. “Did you sleep well?”

I stretched my hooves and gave a loud yawn. “Better than I expected. I didn’t realize I was so tired.”

“Neither did I,” Brisk agreed. “Though we really shouldn’t be surprised, we probably did more in the last two days than we had our entire lives. Not to mention that all of those things were probably the most dangerous and stressful.”

Xayah chose that moment to walked into the room balancing a silver plate of cookies atop her head. The plate wobbled slightly, but she didn’t seem to be having any difficulty balancing it.

“I know you hope to go out after those cyber ponies as soon as you can,” Xayah started. “But I figured you would want a quick bite to eat first. It would be foolish to go into the wasteland without eating first if given the opportunity,” she lowered her head to offer me one of the cookies.

I gave her a smile and lifted one off the plate with my magic. Levitating it to my mouth I took a bite, and holy sweet mother of Celestia were they amazing! They tasted like what joy would taste like if joy was a physical thing you could consume.

I tried to remember a time I had tasted something that good. Definitely not the radroach meat, or even the Arbu Radigator. In the Stable? I hadn’t even eaten in there at all, so I probably wouldn’t have had something better then either.

My mouth watered as I took another bite. “These are amazing Xayah,” I commented quickly finishing the cookie I had grabbed before quickly snatching up another one. “Thank you! You made these?”

Xayah blushed and gave a small nod in response. “Oh, I do not know if they are amazing, but I do my best with what I am given.”

Brisk grabbed a cookie with his hoof and took a bite. His eyes lit up as the taste filled his mouth. “Holy shit… theses are good!” He declared, giving Xayah a grin. “It’s official, you’re making the food from now on in this group,” He quickly scooped up another with his hooves.

I watched him chew for a second before clearing my throat. “Soooo, when are you going to tell me what is up with you magic Brisk?” I questioned as he picked up a third cookie. “You havent explained to me why you can’t use magic yet.”

“Yes, I didn’t want to say anything, but I was quite curious myself,” Xayah added, putting down the tray and picking up one of her own cookies.

Brisk shrugged. “Never learned, it's that simple,” he chomped down on his cookie, a few crumbs sprinkled from his lips. "I was never one for learning or being told what to do. So I simply refused to be taught. guess I kinda shot myself in the hoof cause of that though."

“But can’t you do some magic? I mean, even fillies and foals without training can do basic magic,” I asked, sitting up on the edge of the bed.

Brisk shook his head. “My horn works, I just can't do any spells with it,” He flared up his horn and wrapped a small magic aura around a cookie. To my surprise, his aura was a pale white. He looked at me as he released the spell. “And that is it. Just a glow around my horn and a small object. But I can’t move anything with telekinesis or do any other fancy spells like the teleportation you used on the pegasus back in the sewer.”

“Have you ever tried to learn?” I questioned. It seemed almost surreal that a pony could go for so long without learning magic when it came so naturally to most.

“Oh I tried plenty of times,” Brisk grunted. “Never really worked out. Most I ever lifted was a Sparkle-Cola bottle and I even dropped that too. To be completely honest with you, I kinda wish my horn would just blow up and get off my head. Then I wouldn’t have to deal with the humiliation of being so useless.”

After a blunt statement like that, it was rather hard to pick up any conversation. We quickly ate a few more of the cookies, packed our bags and began our way to the front entrance of Friendship City. I found it hard not to dance on the tips of my hooves as we made our way down the spiralling steps to the bottom floor. We finally had a lead on the cyber ponies and we were finally going to confront them. This nightmare would be over soon.

Upon reaching the front gate, the guards on duty began pulling our weapons out of the safe and returning them to us. I watched with curiosity as Xayah placed her gem back onto her cloak and flicker in and out of view for a few seconds.

“Are you sure you want to come with us?” I asked, turning to my zebra friend. “I mean you have no business with these cyber ponies and you originally just wanted to come here…”

Xayah gave me a smile and a nod. “This adventure seems much more interesting than waiting around a city all day. Besides, Friendship City is only a terrible reminder that I am the only one to arrive here.”

She was acting so calm, but I knew that she must be hurting a lot inside. I reminded myself to pull her aside and make sure she was alright when the opportunity presented itself.

I looked down at my pipbuck map as we began crossing the bridge. Fetlock didn’t seem very far away. Only a day and a half walk if we were lucky. The Ponypalooza Hotel seemed even closer, maybe just a day if we could hustle our butts.

Spotting the signal on my pipbuck and having nothing better to do, I turned on DJ Pon3’s radio station. Instantly, the voice of DJ Pon3 came through the speakers. I must have just missed the song.

“Hello Wasteland! How is everypony doin’? Now I’ve got an exciting bit o' news for you children, listen t' this! That Stable Dweller heroine I keep prechin’ t' you about, she’s here. In Tenpony Tower! Now I haven’t gotten a good opportunity t' talk t' her yet, but believe me children, that report is comin' soon!

“But there is more t' tell my little ponies, so don’t go switching the channel yet. See I’ve heard a rumour that there are two other Stable dwellers runnin' around the Wasteland! I know, I know, I couldn’t make this stuff up! For all you ponies that like exploring the Manehattan ruins, consider dropping by that old boutique that’s been infested with ghouls for the last 200 years. See I hear these new Stable dwellers spread a bit of their own magic in there, now the place is up and running again as if the bombs never fell! Want some nice clothes for some reason? Well now you can get some! Until next time children, this is DJ pon3, and I’m here for you.”

DJ Pon3’s voice faded out and the sweet sound of music began humming from my pipbuck. My friends and I exchanged a glance.

“There, now she is talking about you,” Xayah said simply.

Great, I was on the news now. I just hoped that didn’t tip the cyber ponies off on us coming.

Manehattan was far bigger than I could have possibly imagined. Every time I thought I knew where we were, I found myself in a new part of the city I didn’t know about. If not for the map on my pipbuck and the rusted over street signs, I would have had no idea where we were.

The shattered remains of the Manehattan skyscrapers didn’t even stand half as tall as they had before the bombs fell and most were so damaged that even attempting to open the front door was impossible. Despite this however, the many looming buildings were still more than tall enough to obscure our view of where we were going and what might be around the next bend.

We spent more time watching our EFS and evading groups of enemies than actually walking. Manehattan might not be a functioning city anymore, but it was still filled with life. Granted that life usually wanted us dead.

Oddly enough, the radroaches proved to be the biggest difficulty, as there were so many of them that they clogged up our EFS’ and made it difficult to locate the actual threats. They were also difficult to hide from, seemingly popping up out of nowhere whenever we tried to take cover. Thankfully they weren’t hard to kill, and after an initial hesitation from Brisk and I, it became very easy to simply squish them under our hooves. No point wasting ammo on them if we didn’t have to.

We pulled up against the next corner of the road and checked our pipbucks. We were unsurprised to find the EFS once again filled with red bars.

“Radroaches?” I asked, trying to peek around the corner and see the creatures our EFS was picking up.

“Don’t know. Probably,” Brisk muttered, popping a buck tablet into his mouth. “You two wait here, I’ll check it out.”

“Wait, how about I-” I started, but Brisk cut me off.

“Nope, you checked it out the last two times. Leave some action for me, alright,” Then Brisk quickly ducked around the corner and began creeping towards the center of the street.

“Would it not be wise for me to scout ahead?” Xayah asked in a puzzled tone from behind me. “I mean, I do have a stealth cloak. It seems logical.”

I sighed. “Probably. You can scout the next one,” I glanced at the black and white zebra. Well, we were currently alone, now might be a good time to talk to her about-

“Your friend seems to be taking a lot of Buck,” Xayah deadpanned before I was able to bring up the topic of her family.

I glanced out at Brisk, still looking around for threats. “Yeah, so? He needs it for his leg to keep going.”

Xayah frowned. “But he has those braces now, he should be able to walk somewhat on his own without the chems,” She looked out at the street. “I fear he has become too dependent on them.”

I gave a small chuckle. “They’re just some chems, they can’t hurt him or anything,” I really didn’t understand what she seemed so worried about.

Xayah gave me a strange look. I felt like shrinking away from her gaze, but I wasn’t sure why. “They can hurt him if he becomes addicted or overdoses on Buck. Chems addiction can be incredibly severe if left untreated.”

“He will be fine,” I assured her. “He’s been taking them for a bit now, and they haven’t slowed him down yet. They’re practically the only reason he was able to make it to Friendship City in the first place.”

Xayah grunted, but seemed unconvinced.

The two of us stood in silence for a few moments. I considered bringing up the topic of her family, but it just seemed like a weird time to now. Finally after what felt like a lifetime, Brisk returned.

“Checked everywhere. Nothing in sight, so chances are there are just a bunch of Radroaches in the sewer beneath us,” Brisk informed us. “Just be careful incase there is something worse below our hooves,” In the Equestrian wasteland, something worse wouldn’t be that much of a surprise.

We began making our way down the street. As Brisk had said, there didn’t seem to be anything on the streets, but the constant movement of red bars on our EFS kept us on high alert. The area seemed to be in more ruins than most of Manehattan, with many of the buildings collapsed and lying across the street. The only two buildings that seemed even remotely intact was a large apartment building that connected to the massive monorail that ran above the city and a humble abandon theater that sat to the apartments right. Some sort of crashed machine lay in the center of the road. I didn’t need to know what the machine was to tell its purpose was to carry ponies.

“What is that exactly?” I asked Xayah as we neared the machine.

“It is an old sky wagon,” Xayah stated, peering into one of the many shattered windows. “It looks old, so probably not the property of the Enclave.”

“The Enclave? Isn’t that one of Tales’ conspiracies theories?” I asked, pulling open the back of the sky wagon and stepping inside. Almost instantly, my eyes landed on a yellow medic kit with a faded pink butterfly on it. I levitated it up to me and checked it’s contents. Two health potions and a handful of Buck. I was about to hand the buck to Brisk when I remembered what Xayah had told me about Chem abuse. Not sure what to do, I threw the chems into my saddle bag. I’d figure that out later.

Xayah entered behind me with Brisk. “It is possible that he has theories about the Enclave, but the Enclave themselves are very much real. Back when the bombs fell, the pegasi flew up above the clouds and created the cloud layer,” Xayah explained, looking around the sky wagon. “The Enclave is a fairly strong military force up there I hear, but they very rarely come below the clouds. If it wasn’t for the dashites, no pony would even know they exist. Well, them and the cloud cover that is.”

So that was why it was always so cloudy out. Weren’t the Enclave just a cheerful bunch.

I didn’t know what a dashite was, but before I asked my attention was drawn to the skeletal remains of a pony in the corner of the sky wagon, it’s hooves wrapped tightly around a mail bag.

“Well what have we here?” I asked myself, drawing the rest of my friends attention to the bag as well. I reached out with my magic and picked up the bag, or rather tired to pick up the bag. The second the bag came in contact with my magic the whole world swirled way.

I was in the body of a female.

Shit! There must have been a memory orb in that bag! That was the last time I picked something up with magic before I checked what was inside. I really didn’t have time for this!

On the bright side though, I wasn’t in a males body. So I could at least feel a little more at home.

My host flapped their wings and I found myself lifted off of the ground. I was in a pegasus! Damn it, I wasn’t going to feel at home after all.

I was in a large office with perhaps the most beautiful decor I had ever seen. Every piece of furniture in the room from the desk to the chairs to the curtains, all seemed to fit together as if they were designed to be a set of one. On the wall behind the main desk a large symbol of three diamonds had been engraved in an elegant blue between two large windows looking out at what appeared to be a pre war Canterlot.

The mare that sat before me was one I had seen before. She had a beautiful white coat and a perfectly styled purple mane. If she were to stand still, I might not have been able to tell the difference from the tiny statuette in my pocket.

“I’m sorry darling, what happened?” Rarity asked me, or rather my host. “Fluttershy did what?”

“She brought everypony back!” My host shouted. Her voice was raspy and clearly angry at whatever it was that Fluttershy had done. “We had won the fight, and Fluttershy had to go and bring everypony back with that crazy megaspell of hers!”

“Rainbow, calm down,” Rarity replied, holding up her hoof. She seemed relatively calm though, I could hear a slight edge in her voice. “You know Fluttershy. She was just trying to save as many ponies as she can.”

“I don’t think you get it!” Rainbow Dash was practically in hysterics, making a small loop in the air. Had I been able to, Xayahs cookies would have been vomited out of my mouth. “She didn’t just bring ponies back! She brought everypony back! That includes the Zebras! No pony should be using Necromancy on the battlefield like that! It’s to risky!”

Rarity was definitely looking uneasy now.

“And you do know who’s helping her right?” Rainbow Dash said flatly. It was more of a statement than a question.

Rarity was beginning to look pale. “Don’t tell me the OIA is getting involved in this,” Rarity said, visibly worried.

Rainbow Dash tilted her head in confusion for a second before a look of understanding crossed her face. She quickly shook his head. “No no, not Golden-cough-a-lot. The silver one.”

It looked like Rarity was about to comment further on the topic when the large double doors behind me swung upen with a bang. I spun around to see who had intruded on our conversation.

The unicorn stallion that entered was an interesting sight to say the least. His coat was a dazzling shade of gold with a matching mane and tail and eagle like silver eyes. He wore a navy blue suit with gold buttons and a twirled mustache rest on his upper lip. He was old too, clearly a few years older than either Rarity or Rainbow Dash, however he managed to hide his age due to what I assumed to be extensive plastic surgery and makeup. A thin silver scar ran down his neck and disappeared below the collar of his suit.

“Rarity! I demand an explanation!” The gold stallion rasped. His voice was low and nasally, as if he had a cold and was doing his best to hide it. Each and every word he said seemed to ooze with malice and end in punctuation.

Rarity gave a small sigh and stood from behind her desk. “Pureblood, how may I help you,” Rainbow Dash just looked back and forth as the two ponies talked.

Pureblood cleared his throat. “It has come to my attention that you have once again rejected my sons proposal for marriage,” He stuck his nose in the air and looked down at Rarity with disapproving and impatient eyes. “I will not stand to have me family disrespected in such a manner.”

Rarity huffed. “Well you can tell Blueblood that it doesn’t matter how many times he asks me, I will never say yes to him!”

Pureblood’s eyes narrowed and he took a step closer to Rarity, staring down at her with a clear loathing. “You would be wise to avoid that kind of tone with me,” His posh voice had dropped to a sinister growl that set both me and my hosts hairs on end.

I quickly found myself pushing my way between the two ponies and giving Pureblood a small shove away from Rarity. “And you would be wise not to talk to her like that!” Rainbow Dash scolded, staring down the golden pony.

Now faced with Pureblood stare I found myself wanting to crawl away. His stare was cold and intense. Somehow, Pureblood managed to look down on us, despite Rainbow Dash flying in the air above him. I applauded Rainbow Dash for not running away and hiding immediately.

Pureblood coughed. “Ah yes, you must be Rainbow Dash. I see you are as forward as everypony tells me,” he raised a hoof and slicked back his golden mane before giving Rainbow Dash a charismatic smile. “It is a pleasure to finally meet you face to face.”

Even Rainbow Dash shivered at how suddenly Purebloods mannerisms had changed from hostile to friendly. I didn’t doubt that if I had my pipbuck in this memory, his bar on my EFS would have abruptly changed from red to green.

“Uh, yeah… nice to meet you too…” Rainbow Dash stammered, not sure what to make of his change in attitude. “Um… who are you again?”

Pureblood flicked his tail in annoyance, but remained grinning.

Rarity stepped forwards. “Rainbow, allow me to introduce you to Pureblood, head of the Canterlot high council and father of Blueblood,” Pureblood raised his head higher as Rarity said his titles, relishing every second of his introduction.

Rainbow Dash looked him over for a second. “Blueblood’s dad huh?” Pureblood nodded proudly in response. Pureblood opened his mouth to say something, but was cut off as Rainbow dash abruptly jabbed him in the chest with the tip of her hoof. “You keep that foalish son of yours away from Rarity! You got that?”

Purebloods upper lip twitched slightly and his welcoming grin reverted to a snarl. “You will both learn that I am not one to defy!” The older gold unicorn barked. “In my Utopia you would be bowing at my hooves and beg to marry me or my son!”

“Well in my Utopia you aren’t in this room,” Rainbow Dash smirked, pointing her cyan hoof at the door. “Now beat it before I make ya.”

Pureblood simply stared at Rainbow Dash in obvious outrage for a few moments before giving a snort of disapproval and marching out the door. Rainbow Dash flashed over and slammed the door behind him once he was clear.

“What’s up with that guy?” Rainbow Dash asked, landing back on the ground. “In my Utopia? What is he on about?”

Rarity gave a low sigh and returned to her desk. “He's always going on about his Utopia. Pureblood wishes for Equestria to function under his strict morals and believes that all ponies should follow those without question. Why Celestia ever put him in charge is a mystery to us all.”

“Well if he gives ya any more trouble, just let me know and I’ll give him a kick or two in a couple a tender places,” Rainbow Dash stated, doing a small kicking motion in the air.

“Thank you Rainbow, but I don’t think that will be necessary,” Rarity said. “Despite Purebloods rather intolerable personality, he is a very valuable asset to all of our Ministries. His donations are almost half of Twilights budget over in the MAS and you would be surprised how much he has donated to those eyesores you have placed all over Equestria.”

Rainbow Dash Groaned. “Ugh, I hate politics. I wish things could just go back to how they used to be.”

Rarity gave Rainbow Dash the first real smile I had seen since entering the memory orb. “You and me both darling. You and me both.”

When I finally came out of the memory orb something wasn’t right.

I sat up and looked around. I was still inside the sky wagon and like before, both Xayah and Brisk stood beside me. As I stood and looked out the window with them I noticed that all of their muscles were tense as if they were awaiting something to attack us.

“What is going on?” I asked, rubbing my head and trying to get a grasp on the world around me. Being ripped out of and then thrown back into your body was something I was probably never going to get used to.

“Radscorpions,” Xayah stated, aiming her sniper at something outside the window that I couldn’t see.

I pulled out Boneless and scanned the area. Nothing. I quickly checked my EFS. Like there had been when we first walked onto the street, my EFS was clogged up with red bars everywhere.

Please tell me those aren’t all something worse than Radroaches.

I watched a red bar that seemed to be moving at an alarming speed seemingly race towards us. I glanced back out at the street. Still there was nothing. Which meant that…

“They are underneath us!” I shouted to my friends. Brisk waved his pipbuck in my face and gave me a ‘no duh’ look.

Well excuse me! I wasn’t here when they showed up!

Something crashed into the side of the sky wagon, knocking it violently onto its side. I wrapped my friends in a field of telekinesis to help soften the impact as we were catapulted upwards and into the opposite wall of the sky wagon. I wasn’t strong enough with magic to be able to do something insane like levitate myself or even levitate another pony for longer than a few seconds, but I could carry some of the weight.

Unfortunately for me, levitating my friends meant that I couldn’t reduce my own impact.

My head crashed into the metal wall with a solid thwack. The world spun and I staggered to stay upright.

Seriously! My head was already spinning from the memory orb! You just had to go and make it worse didn’t you Wasteland!

Brisk softly landed next to me and gave me a quick nod of gratitude. He got half way through saying the words thank you when the sky wagon was slammed into again, this time knocking us all out of the wagon and onto the street.

Xayah rolled to her hooves and was up with her sniper drawn faster than either Brisk or myself could react. I slowly pulled myself up and offered Brisk my hoof. He grabbed it and hauled himself to his hooves as well.

“Any plan of action?” I asked, Taking a small step back. I didn’t like not being able to see where my attackers were.

Neither Brisk or Xayah had time to respond as three massive armoured scorpion tails erupted from the ground around us, spraying us with bits of dust and asphalt.

We scattered as the huge stingers dove towards us. I saw Brisk slice at one with his machete, only for the armoured appendage to duck below the ground and burst out behind him. Xayah was having equal difficulty. Her sniper was not meant for close range combat as she would need a few seconds to aim, which the stingers weren’t allowing her to do. Instead, Xayah pulled out her knife and slashed at the limbs, only to meet the same problem as Brisk.

I seemed to be the only one able to do any damage. I spun Boneless around and around firing shots at anything that got too close to me.

Blam!

Blam!

Blam!

My first two shots tore bloody holes through one of the tales before it ducked back below the ground and evaded my third.

We had to get these things above ground, otherwise we would be at a massive disadvantage.

Then a massive grey claw broke the surface and snapped at me. Shit! Maybe I didn’t want them to come above ground.

I jumped out of the way just in time to avoid being chopped in half. I Watched in horror as six razor sharp claws began lashing up out of the ground at us. We weren’t able to stand in the same spot for longer than a second before the huge pincher lunged out from below.

My heart was racing a hundred miles a minute as I jumped and spun to avoid the stingers and claws. I lashed out with my baton a few times, but the limbs either ducked back underground before I could do anything or my weapon bounced of their tough armour harmlessly.

I took a quick step back as one of the claws burst from the ground in front of me. It snapped at me a few times before ducking back below the ground. For a split second after the claw had hidden itself again, I saw a flash of fleshy pink skin.

I stared at the closest claw to me, which it would so happen was currently in the middle of trying to snap Brisk in half. I levitated my baton before me and smashed it as hard as I could into the back of the claw. As expected, the Radscorpion recoiled its pincher into the ground.

Without waiting for a second, I levitated Boneless over the hole it had left and fired. I saw a flash of light from within the hole followed by a high ear piercing shriek. I doubted I had killed it, but I had definitely injured it rather severely.

Apparently I had made them angry as well because only seconds later the asphalt around us was torn open and three giant Radscorpions pulled themselves out. They shrieked again and began rushing towards us, their tales lashing forwards in a desperate hope to impale us.

Well, I had gotten them out of the ground. Now I just needed to find a way to kill them.

They had had the advantage before, lashing out at us from anywhere without us having proper time to react. Now above ground, I was able to see that they weren’t quite as fast as they appeared. They could move a decent speed, but as soon as they got within striking distance they had to slow down to attack us.

One of the Radscorpions charged at me specifically, the top of its head was a bloody mess of broken shell and tattered flesh. I found myself backpedaling with all I was worth to avoid them while simultaneously firing Boneless into the creatures face. I fired five shots, each one ripping away bits of its armour and flesh.

The creature reeled back as one of my shots took out its eyes. It began blindly lashing out at everything, crashing into the walls of the broken skyscrapers and bashing into the side of the sky wagon.

I took the opportunity to see what Brisk and Xayah were doing. Brisk seemed to be on top of things. He had managed to completely sever the Radscorpions tail from its body with his machete and was currently using the trick I had pulled where he backs up while shooting it in the face. Xayah on the other hoof was seriously struggling. Her sniper was practically useless against them and even while they were above ground, there was little Xayah could do with her knife clenched between her mouth.

I was about to run and help her when the Radscorpion I had shot the eyes out off bashed me across the chest with its claw. I felt the air get knocked out of me as I was sent flying backwards a few feet to land heavily on the ground. Now alerted to my location, the Radscorpion turned to face me and lunged. I rolled aside as the claws lashed at me, the sharp pinchers tearing up small patches of the road as the shrieking Radscorpion continuously lashed out.

Without its eye, the Radscorpions aim was dramatically worse, allowing me to avoid the attacks without too much difficulty. But for what it lacked in perception, it made up with sheer ferocity. Every attack was shortly followed by another and another.

I swung at it with my baton, but the Radscorpion hastily bashed it aside with its claw and pinned both of my front hooves down, giving me a clear view of is gaping maw and thrashing mandibles. I yelped in pain as the monstrous scorpion dug its claws into my injured leg. The Radscorpion’s stinger flipped over its head and aimed down at me, preparing to skewer me.

I managed to twist my head at an angle to avoid its first stinger strike from impaling me between the eyes. I began thrashing, trying to escape its sharp grip on me. The Radscorpion aimed its stinger over me again, its grip on me tightening and holding me tighter in place. Thinking fast, I telekinetically shoved the barrel of my shotgun up its mouth and fired three rounds.

The Radscorpion was dead before the last shot fired, it's already bloodied head bursting into gruesome confetti.

I rolled the heavy carcass off of me and moved to help Brisk and Xayah. As I did, Brisk stabbed his machete through the skull of the radscorpion attacking him. The creature thrashed around until it finally fell still at Brisk’s hooves.

Xayah was still having trouble. I could see multiple cuts across her striped hide from where she had been unable to evade the Radscorpions claws. She had managed to cut a large gash into the creatures side which oozed blood, but other than that the Radscorpion seemed fairly unharmed by her.

Simultaneously, Brisk and I charged towards the Radscorpion. Our intrusion caused it to momentarily turn from Xayah and lash out at us with its stinger. Brisk swung his machete to meet the lunging appendage. The serrated blade sunk deep into the Radscorpions armored tail, but failed to cut it off completely. It did however, manage to stay completely lodged in the Radscorpions tough exoskeleton. The creature swung its tail around, causing Brisk to lurch into the air and dangle from the handle of his machete while the Radscorpion lashed its tail about.

I blasted the Radscorpion with boneless, blowing out bits of shell from its armored back. A thrashing claw swept towards me, knocking the breath from my lungs and sending me toppling backwards into the wreckage of the sky wagon. I could feel a large gash open up on my chest and hot blood spill from the open wound.

Now with a few moments to line up her shot, Xayah finally managed to fire a shot from her sniper. There was a burst of blood as the bullet passed through the creatures head and lodged itself in its brain. The Radscorpion shuddered, then collapsed in on itself.

Brisk was violently slammed into the ground as the deceased Radscorpion’s tail abruptly crashed to the cracked asphalt. He pulled himself out from under the carcass and dislodged his blade from its body.

I slowly crawled over to where my saddlebags had fallen and pulled a healing potion out. Without much thought, I chugged the contents of the bottle down. Instantly I felt better as its restorative abilities took effect. The gash on my chest closed up, but the area where it had been still felt a little sore.

Brisk took a shaky breath and tried wiping the blood on his coat off, only to smear it into his green hide even more. “Well that could have gone better.”

Xayah agreed. ‘Indeed. It is rare to see Radscorpions in such small groups in Manehattan. They most often hunt in swarms.”

I froze as she said that. Larger groups? I checked my EFS. It was still swarming with hundreds of red bars. Please be Radroaches!

I approached one of the large holes in the road that the Radscorpions had left and slowly peered inside. At first all I saw was darkness, but then something huge scuttled across the hole, then another, and another. They were far too big to be Radroaches.

“We should probably get off the road,” I said, pointing towards the hole. Brisk quickly glanced in the hole closest to him, then quickly stepped back with a frightened expression.

“Agreed, let's go,” He croaked in a startled tone. He turned to the far side of the road and froze.

Xayah and I dared to look in the same direction. A large swarm of smaller Radscorpions had massed at the end of the road and were slowly advancing towards us. Because of course they were.

Brisk gave a small forced laugh. “Okay, plan B. lets go inside a building and hope for the best like the last two times this sort of thing happened.”

He began heading towards the abandoned theater that lay only a few feet away from us. I shook me head. “Nope, not this time Brisk! The last two building you dragged us into almost got us killed. I’m picking the building this time,” I turned and walked into the broken down apartment building that lay next to the theater. Now up close to it, I could see the words ‘Four Star Living’ written above the cracked glass door.

Xayah nodded and followed me. “Indeed, the last thing I want is to see more Pinkie is watching posters.”

Four Star Living was possibly the most inviting looking structure I had been in since leaving Stable 25. Even Friendship city, while less abandoned, didn’t feel quite as much like home as the building I found myself in did. It was clean, much of the grime and debris that lay scattered amongst the floors of most of the buildings had been removed or swept into the corners of the room. Much of the furniture had been broken or toppled over, but quite a few remained intact as well.

“I don’t like this,” Brisk muttered, glancing around the room as if expecting something to jump out and attack us. Xayah nodded at his statement in agreement.

“What? Why?” I asked, moving away from the door and into the center of the room. “This looks like the safest building we’ve been in since entering the Wasteland.”

“Exactly,” Brisk said, walking up to a charred skeleton that rest behind a semi polished receptionist desk. “It shouldn’t be this clean. Somepony is cleaning it.”

“I’d rather a clean building than whatever you were going to lead us into,” I retorted. “Knowing your luck, there was probably going to be some kind of super ghoul in there or something.”

The Radscorpions outside we beginning to gather outside the door. I noticed a strange green slime that had been slathered on the frame of the door. Every time a scorpion drew to close, it seemed to recoil from the substance as if it couldn’t stand the smell. Okay, so someone had definitely been here.

“What is the plan then?” Xayah asked, looking at the group of Radscorpions outside. “I doubt we plan on fighting all of those, so do we just keep walking up and hope there is a painfully convenient way out like last time?”

We all exchanged a look. We probably wouldn’t have something as convenient as a giant scooter that bridges us to the next building, but what other option did we have? We turned to the stairs and began our slow descent to the top of the apartment building.

The second floor was almost completely collapsed. The floor had once been a long hallway leading to the different apartments on the floor. That had been a long time ago however as the roof had caved in, leaving only a few doors still accessible and most of the hallway including the rest of the stairs completely under a large pile of rubble. A few holes in the walls allowed us to see into the apartments and the contents that lay beyond.

“Wonderful, it would appear we have reached a dead end,” Xayah muttered, glancing around the ruined remains of the hallway. “Do we look for a different way out?”

“I think we can still get through,” Brisk muttered, pushing his head up against one of the many holes in the walls and peering into the apartment beyond. Leave it to Brisk to do something like that. “I think I can see a way through in this apartment here.”

I turned to the apartment door and tested the door knob. Locked. Typical. I floated a bobby pin and screwdriver from my saddlebag and placed them into the lock.

Snap!

“Damn it!” I screamed in frustration. I hated locks so fucking much.

Brisk glanced down at our two remaining bobby pins and grimaced. “Yeah, how about you let me do the lockpicking from here on out.”

I groaned and gave him the rest of the bobby pins. I sat back on my haunches and watched in disbelief as Brisk placed the bobby pin in the lock and got to work. Two seconds later Brisk gave me a smug grin and pulled the door open.

The apartment was small, about the same size as the average sleeping areas in Stable 25. A cracked and boarded up window was set in the far wall, small beams of light shone through small cracks in the boarding. A small bed adorned with stained grey blankets and a small picture of a beige and brown earth pony sat atop a crooked, dust covered desk. As Brisk had suggested, there was a massive hole in the wall that lead to the room beyond.

What caught my attention the most however was a large cork board that had been hung up above the desk. Pictures of different ponies and building from around Manehattan had been pinned to it and connected with a faded red string. The longer I looked at it the more I noticed that there were multiple pictures of the large monorail that ran above the Manehattan streets.

“What the hell is this?” I questioned out loud as I looked the cork board over. I turned my attention to a terminal that rest on the desk. Hopefully that could give me some answers. I turned back to my friends who all looked equally interested. “Give me a second, I’m going to see if I can get into this terminal.

I brushed aside the dust that coated the screen, coughing as the dark dust cloud engulfed my face. Turning the terminal on I found it locked as I had expected. No problem, I might not be very good at picking locks, but I could hack a terminal like it was no ponies business.

Within the minute there was a small beep from the computer and the terminal unlocked. I found myself looking at a bunch of different files. I clicked on the first one titled ‘objective’ and began to read.

>Pinkie Pie is determined that Four Star is a group of Zebra sympathizers. She seems to think that they’re planning something big. Who the hell knows what that is, but she hasn’t been wrong yet so I suppose it’s worth looking into. My objective is as follows, get a room in this new four star apartment and find out what they are up to from inside. Not sure exactly why a bunch of zebra sympathizers would use a company like four stars as a front, but I guess that's what I’m here to find out.

I closed the file and turned to the next couple.

>Day 1: I have successfully bought a modest apartment. I don’t know how the MoM can afford to throw away that many bits and just get me an apartment like that, but I ain’t complaining. Spent the last few hours searching and asking around, and guess what I found. Nothing. No sign of anything related to zebras, sympathisers or conspiracies against Equestria. I’m not one to jump to conclusions, especially after only one day of investigations, but Four Star seems clean. I think Pinkie might finally be wrong for once. Not that that's really all that bad for me, I could use a more relaxed infiltration mission for once. Besides, I’ve been betting against Pinkie for far too long now, perhaps now that she is cracking I might be able to get some bits out of all that betting. Who can say.

I started scrolling through the different files. There were a lot and I didn’t have the time or patience to read through all of them. Finally I found the last file and pulled it open.

>Day 48: Today marks my last night in Four Star. Guess I’m going to need to eat all my previous words. Pinkie was right. Again. There is no denying Four Stars involvement in much of the zebra activity in Manehattan and even small areas around Canterlot, Fillydelphia, and the Hoof. Hopefully, the research I have gathered here will be helpful to the MoM in their raid on Four Star tomorrow. Sounds like Pinkie is going all out on this raid too, said something about Steel Rangers in balloons. Won't that just be grand. This is Inspector Saddles, signing off for the last time.

So this building was a front for zebra sympathizers back in the war. I was beginning to question if every building I walked into in Manehattan was going to contain something weird. Was a normal building to much to ask for.

“Hey, check this out,” Brisk called from across the room. Xayah and I exchanged a look before trotting over to see what it was.

“What is it?” I asked, pulling up next to him. I spotted a charred skeleton lying curled up in the corner of the room by Brisk hooves. “Yikes, what ever happened to last night in Four Star.”

Brisk shook his head and pointed up at the wall. “Not the skeleton, that.”

I looked up to where he was pointing. Written on the wall in what I could only assume was blood was one phrase. ‘I can’t remember anything’.

“What happened here?” Xayah asked, looking from the bloody letters to the bones on the floor.

“Beats me,” Brisk said with a shrug, but there was a clear shutter in his voice.

We moved on through the hole in the wall to the room beyond. Unlike the previous room, there didn’t seem to be anything of interest, just a dull grey bed and an empty dust covered desk. Had there not been the skeletal remains of a pony on the bed, I’d have assumed that no pony had even bought the room and the apartment had been abandoned long before the bombs. The door had long since been blasted open, leading us back into the hall on the far side of the rubble.

“Tada!” Brisk exclaimed, shaking his hooves in the air. “Back on track, just as promised.”

I poked my head out of the apartment and looked down the hallway. Instead of a hallway leading to another flight of stairs, the ceiling had once again collapsed, this time giving us a makeshift ramp to the third floor.

“Oddly convenient,” Xayah muttered, following behind us as we made our way to the next level. I had to agree. Our luck was too good, it was bound to run out soon.

Our luck didn’t run out. We came to a second hallway that had caved in like the floor below, and yet again, Brisk quickly picked the door to another apartment and found us a way around the blockage via another large hole in the wall.

Before entering the next apartment, I examined the rubble that had blocked the hallwayway. It was burned in places, as if it had collapsed due to being heated to scorching temperature.

“What you lookin’ at there?” Brisk asked, hoping up next to me and eyeing up the burn marks. “Black rocks?”

I shook my head. “No, burn marks. It doesn’t look like the roof collapsed by itself.”

Brisk groaned. “No duh. Everything in Manehattan in burned and broken. I’m pretty damn sure that's just a side effect from the balefire bombs and shit.”

I rubbed my hoof across the surface, scratching off bits of ash. “I don’t think so. Look! The burn marks are only in a few concentrated spots. Somepony intentionally collapse the ceiling.”

“Why would anypony do that?” Xayah asked, joining us. “That seems like a foolish thing to do, only makes getting up and down harder.”

I had no idea, and I doubted that staring at a bunch of burn marks was going to give me the answer. Stumped on the origin of the collapsed roof, we moved on to the now open apartment door beside us.

It had all the same traits as the usual Four Star Living apartment room. It had a dull grey bed with a cracked window and the usual dusty metal desk topped with a flickering terminal. This room however was very clearly the room of a zebra sympathizer. Small totems depicting zebras fighting of strange star beasts covered the desks and pictures of what I imagined to be the zebra homelands had been pinned above the bed. A large poster of Fluttershy surrounded by two evil looking zebras took up most of the wall, though somepony had drawn a moustache onto Fluttershy’s face. The caption on the poster read, ‘We must do better’.

The desk also held some sort of headpiece. I picked it up and flipped it over in my hooves, trying to figure out exactly what it was. After a few seconds of trying to figure it out, I gave up and turned to the terminal beside me.

Like before, I brushed the layer of dust off the screen before turning the terminal on. I did however manage to evade the cloud of dust that came off the screen this time around. See, I learn. To my surprise, I found it unlocked. The title of the first file caught my attention. The pony that had lived here had labeled it, ‘me and sexy’. I glanced around the room to make sure both Brisk and Xayah weren’t looking at the screen before I opened it.

It was a video recording, and what's worse was it had audio. Heavy panting and moaning escaped the terminal and the image of a bright red and blue buck going at it with a light and dark grey zebra flickered to life.

My ears stood on end and my face flushed a dark red as I stared at the screen.

“What the fuck?” Brisk blurted, walking over and staring at the screen. “The fuck are you watching?”

I blushed even more. “I uh… it just turned on.”

Brisk gave me a strange look and started walking away. “Sure it did, don’t think I forgot that 'never got any action in the Stable' thing,” Well, this couldn’t get any worse. I turned back to the screen just in time to see the zebra pin the red stallion down with her striped hooves and start sucking on his-

“Oh…” I heard Xayah’s shocked and breathy voice behind me as she stared in awe at the screen, her eyes wide and transfixed on the scene. Xayah bit the bottom of her bottom lip as if to prevent herself from moaning alongside the pony and zebra in the video. Never mind. This just got worse.

I quickly closed the file and and gave Xayah an awkward smile. “It just kinda opened. Sorry.”

Xayah blinked and gave her head a quick shake. “Of course, that is most unfortunate,” By her tone, I doubted she thought the file popping up was unfortunate. For some reason that made me blush more.

I returned to looking through the files when I spotted a file that had been labeled as Inspector Saddles. Interested, I opened it up and began reading its contents.

>That Fucking inspector wont stop asking questions. Does he think we don’t know he’s working for the MoM? Does he think he’s being fucking subtle? That Dumb fuck asked me if we had ever met a zebra sympathizer and if I knew where to find one. I mean what the fuck? At least try to throw us off. Not that that matters much, going to have to do him in anyway. He’s found shit, I know he has. Tomorrow morning I’m wiping his memory, sticking it all in a memory orb and fucking throwing that memory orb off a cliff. Furthermore, I’m going to shoot that bastard in the chest and let him bleed out on the floor. Can’t have him telling his pink fucking boss about whats goin’ on here. Fuck him.

Well I guess that answered why Saddles had written that he didn’t remember anything on the wall and why he never left the apartment building.

I opened up one of the desk drawers and found a glowing memory orb inside along with five bottle caps. Who puts bottle caps in a desk drawer? I quickly pocketed the caps before turning my attention to the orb.

It probably wasn’t the wisest idea to view it now, we really had to catch up with those cyber ponies, but my curiosity was going through the roof. Did it contain Saddle’s memories? A zebra conspiracy? Something different all together?

I reached forwards with my magic and wrapped the memory orb in an amber glow, then the apartment around me swirled away.

I was sitting in a classroom, or at least some form of lecture room. In front of me sat a large stack of textbooks and just beyond that a tall black stallion that I assumed was the teacher paced back and forth across the front of the room.

School was perhaps my favorite thing in the Stable. If you were to just remove the bullies it would have been like Celestia herself was blessing me. I loved learning, I loved books, I loved everything that made up a classroom. So I would have loved everything about this memory if it hadn’t been for one tiny little thing.

I was in the body of a goddess damned stallion. My whole body felt heavy and the space between my legs was so fucking tight. Seriously, how the hell do stallions do it!

“This here is a memory recollector,” The teacher said, holding up a strange looking headpiece. I noticed it was the same one that I had found on the desk beside the terminal. “It is the most recent piece of technology from the Ministry of Moral, Technology, and Arcane Science. Think of it like a horn in many ways. As memory orbs can only be made or viewed by unicorns, these prove as a useful method for any other type of pony to access or create them. That is including griffons and dragons.”

I felt my host raise his hoof. The teacher took me in for a second before gesturing for me to speak and giving me a small nod. “Does the recollector work for Zebra’s?” My host asked. The room had been quiet before, now it was silent. I could feel the eyes of the many ponies in the room staring at me.

Wow. these ponies do not like zebras.

The teacher cleared his throat. “Yes, I suppose they can. The recollectors can be used by practically any creature. Though I hope that they are one thing that the zebra’s do not get their striped hooves on.”

I saw another hoof in the crowd go up. The pony had a silver coat, though I couldn’t see who the hoof belonged to through the other ponies. The teacher nodded towards them and I saw the hoof lower.

“Can memory orbs be connected with it?” The stallion asked. His voice was low and smooth, despite clearly belonging to a significantly older buck.

The teacher furrowed his eyebrows. “I’m not sure what you mean?”

“Can they be connected,” The older pony said again, more firmly this time. “As in can you combine memory orbs into one large one. Viewing one memory would take you to another. Memory orbs only have so much storage they can carry, I want to know if I can find a fix for that.”

“I’m not sure myself,” The teacher said, continuing to pace back and forth against the front wall. “It is definitely a hypothetical. Though depending on how many memories you are stringing together, you would need to hook it up to a very powerful computer. Not like something the MoM has access to at the current time.”

So this was a Ministry of Moral lecture. I probably shouldn’t have been surprised by that. They were talking about extracting ponies memories and putting them into memory orbs after all.

“Are there any other questions?” The teacher waited a few moments for another hoof to be raised. None did. “Alright then, let's continue,” Then he went into a long speech about how recollecors work. At first I was interested, but as the lecture went on, I found myself getting worried.

How long had I been sitting here? When was this memory going to end? Despite my initial interest on what the memory orb contained, we were still on a bit of a time crunch to stop those cyber ponies. Memory orbs were starting to feel really claustrophobic as I realized I couldn’t get out.

Finally the memory orb ended and I found myself lying on the floor on the Four Star Apartment again. I looked up and found myself staring up into Xayah’s green eyes.

“Let me guess, Brisk got tired of waiting for me to wake up and told you to watch over me?” I asked, pulling myself to my hooves and relishing in the feeling of being back in my own body. Xayah gave a small nod. “You know you don’t have to stare at me when he says that right?”

Xayah scratched her head and blushed. “I will keep that in mind.”

“How far ahead did Brisk get?” these explorations through random buildings was beginning to become routine.

Xayah shrugged. “I do not know. I doubt he has gone far, you were only in that orb for a few minutes.”

Only a few minutes? Really? It felt way longer than that. Maybe Brisk was wearing off on me and I was getting board in classes. wasn't that a horrifying thought!

We moved onto the next apartment room. It had been filled with books, or at least what had once been books. The pages lay in charred ruins and most of the covers had corroded away. I almost felt like crying as I looked over all the lost knowledge. What a waste of perfectly good books.

I looked over at the desk that had been pushed below the window. As expected, a dusty terminal sat on top of it. What really drew my attention though was the name tag that had been placed on the desk.

I came closer to make sure I hadn’t read the name wrong. I hadn’t

“Silver Ace,” I read aloud, scanning the nametag a third time. “You just like to pop up all over the wasteland, don't you?”

I tired to crack the terminal, but after two failed attempts, I pulled myself away. I only had one try left before the computer locked me out for good.

Alright Silver Ace, what’s your password. I tried to think of what I knew about him. He had been saved by zebras from a dragon back before the war, Pinkie didn’t like him, and his name was Silver Ace. damn, not a lot to go off of there.

Finally I just sulked away from the terminal, unable to guess the code.

“I have yet to see you be bested by a terminal,” Xayah commented, following close behind me. “I was starting to think you could crack them all.”

“Apparently not,” I grumbled, giving an evil glare back at the terminal. That terminal should feel bad for not letting me in, and I wasn’t going to let it forget. Unfortunately, looking back at the terminal, meant not looking where I was going.

Thwack!

I walked face first into the doorframe and landed hard on my rump. I turned my evil glare from the terminal to the door frame. Silver Ace’s room was out to get me, I swear.

Xayah chuckled and walked past me into the hall. “I’m glad somepony is enjoying my suffering,” I grunted. Not cracking that terminal had really put me into a really bad mood.

I followed Xayah into the hallway. The whole hallway was tilted at a weird angle, making the walls look like they were slanted. We walked for a few moments in silence, the only noises being our hoof steps and the creaking floorboards. I found it interesting how the bottom floor could be so clean and yet the higher floors so damaged. I glanced around the hallway. Yes it was damaged, but now that I was looking at it, it was clean as well. Much of the rubble had either been removed or swept up into a pile against the wall.

My gaze landed on the symbol on Xayah’s rump. A strange five pointed star with crossing stripes inside of it. I began contemplating exactly how Zebra marks worked. Were they cutie marks like ponies? Or were they something different?

Now that I thought about it, how did pony cutie marks work? Why does everypony have a different cutie mark? How can one specific family have a hereditary cutie mark? How could mine be different? So many questions, and no answers at all. was it connected to fate somehow? Did my cutie mark know I would leave the Stable, making it impossible to become the Overmare? If that was true, did that mean I was never going to return to the Stable again?

I looked up to see Xayah looking at me with a raised eyebrow. I blushed as I realized I had zoned out staring at her ass. She gave her butt a little wiggle, making me blush even more and look away. Seriously, she had to go and make this embarrassing moment even more embarrassing for me by wiggling it in my face.

“Uh… sorry, lost in thought,” I muttered, trying to look at any anything else except her rump. Damn it, why did this sort of thing seem to happen to me all the time.

Xayah just gave me a smug smirk and continued walking. “That is fine, I know that I am not the one you are interested in.”

I froze. “What is that supposed to mean?” I asked cautiously, not fully comprehending of what she was implying.

Xayah turned back and raised her eyebrow at me again. “Are you trying to tell me you do not have a thing for Brisk?” My mouth dropped open. She thought that I… that me and Brisk…

“What? Me and Brisk?” I coughed, trying to hide my growing blush. “Don’t be ridiculous! I've only known him for like, three days,” Xayah just stared at me as a blabbered. “I mean I’m not saying he isn’t cute or whatever, or that he isn’t brave and the first person to actually treat me like a friend that was my age and-” I cut myself off and put a hoof over my mouth. Why did I just say all of that? I couldn’t actually have feelings for… I looked back up at Xayah. “You heard nothing, got it. Not a word to Brisk.”

Xayah nodded and gave a smug grin. “Your secret is safe with me.”

I quickly held out a hoof. “Wow wow! Slow down, I never said I actually like him. Maybe I’m into mares. You don't know,” Xayah raised her eyebrows again. I sighed. “Alright fine, I do like him I guess. But for the record I am actually into mares as well.”

Xayah nodded. “Yes, mares are most agreeable.”

I blushed again. “Wait? You are into mares too?”

Xayah nodded quickly and continued on walking down the hallway. I quickly followed behind her, trying to wrap my head around these new found feelings for Brisk.

I glanced at the symbol on Xayah’s rump again and this time decided to bring it up. “By the way, do Zebras have cutie marks or is that like a tattoo?

Xayah glanced at the symbol on her butt. “Most zebra’s believe it to be similar to that of a cutie mark, assuming it depicts one's destiny. Others believe it is simply nothing more than a birthmark that a zebra is born with. Few can find an actual meaning to them. But no, they are not cutie marks.”

“So Zebras are born with them?”

Xayah nodded and gave a melancholy sigh. “Zira was always interested in zebra glyphs. She always wanted to find out the real cause behind them.”

“Zira?” I asked curiously.

Xayah nodded slowly, her pace slowed to a near crawl. “Zira was my daughter, she was killed by those raiders you killed when we first met.”

“I didn’t know you had a daughter,” I said, slowly coming to a halt in the hallway. “I’m sorry you had to lose her like that.”

Xayah just gave me a sad smile. “Yes, I miss them all quite a lot.”

If that wasn’t the perfect segue to talk about her family, I don’t know what was.

“How are you holding up?” I turned to face her, but she wasn’t looking at me. Her gaze had locked on a small rock that lay on the ground between us.

“I have been better,” Xayah finally replied after a long pause. “I try to tell myself that I will not grieve too much for them, but embrace this change that life has given me. I was always told that feeling sad for those you have lost only prolongs the pain you feel for them. Holding the feelings back though is a lot harder than I thought it would be.”

That was perhaps the most depressing thing I had ever heard somepony say. It was one thing to move on quickly, it was quite another to force yourself not to feel sorrow and try and convince yourself that you didn't care. “No pony says you can’t grieve for them,” I told her, taking a small step closer to her. “No pony is expected to deal with something like that and just be okay.”

Xayah raised her gaze a little to look at me, but she still kept her head low. “Perhaps. I will find a time to say goodbye to them.”

I wasn’t quite sure what she meant by finding a time to say goodbye to them, but I was glad I was able to have this talk with Xayah. Not knowing what else to do, I reached out and gave her a big hug. I felt her body tremble a little as I wrapped my hooves around her.

“It’s going to be okay,” I assured her, holding onto her tighter. Maybe if I kept saying that one day things would be okay.

We slowly pulled apart and looked back down the hallway. “We should probably catch up with Brisk, I fear that unsupervised, he will get into a lot of trouble,” Xayah said, forcing a smile onto her face.

“Right, Brisk,” Now I just felt weird thinking about him. “Lets see what crazy thing he has gotten himself into this time.”

We began walking down the hallway when Brisk came darting around the corner and pulled to a stop in front of us. I guess he was smart enough not to get himself killed then. “You two are not going to believe what I found!” He exclaimed, bouncing on his hooves. He was becoming surprisingly good at moving in his leg braces. He turned and began darting back down the hallway.

Xayah and I exchanged a glance before racing after him. He lead us up a few flights of steps before he came to a halt inside of an apartment on the top floor of the building.

I had thought the lobby of the apartment had been clean, but the room I found myself in now was practically spotless. The ground was clear of debris and had clearly been scrubbed clean of all the grime that coated the surface of everything in the wasteland. The walls, while once cracked had re-plastered and the broken furniture that cluttered the other rooms had been replaced with new pristine versions. Complex schematics and diagrams had been pinned to the walls and I spotted a large picture of some form of anthropomorphic dog with massive claws above the desk at the far end of the room. Below the picture of the dog, three terminals sat atop the practically sparkling clean desk.

These terminals were not like any other terminal I had ever seen however, in fact they weren’t even made out of metal. I walked over and reached out to touch one with my hoof, only to find my hoof pass straight through it.

It was made out of clouds… why the fuck was it made out of clouds!

“What do you think this is?” Brisk asked, sticking his head through a cloud terminal and looking out through the screen. I stared intently at the terminal. Not being able to hack Silver Aces terminal had annoyed me, but not even being allowed to touch this terminal was torture.

“It appears to be Enclave,” Xayah stated, waving her hoof through the third terminal.

“How do you know?” I asked, turning my attention from the cloud terminal to her. “Also, I thought the Enclave never came below the clouds?”

“I know because of the big Enclave poster,” Xayah said bluntly, pointing to the large black poster sporting a Large white E surrounded by stars that I had somehow overlooked. “And as far as I am aware, they usually don’t come down here. Whatever they were doing in here must have been very important.”

"Guess that explains who cleaned this place up and put that weird Radscorpion repellent outside,” Brisk muttered. “They were probably hoping the Radscorpions would keep ponies from coming here.”

I gave a small snort. “Ironic that the Radscorpions are the reason we are here in the first place.”

Then we heard ponies talking outside. Fuck. I quickly checked my EFS. Four red bars were fast approaching the room. My eyes darted around the room, looking for a place to hide. Under the desk maybe? We wouldn’t all fit. Out the window? That was boarded up tight, not to mention that a window probably wasn’t the best way to escape something that could probably fly.

Damn it, looks like the only way out was confrontation. I turned to the door, pulling out Boneless and getting ready for anything that might come through the door. Brisk and Xayah pulled out their guns and did the same.

I spotted the red bars on my EFS stop just outside the door.

“I’m sorry, run that by me again?” I heard a female voice say. She sounded pissed. “You lost track of the fucking hellhound?”

There was a stern sounding grunt from whomever she was talking to. “It is hard to keep track of things that burrow underground,” A male voice responded. “Not to mention something that you need to stay far enough away from so that they don’t cut you in half with one slash of their claws or shoot you with their fucking energy weapons.”

The female huffed. “Then get back out there and find it. Or did you forget our mission?”

There was a long intense pause where no pony spoke. I imagined the two ponies sizing each other up on the other side of the wall. Finally I heard a small grunt and one of the four red bars began moving away from the room and back down the hallway.

Well that was one less pony to deal with I guess.

That still left three though. Three ponies that were entering the room at that very second.

The first pony to enter was a petite looking pegasus with a lavender coat and a mint green mane that had been pulled back into a long ponytail. Her mint eyes matched her mane and she had the cutie mark of a wrench and a syringe. She wore what I assumed was a black lab coat overtop of a white turtleneck and she held a clipboard in front of her with her right wing.

The two other Enclave that entered behind her were more intimidating as they had bulkier builds and were covered head to hoof in a dark insectoid like armor. Large blade like appendages had been built into the back of their armour, giving them a scorpion like appearance and both of them were equip with a battle saddle carrying two magical energy riffles.

Really? Cause I haven’t fought enough things with stingers today?

The three pegasi froze as she spotted the three of us, The female’s clipboard clattering to the ground as she took us in. We all stood in silence for a second as we all contemplated what was going to happen next.

The female pegasus in the lead put a wing to her face and groaned. “Fuck my clit with Balefire egg launcher and call me a promiscuous whore!” She cursed, lighting kicking the ground with her hoof. That wasn’t the reaction I had expected, or ever expected to hear in general. I didn’t even know what the hell a Balefire egg launcher was, but I assumed I didn’t want my clit to be fucked by one. The pegasus glared at us. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

“Uh… leaving?” I suggested, holding my ground. I didn’t know what to expect from these Enclave bunch. “We were trying to escape the Radscorpions.”

The Enclave cast a few glances at each other. The Lavender and mint pegasus turned back to us. “Yeah, you three wont be allowed to leave this building,” I could feel the tension in the room growing and could hear the faint sound of the energy weapons on the Enclaves battle saddles charging.

“Look, we have no quarrel with you ms…” I checked the nametag on the Mares black lab coat. “Ms Star Breeze. We just want to get out of here without a fight.”

Star sighed. “I’m afraid we can't let you leave and risk you telling other ponies of our location,” then she pulled out her laser pistol and all hell broke loose.

The Enclave took to the air instantly. The room wasn’t nearly big enough for flying to be a large advantage, but it was big enough for flight to make them move far faster than we were able to hit, even while covered in heavy armor. Red beams of light shot out from their magical energy weapons, singeing out coats and barding. I leaped back and forth, doing my best to evade the stream of fire while trying to land a shot of my own.

After two failed shots from my shotgun, I switched tactics and began swinging at them with my shock baton. I suddenly felt like I was trying to swat at a fly that was annoying me by buzzing around me head. I felt my baton make contact with one of the pegasi’s wings. There was a satisfying zap and the armored Enclave trooper fell to the floor with a thud.

I swung my baton at the pegasus again, but he rolled aside and leapt to his hooves with surprising speed and agility. His scorpion tale lashed out at me, but I quickly deflected it with my baton and kicked him across the chest with both of my forelegs. He stumbled back slightly in surprise, but I wasn’t nearly strong enough to do any real damage with my strength alone.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Xayah darting around the room, dodging the blasts from the energy weapons with a fair amount of ease. The two enclave members I wasn’t fighting seemed to be directing most of their attention on her as she seemed to move and hit the fastest.

That was a mistake on their part. Brisk came up behind them and leapt into Star Breeze, knocking her from the air and causing the two of them to tumble across the ground together, kicking and yelling at each other.

That was all I was able to see before the Enclave trooper lunged at me again. I went to deflect his oncoming tail, only for his battle saddle to blast me in the chest with two red burning lasers. Two holes were ripped open in the front of my barding and I was tossed half way across the room. I was incredibly lucky not to have been disintegrated into a pile of glowing red ash on the spot.

The Pegasus lunged at me again, this time I didn’t try to deflect, but attack. My magic wrapped around his scorpion tail and I telekinetically rammed the blade at the end at his left wing. I felt the resistance of the mechanical appendage as he tried to pull it in the opposite direction. At last he tucked in his wings and dropped to the ground, whipping his tail out of my magical grasp. He fired at me again, but I had already moved out of the way.

I raised Boneless and fired at his front legs. The shattered shells peppered his front, much of the shrapnel bouncing off his metal armour. He did however real back in pain as he was sprayed with Bonelesses fire. His armor was tough, but it didn’t make him invincible.

Brisk and Star stumbled past me. Brisks pistol clamped tight in his mouth as he tried to fire at the small pegasus. She dodged his shots and kicked him in the face, bloodying his nose. He fell back, his hooves flailing in the air before him. One of his hooves made contact, knocking her to the floor.

The Enclave trooper began circling me. He had tried to take me out with sheer tenacity, but now he was clearly trying to find another approach. Well I wasn’t going to give him the time to figure that out.

I began swinging my baton at him in fast strokes, trying to keep him as occupied as I could. His mechanical tail turned out to be even better at deflecting melee attacks than it was at attacking as he managed to block all of my attacks fairly easily.

What he wasn’t able to block was when he found Boneless pointed at the back of his head. He froze as he felt all three of the barrels tap the back of his helmet. We stood for a second, eyes locked as my magic slowly tightened around the trigger of my gun.

He was horrified. I couldn’t tell at first through the tinted goggles of his helmet, but the longer I looked at him the more his growing fear was beginning to show. His legs began to quiver ever so slightly and I could have sworn I saw pinpoint pupils through the shroud of his goggles.

I remembered the audio recordings Cheese Sandwich had left behind. I remembered his broken corpse. I had killed a good pony and I hadn’t even known it.

Who was this Enclave pegasus really? Did he love somepony? Did somepony love him? Could I really blow out the brains of somepony I didn’t even know?

My telekinetic grip on Boneless weakened. Damn it, this mindset was going to get me killed in the Wasteland, but what could I do? I couldn’t be myself if I just went around killing everypony that attacked me.

“I am not a raider, I am not a raider,” I muttered to myself. That sentence seemed to give the Enclave trooper the impression that I wasn’t going to fire. Not that he was wrong in thinking that.

His tail lashed up and knocked Boneless across the floor and out of the room. I staggered back as my telekinetic grip was lost. The scorpion tail lashed at me next, bashing me across the face and sending me sprawling across the floor.

I saw Xayah get knocked to the ground as well as the Enclave pegasus attacking her barreled into her. She was knocked backwards, landing next to me with a thud. Both armored Enclave troops now began advancing towards us, their energy weapons charging with an ominous hum. Behind them, I could see Star pin Brisk to the ground and aim her pistol at his face. She was hesitating to blast his head off, thank the goddesses for that, but that didn’t give us much time.

We had to get out of there now. We were very clearly outmatched against their magical energy weaponry and military combat experience.

Welp, here goes nothing. I wrapped Brisk and Xayah in a magical field and imagined the doorway to the room. I doubted I would be able to get us much farther than that.

“Oh no you fucking dont!” Star shouted, noticing what I was doing.

She blasted at Brisks face with her pistol, only for all three of us to disappear in a flash of amber light before the attack could land and rematerialize at the door. With my last remaining strength, I picked Boneless up off the ground with my shaking hooves. My head felt like it was going to explode from using a teleportation spell again, not to mention using a teleportation spell on myself as well as my two friends at the same time.

I swayed slightly on my hooves before collapsing into Brisk. Everything began going foggy and I became incredibly disorientated. I heard yelling and the sound of the Enclaves lasers blasting towards us. I felt Brisk haul me onto his back and begin rushing down the hallway as the Enclave gave chase. I heard Xayahs voice say something to me, but I couldn’t make out the words.

I fell from Brisk back as he sharply turned a corner. I landed with a thump against the corner of the hallway. I could make out the forms of the Enclave growing closer and closer as they descended down the hall towards me. I tried pulling myself to my hooves, only to collapse back to the ground with a thud and a groan.

Then I was on Brisks back again as we raced down a flight of stairs to the level below. Xayah was a few paces ahead of us as we charged onwards. A few red beams of energy flew past us as the Enclave tried to gun as down and prevent our escape.

Then we were standing on a ledge overlooking the wasteland. The large monorail I had seen racing along the Manehattan skyline connecting to and running through the apartment building. Four Star Living wasn’t just an apartment building, it was a train station.

Through my haze I could see the ruins of the buildings below me. “That must be the theater we were going to enter,” I muttered to myself drowsily.

More red lasers were bouncing around us. Brisk was needing to dodge them continuously to avoid being evaporated. I wrapped my hooves around his chest and held on for dear life as I was tossed to and fro as Brisk bounded and leaped from one spot to another.

Brisk and Xayah exchanged a few yells, and then they both began racing across the monorail. The sudden sensation of being so high up with no ground below be temporarily pulled me from my trance.

Holy Fuck we were high up! I felt like I was in the middle of a vast void and that I could fall in any direction and never stop.

The Enclave had begun swooping around us, flying far above our reach before swooping under the monorail making it impossible for us to go on the offensive. I tried to pull out Boneless, but I was so weak that I had trouble even lighting up my horn.

One of the Enclave troops blasted at Xayah’s hooves. She leaped out of the way, but lost her balance on the monorail and slipped off. She reached up and grabbed onto the lip of the monorail with her hooves. She began trying to pull herself back onto the monorail, only for her left hoof to slip and make her dangle even more precariously.

Brisk rushed forward and began trying to pull her back up, but with my weight already bearing down on him, he could do little more than prevent her from falling more.

The Enclave began doing loops around us in the air, firing shot after shot from their energy weapons at us. Brisk had to do everything he could not to drop Xayah as a laser punched its way through his broken forehoof.

“If you could teleport us again Amber, that would be great!” Brisk shouted, struggling to keep Xayahs hoof in his. She began to slip further and further out of his grasp.

I looked down at the theater below us. There was no way I could teleport all three of us (or even one of us) all the way down there, it was way too far of a distance. I glanced back at the Four Star Living building. There would be no point in teleporting back to the apartment building. The Enclave would just continue to gun us down.

Making my decision, I wrapped all three of us in my magic and took a deep breath. I needed my head clear for this if we were going to survive. My head screamed in protest as I held them all in my magics amber glow.

“Alright, drop on three,” I commanded.

Brisk gave me a wide eyed stare. “What! Are you crazy!” He shouted, just narrowly avoiding a blast from one of the Enclaves battle saddles.

But I didn’t have time to explain, I was already putting all of my effort into what I was about to do. “One!” I shouted, taking another deep breath. I could feel Brisks muscles tighten. “Two!” I shut my eyes, not ready to feel the world fly out from under me. “Three!”

Then we were falling. The cold air rushed around us as we plummeted towards the theatre below us. I forced my eyes open and saw the ground close approaching. Goddesses the ground had never been so horrifying. It came closer and closer. I focused on it. only a few more seconds and we would be nothing more than smears on the ground. Good, we had to be close for it to work. My head screamed and I felt a splitting pain threaten to tear me apart. I pictured the floor of the theatre, now only a foot below me.

Then there was a flash of amber light and everything went dark.

“Amber! Amber! Damn it Amber Aura, you wake up right now!” I heard Brisks panicked voice shout. I felt his hooves violently shake me as he attempted to pull me from unconsciousness.

I let my eyes drift open. The light of the sky above temporarily blinded me as I tried to focus on my surroundings. The first thing that came into view was Brisk face looking down at me. And by Celestia’s mighty horn, he genuinely looked concerned.

“What the fuck happened?” I asked, trying to pull myself to my hooves. I failed miserably and landed flat on my face. Why do I always fall on my face when I wake up!

Brisk gave a small chuckle and lifted me onto his back. “You did your crazy magic thing or whatever. Teleported us into the theater.”

I looked around the room. It didn’t really look like a theater from inside, just another dull grey and green wasteland ruin. The room was small and a bunch of shattered mirrors covered the walls. I assumed it had once been a green room of sorts.

“By the way, that was an impressive trick you did. Teleporting us and all,” Brisk complimented, trying his best to walk forward while carrying my weight. “I mean teleporting us once was crazy and shit, but twice and while falling from the sky? That's gotta be the most impressive feet of magic I’ve ever seen.”

I blushed. It felt good hearing that from him. “Thanks, but it was really nothing,” That was a lie. I was having trouble believing I had managed to cast that spell twice myself. My head also didn’t think it was nothing. I currently had the worst headache I had ever had in my entire life.

Brisk snorted. “If that was nothing then you should teleport more of our enemies onto pikes,” He said sarcastically as he pushed open a dented metal door that lead to the rest of the theatre. “Now come on, we gotta find Xayah.”

My ears shot up with alarm. “Wait! Where is Xayah?” I asked, noticing our zebra friends absence for the first time.

“I’m not sure. She didn’t appear in the room with us when you teleported us,” Brisk said. I had an awful image in my mind of Brisk and I disappearing into thin air and leaving Xayah to fall to her death, her broken body splattered against some desolate and grey road. I pushed the thought from my head. I had saved her and she was somewhere in the building. She has to be. “I was going to go look for her but I didn’t want to leave you alone here with the Enclave outside. I spotted them circling the building looking for survivors.”

“Of course they are,” I groaned, resting my chin on the top of Brisks head as he began carrying me through the ruined theatre. “Why can’t we just get an easy day in the wasteland?”

We entered a large, almost circular room. The building was starting to look a lot more like a theatre now. We stood on a large black stage, the dark paint chipped and cracked from age. Before us sat rows of ruined red velvet chairs. Some had been damaged due to age, while others seemed too had clearly suffered water damage. Broken stage lights cluttered the ground or hung from the ceiling and to my dismay I spotted a bunch of mannequins shoved into the corner. Once again they seemed to be staring right at me. Damn those things were spooky! Why the hell did the wasteland seem to have so many?!

“Seems to be the main area of the building,” Brisk muttered to himself. “We probably should be able to find Xayah fairly easily from here. Let’s see,” He looked down at his pipbuck and looked for bars on his EFS. “Oh shit! Red bar!”

I checked me EFS. He was right. A red bar darted back and forth from somewhere inside the building. I noticed I had seen that kind of movement before with the Radscorpions.

“It’s below us,” I informed Brisk, wrapping my magic around Boneless and- Wait a second. My horn failed to even produce light as I tried to use my telekinesis. “Oh fuck! Fuck fuck fuck!”

I had heard of horn burn out before. A state that a unicorn can be in after exerting their magic too much to the point that their horn simply stops working. In serious cases it can be permanent, though more often than not it just takes a day or two before you can use magic again.

I pulled my triple barrel shotgun out with my mouth. Wow that felt weird. “Loogks like I maht musing magic mora mit,” I grumbled around Boneless' mouthpiece.

“What?” Brisk asked, trying to make sense of my jumble of words.

I spat Boneless into my hooves. “I said it looks like I’m not using magic for a bit. Horn burn out,” I pointed lamely at my horn.

“Welcome to my world,” Brisk said with a grin. I gently knocked him upside the head.

“Oh shut up you.”

We heard a loud screech of gears from behind us. We turned to see a trapdoor in the center of the stage swing open, a thick green mist that was swirling from within began seeping onto the stage. Slowly, a platform began to rise from the hole, the figure in a dark cloak stood completely silhouetted upon the platform as it rose.

I heard the crack of static as the speakers above us flared to life. “Mares and Gentlestallions, fillies and colts, behond! The-” The speakers crackled again and began playing some form of operatic music.

What the fuck was going on?

The shadowy figure slowly approached us, stepping into the orange glow of a spotlight.

It was a ghoul of some form, wrapped in a tattered and burned black cloak. Half of the ghouls face was obscured by a sinister white mask. Its rotting flesh, though withered like the many other ghouls I had encountered in the wasteland, held scores of burn marks and oozing puss bubbles. His milky pale eyes seemed to have a spark inside of them, burning with a fire I couldn't and might never fully understand. From within its charred skin, a baleful green glow seemed to emanate from him

“Are you kidding me!” I yelled. “There really is a fucking super ghoul in here! I was just joking!” I didn’t know if I wanted to laugh or scream, so instead I just groaned.

The ghoul began advancing towards us again, this time a glowing green light began building up in the back of his throat. Brisk and I realized what was happening too late.

Brisk leapt to the side, just narrowly avoiding being burned alive as the theatrical super ghoul sent a jet of fire spewing from its mouth. Both our tails caught flame as the fire raced towards us.

I rolled off of Brisks back and began trying to put out the fire in my tail before it could consume any more of my body. I was sad to see that my beautiful curly pink and blue tail had been reduced to a small charred stump.

The green fog that had begun seeping across the stage and was licking at the bottom of my hooves. Instantly, the geiger counter on my pipbuck began clicking a hundred miles a minute. That ghoul must have been soaking up all that radiation for almost two hundred years, no wonder it was breathing balefire.

I pushed myself away from the radioactive fog, only to find myself roll of the stage and whack the back of my head on one of the broken seats. The world spun as I felt my already aching head whirl in pain from the impact. I crawled towards the stage and tried pulling myself back onto it. In my weakened state I found the action of climbing a lot harder than I would have liked.

Brisk twisted just out of reach as the glowing ghoul lashed its burning hooves at his face. I could hear Brisks pipbuck clicking from the radiation all the way from across the stage just by being too close to the ghoul. Brisk jumped back again, this time pulling out his pistol and shooting the ghoul point blank in the face.

Green ooze burst from the ghouls head as the bullet made contact. It stumbled back, falling into the green fog. Brisk and I watched in horror as the charred skin slowly pulled itself back together.

Radiation could regenerate this guy! Did the wasteland have some sort of vendetta against me or something?

Brisk wasted no time firing two more shots into the ghoul as it began to close in on him again. Now submerged in the fog however, the oozing holes punched into his body by the bullets mended together fast enough that the glowing ghoul didn’t even slow down.

Brisk switched to his machete, aware that his pistol wasn’t going to do much with all the radiation. When it came to this ghoul, you either kill it in one go, or you die trying.

Before Brisk had a chance to attack, the ghoul let loose another jet of fire from its jaw. Brisk dove away from the flame, rushing in a large circle around the ghoul. The glowing monstrosity simply spun on the spot, sending fire spewing in all directions.

I finally hauled myself onto the stage, only to need to drop onto my stomach as a blast of fire flew over my head. Crawling forward, I raised Boneless and fired at the creature. The blast took out half of his side, sending glowing viscera flying across the room in all directions.

The ghoul stumbled, its mouth closing and drawing the spewing fire erupting from its maw to a halt. It glared at me, its eyes filled with rage.

Shit, this guy was not something I really wanted to have attack me while I was unable to do magic and had difficulty standing.

The ghoul began closing in on me. I could see a ball of fire building up within its chest as it drew closer. Before it could reach me though, Brisk leapt toward it and severed one of its front leg with a swipe of his machete.

The glowing ghoul collapsed, his hind hoof lashing out and punting Brisk in the face, leaving a large burn mark across his left cheek. Brisk tumbled back, landing hard on his side in the fog.

I aimed Boneless at the ghoul, but I was having trouble seeing it through all the fog. The fog was everywhere now, covering the whole theater in a blanket of radioactive green. My pipbuck said I was taking in over ten rads a second, and the number only seemed to be growing with each passing minute.

I really didn’t want to grow some sort of mutation from this.

Through the fog, I saw the ghoul pull itself to its hooves. To my amazement, its front leg was almost completely regrown already. The monster hissed and turned to face me again. I could see the glow of its eyes perfectly as they cut through the dense fog.

Blam!

A bullet tore through both of the ghouls front legs. It fell forwards, trying to keep its balance as its front half was blown out from under it.

I looked up to see Xayah standing on the stages catwalks, her sniper drawn and aimed at the glowing ghoul. I couldn't help but smile at her. Thank the goddesses she was still alive and well.

I pulled myself forward, blasting the ghoul again with Boneless. Another bloody hole was ripped through its body as the shrapnel tore into it.

It scrambled towards me, the radiation pulling the muscle tissue back together. A howl escaped the creatures peeled lips as it charged me.

Then Brisk was up and swinging at it with his machete again, this time cutting the ghoul clean in half. The back half of the ghouls body flopped over limply, the front however continued squirming. It scuttled towards me on its still regenerating front legs, trailing bits of intestine and tattered muscle behind it as it did.

Xayah fired again, this time her bullet pierced the ghouls skull. Its head burst open, spraying Brisk and I in glowing brain matter.

And sweet Celestia it was still moving. Its body thrashed about as it tried to claw at us. Due to its eyes currently being oozing pulp scattered across the floor, most of the creatures attacks all fell short. Slowly, the broken remains of its skull began to grow in size, mending themselves back together. I could see the oozing remains of eyes slowly reform in to glowing spheres atop its forming head.

It could regrow its brain! This was getting absolutely ridiculous.

Brisk stepped forward and stabbed the point of his machete through the top of the ghouls head, pinning the creature to the floor as the blade sailed straight through the writhing body and into the wooden stage beneath it.

Brisk gave me a quick nod, signalling for me to fire at it. I raised Boneless and place the edge of the barrel against the ghouls reforming forehead. The creature opened its mouth to breath another jet of fire into my face, but I didn’t give it time. I pulled the trigger on Boneless and watched as what little remained of the ghouls was pulverized by Boneless’ explosive fire. At last, the ghoul stopped squirming and simply slumped to the floor, green slime spilling from what little remained of his corpse.

Brisk popped a tablet of buck into his mouth and pulling me onto his back. “Come on, let's blow this place. I don’t think we should be taking in this much radiation.”

Somehow, Xayah had already made it down from the Catwalks and was gesturing for us to follow her. “Come, I Think I know a way out of this theatre of scares!” She urged, disappearing behind the door she had indicated us to go through.

Without hesitation, Brisk followed after her. A few moments later, we pushed our way out of the broken down theatre and onto the street. It wasn’t the street we had entered on however, but rather the back side of the theatre. I was glad to see no red bars on my pipbuck.

“You think you can walk?” Brisk asked me, coughing slightly in an attempt to remove some of the radioactive fog from his lungs.

I shakely stepped off of his back and onto the ground. My legs felt like jello, but I was able to stand. “Yeah, I should be okay.”

“Thank Celestia, I really didn’t want to carry your sorry butt all the way to Fetlock,” Brisk grinned, stretching his back hooves.

“That shouldn’t be far, Fetlock is only a few more hours I hear,” Xayah stated in her methodical tone. “And the Ponypalooza hotel is closer than that. We should still be able to make it before the end of the day if everything else goes our way.”

“Right, because we aren’t going to run into any more complications,” I sighed, taking a slow and shaky step.

Only a few more hours. I could do that.

My thoughts returned to the cyber ponies. I was probably going to be confronting them in a day or two. Had they made it to the Ponypalooza hotel already? If it was only a few more hours walk for us, then they probably had. Which meant that it wasn’t long before they doubled back and went for Stable 25.

The idea that the cyber ponies could be preparing to wipe out every pony I had ever known made me feel sick. I shook my head, trying to clear my mind. The action only made me feel sicker.

I felt my heart start racing. I had to fix this. I had to get moving. We were racing apotheosis now, and we were falling behind.

Footnote: level up.
New perk: Entomologist -- Lets be honest, bugs and scorpions are kinda gross. +50% damage to insects.

Author's Note

So I took a week long break from writing after the last chapter, only to end up going on vacation for a week, so this chapter ended up coming out a lot later than I had hoped it would.
hopefully the next chapter will come out a bit sooner.

As usual, huge thanks to kkat for creating the wonderful world of Fallout: Equestira

I hope you all had a good day and continue to have a good days onwards from here.

Chapter VI: Comradery of the Steel Rangers

“We are the only salvation this tortured planet and its people have. Without us, pony kind is sure to perish.”

Time.

In the wasteland, it was easy to get sidetracked. It doesn’t matter how hard you try to stay on track, one thing will inevitably lead to another, then another, then another. Eventually you will find yourself walking a path you never meant to walk, trying to achieve a goal that you never wanted to achieve.

The journey to the Ponypalooza Hotel felt exactly like that.

Let's try to walk down this street here. Sorry, looks like there are some Radscorpions to fight. Sorry, you just got stuck in this building. Sorry, looks like there are some Enclave pegasi to fight. Sorry, now you gotta fight a glowing ghoul thing now! It was starting to become really damn annoying.

We probably could have made it to the hotel already if we hadn’t gotten sidetracked so much. Which meant we could also have been a step closer to saving Stable 25 from starvation and iminent slaughter.

I groaned as I marched down the road. My hooves hurt and all my wounds kept on opening back up the more I walked. Not to mention that my head was still spinning from teleporting three ponies twice.

I rubbed my forehoof over the gauze that had begun to peel off of the large cut on my side. The scabbed over injuries itched more than they hurt. I was beginning to feel like I had been eaten by hundreds of mosquitoes.

Brisk and Xayah trailed behind me, talking back and forth with each other is some sort of friendly debate. I tired to listen in on their conversation a couple of times, but nothing they said seemed to catch my attention.

Instead I focused on what was ahead. A few hours of walking, followed by a big ol’ fight with a bunch of killer cyber ponies.

The idea of actually being able to take one of those metal monstrosities out was laughable. The three of us had struggled to kill only one alicorn, and even then we had come dangerously close to dying multiple times. While on the other hoof, I had watched the cyber ponies tear through dozens of alicorns and simply laugh it off afterwards.

I had to think of some way to take them out. I could theoretically just steal the A.A.S.S from them, but then what would stop them from stroming Stable 25 and killing everypony inside?

Could I trick them into killing each other somehow? That seemed unlikely. Perhaps I could find some more ponies to help me fight them. Then again, that might take time, and we didn’t have time to get sidetracked anymore than we already had.

I could see the looming structure of the Ponypalooza Hotel slowly rising up in the distance before us. Even two hundred years after the apocalypse it looked stunning. Most of the destroyed walls had been patched together with what looked like bits of marble castle walls and through the grimey stain glass windows I could see dazzling glass chandeliers hanging from the ceiling. How those had managed to survive the holocaust and two hundered years of the post apocalyptic wasteland, I will never know.

“Looks like we are almost at our destination?” Brisk muttered to himself, staring up at the towering hotel in the distance. “Y'all think those cybernetic freaks are inside?”

“I sure hope so,” I grunted, pulling out Boneless. “Boneless and I have a few presents for them in the form of exploding shotgun shells.”

Xayah quickened her pace and caught up to me. “Do we have any actual plan to kill those cyber ponies?” She asked, eyeing my triple barrel shotgun. “I don’t know how much our weapons are going to do against such a formidable opponent.”

Before I could tell her that we had no plan and were most likely all going to get blasted to bits the second the cyber ponies saw us, we heard the sound of a young filly call out. “Help! Raiders took my parents! Help me!”

We looked over to see a small yellow and blue filly cowering against a wall a few feet away from us. She was covered in cuts and bruises and a small trail of blood ran between her back legs.

When she spotted us, her eyes widened in what I could only assume was hope. “Please, help me! They’re in here! Hurry” Then she spun around and darted through the doors of the building beside her.

I began rushing in the direction of the filly, only for Brisk's hooves to pull me back.

“What do you think you’re doing?” He hissed.

“Helping that filly,” I responded quickly. “You heard her, her parents are being held by raiders in there!”

Brisk shook his head and groaned. “What is it with you and wanting to help everypony we run across? It’s going to get you killed. Who would save Stable 25 from destruction then?”

“But I can’t just-” I began, but Brisk cut me off.

“Yes you can! You can just walk away. A filly and her parents are not more important that everypony in Stable 25. I can't believe that I of all ponies need to remind you of that!”

Damn it! Why did Brisk always need to do this! “Oh yeah! Well, Xayah wants to go help her!” I retorted, pointing a hoof at Xayah. The zebra flinched slightly as I flicked my hoof at her. “Right Xayah?”

Both Brisk and I locked our gaze on our striped friend who began slowly shrinking away from us. “I uh…” Xayah stammered, glancing back and forth between us. “I think we should save her family.”

Of course she would want to help a family in danger. I doubted she would want to let anypony go through what she had.

Brisk groaned and slapped his hoof across his face. “We are never going to get anywhere at this rate.”

Together, we turned and approached the door the filly had gone through. I spotted a handful of red bars inside on my EFS. Looking up, I spotted a bunch of twisted corpses hanging from meat hooks above the door. Yup, definitely raiders inside.

I slowly pushed the door open, letting the green glow of my pipbuck light the dark room beyond. We were met with horrors.

The walls that had once been a dull grey were now shiny and red with blood. The floor was sticky and coated in what I only imagined was the liquified remains of ponies. Bloody skeletons sat in strange positions around the room. Some simply sitting in chairs, while others displayed more perverse scenes. What made it all worse however, was how the bones did not appear to be two hundred years old like the rest of the skeletons I had seen, these skeletons were fresh. Somepony had deliberately skinned and cleaned the bones by hoof.

“I do not like this,” Xayah whimpered, keeping her head low as she followed behind Brisk and I. She held her striped hoof over the gem on her stealth cloak so she could turn invisible as soon as trouble reared its head.

Brisk nodded. “I hate raiders. I don’t know how they can live with themselves after doing shit like this.”

The three of us pushed onwards through the building. Each turn led to a horror even worse than the one before. First a wall covered in skinned pony faces, then ten filly heads on pikes. I began keeping my eyes low whenever we turned a corner, I was going to have enough nightmares from the wasteland when this was all done.

As we climbed a flight of stairs to the second floor, Xayah brought up the question that we had all been wondering. “Where did that filly go?”

As we arrived on the second floor we were given our answer.

A unicorn raider stood in the center of the room. His armour was similar to that of most raiders armours, assembled from jagged chunks of metal, spikes, chains and anything else he could get his hooves on. His black hair had been pulled back into two pigtails on the top of his head and his face was covered in a sickening mask of a screaming pony face.

No wait… it wasn’t a mask, at least not in the traditional sense. He had literally pulled a skinned pony head over his own. I had to do everything I could to keep from vomiting up all of the cookies I had eaten this morning.

The raider held a large serrated knife in its magic and had pushed the blade up against the neck of the filly we had followed in. The fillies eyes were wide and her shaking pupils had turned to pinpricks.

“Don’t take another step or I’ll slit this fillies throat!” The raider cackled, grinning at us through his skin mask. Seeing the raiders mouth move below the mask was an awful sight.

I raised Boneless, only to see the edge of the blade dig deeper into the fillies neck. I quickly lowered my gun.

The raider laughed again. It was a horrible laugh. “That's a good girl! Now put your weapons down!”

I looked around, trying to spot a more effective way out than violence or surrender. There were red bars everywhere on my EFS. My eyes darted around the room, trying to spot the other raiders to no avail. My amber eyes landed on the yellow filly the raider held captive. My eyes narrowed. Why didn’t I see any green bars?

I was sitting against the street corner. I didn’t know how the hell I had gotten there or where the raiders had gone. My head felt dizzy as if I had just teleported and I was having trouble focusing on things. There was a booming sound in the distance, but I couldn’t make it out very well.

A green object swam before my vision. I squinted, trying to make out exactly what it was. Was it a pony? It kinda looked like it.

“Amber? You okay?” Brisk said, leaning in a little closer, allowing me to fully make out his features.

I rubbed the back of my head and looked around. “Uh… yeah, I think so. How did we get here, what happened to the raider?”

Brisk glanced around nervously. “We were jumped from behind. The raiders knocked you out. Xayah and I managed to kill them and pull you from the building.”

Something about that didn’t sound right. “What about that filly?” I asked, my voice cracking a little. I already knew the answer, but I forced myself to ask anyway.

Brisk bit his lip. “She, uh… she didn’t make it. Sorry.”

I glanced over at Xayah, who was cowering behind a large pile of rubble, her sniper drawn. She was covered in cuts and gashes, though most of them looked like they had quickly healed over.

“We uh, had to use the last of our Healing potions on Xayah. She got hurt the most,” Brisk said, slowly pulling me to my hooves.

Now a little bit more aware of my surroundings, I began making out the booming sounds I had head. Gunfire. Lots and lots of gunfire.

“What is happening?” I asked, pulling up to Xayah and peeking over the rubble. I saw a group of seven or so ponies clad in heavy steel armour firing at a notably larger group of less equipt ponies. I spotted the large red flag depicting a sinister looking eye looming over the larger group of ponies. “Slavers,” I muttered, pulling out Boneless. Damn it, I hated these guys.

Xayah glanced at me wearily. “Are you alright?” She asked, looking me over.”

“Yeah,” I grumbled, rubbing the back of my head. “I don’t really remember anything from the fight, but I can walk and stuff.”

Funny, I didn’t feel any bump on the back of my head.

“We accidentally stumbled into a crossfire between these two groups here. I recognize a few of the slavers, I think some of them chased us back at the MoM building. No clue who those metal ponies are though,” Brisk said, sliding up next to us and pointing at the ponies in the strange power armour.

“So what should we do?” I questioned, glancing back and forth between the two groups fighting. “Do we fight them both? Just the Slavers? Who's side are those metal ponies on?”

“Those are the Steel Rangers,” Xayah informed, nodding towards the armoured ponies. “They are… well they might be friendly. Really depends on what mood they’re in.”

Brisk eyed the heavy power armour. “I’d recommend sneaking away and continuing to the Hotel. These aren’t ponies needing saving and or even our fight.”

For once I agreed with him.

Xayah tapped me on the shoulder. “Do not look now, but I think this situation we are in is about to become less pleasant than it already is.”

I glanced to where she was gesturing to see three alicorns standing with the slavers. And of course they were looking at us. Because we simply couldn’t get a break.

“YOU!” all three of the alicorns shouted into our heads. Shit! They recognized us?! How the fuck did they do that?! We killed the only alicorn that had seen us!

Beams of energy started flying towards us. We ducked below the rubble to avoid being dusted. A few of the slavers turned and began firing at us, though most of the slavers kept their attention on the armoured ponies that were assaulting them. I assumed the alicorns had telepathically instructed some of them to attack us.

“Okay, take out the alicorns first and foremost,” I instructed, turning to my friends. “Then the slavers. Hopefully we will have figured out if those Steel Ranger are friendlies by then.”

Brisk nodded and quickly reloaded his pistol. “Copy that,” He drawled, once again peeking over the mound of broken bricks and rocks to look at the small armies. A wall of bullets spewed towards us, causing him to duck back down.

Xayah waved her hooves in front of our faces. “Do we have a plan this time!”

“Yes, take out the alicorns then-” I started.

“No, that is a list of things we need to accomplish,” Xayah stated. “Do we have a plan for killing the alicorns? Or did you forget the difficulty we underwent upon our last encounter with one?”

“I don’t suppose we have any more grenades? We could use a similar strategy as last time?” Brisk suggested.

I shook my head. “All out. We only had the one.”

While we had been talking, two slavers had pulled themselves up against the far side of the rubble and had began to inch around it with their weapons drawn.

Xayah spotted them first. Flickering out of view and lunging into one of them. The slaver stumbled back as the invisible zebra slammed into him, a clear look of shock on his face.

Brisk’s machete was out at once, swinging at the second slaver who was in the middle of pulling himself over the rubble. The slaver dodged, rolling onto his side and flopping lamely by my front hooves. I raised my baton and bashed him over the head, a small shower of sparks shooting from the end of my baton as it came in contact with his noggin.

The slaver went still upon impact, though I could still see his chest rising and falling. I pulled my baton up for a second hit, this time to put him down for good.

My eyes landed on Brisk. He was looking at me cautiously, as if waiting to see what I would do. Why the fuck was he looking at me like that?

I glanced down at the unconscious slaver. He wasn’t a threat anymore, why was I attacking him. I slowly lowered my baton.

Brisk rolled his eyes and raised his pistol.

Blam!

The unconscious slavers head burst open, blood splattering across the ground and seeping away from the body.

I stared in horror at the bloody corpse.

“You didn’t need to kill him!” I spat, pushing back up against the rubble and glancing at the advancing slavers.

“Yes, I did,” Brisk monotoned, rummaging through the slavers pockets and passing me two shotgun shells. “I let him live and he just goes and enslaves more innocent ponies. You need to understand that the life of the one doesn’t undermine the lives of the many.”

I pocketed the shotgun shells and huffed. “Fine, we can talk about this later, but we have a bit of an issue at the moment.”

Brisk nodded in agreement and readied himself for the next wave of slavers.

Xayah limped up to us, her coat matted in blood. I could see the broken body of the slaver Xayah had fought a few feet away, though I couldn’t seem to spot any serious injuries on her.

“There are more coming,” She panted, raising her sniper and aiming at the oncoming slavers.

The rushing ponies never reached us, as a large Steel Ranger leapt in front of them and blasted them with what I could only describe as a rapid fire missile launcher. The slavers scattered at the Steel Ranger's attack and began focusing their attacks on the intruder.

Brisk nudged me. “This would be a good opportunity to attack those alicorns,” He suggested, moving along the side of the rubble to where a could see a small stretch of open ground between us and the three alicorns.

I nodded and followed, Xayah trailing a foot or so behind me.

The three of us weaved our way across the war zone. Though the Steel Rangers weren’t attacking us directly, they ended up being a bigger problem than the slavers. Their explosive weaponry made moving from one place to the next near impossible as the area around us was bombarded by explosion after explosion. Bits of shrapnel and debri rained down on us from all sides, forcing us to move as fast as we could through the clearing.

Two of the alicorns had taken to the air and were blasting at the small squad of Steel Rangers with burning lasers. One however, stared at us as we approached it. Its slitted eyes burning into us as we rushed forwards.

“YES! Come to me!” The alicorn screamed in our minds. “We are ready for a rematch!” A rematch? Was this the same alicorn or something? Did they all share the same memories? Alicorns are weird.

“We still don’t have a plan!” Xayah shouted as the looming alicorn continuously drew closer. “Why do we always rush into things without a plan!”

“I have a plan!” I shouted back, reaching into my bag and pulling out a memory orb. I figured if they shared the same memory, then it wouldn’t let us bring a grenade anywhere near it.

I smirked and tossed the memory orb at the alicorn. I saw the alicorns eyes flick up, watch the memory orb fly at her, then drop back down to me. The alicorn gave us a wide smile as the memory orb landed with a small thud by her hooves.

“You really thought you could trick me like that?” It yelling into our heads. “We will not let you kill us the same way twice!”

Seriously! Somepony had already done that trick! And here I thought I was being clever.

“What about this trick?” I heard Brisk grunt. My eyes dropped to where Brisk had pulled up next to the alicorn, his pistol pointed right under her chin. In my futile attempt to trick the alicorn into going into a memory orb I hadn’t seen him sneak up to the alicorn, and by the sudden shock that crossed the alicorns face, I could tell she hadn’t either.

Damn Brisk could be a sneaky pony.

The alicorns shield flaired to life, but not before Brisk managed to fire off a round from his gun. The bullet burst through the alicorns lower and upper jaw and blew off the front half of her face.

The fake goddess stumbled back, her hooves pressed tightly against her ruined face. Her eyes narrowed as she spotted Brisk.

“The goddess will make you pay for your transgression!” The alicorn shreaked. Her shield dropped and a beam of blue light blasted from her horn, striking Brisk across the chest. He flew back, crashing into and through the ruined wall of an old skyscraper.

Xayah fired a round from her sniper, the shot tearing through the alicorns back two legs and making her drop to the ground with a scream. The two other alicorns reacted to her wails, turning from their fights with the Steel Rangers and began swooping towards us.

This was bad. Really, really bad!

A slaver pounced onto me from the side, knocking me off balance. I grappled with him to the ground as he tried to pin me down. I reached for my baton with my magic, only to find my horn still suffering from burnout.

I hated not having magic! I don’t know how earth ponies did it. Hell, I didn’t know how Brisk did it.

I grabbed onto the handle of my baton with my mouth and whacked the slaver across the face. He reared up, accidentally getting in the way of one of the Steel Rangers explosive projectiles. The slavers body burst open, gore and viscera pouring down on me. The force of the explosion sent my flying backwards crashing my head against the ground.

The whole world spun as I tried to pull myself to my hooves. A second explosion detonated close to where I was standing, sending me flying backwards again. I felt my back collide with something solid, only for it to break away and for my to land heavily on my side.

I pulled myself up again and glanced around. I had been thrown into a nearby building, its walls crumbling more and more with each blast of the Steel Rangers weaponry.

Brisk pulled himself up next to me. “Howdy,” he moaned, placing a hoof over the large burnmark on his chest. “Got any more bright ideas?”

I glanced out of the large hole in the wall to where I could see Xayah doing her best to avoid being struck by the three alicorns many lasers. A few slavers had turned their attention to the zebra as well, rushing at her with knives or shooting at her when they could get a shot in.

We had to think of something quickly. Even if the Steel Rangers managed to take out all the slavers and the alicorns, I doubted that they would be able to kill them all before we bit the dust ourselves.

I looked over at the crumbling walls of the building. “Alright, I’ve got a plan.” Brisk raised his eyebrow at me sceptically. “No really, I actually have a plan this time! Do you think you can sneak past the slavers and get to the Steel Rangers?”

Brisk looked out at the chaotic bloodshed. “Its possible, but I might need a few minutes.”

I nodded. “That's fine, I’ll need a few minutes myself. Just find the Steel Ranger with the biggest gun you can find to fire at the bottom floor of this building.”

“Do I even want to ask why?” He asked, continuing to stare out at the ponies fighting.

“We don’t have time to explain,” I ushered, picking up the largest rock that I could with my mouth.

Brisk groaned. “So I still don’t know what the plan is. This is a bad habit that the three of us are getting in,” He grunted, slinking out of the broken wall of the building and into the havoc outside.

I turned my attention from him to the alicorns outside. I aimed, reeled my head back, and threw the rock at the alicorns head as hard as I could. The rock came in contact with a blue alicorns head and bounced off harmlessly, but it definitely took her by surprise. All three alicorns glared up at me, their vision locking with mine.

I mustered up what little courage I had and cleared my throat. “You know, this isn’t the first time I’ve met an alicorn, last time I blew one's head right off it neck!” I shouted down at them in the most condescending voice that I could. “Come over here and I’ll give you the same treatment!”

I don’t know if it was at the mention of their fallen comrade or if it was simply the fact that I was yelling at them, but in an instant all three alicorns were rushing at me.

Good, enter my trap.

I dove to the right as a beam of blue energy bust through the wall and disintegrated the ground where I had just been standing. I rolled back onto my hooves just in time to lerch to the side again as a green laser flew past my head.

The alicorns burst through the wall, rock and debri flying everywhere as half of the wall flew inwards. The whole building seemed to scream and shake as they entered.

“You will pay for mocking the Goddess!” They all screamed in unison. I put my hooves over my ears to try to prevent the pounding in my head from their voices.

These alicorns scream too much. I shook off the ringing in my ears and grinned at all of them. “Oh yeah? How much? Will five bottle caps do?”

The alicorns growled and began blasting lasers in my direction. I jumped and rolled and vaulted around the room as the alicorns shot at me. One of the alicorns teleported into my path and sent of beam of light straight at my face.

I ducked to the ground and rolled under her legs, just narrowly avoiding being turned to a pile of dust. As I rolled beneath her, I saw the alicorn’s startled face as she looked at me between her legs.

I bolted into the next room. It was smaller than I had hoped. In fact, I found myself in the remains of a filthy public washroom, which meant that there was no doorway out except the way I came.

Damn it!

“Do you really think you can run from us?” I heard the alicorns say in my head, their voice had dropped to a more sinister sneer.

I gulped and raised Boneless. “Well if you think you have the balls to take me, then come and get some!”

The alicorns were silent for a moment. No doubt they had not expected me to be quite as ballsy myself. Finally I heard them laughing, not in my head, just laughing out loud. One of the alicorns even had the audacity to seemingly flop onto their back and roll on the floor as they howled with laughter.

“Do you really think you can take us on?” One of the alicorns mocked. I could see the three bars on my EFS moving closer to me. “Do you really think you even have a chance?”

I pushed my back up against the bathroom wall. I glanced around, looking for an exit. Nothing. It was fight in here, or rush out and risk getting being blown to pieces.

I cleared my throat again and tried my best to hide the tremor in my voice. “What’s funny is that you think you had a chance yourself!” I mocked. My voice gave out on the last word and revealed my fear. The alicorns began laughing again.

“Fine,” One of them finally cooed. “Lets see if you’re all your say you are.”

There were three loud popping sounds accompanied by blinding flashes of light as the three alicorns teleported into the room before me. A laser blasted Boneless out of my mouth before I had time to fire, sending the shotgun skidding across the floor.

I swung at the closest alicorn with my hooves, only for another one to bash me across the head with their own hoof. I was sent flying across the room where I crashed into the toilet stall and landed atop the toilet seat with a thud.

I heard the sound of the alicorns horns charging up. I Crawled out from under the stall only seconds before the stalls were blasted to smithereens. The force of the exposition sent me toppling head first across the room where I was slammed into the wall upside down with a heavy smack. I took a second to take in the upside down image of the room before I slowly slid down the wall and landed with a thump on my head.

I felt a telekinetic grip surround my neck and pull me into the air. I grasped at my throat and tried desperately to gasp for breath as I felt the grip tighten.

The alicorn that was missing the front half of her face raised me to eye level and stared at me. Blood had begun spilling over her mangled face and down the front of her coat. Her gaze was murderous.

“You will pay for your transgression interloper!” The alicorn hissed, her slitted eyes narrowing.

I tried to choke out a word, but all I was able to make was pathetic gagging sounds. The bloody face of the alicorn grinned as I struggled. I could see the shattered remains of teeth though her unnaturally wide smile.

Then there was a thunderous boom. The whole building shook as the remaining walls of the building were blasted away by the Steel Rangers explosive fire. The alicorn dropped me in surprise as large chunks of ceiling began crashing down around them.

I kicked off with my legs and began scrambling for the door of the bathroom as fast as I could, snatching Boneless off the ground as I went. I could hear the screams of the alicorns as the roof caved in and buried them under a pile of rubble and cement. One alicorn’s horn lit up as they tried to teleport away, only for a large slab of the ceiling to land atop their head, shattering her erect horn as if it were glass.

I stumbled through the collapsing structure. I could see the exit only a few steps away. Another blast from the Steel Rangers artillery caused the back half of the structure to completely collapse behind me. A large chuck of the wall fell in front of me, blocking me path. I stumbled backwards to avoid being crushed by the falling debris.

I felt one of the alicorns magic wrap itself around my hind legs and begin dragging me back into the building. I twisted around and aimed Boneless at the alicorn, only to find myself on an empty chamber.

The once mighty alicorn look more like a monster from a nightmare than the fake goddess it had once been. The blown off front of her face had peeled away further, revealing bits of her skull and muscle. Her hind legs were broken and she had taken to crawling towards me on flayed forelegs. One wing was bent at a strange angle and her slitted eyes were bloodshot and puffy.

“DIE!” The alicorn screamed into my head. I tried to kick her away with my legs, but she held me in place with her magic. A second aura appeared around her cracked horn and I could feel a tight grip crushing my windpipe again.

Rocks and bits of ceiling fell around us as we struggled. A large slab of cement crashed next to my head, nearly breaking off my horn. I choked out as clouds of dust clogged up what little room I had for air in my throat.

I stumbled with my shotgun shells, trying to reload Boneless. The alicorn wrapped a field of telekinesis around my gun as well and began trying to pull it from my grasp. I clutched onto it as tight as I could with my mouth and managed to pop a single shell into the gun.

The alicorns eyes widened as I lowered the gun to face her. She let go of me with her magic and threw up her shield just in time to deflect the blast from Boneless.

I rushed forwards, rocketing towards the exit of the building as the walls around me gave way. Another blast from the Steel Rangers made me stumble forwards, tripping on my own hooves and half somersaulting half half falling out of the building.

There was a scream from the alicorn behind me as the rest of the structure collapsed in on her, burying her under a mile of stone and concrete.

I rolled to a stop in front of the large Steel Ranger who I had seen fighting earlier. He was clad in a full suit of power armour like the other Steel Rangers except his power armour was a dark purple. On his right was a large gatling laser and on his left was an impressive looking rocket launcher. I blinked up at the large armoured ranger and gave a sheepish smile.

“Thanks?” I said timidly, glancing around the battlefield. The Steel Rangers had managed to take care of the slavers. A handful of unarmoured rangers were going around collecting anything of value from the slavers bodies, while the rest of them gathered around me. I spotted Xayah and Brisk with uncomfortable expressions on their faces.

The Steel Ranger above me simply stared down at me in silence through the visor of his purple metal helmet. Finally he cleared his throat. “You are from Stable 25?”

Not exactly what I had expected him to ask. I nodded. “How did you…”

“It says so on your Stable barding,” He pointed out in his low rumbling voice, pointing to the twenty five on my stable barding. “Where is it?”

I glanced over at Brisk and Xayah. Xayah gave me a small shake of her head, indicating I shouldn't tell him. Having no idea what to think of this Steel Ranger bunch, I decided that was probably a good idea.

“Don’t know,” I said simply, shakely pulling myself to my hooves. “We are hopelessly lost.”

The Steel Ranger grunted. “Can you give us a landmark to go by? Anything?” I shook my head innocently. The Ranger grunted again. “I find this unlikely.”

I chuckled nervously. “Well if I knew I’d tell you. But seeings how I don’t I think the three of us should be on our way,” I turned to Brisk and Xayah, preparing to run if I needed to. I froze as I saw to magical laser weapons pointed at my friends heads.

Well that settled that, I don’t like the Steel Ranger. Yet another wasteland faction I would have to deal with I guess.

I turned back to the large Steel Ranger. “I swear, I don’t know where the Stable is.”

The Steel Ranger stomped his metal clad hoof. “Then I suggest you remember quickly,” He grunted, turning to his fellow Ranger. “Lock them up. Don’t let them go until they give us the location of their Stable.”

Well shit.

In less than a minute, Brisk, Xayah and I were handcuffed and under the intense gaze of four Steel Ranger guards as the Steel Rangers finished collecting all the valuables from the slaver corpses. Small metal rings were placed over both Brisks and my horns to prevent us from using magic. I didn’t bother to tell them that neither of us were able to cast spells at the current moment.

The Steel Rangers made quick work of the locks on our pipbucks, expertly removing them from our forelegs. Shortly afterwards our weapons were removed and Xayah’s stealth cloak was stripped away from her.

Brisk looked back and forth between Xayah and I. “So like… should we just tell them where the Stable is or...? I mean we are kinda on a tight deadline right now.”

Xayah shook her head. “No, that would be unwise. The Steel Rangers are notorious for hoarding pre war technology, and your Stable is packed full of it. If your home is already on the brink of destruction, the last thing you’ll want to worry about is Steel Ranger invasion.”

I had to agree with her. I was already worried about four cyber ponies attacking the Stable. An army of equally armed ponies sounded like my nightmares nightmare.

Finally, one of the Steel Rangers approached the Ranger I had been talking to and gave him a salute. “Senior Paladin Iron Hock. All of the slaver scum’s weaponry has been confiscated.”

Iron Hock nodded in approval. “Let's get moving!” The Senior Paladin ordered to the rest of the Rangers. As if rehearsed for a play, all of the Steel Rangers formed into a tight formation and began marching forwards. We were ushered forwards as the squad advanced deeper into the Manehattan ruins.

I glanced around, trying to spot a way out of our situation. There were heavily armed Rangers on all sides of us, making our escape near impossible. Conveniently though, we seemed to still be moving in the general direction of Fetlock, so hopefully when we did manage to escape we wouldn’t be ridiculously off track.

The squad of Steel Rangers marched forwards for almost half an hour in complete silence. The dark cloudlayer above us began to slowly drip with rain, then it began to pour. Within minutes my coat was soaked all the way through. I groaned as we passed a rusted over street sign reading Fetlock. I was so close, yet still so far away. After a few more minutes of silence, one of my guards bumped me on the shoulder.

“You three should be honored you know,” The guard mumbled. “Y'all are about to gain entrance to the main base of operations for the mighty Steel Rangers. The great Fort Strong!”

I glanced up and took in the massive structure before us. It had once been a large military base, with humongous concrete walls surrounding the entire bunker. Large banners depicting the Steel Rangers emblem hung proudly from the walls and teams of Steel rangers patrolled the outer and inner walls of the base. Protruding from the top of the building was unquestionably the largest gun I had ever seen.

Even through the rain, I could see the large barrel of the gun. The massive weapon was roughly the same size as a small skyscraper. Multiple laser cannons the size of my whole body surrounded the main barrel and slowly swiveled around to face every moving target in the area. Large tubes stretched from the roof of the base and entered the back of the gun, assumably loading the gun with whatever the hell it used for ammunition.

“What the fuck is that thing,” Brisk muttered, staring up at the massive gun with a mix of horror, shock and awe.

“Beauty ain’t she,” Our guard said, once again breaking his silence. “Thing was designed to blast armies of dragons out of the sky back during the war. Did it’s job too. That gun even managed to blast a few balefire bombs out of the sky before they impacted the city. Unfortunately it wasn’t able to save us from the bombs that had been smuggled into the city, but It gave us it’s all.”

“Does it still work?” I asked. Please tell me that thing doesn’t work!

Our Guard shook his head. “Nah. that thing take more power to run than the whole damn city of Manehattan. We got the smaller laser cannons around it to function, but the main gun itself has been dead for almost two hundred years.”

“Shortcake, stop talking to the prisoners,” Another Steel Ranger from somewhere behind us ordered.

“Oh come on now,” Our guard, now known as Shortcake grunted. “These three ain’t done anything actually wrong,” But he did shut up after that. At least not all the Steel Rangers seemed to be pricks.

As we approached the massive doors to Fort Strong an elderly earth pony buck approached us. “Senior Paladin Iron Hock, please report,” The older stallion demanded, scanning the squad.

Iron Hock took a step forward and gave a quick salute. “Elder Cottage Cheese, the slavers have been dealt with, and I have successfully confiscated a large arsenal of pre war weapons and technology,” He declared proudly. He signaled for one of the Steel Rangers behind him who quickly approached and held up Brisk’s and my pipbucks. “I have also managed to obtain two functional pipbucks.”

Elder Cottage Cheese nodded and turned his gaze to us. As I looked closer at his face, I realized he wasn’t an earth pony at all, rather a unicorn who had had his horn sawed off. I didn’t want to know how or why that happened. “And who are those three?” He asked coldly, his gaze shifting back and forth between the three of us.

“Two Stable dwellers,” Iron Hock one again declared. “Almost certainly from Stable 25. I wish to bring them in until they reveal the location of their Stable.”

Elder Cottage Cheese’s eyes narrowed at us and he slowly took a few steps towards us to get a better look, making out the small yellow twenty five on our barding. Finally he nodded. “Very well, take them to holding. I would very much like to see this Stable 25.”

Iron Hock saluted again before motioning for his squad to advance. Like a marching band down a street, the squad surged forwards, bringing us into the guarded concrete walls of Fort Strong.

Elder Cottage Cheese had told Iron Hock to take us to holding. That had been a nice way of saying throw them in the brig. We had been aggressively thrown into a large prison room with three caged off sections, one for each of us. Each cell had a small stone ledge protruding from the wall that I guess was supposed to act as our bed and a metal bucket in the corner that must have been the cells sad excuse of a toilet.

I pushed my back against the back wall of my cell and looked at my friends in the cages across from me. My eyes wandered to the guard fully clad in power armour that stood at attention by the door.

Well this was just great. At least they were nice enough to give each of us a Radaway. We all needed it after the fight with the glowing ghoul. I wished I still had my Pipbuck so that I could have seen my rad levels drop back to zero.

Brisk had quickly taken to pacing in a circle around the outside of his cell, shaking the occasional bar every now and then to see if one might come loose. None of them did. “Well this is just great,” Brisk grunted, echoing my thoughts in words. He smacking the bars of his cage with a hoof in frustration. “We help these bastards out and they throw us in a cell! Really!” he pointed an accusing hoof at the guard. The guard didn’t react, or even flinch. He just stood at attention, almost statue like.

No pipbuck, now weapons, no bobby pins and a guard that seemed to take his job very seriously. Please don't tell me that the only way out of this was to actually give the location of my Stable. I groaned and slapped my hoof across my face.

Well, I might as well see if I could talk my way out of it. Not that I was overly charismatic.

I turned to the guard and gave him the nicest smile I could. “Um, so the three of us are actually going somewhere and we are on a bit of a tight schedule, do you think you could let us out?” The guard just stared at me blankly.

Yeah… I don’t know why I thought that even had a small chance of working.

Brisk gave a short chuckle. “Did you just ask the guard to let you go because you are busy?” I nodded lamely in response. Brisk chuckled again. “That was the worst attempt to convince a trained guard to let you go that I have ever seen.”

I blushed. “Shut up! Besides when we first met, I’ve never had to break out of a cell before!” The guard stomped his hoof in response to my outburst. I winced. That probably wasn’t the best thing to say while the guard was in the room.

Brisk grinned at me. “I noticed.”

I sat down on the stone bed and folded my hooves in front of my chest with a huff. We sat in silence for a long time like that until I shifted my gaze over to Xayah who had taken to lying on her side in her cell, her eyes darting around the room in a desperate attempt to find a way out. My eyes landed on a large silver scar that ran down her soft underbelly from the bottom of her neck to between her hind legs.

“How did you get that?” I asked breathlessly, pointing to the long scar. The skin around it was still pink making it appear fairly recent.

Xayah tucked her legs up against her and rolled onto her stomach. “That isn’t important. I am healed now.”

Both my concern and curiosity had been piqued. Mostly concern. “Xayah, how did that happen?”

“It’s not Important Amber,” Brisk blurted, drawing my attention away from Xayah. He had a strange look in his eyes, I couldn’t explain it.

“But-” I started.

“Amber Aura, do you trust us as your friends?” Brisk asked sternly. I look at him in silence for a few moments. He cleared his throat and tried again. “Do you trust your friends?”

“I… Yes?” I said slowly. I didn’t understand what all the secrecy behind the scar was for. “I trust you.”

“Then forget about that scar,” Brisk demanded, finally stopping his pacing and sitting down on his stone bed. He exchanged a sad nod with Xayah.

I was so far beyond confused by that point, but they seemed to have a reason for me not knowing about it and I did trust them. I decided to drop it and continued looking for a way out.

After a few moments of trying to figure out an escape plan to no success, my face turned a dark shade of red. “Uh, do um… Do you guys think you could look away for a second?” I asked, nervously looking towards me friends.

Instinctively, Xayah rolled towards the wall to face away from me. Brisk raised his eyebrow and gave me a quizzical look?

“Dare I ask why?” He questioned in confusion. I blushed even more and gave the small metal bucket in the corner of my cell a gentle kick. He looked at me in confusion for a few awkward moments before his eyes widened in understanding. “Oh! Yeah, sure,” He too turned his back and stared awkwardly at the wall.

I sat on the bucket and gave the guard an uncomfortable glare. “Um… I don't suppose you would mind looking away for a moment either, would you?” the guard continued to silently stare at me.

I groaned loudly, and under the intense glare of the guard, began to pee.

I was walking down the slightly curved hallways of Stable 25. The hallways were more crowded than normal, it must have been a celebration or something today. Each pony I walked by gave me a warm and genuine smile as I passed them, a few going so far as to greet me or ask me how my day was going.

I calmly marched past them, basking in their affection for me and politely greeting them in return. They all loved me, and I loved all of them in turn. My father approached me for across the hallway. His curly red mane bounced atop his head as he practically bounced towards me and he gave me one of his infamous dorky grins.

“Good afternoon Amber, are you ready?” he asked joyously, calmly placing his hoof on my shoulder.

I rubbed my temple with a hoof. “Am I ready? Ready for what?” I asked, trying to remember if I had forgotten something important.

My father grinned ear to ear. “Why today is the day I step down and you take my place as the Overmare of Stable 25!” He declared with pride.

I glanced back at my flank to see the dazzling image of an Overmare cutie mark staring back at me. Of course I was becoming the Overmare! The cutie mark was hereditary! I don’t know why that slipped my mind.

“Oh, of course I’m ready for that,” I said boldly, standing tall and proud before my father. “I’ve been ready my whole life!”

My father smiled at me proudly. “I know you are. I always knew you would be the greatest Overmare this Stable has ever had.”

Then I was standing before the whole Stable in the large atrium. My father stood next to me, preaching to the crowd how honored he was to have me as his daughter. Everypony in the audience stared up at us with huge smiles across their faces and a twinkle of joy in each of their eyes.

This was the perfect life. This was Utopia.

How much better this utopia was than the horrors of the desolate wasteland outside the Stable door. Out there was cruel and evil, but here we were safe. Within these walls we had utopia.

The Wasteland outside.

The wasteland

It suddenly all came back to me. The cyber ponies, the radscorpions, the Enclave, Brisk and Xayah. Where were they? Why was I hear?

“This is a dream isn’t it,” I muttered, looking out at all the smiling faces.

“Of course it is,” Shade said, approaching the stage and giving me an honorary badge, declaring me the new Overmare. “You are still in the wasteland.”

“Why is everyone so happy?” I asked Shade, looking at all the ponies.

Shade smiled at me. “It’s your dream Amber, what you want is what happens.”

I scanned the crowd. My eyes landed on a green unicorn and zebra standing in the crowd cheering me on. Of course they lived in the Stable with me, there would be no perfect world without them.

My two friends rushed towards me. Now closer, I could see that they were lacking the many scars they had acquired during our journey through the wasteland. I had never seen them so clean before.

Xayah gave me one of her kind smiles, wrapping a striped hoof around my neck in a tight hug. I turned my head to Brisk who was now standing close at my side. He leaned his green head closer and gave me a quick kiss on the lips. I blushed, wishing the kiss had lasted longer.

I could hear the subtle sound of the A.A.S.S pumping vapors into the air. We must have won! We must have killed the cyber ponies and returned the A.A.S.S to its rightful place.

I was wrong. We hadn’t killed the cyber ponies.

A blast of blue energy lanced out and struck Brisk through the chest. He screamed, clutching where he had been shot with a hoof before he slowly faded to dust beside me. He tried to reach out and grab onto me, but the ground below me seemed to pull me away from him as I watched Brisk disintegrate.

The mechanical laugh of the cyber ponies drew my attention to the entrance of the atrium. All four cyber ponies stood in the doorway, the monstrous cyber alicorn in the lead. He laughed again as they advanced upon the helpless Stable ponies.

The ponies didn’t run or scream. They just stared up at me smiling, confident that their Overmare would protect them. But I couldn’t. I was frozen as I watched the cyber ponies blast them all to bits, some being turned into a pile of dust while others burst open in a shower of bloody visera.

Xayah caught fire next to me, screaming in agony as one of the cyber ponies doused her in burning gasoline. She flailed around, trying to put out the flame. But the fire could not be extinguished. The fire spread across her whole body, then to the corpses lying bloody on the atrium floor. Then my whole world was a blur of fire and blood.

My father was next, the cyber alicorns razor sharp wing lashing forwards and severing his head from his neck. No… not sever. His head dangled from the back of his neck by a few tattered muscles and veins.

And still my father was screaming.

There was no logical way he should still be alive, but he was. He howled in agony as his head flopped limply from his neck as he desperately tried to reattach his skull to the top of his exposed spinal cord.

At last the fire overtook him. Slowly burning his body away until he was little more than a blackened skeleton.

The cyber ponies surrounded me, covered in the blood of the ponies I had once shared a life with. Bits of ripped flesh and intestines hung from their metallic coats.

“Thank you for bringing us to your Stable,” The cyber alicorn rumbled in his deep intimidating voice. “These ponies never expected a thing.”

I glanced back to see the makeup hiding my stupid cutie mark dripping off of my flank, reveiling a red screwdriver, now soaked in blood.

A manic laughter broke out beside me. I turned to face Shade, her smile now forced open by metal clips. “Did I say dream?” Shade cackled, flopping onto her back and rolling in a large pool of blood and brain matter. “This is a nightmare!” Her laughing continued until one of the cyber ponies finally stomped her head into paste.

I awoke covered in sweat. The light of the prison had gone out, leaving us in almost complete darkness. The only light that could be seen was a small sliver of golden light at the base of the door on the far side of the room and small silver glints gleaming off of our beady eyes in the dark.

The wasteland was a cruel place, filled with crueler things. One doesn’t simply transverse the deserted streets of Manehattan and not end up scarred by nightmares for the rest of their life. I pulled my legs up close to my body and shivered as the images of my Stable in a bloody ruin flashed through my mind.

I couldn’t let that happen. Not at the hooves of the cyber ponies, not at the hooves of the Steel Rangers, not even at the hooves of the Equestrian wasteland itself.

“...I’m worried about her you know,” I heard Brisk whisper in the dark. My ears perked up as I heard his voice. What was he talking about? “The Wasteland is hurting her. Not just physically. She isn’t built for the kind of things the wasteland makes you do.”

“No pony should need to endure the hardships of the wasteland,” Xayah replied evenly. “Not me, not you, and certainly not Amber,” So they were talking about me. Great, that was just great.

“You saw what happened back with the Enclave right?” Brisk asked. “She had her gun pointed right at that bastards head and then she just let him go. That kind of mindset is going to get her killed. Hell, it did almost get us killed,” He sounded frustrated. I thought back to the fight with the Enclave. If I had pulled the trigger, could we have won? Would we not have needed to run away and fight that glowing ghoul?

“It is her virtue,” Xayah answered simply. “A powerful virtue, one the wasteland needs. Of course it is also the hardest to hold onto, and in many ways, that makes it the most dangerous.”

“Virtue?” Brisk asked. I could hear him sit up a little on his stone bed. “What do you mean by virtue?”

“A Virtue is something that everypony has. It is a piece of themselves that they can hold onto to remain sane in the wasteland,” Xayah explained. “Losing it can be catastrophic to your psyche, as you can see with the raiders. Though if you can hold onto it, then you can beat the wasteland.”

“What is Ambers virtue then?” Brisk pushed. I was very interested to hear that myself.

Xayah gave a small cough. “It is not exactly my place to say. That is up the Amber and Amber alone. But if I had to guess, I would put my caps on morality.”

“Morality?” Brisk continued. “As in knowing right from wrong or whatever?” From the silence that followed his question, I assumed Xayah nodded. “How is that a virtue?”

“It’s perhaps the most important virtue in the wasteland,” Xayah stated bluntly. “It's the virtue that the wasteland lacks the most and it's the corrupted version of this virtue that created the wasteland in the first place.”

Brisk gave a long sigh. “I suppose it was the corrupted version of this virtue that we saw today?” Brisk guessed. Saw that today? What the hell did he mean?

I heard Brisk stand up and begin pacing around his cell again. There was another silence from Xayah, so I assumed she nodded again. “Today we saw morality at its worst, both with the lack of it with the raiders and the overabundance of it with Amber. We now know first hoof what happens when her virtue overtakes her...”

“She completely loses control,” Brisk finished with a grunt. I had no idea what they were talking about at this point. Had I done something back with the raiders? Something so moral my friends needed to hide it from me? And hadn’t I been knocked out at the time? There must be a lot more to the story than they weren’t telling me.

After a few seconds of silence, Brisks voice spoke up again. “What do you think my virtue is?” He asked curiously.

“Hard to say,” Xayah stated. “Perhaps adventure or freedom. I would assume the latter.”

“And yours?”

There was another long pause. “I don’t know what my virtue is,” Xayah finally admitted. “There are many things I am good at, though very few I excel in. It's possible my virtue is resilience, though due to recent events I find that unlikely. Ambers virtue is more clear than most, as it actively affects how she interacts with the wasteland.”

I could hear Brisk fidgeting in his cell. “Uh, hey Xayah?”

“Yes?”

Brisk stumbled for words for a second. “Do… do you think that Amber… Well do you think she likes me?” I froze. Shit! Please tell me I wasn’t that transparent with my crush for Brisk. From the silence, I could tell that Xayah had frozen too.

“Well, uh…” Xayah searched for the right thing to say. Damn it Xayah, don’t you dare tell him my secret. “What exactly do you mean by that?”

“I mean… I don’t think she likes me and stuff. I’ve kind messed up a couple times and… I really don’t want her to leave me,” Brisk sputtered. “I don’t think she flat out hates me or anything, but I don’t think she wants to be my friend either.”

I let out a small sigh of relief. He didn’t know yet. Thank Celestia.

Xayah gave him a sad chuckle. “Do not worry Brisk, I can assure you that she does in fact like you.”

Brisk fidgeted in his spot for a bit before returning to his bed. “I don’t know. The first night out of the Stable we were attacked by two bandits. They were fairly inexperienced, lucky us, but we managed to disarm them and could have left them alive.”

“But you killed them,” Xayah said for him. “You told me this story when we first met.”

Brisk nodded. “Yeah, but I didn’t tell you about how Amber felt about that.”

Xayah gave a small laugh. “Knowing her, not very well.”

“If that ain't the understatement of the year,” Brisk agreed with a chuckle. “She told me, and I quote. We are not raiders. I thought she was being stupid at the time, but… I can’t stop thinking about that. Where does the line between us and raiders start and end?”

“That is likely Ambers morality speaking. She has a clear sense of what is right and wrong and knows when and where to draw the line. Unfortunately, as proven today, her morality will allow her to push the line to achieve what she deems as the more moral of two evils,” Xayah speculated. “She is able to see past the blood and vulgar visage of raiders and understand that what makes them immortal is not the gore, but the act.”

Brisk groaned. “I only understood like, half of that,” He sighed. “I just don’t know what I’m going to do when she is gone.”

Xayah cocked her head. “Why does she ever need to be gone?”

“Have you not been listening to her?” Brisk snapped. “Once we get that dumb ass program back from the cyber ponies, Amber plans to march back to Stable 25 and live out the rest of her life there.”

“And you are committed to never returning?” Xayah asked.

Out of the corner of my eye I could see Brisk nod slowly. “I can’t go back there. The wasteland is where I belong.”

“Why are you really out here Brisk?” Xayah asked cautiously. I heard her move for the first time that conversation. “I don’t think it's just because you crave adventure. No pony just waltzes into the wasteland because they are bored.”

“Well there is a first for everything, right?” Brisk grinned back at her through the darkness. “Do I really need a better reason?”

Xayah just stared at him, her forehooves crossed. I doubted she believed him. To be honest, I was starting to feel like there was more to it that that as well.

The two of them just sat in silence after that. After I figured they weren’t going to pick the conversation up again, I gave out a big yawn and pretended to wake up.

“Mornin’ sleepy head,” Brisk commented, approaching the edge of his cell and peering at me through the bars in the darkness. “Sleep well?”

I grimaced as I remembered the nightmare. “I’ve had worse sleeps?” I lied casually, propping myself up and rubbing an eye with my forehoof. I glanced around the dark room, noticing for the first time that the guard was gone. “Hey, where did the guard go?”

“He left once the lights went out,” Xayah stated. “Though I suspect there will still be a guard outside the door.”

“Do you think they can hear us in here?” I asked quietly, looking towards the door. I could still see the small sliver of golden light peeking out from underneath. Brisk and Xayah exchanged a glance and a shrug. I dropped my voice to a whisper so that only my friends could hear me. “So, how do we escape?”

Again, my friends exchanged a glance. “We have been trying to figure something out. Unfortunately, anything short of telling them where Stable 25 is seems to be improbable,” Brisk grunted.

I rolled that around inside my head. Tell them the location of the Stable? I couldn’t do that… or could I? A plan suddenly started forming in my mind.

“Alright, here is the plan,” I whispered, leaning as far as I could towards them.

“Alright, you win!” I yelled. “I’ll tell you the location of Stable 25! Just let us out!” We waited in anticipation for something to happen. Nothing did. Darn it. “I said I’ll tell you the location!” I screamed again. This time we heard movement outside the door.

The door slid open and a single guard stomped in. As soon as she entered the room, the door behind her slid closed again and the lights above us flickered to life. I had to cover my eyes as I was temporarily blinded by the light.

“Amber stop!” Brisk yelled. “Don’t tell him!” I was impressed by his acting. He didn’t seem to overplay the part as much as I had anticipated, but he did have a small ear twitch that gave away his performance just a little. Nothing an unsuspecting guard would pick up on.

“You would tell me where it is?” The guard asked, almost in surprise.

I nodded. “I just want to get out of here. If giving the location of my Stable will get me out, then I’ll do it.”

“Perfect. Where is it?” The guard ordered, taking a small step closer.

“Come here and I’ll tell you,” I said calmly, beckoning her over with a hoof. Come on, come on! Take the bait damn it!

The guard gave me a weary look, no doubt suspecting some form of foul play. She placed the keys to the cell on a desk next to the door, far out of our reach. Damn, she seemed somewhat competent. The guard took a few steps closer, but still made sure she was out of hoofs reach of me.

I sighed. “You’ll have to come closer than that,” I said, beckoning her to take a few more steps. The guard stood her ground and didn’t step forward.

“I think you can tell me perfectly fine from there,” She stated bluntly. She definitely wasn’t stupid then, I’ll give her that. Guess it was time for some improv.

I took a step back and drew my hoof in the thick layer of dust on the ground. “Alright, well this here is Fort Strong, where we are right now,” I started, making sure that the fictitious map I was drawing was small enough that she couldn’t see it well. The guard craned her neck forward and squinted at the dust through her helmet, but didn’t take a step forwards. “It’s about a days walk from here to Friendship city, where we came from,” I continued, drawing a small line away from my first point and drawing another circle at the end of it in the dust.

“Amber, don’t do it!” Brisk yelled again, thrusting his hoof through the bars. Now he seemed to be hamming it up a little to much. Xayah simply shook her head at me silently. All in all, our performances seemed to be convincing the guard. She took another small step forwards to get a better look at my map.

Alright, just a few more steps.

“From there, there is a long two day trek west,” I stated, drawing a few different lines in a grid like pattern west of where I had claimed Friendship city was. I was just making stuff up at this point. If my memory serves, Stable 25 was south of Friendship City anyway. “And this is where Stable 25 is,” I said, drawing a big X in the dust.

The guard took two more steps forwards looking down at the X I had drawn at the edge of the cage.

Got ya.

I lunged forwards and wrapped my arms around the guards head. She pulled back in surprise, her guard had clearly been down. Good.

I pulled against her, smashing her head into the bars of my cell. She stumbled, but wasn’t down yet. As she slowly began making sense of the situation, I slammed her head against the bars again. Then again. Then again. Finally, the guard dropped unconscious to the floor.

“Prison break! that’s my girl,” Brisk exclaimed proudly, looking at the unconscious guard. “Clearly I’m a bad influence on you.”

I shrugged casually. “I got us out of prison once right? Break out of one, you’ve practically broken out of them all.”

Xayah shook her head. “You two are weird,” she glanced over at the keys to the cells on the far side of the room. “Though it is good to be rid of our guard, a matter of escaping the cells still poses a conundrum.”

I glanced over at the keys, then down at the lock. “Hey Brisk, do you think you could pick this if you had any bobby pin?” I asked.

“But we don’t have any bobby pins. They took all our stuff, remember?” Brisk monotoned.

“But can you pick them?” I asked again, giving him a flat stare. “That’s all I need to know.”

Brisk gave a small laugh and looked at the lock. “Of course I can pick these. The amount of cell doors I have picked in my life is staggeringly high.”

I nodded and bent down to reach the unconscious guards armour. I reached my hooves out of the cell and began fiddling with the lock on the helmet. Finally it popped off with a metallic clink, revealing the head of the red mare inside.

I began disassembling pieces of the helmet. It was a lot harder than it should have been since my reach was limited by how far my hooves could reach through the cage.

“Damn, I wish I still could use magic,” I grunted, pulling off a small piece that had once been the lock holding the helmet in place.

Brisk grunted. “You’re tellin’ me.”

Xayah looked at me curiously. “Amber, what exactly are you doing?” She asked.

I pulled the rest of the lock on the helmet off and watched as a small metal pin dropped out and landed by my hooves on the floor. “Looking for this!” I declared, quickly reattaching the lock to the helmet and holding up the pin.

“And what is that?” Brisk blurted, eyeing the pin. “And how did you know it was in the helmet in the first place?”

“It's a dowel pin,” I chuckled. “They are usually used to align machine components during assembly. I figured that those power suits probably had at least one. Most likely where the helmet met the neck of the armour. Lucky us, this one is extra thin.”

Brisk put a hoof over his face. “Oh sweet Celestia! You are such a nerd!”

I grinned back at him. “I’m a nerd that is going to get us all out of this cell,” I informed him, Tossing him the small dowel pin. He easily caught it in his mouth and began picking the lock. A few seconds later and we were all out of our cages.

“Now we need to figure out a way to get out of this bunker without being caught again,” Xayah stated. Right, that might be a challenge. “Not to mention we should probably find our stuff first,” She continued, gesturing to our lack of saddlebags.

“We could probably wear the guards armour as a disguise,” Brisk suggested, pointing to the still unconscious guard. “And the rest of us could pretend to be your prisoners or whatever.”

I nodded in agreement. “Alright, who’s gonna wear the power armour?” I realised that both Xayah and Brisk were looking at me. “Wait? Why me?”

“Well the armour is meant for a female, so it wont fit me,” Brisk said casually.

“And if I need to speak, my voice will give us away,” Xayah added. I hadn’t considered her voice being much of an issue, but I guess I hadn’t really seen any zebra Steel Rangers.

We quickly removed the power armour from our guard and clamped it over me. I must admit, I felt pretty damn cool wearing it. Then we ran into our first problem.

It had looked as if Elder Cottage Cheese had had his horn surgically removed. Now faced with the task of adorning my head with a power armour helmet, I realised why he might have done that.

“I can’t get the helmet on,” I groaned, rolling the hornless helmet around in my hooves. That might pose a bit of an issue.

“I thought I saw a unicorn Steel Ranger wearing a helmet back when we were fighting the slavers?” Brisk mentioned thoughtfully. “Are there other helmet variance?”

“Not that I have seen before,” Xayah said. “It is possible it is a newer model or a prototype though. If so, there is possibly another one in Fort Strong somewhere.”

Who’s idea was it to only make it possible for Earth Ponies to wear power armour? I wanted to buck whoever that was across the face so hard at this moment.

I sighed. “Alright, you two wait here. I’ll see if I can get myself a helmet I can use,” I grimace, not liking the idea of sneaking through a bunker full of Steel Rangers in plain view.

I walked out into the hallway. It seemed empty enough. One Steel ranger stood at attention a few feet down the hall, but they didn’t seem to have any interest in me.

I walked onwards, following the signs that hung on the walls. Armoury to the left, one read. Perfect. As I approached the armoury, a squad of five Steel Rangers rounded the corner and began walking towards me.

Just act calm Amber. Make it look like you’re supposed to be here and they won’t think anything of it.

I held my head high and stuck my chest out slightly as I walked, never losing stride. An action I had always done every time I had tried to show my father I was more responsible back in the Stable. The Steel Rangers walked past me, unfazed by my presence.

I slipped into the armoury and took in the rows of power armour; enough to equip a small army with. To my disappointment, it seemed as if they were all damaged in some way. Most likely these were getting ready to be repaired instead of being on standby for use.

I spotted what I needed at once, a single power armour helmet sat on a table on the far side of the room. It looked identical to every other helmet with the exception of the metal horn that protruded from the forehead. The visor had a small crack down the middle, but is wasn’t in bad enough condition that I couldn’t use it.

I picked it up and quickly fastened it to my head. An amber HUD popped up on the visor, showing off the armours condition as well as a small geiger counter and an EFS. A seemingly more effective and sleek take on many of the pipbucks functions.

To the left of the room was a pile of junk that the Steel Rangers had collected. I spotted our saddle bags, pipbucks and weapons and quickly retrieved them as well.

Then I spotted something I didn’t recognize. It appeared to be some sort of large gun, though unlike most firearms, it was a long open metal tube with some sort of catapult like mechanism at the back. Beside it sat three glowing spheres, similar to memory orbs, but seemingly more explosive. Interested as to what exactly it was, I threw the gun over my back and carelessly tossed the glowing spheres into my saddlebag.

Then I had to walk back. I walked as quickly as I could down the hallway without seeming too suspicious. More ponies stopped and glanced at me now, most of them eyeing up the large gun I was carrying. None of them seemed to have any interest in stopping me however.

I marched back into the holding cell area and threw the two saddle bags belonging to my friends onto the floor in front of them. “My new helmet and your old stuff secured,” I said gleefully, tapping a hoof on my newly acquired helmet.

Xayah gasped as she spotted the large gun on my back. She pointed to it dramatically. “Where did you get that?” She blurted, her eyes wide.

I grinned. “In the armoury like everything else!” I said, hauling it off my back and examining it closer.

“What is it?” Brisk asked, leaning closer to get a better look at the massive weapon.

“I have no idea,” I admitted, rolling it over in my hooves.

“It’s a Balefire Egg Launcher,” Xayah stated bluntly. Brisk and I raised our eyebrows at her in confusion, asking her to elaborate. She sighed. “It was a devastating weapon developed close to the end of the war that was designed to catapult Balefire eggs at the enemy,” She explained. When we both still looked confused she tried again in simpler terms. “It shoots mini Balefire bombs.”

I dropped the gun in shock. The heavy Balefire Egg launcher landed heavily on the floor with a thud. I gaped at Xayah. “This thing shoot Balefire Bombs!”

Xayah nodded, slowly draping her stealth cloak over her shoulders. Brisk grinned. “Well I guess we have a way to take out those Cyber Ponies now,” Brisk declared, looking the gun over with more interest than before. “Promise I can shoot it once?”

I just stared at him. “Really? You find out this thing shoot Balefire Bombs and you want to shoot one?” He just nodded eagerly at me in response. I groaned. Of course he did.

After we had locked our old guard up in my old cell we moved into the hallway. Xayah had turned herself invisible to avoid detection and Brisk had kept his magic reduction ring over his horn to make him look more like a prisoner. Not that he really needed magic anyway. I walked a step behind him, my shotgun trained on his back.

“Do you really need to point your gun at me?” He whispered after we had passed a few Steel Rangers. “It’s kinda embarrassing.”

“We gotta make this look authentic,” I muttered, pushing him forwards with my gun. Brisk grumbled but didn’t complain anymore.

We were almost to the exit when a familiar booming voice sounded from behind us. “And where do you think you are going with that prisoner?” Iron Hock demanded, Stepping towards us. His Dark purple armour seemed darker and more intimidating in the harsh light of Fort Strong. “Please report.”

I tried to stand as tall and straight as possible and turned to face him. “Uh… Elder Cottage Cheese has requested to talk to the green one,” I responded in as deep a voice as I could fake.

Iron Hock approached me and looked me over. “Really?” I nodded quickly. “Elder Cottage Cheese’s office is the other direction,” He deadpanned, his eyes flicking back and forth between Brisk and I.

I looked around, hoping for some way out. I didn’t see one. “Oh… sorry. Must have gotten lost,” I said quickly, hoping that would be enough to get the senior paladin to back off. It wasn’t.

“I don’t think I’ve seen you around before, you must be new here,” Iron Hock snarled. “What contingent are you from?”

“I… uh…” Well shit! That wasn’t something I could talk my way out off. What other places were there in the Wasteland? Canterlot? To mainstream. What was that place Watcher had briefly mentioned? “I’m uh… From the hoof.”

Iron Hock cocked his head. “The hoof? Dangerous place. Who is your commanding officer?” Damn it, he really needed to stop asking questions.

My eyes darted around the room. What is a Steel Ranger name… My eyes landed on the metal window looking out into the rainy weather outside. “He was uh… Steel rain…” I said slowly. Please work!

Iron Hock reacted with surprise. “Steel Rain!”

I scratched the back of his head. “Yeah… Uh, you might not have heard of him, I don't know-”

“Steel Rain is pinnacle of what all Steel Rangers should strive to be! He is a true visionary. Once the rest of the Steel Rangers understand what power we have at our hooves, We might be able to finally control the damn wasteland and bring order to it!” Iron Hock Exclaimed, placing a metal clad hoof over his chest. “That pony is an inspiration to us all!”

I chuckled nervously. “Heh, yeah. He is pretty great. And order to the wasteland! It could use some of that.”

Iron Hock gave a stomp of agreement. “The ponies of the wasteland have proven they will not bow willingly to us. We will have to take it by force and bring justice to those who would defy us the right to do so!”

Iron Hock’s ideals were beginning to make me uneasy. Conquest of the Wasteland? That didn’t sound like order to me, it sounded like the beginning of a war.

“I won’t hold you any longer,” Iron Hock soothed, lowering his hoof and stepping past me. “Ad Victoriam!”

I put my hoof to my chest in the same manner I had seen him do only seconds before. “Uh… Ad Victoriam!”

Brisk and I began marching towards the door again. Iron Hock coughed, making us turn. He pointed towards the hallway he had indicated earlier. “Elder Cottage Cheese’s office is that direction. And make sure you fix your helmet, it is cracked.”

I nodded. “Sorry, thank you Paladin. Will do.”

We quickly changed directions and walked down the hallway he was suggesting. As soon as we were sure Iron Hock was gone, we doubled back and continued to the exit.

“Is he crazy?” Brisk whispered to me as we slowly neared the exit of Fort Strong. “Taking over the wasteland to bring order? Bringing justice to those that oppose? He’s mad!”

I hushed him quickly. “You don’t need to tell me. Hopefully he doesn’t get the chance to do any of that.”

As we exited the base we were stopped by another Steel Ranger in full power armour. He extended a hoof to us as we approached. “Hault, please state your name and identification number,” The guard ordered, lowering his hoof back to his side. He glanced over at Brisk. “And please elaborate on why you are removing a prisoner from the premises?”

Before anypony could do anything, a tip of a sniper appeared pressed against the guards head. I could see the small shimmer of light that was Xayah under her stealth cloak standing behind the guard. My zebra friend leaned close and whispered in the guards ear so quietly I had trouble hearing it myself.

“You are going to pretend everything is normal and let us pass,” Xayah whispered. “Or I blow your brains out.”

The guard nodded. He looked around for a second before finally straightening up. “Alright, everything seems to be in order here,” He glanced nervously behind him, but he couldn’t see anything. “You are free to go!”

I gave him a grateful nod and pushed Brisk out of the building and into the barren Manehattan street. Night had fallen and I could see the final cracks of sun peaking through the cloud layer far off on the horizon. Shortly after we had left Fort Strong, I spotted the guard running away from the scene as fast as he could out of the corner of my eye.

“We should probably get out of here,” I said, picking up my pace and finally aiming my gun away from Brisk.

Xayah threw off her hood and came back into view beside me. “Agreed, it is hard to say how long it will be before they send Rangers after us. And I don’t take Iron Hock as one who takes deception well.”

I looked off into the distance where the Ponypalooza hotel lay. It seemed closer than it ever had before. It wouldn’t be long now, we were almost there.

The final stretch to the Ponypalooza hotel was seemingly empty. The only thing on our EFS was the occasional Radroach or bloatfly. We did run across a bunch of blasted appar ghoul corpses, a clear sign we were on the right track and the cyber ponies weren’t far away.

The heavy rain that had accompanied our walk the day before had died down to a slow drizzle. Small droplets of rain rolled down the cracked glass of the visor on my power armour helmet, slightly obscuring my view of the road ahead of us.

The looming hotel in the distance was growing at an alarming rate. The closer I got, the more I wanted to run and hide. I was starting to realize how truly horrified of those cyber ponies I really was.

So when somepony snuck up behind me and pointed the barrel of their gun at my head, I almost jumped right out of my skin.

“Y'all came to the wrong part of Manehattan,” A low voice growled at us. “We don’t take kindly to Steel Rangers round here.”

I slowly turned to face the pony who was talking to me. It wasn’t a pony at all, but rather a family of ponies. Each one of them armed with some sort of makeshift pipe weapon. Closest to me was a brown earth pony buck who had pushed a shotgun up into my face.

I awkwardly raised my hooves over my head in surrender. Brisk and Xayah did the same as guns were pointed at them as well.

“We aren’t Steel Rangers,” I said calmly, slowly lowering my hooves back down.

The pony holding a shotgun to my face snorted. “A likely story!” He spat at the ground in front of me. “You want to explain what you are doing with all that firepower and a suit of power armour with the Steel Ranger logo on it?” He demanded, shaking his shotgun with more vigor.

“We just escaped Fort Strong,” Brisk pitched in. “We were being held prisoners there, used the power armour to escape.”

The ponies glanced around each other, seemingly weighing how good our word was. They seemed to all come to some sort of silent agreement because the brown pony lowered his shotgun a little.

“Alright, I’ll give y’all the benefit of the doubt, long as ya get out of that fancy armour of yours,” He said, taking a small step back. The rest of the ponies kept their weapons drawn and aimed.

“Yeah, no problem,” I said eagerly. I didn’t really enjoy wearing power armour anyway. It felt clunky and slowed me down too much. Then I frowned. “Uh, Could you guys help me out of it?” I asked turning to Brisk and Xayah. “I don’t really know how.”

Brisk groaned, but joined Xayah as she started unlatching the metal suit around me. The group of ponies seemed to relax as they watched my clumsy display of stumbling out of my power armour and landing on my face.

The brown buck laughed. “Ah, these three aint no Steel Rangers!” He turned back to the ponies. “Its alright folks, they’re fine,” The ponies all began putting their guns away with a sigh of relief. I realised that none of them had any desire to fight us.

“Why do you hate the Steel Rangers so much?” Xayah asked, taking a step forward after she had finished pulling me out of the suit of power armour. “They rarely have malicious intentions towards ponies?”

The brown buck scoffed. “They do if you got somethin’ they want! Those metal freaks might act all civilized, but deep down they aint no better than raiders!” I could believe that, especially if Iron Hock was involved. The brown buck’s face split into a small grin. “Well if y’all aint friends with the Rangers, then y’all are friends with us. Come on, lets get ya some grub.”

I couldn’t argue with that idea. My stomach was growling just at the thought of food. When had I eaten last? Was it those cookies Xayah had made? That was what? Twenty four hours ago? I nodded and followed him as he led us towards their camp.

Brisk stopped me. “Shouldn’t we get going? Who knows how long it will be until those cyber ponies head back to Stable 25? Assuming they haven’t started heading back already,” he said in a hushed tone.

I glanced at the ponypalooza hotel in the distance. We were so close, we couldn’t afford to get sidetracked now. I sighed. Food would have to wait. “Alright, lets deal with the cyber ponies first.”

A small grey and black foal beside us looked up at me in surprise. “You three are looking for some cyber ponies!?” the whole crowd of ponies stopped and turned to us in shock.

“Uh… yes?” I stammered not sure how to react.

The foal turned to the Brown Buck. “Do you think it's the cyber ponies we saw daddy?” they had seen the cyber ponies?!

The Brown buck looked as us sceptically? “You three aint lookin’ for four metal freaks round the Fetlock area are ye?”

I exchanged a few nervous glances with my friends. We returned our gaze to the stallion and each gave a timid nod. “Yeah, have you seen them?” I said. “We think they’re heading to the Ponypalooza Hotel.”

The group of ponies looked around at each other. A grey unicorn mare stepped forwards. “We saw them a few hours ago. But they weren’t heading to that old hotel.”

My heart stopped. Please don't tell me they were on their way to Stable 25! I had to force myself to get the next sentence out. “Where were they heading?” my voice cracked as I spoke.

The Brown buck cleared his throat. “Fetlock by the look of it,” Oh thank the goddesses. “Had some strange oblong device with em.”

So they hadn’t given it to whoever had asked them to retrieve it yet. That was… confusing.

“Why do you think they are heading there?” Brisk asked, giving me a concerned look. “A change of plan or something?” I shrugged in response.

“Well I can’t tell you that,” The brown buck stated. “But I think they still can.”

“What do you mean by they still can?” Xayah questioned sceptically.

“Follow me and I’ll so ya,” The buck grinned, turning back and continuing to lead us in the direction he had before. “It’s just past our camp here.”

The group led us through their small camp that was situated in the middle of the street between two somewhat sturdy looking skyscrapers. Compared to settlements like Friendship City or even Fort Strong this camp was small. It consisted of five tents and a large bonfire located in the middle of the camp. A few ponies stood guard around the outskirts of the camp, but it was hardly enough protection to last against most of the threats I had stumbled across in the wasteland.

“So what’s your name?” I asked the brown buck as we walked through the camp.

“Names Dusty,” The buck said with a smirk. “And this here is my son Scrapper,” He said, gesturing to the grey and black foal that had spoken up earlier. Scrapper gave us a polite wave before darting off to join a small group of other foals. “I’m the mayor of this town. It ain't much, but I do what I can to keep these ponies safe from the dangers of the wasteland.”

“Must not be easy,” Xayah chimed in. “Manehattan isn’t the most hospitable place for small groups.”

Dusty grunted. “You got that right. But not all of us are rich enough to get into that fancy smancy Tenpony Tower,” He gritted his teeth at the mentioned the tower. “We don’t usually need to deal with much more than Radroaches and the occasional ghoul, but lately the fuckin’ Steel Rangers have been stompin’ ‘round with a bigger stick up their metal ass than normal.”

“Any idea what’s going on with them?” I asked. “There must be some reason they are acting like that all of a sudden.”

Dusty shrugged. “Who knows. I ain't one to pay attention to politics. Rumor has it their forces are runnin’ a little thinner than usual. Couple of select rangers have been questioning the rangers way of life or some shit, leadin’ to them actin’ lot more rash than usual.”

Dusty lead us to a large multi floor building that looked as if had once been some form of shopping mall. Most of the left side of the structure had collapsed and sunken into a sinkhole, causing the whole building to look warped and crooked. A large sign hung over the door, though due to years of rust and corrosion, it had become near impossible to read.

Dusty stopped as we reached the entrance. “This here is as far as I’ll take you,” Dust grunted. “Thing is damaged and not much of a threat anymore, but I don’t want to risk it. Not with all those ponies back there still needin’ my help.”

I gave him a small smile. “Thanks. We appreciate the help,” I turned to my friends. “You two ready?”

Brisk gave a small gulp. “If I die, I’ma gonna come back and haunt all of you.”

I grinned. “Do me a favor and don’t die. Got it?”

The abandoned mall was eerie to say the least. Dark blood was splattered across the cracked dust covered walls and the floors had been scored with a multitude of scorch marks. Abandoned shops had been trashed or looted, leaving piles of junk scattered across the floor. The whole building was slanted at and awkward angle, making it difficult to move very fast.

There were also skeletons everywhere. In the shops, in the hallways, even a couple hanging from the roof. Most of them were old, no doubt caused by the apocalypse two hundred years ago, though there were a couple of more recent corpses that filled the mall with a pungent stench.

As we trotted deeper into the mall we began to uncover a different kind of corpse as well. There were multiple corpses belonging to large bipedal hound like creatures littering the floor. They had massive sharp claws, clearly indicated by the huge claw marks that had been gouged into the walls. Most of them had been blasted open with some form of powerful energy weapon, while other lay in mutilated piles. A few of the bodies had even been burned to the bone, leaving nothing but a charred black skeleton.

They weren’t ponies, but the scene reminded me an awful lot like my nightmare.

“Hellhounds,” Xayah muttered, making sure she was as far away from the mutant dogs as possible. So these were the hellhounds I had heard ponies mention off. Xayah had been right, they didn’t look like very good singers.

“The cyber ponies did this,” I said bluntly, looking at the scorch marks on the wall. “They were definitely here.”

A dark mechanical chuckle slowly filled the hall around us. All my hairs stood on end as the chuckle morphed into a deep manic laugh. In the darkness of the tunnel we could see something moving just beyond our sight. It was low to the ground and slow, but it was definitely made of metal.

“Oh we were here,” The metallic voice cackled. I shone my pipbuck light in the direction of the voice and took in the cyber pony.

It wasn’t the cyber alicorn, but rather the cyber pony who sported two magical laser weapons on each side. From what little of his old coat remained, I could tell he had once been a dark green. Very similar in colour to Brisk. I didn’t know much about this one, as he never seemed to talk as much as the other three. Granted, I didn’t really know anything about any of them.

The cyber pony wasn’t looking his best either. The back half of his body had been completely removed, laying a few feet away from his front. He was slowly dragging himself across the floor towards us, his backside trailing a mix of wires and intestines mixed with some weird black fluid. The metal plating that covered most of his body had been dented and his face had been burned away, revealing a metal skull with bits of exposed brain.

I could see bits of the cyber pony slowly reforming, fixing and patching many of the smaller injuries. Whatever parts of him had once been organic seemed to have healed the fastest, only a few bleeding wounds on his coat were visible. A few wires were trying to reattach his back half, but they seemed unsuccessful.

The cyber pony laughed again, slowly inching itself closer to us. It was a pained laugh. “Well if it isn’t the Stable dweller that let us in!” The metal monstrosity grinned. “Crank thought you’d be to scared to run after us! Guess he was wrong!”

“What the fuck happened ot you,” I asked, cautiously stepping towards the cyber pony. I noted that while he didn’t have his back half, his laser weapons were still very much intact.

The cyber pony snarled. “Hellhounds! Treason! Take your pick! Doesn’t matter to me!” He barked, a few sparks flying from the top of his head as he did.

“It looks like you freaks took care of the hellhounds fine,” Brisk mocked. “My bet is your buddies left you here for dead,” The cyber pony growled at him as Brisk spoke.

Xayah shrunk back. “I think it foolish to antagonize the thing with big laser weapons,” She squealed, taking a small step behind me and peering around my flank to look at the cyber pony.

I could agree with that sentiment. “Where is the A.A.S.S? I asked, taking another cautious step closer. “And the other cyber ponies?”

The cyber pony grinned again, showing off rows of metal shark like teeth. “Come over here and I’ll tell you?”

I froze. Well didn’t this seem all to familiar. “I’m sure you can tell me from there,” I deadpanned, taking a small step back.

The cyber pony snarled again and pulled itself closer on its broken front legs. “Then I’m not telling you anything,” It growled, its bulb like eyes glowing a flickering red.

Then I spotted it. It was small and had faded over the years, but I had seen it enough times throughout my life that I recognised it the second my eyes landed upon it. Right where the cyber ponies head connected to its neck was a tiny Stable-Tec symbol.

The cyber ponies were Stable-Tec! Or at least built out of parts made by Stable-Tec. I recalled the the call I had gotten from Stable-Tec only seconds before the cyber ponies showed up. That connected a few dots at least, but didn’t even come close to explaining everything.

But if they had Stable-Tec parts in them, then there was a good chance that they worked similar to other Stable-Tec machines. And I knew my Stable-Tec machines.

I grinned ear to ear. “This is your last chance to tell us where they are,” I said confidently. It felt weird being as confident as I was. “I’m finding out whether or not you choose to tell me.”

The cyber ponies face turned into a scowl. “Then you’ll have to figure it out on your own,” He hissed. I could see his tongue through his metal teeth, one of the only parts of him that didn’t seem to be made of metal.

I turned to Brisk. “Can I borrow your machete please?” The cyber ponies eyes widened in both fear and confusion.

Brisk wordlessly passed over his blade, raising his eyebrow slightly at me. I took it in my mouth and slowly approached the broken cyber pony. Xayah and Brisk kept their guns out and pointed at the cyber pony as I drew closer to it.

The cyber pony glared at the machete, his eyes locked onto its serrated edge. My eyes found his laser guns. They were slowly charging up. I wasn’t surprised.

Whether the cyber pony was faking how damaged he was or adrenalin had simply kicked in I can't be sure, but the second I drew within range he lunged at me with a speed comparable only by a bullet. He slammed into me, knocking the machete from my mouth and clattering across the floor.

I really needed to hold onto my weapons better.

I stumbled back as the full force of the cyber pony slammed into me. Xayah and Brisk fired their weapons, but they both missed the speeding target as it lunged on top of me and pinned me down with its two remaining hooves.

I brought Boneless out and aimed up at the cyber ponies head. He was faster, his mechanical laser weapons swiveling at his side and blasting my weapon out of my mouth. I managed to kick up with my back hooves, pushing the cyber pony off of me as I scrambled to retrieve my weapon.

Xayah fired again, but this time her shot landed. Her sniper tore through the cyber ponies side, spraying the wall with blood and that strange black fluid. Almost instantly, the hole in the cyber ponies side healed itself, metal chunks quickly forming overtop of the gaping wound.

I hated enemies that could regenerate. It was even more unfair than enemies that could fly.

The cyber pony blasted at Xayah with his lasers. The black and white zebra dodged and flickered out of view narrowly avoiding being turned to ash.

I pulled myself back to my hooves and watched as the raging cyber pony launched himself at Brisk. Brisk dodged the attack, but failed to evade a second attack as the cyber pony whipped back around and lashed at him with his metal hooves. Brisk fell backwards, crashing to the ground clutching his face.

I raised boneless and fired. The explosive shells burst open and sprayed the cyber pony with shrapnel. It whirled around and blasted at me, the powerful lasers only missing by inches as I dropped to the ground and rolled out of the way.

Brisk popped a buck into his mouth and pulled himself back to his hooves. He raised his pistol and fired at the cyber pony, or at least he would have had he not found himself on an empty chamber.

“Shit,” He muttered, pulling the trigger on his gun a few more times to make sure that it was actually empty.

The cyber pony grinned and rushed towards him, scuttling forward on its two legs. His laser weapons fired again, this time one of the shots blowing off one of Brisks ears.

Brisk screamed as his ear was burned away, leaving a bloody oozing stump where it had once been. He clutched at his ear with his hoof, trying to stop the blood flow. A second shot blasted him in the face, ripping away much of the flesh on his face and making one eye burst open with a shower of yellow fluid.

The cyber pony pounced on him, pinning him to the floor and screaming into his face. The cyber ponies metal hooves pushed down on Brisk chest. I could hear snapping as his ribcage was slowly crushed.

I yelled something, but I wasn’t sure what it was. Xayah flickered back into view as she lunged at the cyber pony, but once again they cyber pony proved to be faster than us. Its weapons swiveled to meet her, blasting at her hooves and making her stumble away into the darkness.

Brisk lashed his hooves against the cyber pony in desperation as the metal hooves stomped down on him again. He tried to scream but his voice was obscured by the gurgling of blood. The cyber pony placed a hoof over Brisk’s throat and began pushing down, slowly crushing his windpipe. The cyber pony turned its vile head to look at me, its malicious jagged smile oozing with black sludge.

I charged forwards, swiping Brisk machete up off the ground. I was filled with anger, fear, hatred. My whole body felt cold. I couldn’t lose Brisk. Not now! Please goddesses not now!

The cyber pony blasted at me again with its lasers, the shots burning into my hide and leaving large burn marks across my front, but I didn’t care. I continued charging, ignoring the pain as the cyber pony fired another laser into my chest.

I aimed the machete at the cyber pony as I neared. The serrated blade pierced a gap in the armour plating on the cyber ponies neck that showed off its matted green coat. Blood spewed from the wound in its neck as it thrashed about, trying in vain to dislodge the blade from its throat.

I pushed him off of Brisk as the cyber pony spasmed. He crashed into the walls, clawing at his neck and trying to regain some form of composure. I sure as fucking hell wasn’t going to let this monster do that!

I leapt on top of him and began bashing my hooves against his metal skull. Wherever metal he was made of seemed to hard to damage, so I took a different approach. I ripped the machete out of his neck with my mouth and began jabbing it in every area of his body that wasn’t covered in metal. I didn’t care if my virtue was morality or not. This bastard was going to suffer for hurting Brisk.

The cyber pony flailed his metal hooves against my sides, desperate for an escape. I didn’t budge. I kept stabbing into him, ripping out what little bits of pony were left in the monster. I was soaked in blood, but I couldn’t tell if it was his or my own anymore. It was all the same to me. My life didn’t matter at this moment, only Brisk’s.

I reared the machete up and brought it down as hard as I could against the cyber ponies neck. There was a snap and both the monsters neck and the machete shattered. The cyber ponies head popped off and rolled a few feet away from us. At last the thrashing body of the cyber pony went still.

One down. Three to go.

I turned and looked at Brisk. Half his face was gone and his throat was covered in a dark purple bruise. His chest had been caved in, but he was still breathing slow and pained breaths. Blood was spilling from his body fast. Really damn fast.

Xayah sat next to him, doing her best to stop the bleeding. But she could only attend to one spot at once, she couldn’t stop it all or fix the shattered rib cage and crushed windpipe. She looked up at me, her eyes filled with a horror that I had never seen on her before.

No! We can't lose him! Please!

I turned back to the ruined body of the cyber pony. He had been regenerating most of the damage on his body, but that wasn’t just some high tech machine, he had been healing organic matter as well.

I pulled out my red screwdriver and began pulling apart the metal plating on the body. With each movement I found myself struggling to keep focus. My head was spinning and I was starting to feel the burning sensation in my chest where I had been struck with multiple blasts of the cyber ponies laser weapons. Glancing down I could see fountains of blood spilling from my chest.

I’d have to work fast.

At last I found a metal compartment near the Cyber ponies synthetic heart. Propping it open I saw multiple tubes pumping different chems into the veins and throughout the body. I spotted the one I had been looking for. Hydra!

I hauled the body of the cyber pony over to Brisk. Ripping out the tube pumping hydra and placing it in his mouth, letting the chems flow down Brisk crushed throat. Xayah and I watched in utter amazement as skin began reforming over his face and his ribs painfully popped back into place with a loud snap. His breathing slowly returned to normal as his throat reshaped itself.

Then we ran out of Hydra. Fuck!

Most of the lethal damage had stopped, but much of the bleeding continued. I tried to rise but a shooting pain erupted in my chest and caused me to fall pathetically to the floor.

“Get... healing… potions,” I grunted to Xayah, trying in vain to push myself back up again.

“We are all out,” Xayah said in a panic. “We used them all on me back with the raiders!” I briefly remembered having that conversation.

I shook my head. “Then find some,” Xayah nodded and darted away into the darkness of the mall.

I looked down at my chest. Three large holes had opened up, pumping hot blood out of my body. We were both losing blood fast!

I placed a hoof over my chest in a futile attempt to stop the bleeding and dared to glance over at Brisk. Even after the hydra, he wasn’t doing well. Most of the fur on the left side of his face was burned away, revealing the soft pink skin underneath. His eye hadn’t reformed perfectly, looking more like a goopy blob than an actual eye and his chest was still pumping blood where the cyber ponies hooves had ripped open his flesh.

I took my hoof off of my chest and rolled closer to him. I applied pressure to the gaping hole in his torso with both my hooves, drenching my coat in his blood.

“It’s going to be okay Brisk. We are going to get you out of this, okay?” Brisk just lay there unconscious, a small stream of blood flowing from his lips. I could feel tears swelling up in my eyes and rolling down my face. A few droplets landed on Brisk’s chest, disappearing into a pool of his blood. His breathing was slowing again, sometimes there would be long periods of time where his chest would simply fail to raise again. I coughed, tasting blood swirl into my mouth. “Please don't die Brisk, come on!”

I could feel myself slowly drifting away in oblivion. I had to fight it! I had to stay awake! For him!

I was slipping. My blood soaked hooves were having a harder time applying pressure to his chest. I bit down on my tongue and tried to keep focus, but it was no good. Everything was slipping away too fast. I found myself lying by Brisk’s side, my hooves wrapped around his hooves.

He wasn’t breathing. Damn it! Breath! But I couldn’t do anything about it. I was too weak to even speak, let alone save his life.

I opened my mouth and tried to get out a word, but I only coughed out blood. I tried again, putting all my willpower into saying just these few words. “Please don’t leave me… I don’t want to be alone,” I coughed up more blood. “Please… I love you.”

Then I was swirling away into darkness. I tried to hold onto my life, but it was spilling onto the floor with the rest of my blood. The light around me had gone out and I found myself drifting away from my body. Nothing hurt anymore. Maybe this would be okay.

My mind flashed with the bloody image of my Stable in ruins. If I died, they would die! I couldn’t let that happen. Then I saw Brisk and I lying broken on the floor below me and I screamed.

Footnote: level up.
New perk: Mysterious stranger -- You have gained the attention of a mysterious stranger who will appear from time to time. If your ally is lost in combat, do not expect him or her to be replaced
Quest Perk added: Power Armour training - You can now wear and use power armour.

Author's Note

Sorry, not sorry.

As always, thanks to Kkat for creating Fallout Equestria and thanks to Somber for Project horizons.

I just got a new computer as my last one was over 23 years old. hopefully, that will help me get chapters out a little bit faster than normal. (I swear the next chapter won't be so long)

I hope you all enjoyed and have a lovely day!

Chapter VII: Facing Annihilation

“From where you’re kneeling it must look like an 18 karat tun of bad luck. Truth is… the game was rigged from the start.”

Death.

Everypony hears stories about death at one point or another. Some say it is a cold dark void, others say it's warm and fuzzy and you are greeted at the end of the tunnel by Celestia herself. I never knew what to believe. The idea that I might one day die and cease to be anymore than a rotting pile of flesh, lost and forgotten in some hole had scared me out of my wits. I was always actively avoiding doing something stupid like think about what it would be like, I’d only scare myself more.

Of course then I found myself leaving the Stable and walking through the nightmare called Manehattan. Suddenly the idea that I might die became less of a foreboding future that I was slowly inching towards, but an inevitable event that wasn’t a matter of when, but how. That helped me become less afraid of death, I think.

Don’t get me wrong, I still didn’t want to die, but I had come to terms with the fact that at any second I could fail to dodge a bullet, or some sniper I didn’t see would decide my time had come. It didn’t matter, my life wasn’t all that important.

What did matter was saving Stable 25. I had pushed forwards, fighting against the worst the wasteland could throw at me just to save the ponies who had beat me and degraded me day after countless day. I suppose that was my virtue. Morality, doing the right thing, saving those even when they don’t deserve to be saved.

Not that that mattered anymore. I had come so far, fought and lost so much, only to die in some grey blasted apart mall. It wasn’t fare! Not to me, not to anypony that was counting on me to save their life. Most of all though, it wasn’t fair to Brisk. He hadn’t wanted to come here and save the Stable, he had just wanted to be free of the shackles of Stable 25. But I hadn’t let him do that. I had pulled him into my dumb quest, only for him to bleed out next to me on the floor, unable to see the sky or feel the open air.

There was a saying in Stable 25. Here you are born, and here you would die. Ironic, Brisk and I might not be in the Stable, but we were still going to die in a dark grey hallway, devoid of light and love and fresh air.

I wanted to return to the living world, I wanted to make all of the cyber ponies pay for what they had done, but most of all, I just wanted to save Brisk.

I could feel a hoof touch my forehead in the darkness. I tried to open my eyes to see who it was, but I was too weak. Once you have fallen into the darkness, you cannot simply climb out.

Somepony was saying something, though I couldn’t make out what it was. They spoke in a soothing tone, calming my nerves and making me drift more peacefully into oblivion.

I could taste something trickling past my parched lips, flavorless. I couldn’t stop it, I just lay there in the dark. Then, I faded into nothingness completely.

I jerked my eyes open and sat up with a start. Where was I? Why wasn’t I dead? What was going on!?

Xayah put a black and white striped hoof on my chest and pushed me back down. I let her, gently resting my back back against the cold grey walls of the mall.

“What happened?” I asked, looking up at Xayah. She looked shaken, her striped mane was a mess and her normally stunning green eyes were puffy and red. She had clearly been crying. Fear shot through me. “Xayah! Where is Brisk!”

“I’m fine,” Brisk wheezed, propping himself up from the ground a few feet away from me. “Its okay Amber, were all fine,” I could have cried right then I was so happy. Brisks eye was still a pulpy mess, but the rest of him looked back to normal. He did look a little shaken though, no doubt having trouble adjusting to his lack of vision on one side.

I spotted a few empty healing potions and hydra laying in a pile next to me. I gave Xayah a shaky smile. “I see you found healing potions.”

Xayah shook her head. “I didn’t find anything. I thought you were dead for sure.”

“Wha- what do you mean?” I asked, furrowing my eyebrows. “What happened?”

“I looked as hard as I could, but the mall has been completely looted,” Xayah said. She was beginning to tear up, wet tears were starting to roll down her cheeks and dampen her coat. “I thought you two were dead and then… then…”

I slowly pushed myself back up again. “Xayah, what happened?”

Xayah whimpered. “I returned, thinking I had failed you and… and…” she had to wipe a hoof across her face to clear some of the tears away. “I saw a stallion standing over you. But… I don’t think he was a pony.”

I felt a chill go up my spine. “Why do you think he wasn’t a pony?” I soothed, trying to hide the discomfort in my own voice.

Xayah shook her head cluelessly. “I don’t know, he just seemed wrong. Like he wasn’t supposed to be there,” She started shaking a little as she spoke. I reached forwards and held her tight in my hooves. How odd that it was the pony that almost died that needed to comfort somepony, but I had never seen Xayah this shaken, even after watching her whole family get slaughtered by raiders. Xayah bit back more tears. “He was stroking your mane and whispering something to you. When he saw me he just disappeared.”

“Well everything it's all okay now, right?” I asked, glancing over at Brisk. He gave a slow nod, but seemed unsettled by the news as well. I glanced at the empty bottles around us that had once held healing potions. “So did he give us the healing potions then?” I asked. besides being a little mysterious, he didn’t seem all that bad.

Xayah shuttered. “I don’t know… I... I don't know what I saw.”

After a few minutes I let go of Xayah and crawled over to Brisk who was rubbing the goopy socket where his eye used to be. “You doing alright?” I asked as I pulled up next to him.

His lower lip trembled slightly, but he kept his composure. “I’ve been better. Cant see good though,” He poked at his eye socket a few more times with his hoof. I caught his hoof and lowered it away from his eye.

“I’d try not to touch it,” I soothed. “It’ll just make it worse.”

Brisk grunted. “It’s hard to get worse than gone,” He grumped, running his hooves over the regrown fur on his chest. It was patchy where the cyber pony had ripped him open.

I gave him a warm smile and gave him a gentle punch on the shoulder. “Maybe we could get you an eyepatch or something, make you look like a pirate.”

He answered my statement with a genuine smile. “Awe, really! Ya really know how to put a grin on my face.”

I found myself chuckling despite myself. “I just gotta say dumb shit,” He gave me a playful punch on the shoulder in return.

With everypony feeling better, I stood and turned to what we had come here for in the first place. The broken remains of the cyber pony.

His metal head and popped off and rolled away from the body a few feet, landing in a pile of trash in the corner of the hallway. A small light blinked on and off behind his glass like eyes, illuminating bits of the hallway for short periods of time.

I approached it, Boneless drawn and aimed at the sinister head. I doubted it was still a threat, but after our fight, I wasn’t going to underestimate these cyber ponies again. Even broken they were death machines.

A small buzzing escaped the jagged sneer of the cyber head and a crackling voice spoke out. “Please, d-d-d-don’t do this!” I froze as I got closer. It was still alive. And worse, it had the audacity to ask me to spare it? “I won’t do it a-a-again, I sw-w-wear!” the voice sounded scared, nothing like the vile monster that had attacked me before.

“Why shouldn’t I kill you!” I asked, drawing a few steps closer, boneless trained on the head.

“I-I-I d-d-d-don’t want to become like t-that thing!” it screamed, the pained voice blaring from the motionless head. “Don’t turn me into a monster!”

I stopped a few feet away from it. I doubted it was talking to me at this point. “What monster are you becoming?” I asked it, lowering my shotgun a little.

“Metal, all metal!” The head yelled. “It hurts me! I don’t want to hurt anymore…”

“What is it talking about?” Xayah asked, stepping up to me and looking the skull over.

“I think it's remembering when it became… well this,” I replied, gesturing to the broken metal husk of the cyber pony on the ground.

“NO!” The cyber ponies voice began screaming. Its voice was pained and shrill. “NO! It hurts! Don’t let it hurt me!” there was a sudden silence from the screaming metal head. When if finally spoke again its voice was low and pained. “Why is it so dark…” He muttered, almost as if on the verge of tears. Then, with one last burst of sparks, the flickering light inside the head went out.

I Kneeled down next to the metal skull and began opening up the back of the skull with my screwdriver. There was a satisfying click and the back half of the skull opened up.

“So what are you doing again?” Brisk asked, peering over my shoulder and looking at the circuitry inside of the cyber ponies head. I doubted any of the things inside meant anything to him, but to me it felt like I was staring at an old friend.

"It's likely that these cyber ponies brains have been augmented, which means that there is a good chance that their memories are stored as some form of data inside their head,” I replied evenly, getting to work and fiddling around with the different circuits in the skull. Its eyes were also mechanical, so I can probably pull up complete videos of the cyber ponies memories from the last few hours.”

“And you know how to do this how?” Brisk asked, shaking his head and looking away from the metal head.

“Because I have spent my life dealing with and fixing Stable-Tec machines,” I said. I grinned and flipped a small switch in the center of the cyber ponies head. The eyes on the cyber pony flared to life again and projected a light blue tinted video onto the cracked wall. “And this... is Stable-Tec technology,” I stated proudly, watching the video.

On the projection, we watched from the cyber ponies perspective as all four cyber ponies stood in a circle in the middle of the hallway.

“Come on!” The cyber pony wielding two large flamers groaned. “We can take em’! Let's burn their asses to a crisp!”

The cyber alicorn stomped his hoof, shaking the walls of the mall. “We can’t attack them in the open. It will be easier to fight them if we lure them here first,” all the cyber ponies shut up after that.

A few seconds passed, then the cyber alicon put a metal hoof to his ear as if he heard something. None of the other cyber ponies dared say anything as he listened. When he finally put his hoof down and grunted. “There has been a change of plans. We aren’t bringing the A.A.S.S to the Ponypalooza Hotel anymore.”

Once again the flamer cyber pony spoke up. “Fuckin’ hell! Where does he want us to drop it off now? And don’t tell me Filly-fuckin’-delpia!”

“We aren’t giving it to him anymore,” The cyber alicorn barked. “We are heading to the Fetlock train station. I just got word from Kamari. He gave me a deal for it I can’t refuse.”

The cyber pony we were watching through the eyes of snarled. “You would dare turn on our maker! He gave us a direct order to retrieve this fucking device and I intend to deliver it, even if I have to take it from your mangled corpse!”

The cyber alicorn growled and narrowed its mechanical eyes at us. “You would be best to watch your tongue Steel Blade,” The cyber alicorn threatened. “I have no desire to be that basterds puppet forever.”

Steel Blade snarled and readied himself into an attacking position. I applauded him on his bravery against the cyber alicorn. The cyber alicorn remained stoic, almost unfazed by the metal pony before him preparing to lunge.

“How much did Kamari offer?” The flamer cyber pony blurted, interrupting the standoff between the two hulking metal monsters.

“Five Hundred thousand caps each,” The cyber alicorn deadpanned. All of the cyber ponies froze. “Our original paycheque was only twenty thousand.”

After a long silence the cyber pony who had yet to speak spoke. “Holy fuck,” I noted that he had been the psycho that had continuously stomped an alicorns head in.

The flamer wielding cyber pony laughed an awful laugh. “I say fuck him! I’ll take five hundred over twenty any day!”

Steel blade growled again. “How dare you! All of you! He made us! He is a god! He will bring about Utopia!”

The cyber pony with the flamer sneered. “Oh go preach your religious bullshit to somepony that gives a fuck!”

The tension in the room grew. Steel Blade was practically fuming at this point as he glared down the other three cyber ponies. The flamer cyber pony chuckled at him, tempting him to attack by shooting small puffs of flame out of his flamers.

Before Steel blade could lunge, a massive form burst from the ground and lashed at him across the side. Three massive gouges were ripped into Steel Blades side as hordes of Hellhounds tore their way out of the ground with deadly ferocity.

Now I understood why hellhounds were so feared in the wasteland. The cyber ponies had been slaughtering alicorns with ease, but against the hellhounds they had to fight for their life. Where bullets had merely bounced off of the cyber ponies metal armour, the hellhounds claws tore large chunks of metal from their flesh. Steel blade took the worst of it, his back half been torn away from his body as three hellhounds grabbed onto him and pulled him apart.

The cyber alicorn was not as easily taken down. His tesla cannons blasted massive burst of blue energy into the hellhounds, each strike ending in the targeted hellhound being blown to pieces. One hellhound managed to claw the cyber alicorn across the face, leaving a deep claw mark across his front.

The cyber pony with the flamers seemed to be holding his own as well, sending jets of flame into the oncoming hellhounds. A few hellhounds tried to burrow back into the ground to escape his fire, only for him to blast a steady stream of flame down the hole after them.

As the final hellhound was blasted away, the standing cyber ponies gave a howl of laughter. The cyber pony with the flamer leaned in close to Steel blade and grinned. “Oh, looks like you need a little help there!” the cyber pony cackled to himself as he stared down at Steel Blades broken form.

Steel blade answered him by blasting him in the face with two shots of his laser weapons. The flamer cyber pony staggered back, clutching his charred face.

The flamer cyber pony laughed again despite the pain he must have felt, his flamers slowly building up. “Ho ho! You just messed with the wrong pony!” The flamer cyber pony laughed, flipping Steel Blades broken body over and pinning him down with one hoof. The flamer cyber pony leaned in close and spat in Steel Blades face, blemishing the video with oddly black spit. “I’d rape you, but you’re a little old for my taste,” The flamer cyber pony glanced at Steel Blades lower half a few feet away. “And you’re kinda missing all the good parts.”

The cyber alicorn approached from behind them and stomped his hoof on the ground. “Stop taunting him Inferno, just make him burn,” The cyber alicorn growled.

The flamer cyber pony now known as Inferno chuckled. “With pleasure Crank!” Then the video was filled with flames. The screen flickered a few times, then went out.

So that cyber pony with a flamer was named Inferno, and the cyber alicorn was named Crank. I glanced at the broken head of the cyber pony. “Guess that makes you Steel Blade, huh?”

“Sooo, what do we do know?” Brisk asked. “I mean, we still don’t know why all of this is happening.”

“We head to the Fetlock train station,” Xayah said. “I have heard the train only comes every few days, so it is unlikely that the cyber ponies are on it yet.”

“How far of a walk is it to the station?” I asked, tossing the metal head back into the pile of trash and beginning my way back out of the building.

“About an hour,” Xayah informed us. Brisk and I froze. We were going to be facing down three cyber ponies in around an hour. I didn’t know if I should be happy or horrified. I decided to settle for both.

The sun had just risen above the horizon line as we stepped out of the abandoned mall. The camp of ponies we had encountered before were only a few feet away, all of them gathered around a campfire roasting some form of meat on a stick.

As we approached, Dusty walked up to us with a big grin. “Ya made it out! Y’all were in there so long, I was beginning to think you weren’t coming back.”

I grimaced. “We came pretty damn close to not coming out,” I admitted.

Dusty sent a nervous glance at Brisk melted eye. “I noticed. I can get ya a pair of sunglasses if you wish?” Brisk pocked at the goopy socked and nodded solemnly.

“Say, we just cooked up some bloatfly if you want some,” Dusty said, leading us back over to the camp.

Bloatfly. I didn’t know if that was better or worse than eating Radroach. These ponies needed to try Xayah's cookies, that would put any radioactive wasteland meat to shame.

As we drew closer to the camp, I began to make out the ponies gathered around the fire better. Among three mares sat and old buck with a pipe in his mouth and a handful of foals that had taken to running in circles around the fire. It was good to see that some ponies could manage to find some form of happiness in the wasteland, even if it that happiness was hard to maintain.

A dark black buck with a grey stetson walked out of one of the tens and joined the ponies by the fire. Dusty brightened up at the sight of the pony.

“Ah, there he is,” Dusty exclaimed, ushering us over and passing us each a chunk of bloatfly meat. “There is a stallion here I’d like y’all to meet. Y’all seem to have a bit in common.”

I took the meat from him and followed him over to where the black buck had sat down. As we neared, I took a quick bite of the meat. It wasn’t awful, though it would be a stretch to call it good.

“Friends, I’d like y’all to meet Flask,” Dusty said, gesturing to the buck. “Flask here is a regular in our little comunity, brings supplies to us from all over the wasteland. See, he travels the wasteland like y’all, looking for robo ponies!”

Flask waved a hoof at Dusty. “Dusty, what have I told ya about tellin’ every pony that? It is supposed to be a secret.”

“You're Flask?” Brisk asked sceptically, taking a small step forwards. He cast a glance at me. “Are you the pony we are supposed to meet?”

Flask stood up and took the three of us in. “Depends, who sent you?”

Brisk quickly pulled out the metal box we had received in Friendship City and passed it to him. “Friend of yours named Emissary gave us this for you in Friendship City. Is that you?” I mentally kicked myself. In my hurry to catch the cyber ponies, I had completely forgotten about that deal we had made with Emissary in exchange for a place to sleep.

“Emissary sent you?” Flask asked. We all nodded in unison. Flask’s eyes darted around to look at the other ponies around the fire. After taking a second to assess the situation, he turned to Dusty. “Do you mind if I take a moment to talk to these folks?”

Dusty nodded casually, as if this kind of thing was a common occurrence with Flask. “No problem, take all the time ya need.”

A few minutes later and we had all piled into one of the tens around the campfire. Flask took the metal box from Brisk and looked it over.

“I’m surprised Emissary sent y’all. He's not usually one to trust others with important tasks like that, so either you are new, or he was desperate to get this out of Friendship City,” Flask said pointedly. “So? What is it? How much to you three ponies know?”

I raised my hooves in defence. “We don’t know anything. He just seemed to be offering us a job,” I answered honestly.

Flask gave a disbelieving grunt. “Well, thank you for your service,” He hastily tossed a bag of twenty caps in front of us.

“What is this for?” I asked as I picked up the caps.

Flask gave me a dumb look. “For bringin’ me my package,” He answered flatly.

I was about to argue that we didn’t do it for caps when Brisk cut me off. “Thank you, we’ll make sure we use these caps well! So, what is in the box?” Brisk asked curiously, leaning in slightly. “I tried to open it a few times, but I couldn’t seem to figure out how.”

I gave him a disappointed look. “Why the fuck were you trying to look inside of somepony else's mail?”

Brisk gave me a blank stare. “Hi, my name is Brisk Spark, it’s nice to meet you,” He made a good point.

Flask gave Brisk a disapproving look before returning his gaze to Xayah and I. “If Emissary trust you and made you come all the way out here, I suppose I should give you some explanation,” Flask sighed, and put the metal box down by his hooves before sitting down on a wooden chair in the center of the tent. “Tell me ponies, have you ever heard of the Institute?”

Instinctively, Brisk and Xayah shook their heads. I thought for a second. The name did sound familiar. Oh wait, that's right! Tales had mentioned the Institute back in Friendship City. But that had just been a crazy conspiracy theory, right?

Then again, so was the Enclave and I had seen first hoof how real they were.

“I've heard a little, but not very much” I admitted. “Something about kidnapping ponies?”

Flask nodded. “That and more. You see the Institute has created something called the Synth.”

“Ah, this I have heard of,” Xayah said. “Robots so realistic, you cannot tell them apart from ponies. But I thought those were just a foolish myth?”

Flask shook his head. “They’re no myth, and they are more than just robots. The Institute believes these synths to be no more than mindless machines. Slaves to their every whim, but they are so much more.”

“If they’re robots created to be slaves, is that not what they are?” I asked, trying to picture a synth in my mind. I was having a difficult time.

Once again, Flask shook his head. “Perhaps they are not born from the womb like you or me, but just like ponies they are capable of sentient thought. They are able to learn. If they look like ponies and think and feel like ponies, they are ponies,” Flask informed us sternly.

“I was not sure if these synths existed,” Xayah restated. “How do you know they are real?”

Flask smiled at that. “Because there are ponies out there like Emissary and myself that have dedicated our lives to protecting and liberating these synths, freeing them from the shackles of the Institute if you will.”

“Ponies?” Brisk asked. “How many of you are there?”

“We are few and far between,” Flask informed us. “We are a group called the Friendship Express. We help synth in need of protection from the Institute and others who would do them harm.”

“Where is this Institute?” I asked. It seemed odd that such a faction would be spoken of so little that most ponies didn’t even know they existed.

“No pony knows,” Flask muttered. “We have been trying to find them for years, but they are notoriously good at staying on the down low.”

Brisk rocked back and forth on his hooves a couple times. “This is interesting and all, but can we open up the box and see what's inside now?” he blurted impatiently. “I mean, I was forced to carry around a mysterious box for a full day and I still don’t know what's inside!”

Flask and I rolled our eyes. Brisk could be so childish sometimes. Flask leaned forward and picked the box up in his hooves. He pulled out a strange talisman in the shape of a lantern and placed it to the metal box. There was a small click and the top of the box opened inwards.

“It is a magical box that the Friendship Express has developed over the years,” Flask explained as he pulled a stained yellow folder out of the box. “They are designed to only be opened by members of the Friendship Express.”

Brisk crossed his hooves and grumbled. “Stupid Brisk proof boxes.”

“What is in the file?” Xayah asked curiously, leaning in to look at the folder. Flask yanked the folder away before she could get a good look at it.

“Sorry, there is a reason that this was in one of those boxes. If this information gets out then one of our clients lives could be a risk,” Flask snapped, closing the folder and putting it back into the box for later. He quickly pulled out a steel flask and took a swig from it. “My apologies.”

Brisk threw his hooves into the air in despair. “Seriously! Now I can’t even see what it is! Ugh! I hate not getting to see things!”

Flask gave us a smug smile. “We all have our secrets,” he glanced down at the box and pondered something for a second. “I’ll tell you what though. Since y’all have been wandering the wasteland, I figure you might be able to help me some. I’ve been looking for a runaway synth that is going by the name of Rubber Band. If you happen to run across him, would ya mind getting word of his location to us? We’ve been looking awfully hard for this one.”

I grimaced. Another side quest? Were we their personal grunts now?

Flask seemed to notice my expression. “Don’t worry, we’ll make sure we pay you a good pile of caps for it if you do.”

Brisk nodded vigorously. “You had me at caps!”

As we piled out of the tent, we found Dusty’s son Scrapper waiting for us outside. He passed Brisk a pair of black tinted sunglasses. “Here, dad said you’d want these,” Scapper said as Brisk took the shades and placed them over his eyes gingerly.

“Well, they’re no eyepatch, but I’ll take it,” Brisk joked, tapping the glasses with a hoof.

Xayah looked at her reflection in the lenses. “Yes, they seem to suit you most nicely.”

Brisk flicked his hoof and gave a fake chuckle. “Oh Xayah, you say the sweetest things!” He said in the most flamboyant voice he could. It was good to see that even the wasteland couldn’t change the childish goofball that was Brisk.

“How long will you ponies be staying?” Scapper asked, turning his attention to me. “We always like having newcomers!”

I glanced up at the sky. Midday already. “We should probably get going,” I answered. “Sorry, but we have something very important to do today.”

“Is there anything you would like from us before you depart?” Dusty asked, walking up to our group.

I shook my head. “No, I think we should be-” Brisk bonked me atop my head with the grip of his gun. “Ouch! What was that for!”

Brisk waved his empty gun in my face. “We could use some ammo if you can spare any,” Brisk suggested, returning his gun to his side.

Dusty nodded. “I’m sure we can find y’all somethin’ ta shoot with. it ‘s the least we can do after puttin’ a gun to yer head earlier.”

Apparently ‘more to shoot with’ ment every bullet and shell in their possession that could fit our guns. I appreciated Dusty’s generosity, especially after our less than pleasant first meeting, but I worried that such kindness would get the poor buck and his family killed. As we walked away from the camp and into the desolite suburbs of Fetlock I began counting our ammo. Fifteen shotgun shells left for Boneless, twenty two new shots had been added to Brisk’s pistol and Xayah’s sniper ammo had increased to twenty one. Then of course there was our three shots for our Balefire Egg Launcher.

We walked in silence for a roughly half an hour, the towering skyscrapers slowly sinking away into the distance as they were replaced by smaller buildings. I flipped though my pipbuck until I found DJ Pon3's radio station.

"...For any of you wastelanders daring the trecherous stretch between Manhattan and Fillydelpia, be on high alert. I have heard of a group of bandits that have been patrolling most of the area. When those fuckers see something they want, they go an' take it... an' they always forget to say please," DJ Pon3's charismatic voice said over the radio of my pipbuck as we walked. "There is good new too though. See these bandits seem t' be giving Red Eye a bit of a rough time as well. According to my sources, they have robbed quite a few of his slavers on their way back to Filly. Bold move bandits, bold move.

"But it doesn't end there. oh no. Do you all remember those Canterlot ghouls I mentioned the other day? Well it seems they are comin' over from Filly as well. Not sure why yet, but whatever it is can't be good. There's a lot of activity in those parts these days, so perhaps it is best to steer clear. Until then my little ponies, keep on fighting that fight! The good fight!"

DJ Pon3's voice died out and some form of instrumental began playing from the radio. I listened to it for a bit, taking in the different sounds. Maybe I should try and bring some new music back to the Stable with me when I return, I thought to myself as I glanced up at the thick cloud layer above me. I was becoming more adjusted to the looming sky above.

I looked over at Brisk who was busy digging through a toppled over garbage can a few feet in front of us. Occasionally he would find something of interest, look it over for a few seconds, then toss it behind him and move on to the next piece of junk.

"What do you think he's doing?" Xayah asked from beside me, looking at Brisk with her eyebrow raised.

I gave her a quick shrug. "Who the hell knows why Brisk does half the stuff he does," Xayah chuckled at that “So... There is a functional train station still working in Equestria?” I asked Xayah as we passed a cluster of broken down houses. The structures in Fetlock seemed tiny in comparison to the towering skyscrapers of Manehattan “Even after two hundred years?”

“Mm-hmm. I heard some ghouls managed to repurpose the Manehattan station a few years back. They will take you anywhere that those tracks are connected to,” Xayah said. She thought about that for a second. “Well… the trains might not necessarily be functional per say, that is probably the wrong word. They don’t exactly have the coal to run it. I think they were like that even before the bombs fell.”

“I thought you said the train comes once every few days?”

“Mm-hmm, it does,” Xayah confirmed.

I slapped a hoof across my face. “How is it supposed to do that if it doesn’t have any coal? Does it run with magic or something?”

Xayah shook her head simply. “Nope, they use pony power.”

“Pony power?” I questioned. “Like… ponies pull the train?” Xayah gave a small smile and nod. Well that just seemed stupid.

While I questioned whether or not a pony pulled train was actually productive or not, Brisk pointed off into the distance and gave a small word of warning. “We're here.”

The Fetlock train station wasn’t anything overly special. It was a long single story building with a thatched roof attached to a tall clocktower on its right. A long black train sat silently at the station, half of the train cars comprised of pieces of junk. A couple of ghouls wandered around the area, minding their own business. Their bar on my pipbuck was green, so I assumed they were friendly ghouls like Coco.

“Keep your eyes open for the cyber ponies,” I instructed as I began walking closer to the station. “The train hasn’t left yet so they are probably still in the area.”

Brisk poked me on the butt to catch my attention before pointing his hoof back at the station. “I’m way ahead of you Amber.”

In the direction of his hoof I could see all three cyber ponies. At the moment they were just standing around and waiting at the train station. Had they not been made of metal and sporting massive weapons of destruction at their sides, they might have just looked like any other pony. It was almost funny; three massive war machines waiting patiently for the next train. Almost funny.

The cyber alicorn I now knew as Crank paced back and forth in front of the other two cyber ponies. Even with his bladed metal wings folded up against his sides I could see the razor sharp blades gleaming in the sunlight and the huge tesla canons that rest just below them.

I gulped. Well shit, I guess it was time to face annihilation.

Taking a deep breath, I turned to Xayah and Brisk. “Alright, are you two ready?”

“That depends,” Xayah soothed in her exotic voice. “Do we have a plan?”

A plan? Against those things? The idea of taking out one was a joke. Any plan I could probably come up with would have a very low chance of success.

“We almost died trying to kill the last cyber pony,” Brisk added. “And that one was severely damaged and missing half his body. I doubt we can just run up and attack three fully functional ones.”

“I don’t think we can take all of them out regardless,” I grunted, glancing back at where the cyber ponies were waiting patiently. “We could try to lure them away from each other and take them out one by one, but that’s still a stretch,” I pulled out the Balefire Egg Launcher I had slung across my back. “We could always shoot them with this? Three shots, three cyber ponies.”

Brisk taped his fore hooves together in excitement. “Please oh please let me fire it!”

Xayah shook her head. “Only if you want to destroy the A.A.S.S as well. Whatever that hits goes up in flame, living or no.”

“Then how are we supposed to fight these things?” I asked out loud. “It’s not like we can just ask them to give the A.A.S.S to us.”

“We could try to steal it from them,” Xayah pointed out. For some bizarre reason, the idea of just stealing it had never crossed my mind. “You and Brisk could try and separate them while I steal the A.A.S.S with my stealth cloak.”

Not the worst idea. Though there were two burning questions I had. “How do we know which one has the A.A.S.S and how do we distract and or seperate them without being blown to pieces?” I asked, stating my concerns outloud.

We all returned our gaze to the cyber ponies in the distance. From here they appeared as little balls of metal against the horizon if you didn’t squint your eyes. And yet even from this far away, I could feel the danger. It was as if at any second they would turn and spot us.

Brisk let out a small chuckle. “You want us to distract them?” He said, almost arogently. He turned to us and gave off the most dramatic pose that he could. “Well then say no more, as there ain’t no pony better at being a nuisance than I!”

Xayah and I exchanged a look. This was going to be something…

Brisk leaned in closer. “Alrighty, here's the plan!”

The Fetlock train station was silent. All the ghouls that walked about preparing the train for departure kept their heads low and avoided all eye contact. The metal monstrosities that the ghouls were cowering from stood at attention on the platform above them, their glowing red gaze scanning over the small groups of ghouls below. The only sound was that of the cyber alicorn’s heavy hoof steps as he paced back and forth across the platform.

Brisk, Xayah and I had crept up the side of the station wall and were peeking over the edge of the roof down at the cyber ponies below us. They were only a few feet away from us now. Close enough that we could make out the deep grumble of their voices as they spoke to each other.

I prayed to Celestia they didn’t notice us on their EFS.

“At least he was nice enough to pay for our train,” Inferno grumbled, keeping his gaze fixed on the ghouls. “But are you sure I can’t just torch one fucking ghoul cunt? I’m itchin’ to burn something!” A few ghouls stared at him in horror as he spoke.

The cyber pony beside him groaned. “Oh shut it with all your grumbling! You complain more than fucking Steel Blade!”

Inferno growled at him, baring his metal fangs at the cyber pony. “Fuck you Tripwire! Don’t compare me to that preachy hunk of shit!”

The Crank stopped pacing and rubbed his ear with a hoof. “There is a lot about being made of metal I can’t stand, but the worst needs to be the enhanced hearing. Your constant bickering feels worse than getting my heart ripped out,” Crank growled. The two cyber ponies stopped arguing at once. Apparently they all knew what having their heart ripped out felt like. I didn’t want to know how.

“You really think Kamari is gonna pay Five Hundred thousand for this thing?” Tripwire asked in a low grumble, pulling the A.A.S.S out and looking it over. I didn’t know exactly where he had managed to pull it out from. “I mean who the fuck would even want some piece of junk like this?”

I exchanged glances with Xayah and Brisk. Now we knew which cyber pony had it. All that was left to do was lure the others away and steal it back. No pressure.

Inferno shrugged. “Hell if I know, but it seems everypony wants this thing. When there are that many caps on the line, how can ya say no?”

Brisk began slinking off of the roof next to me and down to the edge of the platform. He made sure that he stayed far enough away from the cyber ponies that they wouldn’t notice him until he was ready.

“What are you even going to do with all those caps?” Tripwire asked, rolling his head side to side. A sharp cracking sound accompanied each head roll.

Inferno gave a wirily smile. “I hear Red Eye has a few fillies in his mines. Might give them a couple tries. It’s been a while since I forced a filly to pleasure me.”

Holy fuck that cyber pony was twisted. His remark almost tempted me to pull out the Balefire Egg Launcher and blow them all to hell right now. Screw the A.A.S.S. these bastards needed to die.

Brisk nodded to me as he approached the edge of the platform and entered the cyber ponies field of view. This was it, no turning back now.

I could see Xayah’s muscles tensing as we watched Brisk draw closer to them. My stomach did a flip inside of me. Please don’t die Brisk.

Brisk cleared his throat, drawing all of the cyber ponies attention. “Hey, y’all want to hear a joke?” the cyber ponies looked at each other, not sure how to react. “Alright, here it goes!” Brisk cleared his throat again. “There are three types of ponies in the world. Those that can count, and those that can't!” Yup he was dead.

There was a stunned silence from the cyber ponies. After the initial shock had passed, Inferno turned to Crank. “Oh please let me burn this fucker!”

Crank didn’t even ponder Inferno’s request. “Roast him,” Crank ordered, pointing a metal hoof towards Brisk. Inferno grinned and charged forwards, his flamer blasting a massive jet of flame.

“Well shit!” Brisk exclaimed, turning tail and rushing away from the cyber ponies as fast as he could. The ghouls preparing the train scattered and started running in any direction they could to escape the charging cyber pony. Brisk used that to his advantage, hiding himself in the chaos.

That just left the cyber alicorn to distract. I took a deep breath and began to climb down the side of the roof as well.

Before I got to the edge of the roof, Brisk yelled out. “Here’s another one! What's ugly, metal and as far from a pony as can be!” Crank froze and glared at Brisk as he danced around the fire spewing from Inferno’s flamers with surprising agility. “You assholes!”

With a loud roar, Crank took to the air and began diving towards Brisk. Something about that joke had pissed him off, and pissed him off bad. Brisk gave a small squeak of fear as he saw the monstrous metal alicorn flashing towards him. He began running towards the more dense parts of the Fetlock suburbs.

Xayah and I gave each other a nervous glance. Hopefully Brisk could manage to run long enough with them both on his tail.

“That takes care of that,” I muttered to Xayah. “I’ll give you cover while you go down there.”

Xayah silently bowed and flickered out of view. I pulled out Boneless and kept it aimed at Tripwire below me. The cyber pony was standing on high alert. No doubt he suspected some form of trickery ahoof.

I watched the small shimmer of air as Xayah crept closer and closer to the cyber pony. I tensed as she approached him, her hoof slowly slipping into view as she reached for the black oblong device at the cyber ponies side.

“Crank is wrong,” Tripwire grunted, glaring out at the rushing ghouls as his two cyber pony companions chased after Brisk. “Enhanced hearing is a useful feature!”

His back hoof kicked backwards with lighting speed, kicking Xayah across the chest. She flickered back into view as she flew backwards, crashing into the wall of the train station. Tripwire spun around and lunged at her, his front hooves smashing into her and sending her crashing the rest fo the way through the wall and into the large clocktower.

I fired Boneless and let the explosive shells burst against his metal armour. Unfazed, the cyber pony glanced up at me, his two large weapons on his side quickly swiveling to face me. Now faced with the barrel of his weapons, I began to make out what they were. On the left was some form of laser weapon similar to what Steel Blade had carried. On his right however was a large tube like barrel with a bulky ammo magazine on the end.

Tripwires guns fired, a large grenade firing from his gun and hurtling towards me. It was a grenade launcher! He had a goddess damned grenade launcher attached to his side! Are you kidding?!

I jumped from the roof as the spot I had been standing exploded in a burst of fire and shrapnel. I landed on the platform on my hooves, a heavy shock going through my body as I hit the wooden floor. My whole body ached, but I couldn’t tell if that was from the explosion or the impact of jumping to the floor.

Tripwire was on me in seconds, his metal hooves bashing me across my face and sending me toppling to the ground. He sneered down at me as he placed his hoof on my chest to keep me down.

“Hey, you’re that bitch from the Stable!” He chuckled, his laser weapon turning to face me. “I hope you know that once we’re done here, I’m going to personally kill as many of those Stable fuckers as I can.”

I steadied Boneless in my mouth and aimed up at him. “Amd I mersonallme gomma kill as mamy cymer momies as I man!” I yelled back at him around the handle of my gun. From the look he gave me, I doubted he had any idea what I said.

I fired Boneless, making the cyber pony stagger backwards. I pushed myself to my hooves and fired at him again, blowing off more of the remaining hide on his face.

Tripwire growled, rubbing a hoof across his face as his coat slowly began to regrow. The dented metal began popping back into place and even his teeth quickly regenerated themselves.

“You’re going to pay for that bitch!” He screamed as he rushed towards me. His grenade launcher fired again, detonating at my hooves and sending me sprawling backwards. My pipbuck started flashing warnings that all of my hooves were damaged. I hope that wasn’t permanent.

Tripwire prepared to fire again when Xayah climbed out of the clocktower and shot him through the chest with her sniper. Black fluid and blood spewed from the wound as the bullet lodged itself in him. He stumbled, crashing into the wall of the train station. I watched in amazement as his chest shot the bullet back out and patched itself back together.

He spun around and blasted at Xayah with his laser rifle. The shot lanced through her forehoof, burning away her hide and revealing the white bone underneath. Xayah screamed out as she dropped to the ground, a stream of blood spilling from her foreleg.

The cyber pony rushed at her, his laser gun charging up for another shot. I lept forwards, wrapping my hooves around his neck and clinging tight to him as he burst through the wall of the clocktower.

Xayah rolled out of the way as Tripwires hooves crashed down at her head.

Tripwire bucked, sending me flying into the air and smashing my head against the staircase leading to the top of the tower.

The inside of the tower was mostly hollow. A small spiral staircase twisted around the inner edge of the tower all the way to the top. A few small landings provided resting spots on the way up the tower.

I tried to shake the pulsing, spinning feeling from my head as I pulled myself off the ground. I pulled out my baton and stared down Tripwire, only to see his grenade launcher staring back.

Shit!

I ducked and rolled as I was assaulted by a volley of grenades. The walls of the tower shook as holes were ripped into the walls and floor of the structure.

Xayah lashed at Tripwire with her knife, the blade sinking deep into his neck. He kicked at her with his hooves, making her stumble away. He pulled the knife from his neck and tossed at the floor, the incision in his neck quickly closing up with a new layer of fur.

Fighting him was going to get us nowhere. He was too fast and strong for us, not to mention his weapons were way overpowered and he could regenerate any wound we gave him.

I concentrated on his grenade launcher. Alright, if there was any time for my horn burnout to go away this was it! My head screamed as I attempted to do even the most basic magical feat.

Tripwire glanced at my horn as it began to glow with a faint amber light. He turned his grenade launcher to face me again. “Fuck you and your unicorn tricks!” he yelled, firing off three grenades.

As the grenades left his gun, I grabbed onto them with my telekinesis and held them in place. My head screamed in pain at the effort, but I was able to successfully hold the grenades aloft. Tripwire stared at the three grenades that were floating in the air in front of him with shock. “Well fuck me!” he blurted, taking the smallest of steps backwards.

The grenades exploded in his face, tearing away the his metal plating and most of his coat. Both of his eyes were peppered with sharp chunks of shrapnel, temporarily blinding him. He stumbled back and crashed into the wall, his grenade launcher now blasted apart, the end of the barrel was a jagged mess of crumpled metal.

But he wasn’t done yet. He pulled himself back up, the hydra pumping through his body regenerating his injuries faster than I could have expected. Even his grenade launcher began to reform a little, but it looked like I had a few minutes before that reformed completely.

“Oh come on! Really! How do you survive that!” I complained, thrusting my hoof out at him with a huff. “I literally just blew three grenades up in you face!”

Tripwire sneered and pounced at me, not bothering to answer my question. His hooves pounded into my face, knocking me prone on my back and sending a few of my teeth flying from my mouth. He raised his front hooves up, preparing to slam them down on my head and crush my skull.

Xayah shot a round from her sniper straight through both of his back hooves. Tripwire fell backwards, crashing into the ground as his hooves hastily pulled themselves back together. He glanced up at Xayah who had taken to the stairs and was shooting down at him from above. Another shot from her sniper hit him between the eyes, but the bullet bounced harmlessly off of his metal plating.

I rocked to my hooves and slammed my shock baton against his head. An electric shock shot through him, making the many lights on his body flicker. That seemed to be effective, and Tripwire knew it too.

He blasted at my baton as he pulled himself upwards. The laser struck my mouth and singed the fur on my face, making me drop my baton. I went to reach for it, but the cyber ponies bladed tail swung at me, nearly slicing my hoof from my body.

Until this point I hadn’t even noticed their tails doubled as swords. Steel Blade had been missing his back half and all the other times I had been too preoccupied with their massive weapons to notice it. I saw it now though as he lashed at me with his tail over and over again as if it were a whip. I lurched back, just narrowly avoiding being cut in two. I wasn’t able to avoid the next couple cuts though as he pushed forward.

The blade cut deep into my hide in multiple spots as Tripwire viciously lashed at me. I could feel my Stable barding tear in multiple places as the blade ripped into me. Blood trickled down my body as I was scored by countless cuts.

I dove aside, firing another shot from Boneless into him. The heavy slugs tore at his side, but failed to do any lasting damage. Not that any damage lasted with these fuckers.

I rushed for the stairs and began racing up them as fast as I could. I had to get the A.A.S.S from him. If I could do that, I could blow him to pieces with the Balefire Egg Launcher. I doubted even he could survive that.

I heard a click from behind me as Tripwires grenade launcher finished pulling itself back together. Well that was bad.

A volley of grenades were sent hurtling towards us as Xayah and I raced up the stairs. The steps behind us were blasted to dust as we ran. I had to do everything I could do not stop running, otherwise the explosions would catch up to me and I would be sent hurtling to my death.

Tripwire began switching tactics and started launching explosives at the steps in front of us. A large chunk of the stairs gave way before us. Xayah bounded over the gap with little difficulty. I on the other hoof was far less nimble. I stumbled, reaching for the far side of the stairs with my fore hooves as I leapt forwards. The good news was that my right hoof managed to get onto the far side, the bad news was that the rest of me did not. I dangled precariously as I held onto the edge of the steps for dear life.

I could hear Tripwire cackling somewhere below me, but the air in the tower had filled with so much dust and debri that I wasn’t able to see him below me anymore. I could only see a thick layer of dusty brown fog.

Xayah reached down and pulled me up onto the stairs, only for another grenade to land behind her. The steps beneath us exploded, ripping a massive hole in the wall. Xayah leapt into the air and grabbed onto the broken wall with one hoof as the surface below her was torn apart. She held me tight with her other hoof as I began trying to pull myself back up onto the broken part of the wall with Xayah.

The bottom of Xayah’s back hooves had been flayed by the explosion. Her once beautiful black stripes now a collection of bleeding gashes and wounds.

“Do we… have a plan…?” Xayah grunted, biting back tears as she tried to stop the bleeding on her hooves.

I looked down at the manic cyber pony below us, then up at the roof. The stairs led to a small platform that overlooked the whole tower. Perfect.

I turned back to Xayah. “Do you think you can get back down to the bottom safely?” I asked her. Xayah glanced down at the floor where the killer cyber pony had taken to taunting us with rather unflattering phrases. She raised her eyebrows and gave me a confused look. “Well, uh… safe ish?” I corrected.

Xayah gave me another confused look, but nodded her head. “I can do my best,” She grunted, slowly stepping back towards the broken stairs.

I gave her an encouraging smile. “Get to the bottom and wait for me to toss it to you,” I said, hopping from the wall back to the stairs. Tripwire gave me a small growl as he saw me continue climbing the steps.

“Toss me what?” Xayah asked, her face still filled with confusion.

But I didn’t have time to explain. Tripwire began launching another wave of grenades in my direction, this time accompanied by some uncomfortably well aimed shots from his laser rifle. I could see Xayah creeping around the stairs in the other direction as she began her descent back to the ground.

I had to keep the cyber ponies attention on me. Harder still, I had to get him to follow me. What would Brisk do?

“Hey metal butt!” I yelled down at him. The steam of explosive fire stopped just long enough for Tripwire to hear what I was trying to say. “What’s black and white and black and white and black and white and green?” I could see Xayah groan in annoyance from here. I faked a laugh. “Three zebra’s fighting over a pickle!”

Tripwire screamed in annoyance and began firing his grenades at me even faster. I heard the sound of flames and smelt the pungent odour of gasoline. Looking down, I saw Tripwire quickly rocketing up towards me, his hooves blazing with fire.

“Seriously! You cyber ponies have jet hooves too! Unfair!” I screamed, rushing up the last couple of steps even faster.

I came to a stop and looked down at the floor of the clocktower below me. Holy fuck that was far down.

Tripwire landed on top of the platform next to me. His metal hoof lashed out, catching my stable barding by the collar and hoisting me into the air. I squirmed as I tried to free myself from his grasp, but he held me to tightly.

Tripwire gave me a jagged grin, his mouth oozing with black sludge. “I’ll be honest, I am glad you came out here. It’s been so long since I had a good fight!”

Brisk darted into the tower like a mad pony. His coat was burned in multiple places and his sunglasses had been lost somewhere outside. “Were about to get company!” He yelled, ducking behind a fallen chunk of stairway.

Tripwire gave me a sinister grin. “Did you really think you could defeat us? Even if you somehow managed to kill me. You would still have two more of us to face,” He leaned his metal head closer to me and bared his jagged metal fangs. “We are pain! We are fear! We are death!” He screamed at me, bits of black ooze flying from his mouth.

I gave him the most smug look I could muster. “Think I could beat you? Not without a plan,” I telekinetically yanked the A.A.S.S from his side and tossed it off the edge of the platform. “Xayah catch!” Below me, I saw my zebra friend rush forwards and catch the oblong device in her hooves.

Tripwire howled, his glass eyes blazing a dark red. “I will skin you all!”

Before he could do anything else, I telekinetically lifted the Balefire Egg Launcher and placed it against his head. Tripwire froze as he was confronted by the massive weapon. My magic tightened on the trigger of the gun.

“You wouldn’t…” Tripwire soothed, his usual snarl reverting to a calmer composure.

I grinned at him. “You should have left my Stable alone,” A flicker of fear passed over Tripwire’s face. “What was it you said? ‘We are pain? We are fear? We are death?’ You’re right. You are going to be experiencing all of that very soon.”

I kicked off from him with my hide legs, throwing myself over the edge of the platform. As I fell, I pulled the trigger.

The world above me exploded in a mix of fire, radiation and baleful green light! The roof and walls of the top half of the tower were blasted apart as the Balefire Egg detonated. Tripwire was annihilated where he stood. He flesh melted away first, his coat burning away and his skin liquifying into a green ooze. Then his metal plates exploded, raining even more shrapnel down on us.

The shockwave of the blast slammed into me, knocking the air out of my lungs and sending me hurtling towards the ground at a nauseating rate.

A plan. I had a plan, just not an end to it. For instance, how the fuck was I supposed to survive falling from this high up! The idea that I might actually die via falling was ironic. That was never a concern in the Stable.

As luck would have it, Brisk had my back. He had climbed up a bunch of stairs and leapt into the air after me, catching me mid fall. He collided with the ground, cushioning my fall. He groaned, rolling me off of him and rubbing his back.

I blushed. “Thanks,” I squeaked, helping him back to his hooves. I glanced over at Xayah who held the A.A.S.S in her hooves. We had done it.

“We need to get going!” Brisk shouted, ushering me toward one of the many holes in the walls. “Any second were going to be in a lot of-”

Crank and Inferno burst into the room. They both had a crazed look in their eyes as they took us all in. Brisk, Xayah and I took a step back as we were confronted by the two metal monsters.

Both of the cyber ponies eyes narrowed as they spotted me. “You!” Crank roared, slamming his hooves on the ground in front of him. The wood cracked and splintered from the force.

Inferno gave a wide grin and began closing in on us, his flamers ready to blast a jet of fire at any second. “And here I thought I wasn’t going to get to burn much today!” He chuckled. He looked me over and licked his lips with his black slug like tongue. “Oh, but I think I’ll take this one slowly! I’m gonna fuck your cunt till you're broken first!”

I raised my Balefire Egg Launcher to face them. They both took a step back as I loaded a glowing Balefire Egg into the weapon.

“Sorry, you won’t be fucking anyponies cunt today,” I grinned. All at once, both cyber ponies began charging me. I jumped into SATS and targeted Cranks head and… holy horse cock! They were still moving! Even in the magically induced stillness I could see the two cyber ponies lunging towards me.

My pipbuck claimed I had zero chance of hitting the cyber alicorns head! What! Really? I shifted my focus down to their hooves. I didn’t need to hit them with this weapon to hit them. I just had to hit near them.

I pulled down hard on the trigger of the Balefire Egg Launcher. The glowing green orb inside sailed out of the gun and into the air. It missed the cyber ponies, landing on the ground about an inch behind them, but that was enough.

The bottom half of the tower exploded. Our vision was obscured by a blinding flash of green and our hides were scorched by balefire. The walls of the tower crumbled inwards, collapsing in on the mangled bodies of the cyber ponies as they desperately scrambled to avoid falling debris. I saw flesh burning and metal bursting. I felt my own flesh sizzle from the scorching heat.

Brisk grabbed me by the collar of my Stable barding and bolted out of the building, Xayah draped over his back. I hadn’t realized how bad of shape Xayah was in. Aside from her flayed hooves, her body was covered in deep gashes and dark bruises.

Brisk hauled us from the building just as the remains of the roof crumbled in, burying the cyber ponies alive under ten feet of rubble. That was assuming they were still alive of course, it was hard to tell when all you could see what burning green flames.

Brisk dragged us as far from the train station as he could before his legs collapsed and he stumbled to the ground. Xayah groaned as she hit the rocky ground. She pushed herself up onto her fore hooves and looked back at the ruined train station.

“Do you think they survived that?” I asked, looking away from the broken tower.

“Survived a balefire bomb and having a building collapsed on them?” Xayah asked. “No, I doubt even they can survive something like that.”

I stood in silence for a long time, simply staring at the ruined train station. It seemed so surreal that it might almost be over. We had reclaimed the A.A.S.S, killed the cyber ponies and were now on our way home. And we had all survived. Banged up, but alive all the same.

I couldn't help grin ear to ear. We had faced annihilation, and we had won!

Footnote: level up.
New perk: Demolition Expert -- +20% damage with explosives.

Author's Note

The original Fallout: Equestrian was by Kkat

Chapter VIII: Homecoming

“Have you ever watched the moon rise over the wasteland? I wish I could have given you something as wonderful as that.”

Quests.

Stable 25 didn’t have near as many books as I would have liked. There had been a decent collection of history books and manuals for practically every machine, but as far as fiction novels went, we had next to nothing. The extent of our fiction section consisted of a couple of Daring Do books and my personal favorite piece of literature, Lord of the Horse Shoes. I had been engroused in the epic quest from the beginning. Though when I read it, I had never considered how tedious the long journey back was.

Now I was halfway across the massive city of Manehattan, helping Brisk carry a wounded Xayah on our backs as we slowly marched our way back to Stable 25. It had taken us what? Five days to get to Fetlock? Dear Celestia, don’t make us walk five days back to the Stable.

I glanced over at Xayahs frayed hooves as we walked. They didn’t look good, though I imagined that a couple of healing potions would be able to fix the damage. Assuming we could find one that is.

I was walking along side Brisk, doing my best to support Xayahs weight, though It was pretty obvious that Brisk was doing most of the lifting. My height and lack of physical strength were proving to be rather inconvenient in the wasteland.

“I need to take a rest,” Brisk grunted as we trudged on. “I can’t carry you any farther.”

Xayah nodded. “I am sorry for my lack of assistance, perhaps we should take a break in that building over there,” She gestured to what looked like a broken down restaurant a few feet away with one of her injured hooves.

Brisk grunted in agreement and began hauling Xayah towards it. As we neared I checked my EFS. There didn’t seem to be anything alive inside. Good, I could do with a day in the wasteland that wasn't packed full of bloodshed.

The restaurant was one of the smallest buildings I had seen in Manehattan. It was only one floor tall and most of the roof had collapsed in, making the inside of the structure seem smaller than it should have. The windows had all shattered inwards, covering the floor in a layer of broken glass that made walking around inside an inconvenient chore. Above the broken glass doors was a faded sign reading ‘The Hay Burger’.

After sweeping up a bit of the glass on the floor, we placed Xayah down gently in the corner of the restaurant. Brisk whole body seemed to sigh with relief as the zebras weight was removed from his shoulders.

“Alright, you two stay here, I’m going to go look around for some healing potions,” Brisk stated, walking towards the door.

I quickly pushed myself in front of his path. “Not without me you’re not. I can help.”

Brisk gave me a tired look. “Neither of you are in any condition to be walking around the wasteland right now. If Xayah hadn’t been so badly hurt, I would have carried you here too.”

I stomped my hoof on the ground in annoyance. The force of hitting the ground shot up through my leg and almost made me topple over. “I’m not that injured. I can still walk, so I can still help.”

Brisk shook his head. “All of your legs are broken Amber, the fact that you have walked this far is a miracle. I don’t want you on your hooves any more than you need to be.” When did he become the doctor of the group? Furthermore, when did he get so serious. “Besides, Somepony needs to look after Xayah. I don’t want to leave her here by herself.

I glanced back at our zebra friend who had curled up into a tight ball. I lowered my head in defeat and sighed. “Fine, but don’t be gone long or get yourself killed. Got it?”

Brisk broke his serious composure and gave me his infamous smirk, showing off his missing tooth. “I’ve lasted this long in the wasteland haven’t I? I think I can last a few more days.”

I gave him a grin as he walked out. I slowly limped over to Xayah and flopped down lazily next to her on the floor. The floor was colder than I would have liked.

“How do you think your Stable is doing?” Xayah asked, rolling over a little to look at me. I caught a quick flash of the long scar across her stomach before it was covered up again.

I shrugged. “I’ve been trying not to think about it much,” I admitted. “The Stable has a few days worth of food stored away incase of an emergency like this, but I imagine that would have all run out by now,” A wave of fear washed over me as I imagined all the ponies I had ever known slowly starving out on the metal floor of the Stable. “But it's all okay now, the cyber ponies are gone and we are on our way back with the A.A.S.S.”

Xayah nodded solemnly. “And what about you and Brisk?”

I blinked at her. “Uh… I don’t know what you mean?” Was she talking about my feelings for Brisk? Why was she bringing this up now?

“Have you told him yet?” Xayah asked bluntly.

I blushed. “What?! No! I can’t tell him! Not yet!”

Xayah raised her eyebrow at me. “Well you better figure out what you are going to say to him soon. You two don’t have much time together?”

“Wha- What are you talking about?” I hadn’t the faintest idea of what Xayah was getting at. Was Brisk going to die or something?

Xayah gave me an almost bored expression. “In a day or so you will be returning to Stable 25. You probably won't see Brisk again. If these feelings you are having mean anything to you, I’d talk to him about it. It is better to know and possibly get rejected than to live the rest of your life wondering what might have been.”

I shivered at that, but she was right. My friends always seemed to be right. Damn them for that.

A few minutes later, Brisk stumbled in carrying a small bag of healing supplies. He quickly dumped them next to us and handed two to Xayah who drank them without question. Her flayed hide pulled itself together and most of the gashes across her body clotted over.

I picked a potion up with my magic and slowly poured the contents down my throat. Like Xayah, most of my injuries patched themselves together. Healing potions truly were an impressive creation.

“Where did you get these?” I asked, propping myself back up as I finished the potion.

Brisk reached down and began unclasping the metal braces on his front legs. “There was another skywagon a bit down the road. Looks like it had been transporting some medical supplies before the bombs. I’m surprised they hadn’t been looted yet.”

“What are you doing?” I asked as I watched him remove his braced and place them on the ground in front of me.

“You are going to need these more than me,” He stated, gesturing to my broken legs. “The healing potions might have healed most of your wounds and stopped the bleeding, but I know from experience that they don’t fix broken bones.”

“What about you?” Xayah questioned as she pulled herself back to her hooves. “Have your legs healed?”

Brisk shrugged. “I think they have a bit of healing to do still, but I got this to keep me going,” Brisk pulled out his pack of Buck and popped a tablet into his mouth. I noticed his stash was starting to run a little low. I guessed he only had seven or so left.

I slowly pulled the braces over my forehooves. Brisk had been right, even after the healing potions my legs still felt like they were on fire.

Brisk was a fair amount larger than I was, so the Braces had been adjusted to fit a leg far too big for me. Before I could figure out how to tighten them, Brisk was at my side, pulling on the straps and fitting it to my legs.

I recalled what Xayah had said. I figured now was as good a time as any to confess my feelings to him.

I took a deep breath. “Hey Brisk,” I started, my voice caught in my throat a little.

“Mmhm?” Brisk grunted, not looking up from the brace as he moved to my next leg and began tightening it.

“There’s uh… something I’ve been meaning to tell you for a bit now,” I gulped and tried to figure out how I was going to say it. Do I say it bluntly or work my way up to it?

Brisk had finished the brace and was now looking at me, waiting for what I had to say. From the look on his face, I could tell he knew it was something important to me.

I struggled to find my words. “Well, I’ve been meaning to tell you that, uh…” I blushed and looked down at my front hooves. Come on Amber, you got this. “I kind of…”

I spotted movement on my EFS. Red bars! Twelve of them!

My head turned to look out the window where I saw twelve raiders slowly approaching the restaurant with their weapons drawn.

Shit! How did they know we were here?!

My eyes landed on the raider that was leading them. A large earth pony clad in a heavy suit of black power armour. The armour had red and orange flames painted into it and two large flamers had been attached to their battle saddle.

Damn it, that power armour must have an EFS built into it!

I glanced to the raider beside the one in power armour. He was a bloody, cacking mess of a raider with a collection of unicorn horns around his neck. Worst thing about this raider though was that he was carrying a massive rocket launcher aimed right for us.

“Get down!” I yelled, pushing Brisk to the ground. I say Xayah follow suit only seconds before the massive rocket blasted through the window and detonated behind us.

The walls of the restaurant were blown apart. Debris rained down around us as our cover was blasted away, leaving us exposed to the raiders attacks. I pulled myself up and raised Boneless to face them.

The raider in power armour flared their flamers to life and snarled at us. “Skin ‘em alive boys!” It was a female voice to my surprise. I might have even called the voice cute had it not been called for our deaths.

The raiders began charging towards us. As they neared, I began to notice that they seemed to have better equipment than most raiders I had seen before. While most raiders carried little more than knives and the occasional gun, these raiders seemed to have a rather large arsenal of rocket launchers, chainsaws, machetes and machine guns. Their armour was better too. Quite a few raiders were sporting a full suit of combat armour and a couple even had parts of scavenged power armour.

A wall of bullets seemed to spew towards us as the raiders advanced. I ducked behind a fallen table to avoid being hit with the oncoming attacks. I heard a bunch of bullets ricochet off the metal table to the floor. One bullet burst through the table top scarily close to where my head was. I ducked lower to the ground to avoid risking a shot to the head.

A few feet away from me I could see Xayah and Brisk crouched behind another table. They too had their heads close to the ground.

“Do either of you have a plan!?” I called out to them over the booming sound of machine gun fire. They both cast each other awkward glances and shook their heads.

I heard the whistling sound of the missle flying towards us through the air a few seconds before it landed. The missile detonated between the two tables we were hiding behind, sending all three of us flying backwards and smashing into the back wall of the restaurant.

As the smoke and fire of the explosion began to clear I could make out the silhouette of the raider in black and red power armour charging towards us. Her flamers spewing a steady stream of fire in our direction.

I managed to pull Boneless out from under me and roll out of the way before I was scorched by her flamers. I began to pull myself back up when the raider pounced on top of me and pinned me down with her metal clad hooves.

I tried to push her off, but she was a lot bigger and heavier than I was. Instead, I telekinetically raised Boneless to face her and let loose two explosive slugs into her face. The slugs burst against her armour, knocking her back and allowing me to push myself away from her, but they unfortunately failed to get through her helmet.

The rest of the raiders were beginning to reach us as well. They began switching to knives or baseball bats that had large spikes sticking out of them. I noticed a few raiders kept their guns out, continuing to spray us with a constant shower of lead.

The raider with the rocket launcher unfortunately was one of the few that didn’t switch to a melee weapon. Every few seconds I could feel the air around me shift, followed by the feeling of raging fire across my back and a sudden blinding light.

I had to take that raider with a rocket launcher out or we were done for. Assuming I could get away from this damn power armoured raider.

The raider in power armour was moving way faster than anypony in armour that heavy should have been able to move. Each shot from my triple barrel shotgun either bounced off her thick metal armour or missed entirely. I tried to target her in SATS, but with all the commotion going on I couldn’t even seem to land a good shot in with that either.

The raider in power armour blasted a jet of fire towards me. I dropped to the ground and rolled under a table that by some miracle had managed to stay standing. I could feel my pink and blue mane get singed a dark black. I patted the top of my head to put out a small fire that had started in my hair.

The raider in power armour snarled at me. “Come on out and face me! I ain’t got all day!” she charged at the table I was under and bucked at it with her front hooves. The table was ripped in half and sent flying away.

Shit that pony was strong!

I moved again, this time taking out my baton and swinging it towards the raiders face. The black club came in contact with the raiders head, her power armour locking up for a second as the electric shot went through the mechanical armour.

I took that moment to leap over her and rush towards the raider with the rocket launcher who was currently trying to blast Xayah apart.

I pulled out Boneless and placed it against the back of the raiders head. The raider reacted with surprise, spinning around and aiming their rocket launcher in my face. I didn’t give them time to fire as I sent an explosive slug between there eyes. The raiders head burst open, soaking my coat in blood and bits of flesh. They dropped the rocket launcher to the ground before their body collapsed next to it.

The raider in power armour limped up next to me and glanced pitifully at the raider I had just blown the head off of. “Ah shit… Razor Blade is going to kill me,” the raider groaned, almost sarcastically.

Before I could process what she had just said a massive form broke the surface in front of me. At first all I could see was a large shape erupting from the ground that was obscured behind a large cloud of dust, then as the dust settled I began to make out the image of the massive body of a Hellhound. The monstrous Hellhound howled and lashed at the raider in power armour. The raider lept back, avoiding having her head completely severed from her body. The Hellhound lashed at her again, its huge claw creating three deep gashes into her armour.

Holy Shit! Boneless couldn’t even dent that power armour let alone rip it open. I reminded myself not to get hit by those Hellhounds claws. Without power armour I would be done for. Hell, with power armour I might be done for.

The rest of the raiders turned to see the new threat. As their eyes landed on the Hellhound they turned their guns to face it as well, no longer very concerned about my friends or I.

The volley of bullets that had been speeding towards us quickly everted their focus onto the Hellhound. Not that the bullets seem to be doing any good. The Hellhound was taking bullets like they were nothing, not bothering to slow down as the beast began tearing into the raiders.

I saw Brisk and Xayah duck behind a table in the kitchen as the raiders attacking them moved to the new opponent.

The raider in power armour seemed to be the most effective against the Hellhound. The constant stream of fire was drawing most of its attention and seemed to be the only thing he could feel. That and her power armour was managing to keep her alive a lot longer than the rest of the raiders.

I aimed Boneless and sent a large slug into the Hellhounds head. The slug burst against the creatures head, blasting apart one of its eyes and tearing a lot of the flesh on one side of its face.

It turned to me and growled, baring its sharp teeth. Welp, apparently it could feel that too!

The Hellhound Lashed at the power armoured raider with a hind leg before bounding towards me. I gulped and began scurrying away from it. I wasn’t in power armour. One hit from that thing and I would be dead.

The Hellhound tore its way through the group of raiders to get to me, its legs crushing the skulls of a few raiders that were unfortunate enough to fall over.

Why the fuck was this thing so damn fast! Nothing that big had the right to move so quick.

Brisk leapt at it with his pistol and shot a few bullets into the Hellhounds shoulder. Not seeming to feel it, the Hellhound kept charging towards me, it claws reaching out to rip me apart.

Xayah jumped onto its back, stabbing into its neck with her knife. The Hellhound howled, definitely feeling that. It thrashed around and slammed its back into the wall to knock Xayah off. Xayah’s head crashed against the wall, making her lose her grip on her knife and tumble to the ground.

The Hellhound turned and glared at Xayah. It bared its teeth and raised its claws above its head to slash Xayah appart.

I screamed and raced forwards, but I was too far away to get to Xayah in time. There was nothing I could do but watch.

To my surprise, the Raider in power armour barrelled into the Hellhound, the force of the impact knocking the Hellhound prone on its back. The raider leapt on top of the monster and began slamming her hooves down against the Hellhounds throat.

In retaliation, the Hellhound grabbed onto the raiders sides and began to dig into the thick armour with its claws. The metal began to crumple like a pop can under the force of the Hellhounds massive claws.

Before the Hellhound could crush the raider completely, she sent a burst of flame into the Hellhounds face. The Hellhounds head was submerged in fire as the flames swirled into its mouth and eyes and cooked the brain.

In a desperate attempt to attack, the Hellhound let go of the raiders sides and lashed at her face with its claws, gouging long claw marks into the raiders helmet. The raider stumbled back, allowing the Hellhound to bash her across the face again with its claw, sending her flying and crashing against the far wall of the restaurant.

Unbelievably, the Hellhound began to rise from the ground, its face a charred mess and both its eyes melted into an ooze like sludge. I readied myself as its powerful gaze locked on me.

Blam!

Brisk sent a bullet through the Hellhounds now exposed eye socket and into its brain. The Hellhound swayed for a few moments before finally dropping to the ground.

I took a deep breath and looked around the room. Brisk, Xayah and I had come out of the fight practically unharmed with the exception of a couple of cuts and bruises. The Hellhound had taken care of the rest of the raiders for us. The room was covered in massacred raider corpses, most of which had been completely ripped in two or three pieces.

Thank the goddesses that those fights had happened at the same time. I doubted we would have been able to take that Hellhound out so easily had the raiders not lent a hoof.

A small cough from across the room drew our attention to the raider in power armour who was doing her best to pull herself back to her hooves. She managed to pull herself half way up before her injuries caused her to collapse back to the ground.

I readied Boneless and slowly approached her, placing the tip of my shotgun against her head. The raider laughed as she stared down the three barrels. “So, you must be that Stable dweller everypony keeps talking about, huh?”

I shook my head, understanding the mix-up. “Nope, just a pony trying to get home,” I got ready to fire Boneless.

“I suppose I had better thank you for helping me deal with those raiders,” The raider said, rolling onto her back lazily and looking up at me through the visor of her damaged power armour helmet. “I thought I was going to have to kill them all myself, but I’m glad you decided to lend me a hoof.”

I lowered Boneless in confusion. “You- uh… Are you not a raider?” I was getting weird vibes from this pony. I didn’t know what to think of her. Was she a blood thirst raider, or a pony that wanted to help us?

Brisk and Xayah walked up next to me as the raider in power armour took us all in. “Oh, you can bet your pink ass I’m a raider, but this group here wasn’t really a fan of how I let a couple ponies go. Pretty sure they were going to do me in at the next chance they could get. You three did me a huge favour.”

I exchanged glances with all my friends. I returned my attention to the raider. “I suppose I should thank you for saving my friend then…” I really didn’t know how to react to this pony, and thanking a raider just felt weird, not to mention getting thanked by one.

The raider laughed. “You scratch my back, I scratch yours. The name is Pyre Blaze, it's a pleasure to meet you.”

Brisk gestured for me to shoot her. I shook my head at him and looked back at Pyre Blaze. “Can you give me a reason why I shouldn’t kill you right now?”

Pyre scoffed. “Is saving you and your friends from a Hellhound not enough?”

“You attacked us,” Brisk pointed out, stomping his hoof on the ground. “Furthermore, you told your raiders buddies to skin us alive!”

“Valid points,” Pyre soothed, rolling the words around in her mouth. “But I didn’t kill you and you weren’t skinned alive so no harm was done.”

Brisk grunted in return. He turned to face me and pulled out his pistol. “Can I shoot her please?”

I shook my head at him again. He gave me an annoyed pout.

“Look, I’m in a bit of trouble with the raider gang I’ve been running with and I’m guessing that you're the ponies that those freaky cyber ponies are after, so working together would be beneficial for both of us. I keep you protected from those metal monstrosities and you keep some of the raiders off of my back,” Pyre said factually.

So she wanted to travel with us now? Who the hell did this pony think they… I froze. “What did you just say?”

Pyre grinned at me through her helmet. “There were these two cyber ponies at the old Train station in Fetlock. Apparently some crazy Stable dwellers and a Zebra stole some stuff from them. They’re pretty pissed off right now.”

Crank and Inferno were still alive! How the fuck did they survived being melted by a mini balefire bomb!

Pyre noticed my shock and chuckled. “Yeah, I’ve heard they’ve been spreading the word about you three to anypony that will help them. Red Eyes Slavers, Talon mercs. They're even going so far as to offer raiders a reward for your capture. Not that raiders listen much.”

Xayah shivered. “This is bad.”

“Bad ain’t even the half of it!” Pyre laughed. “Red Eye is sending a large group of slavers out to Manehattan. Apparently they are waiting around most of the notable settlemtents, particularly Tenpony Tower. They aren’t doing anything yet, but a lot of ponies are on edge right now.”

“Bu- But we only stole stuff from them a few hours ago! How could all this have happened already!” I stammered, taking a small step back. Red Eye was sending a mini army to wipe us out and half of the fiends in the wasteland had been instructed to kill us!? Well fuck me!

“Word travels fast in the wasteland when DJ Pon3 or Red Eye want ponies to know about it,” Pyre smirked. “Practically every Sprite Bot in Manehattan is calling for your capture.”

Brisk groaned. “I don’t trust her. I say we kill her and get out of here.”

“But what if she’s telling the truth?” Xayah challenged. “If we have two cyber ponies hunting us down and a small army of slavers and mercenaries looking for us, then shouldn’t we take all the help we can get?”

“How do we know you won't just attack us when you get the chance?” I asked, pushing against her helmet a little harder with my shotgun.

Pyre shrugged. “I told you, I need protection from my old raider gang. Killing you three won't help me any. Mutual benefit is the most powerful bond of all you know.”

“We can’t really be considering this?” Brisk complained, rubbing his forehead with a hoof.

I glanced back and forth between Brisk and Pyre. Finally I gave a small sigh. “Alright, you can come with us. But you attack either of my friends and I will personally end you. Got it?” I demanded, lending Pyre a hoof up. She was heavier than I expected, but then again, she was wearing power armour. Pyre Blaze winced as she stood wobbly on her hooves. Brisk groaned and sulked away to look outside.

Pyre gave me a small pat on the head. “Of course, and the same goes to you and your pals. You don’t attack me and I won't burn you all alive,” She limped away from me and went to stand by Brisk at the front door.

“I’m going to regret this, aren't I?” I said to Xayah as we slowly followed Pyre out.

Xayah shrugged. “I hope not. We really could use help in fights.”

We were beginning to pass landmarks that I recognized. An old Pony Joe's donut shop, a broken radio tower. We made sure to go around road that was infested with Radscorpions and instead go behind the Four Star apartment building.

“So where exactly are we going?” Pyre asked as we trotted along. She was still walking with a seemingly painful limp. I guessed being tossed around by a Hellhound will do that to you.

Xayah and I had taken up the front as we walked. Behind us was Pyre, who had insisted on not walking in the front. I suppose that was fair as we had just been threatening to blow her head off. Brisk walked slowly behind her, his eyes fixed on the raider to make sure she didn’t do anything stupid like attack. If felt good to know he was watching my back.

“Friendship city,” Xayah deadpanned, pointing towards the looming Statue of Friendship in the distance. “We need to stop there quickly for supplies before we head to Stable 25.”

“Ah, it'll be good to be back. I haven’t been there in ages,” Pyre said gleefully, bouncing on her hooves a little and looking up at the large monument on the horizon. She winced as her front legs hit the ground and stopped bouncing.

“You’ve been there before?” I asked, not bothering to look behind me.

Pyre nodded. “Surely you don’t think I’ve spent every second of my life in the wasteland? I spend most of my days all the way up in Las Pegasus, but I’ve come down to the Wasteland enough to have stayed in Friendship City once or twice.”

“I didn’t think they would let raiders in,” Brisk blurted, narrowing his eyes at Pyre. “You know, with it being Friendship City and all.”

Pyre chuckled and turned to face him. “The guards will let anypony in if you sleep with them. They'll sometimes even let me bring in my flamers if I get really naughty.”

I glanced down at my pipbuck map to make sure we were still heading in the right direction. My eyes landed on my EFS. A red bar. I glanced around to see if I could spot where it was coming from and quickly hushed my friends.

A few feet ahead of us was a gap between the old theater and the Four Star apartment building. I slowly crept forwards and glanced down the alley.

Please don’t be more Enclave! Oh Celestia tell me it's not more Enclave.

It wasn’t Enclave. It was much worse.

A Hellhound stood in the center of the alley. The Monsters massive claws glinted in the light and it pale yellow eyes were glaring directly at us. Instinctively I pulled out Boneless in case it decided to charge us.

“Why isn’t it attacking us?” Brisk asked as he peeked over my shoulder and nervously looked at the Hellhound. “Is it waiting for something?”

“And what's on its head?” Xayah asked, pointing at the creatures head.

I glanced up at the massive monsters head and spotted what Xayah was talking about. Some sort of strange metal headpiece had been placed over the Hellhounds head. It was bulky too. So comically large in fact that I was surprised the Hellhound was able to keep his head up.

Brisk glanced down at his pipbuck. “Its tag is hostile, it should be attacking us. This doesn’t make any sense.”

“Maybe it can't,” Pyre stated bluntly, painfully limping out from behind the cover and approaching the Hellhound.

“Pyre Blaze! What the fuck are you doing!” I hisses, urging her to come back. The raider shrugged me off and continued to approach the statue like Hellhound. I noticed that the Hellhounds eyed followed Pyre Blaze as she neared.

“Welp, she’s dead,” Brisk bluntly declared. “Let's leave her for the hound and get out of here.”

Pyre drew closer and closer until she eventually reached out a hoof and poked the Hellhound in the stomach. We all winced as her metal hoof came in contact with the creatures hide. Pyre rolled her eyes and gestured for us to come over.

“Come on, he won't bite,” Pyre grinned, stroking the Hellhounds fir with her outstretched hoof.

Cautiously, the rest of us slowly approached her and the Hellhound. Like it had with Pyre, the Hellhounds eyes followed us as we came closer.

“Why do you think it's just standing there?” Brisk asked me, poking the Hellhound himself. “This is weird.”

I shrugged. I glanced up at the machine on its head. “It must have something to do with that thing it's wearing. Maybe it's some kind of mind control device?” It looked like some sort of broadcaster, with a small antenna on one side and a miniature satellite on the other.

I noticed a second bar fast approaching on my EFS. I glanced around before daring to look up. A pegasus was quickly descending towards us. But it wasn’t just any pegasus. I knew this one.

“Oh sweet fucking celestial orgasm of Luna!” Star Breeze exclaimed as she slowly pulled up above us. “What the fuck are you three doing back here!”

I groaned. Damn it, there was Enclave!

“Just passing… again…” I muttered, taking a step back from the lavender and mint green pegasus.

Star Breeze slapped her hoof across her face. “Why is it that the Enclave can operate in secret for so long and so well, and you fuckers just happen to stumble across our secret opperations twice in two fucking days!”

“We just kinda suck like that,” Brisk said, following my example and taking a step away as well.

“Wait, you guys all know members of the fucking Enclave?” Pyre asked, glancing from us to the pegasus. Pyre gave a devious grin. “You all just become a more interesting bunch by the minute don’t you?”

“Look, we didn’t get along very well last time, but how about we try and resolve this situation more peacefully this time around?” I suggested, lowering Boneless a little bit.

Star Breeze sighed. “You know I can’t do that. If Colonel Autumn Leaf found out I let you escape twice, he’ll probably shut me fucking down! I’m already in a lot of shit for what you asshats pulled last time!”

“Let me remind you that there are four of us, and only one of you,” Brisk threatened, gesturing to all of us.

Star Breeze gave him a flat stare and pointed at the humongous Hellhound. “I have a fucking Hellhound bitch,” she deadpanned. “Which means if you try and fight I’ll have it rip you a new asshole. you can’t run either, cause this Hellhound will be able to smell you from thousands of miles away now that it has your sent.”

I glanced at the large metal helmet on the Hellhounds head. Damn it, it was mind control wasn’t it?! I took another step away from the massive dog.

Xayah gave Brisk a small shove. “Let's not try and anger her.”

Brisk shifted his gaze from Star breeze to the motionless Hellhound and gave a small nod in response.

I took a deep breath and stepped forward again. “Look, we have nothing against the Enclave or whatever weird shit you are doing here. If you just let us leave peacefully, we will be on our way and your boss doesn't need to find out we were ever even here. This doesn’t need to get violent.”

Star glance at the Hellhound. Finally she gave a long annoyed sigh. “Alright, fine. Get the fuck out of here,” She demanded. “And I don’t want to see you or your friends around here again, got it?”

We all nodded. All except Pyre that is.

“Really? We aren’t going to get to burn this pegasus bitch?” Pyre complained, pointing up to Star. We all gave her an annoyed look and I gave her a small shove. Pyre groaned. “Fine, we’ll deal with this the boring way.”

I looked back up at Star Breeze. “Thank you. We’ll try to stay out of your mane from now on.”

Star Breeze crossed her hooves in an attempt to look intimidating. “You better keep that promise.”

A small walkie talkie that was clipped to the inside of her lab coat buzzed. “Star Breeze, report! What the fuck is taking you so long?” A slightly muffled voice demanded through the speaker.

Star yipped and fumbled to pull the walkie talkie from her coat. “Damn it! Get the fuck out of here! Go!” She urged quickly between clenched teeth before putting the walkie talkie to her ear. We all moved away from her and the Hellhound with a great deal of haste. As we exited the alley I could just make out Star say. “It’s all good. Just checking on the Hellhound sir.”

“Well that explains the fucking Hellhound we encountered,” Pyre grunted, limping up beside me as we moved away from the Four Star appartment building. “I thought it was rather odd.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, glancing back the way we came.

“That Hellhound we killed back at the Restaurant,” Pyre Blaze elaborated. “I thought it was odd that it was hunting alone. Hellhounds usually come in packs. It must have been looking for its mate.”

“They hunt in packs!” I exclaimed in alarm. Was there anything about Hellhounds that wasn’t terrifying?

“Yes, we have been very lucky these past two encounters, all things considered,” Xayah said, walking up next to us. “Though the Enclave using mind control on them is most concerning to me.”

“Do you think they plan on attacking ponies with them?” Brisk asked, his gaze fixed on the Statue of friendship in the distance.

Xayah shrugged. “I do not know. But it seems odd that a group of ponies that refuse to leave the clouds would try and control such monsters that can only move on ground unless they were planning to do some form of attack.”

Well that wasn’t a terrifying thought at all. I imagined armies of pegasi descending from the clouds in massive flying war ships while Hellhounds ripped apart the ponies on the ground. I felt a shiver of fear go through me at the mere idea.

Pyre Blaze collapsed abruptly. The three of us jump with surprise as the heavy suit of power armour slammed into the ground. Pyre let out a low groan of pain as she tried to push herself back up.

I rushed over to her. “Shit! Pyre, what happened?”

Pyre looked up at me dumbly and gestured to the large claw marks across her armour. “I got mauled by a fucking Hellhound, what do you think happened?” She grumbled, trying to stand again. She fell back to the ground. “The fact that I managed to walk this far is a mother bucking miracle.”

“Brisk, pass a healing potion,” I ordered, reaching my hoof out to get a potion.

Brisk shook his head. “We don’t have any. You two used them all up back at the restaurant,” He said flatly.

Damn it, we needed to start stocking up on healing potions. “Fine, pass me a Buck then,” I demanded again, keeping my hoof outstretched. Pyre’s sour mood seemed to brighten up at that.

Brisk’s eyes narrowed and I could see the muscles in his neck tighten. “I don’t need to give her fucking anything,” He snapped, sitting down and crossed his fore hooves sternly across his front.

I stared at him in shock. “Brisk, give me a fucking Buck,” Was he seriously pulling this now!?

Brisk just glared at Pyre Blaze and I with a loathing I hadn’t seen in him before. “I’m not giving that murderous bitch anything,” He snarled, his eyes seemingly shooting daggers at Pyre.

My jaw dropped. Where was this side of him coming from? I knew he didn’t like Pyre Blaze much, but this wasn’t like him. I cast a look at Xayah for help. My zebra friend bit her bottom lip for a second as she considered what action to take.

Finally Xayah turned to Brisk. “Give her the buck.”

Brisks face was packed full of anger and betrayal as his eyes darted around at all of us. At last he grunted and tossed a single buck tablet at my hooves before spinning around and walking away from us with a huff. I watched him march away until he had disappeared behind one of the buildings.

“Looks like somepony’s got a nasty little addiction to Buck there,” Pyre Blaze smirked, popping the dirt covered tablet into her mouth without hesitation.

I gave her a grumpy glare. “Shut it you. Don’t make me regret bringing you along,” Brisk attitude was making my attitude shit. The last thing I needed was Pyre’s snide comments. I turned to face Xayah, who was looking off in Brisk’s direction wearily. “What do you think has Brisk in such a mood.”

Xayah gave me a worried look. “Probably a lot,” She started, casting a small glance at Pyre. “I fear my prediction of his addiction is correct. Plus Pyre Blaze’s presence and your inevitable parting is most likely souring his mood.”

Our parting? That was what was getting under his skin? I thought back to our first night out of the Stable. What was it I had promised him? That I would stick around? I guess in a day or two I would be breaking that promise. Some friend I turned out to be.

“Shit,” I muttered, glancing in the direction Brisk had gone. I could see a small tuft of green fur sticking out from behind a building in the distance. At least he hadn’t left us completely. “What should we do about that?”

Xayah raised her eyebrow and cocked her head a little. “Us? I think you need to talk to him. You two have a lot to sort out before you part ways tomorrow.”

Pyre rubbed her armoured leg with a hoof. “Part ways? Where the fuck are you going?”

I turned to face her and did my best to stop myself from shaking. Why was I shaking? Was I excited? Nervous? Both? I took a deep breath. I suppose it was only fair that I let Pyre in on what we were doing. “Tomorrow I will be returning to my Stable… and I highly doubt Brisk is coming with me.”

Friendship City was just as I had remembered it. The massive statue towered over most of the collapsed Manehattan buildings and a small collection of wooden structures had been built into its base. The long bridge to the city extended from the entrance of the city to the mainland and a couple of guard ponies patrolled around the area. I noticed a decently sized group of slavers off in the distance. Pyre hadn't been lying, Red Eye really did have ponies out looking for us.

As we neared the large gate that leads into the main market area of the city we were approached by two guard ponies similarly as we had before. They quickly retrieved our weapons and the gem off of Xayah's stealth cloak from us. They hesitated when they turned to take Pyre’s flamers, but when she put up no resistance over giving up her weapons they seemed to relax a little.

Inside the city was less packed than it had been on our last visit. Only a few ponies walked along the catwalks or haggled at shops. Though it was getting late in the day, I guessed most ponies were starting to retire to their sleeping areas.

“Alright, so what is our first order of business?” I asked, turning to face the many shops that lined the inner sides of the Statue of Friendship.

“I’ll get medicine,” Brisk grunted, quickly moving away from our group. “We clearly need some.”

Xayah cast a sideways glance at me, reminding me that I needed to talk to Brisk. I quickly darted up to him. “Hey, I’ll go with you.”

Brisk kept walking, not bothering to look at me. “No, go with Xayah and the raider. I can get some healing potions fine by myself.”

I felt like he was slapping me across the face. I really needed to talk to him.

“Alright then, how but the three of us go get some better armour?” Pyre said, seeing the dejected look on my face. “After the fight with the Hellhound, all of our gear could use some fixing,” She turned to Xayah. “And your cloak is so ripped up I doubt it will actually hide you any.”

Xayah and I agreed and followed Pyre Blaze to a higher level of Friendship City. “When was the last time you were here?” I asked Pyre as we walked up the spiral steps to the floor above. She seemed to have a pretty good idea of where she was going.

Pyre shrugged. “Hard to say. You tend to lose track of time in the Wasteland,” she replied, entering onto the floor above. The second floor seemed to have more ponies than the previous, most of them gathered around a pub at the far end of the floor. “Two years ago, at least. Though I lived here for a bit back before my raider days, so I can remember my way around well enough.”

I saw a small clothing booth that had been set up in one of the corners of the large room that didn’t seem to have very many customers. The racks of clothes held a large variety of dresses and even a couple pieces of fashionable looking armour.

“Might we be able to get our armour fixed there?” I asked, gesturing over to the shop.

Both Pyre and Xayah nodded. “Yes, there should do most nicely,” Xayah stated, approaching the shop. Pyre and I followed close behind her.

As we got closer to the shop I began to make out the pony standing behind the booth. She was a small pony with the thinning remains of a light cyan mane atop her head. She wore a ripped sailor collar with a scarlet tie and the remains of a floppy hat cutie mark on her rotting rear.

A ghoul pony! But not just any ghoul pony. This was a ghoul I had seen before. I seemed to be bumping into a lot of ponies that I knew today.

“Coco Pommel?” I asked as I approached the booth. Both Xayah and Pyre cast me a strange look, wondering how I knew the ghoul.

Coco Pommel looked up from the dress she was making and gave me a wide smile. “Oh! I didn’t expect to see you again!” she looked genuinely happy to see me. “Thank you so much for what you have done for me, you really are a hero.”

I blushed at the ghoul ponies words. “Thank you, but it was nothing, really,” I insisted, holding up my brace enclosed hooves. “But what are you doing here?” I asked, turning away slightly to observe the clothes on her clothing racks.

“Well now that Suri Polomare is gone I’ve started trying to turn Rarity's Boutique into a real business in the Wasteland. Not that many ponies travel through that area though, so I thought I could open up a mini shop in Friendship City as well. You know, get ponies aware and interested in the business.”

“The fuck are wastelanders going to do with a dress?” Pyre blurted, holding up a long flowy white dress with a translucent train on the end. “Fashion is a little bit more about practicalities these days.”

Coco Pommel nodded with a small smile. “There are a couple groups in the Wasteland that still try to look their best, mostly being the ponies over in Tenpony Tower. But I do have the rest of the ponies interests in mind as well. Back in the war, Rarity had been working on a type of fabric that could be used by soldiers to protect them in combat,” Coco said, holding up some strange silver fabric that she had been working with. “I call it ballistic weave, I can line clothing with it to help protect ponies in the wasteland while still letting them look fashionable. It’s what Rarity would have wanted.”

I looked closely at the silver material in Coco Pommels hooves. It looked like normal fabric to me, but the idea of it was quite fascinating. I gestured to the ruined clothing we were wearing. “Do you think we could possibly get our clothes patched up?”

Coco leaned forwards and inspected the large rips and tears in my Stable Barding. “Yup, I think I can fix your barding. I can probably patch up that stealth cloak of yours as well,” She said cheerfully, indicating to Xayah and I.

“Thank you, that would be most gracious of you,” Xayah commented, unclasping her now gemless cloak and handing it over to Coco Pommel.

Coco Pommel cast a glance at Pyre’s Red and Black flame covered power armour. “I don’t think I can fix that, but perhaps I can offer you a dress?”

Pyre snorted. “You couldn’t pay me enough caps to get me to wear some gaudy dress,” she aggressively put the white dress she had been holding back onto the dress rack. If Coco Pommel was offended by Pyres statement, she didn’t show it.

“I should have these done by tomorrow morning. You can stop by then to pick them up then,” Coco Pommel Said, pulling out a large roll of blue material that matched my Stable Barding.

I winced. Tomorrow? I hadn’t planned on sleeping here. I wanted to get back to Stable 25 as soon as possible, especially now that I knew Crank and Inferno were still alive and looking for me.

Xayah must have seen my worried expression because she put a striped hoof on my shoulder. “Do not worry Amber, we will head to Stable 25 first thing in the morning. Besides, some rest will be good for all of us.”

Brisk was waiting for us in Emissary’s room when we arrived, a small bag of healing potions lying next to him by the window.

“Nice digs,” Pyre muttered taking in the room. “It’s no Tenpony sweet, but it’s pretty fucking good for a bunch of amateur wastelanders,” she approached the single bed and flopped down in it lazily. “I call this bed!”

Brisk bolted to his hooves and pointed at Pyre accusingly with a hoof. “Nope, that’s my bed. Down!” Pyre just rolled her eyes and snuggled into the blankets.

After we had finished talking to Coco Pommel, Pyre had stopped by one of the armour Vendors to see about getting her power armour patched up. Like Xayah and I, her armour wouldn’t be ready until tomorrow morning.

Without her armour, Pyre looked a lot less intimidating. She was still a good half hoof taller than the rest of us, but she wasn’t nearly as bulky as the armour had made her appear. She had a bright autumn orange coat and a fire red mane that clearly hadn't been brushed in years. Her face had a few burn marks under her left eye and her underside was practically one giant scorch mark. Her legs and coat were covered in a multitude of silver scars that zigzaged across her body.

I combed through the healing potions that Brisk had bought. He had managed to buy five healing potions in total. Hopefully these will last us longer than healing potions we had had in the past.

I glanced out the window to see the last few beams of sunlight through the clouds disappear beyond the horizon. Only one or two day left until I was back home. I glanced over to Xayah who had taken to sitting on the end of the double bed and was watching Brisk Spark and Pyre Blaze fight over control of the single bed.

“Same sleeping arrangements?” I asked Xayah, hopping up onto the bed next to her. She gave a quick nod, but didn’t take her eyes off of the far bed. I crawled under the blanket covers and looked over at Brisk and Pyre. “Either share the bed, or one of you sleep on the floor!” I ordered, closing my eyes and rolling away from them. I heard them both snarl at each other in unison, but they seemed to quiet down after that.

I really wanted to get to sleep. The sooner I could get up and leave Friendship City, the sooner I would be back home in Stable 25. I didn’t want to think about what was happening to everypony back in the Stable. Had they all starved to death? Did they leave the Stable? I wouldn’t be able to tell until I got back I suppose.

After a few moments the lights in the room went out, followed by Xayah crawling under the covers next to me. Brisk and Pyre hadn’t said anything since I yelled at them, so I assumed they had come to an agreement of some form. Good, I didn’t want to hear them bickering all night.

I lay in the darkness of the room for a while, hoping that sleep would overtake me. It never did. I was too worried about what might be happening at the Stable. I kept trying to figure out what was going on there, despite trying my best not to think about it.

Restlessly, I rolled over to find Xayah still awake next to me. She looked over at me with her green eyes, silently trying to make out my expression in the darkness.

“Why are you still awake,” I whispered, trying not to wake up the others.

“Worried,” Xayah bluntly whispered back in her methodical voice. As my eyes adjusted, I was able to make out her face better. She did look worried, but more than that, she looked tired.

I reached out a hoof and patted her gently. “What’s worrying you?”

I could see Xayah visibly relax a little from the touch. “What is going to happen after tomorrow?” she asked in concern. “With Brisk and I? Or even Pyre? What are we all going to do?”

“When I’m gone you mean?” I asked, trying to understand what she was talking about. Xayah slowly nodded her head. This issue had always seemed like a problem between Brisk and I. I had hardly considered the impact it might have on Xayah. Thinking about it, I realised that without Brisk and I, Xayah would be alone. She didn’t have a family to return to like I did or the desire to go on adventures like Brisk did. Would she continue traveling with Brisk? Find other ponies to travel with? Something else altogether? “I don’t know Xayah, I think that’s something you and Brisk need to talk about.”

Xayah gave me a small nudge with her muzzle. “You should talk to Brisk now, all of our time together is running short.”

“You’re probably right,” I sighed, pulling myself out of bed. As is tradition, I tripped and fell flat on my face.

Really? Can I not just get out of bed once without falling over?

Rubbing my head, I quietly trotted over to the side room where Pyre and Brisk were resting. I found Brisk lying on his back next to the window, staring up at the ceiling.

“You’re awake too, huh?” I asked, sitting down next to him. “Can’t sleep?”

“Mmhm,” Brisk muttered, rolling over to sit next to me. “Yourself?”

“I’m worried about tomorrow,” I admitted, looking out of the window at the water below Friendship City. “I think we all are.”

The two of us were quiet for a moment, taking in the silence of the room. I thought I could hear gunshots far off in the distance, but I couldn’t be sure. It felt so detached from the Wasteland in this room, almost as if we were back in the Stable. Peaceful, painfully peaceful.

“I’m sorry about how I acted today,” Brisk started, keeping his voice low. “I should have just given you the Buck. I don’t know what went over me.”

I sighed. “It’s okay, we all make mistakes,” I reassured him.

He gave me a sad smile, very unlike the smile I usually saw on him. His expression quickly changed to that of excitement. “Oh, I got you something,” He said impatienlty, shifting his weight a little and digging around in his saddle bags. He pulled out a dirty looking box with the faded image of a rainbow and a paintbrush on the top. He placed it in front of me with lackluster vigor.

“What is this?” I asked, turning the box over in my hooves and brushing the thick layer of dust off of it. I could hear a couple of things shifting around inside as I tilted it from side to side.

“It’s a painting kit,” Brisk said, gesturing to the box. “I remembered that you said you always wished you could do painting the last time we were here, so when I found this in Fetlock I grabbed it for you.”

I grinned and opened up the box, looking over the painting supplies inside. To my surprise the paint still seemed usable, even after two hundred years in a radioactive wasteland. I turned and gave Brisk a tight hug. “Thank you, this means a lot to me,” I said, trying my best not to cry.

He gave me a quick hug in return before returning his attention out the window. He gave a small sigh. “I thought that maybe… maybe I should give you something to remember me by. You know, before you go back to the Stable or whatever.”

I took a deep breath. “Brisk,” I started slowly. I had a lot of things that I needed to tell him, none of which I knew how to say. “I think we need to talk.”

“What about?” He acted confused, but from the small shiver of his hooves and tremble in his voice, I could tell he had a couple of ideas.

“About everything I guess. You, me… Us,” I took a pause to take another breath. Brisk looked away from the window and into my eyes. He wasn’t trying to mask his emotions with humor at the moment, and I could see the hurricane inside him threatening to tear him apart. “What do you think? About tomorrow?”

Brisk rubbed the back of his head awkwardly. “I’m scared, I think. I don’t know what I’m going to do with myself.” I nodded in response. I was beginning to question what I was going to do with myself as well. I hadn’t known Brisk or Xayah for very long, but I already couldn’t imagine my life without either of them in it. “To be honest, I didn’t think I would survive this long in the wasteland. Back in the Stable, we were always told that outside was nothing but death. I hadn’t planned past escaping. You and your quest to save the Stable gave me something to do for a bit, but now that thats all over, I’m just going to be a lost pony with nowhere left to go.”

I put my hoof on his. He twitched a little at the touch, but didn’t move away. “You could come back to the Stable, start a new life in there,” I suggested.

“No,” Brisk said flatly. He didn’t even seem aggravated at the suggestion any more. He just seemed tired. “I can’t go back there. There is no place for me there.”

“You can always have a place with me,” I offered. He looked away and out at the harsh wasteland beyond the window. The wasteland was so much more dangerous than the Stable, yet is appealed to him far more.

“No, I can’t go back there,” was all he said, not bothering to elaborate.

We were both silent again for a moment. “Why did you leave the Stable Brisk?” I asked, pulling myself a little closer to him.

“I wanted to-”

“And none of that you were board bullshit,” I added. “I want to know the truth… please.”

Brisk bit his bottom lip and closed his eyes. To my surprise a small tear rolled out from under his eyelids and raced down his cheek. “It’s not something you want to hear.”

I shook my head. “I know. But I need to hear it. I need to understand.”

Brisk took a shaky breath and turned his head to face me. “You know how the security in Stable 25 works, right?” He asked, his voice low and aching.

I nodded slowly, unsure where he was going with this. “All of security functions under the head Security pony, and they work under the Overstallion.”

Brisk nodded. “Yeah. Well, at least that's what the Overstallion tells everypony. Technically, the Overstallion is in charge, but the head of security has the complete power to overthrow him if he steps out of line. The Overstallion needs to make sure he is on the security ponies good graces, otherwise he would be in a lot of trouble.”

This was something I definitely hadn’t heard. My father had told me multiple times not to interfere or aggravate security in any way. I had assumed that that was simply for my own protection, but was there more to it than that? Could it have been for his own protection?

“When I was a colt, I was assaulted by one of the ponies in security,” Brisk continued. I could feel the muscles in his hooves tightening as he spoke. “She uh… She raped me. I was only ten years old.”

I felt like I had walked directly into a wall. I felt sick, wrong. I felt dirty just thinking about what Brisk was saying. That would have been around the time I was just getting my cutie mark. Those were the security ponies that I always saw. That I lived with. This could have been me! This had happened to Brisk!

“Goddesses, I’m so sorry,” I muttered, not knowing what else to say to him.

Brisk snorted. “You haven’t heard the half of it. My parents took the problem to the Overstallion... your father,” Brisk voice caught and his whole body started shaking. I tried to wrap my hoove around him, but he just pushed me away. “He- he did nothing,” Brisk finally managed to get out between ragged breath. “They told him I was raped and he did fucking nothing!”

I winced at his outburst. I was having trouble accepting what he was telling me. There we a lot of things about my father that I didn’t like or understand, but doing nothing to help a rape victim that had been assulted by one of his own security seemed cold, even for him.

Brisks violent shaking and heavy breathing calmed down a little. “My mom and dad were beaten to death by some security ponies the next day. I was told my parents attacked first, but honestly I don’t know what to believe.”

“Did you tell anypony else about what happened to you?” I asked, looking him over.

Brisk shook his head, his eyes wide with fear. “No, I didn’t want them to think of me as the dude that got raped. Or worse, what if they didn’t believe me and thought I was just trying to get attention? After all of that, I had to get out. I spent the next ten and a half years trying to escape the Stable, I’m not going back in there now. Not ever.”

We were quiet again for a bit. “I believe you,” I said bluntly. Taking his hoof again. “And you are a lot more to me than just the pony who got raped. That might have happened to you, but it's not what makes you.”

Brisk did his best to give me a smile, but it looked forced. My mind had transfixed on the thought of my father hearing of what had happened to Brisk and doing nothing. It didn’t take a genius to figure out why he had ignored the situation. Brisk had set the scene perfectly. If my father had tried to oppose the actions of the security ponies, he could have been attacked or overthrown himself. But that in no way justified his actions.

I was going to need to have words with my father about this upon my return.

Brisk shifted his position and wiped a tear from his cheek. “So yeah. Now you know,” he sniffed and looked over at me. “What about you? I know the Stable wasn't great on you either.”

After what I had just learned about Brisk, a couple of beatings and a bit of self loathing felt like nothing in comparison. “I was just a disappointment,” I finally said. “I had a lot to live up to, and I failed to live up to any of it. Some ponies hated me for that, others took advantage of that. No one liked me for that.”

“Failed at leading the Stable?” Brisk questioned, looking down at his hooves in an attempt to hide his tear filled eyes.

I nodded. “As you know, everypony in my family has been the Overmare or Stallion since the Stable was made. I just ended up as some dumb machanic,” I glanced loathfully at my screwdriver cutie mark.

Brisk forced a chuckle and shook his head. “I don’t know. You’ve done pretty good at leading us out here. I think you’re better than you give yourself credit for,” He turned back and gave me a smile. A real one this time.

“I don’t know. Traveling across the wasteland is a lot different than leading a Stable,” I stated. “I don’t think I can handle that kind of responsibility.”

“What you’re doing is probably more responsible, not to mention more stressful than anything your father has ever done while leading the Stable,” Brisk soothed. “If the wasteland has taught me anything Amber, it's that you are not a pony to mess with. You always do what's right for others, what's moral. Even if that puts yourself in danger. I don’t know what else could make a better leader or even a better pony than that.”

Shit, now I was blushing. Something Xayah had said earlier that day came back to me. ‘It is better to know and possibly get rejected than to live the rest of your life wondering what might have been,’ she had said. Well I guess it's time to find out what might have been.

I cleared my throat. “There’s uh… there’s one other thing I need to tell you Brisk,” I stammered, feeling my blush deepen. Brisk raised his eyebrow in interest. I gulped and took a deep breath. “I uh.. Well I’ve wanted to tell you this for a while. I realised it back in the Four Star Apartments while I was talking to Xayah…”

And now Brisk just looked concerned.

“And that is?” He pushed.

I looked down at my hooves. “I um… I kinda have a bit of a massive crush on you.”

Silence.

I looked back up at him. Brisk had taken to silently staring out the window again, this time he seemed a little more uncomfortable than before. He sighed and turned his head to face me again. “Look, Amber. I’m flattered, really. But… I don’t think that will work out.”

My heart sank.

“If you had said that to me when we had first left the Stable, maybe. I admit to having a fancy for you when we first met. You were smart and cute and the only pony to ever treat me like something other than a freak,” He started, shifting his whole body to face me. “But then you saved me after I was sure that I was about to die and then again with the Enclave and with the Cyber ponies. I started viewing you more like a little sister. I think- I think starting a relationship between us would just be weird. And… and you’re returning to the Stable tomorrow, so… Sorry,” he ended lamely, looking away.

I dropped my head. “Yeah, no it's okay. I figured you’d say something like that anyway. I’ve just been to afraid I wasn’t good enough to ask.”

Brisk gave me a gentle nudge with his hoof. “I really am sorry Amber. I still want to be your friend though. And it's not because you aren’t good enough. I’m pretty sure you're one of the best ponies out there, and when you do find the pony that's right for you, I know you will make them happy.”

My heart hurt and my stomach felt heavy, but it felt as if a large weight had been lifted off of my shoulders. Xayah had been right, the pain of rejection might sting now, but at least now I could manage to move on. Not saying this didn’t suck still, because I still felt like total shit right now.

Brisk took a deep breath and slowly pulled himself to his hooves. “I think I need to go for a walk, sort some shit out in my head,” He said, walking over to the door. I nodded slowly and remained looking out the window at the wasteland. Right before he left, he looked me over one last time. “I truly am sorry Amber,” Then he ducked out of the room.

I just sat in silence for a bit, watching as the dull beams of moonlight managed to seep through the thick cloudlayer. The conversation had left me with a lot to think about.

“Stuff like that hurts,” I heard Pyre Blaze say from behind me. I looked over to see her sitting on the bed with her front hooves crossed. “I’d give advice for a broken heart, but I killed the last four ponies that broke mine, so perhaps my advice isn’t the best.”

“I could still kill you you know,” I grunted, rolling onto my stomach to face the orange coated raider. The last thing I wanted right now was to be degraded by Pyre.

Pyre Blaze scoffed. “No you won't, you’ve heard my name.”

I cocked my head at her. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean.”

‘Pyre Blaze,” She said smugly. “Take it from a pony who has killed hundreds. Once you know a ponies name, killing them becomes a lot harder.”

I bent down and rest my head between my front hooves. “I bet I look pretty pathetic to you right about now. Getting all worked up about this sort of stuff,” I said. I imagined that an experienced raider like Pyre Blaze had probably gone through some tough shit in her life.

Pyre shook her head casually. “Quite the opposite. If anything you just earned my respect.”

“Your respect?” I asked, raising my head back up in confusion. “How so?”

Pyre Blaze rolled her eyes. “The wasteland likes to break you. Throw the worst it has at everything you hold dear. You tend to witness horror after horror. After a while, it almost becomes routine,” Pyre said factually. “Believe it or not, it's the emotional turmoil within ourselves that causes the most pain. Admitting your feelings like you just did I say goes to show how strong you really are. Trust me, I know.”

“I feel worse than when I was hiding it from him,” I moaned. “Before it had felt like a tight knot in my stomach, slowly getting tighter. Now I just kinda feel hollow.”

“I didn’t say it wouldn’t hurt,” Pyre corrected, rolling onto her back and snuggling into the stained pillow on the bed. “And don’t expect the pain to just disappear either, but the worst has gone,” Silently, she turned away from me and fell asleep. a few seconds later and she was snoring peacefully.

I watched her sleep for a few moments. Pyre sure wasn’t like any other raider I had ever met. She seemed smarter, much smarter. I’d have to ask her about her life story at some point. If I ever had the time.

I heavily pulled myself from the ground and sulked back to the bed I was sharing with Xayah. I could see the small glint of light reflecting off of Xayah’s eyes in the dark as she watched me approach, no doubt she had heard my whole conversation with Brisk.

I crawled under the covers and lay silently in the bed beside her for a second. “I don’t know what to do,” I muttered to Xayah. I could feel my body begin shaking as the gravity of everything that had happened over the past few days hit me like a balefire bomb. I could feel tears begin to race down my cheeks.

I pulled myself forwards as I curled up against Xayah’s chest and wept. Xayah wrapped her forehooves around me and slowly stroked my messy mane.

“It’s going to be okay,” She soothed in a hushed tone. “We can all figure out what to do together.”

The next morning was awkward. Aside from falling out of bed like usual, half of the morning was spent exchanging nervous glances at Brisk as the two of us tried to figure out how exactly to proceed. If one of us made eye contact, the other would drop their head and do everything in their power to look as if they had been looking at something else.

Xayah had cooked up some sort of zebra food that none of the rest of us had ever heard of or could even pronounce properly. It looked like a mix between the innards of a Radroach and a hollowed out gourd. Despite its appearance, it almost managed to surpass the taste of her cookies. Almost.

Pyre Blaze’s eyes lit up as she tasted Xayah’s cooking for the first time. “Damn! I wish all raiders could cook this good. We could have used some pony with your talent out in Las Pegasus.”

I furrowed my brow at her. “We aren’t raiders,” I said, looking away from my plate of food as I bit into it. It really did taste good if I couldn’t see how gross it looked.

Pyre scoffed. “Nah, we’re all raiders. Some ponies just tend to show it better than others. Given enough time, you will come to see that too.”

“We are not raiders,” I insisted, echoing what I had told Brisk on our first night out of the Stable. “We don’t kill for sport. We don’t kill children, and we don’t rape ponies,” I saw Brisk and Xayah glance at eachother uncomfortably.

Pyre simply rolled her eyes. “You can keep telling yourself that Amber, but optimism won’t change the wasteland.”

As soon as we were finished eating, we packed up our stuff and headed down to the market area to retrieve our armour. As Coco Pommel had said, I found both my Stable Barding and Xayah’s stealth cloak all patched up at her vendor. Coco had done a wonderful job of patching them back together, they looked as good as they had when we had first gotten them. It made me sad to see such talent. I’m sure that if the bombs hadn’t fallen, Coco Pommel could have been very famous in the world of fashion.”

Xayah and I met up with Brisk and Pyre at the front gate. Pyre had retrieved her power armour and had returned to looking as dangerous and imposing as ever. Like our clothes, Pyre’s armour looked shiny and new.

Pyre looked over her armour for a moment before pushing up against a wall and pulling her armour across the surface, creating a long scratch on the side of the armour. She gave a small sigh of relief. “Much better.”

Just like in our first visit to Friendship City, the guards returned our weapons to us as we left the gate. Lantern had returned to their usual post at the gate, but we exchanged far less words than we had on our first meeting. I was to worried about the future to manage to hold a good conversation. While once I had been excited to return to the Stable, now I felt a creeping sense of dread. The idea of leaving Brisk and Xayah behind and even the idea of seeing my father again after everything that had happened and everything I had heard was a little scary.

Brisk walked silently next to me as we marched across the bridge leaving Friendship City and towards the wasteland outside. “You, uh... You ready to go home or whatever?” He asked, keeping his head forwards to avoid eye contact. Goddesses this was all so awkward.

I took a deep breath. “I hope so. I think I have a lot of sorting out to do once I get there,” If that wasn’t the understatement of the year, I didn’t know what was.

Brisk scratched the back of his head awkwardly. “I know I probably can’t change your mind at this point, but I figured I better try at least once more. Are you sure you wont stay out here with us? After you return the A.A.S.S and stuff?”

I shook my head. “The Stable has problems, I’ve always known that. Maybe I didn’t know how bad it really was until last night, and maybe I still don’t know the full extent of it all, but the Stable is my home even with its faults. I don’t think I could live a life out here in the wasteland. I’m a mechanic, not an adventurer,” I gave him a small, timid smile. “I’m glad you would still be willing to travel with me though, even after everything.”

Brisk gave my shoulder a small bump. “Well, you are the nicest pony I’ve ever met. I won’t give up what we have, even if I need to go through a little awkwardness.”

We seemed to be having a rather large amount of luck as we made our way back towards Stable 25. We weren’t swarmed by raider or ghouls and what few things did decide to attack us were quickly burned alive by Pyre’s flamers. I was starting to have a pretty large appreciation for our power armoured raider companion. I wished she had started traveling with us sooner, perhaps we wouldn’t have needed to run away from things as much.

Despite how much ground we seemed to be covering while not being sidetracked or delayed, it was still a long ass walk. I combed through my pipbuck looking for something to do while we walked. I considered tuning into DJ Pon3’s radio, but I figured that as I would probably never be in the wasteland after today, the news wouldn’t be all that interesting. Finally I spotted one of Cheese Sandwich’s Holotape at the bottom of my saddlebag. With everything that had happened, I had forgotten that there was still one audio file I was yet to listen to. I popped the holotape into my pipbuck and listened as the ragged voice of Cheese Sandwich came to life.

Cheese Sandwich’s voice was strained and cracked. No doubt he had already become a ghoul at the time of recording. “I found one of your stashes of Party-Time-Mint-als Pink. I figured you probably won’t be needing them anymore. These things were the only thing keeping my head clear and I think I just ran out, so I figured now would be a good time to say what I need to say,” Cheese Sandwich started. He coughed a little, but his throat sounded dry and scratchy. “He has put something into motion, something big. I don’t know what it is or when it’s going to happen, but you need to stop it,” He stopped so he could cough again, this time I could hear him spitting up blood. “As you can probably hear, I’m not doing to great. It hurts, everything hurst. Thank you for helping me. I want you to know that I don’t blame you for what you had to do to me. You did what you had to do,” now I was confused. If I hadn't known any better, I would have sworn he was talking to me. “Take Boneless, use him well. He’ll serve you better out there than he ever did for me.”

Cheese sandwich went silent for a few moments, I began to think the recording had finished. It felt calming to hear Cheese sandwich say what he had. Even though I knew there was no way he could have been talking to me, it was good to know that I had done him a service, rather than an injustice.

As I was about to turn the recording off, Cheese Sandwich’s voice sprang back to life. “Oh, and one last thing Amber. The password is Paradise.”

I felt a chill go down my spine as the holotape came to a stop. He had been talking to me… but how could he have possibly known? And what was that password he was talking about? I remembered that strange twitch Cheese sandwich had had when I encountered him. Could he see the future? Or did it have something to do with those Party-Time-Mint-als he mentioned? I doubted I would ever know for sure.

I was so lost in thought that I didn’t notice where we were until Brisk tapped me on the shoulder. “We’re here,” Brisk said quietly as I slowly became aware of my surroundings. We were standing outside a long metal tunnel that lead into the ground. To any run-of-the-mill wasteland wanderer, it might have just looked like some old metal warehouse. Definitely not a location of interest. But just the sight of it made my heart start racing a hundred miles a minute.

This was the entrance to Stable 25.

Brisk took a small step away from the tunnel. “Fuck… I really didn’t want to come back here.”

I took a deep breath and approached the small steel door that lead into the dark tunnel beyond. My friends followed closely behind me, slowly making their way through the tunnel entrance and towards the Stable. At first I couldn’t make anything out through the gloom, but as I delved deeper and deeper into the blackness I began to make out a large circular shaped light at the end of the tunnel. The Stable door was open!

I froze as I saw the colossus metal gear ajar. My father had opened up to the world beyond the Stable? That meant that they had found food! They were probably still alive. I began racing towards the Stable. I could feel the weight of all the stress and anxiety I had been carrying the last few days disappear as I grew closer.

I stepped in something wet and sticky as I raced forwards, but I didn’t bother to check what it was. I was so close now, a few more steps and I would be home. A few more steps and the wasteland would be behind me forever.

“Look out!” I heard Pyre Blaze exclaimed in alarm. "Red bars!"

Before I could put her words together into a meaningful sentence a large figure stepped into view in the doorway. The pony stood in silhouette, his features obscured by the light of the Stable behind him, but I could still make out his horrific form.

A cyber pony.

I skidded to a halt before the cyber pony as I began to make out the red bars on my EFS as well. There were red bars everywhere.

The air around us seemed to shimmer as a small army of zebras lowered the hoods on their stealth cloaks and flickered into view. The light from the entrance behind us was blocked as the zebra assassins moved to block our only exit out.

I began to make out other things as well. The blood that soaked the floor of the tunnel, the pony corpses dressed in Stable barding that lined the walls. It was my nightmare all over again, but this time it was real.

“Welcome home,” The cyber pony Inferno snarled, a small flame igniting at the end of his flamers. “Kamari sends his regards!”

Footnote: level up.
New perk: Impartial Mediation -- You gain +30 speech when you have neutral karma

Author's Note

So summer break is over and I'm back in university. I'm going to do my best to add a new chapter every month, but I'd rather give you guys a good chapter than a rushed chapter, so I guess we'll see how I manage to do with my busy schedule.

Fallout: Equestria belongs to Kkat.

Chapter IX: The Blood Soaked Walls of Stable 25

Author's Note

Warning: This chapter has very mature content and graphic scenes. Reader discretion is advised.

Fallout: Equestria belongs to Kkat

Enjoy!

Chapter IX: The Blood Soaked Walls of Stable 25

“Did I say Dream? This is a Nightmare!”

Home.

Home is such a simple word. We all have a home and know where it is. The idea of home is so simple in fact that until this point in my life I had never truly thought about where it was that my home actually is. Back when Stable 25 was the only life I had ever known, I had considered my room in the Overstallion’s office to be home. Thinking back however, it might have made more sense to consider the generator room where I had once spent most of my time home.

Though once I had left the Stable behind and traveled across the wasteland, I had at some point begun to consider the Stable in general to be home.

Throughout my time away from the Stable I had pictured what might be happening to the Stable in my absence. The ponies fighting amongst themselves, slowly starving to death, or worst of all begin blasted to bits by cyber ponies or other wasteland horrors. I had thought that I had managed to save the Stable from that last one.

Apparently, I was wrong. I was always wrong.

I knew the wasteland like to destroy what you loved most. But I had never imagined the wastelands sick, twisted game would catch up to me so soon. The Stable had always been a place where the wasteland couldn’t reach; a safe haven. But I had ruined that to. I had let the wasteland in, and it had begun its corruption from there.

The wasteland infects. It's like a growing parasite that latched onto everything that comes in contact with it and slowly twists it until it becomes just like it. You can fight the wastelands corruption all you want, but one way or another, it will overtake you and you will become one with the cruelty of Equestria.

We are not raiders… right?

My eyes darted around the tunnel. Zebra’s were approaching from all sides. I pulled out Boneless and readied myself for their attack. My friends had managed to move closer to me, allowing us to form a small circle in the centre of the ring of zebra assassins.

The cyber pony Inferno chuckled at us from the entrance to Stable 25. “Did you truly believe you could be rid of us?” He gloated, slowly emerging from the entrance and joining the zebras as they closed in on us. “Did you really think we would just give up?”

I turned to face him and snarled. “I’ll kill you!” I screamed. I could feel a tidal wave of different emotions surging through me. Fear, hatred, pain. But above all else, I felt anger. I felt an anger towards this fucking metal basterd that I didn’t know I had in me.

Inferno just smirked as he neared, his large flamers readying themselves. He came to a stop before us, the small army of zebras slowing to a halt behind him. “I’ll give you one chance to give me the A.A.S.S. Then, maybe I’ll let you live.

I glanced at the pony corpses that lined the walls of the tunnel. There were lots, but not nearly as many as there were ponies in Stable 25. Some ponies might still be alive. If there was still some alive, there was still hope.

Brisk spat at Inferno, a large glob of spittle splattering against the cyber ponies red glass eyes. I applauded Brisk on his bravery.

Inferno just lazily looked my group over and slowly wiped the spit off with a hoof. “Fine, have it you way. Kill them.”

The mass of zebras surged forwards. We were confronted by an organized frenzy of blades as the invaders lashed towards us. My group dove apart, dodging and spinning away from the volly of attacks. Pyre Blaze launched herself at Inferno, streams of fire spewed from them as the two flamer welding psychopaths collided with each other.

I spun and fired shot after shot from Boneless. Each blast from Boneless’ explosive slugs burts open a new zebra’s head. I felt a piercing pain in my hind leg as a zebra assassin stabbed into me with one of their curved blades.

I whirled around and blew out the zebra brians with a precise shot from Boneless. The zebra's head burst open, brain matter spewing everywhere, but the zebra had done its job. I stumbled, trying to keep my balance as the pain in my hind leg pulsed up my body.

Three zebras took advantage of my momentary weakness and slammed me into the ground. My head hit the cold floor of the tunnel with a crack, the world above me began spinning as I tried to pull myself back up and continue fighting.

I saw a zebra crouch overtop of me. I raised my baton and prepared to lash at it when I spotted the long scar that raced across its underside.

As my eyes came back into focus I made out the shape of Xayah standing over me as groups of zebras rushed towards us. She was managing to hold her own fairly well against the onslaught, but she was still covered head to hoof in long gashes made by the attacks that managed to make it past her defences.

Across the room I could see Brisk leaping back and forth with his pistol in his mouth as he was assaulted by countless assassins. He was having difficulty getting a shot in as the zebras were both too fast and attacking him from all angles.

I pulled myself up just in time to bash a zebra across the head with my baton before it could slice into Xayah. I stood with my back hooves pushed up against Xayah's as we swatted away zebras with our baton and knife.

I heard Xayah shout something over the sound of battle, but I couldn’t quite make out what it was. She yelled it again, this time only slightly more audible. “What’s the plan?”

Plan? Against a cyber pony and an army of zebras? Was she kidding. We had almost died the last two times we had fought cyber ponies, and back then we had only been fighting one at a time. I glanced at the entrance of the tunnel. A group of zebras were blocking the exit. We couldn’t escape the way we had come. Perhaps we could hide inside the Stable? Of course that would only be a temporary solution.

A zebra’s hoof lashed out and kicked me in the face. It felt like the whole world froze for a second as I was sent flying through the air where I crashed against the far wall. I felt the A.A.S.S slip from my saddlebags and roll across the floor. I scrambled towards it, only for a zebra to jump into my path.

Inferno pushed Pyre Blaze aside and Lunged for the black device. “Get it!” The cyber pony shrieked as he raced forwards.

I lashed at the zebra with my baton, knocking it prone as it tried to slice me with its blades. The zebra stumbled, but remained upright and leapt into me, knocking me back to the ground. I kicked at the zebras sides with my hooves, trying to get it off of me.

I could see Inferno getting closer to the A.A.S.S. a few more feet and he would have it. Pyre and Xayah lept into him, forcing him to stumble backwards. He roared in rage and began swinging his bladed tale at them, the sharp scorpion like tail lashed Xayah across the chest, ripping away her beautiful striped hide.

Pyre Blaze roared with rage as Inferno pounced onto her. She let loose a massive jet of flames that sent multiple zebras ablaze. Inferno laughed off the fire as it submerged him, basking in the burning pain that accompanied it.

I slammed the tip of Boneless against the zebras stomach and blasted a hole through the center of its body. The zebra assassin when frigid, then collapsed down on top of me. I rolled the striped corpse off of me and rushed for the A.A.S.S.

I felt a blade cut through my back leg just above me hoof. I screamed in pain as the zebra’s blade sliced through the tendons on my leg, forcing my to fall flat on my face. My leg went limp as I lost the ability to move it around. I rolled onto my back and blasted the zebra who had cut me in the face with Boneless as it leapt towards me. The flesh on its face was stripped away until only a bloody skull and some pulped flesh remained.

I glanced over to the A.A.S.S. More zebras had noticed it and were beginning to move towards it. Without the use of my back leg there was no way that I could reach it in time.

I saw a flash of green swoop in and snatch up the A.A.S.S. I let out a sigh of relief as I saw Brisk darting away from the scene with the A.A.S.S tucked tightly under his fore hoof.

Inferno pinned Pyre Blaze to the ground and screamed. His flamers shooting a large jet of flame in Brisk’s direction. “Get him!” Inferno ordered, his usual manic tone more prevalent than usual. Pyre bucked him in the jaw, forcefully shoving him off of her. He snarled at her and began trying to push past her to Brisk.

Brisk dodged a zebras attack and rushed over to me. “Amber, come on! We’ve gotta get out of here!” He tried to pull me up with a hoof, but my sliced tendon refused to let me stand. I fell back to the ground with a thud. “Damn it Amber! Come on!”

I shook my head and pulled myself away from him. “You’ve got to run! I’ll just slow you down!”

Tears were forming in his eyes, he looked around at the battle unfolding around us. We couldn’t win. There were to many zebras. I had lost track of Xayah after Inferno had injured her. Hopefully she was still alive.

A zebra jumped at Brisk from his blind side. I gave out a small warning, giving Brisk just enough time to dodge the attack, the curved blade just barely missing face. I pushed him away from me and turned to face the oncoming zebras. “Go, I’ll hold them off!” I shouted, limping on three legs. The pain in my back legs was excruciating. “Get the A.A.S.S out of here!

I heard Brisk yelp and dart away behind me. I took a deep breath. “Run Brisk,” I muttered to myself. "Run."

The first zebra sent a well aimed kick at my chest. I hoped backwards, bashing my baton against the zebras extended limb. The zebras leg snapped under the force of the baton, sending the zebra toppling to the ground with a cry. The next two zebras swung at me with their blades. I telekinetically lifted both my baton and Boneless to meet the deadly weapons, stopping both blades mid-air. A third zebra launched themselves at me from behind, thrusting their blade through my chest. I felt the curved edge of the weapon pierce my hide and slide between my ribs.

I screamed in pain as an agony I had never felt pulsated through my whole body. I kicked at the zebra, knocking them away from me. The curved blade remained lodged in my chest. Probably for the best I suppose, I didn’t want to bleed out.

My grip on my baton and Boneless was lost with my concentration and both of my weapons clattered to the floor. The zebras advanced inwards. Black spots were swimming before my eyes as I tried to stay focused. Each movement caused a new wave of pain to wash over me, threatening to throw me into unconsciousness.

Another kick to the head sent me crashing to the ground. I was having difficulty making out the world around me now and everything was beginning to sound distant. I thought I could hear Inferno screaming something, but I couldn’t be sure.

I could see the forms of zebras closing in around me, their mouths twisted into a malicious grin. I wanted to kill them! All of them! How dare they attack my Stable!

I tried to growl at them, though I think I only managed to make some strange un-pony-like sound. “Stay away or I’ll kill you,” I stated drowsily. The zebras only laughed and kept advancing.

Then everything went dark.

The next couple of hours were a blur. I remember drifting in and out of consciousness, but never conscious enough to fully pull myself back to reality. I caught glimpses of chains and zebras, Inferno glaring down at me with hateful mechanical eyes. I felt something warm and shivering tied up against me and the sensation of being pushed forwards down a long hallway. And there was a smell. Two smells actually. One was the scent of fresh blood and death, the other was the familiar smell of home. The metal walls, the stale air. I hadn’t noticed how stale the air was down here.

“Amber! Amber!” Xayah’s panicked voice pulled me from my sleepless slumber. “Damn it Amber, wake up you foolish pony!”

I tried to rub my eyes, but found my hooves had been chained tightly to my body. “Xayah? What’s happening?” I asked, trying to make sense of the situation. “Where is Brisk and Pyre Blaze?”

“I do not know,” Xayah muttered. “I hope they are still alive.”

A pit seemed to form in my stomach. Oh goddesses they had better be alive still. I don’t know what I would do if something happened to Brisk.

As my eyes began to focus, I started to take in the rest of the room. I recognized it at once. Xayah and I had been chained up in the Overstallion’s office. I spotted my room just a little to our left and my fathers just a little past that. Unlike how I had left it however, the Overstallion’s office was now soaked in blood. Dead ponies had been gutted and tossed across the floor as if they were trash. I spotted a few faces among the corpses that I recognized. A boy that had worked in maintenance with me a couple of times, my old teacher Ms. Dry Chalk, one of the janitor mares. I shut my eyes and looked away, not able to take the sight anymore.

Goddesses! Please tell me somepony was still alive! I could feel tears forming in my eyes.

“Why do you think they let us live,” Xayah asked. There was a small shiver in her voice. No doubt she was finding our surroundings to be disturbing as well.

I shook my head. “I don’t know…” I let my eyes drift open a little. My gaze landed on the charred remains of a filly. Inferno’s work no doubt. I bit my bottom lip. I was going to make that sick son of a bitch pay for this!

There was a loud sound of metal on metal as the door to the Overstallion’s office opened. “Well well well, look who’s finally awake,” Inferno chuckled, waltzing into the room as if it were a dance floor.

I scowled at him “Fuck you,” I growled, narrowing my eyes in his direction.

Inferno grinned down at me. “Why so rude? After I all I’ve done for you? I told my zebra friends to spare you and your friends life and you go saying hurtful things like that,” The cyber pony laughed. “I’m offended, really.”

“Where’s Crank!” I spat at him. It was odd that the cyber alicorn wasn’t here as well.

Inferno giggled manically. “Oh, ol’ Crank is in trouble!” He stated in a sing-song voice. “That bastard's meeting up with good old Red Eye. explaining why he double crossed him. Very unfortunate.”

Inferno began pacing around us, looking us over from all angles. He leaned in and looked me over closely, his glowing red eyes seeming to pierce into my soul. “What do you want?” Xayah asked sternly, glaring at the chaotic cyber pony.

“I wanted to make you a deal,” Inferno cackled, moving away from me and appraoching Xayah. he licked his metal lips with a black, slug like tongue and ran a hoof down Xayah’s body. Xayah shivered at the touch. “I want the A.A.S.S, you want your friends alive. If you two tell me where it is, I’ll spare you.”

“I don’t know where it is,” I blurted in frustration. I pulled against my chains in a futile attempt to free myself. “I don’t have it anymore!”

Inferno’s metal hooves slammed down next to my head, denting to metal walls of the Stable. “That fucking Green pony has it!” Inferno spat, black fluid flying from his mouth. “I know he is still in the Stable! You are going to tell me where he has gone!”

“How am I supposed to know where he is?” I retorted. “And I wouldn’t tell you even if I knew!”

Inferno gave me a smug grin. “Good, I was hoping you would say that,” A horrifying feeling washed over me as he said those words. Inferno stomped his hoof and called out into the hallway. “Bring them in!”

Five zebra guards pushed a bunch of ponies into the room. Each pony was tied in chains similar to what Xayah and I were tied in and were wearing traditional Stable barding. I gulped as Inferno turned back to face me.

“You are going to tell me where that Green cunt is or I’m going to start having some fun,” Inferno grinned. Damn it, he didn’t care what I did. I knew Inferno enough to know that he would be perfectly willing to kill everypony if he had the chance.

My eyes darted around the room. Shit, I need to find a way out of this.

Inferno took my silence as a response and gestured for the zebras to bring ponies forwards. A zebra with dark grey and white stripes pushed a mare and a young colt towards the cyber pony. I recognized them, I had once babysat that colt while his mother was off at a party.

Inferno turned to them, his smile practically reaching his ears. The mare pushed the colt behind her in a futile attempt to protect her son.

“NO! Stop!” I screamed. I thrashed against the chains, trying to get free and save them. The mare looked at me helpless, tears spilling down her face. “Please! No…”

Fire spewed from Inferno’s flamers, engulfing the mare and her son. Their bodies went up in flames. I could hear their flesh sizzling and their pained screams as they tried to put out the fire on their coats.

Inferno laughed as the two ponies fell to the ground flailing, taking in the sight of the flames as they spread across their whole body. Fire was not a pleasant way to go. It was long and slow, and by Celestia it hurt.

By the time the mare and colt had stopped squirming the flames had died down, allowing us to see the blacked corpses and charred flesh. A few hot embers still burned under the ponies skin.

Tears were streaking down my face. Out of the corner of my eye I could see that Xayah’s eyes had weld up with tears as well. Seeing a family get murdered was too much for her to handle.

Inferno rolled the burned remains of the colt over and chuckled. “Let’s try that again. Where is the A.A.S.S?”

“I don’t know!” I screamed between tears. “I don’t fucking know! Just please! Stop!”

Inferno’s tail lashed out and slit the throat of another Stable dweller. The pony dropped to the ground, blood spilling from his neck. I recognized him as the head of the Stable basketball team. I had had a crush on him once, a long time ago.

“Where is the A.A.S.S!” Inferno insisted.

I had broken down into tears. I tried to tell him to stop, but I couldn’t manage to make words between my uncontrollable sobs.

Another blast from his flamers a mare went up in flame, her whole body burning until there was nothing but a pile of ash and bones on the floor.

“Mom!” A small green filly screamed, her eyes filled with tears as she tried to push past the zebra guards and get to the pile of ash that had once been her mother. Inferno glanced over at the filly and licked his lips. He gestured for the zebras to drag her forwards. The zebras obeyed without question.

Inferno returned his attention to us. He took a step forward and smacked me across the face with his metal hoof. My head snapped to the side. I was lucky the force of the slap didn’t break my neck. “Where is the A.A.S.S,” Inferno demanded again.

Xayah tried to swing at him with a hoof, but her hooves were tied to tightly to her body. “Leave her alone!” Xayah shouted, her voice catching as she tried to hide her terror.

Inferno lashed her across the face with his tail, creating a long, deep cut across her cheek. “I wasn’t talking to you cunt,” Inferno grinned, placing his hoof on her head and pushing her into the ground. “Now shut the fuck up or I’ll fuck you until you're broken.”

Xayah whimpered and tried to curl away from him, but Inferno kept his hoof pressed tightly down against her head. He looked over at me and smirked. “Well?”

“I… I don’t...” I sobbed. I was breaking inside. I didn’t feel like anything anymore. Simply heartache, sorrow and regret.

Inferno removed his hoof from Xayah and approached the filly. “Pin her down and lift up her tail,” He ordered the zebras. The zebras obeyed. The filly cried out as she was forcefully pinned down. The zebras grinned as they lifted up her tail and exposed her cutie markless flank.

“You fucking monster!” I screamed as what he was going to do to that filly hit me. I growled, finally able to make more sounds than just sobs. Rage was flowing through me; building up inside of me at an alarming rate. I had to hold onto that. If I couldn’t hold onto rage then I would be lost with nothing but despair.

Inferno chuckled and moved behind the filly. “I’ve been a monster for a long time.”

One of the ponies pushed away from the zebras and rushed at the door. Infernos flamers swiveled at his side and set the pony ablaze before he could make it more than two feet away. Inferno snarled at the rest of the captives. “Don’t run. I will kill you.”

The captives all shrank back.

Inferno leaned over the filly and slowly licked the side of her face with his disgustingly long, black tongue, smearing dark saliva across her face. The filly shivered as he pushed down on her with his hooves. “Have you ever been fucked before, little filly?” Inferno whispered into her ear, his jagged maw grinning. The filly screamed and tried to crawl away, but the zebras held her down.

The door burst open and the form of a pony in dark power armour charged into the room. Fire was sent spewing in every direction as the pony aimed their massive flamers at the group of zebras and set them aflame.

The captive ponies screamed and rushed for the door as the pony in power armour advanced on Inferno. The cyber pony scowled and crushed the fillies skull under his hoof as he pulled himself up to face the intruder.

“Burning ponies without me?!” Pyre Blaze cooed. “Well that’s just not fair.”

I gave a small laugh between my sobs. I could have hugged Pyre at that moment. I never thought I would be so happy to hear that damned raiders voice.

Inferno sneered at her. “You dare interrupt me!” He scowled, crouching into a battle position. “Well guess what missy. I’ma going to rape you next!”

The two armoured ponies launched themselves at each other. They bashed at each other with their metal hooves and blasted bursts of fire in each others direction. It was becoming painfully clear though that despite Pyre Blaze’s ferocity, Inferno was clearly the better fighter. Chunks of metal was ripped from Pyre’s armour with each lash of his hooves and when Pyre did manage to get a hit in, Inferno quickly regenerated the damage.

“Now might be a good time to escape,” Xayah whispered, struggling to pry the chains off of her.

I tried to wipe a tear from my eyes and nodded in agreement. I pulled against the chains, but to no avail.

A pony in Stable security armour rushed up to us and bashed at the chains with a large chunk of metal. To my surprise, the chain snapped and dropped around our hooves.

“Who are you?” I asked the security pony as I dodged a stray blast of flames from Inferno’s flamers.

“Now is not the time,” the security pony barked, gesturing for us to follow him. “We’re here to rescue you.”

Inferno bashed Pyre Blaze across the face with his tail, launching her across the room where she slammed against the wall next to us with a thud. Pyre groaned as she pulled herself back up and rubbed the side of her head with a hoof.

“Shit you hit hard,” Pyre Blaze grumbled, dusting off the ash that had accumulated on her armour. “Remind me to pump myself up on whatever it is you’re taking.”

Inferno’s face slowly began pulling itself back together from the damage that Pyre Blaze had done. As his eyes reformed he glared and Xayah and I, now out of our chains. He growled and flared up his flamers. “I’m going to burn your asses!”

“Now would probably be a good time to run,” Xayah suggested, turning and sprinting to the door.

I took a step to follow and fell flat on my face, my back hoof giving out underneath me. Unlike the Steel Rangers, Inferno clearly hadn’t been kind enough to tend to my injuries when he captured me.

Pyre Blaze scooped me up onto her back and began charging after Xayah. I could hear Inferno roar with rage and bound after us. The security ponies throat was lashed out as Inferno’s blade like tail sliced at him as he charged past. The guard pony fell to the floor dead. I wish I could have known his name.

We charged down the hallways of Stable 25. Each turn was met by a new gruesome sight. Blood had been splattered against almost every wall and there were so many pony corpses littering the floor that it was hard not to trip over all the bodies.

Inferno trampled over the bodies behind us, crushing skulls and rib cages under hoof as he bounded forwards. The hallway behind us was filled with roaring flames as the crazed cyber pony tired to burn us alive.

More ponies were stepping out into the hallway now, most of them only armed with small objects they had picked up off of tables. They threw things at Inferno as he neared, slowing him down and making him stagger backwards. Once they had thrown all they had, the ponies turned tail and raced after us and away from the flaming cyber pony.

Zebras were beginning to spill into the hallway as well. The pulled out their curved scimitars and charged at the Stable dwellers.

I slammed my leg against Pyre’s side. “We need to go back and save them!” I shouted as Pyre and Xayah kept rushing forwards.

“Not unless you want to die,” Pyre Blaze retorted. We continued rushing forwards as fast as they could until the sound of combat was far off in the distance.

At some point, Pyre stopped running. “Xayah, this way,” She ordered, turning down a hallway and descending a set of stairs that headed down to a lower level of the Stable. Xayah nodded and followed closely behind her.

“Where are we going?” I asked, trying to look over Pyre’s shoulder as she carried me deeper into the Stable.

“When the Stable was attacked by zebras, one of three things happened to the Stable dwellers here. A: they got slaughtered, B: they got captured and raped by Inferno, and C: they got driven into the lower levels of the Stable and are trying to plan a rebellion,” Pyre Blaze informed us factually.

“A rebellion?” I asked, raising an eyebrow at Pyre quizzically.

Pyre snorted. “Well you didn’t think that they were just going to sit and let the Stable get taken over by a bunch of zebras did you?” She responded flatly. “I was lucky enough to stumble across them shortly after escaping into the Stable. We’ve been trying to figure out how to free you guys for the last hour.”

“Hour?” I asked. “How long was I out?”

“A while,” Xayah stated, trotting along beside us. “I’m surprised you are still alive after you received that wound to your chest.”

I glanced down at my chest to see the zebra’s scimitar still protruding from my body. I felt faint just by looking at it. Now that I had a moment of calm, I began to notice how much pain I was actually in. My chest throbbed and breathing was next to impossible. Blood trickled from my hind legs where the zebras had sliced my tendons. My whole body was shaking, but I couldn’t tell if that was from the pain or the traumatic ordeal that my life had become.

“Oh, I met your old man by the way. Interesting guy. Kinda a dick though,” Pyre stated, distracting me from the aching pain all over my body.

I felt a strange mix of emotions flood through me at that. My father was still alive. I didn’t know if I should be happy or horrified. Finally I just gave a grunt. “Good, I have a thing or two I need to talk to him about.”

Pyre chuckled. “That a girl! He doesn't seem like the talkative type, but you can give it a shot.”

“Is Brisk with them?” I asked in worry, hoping he had managed to find a safe place. “Inferno is looking for him.”

Pyre shook her head. “I haven’t seen him since the fight outside the Stable door. He darted into the Stable with that weird device thing. Haven’t seen him since.”

I exchanged a worried glance with Xayah. This was bad, but at least Inferno didn’t have Brisk or the A.A.S.S yet.

Pyre led us through a few more halls before coming to a stop outside a door. Pyre reached out and tapped on the door gingerly with her hoof.

“Who is it!” A gruff voice demanded from the far side of the door. I could have cried. I knew that voice. It belonged to the purple security pony that had arrested Brisk and I on our last day in the Stable.

“It’s me, that dumb fucking phycopath, remember?” Pyre snorted in minor annoyance. I wonder what conversation they had had prior to this to evoke such a response.

There was silence on the far side of the door for a second, then the door slid open and revealed the room beyond. A group of maybe four hundred ponies sat tending their wounds in the room. A few security ponies were standing at attention in each corner of the room.

Aside from a couple batons that hung at the security ponies sides, they whole group was incredibly ill-equipped.

I gulped. How did we hope to execute a successful rebellion against such powerful adversaries with a couple of beat up ponies that had never been in a fight and a hoof full of batons? Then again, I had made it across Manehattan and back with less.

I gave everypony in the room a weak smile. It was good to see that there were survivors regardless.

A familiar looking dark purple pony with a white mane trotted up to me and passed me a bottle of whiskey. I took the bottle in my shaking hooves and took a small sip of the burning alcohol. As soon as the liquid hit my tongue I spat it out in disgust.

“There’s the Amber Aura that I know,” Shade chuckled, taking back the bottle and chugging the rest of the contents. “Never thought I’d see your sorry face back here.”

I gave her a small smirk, showing off a couple of my missing teeth. “Eh, I’m a hard pony to kill I suppose.”

Shade shook her head. “You’re a stubborn pony, that’s for sure,” She sighed. “You look absolutely awful, but it’s good to have you back.”

“Thanks,” I said dully. “It’s good to know you’re okay.”

Pyre groaned and placed me down on the floor. “Alright, that’s enough reunion time for you. You need some healing, pronto,” Pyre Blaze insisted, gesturing for a pony in a lab coat to get over here.

The pony obeyed, but cast Pyre and I a dirty look. “I have other ponies to treat right now you know,” The doctor deadpanned, pulling out a couple of healing potions. “If you haven’t noticed, you are not the only ponies that need help here.”

Pyre growled at him, making him cringe back. “My friend is injured, and if you don’t want to need healing yourself, you’re going to help her,” She snarled, gesturing to me.

“Oh? We’re friends now?” I asked smugly to Pyre as the doctor began looking over my wounds. “I thought we were simply tolerating each other for mutual benefit?”

Pyre shrugged. “I figure if we’re gonna get through this bitch of a situation you’ve gotten us into, then we might as well do it on good terms with each other.”

I gave her a grin. “Yeah. friends.”

“This moment is lovely and all,” The doctor interrupted, placing his hoof on the handle of the sword protruding from my chest. “But if I am to remove this with any success then I will need to concentrate.”

Pyre nodded and gave me a gentle bump on the shoulder. “Catch ya later buddy,” It was good to have somepony as strong as Pyre Blaze on my side.

“I’m going to need to remove the sword,” The doctor said, pulling out a thick cloth and giving it to me. “Bite down on this. This is going to hurt.”

I did as he instructed and clamped my mouth down on the cloth. The doctor reached down and withdrew the curved blade from my chest. I bit down harder as my body tried to force a scream from my mouth. As soon as the blade was clear of my chest, hot blood began spilling from the wound. The doctor pressed against the gaping wound with a hoof and passed me two healing potions with the other. I raised them to my lips and chugged the magical fluid as quickly as I could. Instantly I could feel the hole in my chest closing up. I pulled the lid off the second bottle and drank that one as well.

The doctor removed his hooves, revealing a large silver scar where I had been stabbed. The doctor instructed me to roll over so he could examine my hind legs. The healing potions had done a majority of the work, but he quickly wrapped them up in gauze just in case.

“You’re legs should heal pretty quickly, but that was a rather nasty wound you got,” the doctor said. “I would advise not walking for at least a few hours to let your legs truly heal,” Then he was off looking over the next pony in need of help.

Xayah walked up and lay down next to me. “Are you doing okay?” She asked, running her hoof over the silver scar on my chest.

I gritted my teeth together. “I’ll be fine,” I lied. The image of all the ponies Inferno had killed because of me flashed through my mind. I shut my eyes to try and block out the image, but I couldn’t seem to get it out of my head.

Xayah shook her head and nuzzled me. “I know you aren’t, but we will get through this together, okay?”

I gulped and nodded slowly. “Okay, I’m glad you’re here with me,” I said softly. Xayah gave me a small, sad smile.

I heard a pony clear their throat. I looked up to see my father looking down at me. He had a sad look in his eyes.

The two of us just stared at each other for a long time, neither one of us knowing what to say. Finally my father broke the silence. “Amber… I’m… glad to see you.”

If this whole ordeal hadn’t been enough, that was. I broke down again, my body being wracked with shaky sobs. Despite the doctors warning, I pushed myself up and wrapped my hooves around my father and cried into his shoulder. He didn’t hug me back at first, he just stood there, staring painfully at the wall. Then, as if unable to control himself, he returned the hug and wept.

Neither of us stopped crying for a long time.

I pushed myself back a little and sat back down, resting my hind legs. “Dad, I’m… I’m so sorry that all of this happened. I really… I really thought that I could fix this,” I whimpered between my tears.

“I know,” My father stated bluntly. “I’m sorry about what I said to you the night you left. I should have handled the situation better.”

I laughed nervously. “Yeah, uh… Sorry for telling you to go fuck yourself and all that…” I rubbed the back of my head and chuckled nervously. “So uh… yeah. Sorry,” I looked at the ponies tending to their injuries. “How did those zebras and Inferno get into the Stable in the first place?”

“I’m not sure,” my father admitted. "I never opened the door for them. They must have found a way to override the Stable door somehow.”

I furrowed my brow. “But that doesn’t make sense. If they could have just gone through the front door, why didn’t they do that the first time the cyber ponies came here?”

My father shrugged. “I don’t know Amber. I simply don’t know.”

There was a long silence between us as we tried to figure out how to continue.

My father knelt down next to me and looked out at the ponies around us. “It must have been hard. Outside the Stable. You don’t seem like the Amber that left.”

I looked at him in confusion. “What do you mean by that?” I asked. “Like, I look different and stuff? I got a few cuts and bruises, that's for sure, but…”

“No,” My father said, cutting me off. “You’re acting more mature. A lot more hardened. I don’t think the Amber that left the Stable would have been able to see what you’ve seen and still be okay.”

I chuckled. “You would not believe the last few days I’ve had.”

“I’m sure I wouldn’t,” My father agreed, looking down at his hooves. He took a deep breath. “Have I ever told you how your mother died?” he asked, finally looking over to me.

I shook my head. I had asked him a few times when I was old enough to understand what death was, but he had never really answered the question. Whenever I asked he just shook his head and moved on with what he was doing.

He sighed. “She hated living in the Stable. Always wanted to get me to open it up to the outside world. I of course couldn’t let her do that,” He rubbed his head and tried to hide the tears in his eyes. “One day, shortly after you were born, she stole the override code from my office and left the Stable. I did everything I could to bring her back. Finally a scouting mission was arranged, but when they found her it was too late. Some sick monster of the wasteland had cut her open and left her to bleed out in some garbage dump. I never got to say goodbye.”

I blinked away a couple of tears and placed my hoof on his. “Well I came back. You didn’t need to say goodbye to me.”

A pony in security armour walked up and stopped in front of us. “Sir, we need to do something. Ponies are getting restless.”

Security…

I narrowed my eyes at the security pony and pulled my hooves away from my father. “You did nothing,” I growled at both my father and the security pony.

My father raised his eyebrow sceptically, shocked by my abrupt change in tone. “Did nothing about what?”

“About Brisk,” I snarled, my voice rising with every word. “He came to you about what security had done to him and you did nothing!” I pulled myself to my hooves again, only to fall back down. “How could you do that to him!”

Ponies were beginning to look at us. I didn’t care. I wanted answers. Xayah put a hoof on my shoulder.

“Amber, perhaps it would be foolish to pursue this issue now. Perhaps we should wait for a more opportune moment.”

I shrugged her off. “No, I want answers now.”

My father's eyes flickered to Xayah as if it were the first time he had seen her. “How did a zebra get in here?!”

“She’s with me!” I snapped, trying to force him to stay on topic. “Why the fuck did you do nothing for Brisk!”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” My father stated, his eyes still transfixed on Xayah. “Perhaps we should talk about this later. Once this whole mess is done with.”

My eyes narrowed. “You know exactly what I’m talking about. I know you do,” I could feel the rage building up inside me again. I had so much rage now. I feared when this was all over rage would be all that was left of the little pink pony once known as Amber Aura.

I saw a bead of sweat roll down my father's face. The security mare next to him was looking awfully uncomfortable as well. They knew. Damn it they knew.

“Amber,” Xayah pleaded, looking around at all the ponies looking at them. A few faces a begun glaring at Xayah in anger. No doubt they were associating her with the zebras that attacked the Stable.

I growled at my father one last time before turning back to Xayah. “We need to find Brisk! Any idea where he is,” There was an edge to my voice. I could see a small sliver of fear in Xayah’s eyes at my tone.

Xayah shook her head. “I have never been in this Stable before. I do not know where he would hide.”

I started pacing back and forth, completely disregarding what the doctor had told me not to do. My legs stung, but I could walk. “Brisk is smart. He would hide somewhere that he knows I’ll be able to find him,” I walked back and forth a little more. What did I know about Brisk? Where would he hide?

I thought back to when I first met him. He had hid from security above the generator in the generator room. Could that be it? I took a deep breath. “I think I know where Brisk Spark is.”

“I can walk fine,” I complained as Pyre carried me down the empty hallway. I had insisted upon walking, but everypony insisted that I let Pyre carry me so that I didn’t injure my legs anymore than they already were.

“Not if we need to run,” Xayah said from behind me. “If we are confronted by trouble, then we will need to make a speedy escape.

I groaned and let my hooves dangle lazily from Pyre’s side. “Fine… but I don’t have to like it,” I grumbled. I pointed down a hallway. “Turn here.”

Pyre turned and headed down a second flight of stairs. A head of us I spotted the sliding door leading to the generator room. The door had been covered in blood and the mangled corpse of a maintenance pony lay broken next to to on the floor. This all seemed like some horrifying nightmare that I couldn’t seem to wake up from.

Pyre reacted with surprise and quickly ducked into a side room. I was about to ask what she was doing when I saw the two red bars on my own EFS. Zebras.

We peered around the corner to see two zebras walking out of the room next to the generator room and slowly approaching towards us. We ducked back behind the corner off the wall. They hadn’t seemed to notice us.

“You think that cyber pony is going to keep his word?” I heard one of the zebras ask.

The other zebra grunted. “Hard to tell. As far as I can see, Inferno is in it for the caps. As long as Kamari is paying more than Red Eye, Inferno will deliver.”

“I hope so,” The first zebra muttered. “I do not wish to fight that monster. He is quite terrifying.”

“It’s Red Eye I’m worried about,” The other zebra responded. “If he finds out where Kamari is, what’s to stop him from wiping all of us out?”

The first zebra gave a small laugh. “Because if we get the A.A.S.S. Red eye will not be a problem. We will have the power of the stars on our side.”

Both zebras laughed as they continued down the hallway. I could feel Xayah shaking next to me.

“You okay?” I whispered to her.

“I do not know what they mean, the power of the stars. I do not know,” Was all Xayah said.

We crept out of our hiding spot and approached the generator room. I tapped my pipbuck against the panel beside the door and watched as the door slid open with a click.

Blam!

A bullet whizzed past us, nearly shooting Pyre Blaze in the face.

“Shit, sorry,” Brisk apologize sincerely, slowly climbing down from the top of the generator. “Thought you were zebras.” Xayah rolled her eyes.

Pyre glanced at the bullet lying a few feet away from her. “Maybe look before you shoot next time. You almost blew my fucking brains out with that shot.”

“Sorry,” Brisk apologized again, a little less sympathetically this time. He looked the three of us over. “Goddesses, I thought you guys were dead.”

I gave Brisk a smug grin. “Hurt, but still kicking. You doing alright?”

“Yeah, I’m doing fine,” Brisk lied, giving off his best fake smile. “Yourself?”

“Never better,” I lied back. We both knew full well that neither of us would probably ever be fine again. We could accept that. Sometimes things break you, and there is no amount of time that will heal the wound.

Brisk reached into his bag and pulled out the A.A.S.S. “I still have it. I considered putting it back into the machiny thing, but I figured that that would alert that metal bastard as to where it is.”

“Not a bad idea. Probably won't be able to return it until Inferno and the Zebras are taken care off,” I said. “But I have no idea how to take them all on. There are too many.”

“What about the security?” Xayah asked, looking back out the door and into the hallway beyond.

“Most of Security is dead,” Pyre stated bluntly. “We’ve got a couple of ponies in security barding and a few batons, but that's about it.”

Xayah shook her head. “No, not the security ponies. The security systems,” She pointed up at a deactivated turret hanging from the roof in the centre of the hallway. “Can those be used to aid us?”

I looked up at the turret. There were hundreds of turrets located throughout the Stable. They were put into place in the off chance that the ponies in the Stable started some form of uprising against the Overmare or Overstallion.

“Yeah, all the turrets are controlled at a control center in the security wing. It has overrides for all the doors as well, assuming you have the codes to access them,” I said. Bits of a plan started forming in my mind. “If we could lock down parts of the Stable we could keep the zebras concentrated in one place, then slowly feed them through the tunnels and pick them off with the turrets,” I said aloud, trying to put all of my thoughts into words.

“There is a fuckton of Zebras,” Pyre Blaze reminded me. “I doubt we would be able to take out them all. Plus we’ll need those door override codes you were talking about.”

“I know where we can get those codes,” Brisk blurted excitedly. “On the night I left the Stable, I downloaded all of the override codes onto my pipbuck. Unfortunately they security ponies confiscated it, but it and the codes should still be in the locker where security keeps most of their stuff.”

I nodded. “There’s probably a large arsenal of weaponry there as well,” I said. If we can get a small infiltration team together to sneak down to the locker and retrieve Brisk’s old pipbuck and some guns we might have a fighting chance against the remnants of the zebras. We could lead them right into a trap after we set the turrets on them.”

“And what about Inferno?” Xayah questioned. “I doubt turrets will be able to take him out and it is unlikely we would be able to kill him even with a large arsenal of weaponry at our disposal.”

Pyre nodded. “I’ve gone hoof to hoof against that bastard twice now. I don't think I’ve ever fought a stronger opponent, and I’ve fought hoards of hellhound by myself.”

“We’ve taken down two Cyber ponies already. I think we can take on one more,” I said with more confidence than I felt.

“That’s a nice way of saying you have no plan,” Pyre said with a grin. “We're soooooo dead.”

“The plan is simple,” I said to everypony. We had returned to the rest of the ponies to tell them our plan. I stood in front of the large crowd, all eyes were locked on me. My hooves trembled slightly, but I managed to keep a calm composure. “Brisk, Xayah and two members of security are going to sneak into the security locker and retrieve as many weapons as they can and bring them back here. Brisk is also going to retrieve his old pipbuck and bring it to me so that I can corral the zebras and gun them down with turrets while all of you get into position. I’ll be able to hold the zebras back, and I’ll try to take out as many as I can, but when they break through you all need to be ready to take out the rest of them.”

“And what about the cyber pony?” Shade asked, raising her voice over the din of the room. “What are we supposed to do about him?” the crowd of ponies looked around at each other uncomfortably. No doubt each and every one of them had been wondering the same thing.

I gestured to Pyre Blaze who was standing next to me. “Pyre and anypony who wishes to volunteer are going to try and keep Inferno distracted for as long as they can. I’ll try to tire him out with the turrets as well, though I have reason to believe that will have minimal effect on him. Once the zebras have left the range of the turrets and are in combat with you I’ll go and help Pyre take out Inferno if she hasn’t dealt with him already.”

“And what do you want me to do?” My father asked, stepping forwards. “This is my Stable, and I’ll be damned if I just sit back and let everypony save it without me.”

“I’ll need you and Shade to help me get into the control center as you two are the only ponies outside of security that has access to the area. We are going to need as many security ponies as we can helping out with everything else so we won't be able to spare one for my part of the plan. Once in the control centre, I’ll need you to watch my back incase we get attacked.”

My father gave a small nod followed by Shade giving me a small smirk and salute. “I’ll follow your lead,” I felt my spirits rise as my father said those words. How long I had waited to hear him say something like that.

I took a deep breath. “Alright, anypony have any questions?” no pony raised their hooves. “Alright then. Let’s show these fuckers that they messed with the wrong damn Stable!”

I crept towards the doorway of the security wing. My father and Shade slinked forwards a few feet ahead of me and Brisk, Xayah and two security ponies trailed behind us. I gave Brisk and Xayah a parting wave as our two groups split up and headed in opposite directions.

“How much farther is it to the control center?” I asked as we entered the security wing.

“Not much farther,” My father said, glancing down at his pipbuck. He froze. “There are three red bars up ahead,” He informed us. I glanced around and spotted a large paperweight on a security desk against the side of the hallway. I picked it up in my magic and approached the room. As I got closer I began to make out the zebras talking.

“I don’t know. It seems weird that those Stable ponies are staying quiet for so long,” One zebra muttered in aggravation. “I figured they would have tried to reclaim their Stable by now.”

“Have patience, they cannot take us all out,” Another zebra soothed. “Besides, Inferno managed to get a pony to let us in, did he not? I’m sure our little spy can keep us informed.”

We all froze. Somepony had let the zebras into the Stable? But who?

I glanced at my father and Shade, but they seemed equally confused. I took a deep breath and whipped around the corner, bashing the nearest zebras head in with the paperweight.

The zebra stumbled, dropping its curved blade. I scooped it up in my magic and stabbed it through the chest of the next zebra. The final zebra charged at me, only for me to target its head in SATS and lash it across the face three times with deadly precision.

My father gawked at me as all three zebras fell dead at my hooves. “When did you become a fighter?” He asked, awestruck.

I shrugged. “You learn to do things in the wasteland,” I said simply. Ain’t that the truth.

I picked up the three curved blades and distributed them among us evenly. Now we at least had something to fight with for next time.

We continued through the security wing. We didn’t seem to see many more zebras after that. After a few minutes of walking, my father came to a stop next to a large sliding Stable door.

“The control room is just inside, give me a second,” He bent down and started punching a code into the control panel next to the door. A few seconds later, the door slid open with a hiss.

“Now what?” Shade asked, taking a small sip of her whiskey and approaching the different terminals and monitors. She began turning on all of the screens.

“Now we hold this position and wait for Brisk to get us his pipbuck,” I stated.

“Do you really think this plan will work?” My father asked, walking over and looking at the stable controls. “I mean those zebras are pretty well trained compared to us Stable ponies, and honestly… Brisk isn’t the most reliable pony.”

I glared at him. “I trust Brisk with my life, and the life of every pony in this Stable,” I remembered our conversation from earlier. “I trust him to do what's right more than I trust you.”

The monitures buzzed to life above us. “Got ‘em working,” Shade stated flatly, scrolling though the different cameras throughout the Stable. On the monitures I could see that a majority of the zebras were gathering in a room not far from the Stables main atrium. Good, that would be a good place to bottleneck them.

I flipped through until I found the locker area. Brisk, Xayah and the Security ponies had just entered it. Unfortunately, there were a couple of zebras there as well. The three of us watched in suspense as our comrades quickly dispatched the zebras. I hated being able to watch the fight, but not be able to help my friends. I switched to the camera that overlooked the ponies waiting in anticipation for our infiltration team to return with the weapons.

“We’ve got a few minutes until its showtime,” I said flatly, flipping through a few different cameras. I couldn’t seem to find Inferno. Hopeful he wasn’t going to be too much of a problem. “I think now is a good time to talk.”

“Talk about what?” Shade asked, glancing back and forth between my father and I.

“Amber, I really don’t think we should talk about this,” My father soothed.

I narrowed my eyes at him. “I really think we do,” we were both silent for a long moment. “Why didn’t you help him?”

“Amber, please,” My father tried to defuse the topic again.

I felt the rage returning. “Why didn’t you fucking help Brisk after he was raped!”

A look of sickening fear crossed over my father's face. Shade cast him a surprised glance. “I knew the Stable was fucked up, but I didn’t realize it was that fucked up,” Shade grimaced, taking another swig of her whiskey. “Tell me this isn’t true?”

My Father slowly sat down and placed his head in his hooves. “Goddesses. Don’t bring this up. Not now...”

Shade winced at that. “It is true then. Isn’t it.”

My father nodded. “His parents came to me with the news of what had happened to him. Told me to hold charges against the security pony responsible,” He buried his head deeper in his hooves. “And I did nothing. But look Amber, you need to understand that I couldn’t have done anything. If I had stepped out of line, security would have killed me… and you. My hooves were tied.”

I shook my head. “I’ve learned a lot of things in the wasteland dad, but if there is one thing that I have learned for certain, it's that you always have a choice. The choice to do what’s right, and the choice to do what’s wrong. And you’ll need to own up to the consequences of your choice, regardless of which one you make.”

“Fuck, and I thought the blatant mind controlling, love the Overstallion, fear security shit was bad,” Shade coughed. “Makes me feel like Brisk was right for leaving. This whole place is one big fuck up, and now we’re all paying the price.”

I leaned down and gave my father a hoof. “Just don’t make this mistake again, okay dad?” I told him, helping him to his hooves. “Fix what you’ve done and make sure you never repeat the past.”

My father nodded. “Yes, of course. Thank you.”

The door to the control center slid open and Brisk marched into the room carrying a collection of machine guns across his back. He must have acquired an eyepatch from the locker as he had one placed tightly over his missing eye.

“Your savior has arrived,” Brisk declared, placing his old, beat up pipbuck on the table next to me. “And I found this is the locker Amber, I figured you would want it,” He tossed my saddlebags onto the floor in front of me. “The zebras must have put it into the locker with the rest of our stuff.”

I peered into my saddlebags. Everything seemed to still be there. I pulled out Boneless and my baton and grinned. “Perfect, thank you Brisk,” I pulled him close and gave him a tight hug. “I like the eyepatch by the way.”

Brisk grinned ear to ear. “I don’t know why the hell they had one in the locker, but fuck yeah! Brisk is officially a badass!”

I shook my head, but couldn’t help but smile. “Get going you doofus. The rest of the Stable needs a badass like you right now.”

He gave me a wink, which kind of just looked like a blink since he only had one eye and turned to head out the door.

My father reached forwards and put a hoof on Brisk’s shoulder, stopping him. “Brisk, wait.”

Brisk turned back and took a nervous step away from the Overstallion. “What do you want?”

My father cleared his throat. “I just… I just wanted to say I’m sorry. For what happened to you… how I treated you… You deserved better.”

Brisk glanced down at his bandaged hooves. “Yeah… thanks I guess. Whatever,” Brisk grunted. Then he nervously darted out of the room and out of sight.

My father shook slightly as he watched Brisk dart away. He dropped his hoof back to the ground and stared out into the hallway. “I don’t feel I amended what I had done to him.”

I shook my head. “I doubt you ever will. But at least you are trying,” I glanced over at Brisk’s old pipbuck resting on the table beside me. “Alrighty… it’s showtime.”

I flipped through the different cameras. The Stable ponies were gathering in the atrium. I could see Xayah and the two security ponies that had accompanied her and Brisk handing out weapons to everypony. I flipped to the camera overlooking a majority of the zebras. They seemed unsuspecting at the moment, though that was soon about to change. Good.

I flipped through more and more cameras, trying to spot Inferno. Finally I came to a camera that overlooked Pyre Blaze and a couple of security ponies that had volunteered to help her slinking down a hallway. I switched to a camera in the room they were outside of to find Inferno crouching behind the door in anticipation. He had clearly spotted Pyre and the other ponies on his EFS. I could see Pyre react similarly.

Everything seemed to be in order. I returned to the camera view overlooking the zebras. “Action,” I muttered, activating the override code on the doors. I saw multiple doors around the zebras slam shut. Two zebras got stuck between the doors while they closed, their body getting completely cut in half by the powerful mechanical doors. The zebras reeled in surprise as they realized what was happening.

I turned to the control terminal next to me and turned it on. The screen flickered to life.

>Standardized turret control firmware v8.13

>Status: Online, all clear

>Admin: Turret defence system

>Units connected: 207

>Please exercise caution around turrets, users should always assume that turrets are loaded and capable of live-fire.

[Activate]

I clicked activate. At once, I saw the turrets swing to life above the Zebras heads. I could see them shouting and rushing to disable the turrets as fast as possible. A hoof full of zebras fell to the turrets fire, but not as many as I would have liked. I opened up one of the doors and began hurding the crowd of zebras through a maze of turrets. A few more fell to the turrets fire, but a majority of the zebras still remained.

I switched over to the camera watching Pyre. She was in an explosive combat with Inferno. I couldn’t tell who had attacked first. Two of the security ponies that had accompanied Pyre already lay charred at Inferno's hooves as he lashed his tail against Pyre’s thick power armour.

I reached for the turret controls and switched that hallway to manual controls and began directing the turrets fire at Inferno. As I had expected, the turrets rapid fire did little against Inferno’s strong armour and impressive regenerative abilities.

Inferno let loose a blast of flame that engulf the remaining Security ponies attacking him. The ponies went up in flame, thrashing themselves against the Stable wall in a desperate attempt to put out the fire.

Inferno returned his attention to Pyre. My power armoured raider friends slammed into him, tossing the cyber pony stumbling to the ground. Inferno growled and lunged onto Pyre, pinning her down with his hooves and bashing her across the face with his spiked tail, knocking her unconscious.

I aimed the turret and fired at the back of his head. The flamers at Inferno’s side swiveled to face the turret and blasted it apart with a single jet of flame. Inferno glanced around casually, before finally letting his glaze rest on the security camera. I winced back as his gaze met mine through the screen.

He grinned at me. I might not have been able to hear what he was saying, but I could easily tell by the smug look on his face. “There you are Amber,” He seemed to say to me. Then the monitor was obscured by flames.

“Shit… you think he’s coming for us?” Shade asked, eyeing the monitor worriedly.

I gulped. “Oh yeah. He’s coming for us. May Celestia save us all,” I turned back to the camera watching the zebras. They had almost made it to the atrium. I might only be able to take a few more out with turrets before they made it to the Stable ponies waiting for them with machine guns. We had them out gunned, but they still outnumbered us two to one.

My father nervously looked at the screens. “This plan of yours isn’t going exactly to plan right now, is it?” He asked.

I wiped some sweat from my brow and shook my head. “We aren’t out of this yet… but no, this could be going better.”

There was a crash from down the hall. “Amber! Come out, Come out, wherever you are!” I heard Inferno scream.

Shit! I knew he was coming for us, but I hadn’t expected him to find us so fast!

“Lock the doors to the security wing!” Shade demanded in a panic, glancing down the hall. I spotted Inferno charging towards us, the hallway filling with flames behind him as he rocketed forwards. I turned and locked down every door on the security level. Three massive steel door slammed down between us and the raging cyber pony. I could hear Inferno scream in anger and begin slamming against the metal doors.

On the monitor I saw the first zebra enter the atrium. In unison, the Stable ponies raised their weapons and fired. The zebra was pulped in seconds. More zebras began spilling into the room, surging forwards in organized rows of two as they squeezed through the small door.

I aimed the turrets in the atrium at the door and let loose a constant stream of fire at the onslaught of zebras. The bullets ripped through countless zebras, but still more seemed to spill from the opening and overpower the Stable dwellers.

I heard a massive crash as Inferno burst through the first security door. Those doors weren’t going to hold him long.

“You two need to run!” I demanded, pointing to a door on the far side of the room. “I can hold Inferno off.”

“Are you crazy?!” My father exclaimed, holding up the curved blade he acquired from the now dead zebra. “I won’t let my daughter fight that thing alone.”

I gave him a thankful nod. I turned to Shade. “You really should run. I don’t want you getting hurt.”

Shade nodded, knowing full well that I was nicely saying she would just get in the way and darted towards the back exit and out of the room.

There was another loud bang as Inferno smashed through the second door. The insane cyber pony began ramming against the door to the control room. Each time he slammed into the door a massive indent formed in the metal surface.

“Are you sure about this?” I asked my father as I turned to face the door. “There’s a good chance he is going to kill us. Or worse.”

My father grunted in resignation. “I think I screwed up a lot of things in my life. Brisk, the Stable, but I think I failed with you the most.”

“Look, I know I wasn’t the child you wanted. I’m sorry I couldn’t have been more like you,” I said softly. “I truly wish we could start this whole father daughter thing all over again and get it right.”

My father shook his head. “No, you're not the child I wanted. You are far too good to be that. I think the reason you never got an Overmare Cutie Mark is because unlike the rest of this cursed family, you were able to truly be yourself. Be the pony you were supposed to be and not have some predetermined fate thrust upon you. I think I’ve proven that I was far from a good Overstallion. And for that, I am proud to call you my daughter.”

I felt a small tear roll down my cheek. I felt something that wasn’t rage for the first time since returning to the Stable. I felt hope. Hope that maybe, just maybe, things would turn out okay.

The door flew open with an explosive bang, jets of flame spewing through the entrance. We rolled to the side to avoid been burned alive as the fire consumed the space we had just occupied.

Inferno strode into the room, his metal hide burned in places and bits of his flesh slowly pulling itself back together. “Oh Amber! I think it's time we ended this little game of ours!” he looked down at us and cackled. “How would you like to be cooked? Medium or rare?”

I telekinetically lifted Boneless into the air and leveled it with Inferno’s face. “Actually, I tend to like my steak with a side of suck it!” I pulled down on the trigger and fired three explosive slugs point blank into his face.

Inferno reeled back, clutching his face with a hoof as his flamers began firing a steady jet around the room. I rolled to the side to avoid being torched and pulled out my shock baton. I had noticed that the shock effect was fairly effective on the last two cyber ponies. Let's hope it's equally effective on this one.

My father lashed at Inferno with his zebra blade. The blade cut deep into Inferno’s leg, but failed to sever it. Inferno whipped around and lashed and him with his tail, sending my father flying across the room and crashing against the wall.

Inferno learched forwards, ramming his metal hooves against my father's chest and stomping him into the ground. Before he could finish him however, I sprang at him with my baton and smacked him across the back of the head. An electrical shock pulsed through him, momentarily locking up his armour.

My father slipped from his grip and rammed the edge of his zebra blade through Inferno’s chest. The blade sunk deep into the cyber ponies body, but was stopped as it came in contact with the Inferno’s heavy metal heart.

Inferno broke free from his locked state and bashed my baton aside with his tail before sending a stream of fire in our direction. I pushed my father to the ground as the fire roared over us.

Everything in the room had caught fire. Massive flames streaked up the sides of the walls and the terminals began exploding under the heat of Inferno’s flames. Charred bits of metal began collapsing from the ceiling as Inferno’s rage began engulfing more of the room surrounding us.

I pulled myself up and lunged for my baton, only for Inferno to swat it away from me again with his tail. He lashed at me again, this time aiming for my face. I ducked and kicked at him with my hooves. Inferno back stepped, easily avoiding my attack.

My father jumped into Inferno from the side, knocking the cyber pony off balance. Inferno regained his composure and bucked him off, lashing out with his tail and cutting my father across the chest.

I screamed at raced forwards, slamming the end of Boneless against Inferno’s head. The cyber pony staggered, his glowing red eyes locking with mine.

Inferno snarled and pounced onto me, holding me down with his hooves. I felt the metal on the bottom of his hooves heat up as he began to charge up his jet hooves.

Fuck! I had forgotten these cyber ponies had jet hooves!

I rammed the end of Boneless into his mouth and let loose a slug right into his brain. Inferno’s head exploded, allowing me to push myself away just as his hooves burst into flames and rocketed him towards the ceiling.

I quickly checked my ammo. Only two shots left in Boneless. Damn it, I needed to stay stocked up on shotgun shells better.

My father looked over the flailing headless body of Inferno. “Is he- Is he dead?” He asked, raising his weapon and drawing closer to the cyber pony.

Inferno’s head began to pull itself back together before us. His mouth slowly mended itself back, allowing him to laugh. “Oh, it has been so long since I’ve gotten to have a good fight!” Inferno chuckled. His eyes slowly reformed, letting him look us over. “But we all know that you still won’t be able to win this fight!”

His flamers whirred to life again, sending burning flames spewing towards us. I tumbled to the side, the left side of my body scorched by multiple burn marks.

Inferno approached me through the hazy smoke filled air. “How about we finish this?”

His bladed tail lashed forwards, aimed towards my heart. My father jumped in the way of the blade, the long spiked shaft skewering him through the chest. His blood splattered against my face.

Inferno retracted his tail and let my father's corpse flop to the ground next to me. I reached forwards and touched his face with my hoof. He was so cold.

Once again I felt the rage inside me. It had taken me my whole life to truly understand and connect with my father. And now he was dead. Dead because of this fucking basterd.

I pulled myself to my hooves, ignoring the pain that shot through my hind legs or the burning sensation on my left side.

Inferno chuckled, placing his hoof on my father's head and crushing his skull flat. “Oops. Did daddy get hurt?”

I screamed something that didn’t sound like it came from a pony mouth and tackled Inferno to the ground. Inferno bashed against me with his hooves, denting my ribs and cutting large holes open in my sides. His tail flew backwards and impaled my hind leg.

But I didn’t care. Not anymore. Inferno had succeeded in destroying everything that I cared about, everything I had fought to save while I journeyed across the wasteland. He had won and left me with nothing. Nothing but pure, uncontrollable rage.

The sensation filled me, fueled me. Each strike of my hoof against Inferno’s head was packed full of rage. And still Inferno endured. His metal armour and scarred flesh patched itself back together faster than I could destroy it. My front hooves were broken from slamming them so hard against his tough metal form. His flamers licked at my underside, searing my flesh and cooking my insides.

And all the while Inferno laughed as if he had just been told the funniest joke in the world.

I couldn’t win… not against him. So instead I reached into my saddlebag and grabbed the first thing my magic came in contact with. The memory recollector I had found in the Four Star Apartment building.

I Telekinetically pulled it from my bag and bashed it against his head. Instantly, as if I had just entered a memory orb, the whole world swirled away around me.

I was floating in darkness. Small silver lights danced around me in beautiful patterns. It what I imagined a starry night sky might look like, had the Enclave not created the cloud cover over the wasteland. The silver stars seemed to be singing a melancholy song to me. I knew this song, recently I had come to know it well. It was the song of how the wasteland corrupts. The song of rage.

A metal form floated a few feet away from me. I squinted at it, trying to make out exactly what it was. The form began to move and unfold until I could make out the silhouette of Inferno. He glanced at me, his eyes filled with fear.

“Where ther fuck are we!” He demanded, glaring down at me. “What the fuck did you do!”

I took a step back. “Inside your head… I think,” I answered, not fully sure what I had done myself.

Inferno growled. “Get out of my head you bitch!” He lunged at me, slashing at my throat with his tail. I shut my eyes, waiting for death. Death never came. Inferno’s bladed tail sailed straight through me as if I were made of air. He stared at me with astonished loathing. “Fucking unicorns and their magic tricks!”

“We won’t be able to hurt each other in here,” I informed him. “Our physical bodies are still back in the Stable.”

Inferno’s flamers whirred to life and blasted me with a large burst of fire. The flames washed over me, passing through my form. Inferno stomped his hooves in frustration as I emerged from his attack unharmed.

“You are only delaying the inevitable,” He snarled. “As soon as I get out of here. You’re dead!”

I grimace. “I figured as much.”

A small orb of silver light floated down from above our heads and hovered before me. It sang a different song than the rest of the silver orbs. This one sounded happy. A fleeting memory of what once might have been.

I reached forwards with a hoof towards the pulsating light. Inferno flew at me, lashing at me with his hooves only for his whole body to pass through me. “Stay away from those!” He threatened, trying to move between me and the orb.

I ignored his threat and placed my hoof against the light. Let's see what a fearsome cyber pony like Inferno feared. As my hoof came in contact with the silver orb it began to expand, overtaking the dark void with a blinding light.

When the light died, we found ourselves in the wasteland. To our right was a field of some mutated fruit and to our left was a ramshackled farmhouse that had clearly seen better days. A beat up looking Sprite Bot floated through the air next to us.

“Where are we?” I asked, taking in my new surroundings.

Inferno sighed and looked over to the horizon where I could see the silhouette of a colt racing towards us. “No tragedy would be what it is, if not for a glimmer of hope at the beginning,” Inferno grunted, followed the young colt longingly with his eyes. “That there… that was me. A long time ago.”

I wanted to ask what that ment, but before I could, an old mare and buck walked out of the farmhouse. “Whistle! Get over here please!” The elderly mare called out. The colt changed direction and rushed towards the couple at the farmhouse.

“Coming mom!” The colt yelped. Now closer I could make out the colts scarlet coloured coat. The colt jumped over a broken picket fence and raced into the building.

The scene shifted and we found ourselves around a small table in the middle of the farmhouse. The colt and his parents sat around the table, eating a strange mix of the mutated fruit and what I imagined to be bloatfly meat.

“I saw a dead Hellhound today!” young Inferno declared proudly, taking a bite from the meat. “It was really cool!”

His father gave him a small smile, but there was a look of worry in his eyes. “Where did you see that Whistle?”

Whistle pointed out the window. “Just down the road by that broken down power plant.”

His mother and father exchanged a glance. No doubt they were worried about how close a hellhound had been to their home.

I looked over at Inferno, who was staring at the parents intently. “This was you as a kid?” I asked, pointing to the scarlet colt. “You and your family seem so… Normal?”

Inferno huffed. “Everypony has their beginnings.”

"Your name used to be Whistle?" I asked, glancing at the colt. Inferno simply grunted in response.

I shook my head in disbelief. I didn’t like seeing these monsters as anything more that violent death machines. The idea that they had once been just a small colt like every pony else should have been obvious, but it was hard to wrap my head around all the same.

“What happened then?” I asked.

Inferno pointed towards his father. “Watch.”

His father’s hoof flew up to his chest, his body began shaking violently as he racked with violent pains. His wife and son flew to his side in an instant.

“Dad! Dad! What’s wrong!” The colt cried, grappling onto his father's leg.

I glanced at Inferno for him to elaborate on what happened. He just stood stoically and stared off out the window. “We never found out what actually happened to him,” Inferno grunted. “One day he was fine, then the next moment he was dead. It might have been a heart attack or something. I just don’t know.”

The scene shifted again and we found ourselves overlooking a small unmarked grave next to the farmhouse.

Inferno took a shuttery breath. “We buried him outside the house. The next day we had to leave.”

“Why did you have to leave?” I asked, leaning down and looking at the grave more closely. A loud roar from behind me gave me my answer. A group of Hellhounds tore themselves from the ground and started ripping apart the walls of the farmhouse. I heard a scream and saw the mother and young colt racing away from the house.

“We weren’t meant for the wasteland,” Inferno admitted. “We were scared, inexperienced and without any form of weapon.

The world around us morphed into the familiar streets of Manehattan. I saw the mother cornered in a back alley as a group of raiders closed in on her. She pushed her colt behind her as they neared, hoping to shield him from what was about to happen.

The raider in the lead cackled as his eyes landed on the young colt. “Oh, you think mommy can protect you? How sweet!”

The colts mother scowled. “If you touch him, I will end you!”

The raiders laughed and pulled out their blades. The mare shrank back as they got closer, her legs shaking and threatening to give out under her. The lead raider grinned a terrible grin. “Take her kid!”

Two raiders sprang forwards and grabbed onto the colt, pushing him to the ground. The mare tired to fight them, but to more raiders grabbed her from behind and threw her violently to the ground. The lead raider pulled out a pistol and placed it against the colts head.

“If you want to protect your little colt so bad, you are going to do exactly as I tell you,” The raider sneered. The raiders around him chuckled.

The mare glanced around the group, trying to find a way out. Finally her head drop and she moaned in defeat. “I’ll do anything, just please... don’t kill him.”

The lead raider grinned. “That’s a good girl," the raider mocked, pulling the colt in closer to him. He looked around at his raider gang deviously. "Now, which one of you wants to fuck this cunts pussy first!” The raiders cheered and closed in on the frightened mare.

Inferno turned his back and stared up at the sky. I wanted to do the same, but I was frozen. My eyes locked on the horrific scene that followed.

The next few minutes were a mix of perhaps the most horrible things I had ever seen. The raiders raped and tortured and degraded the mare. The called her 'slut' and 'whore' and did everything in their power to make each moment more terrible than the one before.

And all the while the colt cried. He cried for the raiders to leave his mother alone, he cried for the raiders to let him live, but above all else he cried for his mother to save him. But she never would, not this time.

Finally when the raiders had had their fun they tossed the mares wet, shivering body against the wall. The lead raider leaned over her and traced his dagger along her cheek. “I appreciate your participation,” the raider whispered. He turned back to his gang. “Hold down the colt. I want my way with him now.”

The mare screamed and thrashed her hooves against the raider. “No! You promised! Don’t you fucking dare hurt him!” She demanded.

The raiders hoof went up and slapped her across the face, knocking her back against the wall. “Tie her hooves and douse her in gasoline,” He ordered the other raiders as he turned and approached the colt with a greedy look on his face.

I forced myself to look away. I don’t know when, but at some point I had started to cry. I looked over at Inferno and to my surprise saw black tears dripping down his face.

I could hear the colt screaming as the lead raider pounded into him and the wails of his mother as the raiders struck a match and made her burn. Goddesses, why wouldn’t this memory end!

Finally I felt the world shift around me. I looked back to see a bloodsoaked colt curled up tightly against the charred and mutilated remains of his mother. The colt wept, his tears mixing with the blood and semen that coated his fur. He was covered in deep gashes all over his body and his mane was a mess.

A tall black stallion approached him. He was quiet, I didn’t even notice him until he spoke. “What’s your name there?” The stallion asked, leaning down to eye level with the colt.

The colts head shot up in surprise as he noticed the intruder for the first time. “Go away!” The colt screamed, thrashing his hooves at the new pony. “Leave me alone!”

The black stallion dodge the colts lame attack and slapped the colt across the face with his tail. The colt fell back crying.

The stallion clicked his tongue and leaned down again. “My name is Adversary. What is yours?”

The colt lashed out at him again with his hooves. Once again the stallion dodged and slapped him across the face with his tail.

The colts whole body shook as he stood to face the stallion. “I don’t want my name. Go the fuck away!”

Adversary once again slapped him in the face, knocking the colt to the ground. “Then make up a name!” Adversary growled. “What do you want to be called?”

The colt looked over at his mother's burned corpse, his body once again being racked by uncontrollable sobs and moans. When he was finally able to speak again he glanced up at Adversary. “Inferno,” The colt demanded, pulling himself back up. There was a gleam in his eye that belonged to a pony much older than he was. “Call me Inferno!”

The world swirled away and we once again found ourselves in the dark void. I looked over to Inferno. He was shaking. “What happened next?” I asked, approaching the cyber pony.

Inferno lashed a hoof out at me. I didn’t bother jumping away, I knew it would go through me. “I don’t need to tell you anything else!” he yelled. “Now get the fuck out of my head!”

“No,” I stated flatly, floating over to the next glowing silver orb.

Inferno shook and crumpled to the ground. “Please… no more…”

I shook my head and reached for the orb. What had happened to Inferno had been horrible and wrong, I wasn’t denying that. But that didn’t change the fact that he was still a monster. He deserved to go through this.

My hoof came in contact with the sphere and the void was once again filled with glowing light.

As the light diminished, we found ourselves standing tucked up behind the side of a building. In the distance I could see a raider camp built between two broken skyscrapers.

Beside us stood a slightly older Inferno. He was about my height now, but he had a much thicker build. His legs and body were covered in silver scars and his right forehoof had been replaced with a mechanical one.

Beside him was a weary looking Adversary. While Adversary had seemed to be a tough and headstrong pony in the last memory, he now looked tired and old. His legs wobbled slightly as he tried to hold up his own weight. He had a golden pistol holstered at his side and he was dressed in a set of black combat armour.

“Come on, let's go kill those bastards!” Inferno demanded, stomping his mechanical hoof on the ground. Adversary just kept his cool and scanned the raider camp for threats. “Damn it Adversary! Let’s make them burn!” the young Inferno brandished the flamer he had strapped to his battle saddle.

Adversary put his hoof out, ordering Inferno to calm himself. “The bounty wants Needles alive. If you go in and burn him, we don’t get our caps.”

Inferno stomped the ground again and groaned. “Fuck that! This isn’t about the damn caps you dull cunt! This is about me and him!”

Adversaries hoof shot out lighting fast and knocked Inferno across the back of the head, ramming him face first into the wall. “I said we take him alive,” Adversary insisted, pulling out his pistol and slowly moving towards the camp. “Now follow my lead and don’t be an idiot!”

Inferno grunted and began slinking along behind Adversary with his head low. Inferno and I slowly walked behind them, watching as they drew closer and closer to the camp. As we neared, I began to make out the voices of the raiders.

“Lets just blow her fucking brains out already!” A raider screeched. There was a loud thunk and I could hear a mare whimpering.

An old stallions voice rasped out. “Blow her brains out? Well now where is the fun in that?” The young Inferno froze at the sound of his voice. The more he talked, the more I realized I could recognize his voice too. It was older than it had been before, but it was still very clearly the sadistic voice of the raider that had raped Inferno and his mother.

I saw a look of pure hatred cross young Infernos face. He roared in rage and leapt into the camp, his flamer unleashing hell upon the raiders.

“Inferno! NO!” I heard Adversary scream, but I had lost track of where he was over all of the fire.

I watched in amazement as the young Inferno tore the raiders apart with his hooves. He spun and lashed out at the raiders, ripping out chunks of their throats and flesh. His flamer blazed brighter and brighter as the psychotic pony went into a frenzy of fire and blood.

A pained scream sounded over the havoc of the fight. Slowly, Inferno came to a stop, his scarlet coat soaked in raider blood and the end of his flamer burning a hot red. He panted, glaring at the lead raider.

The lead raider had impaled Adversary on a large pike, Adversary’s once black coat had now turned a dark blood red.

Inferno roared in anger and charged the raider. The raider lept back, desperately trying to avoid the attack. The raider fell flat on his rump, he pushed himself backwards trying to get away from the crazed Inferno.

“Who the hell are you!” The raider screamed, thrashing his hooves about as Inferno loomed over him. “What do you want!”

Inferno placed his mechanical hoof on the raiders chest and pushed down. A sickening crack erupted from the raiders chest, making him cry out in pain. Inferno leaned forwards placing the tip of his flamer on the raiders forehoof. The hot metal burned away the raiders hide and cooked the flesh underneath.

“No! Please! I’ll do anything if you spare me!” The raider cried out as Inferno dragged the hot metal across his front, burning a line in his flesh.

Inferno snarled down at him. “Anything?” the raider nodded vigorously. Inferno smirked. “Good, because I’m going to do everything that you did to me and my mother to you, and them some. And when I’m done, I’ll give you over to Red Eye as he requested.”

I could see the fear in the raiders eyes.

The world swirled away and we found ourselves in a small room beneath the floorboards of a house. Four fillies huddled against each other in the corner while a brown buck did his best to barricade the door. I could hear the sounds of screaming and gunfire in the distance.

The brown buck turned to the fillies, his face showing clear signs of terror. “It’s okay, he won’t find us down here.”

As he said the final words, the door exploded inwards. The buck fell to the ground as a wave of fire shot from the doorway and the room began to fill with thick, black smoke. The dark form of Inferno, now clad in Adversary’s old black combat armour marched into the room, his flamers ablaze with hellish light.

Inferno’s hoof stomped down on the bucks head, crushing it flat with his unnatural strength. The fillies screamed as the bucks blood spilled across the floor and pooled around their hooves.

Inferno advanced on the fillies, they tried to run, but he was too fast. From out of his saddlebags came metal collars with blinking red lights. Inferno clamped the collars around the fillies necks.

“You run, you die,” Inferno rumbled, his voice more intimidating than ever. The fillies cowered away from him, pushing themselves as far into the corner as they could. Inferno smirked and violently pinned one of the fillies to the floor with a hoof while he slowly dragging his other hoof down her front and between her legs. “You all belong to me now. Let's have some fun.”

The world swirled away, returned us to the void. I was thankful the memories didn’t force me to watch what was to become of those fillies.

“Now you can understand,” Inferno growled, turning away from me and staring into the darkness. “Now you can see the justification for my actions. The wasteland is the villain, not me.”

I shook my head. “I understand you, I think. But this is not justification. Nothing can justify what you have done.”

“The wasteland gave me no choice!” Inferno barked. “I had to do what I did! There was no other way for me to survive! To live with myself!”

“There is always a choice!” I yelled back. I was getting sick and tired of ponies using that as an excuse to do evil deeds. “You could have turned back! You could have chosen not to rape those fillies!”

Inferno’s whole body was shaking. Black tears were spilling from his eyes. I could tell he couldn’t take much more of this. He turned his back to me again, hiding his face. “I did what I must,” He wimpered, more to himself than to me. “Don’t make me see any more. I don’t want to see anymore!”

I turned from him again and reached towards yet another glowing light. Inferno roared with rage. “NO! Please! I’ll do anything! Just please don’t hurt me again!”

I froze. Damn him. I shut my eyes and touched the final silver orb. Everything exploded into light.

When I opened my eyes I was still standing in darkness. For a second I thought that we had failed to enter another memory until I spotted a cyber pony staring at me from the gloom.

I rose and drew closer to the cyber pony. I had expected to see Inferno, but instead I found myself face to face with the cyber alicorn Crank.

I looked around the darkness. If this was Inferno's memory, then where was Inferno?

“No please, not this memory…” I heard Inferno whimper in my head. “Anything but this memory.”

I glanced down at my body. Instead of the light pink coat that I usually saw, I found myself sporting a scarred scarlet coat and mechanical leg. A large flamer rest at my side.

This was unlike the other memories, this one was far more vivid. My mind had become one with Inferno’s. I saw through his eyes, felt what he felt, thought what he thought. I all I could feel was pain.

Not physical pain, but emotional pain. My heart ached more than I ever thought it could. Something about who I was felt fundamentally broken, as if my very existence was dirty and wrong. Between each thought came a nagging in the back of my mind that I was bad, pathetic, a shitty pony just for existing.

The longer I stood there soaking in all of Inferno’s thoughts the more I began to understand. Inferno hated himself. He wanted to die!

“Are you ready?” Crank grumbled. I took a small jump back as he broke his silence. I nodded slowly, not fully knowing what to expect. Crank gave a low sigh. “So be it. He is waiting for you inside.”

“Th-thank you,” I stuttered, stepping past Crank and stumbling blindly through the darkness. At last I found the entrance to the next room stumbled into it as well.

“Ah, I have been waiting for you,” A vial nasally voice said to me from somewhere above. I tried to see where the voice had come from, but it was so dark that I couldn’t see my own hooves in front of my face.

I took a step forwards. Then another. I could hear the buzzing of machinery coming from all around me. Then from the darkness came hundreds of mechanical tendrils. The tendrils stabbed into me, ripping out parts of my flesh. I was lifted into the air where large scissor like knives cut me open and pulled out my innards. My heart was replaced by a machine and my coat was patched back together with jagged slabs of metal. A large metal spike was shoved through where my tail had once been and my eyes were slit and infused with circuitry and wires.

I screamed into the darkness as a pain I had never imagined overtook me. I squirmed, fighting against the metal tendrils that probed into me. I felt a sharp scalpel press against my face and slowly peel the flesh off of my skull.

I could still see though my mutilated eyes. Claws descended from the ceiling far above and whisked away bits of my flesh and organs. I was no longer a pony. My body had become what I was on the inside. A desecrated monster that didn’t deserve anything other than constant misery. And now I would have just that.

The tendrils removed themselves from my body, letting my now metal form drop to the floor. The holes left by the tendrils quickly pulled themselves back together. I couldn’t die. I was doomed to eternal hell.

When the scene faded away we didn’t find ourselves in the dark void, but rather we found ourselves on the floor of the Overstallion’s office.

I rolled off of Inferno and lay next to him on the blood soaked ground, panting for breath. The ordeal in my… in Inferno’s head had done a number on me. From the way that Inferno was shaking, I could tell it had done quite a bit to him to.

Inferno slowly pulled himself to his hooves, glancing at his reflection in the terminal monitor. He was silent for a long time, simply staring at himself and what he had become. Finally, he lifted his head back and wailed. Black tears spilled from his eyes and pooled around him. He placed his hooves against his head, trying to shake away the memories that had just been forced back into him.

He glared down at me with a burning hatred in his eyes. “What have you done to me!” He screeched, stumbling backwards. He grabbed onto the terminal resting on the desk and began smashing his head against it. The glass on the screen shattered, stabbing into what little parts of him were still pony. He face was torn apart, bits of flesh and metal catching on the jagged screen and tearing away from his body.

He reeled back, his head a bloody mess of dangling visera. Almost instantly his face reformed, perfectly patching itself back together.

He lashed at his own throat with his tail, tearing out his throat and spilling sludge like blood across the room. And yet he still failed to die. His body sew himself back together as if nothing had happened. He clawed at his chest, hoping to rip out his heart, but it was no good. There was only one fate he would need to endure.

He turned away from me, his flamers swiveling to face himself. His animalistic moans became whimpers, then quieted as he uttered a single word. “Monster…”

His whole body was consumed by a massive flame as he set himself ablaze. The cyber pony burned, his flesh and metal melting under the intense heat of the fire. He screamed as he was consumed by his own inferno, his own rage. The scent of burning tissue filled the air, the taste of ash accumulated in my mouth. Inferno burned.

And I wept for him. Despite all he had done, despite all the hurt he had brought upon me, I wept for him. I wept for a pony that had lost even more than I, a pony who had never been able to see another way. I had seen who he had once been and what he had become. A monster, a raider, a victim, a survivor, a failure, but most of all, a pony.

At last the flames subsided and the mangled and blackened skeleton of what had once been Inferno clattered unceremoniously to the floor. Inferno the cyber pony was dead.

I lay there, blood slowly seeping from my wounds. I had to move, I had to get help. I had to aid all the ponies that were still battling the zebra forces in the Stable atrium.

I looked over at my father's body resting across the room from me. I wiped away my tears and began crawling towards him. My hoof touched his. His body was cold. So very cold.

I curled up against his chest and cried into him. This had all been too much. Far too much. I remembered who I had been only seven days ago. A small, insignificant maintenance mare whose only desire was for other ponies to care about and look up to her.

What have I become? Not an adventure like Brisk, not a monster like Inferno. I was something else, something in between. I dared myself to look up at my fathers crushed skull and missing heart. I had spent my whole life wishing my father would accept me; be proud of me. But the cost of that had been so high. So fucking high.

I let my body relax as unconsciousness overtook me. Take me away from this world death, let me sleep. My mind calmed at that thought. I had returned the A.A.S.S. to the Stable and defended it against those who would aim to hurt it, my duty was done. I could embrace death openly without regrets.

Pyre Blaze stumbled into the room, her armour dented and burned. She looked down at me, worry crossing her face. “Oh shit!” She rushed to my side and pushed a healing potion to my lips. “Drink Amber,” She instructed, pouring the fluid down my throat. "come on, drink!"

I tried to push her away, but Pyre was a lot stronger than I was. “No…” I tried to mutter, but Pyre continued to administer the potion. I struggled for a few more seconds, feeling the potions magical properties take effect and cleanse my body of injuries. Then I fell into a fast sleep.

Beep! Beep! Beep!

The automated alarm on my pipbuck sprang to life, aggressively pulling me from my slumber. I hated how early I had to get up in the morning, it’s not like the Stable-Tec Generator was going to be going anywhere any time soon. I think I’ll just lie in bed for a few more minutes.

Beep! Beep! Beep!

“Alright! Alright! I’m getting up!,” I yelled at my pipbuck in aggravation as I slowly crawled out of the dull grey sheets. My hind leg got caught on something, causing me to trip and land face first on the cold ground. I looked up to see my leg tied up in some sort of sling.

I was in medical. What the buck was I doing here.

I pulled myself to my hooves and looked into the mirror that hung on the wall next to the door. I was startled by how beat up and frail I looked. Where a once soft pink coat had been was now a matted, mud filled mess with gross hairless patches where my coat had not yet grown over a myriad of silver scars. Dark bags had formed under my amber eyes and my curly mane looked more like a rats nest than anything else.

I lazily patted down my mane and headed for the door. I was already running behind schedule. I had to get to the generator room before Shade came in to check on me.

I marched as quickly as I could down the hallways of Stable 25 to get to the generator room. The hallways were dirtier than normal, but it looked as if somepony had done a lazy job of cleaning up whatever mess might have once been there.

As ponies started emerging from their rooms they cast me nervious glances as I strode by. What was their problem? They had seen me plenty of times before. There were less ponies than normal in the hallway today as well, maybe everypony was having a rough morning too.

Funny. Usually the Stable announcer would be playing the Stable-Tec March over the intercoms right about now.

I entered the generator room and looked it over. Everything seemed to be in order. I reached under my desk and pulled out my dogeared Power Ponies comic.

“Ah, just where I left you,” I grinned, sitting down in my chair and opening up to the last page I had read.

Goddesses I was sore. My whole body hurt for some goddess damned reason.

I glanced over at the black metal box that housed the A.A.S.S. I could hear the quiet clicking as the small device distributed sustenance to the Stable.

My eyes locked on the device. It was here. Back in the Stable.

Everything came flooding back to me. The journey across the wasteland, the friends I made along the way, the enemies I had slain, the final confrontation with Inferno.

I felt a wave of tears begin to wash over me again. I blinked them away and tried to stay strong. I had won. It was time to move one with my life. It was time to recover.

The door to the generator room slid open and Shade hauled herself into the room. She gave me a tired look. “Hey kiddo. How are you doing?”

I shook my head. “I don’t think I’m ever going to be okay again,” I admitted, placing the comic down on the table. “I don’t know how I ever can be.”

Shade gave me a quick hug. “I’m sorry about your dad. I’m glad you finally managed to make amends with him before the end.”

I could feel my body threatening to break out into another fit of shaking, but I did my best to hold it back. “Yeah, I’m glad I got the chance to do that too.”

Shade gave me a small, sad smile and passed me a bottle of whiskey. “I know it ain’t your favourite beverage, but I figured you could use a good drink right about now.”

I accepted the bottle and levitated it to my lips. The liquid burned my throat, but somehow it managed to make everything seem slightly more bearable. “Thanks,” I said, downing most of the contents.

Shade looked at me with admiration. “Eh, that’s what I do. When life in the Stable feels like shit, I just drink away the problems.”

“You’re always drinking,” I observed.

“That I am,” Shade said with a sad chuckle. “That. I. Am.”

I sat up straighter on my chair and looked up at the generator. “So… what happened. With the zebras?” I asked. I couldn’t remember what had happened after I blacked out in the Overstallion’s office.

“When Pyre returned to the atrium with your unconscious body and news of Inferno’s death, it was the last nail in the coffin for those zebra freaks,” Shade grunted, taking another swig of whiskey. “We managed to kill them off pretty easily after that. Their confidence was completely shattered. A few managed to escape back out into the wasteland, but they’ll think twice before trying to come back here.”

“And my friends?” I asked, leaning in a little. A terrible thought washed over me. “They haven’t left yet? Have they?”

“No no, not yet,” Shade chuckled, waving her hoof in the air for me to calm down. “They wanted to make sure you made a full recovery before they headed out. You’ve got some pretty great friends. You know that, right?”

I smiled. A real smile this time. “Yeah, they’re the best.”

I entered the crowded Atrium of Stable 25. Or at least it would have been crowded had the Stable’s population not been suddenly reduced to around two hundred ponies.

I spotted Brisk, Xayah and Pyre gathered around a table at the side of the room, deep in some sort of conversation. All the Stable ponies that past them cast them dirty glanced and made sure to give them a wide berth.

I limped up to them, doing my best to force a smile onto my face.

Brisk spotted me first. Our eyes met and instantly my smile faded away. He hurt too. Perhaps not as much as me, but damn did he hurt. I rushed up to him and gave him a tight hug. We were silent for a long time.

“I’m sorry,” Was all he was able to say to me.

When we finally parted I felt a lot better than I had before. I still felt terrible, but a little of the weight had been lifted off of my shoulder knowing that I wasn’t alone in all of this.

“Amber, I am glad to see you are awake,” Xayah said, standing from the table and approaching me. “How do you feel?”

I exchanged a knowing glance with Brisk. We both knew that was a stupid question. “I’m going to be okay Xayah,” I lied, putting back on that fake smile. “We’re all going to be fine.”

Pyre Blaze huffed. “I’m glad you think so, but I don’t think I can say the same about the rest of the Stable. Even with the A.A.S.S. returned and the zebras gone, it's going to take a long time for this place to be back to the way things used to be. There’s always a lot of healing to be done after shit like this.”

I nodded. I didn’t doubt that for a second. I looked around at the three of them. “How long are you guys going to stick around here?” I asked, dreading the answer. The last thing I wanted right now was for them to leave me alone here.

Brisk gave me a sad smile. I was getting a lot of those these days. “Now that you’re okay, we’re probably going to be heading out tomorrow morning. I think we’ve all been cramped up in here long enough, and I’ve got nothing but bad memories of this place.”

I sighed. After everything that had happened, I was starting to feel like I only had bad memories of it too. I pulled them all in for a tight hug. Even Pyre, who protested against the physical contact. “I’m glad that of all the ponies I had to go through this with, I went through it with all of you,” I said. “I’ll never forget you guys.”

Xayah forced herself to hold back a tear. “We will always remember you as well, you foolish little pony.”

The four of us stood in the atrium tight in each other's embrace for a long time.

The door to my old room slid open. It was one of the few rooms in the Stable that hadn’t been drenched in blood. The dim light on the ceiling slowly flickered to life, revealing my old bed. It was so strange to be home.

I flopped down in my bed and let myself sink into the mattress. It wasn’t a comfy bed, but compared to everything in the wasteland it felt wonderful. I let the calming sensation of my room flow through me.

“It’s not over,” A stern voice said. I bolted upright and looked around the room. I spotted a tall beige stallion with a long brown coat and wide brimmed fedora atop his head standing in the corner. His face didn’t look quite right, almost as if he were wearing a hyper realistic mask.

“Who are you?” I asked in alarm, quickly pulling myself out of bed and reaching for Boneless at my bedside table.

“It’s not over,” The mysterious stranger repeated. His eyes followed me as I moved, but he himself remained still. “They are coming for it. Even now as we speak.”

“Who is? Coming for what?” I demanded, finally raising Boneless to face him. Now looking at him, he seemed familiar somehow. As if I had seen him somewhere in a dream or other life. I squinted my eyes, trying to make out his features better in the dim light of the Stable. “You’re the pony that saved me and Brisk, aren’t you?” I asked quietly.

An alarm sounded outside of my door. I heard ponies rushing past outside and shouting frantically. I glanced back at the pony only to find him gone. I didn’t know who he was talking about, but I could guess the what.

I rushed out of my room. A couple of security ponies rushed down the hallway in the direction of the Stable entrance. I spotted my friends rushing in my direction as well and flagged them down.

“What is going on?” I asked, as they neared me.

“Somepony opened up the Stable door,” Brisk replied breathlessly. “We were heading down to see what happened now.”

My heart thudded in my chest. It wasn’t over. The nightmare was never over.

I turned and started running in the opposite direction.

“Amber, where the fuck are you going!?” Pyre called after me as she sprinted forwards and did her best to keep pace with me. Brisk and Xayah followed suit.

“They’re coming back for it!” I shouted, panic rising in my voice. “Damn it! I should have known they wouldn’t give up!”

We rounded the corner to the maintenance wing. Ahead of us was the generator room. I put my energy into pushing forwards and sprinted the last few steps to the door. I opened up the room and stepped inside. Everything was calm and normal, or at least it seemed that way.

I checked the A.A.S.S. To my relief it was still there. My friends quickly piled into the room behind me.

“Amber, is everything alright?” Xayah asked, looking over my shoulder and examining the black case that held the A.A.S.S.

I took a long deep breath. “Yeah… everything appears to be…” I spotted a faint shimmer in the air; a small ripple of light bouncing off of seemingly nothing. To the untrained eye, it would have been nothing more than a trick of the light or a large gust of air. I knew better. I had seen it enough times.

It was somepony moving under a stealth cloak.

Xayah saw it too. She whirled around and swung her dagger at the invisible intruder. The intruder flipped over her blade and jump kicked Xayah in the face, sending her toppling into Pyre. I raised Boneless to fire, only to have the invisible attacker swipe it from my grasp and toss it out of the room.

Previously unaware of the intruders presence, Brisk and Pyre took a moment to recover from the initial shock. The intruder sprang forwards and smacked Brisk’s head against Pyre’s, knocking both of them to the ground.

I swung my hoof at the intruder, only to hit empty air. My eyes darted around, trying to spot our attackers. I looked for anything. A glimmer of light, a ripple in the air, a flash of a hoof under the stealth cloak. I saw nothing.

Suddenly somepony smacked me in the back of the head, causing me to stumble and fall head first into the ground.

The intruder flickered into view giving me a good look at our attacker. It was a zebra, but unlike any I had seen before. Instead of dark and light grey or black and white stripes, this zebra’s coat was a dark grey adorned with deep violet stripes. His mane was put up in the traditional zebra mohawk and his hooves had dark steel horseshoes on them.

The strange zebra grinned at me and quickly snatched up the A.A.S.S. He tossed it carefully into his saddlebag and then flickered back out of view.

I screamed and pulled myself to my hooves. I thrashed around hoping to strike down the invisible zebra before he could escape.

Brisk finally pulled himself up. “Shit...” He groaned, rubbing the back of his head.

I didn’t have time to see if he was alright. I had to stop this. I charged down the hallway. I had to get to the Stable door before that zebra did. I heard my friends galloping behind me. We had come so far. We couldn’t afford to lose the A.A.S.S. again. Not after all we had been through.

I galloped to a halt in front of the Stable door. Two security ponies lay dead by the exit.

“No no no no!” I screamed, looking out the entrance and spotting the strange zebra making their way to the exit of the tunnel leading into Manhattan. Another pony walked next to them. I froze as my eyes landed on them.

It was Shade. She had a saddlebag full of her belongings on her back as she followed the zebra away from the Stable.

I raced out to confront them, my friends close behind me. “Shade!” I called out, trying to catch her attention.

Both Shade and the zebra turned to face us as we raced towards them. A look of shame crossed over Shade’s face as she saw me. “Amber, I’m sorry.”

My blood ran cold. I stopped in my tracks and glared at her. “It was you… You opened the Stable doors for Inferno and the zebras.”

“I’m so sorry, I had no choice,” Shade begged, taking a step away from me. The zebra beside her held his ground.

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Shade had been more of a parent to me throughout my life than my father ever was. That fact that she could betray the Stable like this was beyond me ability to believe. I growled at the strange zebra. “You are going to give the A.A.S.S. back, right now!” I snarled.

The zebra gave me a smug grin. “Oh, I do not think so,” The zebra’s voice was deep and powerful. He reached into his cloak and pulled out a metal device. "I will not disappoint Kamari."

My eyes widened as I realized what the zebra was holding. It was some form of detonator.

“What are you doing,” Brisk demanded, taking a threatening step towards the zebra.

The strange zebra gave him a crooked smile. “What Inferno was not able to do,” the zebra pressed the button on the detonator.

I could hear a loud explosion from behind me. I turned to see a cloud of pink mist wafting from the Stable. A Stable mare screamed and raced for the exit, only for the pink cloud to consume her, melting away her flesh and welding her now skeletal hooves to the metal floor.

Howling screams rose from the depth of the Stable as the inhabitants inside were boiled alive. I saw a small filly not far from the exit of the Stable disintegrate into nothing more than bones and collapse to the ground.

My eyes stung as the poisonous cloud seeped from the Stable and began to wrap around me. My flesh stung and burned. I think I screamed and tried to rush back into the Stable; to die with what little remained of what I once was, but Pyre’s strong hooves wrapped around me and pulled me kicking and screaming away from the Stable door.

I saw Brisk rushing along beside me, his face red with tears. We had done so much, lost so much, for nothing.

As Pyre Blaze pulled me from the tunnel I got one last glimpse of the Stable door, now oozing pink cloud. My home, my life; it was all gone now.

I looked around, my vision streaked with tears. Shade and the strange zebra has vanished into the night. Leaving nothing but the corpses of hundreds of innocent ponies in their wake.

I crawled off of Pyre and lay on my back, staring up at the gloomy cloud covered sky. It was all over. I had lost.

Footnote: level up.
New perk: Daddy's Girl -- +5 Science, +5 Medicine
Quest Perk added: Rage -- The wasteland has taken everything from you. You gain a +3 to all intimidation attempts

Chapter X: Wrath of the Lamb

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Chapter XI: Dancing With Fire

"You open a closet, it’s just a closet. You can never find the monster that hides inside. Not until it jumps out at you."

Self-absorption.

I had gone so far, faced and lost so much, only for the world to take what little I had fought to achieve. Everything I had done, everything I had been through, was to help the ponies I cared about. But now they were all gone. The world couldn’t have cared less about how I felt or what I did. And now it was my time to do the same. It was my time to take what I wanted for myself!

I could feel my being slowly being devoured by the rage that coursed through me. At first it had been a numb sensation, then a quiet hum in the back of my brain. That hum had grown until it had become the blaring blast of balefire. Each moment more and more of me was consumed by the hate that had formed in me.

I had been told to survive in the wasteland I would need to find something to hold onto. Rage and angry could only drive me for so long. Once that was done and gone, I doubted there would be much of me left. Perhaps when Kamari was dead at my hooves I could crawl away into some abandoned hole in the ground and die, forgotten by the rest of the world.

The idea of ceasing to exist seemed so calming, but I couldn’t yet. Not until this was all done.

Until that time came however, to hell with the wasteland and to hell with reason. I was going to find Kamari and keep my friends safe, even if everypony told me otherwise and life itself threw its worst at me. An army of cyber alicorns weren’t going to get between me and my revenge!

And it’s not like my friends couldn’t survive without me, right? They would probably be better off, I only seemed to bring death to those I cared about anyway.

I sat up and looked around the small room we had set up camp in. The burning mannequins Pyre Blaze had lit aflame to keep us warm had long since gone out and a soft, ash filled breeze wafted through the shattered windows.

The sun was still yet to rise above the horizon, leaving the world wrapped in a silent and cold blanket. The air seemed a chilling blue, beautifully contrasting the occasional pop of a surviving spark from the remains of the fire. Despite the cold and eerie atmosphere, I couldn’t help but feel calmed by the stillness.

I looked from Brisk Spark to Xayah; both slept soundly on the floor around the charred models. They almost looked peaceful, but I knew that was a lie. Nothing was peaceful in the wasteland.

I silently pulled myself to my hooves and walked over to retrieve my saddle bag. The floorboards of the house creaked slightly as I slinked to my belongings, making me freeze. I glanced around at my slumbering friends; none of them seemed to have heard anything in there sleep. I bent down and placed my saddle bag over my back.

I turned and approached the Hellhound who had curled up in the corner. Despite the occasional twitch of its tail, and the constant rise and fall of it’s chest as it breathed, I could have sworn it was a statue.

“Come, we’re leaving,” I whispered, ordering the Hellhound to move. It obayed instinctively, almost robot like.

I glanced around the room one last time, taking in all of my friends. My gaze caught Pyres. She wasn’t asleep, but rather sitting back watching me. She seemed slightly disappointed, but made no effort to stop me or alert my friends of my leaving.

I gave her a small parting smile and crept from the building, my Hellhound trailing close behind me.

What did Pyre Blaze know anyway? My friends would be fine without me and I would be fine on my own. If they followed me down this path they would die, and I couldn’t let that happen to those that I carried about. Not again.

The sky outside was cast in dark clouds, which wasn't any different from the normal wasteland weather I suppose. Small beams of moonlight managed to pierce through the thick layer of clouds, illuminating the menacing city skyline with a ghastly light.

At this time of day the wasteland looked both beautiful and lonely, like a lost soul trapped between life and death.

I turned to the massive Hellhound and raised my right hoof for him to sniff. Much of Inferno’s blood still coated my tattered Stable barding. I didn’t know how much alike Crank and inferno’s blood smelt, but I hoped whatever black fluid flowed through them was similar enough for the Hellhound to trace. “Find him boy,” I muttered, as the Hellhound gave me a sniff and started scrambling along the broken street after something I couldn’t smell.

I pulled my saddlebag tighter around me and followed after the Hellhound into the early morning. As the Hellhound lead me around a corner I turned back to look at the ramshackled structure my friends slept inside. I let loose a long slow breath.

“Be safe, please,” I muttered, before turning away and marching into the ashes of Manehattan.

I followed the Hellhound for almost an hour. The sun was still yet to have risen. I must have left earlier than I thought. All for the best I suppose, I didn’t want my friends following after me.

The further we walked, the more bloodshed we seemed to pass. Ever turn lead us to a bloodier street filled with even more corpses than the one before. At first it was just a couple of squashed radroaches, then it was a raider camp. Finally we turned to a street where a whole squadron of Steel Rangers had been butchered.

I was thankful for the darkness of night as it hid many of the horrors I past from me, though even through the gloom I could tell that many of the corpses were a bloody messy.

Yup, we were definitely on Crank’s tail. No other pony could be this lethal.

The Hellhound paused and glanced around the empty street, it’s sharp claws fidgeting at its side in agitation. I glanced around not spotting anything out of the ordinary. The Hellhound crouched low and began slinking it’s way towards a large trash bin on the side of the road.

I glanced down at my EFS. A lone green bar popped up on my pipbuck. Something was in the trash bin, but it didn’t seem to be hostile.

Interest got the better of me and I stalked over and slowly raised the lid of the trash bin. Instantly my eyes met a matching pair of Amber eyes looking back at me innocently through the gloom. I pushed the lid up the rest of the way, revealing a small pink filly looking up at me.

If I hadn’t known better, I would have assumed it was a tiny version of me. The unicorn filly had a light pink coat with a curly pink and blue mane. Her amber eyes were strikingly similar to my own and she even had many of the same cuts and bruises that I had.

A small gasp escaped my lips as my eyes landed on her cutie mark. A red screwdriver… my cutie mark.

I swallowed, not sure how to handle the tiny me. “Uh, hi there little filly,” I stumbled, trying to find words. “What’s your name?”

The filly cocked their head and continued to look up at me silently, not bothering to answer the question. She began to reach out a hoof. Hesitantly, I slowly raised my hoof to reach hers.

Her eyes flashed blue and for a second I could have sworn her timid expression changed to one of amusement.

“Gah! What the fuck!” I yelped, jumping back in shock and landing heavily on my rump. I quickly pulled myself back to my hooves and pulled out Boneless, only to remember I was out of ammo.

“Amber?” A synthesized voice said from behind me.

I whirled around and raised my baton in the direction of the voice, still shaken by what I had seen. To my surprise I found a Sprite bot bobbing up and down in front of me. I squinted at it. “Watcher? Is that you?”

The sprite bot bobbed up and down faster as if it were nodding. “Yes, hello Amber.” I glanced behind me at the trash bin. The tiny filly had somehow disappeared into the cold night. “Are you alright Amber? You seem nervous?”

I shook the image of the filly out of my head and turned back to the Sprite Bot. “Y-yes, thanks Watcher. I’m fine. I think I’m just seeing things. That’s all.” As I couldn’t see Watchers face or even hear any inflection in his voice, it was hard to tell if he believed me or not. I sighed, hoping he took that answer. “How have you been Watcher?”

“Things have been… interesting, to say the least,” The Sprite bot hummed. “Seems like half the wasteland is at war with each other right now,” The Sprite Bot turned to look at the Hellhound. “Interesting friend you have here.”

I chuckled darkly. “Yeah, took him of some Enclave scientists.

Watcher went silent for a long moment. “What do you mean Amber?” Watcher finally said. It was hard to tell with the synthesizer on his voice, but he didn’t seem very pleased with my statement.

I took a step away from the hovering Sprite bot. “The uh- Well the Enclave kinda created these mind control devices- and well- I kinda stole one of there Hellhounds…”

The Sprite bot just continued to bob up and down for a few moments. I could tell something about that had rubbed Watcher the wrong way. “You would use mind control on somepony to get what you want?” Watcher grunted, his voice lower than normal.

“Somepony?” I scoffed, pointing a hoof at the Hellhound. “Maybe you didn’t notice, but that’s not a pony. This thing is a death machine and I need it!”

I could hear Watcher growl. It was a strange noise. It didn’t sound like any noise a pony would make. “That thing is sentient Amber. Just like any other pony!”

I glanced at the Hellhound. Could it talk? Comunicate? I could feel my magical grip on my baton tighten. It didn’t matter how smart it was, I needed it.

“Then I’ll let it go when I’m done using it! But I need it Watcher. Those cyber ponies I told you about, they killed my Stable. Everypony is dead. I’m not going to stop until those bastards and the ass hole that sent them are lying dead at my hooves!”

Watcher was silent again, trying to process what I was saying no doubt. “Where are you friends Amber?” Watcher cooed in a softer tone. I looked away from him, not wanting to look directly into the camera. “Amber, where are your friends?”

“I left them!” I finally yelled out at him. I could feel tears forming in my eyes. I was starting to realize just how much my friends had been keeping me together. I blinked the tears away quickly. Not yet. I couldn’t let myself break down yet. I still had work to do. “I didn’t want them to get hurt. They'll be safer without me,” I turned away and looked out at the Manehattan skyline. “It’s better this way. I don’t need friendship.”

Watcher was silent for a while. When he spoke up, his words were slow and somewhat pained. “What do you know about the Ministry Mares?” Watcher asked.

I raised an eyebrow at him. Outside of science and math, history had been my favorite subject back in school. The history of Equestria and the war had fascinated me and I had spent countless hours reading and rereading my history textbook. Not sure what kind of response Watcher was looking for, I dug around in the back of my mind for a quick summary of the ministries. “Well- I know that they each ran their own ministry. The Ministry of Arcane Sciences, the Ministry of Wartime Technology, the Ministry of Image, the Ministry of Peace, the Ministry of Morale and the Ministry of Awesome,” I thought for a second. “Though I don’t really know what the Ministry of Awesome did. If memory serves, I think Luna actually shut it down.”

“Indeed, these six ministries were run by the bearers of the Elements of Harmony. United, the six of them could overcome any obstacle that faced them,” Watcher said. “Their friendship alone was strong enough to defeat Nightmare Moon and return her to being Princess Luna.”

I glanced around at the bombed city. “Doesn’t look like it was strong enough to stop the war,” I grunted, gesturing around me.

Watcher sighed. “I think it was actually. The biggest mistake that was made during the war was to separate them. Divided, they were no match for the hatred that the war brewed, but together, they might have been able to prevent it.”

“You’re trying to tell me that if Princess Luna hadn’t created the Ministries, the war would have turned out differently?” I asked. The idea seemed ridiculous that six ponies could friendship away so much anger and hatred.

Watcher chuckled. “Without the Ministries, a lot would be different. Probably more than you or I could even begin to imagine. But I think that things would have turned out much better for everypony.”

“So what are you saying?” I should take my friends into danger? Even if they might die?” I asked. I felt a tight knot tighten in my stomach. The image of Brisk or Xayah being blown to pieces, their blood seeping across the floor made me feel sick.

“Friendship isn’t always easy Amber, but one thing is for certain...” Watcher began. “...Aside from being difficult, it is also very powerful. Together anything is possible, but without it… things can be a lot harder.”

I groaned. “You sound like one of those old Twilight Sparkle quotes I had to memorise back in school,” Watcher went quiet at that. I could hear some sort of shuffling through the synthesised noise. “Watcher?”

“Thank you Amber,” Watcher’s voice piped up. I don’t know how I could tell, but I knew he was crying. “That means more to me that you realise,” and with that, the sprite bot began playing its annoying tune and started bobbing back down the street.

I glanced at my Hellhound who was standing perfectly still in the middle of the road. I gave a sigh of defeat. “I guess that means we’re going back to get our friends, huh,” The Hellhound just stared back blankly. I groaned and holstered my baton. “Come on, lets go get them.”

By the time I returned to the abandoned structure my friends were in, it was already well into the morning. Even from afar I could hear their panicked voices as they packed up their bags.

“Where the fuck do you think she went!” I heard Brisk Spark ask worriedly.

“Where do you think. She took that Hellhound and went after Crank,” I heard Xayah’s panicked voice pipe up. “How could none of us have heard her leave? That Hellhound is huge!”

“Don’t look at me, I sleep like a rock,” I heard Pyre Blaze drawl.

I froze. Pyre Hadn’t told them what I was doing yet. Why? Did she know I was coming back? Did not telling them benefit her in some way? I took a deep breath and continued into the house.

Everypony froze as they spotted me in the doorway, their faces stricken with both shock and panic. Everypony except Pyre who greeted me with a wide smile.

“Well well well, you’re back soon,” She grinned at me, flicking her tail and slowly pulling herself into her dark power armour. I gave her an awkward wave.

Xayah stormed up to me, a strange look I didn’t recognize burned in her eyes. “What were you doing you foolish pony!” My zebra friend demanded, Pointing her striped hoof at me accusingly. “I was so worried, I thought that you… I thought that…”

I glanced at the Hellhound lumbering in the doorway. “I was just taking taking this thing out for a test run. I wanted to make sure I knew how to control it properly,” I lied. I cast a glance at Pyre Blaze who rolled her eyes and placed her heavy helmet over her scarred head.

Xayah narrowed her eyes. “You should tell somepony where you are going before you run off like that! What if you were attacked! Or, or, what if the Hellhound broke free of the mind control and attacked you! What if…”

“Oh hush up,” Pyre scoffed, waltzing up and placing a heavy hoof over Xayah’s shoulder. “What are you, her mom? Amber’s a grown mare, she can do what she wants.”

Xayah pushed Pyre’s hoof away and growled at her. “You be quiet. We are still not on speaking turns after what you did with the Alicorns you fiend!”

"Oh go back to your potions and star worship," Pyre countered, narrowing her eyes at Xayah.

Xayah gasped and was clearly resisting the urge to reach out and slap Pyre. "I do not worship the stars! Educate yourself on the Zebra tribes before you make such a comment again!"

Pyre rolled her eyes. "You zebra all look the same to me."

"I do not look like a Starkatteri!" Xayah snarled, crossing her hooves in front of her to help make her point.

I raised my hooves and tried to calm them both down. “Hey, it’s alright. I mean nothing bad happened, right?” Xayah huffed at my remark and marched over to pick up her saddle bags without saying another word. I glanced nervously at Pyre. “What’s up with Xayah? She doesn’t usually act like that?”

Pyre tried to suppress a chuckle. “She’s just worried as all. I’m sure she is fine,” the raider soothed. “I think we’re all a little on edge after what happened at Stable 25.”

You didn’t need to tell me that. I knew the emotional devastation of that better than anypony.

I turned to Brisk, who was eyeing my from across the room. “Hey, you ready to get going?” I asked, not liking the strange look he was giving me.

Brisk nodded, pulling the strap on his saddlebag tighter. He slowly approached me and looked me over. “How did testing out the Hellhound go?” he asked skeptically.

My ears folded back against my head. I didn’t like the suspicious tone in his voice. I gave him a fake smile that he could clearly see straight through. “Good, I think I know how to make him find Crank,” I said, my voice cracking a little.

Brisk raised his eyebrows and glanced down at my saddlebags. “You’re well stocked for a test with the Hellhound. Did you have a snack while you were out?”

I glanced down at my saddle bags to see the few days worth of food I had grabbed. I gave him a nervous chuckle. “Didn’t want to be stuck in the wasteland unprepared. Anything could happen.”

Brisk raised his eyebrows again, but didn’t push the issue any further.

The glow of sunlight from behind the cloudlayer was just beginning to rise above the skyscrapers when we stumbled out of the dilapidated structure. A sight that had looked somewhat beautiful by the eerie moonlight now looked as dead and bleak as the overcast sky cast the world into a depressing sea of grey and brown.

I raised my hoof for my Hellhound to sniff again. The Hellhound gave a long sniff of the stained cyber pony blood and started traveling back down the street. As I had predicted, it followed an almost identical path to the one it had traveled earlier that day.

I fell into step beside Pyre and leaned close so that our other companions couldn’t hear me. “You didn’t tell them?” I whispered, confused by Pyre’s earlier actions.

Pyre Blaze simply shrugged. “These are your issues Amber, not mine. Don’t expect me to try to intervene.”

The march that followed echoed my walk earlier in the morning. We passed the same carnage as before, though this time I could see the devastation Crank had reeked in the light of day. Ponies limbs had been torn apart from their bodies and many of their bodies had been ripped open, revealing the shattered rib cages inside. Blood and viscera had been splashed across the surfaces and I could see a few piles of ash where ponies had quite literally been disintegrated.

Brisk glanced around at all the corpses squeamishly. “Goddesses. And here I thought Inferno could be destructive.”

“We’re… going to fight the pony that did all of this?” Xayah asked with a shudder as she looked down at the body of a Steel Ranger who had had their spinal cord pulled out of their throat. “This seems…” She rolled her tongue around inside her mouth as she searched for the right words. “Daunting.”

I shook my head. “Not fight him. I doubt we would stand a chance. We are going to talk to him.”

“And if he says no and attacks you?” Brisk pushed, walking up next to me. “We don’t have a great track record of getting out of a situation without a fight.”

Pyre grinned from behind the visor of her helmet. “That’s why I love you ponies. You always find the exciting way to deal with stuff.”

I pulled out the Balefire Egg Launcher. “That’s why we have this, it seems to do a pretty good job at taking care of the things we can’t fight our way out of.”

“Except he survived the last time we shot him with it,” Brisk pointed out. “What makes you think he won’t survive it again or whatever?”

“I missed last time,” I assured him. “If it comes down to a fight with him again, I won’t miss.”

I spotted a Sprite bot watching me from a distance. I hoped Watcher could see that I listened to his advice and joined back up with my friends.

We followed the Hellhound around another corner and froze. We were in a large town square with massive skyscrapers looming up around us on every side. Not far away was the single largest tower I had seen while in the Wasteland. Unlike the rest of the structures, it seemed fairly intact, standing almost double the height of the tallest building. The large monorail that raced above our heads stretched towards it, creating a walkway of sorts into the building.

But what really made us freeze were the bodies. The area was filled with the corpses of slavers and alicorns alike. The mounds of bodies rose up to almost above our heads. Limbs were scattered everywhere and smashed skulls lined the sides of the street. Never before had I seen such graphic desolation.

I tried to take a deep breath to prevent myself from hyperventilating. There was so much blood. I didn’t even want to imagine how many dead ponies were in front of me. There might not have been as many corpses as there were in my Stable, but it was pretty close.

I put a hoof over my mouth to try and stop myself from vomiting as the stench of death filled my nostrils. I could see Brisk and Xayah’s faces go pale as they took in the ghastly sight.

“Oh, there’s Tenpony Tower,” Pyre laughed, pointing up at the massive tower and seemingly ignoring the sea of bodies. “It’s been ages since I was there. There is this super awesome cheese shop there, best cheese in the wasteland if I do say so myself.” We all stared at her in shock. She rolled her eyes at us. “Yeah yeah, the corpses are interesting too I suppose.”

“Crank was definitely here,” I muttered, looking around at all of the bodies.

“Inferno said Crank was meeting with Red Eye, do you suppose this is where they were supposed to meet?” Xayah stated, walking among the countless bodies. She flinched as her hoof accidentally brushed a severed pony leg.

“I fit is, it looks like that meeting didn’t go very well,” Brisk joked uncomfortably, slowly following after the zebra. “What do you think happened? Do you think Crank killed this Red Eye guy everypony keeps talking about?”

Pyre scoffed, poking at a severed pony head with a hoof. “I’d be surprised if Red Eye actually left Fillydelphia. I doubt he would be dumb enough to confront Crank personally, especially if he’s aware of what this cyber alicorn thing can do.”

I looked around at all the bodies. I was impressed that the Hellhound had managed to pinpoint Crank’s sent through the stench of all the corpses. Crank was a lot more dangerous than I was expecting. I felt a shiver go down my spine. I raised my Balefire Egg Launcher and advanced forwards.

As I moved through the streets I began to notice a large collection of weapons that scattered the ground. I guessed Crank didn’t really have much need for scavenging. But we did.

I smirked as I picked up a double barrel shotgun and found two unfired shells inside. “Hey, we should probably stock up on anything we can find here,” I said, popping the shells into my own gun and moving onto the next body.

Brisk nodded as he picked up a large baseball bat. “Eh, I preferred the machete, but I suppose this will do for now.”

After scavenging through most of the bodies we found a lot less than I was hoping. It seemed that a bunch of scavengers had already picked most of the area clean before we got here. I did manage to find eighteen slugs for Boneless, and I saw both Brisk and Xayah collect five bullets each for their guns respectively.

I grunted as I rolled a slavers body over. “Seriously, not a single healing potion?” I kicked at the ground in annoyance. Was some medical supplies really so much to ask for.

“They were probably the first thing here to get scavenged,”Pyre replied lazily as she attached a new canister of flamer fuel to her battle saddle. “Bullets are a lot harder to find, so they are more likely to be left behind by ponies trying to get out of the area in a rush.”

“Why would they be in a rush?” I asked dumbly, looking up at my power armoured friend.

Pyre snorted. “Do you see where you’re standing? This many bodies would make even the bravest of raiders uneasy.”

“You seem pretty calm,” I pointed out, remembering how the first thing she had done after seeing the corpses was talking about a cheese shop she liked.

Pyre shrugged and continued combing through the bodies. “Las Pegasus raiders are a lot harder than most of the other raider gangs in the Equestrian Wasteland. We’ve seen a lot of shit.”

I thought crossed my mind. “Have you ever seen a pony that looks just like you? But a filly?” I asked, thinking back to the strange filly I had seen earlier that morning.

Pyre gave me a quizzical look. “What like a clone?”

I nodded. “Yeah, but as a filly version of yourself?”

"Do I even want to ask why?"

I shook my head, fully aware that the question I had asked was both unexpected and oddly specific. "I'm just wondering."

Pyre tapped her hoof against her chin for a second. “Well I ran into a synth that was impersonating a member of my gang once. Running into a synth isn’t very common, mostly because you can’t tell them apart from any other pony. They don’t usually take the form of a younger you though.”

“Those are the robots that the Institute makes? Right?” I asked, moving over to another body and searching through his pockets. To my delight, I found a large tin full of twenty bottle caps.

“Yup, that’s them,” Pyre confirmed with a nod. “I’m surprised you know about them. Not that many ponies have outside of the odd conspiracy theory here and there. If it weren’t for that one synth I just mentioned, I probably wouldn’t have heard of them myself. ”

I simply shrugged. “Crazy what kind of weird stuff you hear in Manehattan.”

“You can say that again,” Pyre said with a laugh. “It may not be the neighvada desert, but I’m seein’ just about as much crazy shit here.”

I turned back to searching through the bodies, only to find myself face to face with Brisk.

“Can I talk to you for a moment?” He asked, his tone stoic.

This seemed serious. Why couldn’t I just have a friendly conversations with my friends for once. It always had to be so depressing with them all the time. “Yeah, sure,” I said, finding another bottle cap and sticking it into my saddlebags. “What do you want to talk about?”

Brisk cast a glance at Pyre Blaze who was digging through a pile of corpses a few feet away. “Can I talk to you alone?”

I glanced back at Pyre myself before nodding and following Brisk a few paces away.

“What’s the problem? I thought you had gotten over your issues with Pyre?” I stared, as he came to a stop next to a particularly damaged skyscraper.

“Gotten over my issues with her? Are you kidding?” Brisk blurted. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed Amber, but Pyre Blaze is not exactly like the rest of us. Or have you forgotten that we kill raiders?”

“She’s not like the other raiders,” I retorted, determined to defend Pyre’s name. “Besides, she’s useful in a fight. We’re going to need that kind of firepower where we’re going.”

Brisk groaned. “I’m not arguing that. Just don’t expect Xayah and I to get all buddy buddy with her like you have,” He took a quick second to regain his train of thought. “Anyway, I didn’t drag you over hear to debate how good of a pony Pyre Blaze is. I thought I should talk to you about Stable 25.”

I could feel my heart thud in my chest as he said that. I forced myself to chuckle. The chuckle had an uncomfortably heavy sound to it. “Wha- what about that could you possibly want to talk about,” I gulped, trying to hold myself together.

Brisk raised his eyebrow at me. “Please Amber, don’t lie to me. I know how much you’re hurting,” I could feel my legs getting weaker as he spoke. “I’m not going to pretend to have liked the ponies in Stable 25. Hell, some sick twisted part of me is glad they’re dead, and yet despite all that I’m still hurting. Far more than I should be. I can’t even begin to imagine what you’re going through.”

“I’m- I’m fine!” I shot back, letting my rage shield me. I wasn’t going to let his words break me. Not now. Not yet.

Brisk stomped his hoof stubbornly on the ground. “No you aren’t. You are not okay. I can see it and Xayah can see it!” He pushed, taking a step towards me. I cowered back at his approach. He took a deep breath and shifted to a softer tone. “You haven’t been acting like yourself ever since we left the Stable. This whole revenge thing you have going on is destroying you.”

I looked away from him, not able to meet his eye. “Everything will be okay once Kamari is dead,” I insisted. I had to keep believing that was true.

“Will it?” Brisk asked, holding his glare. “Because I have trouble believing when this is through that there is going to be anything left of the Amber that first emerged from that Stable.”

I shivered. “I- I’ll be fine.”

“You’re standing in a pool of blood Amber,” Brisk pointed out, pointing down at my hooves. Sure enough the bottom of my hooves were submerged in blood. I hadn’t even noticed. “The Amber Aura who left the Stable would probably have screamed if she stepped in blood.”

“I’ve just gotten used to the wasteland I guess,” I suggested, anxiously stepping out of the blood. “I think I’ve seen enough of it by now to have gotten over being squeamish of it.”

Brisk sighed and placed a hoof on my shoulder, making me return my gaze to him. “Xayah was worried when she woke up to find you gone this morning. I don’t think I’ve seen her that upset before, and we met her shortly after she witnessed her family getting slaughtered. You’re scaring her.”

“What’s going on with Xayah right now anyway?” I asked, glancing over at our zebra friend as she bickered back and forth with Pyre. “She isn’t usually this easy to upset.”

“She cares about you a lot Amber. She just doesn’t want you to hurt yourself,” Brisk Informed me, removing his hoof from my shoulder and looking out at the zebra.

“We’re in the wasteland. If she thinks I’m not going to get hurt she should probably reassess what kind of stuff happens out here,” I grunted, turning back to Brisk.

“I don’t think you quite realize how much she loves you.”

I blinked at Brisk. “Wait- When you say Xayah loves me… You don’t mean that…”

Brisk’s eyes popped wide and he clapped his hoof over his mouth. “Damn it, I told her I was shit at keeping secrets.”

I gawked at him. “Wait! What? Are you trying to tell me…” My mind blanked as I tried to figure out exactly how to take this news. “Xayah has a crush… on me?”

Brisk grimaced. “Please don’t tell her I told you, I promised I’d keep it a secret. I don’t know how you and Xayah managed to keep your crush a secret from me for so long.”

“So… what do I do?” I stuttered, trying to think of how to approach the issue. It wasn’t something I had ever had to think about before. “Do I confront her about this or…”

Brisk shook his head. “No, I’d let her come out about it on her own terms. We don’t need any more awkwardness in this group. Besides, you aren’t supposed to know yet.”

“I guess so,” I grumbled, looking back at Xayah. I’d have to figure out how to address that for when it becomes more of an issue I guess. At least I had time to prepare how to respond unlike when I had sprung my feelings onto Brisk.

Brisk gave a small sigh. “The point I’m trying to make Amber is that we’re all hurting after what happened. You aren’t alone in this fight against Kamari. We’re going to trust you, but that means you’re going to need to trust us as well. That means no running off to hunt him down on your own,” I considered arguing with him and denying my intentions, but I knew better than to lie to Brisk. He simply knew me too well. “And try to take care of yourself, I still want my friend to be around once this is over.”

I gave him a small smile. “I’ll try. Thank you. I’m really glad we’re friends, even after all that lovey dovey stuff I sprung on you the other day.”

Brisk grinned back at me and gave me a friendly punch on the shoulder. “Don’t mention it. And honestly, can you blame yourself? I am pretty handsome,” He struck his best seductive pose.

Despite everything, I found myself laugh at his ridiculousness. I returned his playful punch and turned back to the rest of our friends. “I think annoying is a better word for it,” I joked as he started following me back towards the center of the square. “Besides, green on green is a pretty boring colour palette.”

“Right, like pink on pink is any better,” Brisk said with a smirk. “Face it, you’re the least intimidating pony in the wasteland.”

As I approached Xayah and Pyre, I spotted a pool of black fluid in the middle of the street and leaned down to investigate. It was definitely the same sludge I had seen coming out of the other cyber ponies. I touched the tip of my hoof to the black puddle. It was still wet. Furthermore, it was still warm.

I gulped and turned to the rest of my friends. “Stay alert. Crank can’t be far away.”

I could feel the whole group start to feel a little uncomfortable at that.

I pointed the Hellhound towards the pool of black slime. “Find him,” I ordered. The Hellhound obeyed, crouching down and taking a whiff of the cyber alicorn’s blood. Instantly, the Hellhound caught onto Crank’s sent and started moving along the streets away from Tenpony tower.

Pyre groaned as she watched the Hellhound walk away. “Damn, I was really hoping we would get to go to Tenpony tower. It’s been years and I want some cheese,” she moaned, following after us as we moved behind the Hellhound.

“We can go there once Kamari is dead,” I grunted, not bothering to look back at her.

“I’ll hold you to that,” Pyre smirked, trotting up beside me. “And I will never forget a promise.”

As we moved further and further away from the massacre, we began to see less and less bodies. The only bodies we ran across were just a bunch of raiders that had seemingly butchered each other over the carcass of a dead radroach.

“Watcher wasn’t wrong, seems like the whole wasteland is at war right now,” I muttered, looking at the slaughtered raiders.

Brisk’s ears perked up. “You saw Watcher again?”

I flushed and stumbled to figure out how to explain myself. “Uh… yeah. Ran into him while I was out with the Hellhound this morning,” I stammered. I mentally scolded myself for being so careless with my words.

Brisk turned back to look at the Hellhound. “He isn’t wrong. Everything seems to be getting worse.”

Pyre chuckled. “Oh you all just wait,” She said, practically dancing on the tips of her hooves. “This is only the calm before the storm my little ponies.”

“How do you know this?” Xayah muttered, casting Pyre a dirty glare.

Pyre gave her a dumb look. “Oh it’s not just me that knows. Everypony knows it. Things are happening all over the wasteland. Red Eye is burning down the Everfree, alicorns are all over the place. I don’t know if you three have been keeping up with DJ Pon3’s broadcasts, but your Stable ain’t the only one that got hit. A couple days ago the Steel Rangers did a raid on Stable 2 and out in the hoof I heard something about a Stable getting turned into a bunch or cannibalistic raiders.”

“What do you think all of that means?” Brisk asked Pyre, scratching the back of his neck. “Do you think it’s all connected?”

Pyre shrugged as we turned into a tight back alley. The walls of the skyscrapers around us rose high above our heads on both sides, blocking out most of the sky. “Fuck if I know, some of it might be. Point is that while some crazy fucked up shit is always going down in the wasteland, everything seems a little more crazy than normal.”

A bunch of red bars popped up on my EFS. I stopped in my tracks and silently signalled for my friends to halt as well. I couldn’t see what was causing the red bars on my EFS, but whatever they were, they were surrounding us from all sides.

Pyre spotted the bars on her EFS as well. She dropped her head and groaned. “Ah, shit.”

“What? What is it?” Xayah asked. Being the only one of us that didn’t have access to an EFS, she had little clue what was going on.

“Raiders,” Pyre grunted. “And I recognize this tactic. These are Las Pegasus raiders.”

I quickly tried to think of what Pyre had told me about this raider gang. Not much, only that they were a lot more hardened than you average raider. I remembered fighting against some when I had first encountered Pyre Blaze. They had been hard to kill back then, and that was with the unexpected intrusion of a Hellhound.

I glanced over at the massive black Hellhound beside me. That said, We had a Hellhound on our side this time too.

An earth pony raider came around the corner and approached us. I raised Boneless to face him, but hesitated. He didn’t seem to be attacking us, just slowly approaching us. I glanced at my EFS. his bar was green.

“Well look who it fucking is,” Pyre blurted as the raider closed in on us. “If it ain’t my old pal Skull Crusher.” I didn’t need to wonder what this raider had done to earn that title. “What the fuck do you all want?”

Skull Crusher smirked at Pyre before scanning over the rest of us with his eyes. “Razor Blade asked me to come get you. He was hoping to have the personal pleasure of skinning you alive.”

“He didn’t want to come all the way out to see little ol’ me himself? I’m hurt,” Pyre mocked, holding a hoof to her Chest dramatically. “Tell me, does Jinx know about all of this?” I could see Skull Crusher wince at that comment.

I stomped a hoof in front Pyre defensively. “Pyre isn’t going anywhere with you,” I spat. I wasn’t afraid of these Las Pegasus raiders. I had killed plenty of Raiders, these would be no exception.

Pyre slapped a hoof across her forehead and gave a slight chuckle. “You might want to figure out how dire of a situation you’re in before you go around saying that kind of shit Amber,” Pyre soothed, pushing my hoof away. “You want to tell her Skully?”

Skull Crusher groaned. “Damn it Pyre, I told you not to call me that!” He grumbled to himself as he took another step forward and turned to address me directly. “You are surrounded by about twenty raiders. Eighteen of them are well trained snipers and the other two are armed with Balefire Egg Launchers.

I felt my stomach drop. I glanced around at the tall buildings around us. I could see the raiders on my EFS, but not with my eyes. I couldn’t fight that kind of firepower, especially if I couldn’t even see what I was shooting at.

I saw Xayah and Brisk look around the area nervously as well, they too were unable to spot the raiders.

I turned to Pyre. “Any idea how to get out of this sort of situation?” I asked timidly. I didn’t like the idea of two Balefire Egg Launchers being pointed at me. I didn’t know how trigger happy these raiders were. If my experience with raiders over the past few days had taught me anything, it was that they loved to shoot at things.

“A plan to get out of this situation? Fuck no. I knew we were screwed the second I saw those bars on our EFS,” Pyre grunted taking a step towards Skull Crusher.

“Then what do we do?” Xayah whispered, looking back and forth between us.

Pyre took another step so she was only a foot or so away from Skull Crusher. “The only logical thing to do…” She paused and took a breath. “Duck and cover.”

Pyre’s hooves lashed out slammed into Skull Crushers face. Skull Crusher stumbled back, falling flat on his back.

I dove to the sides as quickly as I could. Multiple rounds from a sniper whizzing past where my head had been less than a second before. I saw Brisk and Xayah dive away from me as well and shelter themselves under a collapsed nook in the side of the skyscraper, well out of the range of the snipers. The nook was small, just barely big enough for a pony, let alone two. That left just Pyre and myself open to their fire.

I learched to the side again as a second round of shots blasted towards me. These ones came much closer to making their mark. I felt a few bullets pass through my tail and a sharp pain as one bullet grazed the side of my foreleg.

I saw Skull Crusher pull himself back up and pounce at Pyre, knocking her backwards. He lashed at her with his hooves, bashing a chunk of her power armour’s metal off of the suit. My Hellhound bounded towards Skull Crusher, lashing at him with his razor sharp claws. Skull Crusher dove away from the lethal swing to slow, the massive claws cutting through his right foreleg, revealing bone.

I heard a heavy clunk up above me. The sound gave me flashbacks to my fight with Tripwire back at the train station. It was the sound of a Balefire Egg getting loaded into it’s launcher.

“Fuck,” I muttered, Darting across the street towards Brisk and Xayah. A few more shots from the snipers bounced around me, on shot embedding itself in my back. Pain raced through my body as I collapsed to the ground, a few inches away from the cover.

Xayah bolted out from the cover and wrapped her hooves around me tightly, hauling me closer to the side of the building.

Blam!

A bullet pierced one of Xayah’s legs, causing her to stumble, but she managed to keep moving.

I spotted Skull Crusher pull a large sledgehammer off his back and swing it at Pyre, who just barely managed to avoid having her head lopped off and sent flying across the street like a baseball. Before Skull Crusher could swing again, the Hellhound pounced at him, forcing him to stumble backwards.

I could hear a click from above as the Balefire Eggs were pulled into position. I screamed out for Pyre to get to safety as Xayah tossed me into the hole with her and Brisk. My body was pushed tightly up against Brisk’s body, followed shortly by Xayah’s form slamming into me from behind, her hooves wrapping around me as she did her best to both squeeze into the hole to save herself and shelter us from the impending detonation.

I saw Pyre Blaze look up at something above her. Spinning she bucked Skull Crusher in the face and dove for the corner of the street. Skull Crusher reeled back, before quickly lunging forwards and slamming his super sledge against her hide legs. Her back legs crumpled like a tin can under the impact of the hit. She spun onto her back and blasted Skull Crusher with a burst of flames, submerging him in a raging inferno.

The Hellhound began racing towards the end of the street as well, no doubt aware of the oncoming danger.

With the last bit of strength Pyre had, she pushed herself up and leapt for the edge of the street.

There was a whistling sound from above. I put my hooves over my face and shut my eyes as the two Balefire Eggs collided with the street.

My world was cast into a baleful green light. Fire flashed before my eyes and I could feel my coat sizzling under the intense heat. The walls around us cracked and began to crumble as the miniature Balefire blast sent a shockwave through the very foundation of the building.

My geiger counter ticked furiously as the radiation levels around me skyrocketed. Within seconds it started flashing warnings that I was taking over thirty rads a second.

The blinding light of the detonation slowly died down, allowing me to make out the shapes of my friends all pushed up against me.

I turned to look at Xayah. “Is everypony alright?” Xayah gave me a timid nod. from the steam coming off her back I doubted she was okay, but at least she was alive. I turned to Brisk. “Brisk, you alive?” Brisk’s face was red with embarrassment as I faced him. “Brisk?” It was only then that I noticed something hard was poking at my belly. I glanced down, my face turning just as red as Brisk’s. “Brisk! What the fuck!”

“I’m sorry, you’re rubbing up against it!” Brisk moaned in embarrassment.

I jumped back as fast as I could, trying to position myself in a less awkward position, only for my rear to end up getting pushed up against Xayah’s face. I could both hear and feel her gasp with surprise as her face collided with my plot.

“Sorry, I’m so sorry!” I blurted, my already flushed cheeks turning an even darker shade of red. I pulled myself upright into a slightly less promiscuous position. Xayah's face had turned an even dark shade of red than mine, her eyes wide with embarrassment.

“Think their dead?” I heard a raiders grunt from outside.

“I’m still picking up some ponies down there on my EFS,” Another hushed. “Just wait for them to come out of hiding. They can’t stay in there forever.”

So one of them had an EFS. That either meant they had a pipbuck or power armour. Both of those were bad news for us.

“Do you see Pyre?” I asked Xayah, trying to twist my head at an angle that I could see the street. I wasn’t picking her or the Hellhound up on my EFS.

Xayah scanned what little of the street she could see, glad to be able to hide her flushed face from the rest of us. “I don’t see her?”

I grimaced. Goddesses, please don’t be dead.

“Okay, so… what’s the plan?” Brisk asked, his face still red with embarrassment from what had just happened. “Do we just… sit tight and hope for a miracle?”

I glanced at my three companions. I had no idea how to get out of this one. Not that I ever really had any idea how to get out of anything.

“What the fuck is that thing!” I heard a raider shriek from above us. His screams were quickly followed by a chain of loud booms. The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end after each boom as a wave of static electricity pulsed through the building.

I cast a glance at Brisk. “I guess we just got a miracle or something.”

Brisk grunted, crossing his forehooves. “Or something.”

The body of a raider fell from above us and landed with a thump on the street, sparking with blue energy. It’s body had been blasted apart by some form of massive energy weapon. A few seconds after the corpse had collided with the ground, it faded away into ash.

I gulped. I could recognize that weapon damage anywhere. Hell, I had been following it all day.

“It’s Crank, isn’t it,” Xayah muttered as she looked at the steaming pile of ash a few inches away from us, the last bits of hope draining from her face. “I don’t know if I should be glad or horrified.”

I followed that sentiment.

There was another boom of a Balefire Egg Launcher, followed by a blinding flash of light somewhere up above us. Then another raider fell to their death. Then another, and another.

Then after a few minutes of screaming, everything went silent.

“Do you think he’s still out there?” Xayah muttered, trying to peer out onto the street.

There was a loud thud, followed by the sound of metal on metal. “Amber! Come out here!” I heard Crank demand from somewhere beyond my line of sight in his deep, booming voice.

I shuddered. Not only was he here, but he knew I was here as well.

I took a breath and tried to steady my breathing. I focused on all the rage I had been storing up since the massacre at Stable 25. I couldn’t waver now.

I pushed at Xayah and slowly pulled myself out of the hole.

Crank was standing in the center of the alley, his metal coat coated in a thick layer of blood. His blade like wings were fanned out at his sides, giving him an imposing and almost godlike appearance. His red, mechanical eyes bore into me with a burning anger. He had one hoof buried deep in Skull Crushers crushed skull and his other placed firmly on top of Pyre’s chest who to my relief was still very much alive.

My Hellhound stood a bit behind the cyber alicorn, awaiting instruction. Much of the Hellhounds fur had been burned away by the Balefire Egg, but he seemed mostly unharmed.

“Get off me you fucking metal Bitch!” Pyre ordered, trying to push Crank off of her. He held his ground, unmoving under even Pyre’s force.

Crank snarled down at Pyre. “You should be lucky I am even letting you live,” He snapped, pushing down harder on her with his hoof. I saw Pyre’s metal power armour dent under the pressure.

I raised my Balefire Egg Launcher and aimed it at Crank. “You are going to listen to my demands Crank or I will end you,” I growled, tightening my grip on the trigger of my weapon.

Crank stared at me dumbfounded for a long moment, taking in me and my friends. Finally, he raised his head and laughed. His laugh sent unsettling chills down my spine. This was not how I had expected him to react. “You really think you have any chance against me!” Crank scoffed between laughs. “I don’t think you are in any position to be making demands with me girl!”

I gritted my teeth and waved the Balefire Egg Launcher at him with more vigor. “Oh really? You’re outnumbered and outgunned, I think this is the perfect time to be making demands.”

Crank gave me a smug grin. “Surely you saw the piles of corpses back there,” Crank soothed. “Surely you don’t think that not a single Slaver was in possession of such a weapon as the one you wield now? Furthermore, this would not be the first time you have used that Balefire Egg Launcher on me. I didn’t die then, why would you think I would die now?”

I could feel my confidence faltering at his words. I had just witnessed him take out twenty raiders in less than a minute, and they had been in possession of two Balefire Egg Launchers. I held my head high and pretended to have more confidence than I really had.

Crank rolled his eyes. “And even if by some miracle you do manage to kill me, you would only kill your friend here in the process,” He pushed harder down on Pyre, causing her armour to cave in even more. “And don’t think that your Hellhound there is going to help you much either. I’ve killed hundreds of Hellhounds.”

“I have a pretty good track record with killing cyber ponies,” I insisted, taking a step towards him. I wasn’t going to look weak, not in front of him. “Hell, killing assholes like you is practically becoming routine for me.”

Crank scoffed. “Please, I practically killed Steelblade for you, and killing that idiot Tripwire was nothing special. He always was the weakest of the four of us,” Crank mocked, his tesla canons crackling with blue energy. “You’ve managed to get lucky with two cyber ponies, but you have no idea how much power you are really facing.”

“Three,” I blurted, catching him off guard.

Everypony went silent. “Excuse me?” Crank said, looking at me with minor confusion.

“Three cyber ponies,” I corrected him. “Inferno is dead. I killed him myself.”

For the first time since I had met him, Crank seemed genuinely taken aback. He looked at me with something other than just hatred. Was it respect I saw in his glass eyes? “Inferno is dead?” Crank muttered, seemingly unable to believe the words he was uttering. He began looking me over a little more closely, his smug expression replaced with interest.

I nodded, trying my best to look as intimidating as possible. “If you don’t listen to my demands I’ll make sure my cyber pony kill count reaches four.”

Crank pondered the new news in his head for a second before finally folding back his bladed wings against his side and lifting his hoof off of Pyre, allowing her to scramble away from him. Crank still didn’t look scared or intimidated by me, but he definitely seemed interested. “Well, it’s about time somepony gave that vile child rapist what he deserved. Perhaps you are more interesting than I thought.”

“I know you know where Kamari is,” I demanded as Pyre pulled up next to me, shaking her hoof at Crank. “I want you to take me to him.”

Crank cocked his head. “You want me to…” he gave me a cruel grin as he pieced together what I was asking of him. “You want me to take you to Kamari? You think I would do that for you just because?” He chuckled, trying his best to suppress a second laugh. He crouched into an attack stance. “How about I just take the A.A.S.S from you and return to Kamari myself?”

Brisk and Xayah took a step back as Cranks tesla canons and jagged metal horn began to glow a brilliant blue.

I rolled my eyes, holding my position as I stared down the cybernetic fiend. “We don’t have the A.A.S.S anymore. Otherwise I’d be back at my Stable.”

Crank froze, his eyes narrowing at me. I could see his muscles tensing through the few spots on his metal plating that revealed the scarred orange coat underneath. “Who has it!” Crank boomed. I found myself taking a few steps away from the cyber alicorn despite myself.

“Some zebra with purple stripes and a mare named Shade from my Stable,” I confessed, refusing to lower my weapon. “They stole the A.A.S.S from the Stable and are currently taking it to Kamari.”

I could see one of Crank’s glass eyes twitch ever so slightly. He snarled and stopped a hoof on Skull Crushers corpse, collapsing his rib cage. “Azar…” He growled, his metal jaw twisting in rage.

Xayah’s body went stiff as she heard the name. “You do not mean… Azar the Unbeatable… do you?” Xayah stammered, her eyes widening in a mix of both shock and absolute terror.

Crank gave her a cruel sneer. “You think there is another zebra with purple stripes running around the wasteland?”

Xayah took a meek step back. “That… that’s not possible, Azar died almost ten years ago! How can what you say truly be so?”

“Does somepony mind filling the rest of us in on who this Azar character is?” Brisk said, raising his hoof into the air awkwardly as if he were asking a question in a classroom.

Xayah cleared her throat and turned to face him. “Azar was a very powerful zebra warrior. He was known as the Unbeatable, as he never lost a single combat,” Xayah explained pointedly in her mesmerizing voice. “Azar was one of the few remaining zebras who practiced the art of Dragon slaying. He was... a very powerful and ferocious combatant.”

I vaguely remembered talking to Xayah shortly after I met her about zebra’s the practiced Dragon slaying. “You said he died ten years ago?” I started, trying my best to make any sense out of this new information. “If he never lost, how did he die?”

“He was in the center of a balefire bomb blast,” Xayah said simply. “Or so I have heard. I suppose if he didn’t die in the explosion, he still holds the title of Unbeatable,” she cast a worried look at Crank, whom had started to develop a worried look himself. “Are you sure this zebra is Azar? How can he still be alive?”

Crank clenched his jaw. “Hell if I know. I haven’t met Kamari or Azar face to face, and my interactions with them both have been minimal. Azar is, let's just say... not my favourite zebra,” Crank cast a thoughtful glance at me. He gritted his teeth for a second before rightingin himself into a more friendly demeanor. “Fine, I will take you to Kamari.”

I felt a wave of relief pass through me and my friends at his words. All things considered, this confrontation was going far better than I had expected.

“You will?” Pyre Blaze blurted, clearly surprised by the cyber alicorns decision. She scratched the back of her head awkwardly as the rest of us cast her an angry glare. She waved her hoof in front of her innocently. “What? I’m just surprised we didn’t have to kill anypony ourselves.”

Crank slowly took a few steps towards us. His movements were less threatening than they had been, but his presence alone still made me feel uneasy. “I will take you to Kamari,” Crank repeated as he stopped in front of me. He looked down at me with his glowing red glass eyes. “On one condition.”

I slapped my face with my hoof. Of course there was a condition. There always was. I faked a smile that even the most oblivious pony could see through. “And what is that?”

“When this is done, I want the A.A.S.S.”

I snarled. “Not likely,” I retorted, crouching my legs into a more battle ready stance. “I don’t know what you or your clients want with it, but whatever it is, I won’t let them you metal freak!”

Crank was on top of me faster than I could comprehend. His hooves slammed into my chest and knocked me prone on my back before the full weight of his body pushing down on me and pinned me to the ground. I let out a ragged gasp for air as all the wind was pushed out of my lungs.

I heard a startled cry from my friends as they launched themselves at my attacker in the hopes to get him away from me. Before they could reach us, Crank’s tesla cannons fired at their hooves, the massive shock wave of the blast sending them all flying into the wall of the alley.

My Hellhound rushed Crank, claws extended to tear him apart. In one swift movement, Crank’s blade like tile shot into the air, wrapped around the Hellhounds neck and slammed it face first into the ground. The Hellhound tried to rise, but Crank’s tail only tightened around its neck, causing the Hellhound to gasp and sputter, flopping around on the ground like a fish out of water.

I tried to raise my Balefire Egg Launcher, only to find it had been ripped from my telekinetic grasp and had landed far out of my reach.

Before we had even gotten a chance to retaliate, the battle was over.

Crank’s eyes peered down at me with a clear loathing. He took a slow breath and allowed himself a smug grin. “I enjoy that you are still under the impression that we are negotiating,” Crank growled, pushing his hoof down tighter on my chest. “I will take you to Kamari and I will get the A.A.S.S.”

I tried to push against his strength, but I was no match for his raw power. I clenched my teeth together and resisted the urge to spit at him. “I won’t let you!” I yelled back. The pressure on my chest began to increase until I feared Crank’s hoof would crash straight through my ribcage and crush me flat.

Crank raised a metal eyebrow. “And why not? Your Stable is dead and gone. It is of no use to you now. why keep fighting against me?”

I stopped struggling at that. He wasn’t wrong, I had no reason to keep pursuing the A.A.S.S. It was no longer of any value to me other than a clunky, black, oblong device. But still, I couldn’t allow monsters like Kamari or Red Eye to get ahold of it. Who knew what they needed it for. Probably not something very good, that was for sure. But then again, was keeping it from the hooves my enemies out of spite more important than my revenge?

I allowed myself to relax a little, or at least relax as much as somepony can relax while they are being pinned to the ground by a walking death machine. “Fine. You help us, we’ll let you have the A.A.S.S.”

Crank scoffed and removed his hooves from my chest, allowing me to stand. “Let me have it?” He shook his head and made a noise that was half way between a grunt and a laugh. “You have yourself a deal Amber.” The cyber alicorn turned and marched off down the alley. He turned back to look at us. “Well, don’t just stand there. Kamari isn’t going to wait for you to come kill him.”

I cast a nervous glance at my friends. I was met by three wide, fear filled eyes. I gave them a shaky smile. “Well, you heard him. Let's get going.”

Brisk glanced worriedly at the Cyber alicorn making his way down the street. “We are so going to die, aren’t we?”

Pyre gave him a playful shove and started following behind me with a laugh. “Oh yeah, we’re so fucked.”

Footnote: level up.
New perk: Nerd Rage! -- +50% DR and Strength increases to 10 whenever health is 20% or lower

Author's Note

Fallout: Equestria belongs to Kkat.
Please feel free to give your thoughts and feedback.
With all that said, I hope ya'll enjoyed the chapter and have a good day.

Chapter XII: The Corruption of Morality

"They were led here, following the path of a great roaring machine that disappeared. They believe it to be a sign that the old world is waking up."

Trains.

Even back when I had first heard mention of them I thought it was ridiculous. Not that trains were a strange way of transportation or that a machine of that size could move, but the idea that ponies pulled the train themselves was simply ridiculous. Wouldn’t it be more effective to just have wagons that ponies could pull? Pulling a train just seemed silly.

Then I had seen one when I battled against Tripwire. There was no doubting that the magnificent machine was something to behold, until I saw it was being pulled by a handful of ghoul ponies. Had I not been so preoccupied with my impending death at the time, I would have found the sight hilarious.

What idiot thought it was a good idea to create something that ran on coal when there was no coal to be found in equestria. The answer of course I knew. The design was a simple reminder of the peaceful life before the war. A time when trade between Equestria and the zebra homelands was a logical and viable option for both species.

And here I was, about to board that joke of a machine.

It had only taken us a few hours to walk to Fetlock train station. Crank seemed to be the kind of pony that liked to get places fast and didn’t like interruptions. While our first journey to Fetlock had been jam packed with near death experiences and a plethora of drawn out combats, our return had been quickened by Crank’s unprecedented raw power. Few raiders tried to attack us, and those that did where turned to ash by Crank’s tesla cannons before the rest of us even noticed there were red bars on our EFS.

The more time I spent with Crank, the more thankful I was that he was on our side and not at our throats. For the time being, that is. I dreaded the moment that the deal we made came to an end, be it completion of our mutual quest or simple betrayal. I doubted I actually stood much of a chance against him, even if I had more Balefire Eggs and a launcher for them that was rapidfire.

A ghoul in a tattered train conductor uniform marched up to us, a determined yet noticeably worried expression across his face. No doubt he recognized us as the ponies that had caused the destruction of half of the train station a few days prior.

“I’m afraid that you are too late, the train isn’t scheduled to leave for another few days,” The ghoul conductor insisted, stamping his hoof down to emphasize his point. “We just went out that way and need a good few days rest before we decide to pull another load out there,” The ghoul gave Crank a nervous glance, no doubt afraid that the cyber alicorn would blast him into pieces.

His fears were not unfounded. Crank lead down towards the ghoul, his metal jaw twisting into a cruel sneer. “I’m sure you’ll make it work, we are in quite the hurry,” Crank snarled, his jagged horn crackling slightly with blue energy. I noticed that his tesla cannons charged up with his horn, almost as if they were connected.

I ghoul gave a timid squeak and backed up a few steps. Finding himself unable to evade Crank’s intimidating glare he bowed his head. “I- I’ll see what I can do,” he muttered, a horrified tone creeping through his voice. The ghouls eyes wandered to the ruins of what had once been the train stations clock tower. His body began to tremble slightly. “Just give us an hour, I’m sure we can all get through this without any trouble.”

Crank grunted, causing the ghoul to flinch. The ghoul took the cyber alicorn silence as his cue to leave and blotted out of there as fast as he could. Despite his nerves, I applauded the ghoul on his ability to even confront the cyber alicorn in the first place.

Now that I thought about it, we did appear to be a rather intimidating bunch. If a powerful cyber alicorn wasn’t scary enough, we were also backed up by a psychotic flamer wielding raider in power armour and a massive black Hellhound. Brisk was bloodied and wore an eyepatch over his eye that made him look far more intimidating than he really was and Xayah… Well Xayah wasn’t overly intimidating, but zebra’s seemed to put ponies on edge. And to top all of that off, I had a murderous gleam in my eye and a Balefire Egg Launcher slung across my back.

I can definitely understand the ghouls fear.

“Sooooo, You guys come here often?” Pyre asked, glancing around at the ruined train station. “I must say, you four give terrible first impressions on ponies.”

Crank cast her a sour look, but remained just as silent as he usually was.

“And uh- you’re okay with this?” Brisk asked me, pulling me aside for a second. “I mean this whole forcing the ghouls to pull the train thing seems a little raidery, don’t you think?”

I shrugged. “It’s for the greater good Brisk. If we let this Azar character get to far ahead of us we risk him giving the A.A.S.S to Kamari, and then we not only need to worry about him doing whatever he plans to do with it, but we also run the risk of losing Crank as an ally.”

Brisk grimace. “When you put it all together like that, I don’t mind being a little raidery I guess.”

“It’s not being a raider,” I assured him. “It’s doing what needs to be done to stop something far worse from happening.”

Brisk seemed to take that for a solid answer. I returned to standing next to Xayah by the train. She looked just as worried about the situation as the rest of us, but she didn’t seem to have anything to say on the matter.

“So where exactly are you taking us?” I asked Crank as the ghouls started getting the train ready for departure. “You haven’t exactly told us much of anything.”

“Hollow Shades,” Crank grunted, keeping his eyes fixed on the ghouls.

Well that didn’t answer much. Granted I had never been outside of Manehattan so short of him saying Canterlot, his response probably wouldn’t have helped me much.

“The Hollow Shades?” Pyre echoed, casting a strange glance at Crank. “The fuck is Kamari doing out there? Last I heard that place was a abandoned?”

Crank shook his head. “The area around the Hollow Shades were used as a testing ground for Balefire bombs before the war. Ministry of Arcane Science set up there as well I believe. Last I heard there’s an old Stable up there that still has ponies in it and a small town of some sort.”

“And this is where Kamari is hiding?” Xayah asked innocently. “In the Hollow Shades?”

Crank shrugged. “Never met Kamari face to face. That was where he told me to meet him before some ponies decided to interfere,” Crank growled, casting me a death glare. I felt myself shrink under his gaze.

“So we don’t know where in the Hollow Shade he is then?” Pyre cooed, stretching out her front legs like a cat. “How do we hope to find him once we get there?”

“The Hollow Shades is a fairly small area,” Crank injected. “It will probably be easier than you think, and we can always ask the locals.”

“It’s closer to finding him then we’ve been so far,” I admitted, not enjoying the fact that I was siding with Crank on anything. “We’ll find him. I know we will.”

The train took longer to prepare than I would have liked. The hour that the ghoul conductor had suggested turned out to be more like two and a half hours, though it definitely still beet a couple of days.

We quickly piled onto the train and set off. My Hellhound quickly curled up in the corner of the wagon and fell asleep. I was glad that the creature still had enough free will to do that.

The ride was uncomfortably bumpy and the interior of the train looked like it hadn’t been cleaned in years, but it sure as hell beat walking. I marched over to one of the leather covered train seats that seemed somewhat intact and sat down on it. The seat made a gross squishing noise under my rump as I put my weight onto it. I stuck my tongue out in disgust at how wet the seat was.

Really, the wasteland couldn’t even give me a nice place to sit? Seriously?

Brisk and Xayah trotted up to me and slumped down on the seat as well. They seemed to care less about the gross noise that accompanied that action then I did.

“Conductor says the ride is only a few hours or so, we should reach the Hollow shade before nightfall assuming something crazy doesn’t happen,” Brisk informed me. He then cast a dirty glance at Pyre and Crank on the other side of the train wagon. Pyre seemed to be playing a game of staring the massive cyber alicorn down while Crank did his best to ignore her, a grouchy look sprawled across his face. “Not that I expect nothing crazy to happen. We don’t have that kind of luck,” He added flatly.

“The wasteland between Fetlock and Fillydelphia has been patrolled by a large group of bandits, with luck we can avoid an incident with them,” Xayah added. I remembered DJ Pon3 saying something about bandits that were picking on wastelanders and Slavers alike.

My ears popped up as a thought hit me. “Wait? Fillydelpia?” I asked, a small shiver running down my spine? “Isn’t that were Red Eye is?”

Xayah nodded. “It’s not far from Manehattan, in fact we will probably be passing it in a few minutes. Is that an issue?” Xayah asked, a bit of concern creeping into her voice.

“If your worried about getting involved with Red Eyes shit, then don’t be,” Pyre said, getting bored of staring down Crank and coming to join us on our side of the train wagon. “Red Eye doesn’t usually come out into this area of the wasteland. Not many ponies in these parts worth enslaving I guess. We might pass a slaver caravan out here moving to more populated areas of the Wasteland, but I doubt they’d attack us or anything.”

“How are you so sure?” Brisk pushed, narrowing his eyes at Pyre a little.

Pyre waved him aside. “How do you think this ghouls managed to collect enough caps to get this silly train into working order?” Pyre Blaze said, rolling her eyes behind the tinted visor of her helmet. “The ghouls here are neutral, they help anypony that needs a ride, that includes Red Eye and his slavers. They bring resources to Filly, allow Slavers bringin’ in Slaves a ride and in return Red Eye keeps them safe and loaded with caps.”

I didn’t like the idea of being on a train run by Red Eye. Pyre could tell to. “Don’t think too much about it Amber, the ghouls here help other ponies too. It’s a mutual thing.”

I glanced out the window to see the dark towering buildings of Fillydelpia looming in the distance for the first time. An ominous red halo of light seemed to shimer from behind it’s fortress like walls and strange looking hot air balloons circled the dark spires. Even all the way out here, the city looked evil.

I grimace. With my luck, I’d be heading into there someday. I didn’t like the idea of that one bit.

Xayah snarled as she spotted the vile cities silhouette on the horizon. “My family and I were nearly captured by Slavers on our way to Manehattan,” Xayah said, her gaze locked on the city. “The bastards had children in cages. They tried to take Zira as well, but we managed to escape.”

“Yeah, Red Eye’s weird like that,” Pyre grunted. “He enslaves children, then goes about teaching them and giving them toys. Course some slavers don't give a shit about educating the youth, so a lot of slavers just kill the children for fun. The guys a total nut job.”

“Hold up, who the hell is Zira?” Brisk grunted, clearly not thinking too much about what he was saying. I gave him a kick, knocking him to his senses. Almost immediately he realised his mistake, though in his defence I couldn’t remember Xayah ever talking to him about her past family like she had with me.

“Zira was my daughter,” Xayah said, her voice cracking slightly.

“You had a daughter? I thought you were like... gay,” Pyre quipped, giving me a quick wink. Brisk gave Pyre an angry glare at her comment. I would have as well had Xayah and I not been blushing. Seriously? Pyre knew about Xayah’s crush on me too? Did everypony know about it and were just waiting for her to make a move on me?

Xayah glanced away from us and back out at the landscape that flew past us out the window. “I don’t really want to talk about it,” She remarked, not answering Pyre’s question.

Great, probably another traumatic thing from one of our parties pasts that was going to come up later in some deeply emotional and heartbreaking conversation. Just what we needed.

I glanced over at Crank who was standing alone adjacent to us. He was staring out the window at the endless miles of wasteland beyond. Save for the twisted and leafless husks of charred trees and the occasional broken down single story building, there was nothing but flat open space. Having never been outside of Manehattan, I had never seen so much emptiness. The skyline had always been obscured by the towering skyscrapers and it had at least felt like there were always walls on all sides of me. But not out here. Out here was even more barren and dead. It was simply vast and empty.

Hollow. The wasteland felt hollow.

I groaned and pulled myself up from the seat, my eyes trained on the cyber alicorn. “Alright, I’m going to go talk to him,” I said, wincing at my own words. I saw Crank’s ear twitch. No doubt he could hear everything we were saying.

Brisk gave me a strange look. “Why? Please don’t tell me you are planning to make friends with that thing?”

I shook my head. “No... We need answers. He probably knows some,” At least I sure hoped he did. I also hoped he was willing to share them with me and not decide this deal of ours wasn’t worth his time and try to kill me. I could see our conversation going either way.

“Don’t make him angry,” Xayah suggested, casting the cyber alicorn a nervous glance. “I’m pretty sure a blast from his cannons will destroy this train,” I could have sworn I saw a small smile creep onto Crank’s face at that comment.

I gave Xayah a small nudge and smiled, making her blush. Holy shit, Brisk and Pyre were right, Xayah really did like me. I still had no idea how to deal with that. The idea that somepony had any form of romantic feeling for me was just strange. “I’ll be fine… probably.”

I turned from my friends and slowly advanced towards Crank. He was only about five steps away, but I took my time, afraid to get close to him.

“So you want answers?” Crank rumbled, not bothering himself enough to turn back and look at me. I shrank back slightly, having already forgotten how powerful and commanding his voice was.

I nodded, noticing that his gaze had locked on me through the reflection of the window. I pointed to the small Stable-Tec symbol at the base of his neck. “What’s your connection to Stable-Tec. Are they working with Red Eye or Kamari or something? Is that why I got a call from Stable-Tec right before you showed up in my Stable?”

Crank glanced down at the engraving on his neck. “Stable-Tec has been gone for a long time. However much of their technology is still very much active and usable. As a Stable Dweller, you should know that better than anypony,” I grunted, finally looking back at me and looking me over with his red eyes. “One of Stable-Tec’s headquarters is located in Fillydelphia. Take control of the headquarters and you suddenly have access to a lot of the Stables around the Wasteland.”

“And the symbol?” I repeated, pointing once again at the Stable-Tec logo on his neck.

“Stable 101 was filled with cybernetics,” Crank explained. “Even after Red Eye murdered his Stable, much of the contents inside were still in working condition.” I shivered at that. Red Eye murdered his Stable? The idea of that was unthinkable. “He soon realized that the cybernetics inside of the Stable, combined with a mix of MWT technology and various MAS projects could create something very powerful.”

“He being Red Eye, yes?” I asked, trying to keep up with all the information that Crank was springing on me. He was bing much more cooperative than I had been expecting.

Crank was quiet for a moment before turning back to look out the window. “Something like that,” He grunted, staring out at the ash coated wasteland.

I raised an eyebrow. “Not Red Eye? So like, another party that works closely with Red Eye?”

Crank grunted. I didn’t know if I should take that as a yes or no. So much for my previous statement of Crank being cooperative.

I could tell I wasn’t getting anywhere with him on that topic so I quickly changed to something else. “And what about this Kamari? Who is he? I figured he isn’t working with Red Eye.”

Crank looked back at me again and scoffed. “He definitely isn’t with Red Eye, that much is certain. Kamari is about as secretive as the damn Enclave, if not more so. I know he has a decent following of zebra’s and a lot more resources to throw away than even Red Eye. I don’t know much past that, though I hear he has been lending zebra’s to the remnant out in the Hoof.”

I wasn’t sure how much that information helped me. Most of that I had gathered already. The stuff about him lending troops to a faction out in the Hoof seemed interesting and most likely spelt trouble, but it wasn't something that I necessarily needed to worry about in the foreseeable future.

“Is that it?” I asked, hoping he had a little bit more info on him.

Crank though for a moment. “I’ve heard rumors that Kamari actively practices necromancy, though I can neither confirm nor deny that fact,” Crank stated flatly.

Necromancy. That word itself was simply horrifying. I racked my brain for anything I knew about that specific form of magic. I didn’t know much.

Back in the Stable, I had read a book about different types of magic that the Ministry of Arcane Science had been studying before the bombs fell. There had been pages upon pages detailing almost every form of magic out there. Every form except necromancy of course. That had only gotten a brief description and a warning saying that it was both extremely dangerous and very much illegal.

“Necromancy?” I stuttered, trying my best to not sound nervous. “Kamari can resurrect the dead?”

Crank gave me a shrug and continued staring out the train's window. “So the rumour goes. Though as I said, I can’t confirm that.”

“Okay, and what about you?” I asked, taking a meek step towards him.

Crank shot me a warning glare. “What about me?” His voice had changed to a threatening rumble. I took a quick step back, returning to the spot I had just been standing in.

“What about you?” I repeated again, trying my best to sound confident. “Like, what’s your story? How did you become a cyber pony? Shit like that.”

Crank narrowed his glowing red eyes at me. “Why do you care?”

I gulped. “I don’t know. Just wondering I guess,” Clearly Crank wasn’t a fan of answering personal questions. “I got really inside of Inferno’s head when I fought him, so I just thought that-

“You just thought what?!” Crank snarled, turning around to face me. The massive cyber alicorn loomed over me, blocking my view of the window. My friends across the train wagon saw the threatening movement and quickly drew their weapons, expecting some sort of a fight to break out.

I boldly put out a hoof and pushed Crank back a little, hoping to ease a little bit of the sudden tension. “You can take a step back. I know you’re taller than me, no need to rub it in,” I joked between quivering lips.

Crank glared down at me for a second before taking a quick step back. My friends relaxed a little and returned to their chatter, but I could tell they were preparing for a fight if something were to happen. Brisk didn’t even bother putting his pistol away.

“I am not Inferno,” Crank scowled, his eyes burning holes into my very soul. “I am nothing like that monster.”

I waved my hooves in front of my in an attempts to show that I understood. “Alright, alright. So Inferno was crazy even by your standards,” Crank continued to glare at me. I chuckled nervously. “Okay, Inferno was just bat shit crazy and you had to deal with him. Got it.”

Crank seemed to ease up at that. “Inferno was a monster in every stretch of the word,” Crank rumbled. “He was very useful in a fight, but his morals and vile lusts made him near impossible to deal with.”

I tried to imagine needing to work alongside Inferno, needing to put up with his violent behaviour and his sickening tendencies to rape every pony he could. The idea was horrifying. That said, I had seen into his past. Lived it. I had seen exactly what had driven him to become what he had become. “I’m not sure he was a monster actually,” I replied with an uneven tone. “Twisted and fucked up sure. Insane and violent, definitely. But in the end he was a pony like the rest of us.”

Crank gave me a hate filled sneer. “What the fuck did you witness in your little encounter with Inferno that gave you that twisted idea?” Crank hissed.

I kicked the floor of the train wagon awkwardly. “I uh- Well I kinda dug around in his head and made him relive all of his past traumas.”

Crank just stared at me coldly. Finally he shook his head. “And what you saw made you think he was deserving of forgiveness and redemption?”

That gave me pause. Did Inferno deserve either of those? I doubted it. Even with his past, nothing could excuse the things he had done. “No, I don’t think I could forgive Inferno for what he had done, but I do think that had things turned out differently for him, he could have been a better pony.”

Crank’s even stare was beginning to make me uncomfortable. His glass eyes kept looking over me as if trying to find something hidden on my body. “Having a good sob story doesn’t change the fact that you’re a monster. It only gives the monster a way to shift the blame onto something else,” Crank Replied grimly. “Inferno was the product of what happens when the wasteland consumes a pony. He could have been a pony had things been different sure, but that doesn’t mean he was one.”

I gulped as I readied my next question in my mouth. “And uh- are- are you a pony?”

The second the words left my mouth Crank froze. His entire body went rigid as he took in what I had asked. The momentary reaction of panic that flashed across Crank’s face was almost instantly covered up as he hid his feelings behind a cruel sneer. “I’m trying to be,” He scowled, his black, slug like tongue pressed tightly against his jagged fang like teeth as he released a hiss that sent a numbing chill down my spine.

“But you aren’t currently?” I pushed, cocking my head slightly to the side. I could see by the burning hate in Crank’s eyes that I had hit a nerve with him on that last question. I took a step back as I realised that I might have overstepped with my questions.

Crank bared his teeth at me, his tesla cannons slowly charging up as he stared me down. For a horrifying second, I thought he might actually fire at me. Then, just as quickly as his anger had come, it subsided and Crank turned to look back out at the window. “No, not yet. But I will be. Soon as this is all over…” There was a strange tone in his voice I understood far too well. In a painful second I didn’t see Crank standing before me, but rather I saw another version of myself. I saw a pony that for reasons I could not yet explain, had lost everything and was consumed by the rage that forced them to pursue the one thing they thought could undo all of their problems. For me it was revenge on Kamari, for Crank it was the completion of this mission for one reason or the other.

I gave a forced laugh. “I guess we’re both pretty fucked up, huh?”

Crank gave me a skeptical look. “Amber, you’re little squad is probably one of the most fucked up groups of ponies I’ve stumbled across in the wasteland. And that’s saying something.”

That made me stop. I glanced over at my friends across the train wagon. “We aren’t that fucked up,” I said protectively, looking them all over. “We’ve got a few problems sure, but nothing the average wastelander doesn't have.”

Crank gave out a hollow laugh. He pointed over at Pyre with a metal hoof. “I think that bitch has more problems than she wants you to think. Ask her about it some time. There is a level of fucked up in her brain that gives the mighty Inferno a run for his money,” his hoof shifted until it was pointing at Brisk. “And that one’s been through some shit. Judging by the way he keeps checking to make sure his Buck is still safe, I’d say he’s dealing with some nasty form of addiction towards it. And that Stable messed him up bad too. My caps are on a mix of suicidal tendencies and having been raped as a kid.”

My heart thudded in my chest at that. How the fuck could Crank have possibly guessed that after having know Brisk for only a few hours. It had taken me days to find out that bit of information on him out. And I had never even considered the idea that he might be dealing with some form of depression. “I- How did you…?”

Crank gave me a pitiful look. “I’ve had to work alongside Inferno long enough to know the victim of a child rapist when I see one. They have this…” He rolled his tongue around as he searched for the right word. “...This shame. I can see it in their eyes. They feel ashamed of their body, their past… they hate themselves.”

I wanted to yell at Crank to shut up. I didn’t want to hear anymore of this, but my tongue seemed to have turned to stone in my mouth. “Bu- But what abou-”

“And then there’s the zebra,” Crank soothed, his steady, stoic glare rolling over Xayah’s body. “Where to begin with her. She’s lost some ponies very close to her quite recently, that much is certain,” He paused; his eyes inspecting each movement Xayah made. “She’s been the victim of harrowing circumstances her whole life. Rape, torture, discrimination,” He glanced down at her hooves. “Her constant state of misery is evident in her ever shaking hoof.”

I glanced at Xayah’s hooves. Sure enough her left forehoof was trembling ever so slightly. I felt a pang of guilt that I hadn’t noticed it until now, especially since Crank had spotted it so quickly.

Crank’s words were sinking into me. How fucked up were my friends really? Was it my fault? The stuff Crank was talking about was all the things that had happened to them prior to meeting me, but- For some reason I couldn’t help feeling that I was responsible for their pain.

Crank finally turned and rest his eyes on me. “And you…” His eyes darted around as he took in my whole being. He forced himself to withhold a sickening grin. “Well I’m sure you can figure that out for myself.”

I realised my whole body had tensed up as he psychoanalysed my friends. I took a slow breath and let my muscles relax. “I’m what?” I asked, not fully sure if I wanted to hear his answer. On one hoof, he seemed to be able to read all of our emotions like an open book. I was interested as to what I might hear. On the other hoof however, the last thing I needed right now was some crazy emotion destroying mental crisis because he had made me realise some sick twisted detail about myself I had been ignoring.

Crank gave me a cruel smirk. “Where to begin with you Amber Aura?” He rolled my name around the inside of his mouth as if deciding exactly how good my name tasted. “You are hurting from the loss of your Stable, the death of somepony very close to you and the pain of a recent betrayal,” He began circling me, looking over every inch of my coat. “You’re… you’re angry.”

I chuckled at that. “Oh yeah? Tell me something I don’t know.”

That only made Crank seem to grin more. “You direct your anger at the wrong ponies,” he stated bluntly.

“I- what is that supposed to mean?” I gasped, trying to put what he was saying together in my head. “Are you trying to tell me that I shouldn’t be angry at Kamari?”

Crank raised a hoof in mocking defence. “I mean you aim your anger at your enemies to hide the fact that the pony you’re really angry at is yourself.”

I took a step back, his words hitting me like a ton of bricks falling onto my head. “I- you don’t know what you’re talking about,” I stammered, trying to prove him wrong. I wasn’t angry at myself for the death of my Stable. Right?

Crank finished his first circle around me and began his second pass. “You blame yourself for the misfortune that has befallen those around you because you believe you were born for greatness and failed miserably. Deep down you feel like you deserve the pain of the wasteland as punishment for not living up to the expectations you have placed upon yourself. You hate yourself Amber Aura. You wish you had died back in your Stable with the ones you love, and you are praying that this rage burning away everything inside of you will leave you as empty as you feel, because then at least you will have a good reason to blow out your own brains and end your pitiful suffering.”

I stumbled backwards and fell on my rump as his words washed over me like waves of fear and dread. My heart pounded in my chest and I had to suppress the growing urge to scream. “No… No I don’t think that.”

My friends were around me in moments, weapons drawn and aimed up at the powerful cyber alicorn that towered over me. He glanced at the weapons with mild amusement as they faced him.

“What did you do!” Brisk hissed, placing the barrel of his gun against Crank’s forehead. His eyes narrowed as he stared down the massive Cyber alicorn.

Crank chuckled, turning from them and marching away to the door leading to the train wagon behind us. “Just telling little Amber here the truth,” And with that he slipped from the train wagon and out of sight.

I let loose a long sigh and slid to my haunches. Xayah quickly knelt down to my level. “Amber, are you alright?” She asked, a worried tone in her voice.

I gave them all a forced smile that I’m sure more than just Brisk could see though. “I’m fine. He’s just getting in my head is all,” I reassured them, pulling myself up and sitting down on the seat I had occupied when I first boarded the train.

“Well if he does it again I’ll blast his brains out,” Brisk scowled, casting the door Crank had exited through a hateful glance.

I shook my head. “You know just as well as I that that wouldn’t do anything but make the issue worse.”

Brisk gave a low growl and propped himself up on the sill to the window where Crank had once stood, looking out at the desolate landscape beyond. “Did you at least get any useful information out of him?” Brisk asked in a begrudging tone.

“I’m not sure. I still don’t know what Kamari or Red Eye want with the A.A.S.S and I still have no idea what awaits us in the Hollow Shades, but bits and pieces of things seem to be coming together.”

“So it was Red Eye that sent this cyber ponies after this Ass thing?” Pyre questioned.

I shook my head, not bothering to correct her on her crude joke. “I don’t know. It seems like it, but Crank seemed to suggest that somepony else was behind it.”

“A pony that works for Red Eye?” Xayah suggested, hopping up onto the seat next to me. “Red Eye has a lot of allies out in the Wasteland. Perhaps the Talons?”

Pyre shook her head. “I’ve dealt with Talons plenty of times. They’re somethin’ and sometimes they do stuff you don’t expect, but this aint their style.”

“Crank said that their operating out of Fillydelphia,” I added. “They seemed to have some connection to a Stable called Stable 101.”

“That’s Red Eyes Stable,” Pyre blurted, rolling onto her back and looking up at the roof of the wagon. “This all just sounding like Red Eye shenanigans to me.”

“Maybe,” I shrugged, looking out the window. The distant silhouette of Fillydelpia had become little more than a small black dot on the horizon, surrounded by a villainous red glow. “I guess will find out sooner or later. For now, let's just focus on dealing with Kamari. We can figure out who Crank’s other client is later.”

Seeing that the conversation was more or less over, Brisk turned and continued looking out the window, his matted green mane flowing in the strong breeze outside as the train raced along the tracks.

Pyre… Well I don’t really know what the heck Pyre was doing. She lay on her back with he eyes transfixed on the ceiling, occasionally reaching up and trying to grasp at something that wasn’t there. I could only assume that she was on some sort of chem.

I glanced out at the window myself, looking at some strange shaped rocks far off in the distance that I assumed were the Hollow Shades. It didn’t look like a very pleasant place.

After a few moments I got the feeling of someone staring at me. I looked behind me to see Xayah watching me carefully, her emerald green eyes watching for… something. She quickly glanced away as I spotted her.

“You doin’ alright?” I asked, pulling myself from the window and scooting a little closer to her. I could almost hear her heart pounding from where I sat.

Xayah gave a quick nod and looked up at me. “Yes, I am glad your plan is working out so far,” She soothed, rubbing the back of her neck with a striped hoof. “But uh- there is something I’ve been meaning to ask you…”

Welp, this was it. I braced myself for the worst and pulled my lips up into a thin smile, hoping that it looked comforting and not menacing. “Ask away, what’s on your mind.”

Xayah’s eyes darted to the door Crank had left though. “Do- do you think that if we find the A.A.S.S before we kill Kamari that Crank will turn on us?”

That was… not what I had been expecting her to ask. “I uh- don’t know,” I admitted. “I’m just hoping we can find Kamari. Dealing with Crank as well is more than I think I can take at the moment.”

Xayah shivered. “I think Crank is planning something. I keep seeing him smiling at us,” She said, more worry creeping into her green eyes. “I don’t like it.”

I hadn’t noticed that, and I definitely didn’t like that. “I’m sure he is planning something,” I soothed. “But when he does whatever it is, we’ll be ready for him. Together.”

Xayah nodded, but the worry in her face didn’t seem to go away. “O-okay. Thank you.”

“For what?” I asked, raising an eyebrow at her.

Xayah blushed slightly. “For being yourself, I guess. I’m glad you still seem to be with us, even after everything that happened with the Stable. I know your angry right now, but I am glad that you aren’t letting it take you over completely.”

I winced. If only she knew just how much that rage was really consuming me. I doubt she would have said that if she knew the truth.

I sighed and gave her a small pat on her fore hoof. “No problem. I’ll always be here for y'all,” I stated. Goddesses I hope that was true and what Crank was telling me about myself had only been a lie to get under my skin.

Xayah glanced down at her hooves for a second before looking back up at me. “There’s uh- one other thing I wanted to talk to you about.”

I braced myself again. “Yeah? What about?”

“Well- uh- What was it I told you, It is better to know and possibly get rejected than to live the rest of your life wondering what might have been?” Xayah started, glancing back down at her hooves.

Yup, this was definitely it. I gave a nervous chuckle. “Yup, that was definitely what you said,” Damn it, why was I acting as nervous as she was right now.

The nervousness in my voice caught Xayah’s attention. Her eyes widened as she glanced up at me. “You know! You already know, don’t you!”

I bit the bottom of my lip and pretended like I didn’t know what she was talking about. “I uh- I don’t know anything of the sort,” I insisted, giving her the best fake smile that I could.

Xayah’s eyes grew even wider. “Brisk told you didn’t he!”

“What? Noooo…” I stumbled for an excuse. Xayah raised an eyebrow as I searched for words. I dropped my head. “Okay, maybe, definitely he told me.”

Xayah shrunk in her seat and pulled the hood of her stealth cloak up over her head before quickly wrapping herself up in her black and white tail. “Goddesses, now I just look like an Idiot…” She whimpered, trying to push herself as far back into her cloak as she could.

“What? No, you don’t look like an idiot,” I assured her.

Xayah peeked out at me flatly from beneath her hood. “Really?”

I made some sort of weird spitting sound that I hoped would signify me saying I didn’t think she was an idiot. A little white pony in my Saddlebag smiled at my reaction. “Not at all,” I said, seeing that the strange spitting sound didn’t comfort her at all. “I mean, I had a crush on Brisk for like, what? A week or something?”

“But he didn’t know till you told him,” Xayah moaned, curling up even tighter.

Well she got me there I guess. I shifted my body closer to the curled up zebra and placed my hoof over her. She flinched at the touch, but didn’t move away. “So you have a bit of a crush on me. So what? I’m flattered, honestly.”

I could see Xayah’s green eyes looking up at me. Small tears had weld up in her eyes and were rolling down her cheeks. It took my a moment to realize the gravity of what I was looking at. Xayah hadn’t even cried when her family was murdered in front of her, or at least she had managed to get ahold of her emotions enough in the hours that followed that she was able to refrain from shedding tears afterwards. That fact that this made her cry was… something I was having trouble understanding.

I pulled back her hood a little, allowing me to see the rest of her face. She quickly wiped her tears aside, but remained keeping eye contact. “W-well?” She asked in a cracked voice. “What do you think?”

Well wasn’t that the question of the day. I had been preparing for this moment since Brisk had told me Xayah had a crush on me, but I hadn’t managed to come up with an actual answer yet.

I sighed and scooted even closer to her, which was difficult as we are already shoulder to shoulder. “To be completely honest with you Xayah, I don’t know. After everything that’s gone on with my Stable, all my emotions have been so fucked up that I probably wouldn’t be able to comprehend love if it was staring me right in the face. I think I’m having trouble feeling anything but anger right now,” I sighed and slowly stroked her striped mane with a hoof. I was surprised how soft she was. “I do care about you a lot Xayah, but… I don’t know if I care about you the way you’d like me to.”

Xayah sniffled and nodded, slowly unraveling herself from the knot she had tied herself in.

I looked up from her and glanced at Brisk who was busy staring out the window. Typical Brisk and his windows. “Besides, I’m still trying to get over my feelings for Brisk at the moment. I do care about you Xayah, and I don’t want you to just be a rebound for me.”

Xayah quickly wiped away another tear. “So that is a no I guess,” She sniffled, giving me a sad smile.

“To being a couple you mean?” I asked her. She gave me a timid nod. I shook my head and stared out the window. “It’s less a ‘no’ and more of a ‘I don’t know yet’,” I answered. “Maybe after all of this is over I can give you a more solid answer.”

“But it’s a no for now?” Xayah pushed.

“Yeah. It’s a no for right now.”

Xayah took a deep breath before exhaling. “Then that’s okay. I was honestly expecting your reaction to be much worse.”

I glanced up at Brisk again. He had turned from the window and was watching us with his one good eye, his eyebrows raised. I sighed and dropped my gaze back to the shivering zebra. “Yeah. I know exactly what you mean.”

I wrapped my other hoof around her and let her curl up closer against my chest, her tears had died down, but I could still feel the occasional droplet land on my coat.

I looked from Xayah, to Brisk, to my reflection on the closed window of the train wagon. What was I going to do with the three of us. We were all a mess. An awkward, silly, emotional mess.

Pyre rolled across the floor so that she was lying below our feet, her eyes peering up at us though her visor as we cuddled. “D’awww, aren’t you two just the cutest,” she smirked, reaching out her forehooves to us.

I glowered at her. “I am not cute,” I insisted, trying to put on my most intimidating look. For the first time in a bit I found myself unable.

Xayah pushed back and looked up at me with her smug little zebra grin. “You are a little cute.”

Oh goddesses. Damn it, now I was blushing. I crossed my hooves. “Excuse me? I’m pretty sure you’re the cute one here Xayah, not me. No sir. I am the least cute thing on this train.”

I heard Brisk chuckle at that. I shot him a pouty look for his betrayal. He simply shrugged back at me. “Face it Amber, you’re pink, tiny and have huge adorable puppy eyes. You’re cute.”

“Puppy eyes!” I was starting to blush even more. “I’m an intimidating wasteland heroine! I am not a cute pony.”

“You have got to be one of the least intimidating ponies in the wasteland,” We heard Crank call from the other train wagon in his loud, booming voice.

We all stood in silent shock at the terrifying cyber alicorn’s sudden contribution to our ridiculous conversation. Then, for the first time since I had watched the death of Stable 25, we laughed. Not some fake laugh to cover up our sorrows and hurts. A real laugh that made our stomachs hurt and the sides of our mouths feel like they were getting pulled apart. I felt all our spirits lift and the darkness that had settled over us for the past few days brighten. The pain wasn’t gone, not by a long shot, but it had receded just a little. Just enough for things to be okay - at least for a little while.

As our laughter slowly died down to a slight chuckle, I leaned in and gave Xayah’s shoulder a little nuzzle. “See, things around here are going to be just fine,” I said with a smile, getting a large blush from her in return.

I met Brisk’s eye and he gave me a genuinely happy smile. Things were going to be okay. We were going to be okay.

“Welp, this has probably been the happy moment we’ve had since I joined the party,” Pyre said with a grin. “I was starting to think you three were nothin’ but a bunch of mopes.”

“We have our happy moments,” I said with a grin. “You should have seen us at Friendship City on our first visit. We spent half the night dancing to DJ Pon3’s radio.”

Pyre had to cover her mouth to stop herself from laughing. “I’m glad I missed that. Sounds a little too sappy for me.”

I gave her a sly smile. “I don’t know, we got DJ Pon3 on my pipbuck. I think we should do a little bit of dancing right now.”

Pyre’s eyes popped wide with horror. “Oh no! You ain’t getting me to dance. Not today, not tomorrow, and definitely not while I’m sober.”

“I picked up a couple bottles of Wild Pegasus on our first trip through Fetlock,” Brisk said smugly, leaning over Pyre and giving her his usual devious look. It was good to see that look back on his face.

Pyre pulled herself up and waved her hoof in front of her face. “Oh no you don’t. There will be no dances today my mischievous green friend.”

I gave everyone a wide smile. “Don’t worry Brisk, I got this,” I said, reaching out and wrapping my magic around his saddlebags where he had left them by the window.

Brisk’s grinning face quickly morphed into a look of sudden alarm. His eyes popping wide in panic as he reached his hoof out quickly to stop me. “Wait Amber! Don’t-”

Whatever he was going to say next was cut off as my magic fully enclosed around his saddlebags and the world swirled away from me.

I was standing at the top of a staircase.

Shit! There must have been a memory orb in Brisk’s Saddlebag when I picked it up. I made a mental note to not magically lift anymore saddlebags until I had checked to see what was inside. This was what? The second time this had happened to me now?

A sudden thought flashed through my mind. Why the fuck did Brisk have a memory orb in his Saddlebags? His horn could do little more than cover itself in an aura. He was incapable of doing even basic telekinesis, let alone tap into memory orbs.

The walls of the building were cracked and coated in a thick layer of mold and dust, a clear indication that this was a memory after the bombs fell. The floor was slathered in a thick layer of sticky red fluid that I could only imagine was blood.

In front of me stood a unicorn raider. His armour was like that of most other raiders, assembled from jagged chunks of metal, spikes, chains and anything else he could get his hooves on. His grease coated black hair had been pulled back into two pigtails on the top of his head and his face was covered in a sickening mask of a screaming pony face.

I gulped as I recognised the mask, or rather, what I had assumed to be a mask. It wasn’t the kind of thing that you forget.

The raider had literally pulled a skinned pony head over his own.

Out of the corner of my eye I could see both Brisk and Xayah staring wide eyed at the vile raider in front of us.

This was my memory!

This was shortly before we had our first encounter with the Steel rangers. Brisk and Xayah had told me the raiders had hit me over the head and knocked me out. A horrifying feeling began to wash over me as I realized that something much more sinister had transpired.

The raider before us held a large serrated knife in its magic and had pushed the blade up against the neck of the yellow filly we had followed in. The fillies eyes were wide and her shaking pupils had turned to pinpricks.

“Don’t take another step or I’ll slit this fillies throat!” The raider cackled, grinning at us through his skin mask. A terrible feeling of déjà vu flooding through me as he said those words

I felt myself raise Boneless. The raider dug the edge of the blade deeper into the fillies neck, causing me to quickly lowered my gun again.

The raider laughed his terrible laugh again. “That's a good girl! Now put your weapons down!” more déjà vu.

I looked around, trying to spot a more effective way out than violence or surrender. There were red bars everywhere on my EFS. My eyes darted around the room, trying to spot the other raiders to no avail. My amber eyes landed on the yellow filly the raider held captive. My eyes narrowed. Why didn’t I see any green bars?

There was a sinister twitch in on the corners of the fillies mouth. I stared at the slightly curved edges of her lips, taking in her vile grin.

I raised my shotgun again and took aim. Xayah gave me a worried look. “Amber, what do we do?”

The edges of my mouth quivered as I took aim on the head of the raider. I could see the raiders knife cut deeper into the filly. I bit my bottom lip to keep myself from screaming. This wasn’t fare.

Boneless fell from mouth and clattered to the floor. I couldn’t take the shot.

Both the raider and the filly gave me a wicked grin.

“Take them now,” The raider ordered.

Faster than I could have reacted the doors on both sides of us burst open. A group of ten Fillies and colts all clad in raider armour spilled into the hallway and charged at us with their knives. It had been a trap from the beginning.

Brisk, Xayah and I reeled back as the swarm of raider children flew towards us. I turned for the stairs and prepared to sprint away when we found ourselves blocked by five more armed children rushing up the steps to meet us.

I pulled out my baton and prepared for the first child to reach me. I aimed, pulled the shock baton back to crush the fillies skull and froze. They were just foals! I couldn’t do this!

I saw Brisk and Xayah react the same, their weapons aimed, but refusing to fire as the fillies raced forwards.

I felt three fillies jump onto my back, their rusted blades sinking deep into my coat. I screamed in pain and tried to buck them off of me, but they had clamped on tight, weighing me down and forcing me to fall to my side. My head hit the ground with a thud, a sharp pain ringing through my ears.

I felt multiple tiny hooves bind my legs together with barbwire and shove me aggressively against the wall. Through my blurry vision, I saw Brisk and Xayah fall to the ground too, their limbs also tied in the sharp barbwire.

I tried to reach for Boneless with my magic, only for my horn to do nothing but shoot a sad spark into the air. “Fucking horn burnout,” I sputtered, remembereing my horns currnet condition.

The masked raider chuckled and released his grip on the yellow and blue filly. Instead of dashing away from the raider in fear, she trotted along beside him with a huge smile sprawled on her face.

The raider leaned over me and gave me a vile grin from below his skin mask. “You ponies would not believe how many ponies fall for this trick. Any pony that would come to this little fillies aid wouldn’t have the guts to kill her,” He gave the filly a gentle pat on the head.

I tried again to reach for my weapon, this time stretching my hooves as far as I could. I felt a sharp pain spike through me as the raider stabbed his serrated knife through my foreleg. I squirmed in pain, trying to dislodge the blade from my flesh to no avail.

Grinning wickedly, the raider withdrew the blade from my leg and passed it to the Yellow filly we had followed into the building in an attempt to rescue. “Kill the zebra,” The raider ordered, pointing his blood soaked hoof at Xayah. “Make it slow.”

The Yellow filly took the knife in her mouth and began walking over to Xayah, no longer trying to hide her evil grin.

I thrashed about, trying to free myself from my bonds. The more I thrashed, the tighter the barbwire seemed to get around my hooves.

Brisk screamed out and tried to lung at the filly as she neared Xayah, but the binding on his hooves made him topple to the ground, hitting his chin against the floor with a painful sounding crack. Two colts rushed forwards and pushed down on him with their hooves, holding him down as he tried to break free and attack.

Xayah had gone pale with terror, her pupils had dilated into pinpricks and her whole body had begun trembling.

The lead raider guided the filly down to the base of Xayah’s neck. The cold blade pressed against her, sending chills through her body. “Remember, take it slowly,” The raider instructed. The filly nodded gleefully and began to apply pressure to the knife.

Xayah screamed, her high pitched wails surged through me. Hot tears spilled from both my eyes and hers as the filly began dragging the serrated blade down Xayah’s soft underside, pulling apart the skin.

Blood gushed onto the floor as Xayah was slowly pulled apart before our very eyes. Soon Xayah’s screams became gurgles as her blood rushed into her mouth and began to drown her. Her body was wracked with horrific spasms as she tried to free herself from her tormentors.

And yet the knife continued to drag itself down the length of her underbelly.

The filly stopped as the blade reached Xayah’s hind legs. She withdrew the blade and spat it out to the floor.

Xayah lashed out, trying to attack at the filly with her barbwire bound hooves. The filly easily stepped away from the attack. Three more raider children moved in behind Xayah, they hooves steadily holding her in place.

Her grin widening, the filly advanced yet again on Xayah, her hoof extending and plunging deep into the new gaping wound. Even through the garling of blood, Xayah’s screams could be heard as the filly slowly began pulling Xayah’s intestines out of her stomach.

Something inside of my broke. The world around me seemed to freeze and the corners of my vision blurred with red. I screamed and lashed out at the filly, ignoring the searing pain that shot through my leg as the barbed wire tightened around my hooves.

I wrapped my hooves around the yellow fillies neck, quickly crushing her windpipe with my own bound hooves. I snatched the serrated knife up off the ground with my mouth and jammed it into the fillies eye socket, penetrating her brain. blood and yellow fluid sprayed from her eye coating my coat in viscera.

The raider barked orders I didn’t hear and rushed at me, but I was faster. The blade in my mouth already having cut through the barbed wire on my forehooves, I lashed the rusted blade upwards impaling the raiders skull with his own weapon.

The raider stumbled back, his hooves frantically beating the protruding blade in a desperate attempt to dislodge it as blood began to spill from the open orifices on his face, seeping over the skin mask and oozing down the front of his body.

The crowd of raider children held back for a second, a wave of shock and panic washing over them as they stared down at their dead leader, giving me a few seconds to untangle my back legs from the barbed wire. Their shock didn’t last long however as a burning rage filled their eyes and they charged towards me.

I picked up my baton in my mouth and began to scream around the handle as I began bashing in the children's skulls. One by one they fell, their bodies broken and oozing with blood where I had battered them. Legs snapped, faces caved, spines were shattered. It didn’t matter where I hit them, the hit was lethal. It didn’t matter if they were children because they were wrong. It didn’t matter if they died because I was right.

I was the moral one. I knew what was right. They were wrong.

A filly managed to knock my baton aside in the middle of my rampage, sending it clattering across the floor. It didn’t matter, I would use my hooves.

My hooves lashed out at the remaining colts and fillies, fracturing their skulls and crushing their legs. I felt their blades dig deep into my flesh as they did their best to survive my rage. Then I felt nothing. Not the beating of hooves against my chest as I stomped on their throats, not the cutting of blades against my skin as they tried to free themselves from my grasp or the spasming of bodies as I broke their legs.

The haze around me cleared and I found myself standing in a room of corpses. My coat was drenched in the blood of children and my hoof was embedded in a colts chest. I could feel the hot tears spilling down my cheeks as I took in the havoc I had brought. My legs were shaking and I was having difficulty standing, but I couldn’t tell if that was from the various incisions on my legs or the emotional devastation of what I had done.

I looked over to where Xayah lay. Brisk had managed to pull himself free of his bindings and was fretting over Xayah, trying his best to hold her intestines into her open stomach. I had to resist the urge to vomit as I took in Xayah’s state.

Brisk stared up at me, horror spilling across his face. “Healing potions! Now!” He demanded, doing his best to hold back tears. “NOW!” I rushed towards them on shaking legs and dumped my saddlebags out on the floor. All of our healing potions clattered around us. “Give one to her! I’m going to need to keep her intestines in!” Brisk ordered, shoving one of the potions into my hooves.

I quickly moved myself to Xayah’s head and propped her up. A wave of blood poured from her mouth, coating me in red. I raised the potion and trickled the liquid down her throat.

Xayah began to cough and sputter, her chest heaving up and down, causing more visera to spill across the floor. A mix of blood and bile spurted from her mouth and nose again as she sputtered, much of the healing potion coming up with it.

Brisk tossed me another one and I quickly poured it down her throat before clamping her mouth shut and forcing her to swallow. The massive wound on her underbelly slowly began to pull itself back to normal as Brisk held the two flapping pieces for blood soaked flesh together.

Brisk grabbed another potion in his mouth and tossed it up to me. “Again!” he instructed, doing his best not to let the wound reopen as Xayah began a second fit of coughing. As soon as the coughing subsided I shoved the healing potion against her lips and tilted her head back, causing the potion to flow down her throat. Once again the gaping wound began to mend itself.

“Again!” Brisk insisted, passing me our second to last potion. I emptied it contents down Xayah’s throat as I had done with the others. Finally the bleeding subsided and Xayah gave a shaky cough before finally going still. Her only movement was the slow rising and falling of her chest.

I slumped back against the wall, my blood soaked hide sticking slightly to the surface as I tried to catch my breath. I could feel my tears beginning to obscure my vision again as I took in the lifeless bodies of all the colts and fillies that I had massacred. My body was wracked with painful shaking sobs as the horrors I had just committed flooded my mind. While I had been killing them it had been so easy, but now each and every one of their faces were flashing across my vision with perfect clarity.

Brisk reached over and handed me the last healing potion. I pushed it aside and continued to weep. I didn’t deserve it. I was a monster. Brisk repositioned his hoof and handed me the potion again. Again I swatted it aside.

“Damn it Amber! Take the fucking potion!” Brisk demanded, giving it to me again.

“I don’t deserve it,” I cried, staring at the pile of bodies in front of me. “Give it to Xayah.”

Brisk scowled. “Xayah has stabilized and will live. You will not if you don’t tend to those wounds on your legs,” he growled, gesturing to the large amount of cuts on my forelegs.

Begrudgingly, I took the potion and drank it. I felt the itching sensation as my muscles and skin stitched themselves back together. I felt better, but that only made me feel worse.

My eyes lingered on the bodies of the foals around me. I could feel myself shaking as the memory of me murdering them continuously replayed itself over and over in my mind.

Then Brisk was standing over me again, Xayah’s unconscious and limp form draped over his back. “Amber, we need to get out of here,” His words were fuzzy and sounded far away. “Amber! Get up! We need to go!”

Almost as if in a trance, I pulled myself to my hooves and silently followed Brisk out of the building. I glanced back at the broken remains of the foals, the image burning itself into my mind. Then we were gone, moving down the street and away from where we- I had committed my greatest failure. I had done what was right. What was moral... but to what extent. The corruption of morality is a far crueler mistress than having no morals at all. At least then you would know what you did was wrong… but this… I knew what I had done was right, and I hated myself for it.

At last Brisk came to a stop at the edge of a street corner and gently placed Xayah down on the ground. I slumped down next to her and stared off into the vast sky above me. How I wished I could fall up into that horrifying sky and disappear from the pages of history.

To my surprise Xayah had at some point opened her eyes and curled up into a tight ball, her hooves wrapped tightly around her stomach as is she were afraid it would pop open again and spill her innards across the street.

“Xayah, are you okay?” Brisk asked kneeling down next to her.

Xayah let out a shaky breath and nodded. “Yes, I will be fine. Just give me a few moments,” She glanced at me, her face filled with concern. “What about you Amber. Are you alright?”

I remained silent and continued staring up at the sky. I couldn’t stop my body from shaking. Why couldn’t I stop my body from shaking.

“Amber?” Brisk’s voice managed to break my concentration on the sky and make me look down at him. “Amber, talk to us…”

There was a loud boom from around the corner of the street. We could hear the sounds of yelling and gunfire as some battle unrelated to us started to unfold only a few feet away.

“Shit,” Brisk muttered, pulling out his machete. “Xayah, can you take watch? Make sure they don’t sneak up on us. Whoever the fuck is fighting over there.”

Xayah nodded and hauled herself up and towards the corner of the street where she ducked behind a pile of rubble.

Brisk lifted my chin up with his hoof and looked down into my eyes. “Amber, can you fight?” He ask, his eyes passing over me as he tried to get a reading on my emotional state.

I shook my head, and searched for the will to speak. “I… I can’t keep going Brisk… it won. The wasteland wins.”

Brisk gritted his teeth and knelt down next to me, doing his best to sound calm and composed. “Amber, you gotta keep going. Think about the Stable.”

I shook him off and curled up into the fetal position on the side of the road. “I just want the memory to go away. Please make it go away. I can’t live with this,” I moaned, trying to curl up even tighter. I memory flashed through my mind and I pulled out the memory recollector I had collected in the Four Star Apartment Buildings and slipped it onto my head. I looked up at Brisk with pleading eyes. “Take the memory away from me.”

Brisk’s eyes widened as he realised what I was asking off him. “What! I can’t do that! Amber, that’s insane!”

I snarled at him, tears spilling down my face and pooling around my hooves. “Take them away from me!” I screamed, burying my face in my hooves as the regret of everything I had done began eating away at my brain.

“I- I don’t even know how to do that!” Brisk exclaimed. “I can’t do magic remember!”

I shook my head. Or at least I tried to. It was hard to do anything with my body shaking as much as it was. “You- you don’t need to use a spell. Just touch it with your aura.”

Brisk bit his lip, questioning his own morality about erasing my memory. Then, he lowered his horn and placed it against the recollector. His horn began to glow a pale white for a second, then the world blink out of existence.

My eyes jerked open to see the roof of the train wagon above me. I was lying on the dusty floor of the train, my back pressed against the cold surface. Brisk, Xayah and Pyre were all looking down at me with worried looks on their faces.

Xayah reached out and placed a hoof on my shoulder. “Amber… are you okay?” I let my eyes wander to Xayah's underside. There was the massive fleshy, pink scar that raced from the base of her neck to between her hind legs. It was there and very much real. It was all real...

I stared up at the three of them for a long moment. With each second the weight of what I had just watched myself do began to pulsate through me. I felt my body begin to tremble and tears creep into the corners of my eyes.

“Amber, we’re uh- we’re here for you if you want to talk or-” Brisk started, but I pushed myself to my hooves and rushed away from them. I couldn’t let them see me. Not now. How could they possibly still want to be friends with me after what I had done. How had they continued to travel with, knowing that I was a foal murderer.

“Amber! Wait!” I heard one of them call out, but I couldn’t tell which one it was. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered.

I burst out of the train wagon and hopped into the car ahead of us. I turned and slammed the door, bolting it shut so that no pony could follow after me.

I stood alone in the train wagon. My body began to tremble all over again and my vision was fuzzy with tears. The I went still for a moment, my breath taking a terrible second to catch up with me.

The faces of the foals I had killed flashed through my mind. Their blood spilling across my hooves as I crushed their skulls.

Then I screamed. I screamed until my lungs ran out of air and there was nothing left for me to scream. It didn’t sound like the scream of a pony, but a mad monster of the wasteland, so twisted and tortured that nothing could salvage what little scraps of sanity it had left.

I felt blood trickling down my nose. My body began to convulse and I fell to the floor as a squirming, sobbing mess. I tried to scream again, but no sound left my screaming lips.

Images of Inferno burning a family alive as I watched flooded my mind. I saw him raping fillies and crushing them below his hooves. I saw me…

I was a monster. I was becoming something that could not be salvaged, could not be forgiven and could not be reformed. Slap some spikes on my and I’d be a raider. I was a raider. Pyre had been right all along. The wasteland had beaten me, like everypony knew it would.

And what made it worse was that I couldn’t pin this on Kamari like I had pinned everything else. This had been my doing. This had been my mistake. I was the real monster.

Crank had seen through my lies. He had known the truth about me even before I did. I wanted to die. I wanted it so fucking badly.

I levitated out Boneless and checked the ammo. Thee barrel’s, three shots.

Tears streamed down my cheeks as I raised the shotgun and placed it against my head. Just a simple pull of the trigger and everything would be okay. The pain would go away, and more importantly I would have rid the wasteland of yet another monster.

“Just pull the trigger Amber,” I whispered to myself. I felt my magic slowly tightening around the trigger of the shotgun. “Just pull the trigger. What do you even have left.”

I had nothing. No home, no family, no purpose. All that had been pushing my along was a desire for revenge and the twisted idea that I was actually saving ponies and making the wasteland better. What a fucking lie that had been.

This was my punishment for having the audacity to even suggest that everything might be okay. It was never going to be fucking okay.

There was a knock on the door. More tears spilled down my face as I pushed the barrel harder against my forehead.

“Damn it Amber, just pull the fucking trigger,” my whimpers were drowned out by the sounds of my sobs. “Pull the trigger you fucking foal killer.”

“Amber…” it was Brisks voice. His tone was soft and tired. “Amber, can I come in?”

I froze, my eyes locked on the door. Why hadn’t I pulled the trigger yet. What the fuck was I holding onto anymore? What was the goddess damned point of anything!

I took a deep breath, steadied my gun and prepared to fire. I felt a single tear roll down my cheek. “Good bye,” I muttered.

Then my eyes landed on something. In my screaming fit I had knocked my saddlebags off of me and send all my belongings spilling across the floor. Among them sat a dirty, beat up looking box with the faded image of a rainbow and a paintbrush on the front. The painting kit that Brisk had gifted me the night before we returned to Stable 25.

I stared at it for a long moment, my whole body frozen as I tried to figure out what to do next. I felt more tears come and run down my face.

Slowly, I lowered my shotgun and glanced up at the door to the train wagon. I wasn’t going to let the wasteland beat me. Not yet. Not after I had lost so much.

I took a shaky breath and let my shotgun clatter to the ground.

“Amber?” I heard Brisk’s voice from beyond the door again. “Amber please let me in…”

“J-just you…” I finally managed to get out between ragged breaths and sobs. I reached out with my magic and lifted the bolt on the door.

Slowly, Brisk crept into the room, closing and bolting the door behind him. He looked me over with sad eyes before his gaze finally landed on the shotgun laying at my hooves. A look of terribly understanding crossed his face.

“Hey…”

I swallowed and let him approach. “Hey…”

“You doing okay?” I gave him a flat look. “Alright, alright. Stupid question."

I glanced down at my hooves. “I’m a monster Brisk.”

Brisk sat down next to me and wrapped his hooves around me. “You are not a monster Amber, you just had to make a difficult choice to do what was right.”

Corrupted morality. Some fucking virtue that was.

I looked up at him, the bottoms of my amber eyes brimmed with tears. “But I killed them… all of them! They were only foals.”

“And if you hadn’t then Xayah would have died. Do you really think that if you had let them live they wouldn’t go and kill other ponies?” He asked flatly.

I shook my head, sobbing louder into his chest. “But… what if-”

“You are not a bad pony Amber,” Brisk interjected firmly. “You’re a good pony. One of the best. None of this fucked up shit is because of you.”

I began shaking even harder, the only thing managing to keep me together being Brisk’s comforting embrace. “What’s happened to me Brisk. Why can’t I be the pony I used to be?”

Brisk shook his head and frowned. “You look like the same pony to me.”

“What happened to the days where my biggest problems were fixing a generator and wishing that ponies would stop calling me cute,” I looked up at him again, taking in his steady eyes. “I’m so angry all the time now Brisk. Why can’t I go back to being me? Why can’t I just be a cute little pink pony wanting to impress her dad?”

Brisk gave me a warm smile. “For what it’s worth…” He booped me on the nose, making me jump back a little and blush with embarrassment. “I still think you’re pretty damn adorable. And I think we both know that Xayah thinks you’re cute too.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “I’m not cute…”

“Well either you’re cute or your angry, take your pick. And for the record, I think you’re cute when you’re angry too,” He booped me on the nose again, once again making me jump.

I covered my nose to protect myself from a third booping and looked up at him. “Fine, maybe I’m a little cute,” I admitted, trying my best to give him a smile. To my surprise, I managed to give him a real one, and he knew it too.

A big grin broke out across his face. “A little cute? Nah, you’re probably the cutest pony in the whole wasteland,” He smirked, pulling me back in for a hug.

I poked him hard in the chest, making him jump back a little himself. “Now you’re pushing it buddy,” I scolded, but I was smiling now. My smile fell when my eyes landed on my shotgun. “Brisk, can I ask you something personal?”

Brisk raised his eyebrow and nodded. “Yeah, I’m all ears.”

“Have you- well that is to say-” I stumbled as I tried to figure out how to put what I wanted to say into words. “Have you ever tried to kill yourself?”

Brisk froze, his gaze locked on the window. He took a deep breath. “Yeah… twice. Once after my parents were killed and another time right before I met you,” his eyes were sunken and sad. I nuzzled in closer to him.

“And how did you get through it?” I asked, closing my eyes.

Brisk stifled a pained laugh. “Spite, I guess,” he said, his embrace tightening. “The idea that I could get out of the Stable. That I could win…” He trailed off, his eyes now transfixed on the ceiling.

“And what keeps you going now?” I asked, trying to pull him even closer.

He looked down at me with his one good eye and gave me a small grin. Before I could stop him, he booped me on the nose a third time. Damn it, I shouldn't have let my guard down. “You,” He said. He glanced over at the door to the train wagon. “And Xayah, and yes, even Pyre Blaze a little bit.”

I smiled and wrapped my hooves around him as tightly as I could. “Thank you Brisk.”

He just kept grinning down at me. “Yeah, no problem. I am kinda awesome.”

I gave him a playful punch. “I’m glad we’re friends. I’m glad that little awkward patch we went through didn’t ruin that.”

“I think we’ve had this conversation already,” Brisk commented.

I shrugged. “Just making sure you know it you big dork.”

He ruffled my mane with a hoof. “Cutie patootie,” I gave him a small scowl for that one.

“Are you two almost done in there?” Pyre Blaze groaned from the other side of the door. “You might want to get out here!”

Brisk cast a nasty glance at the door. “Really a bad time Pyre!” He shouted, causing me to flinch slightly.

There was silence on the other side for a second. “Uh- yeah okay, that’s nice Brisk-y poo, but I really don’t care. Now get your green and pink asses out here,” Pyre growled back, rolling each word around in her mouth as if the words themselves were sour. “We’re almost there.”

Brisk and I exchanged a glance and pulled ourselves back to out hooves. Brisk looked down at me with his single eye. “You think you’re going to be okay now?”

I gave him a smug grin. “Yeah. I’ll be fine,” I raised Boneless and looked over the weapon. It really was a beautiful weapon. “Now let’s go give Kamari a piece of our min-”

The train stopped abruptly, making me fall flat on my face. I pushed myself back up, rubbing my nose with a hoof.

There was a loud bang and I saw a large explosion erupt a few feet away from the train out the window. I groaned. Of course we couldn’t have a simple ride without a fight.

Brisk and I raced from our wagon to join with Xayah and Pyre as they readied themselves for an oncoming attack. “What is it?” I asked, pulling up next to Xayah and aiming Boneless out the window. “Slavers?”

Pyre scoffed. “I told you slavers aren’t going to attack this train,” She grunted, the tips of her flamers flaring to life with a small hum. “It’s those damn bandits everypony keeps talkin’ about. The ones that are given' Red Eye some grief.”

Bandits. I had dealt with worse.

A bunch of bandits charged at the windows, their automatic assault rifles firing a wave of bullets towards us. The glass on the windows shattered and peppered us with jagged shards as we dropped as low as we could to avoid being shredded by the deadly assault.

Pyre grinned at the rest of us, then quickly leapt from one of the broken windows, crashing into one of the bandits and flattening his skull under her powerful metal clad hooves.

Xayah winced as the bandit was flattened. “I am glad she is on our side, and not attacking us like other raiders,” I agreed with that sentiment.

My Hellhound, which until this point I had forgotten was sleeping in the corner of the train wagon, sprang into action, charging after the bandits and ripping them to shreds with its massive claws or blasting them apart with its arm mounted energy weapon.

The bandits flashed by for a second assault. This time I was ready for them.

Blam! Blam! Blam!

I emptied Boneless in quick succession. Three bandits dropped to the ground dead, their bodies ripped open by the powerful buckshot. Brisk and Xayah fired as well, their shots lancing out at taking down two bandits of their own.

I dropped back to the ground as another wave of bullets bombarded us. More glass and bits of metal shrapnel flying over my head as they took out chunks of the window and blasted holes through the aged metal of the train's rusted wagons.

The hatch on the roof of the train wagon burst open and three bandits dropped down from above us, landing heavily on the train floor. All of them were earth ponies, with either brown or dark grey coats. A red bandana was tied tightly over their mouths, hiding most of their faces.

I turned to attack them, but before I could, I felt the familiar static filled crackle of energy on the back of my neck. The bandits reacted with surprise as the far doors of the train wagon burst inwards. seconds later, Crank launched himself at rocket speed towards the bandits, his Tesla cannons blazing with light.

I pushed Brisk and Xayah down and did my best to cover their bodies as Crank’s tesla cannons fired. He might as well have shot off a Balefire bomb! My vision suddenly erupted with blue and white light and one wall of the train was blasted apart. The blast’s shock wave sent me flying against the wall where my back collided with a heavy thunk.

I groaned and pulled myself back up, rubbing the top of my head with a hoof to try and ease my growing headache. Glancing over to where the bandits had once been I saw little more than three glowing piles of ash.

Goddesses I really dreaded when I would have to fight Crank.

I glanced out the window and watched as Crank slammed down from the sky, his hooves colliding with one of the bandits backs, snapping it in twain.

As the mighty cyber alicorn slammed into the ground, a massive cloud of ash and dust burst into the air, obscuring my view of everything outside of the train wagon. The dust cloud would only take a few seconds to dissipate, but in that time, the bandits were blind. Crank however was not.

A small glowing blue light began pulsing from the center of the dust cloud. Then there was a blast of light and a massive lazer lashed out through the ashes. The beam of glowing blue energy spun, slashing through the air in a chaotic frenzy. And where it went, blood would follow.

The dust died and the carnage of Crank’s battle could be seen clearly in the light of day. Every bandit lay dead at Crank's hooves, their bodies sliced clean in half or simply disintegrated into a fine blue powder.

I gaped at the bloodsoaked cyber alicorn in horror. Five seconds… he had killed them all in just five seconds!

Brisk peered over the top of the windowsill and looked over all the bloodshed. He gave a nervous glance at Xayah. “Pyre Blaze ain’t the only one I’m glad is on our side right now,” Xayah simply nodded in utter bewilderment.

I hopped out of the smoking train and looked over at Crank. “Holy shit!” Was all I could manage to get out.

Crank shrugged, the blue electricity that flowed through his tesla cannons and jagged horn slowly sizzling to a halt. “I don’t like being interrupted.”

“Apparently.”

The ghoul condutor from the station rushed up from the front of the train and looked over the damage that Crank’s attacks had done to the train. He grabbed his conductor hat and threw it angrily against the ground with a small yell of frustration. “Luna fucking damn it!” he turned and glared at all of us, no longer seeming to care how intimidating of a group we were. “You fucking ruined my train!”

“Will you be able to fix it?” I asked, walking up and surveying the damage with him. Almost half of the train wagon we had been occupying had been blasted apart, but the engine of the train seemed to be perfectly intact.

The ghoul scowled at me, showing off his rotten teeth. “Fix it?! Sure. I can fuckin’ fix it! Might take me a bit. Probably won’t be able to move again until tomorrow mornin’ if I really work my ass off! Course it probably won’t have walls for another goddess damned fuckin’ month!” he screamed in frustration. He pointed an accusing hoof at Crank. “Damn fuckin’ cyber ponies. Always wreckin’ your stuff.”

“So you won't have the train fixed until tomorrow morning at the least?” Crank rumbled, taking a step towards the angry ghoul.

The ghoul took a small step back, holding his hooves over his head to protect himself. “Well uh- probably not. Gotta fix up the wheels and all that. Thought I guess I could probably just ditch the wagon if I had a bit more muscle.”

Crank grunted and began moving away from the train and towards a large collection of jagged sharp rocks in the distance.

“Hey, where are you going?” I asked, trying my best to catch up with the cyber alicorn.

Not bothering to slow down or even look back at me, Crank grunted. “Hollow Shades. It should only be a short half hour walk from here. I’m not going to wait for the train. I hate waiting.”

Brisk glanced around at the desolate wasteland around us. Somehow the area managed to look even more dead than the graveyard that was Manehattan. “I don’t know. It might be safer to wait for the train to be back in order,” he said as some strange distant howl echoed in the distance. “Who knows what stuff is waiting out there…”

I looked around at my group of friends, then a quick glance at Crank. I gave a small chuckle, an action that was so polarizing to my earlier mood. “Brisk, I think we’re the most dangerous things in the wasteland right now.”

I turned and followed Crank towards the ominous rocky landscape of the Hollow Shades.

As we began moving away from the train the ghoul conductor grumbled to himself and turned to start fixing up his train. “Fuckin’ wastelanders. Always leaving me to clean up their goddess damned mess.”

Footnote: level up.
New perk: Life Giver -- +30 hit points

Author's Note

It only took me 155,819 words, but I finally got them to someplace that isn't Manehattan! Yay!

Also, for anyone that's confused when that memory was taken from Amber, it was right at the very beginning of the chapter 6 - Comradery of the Steel Rangers

As usual, huge thanks to Kkat for creating the wonderful world of Fallout: Equestria

Hope y'all enjoyed and have a good day (or night I guess).

Chapter XIII: What Lies Below

"The future must be secured. I won’t let you stand in the way of that."

Hollow.

I hadn’t even arrived at the Hollow Shades yet and I could already tell that it had been named vary appropriately. The desolate landscape that stretched out around the borders of the Hollow Shades were empty beyond comparison. There were no structures, no land masses, no life. Just seemingly endless miles of blackened stone and ash, mixed with the occasional withered remains of long dead leafless trees. Even my pipbuck failed to pick up even the smallest life form among the outskirts of the accursed location.

Everything seemed to still and quiet. The only movement being that of ash filled gusts of wind creating strange swirling shapes in the brownish grey atmosphere. Even that wind was completely silent as we trudged along.

Crank lead the way, his heavy hoofsteps muffled by the crunching of ash below his hooves. Pyre walked closely behind him alongside my Hellhound, their intense gaze locked onto the back of Crank’s head, ready to attack if he were to turn on us. Not that I thought that would do any good. Crank had proven beyond a doubt that he was perfectly capable of taking all of us out if he wanted to.

Goddesses I really hoped he didn’t want to.

That left Brisk, Xayah and myself to take up the rear. I didn’t mind that. It had been a long couple of days since the two of us had any real time just the three of us. Not that I didn’t like Pyre Blaze, but there was only so much of her a pony could take at a time.

The last few minutes of walking had been in complete silence, and it was really starting to get on my nerves. I wanted somepony to speak so I could get away from this eerie silence that had settled over us.

“They really meant it when they decided to call this place hollow,” Brisk grunted as he scanned the radioactive wasteland around us. No question about it, Brisk had been just as eager to break the silence as I had been.

Xayah nodded. “As Crank said, this area used to test Balefire bombs back before the war. To be truthful, we are taking far less radiation than I had expected.”

We were still taking rads. About one rad a second to be exact. But I had been forced to deal with far worse levels of radiation before, and considering how those places had not been hit point blank with a balefire bomb, I considered the amount of radiation I was taking to be a blessing. It could have been so much worse.

"I thought Balefire bombs were a Zebra invention?" Brisk asked. "Why were ponies testing them out?"

Xayah nodded, keeping her gaze out at the dunes of ash. "Ponies created mega spells, zebra's created Balefire bombs, but that does not mean ponies were without Balefire bombs and zebras were without mega spells."

The idea of a war where both sides had access to such powerful weapons of destruction was a terrifying one. I didn't like thinking about it.

“So what kind of stuff is out here?” I asked, following Brisk’s gaze out into the empty and vast expanse around us. “The kind of stuff that wants to kill you, I mean.”

Xayah simply shrugged. “Hard to say, I have never been out this way before.”

“Where have you been?” Brisk asked, turning back from the wasteland to look at her. “This was your first time in Manehattan as well, right?’

Xayah nodded. “I was raised in Glyphmark near Canterlot. My family and I spent most of our time there. We lived in New Appleoosa for a while as well, but the ponies there were- well, they were less than thrilled to need to share their home with a bunch of zebras.”

I tried to imagine what it must be like to not be wanted around because you were a zebra. It took me a second, but I quickly realized I understood how it felt to not be wanted because of something you were born into and had no control over.

I nodded Grimly. “Being hated because of who you are sucks. I had to deal with that a lot in my Stable,” I said with a frown, remembering all the beating I had had back in the Stable. The idea of some ponies beating me was a lot less terrifying now than it was back then. I had seen and done so much worse since those days.

Xayah shook her head in near disbelief. “It is hard to imagine anypony not liking you for who you are Amber. The idea is simply foolish to me.”

I blushed at that. Brisk slapped his hoof against his face with a groan. “Goddesses, you two need to stop flirting and just fucking buck already!” I shot him a grumpy look which he took as his que to leave. “Yeah, I’m going to just go chill with Pyre for a moment.”

I looked over at Xayah nervously as Brisk rushed ahead of us, not quite sure where to pick up the conversation after that comment. From the massive blush on Xayah’s face from Brisk’s outburst, I could tell she wasn’t quite sure either. And holy shit could Xayah blush. Her face had gone more red than a fucking tomato.

Xayah rubbed her forehooves together awkwardly. “So, how are you feeling? About the memory orb and all that?”

I winced. Damn, I was really hoping no pony would bring that up. “I uh- I’ve been better, but I’m coping,” I replied evenly, trying to suppress the images of all the broken foals bodies around my hooves from returning to my mind. I didn’t do a very good job.

“But will you be alright?” Xayah pushed, looking over at me with a worried expression.

“I didn’t know if I would for a minute,” I admitted. “But- but I think I’m going to be okay now. I just need to keep going and I’ll be fine,” I didn’t know how much of that was true. Hopefully most of it. I didn’t bother mentioning I had come terrifyingly close to killing myself back on the train. I didn’t want Xayah to be worried.

Xayah gave me a perturbed look, but seemed to believe me. “Well if you ever need to get something off you chest, I’m here for you,” she said quietly, giving me a gentle smile.

I returned her smile, though mine was arguably more forced than hers. “Thank you. I’ll keep that in mind.”

“I never got to thank you for saving my life back with the raiders,” Xayah continued, facing forward and continuing to walk onwards. “Seeing’s how you were unaware of the attack at all.”

I waved my hoof nonchalantly. “Don’t mention it, it was nothing,” I insisted. “We’re all here for eachother in this,” I didn’t like being thanked for murdering a bunch of children, despite the good it might have caused.

“Perhaps it is nothing to you,” Xayah soothed flatly, slowing her pace a little. “But you were not ripped open and disemboweled.”

She had me there.

Ahead of us, both Crank and my Hellhound froze. The massive black Hellhound lifted its head up high and took a long sniff of the air, smelling out what I could only assume was some sort of incoming danger. Crank instantly dropped into a battle stance and awaited whatever it was the two of them were sensing.

I glanced down at my EFS. Nothing except the six green bars that made up our group. I looked up, hoping to spot whatever it was that I was unable to see. I found nothing.

Then I saw it. Something began moving towards us at an alarming speed from across the barren wasteland. It’s seemingly massive form hidden just below the surface, causing clouds of ash and rock to erupt from the ground wherever it moved.

I put my hoof in front of Xayah protectively as whatever it was grew closer. Brisk and Pyre reacted with surprise as well, readying themselves for whatever was approaching. Even as it drew near us, I was unable to pick up the massive concealed monster on my EFS.

I readied Boneless as the massive undisclosed beast began to circle us with a speed that I was having trouble keeping up with. My stomach clenched and I began to feel sick.

A foul smell seemed to ooze from all around us as the gigantic monster closed in.

Then, for a brief second, it broke the surface. I could see pink, fleshy skin coated in pony sized pus bubbles and hundreds of massive, slimy tentacles reaching towards me. In a flash, one of the tentacles wrapped around my hoof and began pulling me towards a gnashing maw filled with razor sharp teeth.

Then Crank blasted at it with his Tesla Cannons. Blood erupted from the side of the monster and splashed us all with visera. The creature screeched and ear piercing shriek that caused a small trail of blood to drizzle from my ears. The thrashing monstrosity coiled away from the attack, releasing its grip on me and quickly retreating into the ground and out of sight.

I lay on the ground panting for a second, staring in horrified awe at the hole that the creature had ripped in the ground, not sure how to take what had just happened. How the fuck had my pipbuck not been able to pick that thing up! It had been huge!

“What the fuck was that thing!” I heard Pyre blurt, peering down the massive hole that had been aggressively ripped out of the ground.

“There are things below the Hollow Shades that make the creatures of Manehattan look like play toys,” Crank grunted, continuing on towards the Hollow Shade as if nothing unexpected had happened. “Try not to get into a fight with them. Your bullets will do little more than pester them.”

I gulped as Xayah and Brisk rushed over to help pull me back to my hooves. Leave it to us to need to go to the one place in the wasteland that had creatures that big that you couldn’t kill. Just my fucking luck.

As we began to walk forwards again I could have sworn I saw a small, filly version of myself smiling at me from behind one of the dead trees. I squinted to make sure I wasn’t seeing things, only for the image to disappear.

“Did any of you see that?” I asked, pointing out to where I thought the filly me had been.

Both Xayah and Brisk cast a glance out to where I was pointing. “See what?” Xayah asked, worry creeping back into her voice. “Do you see something out there?” she quickly reverted to a battle stance.

I shook my head, not sure what I saw myself or if it had even been real at all. “Never mind. I’m sure it was nothing.”

I turned and began following closely behind everyone else. Very slowly the jagged rocks of the Hollow Shade began to loom towards us.

I pulled out my pipbuck and flipped through the audio files I had downloaded from Silver Ace’s terminal in the Four Star Apartment building. I had been so busy the last two days I hadn’t been able to give any but the first recording a listen. Figuring that I had some time to kill before we arrived at the Hollow Shades, I clicked on the second audio file and listened as the hum of static flared to life.

“Twilight’s insistence to reach out to other races has been… less than successful,” the aged, yet smooth voice of Silver Ace said over the recording. “The Buffalo were less than pleased by her attempts to persuade them to the side of Equestria and the Yaks are… well the Yaks are the Yaks,” Silver Ace gave a small chuckle at that, but there was some weight to it. “It should be interesting to see how her next attempt goes, though with the amount of hatred between them even before this damn war I can’t see it going any better.

“In other news, Stable-Tec has continued with the assigned mission. Scootaloo seems very interested in the project. She seems to be far more accepting of the idea of Utopia than I was expecting, even started creating an Atmospheric Administering Sustenance System for prolonged existence within the program.”

I could feel my heart start pounding at that. Atmospheric Administering Sustenance System? He was talking about the A.A.S.S! Stable-Tec had made the A.A.S.S for Silver Ace for some Utopia program he was working on? That brought up far more questions than it gave answers. How had it gone from this Utopia program to Stable 25? Was there more than one A.A.S.S’ out there? What the fuck was the Utopia program? I had no idea.

“The other two heads of Stable-Tec, that being Applebloom and Sweetie Belle, are far less enthusiastic about the idea,” The voice of Silver Ace continued, his tone dropping to one that was far less friendly, though still highly charismatic. “I do hope they don’t pose and issue farther on down the road. This project demands utmost dedication and secrecy. I guess we will see how that all unfolds at a later date.”

“Silver Ace, can I get your assistance please?” I heard a softer voice say from what sounded like a different room to the one Silver Ace was recording in.

“Of course Fluttershy, give me a moment,” Then the audio recording cut out.

I tried to process what I had heard. This Utopia Silver Ace was talking about must have some sort of connection to what was going on, right? There was no way that all this fuss over the A.A.S.S. was for nothing. I tried to think of what the connection might have been, but my mind was coming up blank.

The wasteland had many mysteries. I doubted I would know all of them for a long, long time.

It took almost an hour longer to get the the Hollow Shades than Crank had predicted. Perhaps he had underestimated the distance from the train to our destination, or perhaps he simply wasn't used to needing to travel at the same speed as a group of slower ponies.

Whatever the reason, by the time we had finally made it to the large jagged rock formations marking our destination, my hooves were tired and felt like they were about to fall off. My stomach gave a loud growling noise in protest as it demanded food from me.

I still wasn’t used to this whole needing to eat thing.

The Hollow Shade was a massive circular ruin wedged between two large rock spires. A small collection of ramshackled houses filled the inner circle of the ruins, most houses patched together with slabs of dark black stones. Cracked stone paths weaved through the dilapidated structures and small clusters of dead trees to a large well in the center of the Shade. I wasn’t able to see the bottom of the well from where I was standing, but I was fairly far away so it is unlikely that I would have been able to see the bottom, even if it was only a few feet deep. A large stone wall had been erected around the ruins, making entry near impossible without going through the front gates.

Far in the distance I could see a massive black spire of metal reaching up into the sky and disappearing above the thick grey cloudlayer. An evil green fog seemed to waft around the base of the massive structure.

“What is that place?” I asked, staring in terror at the looming structure on the horizon. It felt wrong somehow, like I was staring down the barrel of a gun.

“I told you that the Ministry of Arcane Science worked around here,” Crank grunted, seemingly more interested in the stone wall around the Hollow Shade. “That is the MAS headquarters.”

I gulped. “Why does it look so… evil?”

“Being hit by a balefire bomb will do that to ya,” Pyre grinned, looking up at the tower. “Don’t matter if you’re a living pony or a tower I guess.”

Brisk made a nervous chuckling noise behind us. “Uh, so- does Red Eye usually come out around these parts?” He asked, turning his attention from the ominous black tower to the stone wall blocking us from the Hollow Shades.

“I don’t think so,” Xayah asked, looking back at him. “Why do you ask?”

Brisk pointed at the large stone wall in the distance. I squinted to make out what he was pointing at. Sure enough two blood red banners depicting a rather evil looking eye had been raised above the entrance.

Before we could discuss that any further, I heard the click of a shotgun being cocked. Crank heard it too. He whirled around to face the sudden intruders, his tesla cannons already prepared to fire at any given moment.

Four ponies dressed in rags had started to approach us. The leader of the group, a tall earth pony mare with a dusty brown coat and black duster held a shotgun level with my head and glared at me with hateful eyes.

“Whose side are ya on,” the mare growled, taking a step towards us.

Crank snarled, his two tesla cannons charging up at his sides. “I would back down if I were you,” the cyber pony growled, making most of the ponies flinch. The mare in the front ignored him.

“I’m goin' t’ ask ya one more time, whose side are ya on?” The mare demanded, her steady gaze burning into us.

Crank began walking forwards, each step causing the ground to shake a little. His tesla cannons began to glow a brilliant blue. I waved my hooves in front of him to stop his attack.

“Hold on there Crank, we don’t need to attack them yet,” I said, hoping to defuse some of the growing tension.

“What do you mean, which side are we on?” Brisk asked, stepping up next to me.

The mare gave a hollow laugh. “Ha! Like y’all don’t know,” After seeing us exchange a bunch of confused glances she lowered her shotgun a little. “Y’all actually don’t know, do y’all?”

We all shook our heads in unison.

“We just came from Manehattan,” Xayah elaborated, keeping her hood pulled over her head in a failed attempt to conceal herself. “We have no idea what is happening out here.”

The mare’s skepticism seemed to buckle at Xayah’s words. She slowly turned to the four ponies that had been standing behind her with their weapons drawn. “Y’all can lower your weapons, I don’t think these folk here mean us any trouble.”

Now that I didn’t have a shotgun pointed at my face, I was able to take in the visage of the other four ponies. On the right was a blue buck with a short green mane and tail, he had a hunting rifle slung across his back and a water bottle cutie mark. Next to him stood an auburn unicorn mare with a long dark red mane. Her coat was covered in a myriad of scars. The final pony was a large black buck that to my suprise managed to stand a solid foot above Crank. His dark blue mane had been shaved on one side and he had a minigun attached to his battle saddle.

The brown mare in the duster turned back and looked us all over. “Well if you ain’t here ‘cause of what’s goin’ on, then what’s a strange lookin’ group like y’all doing all the way out here in the Hollow Shades?” She asked taking a step forward and offering me her hoof. “It ain’t every day a group a ponies wander into these here parts with a Hellhound and cyber pony for company.”

“We’re looking for a somepony named Kamari,” I said, taking her hoof and giving it a quick, awkward shake. “Have you ever heard of him?”

The mare tapped her chin for a second. “Kamari? Can’t say I have. And I was pretty sure I knew everypony round here,” She turned and pointed to the group of ponies behind her. “Allow me to introduce everypony. The blue buck there’s name is Salt Water, the mare there is Golden Chestnut and the big one is Boulder,” The lead mare said before turning back to us. “And of course I’m Toffee Lighting. Y’all can just call me Toffee for short.”

I nodded and quickly started naming off all my companions. “This is Brisk Spark, Xayah, Pyre Blaze, Crank, and my Hellhound. And I’m Amber Aura,” I finished. I hadn’t realised how large may group of companions had gotten over the last couple of days. We had certainly gone from some random wastelanders to a genuine group to be feared.

Toffee froze as I said my name, her eyes narrowing slightly. “Amber Aura? So Y’all are the ones that Red Eye was lookin’ fer in that bounty he put out a couple a days ago?”

I saw the muscles in Crank’s legs tense up at her remark. I gave her a nervous smile, getting ready to pull out Boneless if they decided to attack us. “Uh- yeah. Thats- thats us.”

There was a quiet moment of tension between us. Finally, Toffee gave us a wide smile. “Well if y’all ain’t friends of Red Eye, then y’all are friends of mine.”

I gave a quick sigh of relief. I really didn’t want to fight these ponies. Not that I didn’t think I could take them with Crank and a Hellhound on my side. From the relief that washed over the faces of Toffee’s companions, I could tell they had really not wanted to fight us either.

“So what is going on out here?” Xayah asked, glancing over at the Hollow Shade. “Last I heard, Red Eye rarely comes out this far.”

Golden Chestnut gave a loud snort, breaking her silence. “Oh his Slavers come out here plenty, usually only in small groups. Normally we just chase them off,” She said with a scowl, giving the wall around the Hollow Shades a putrid glare.

“Then what the fuck happened,” Pyre slurred, picking up a black rock from the ground and ballencing it on the tip of her metal clad muzzle.

“We usually chase ‘em off because we usually have the strength to chase ‘em off, long as they don’t show up in large groups,” Toffee said, finally putting her shotgun away. “But two days ago, Stable 44 sealed itself off to the outside world. We haven’t been able to make contact with them since. Course that’s when Red Eye decided to send in a fuckin’ squadrin of slavers and talon mercs.”

Brisk held up a hoof. “Sorry, what does this have to do with Stable 44 closing itself off?” He asked, clearly as confused as I was.

Salt Water stepped forward next to Toffee. “The Hollow Shades are a dangerous place. Our survival here is dependant on multiple things functioning as one whole. Lose one thing and everything goes to shit,” He explained, slowly pacing back and forth in front of us. “A while back we made a deal with Stable 44. We supplied Stable 44 with scraps that they didn’t have access to in their Stable, as well as protection if they need to venture out for whatever reason. In exchange they supplied us with education, weapons and barding as well as fresh water.”

That last one drew me up short. “You don’t have any water here in the Hollow Shades?”

Toffee shook her head. “The Hollow Shades was a wasteland even before the war. The apocalypse only help to cement that fact. You’d be hard pressed t’ find anythin’ out here that ain’t ash, rock or radioactive waste,” She elaborated. “When Stable 44 blocked themselves off from us we lost access to our only water supply. Next day we’re short on ammo, and the day after that Red Eye comes waltzin’ in like he owns the damn place.”

“Then what happened?” Brisk pushed, more interested in the topic than I would have expected from him. Brisk seemed to slowly be gaining a longer attention span the more time we spent outside of the Stable. Slowly.

“Slavers attack. We fight back. Slavers win. Many sent to Filly. Those who can fight kicked out,” Boulder grunted in a deep, choppy tone. Clearly he wasn’t much for talking. “Many ponies still inside. Trapped.”

Well that just didn’t sound good. “So what are all of you ponies doing out here?” I asked, looking back and forth between them all. “And you said ponies got kicked out? Where are they?”

Toffee gave me a frown. “We were on our way to Stable 44. We were hoping that we could get in and if the ponies in the Stable are willing, get their help in taking out the Slavers,” her brows knitted into a tight scowl. “And there ain’t any more of us left. Most everypony was either shipped off as slaves to Fillydelphia or still prisoners in the Hollow Shades. There were twenty of us that managed to get out of the town but… well it’s just the four of us out here now.”

“So you have a slaver problem,” Crank rumbled, looking over the group. “I could take them all out for you, if that would speed this up?”

Toffee shook her head. “I don’t know who you are Crank, but I doubt you’d be able to take out that many slavers on your lonesome.”

Crank’s eyes seemed to glow a darker shade of red. “I assure you, I can deal with them perfectly fine.”

Toffee shook her head again, clearly not sure how to take Crank’s confidence. “If you say so, but it won’t do us any good to just wipe them out anyway. Without water and help from Stable 44, we’re just sitting ducks out here. Even if by some miracle you manage to kill ‘em all, nothin’ would stop ‘em from sendin’ more, and I don’t think we would be able to survive another attack,” Toffee grumbled, looking off to where I assumed Stable 44 was. “Not to mention if we don’t get water out to the ponies here soon we might as well start burying ourselves now.”

“Do Red Eyes slavers not have water either?” Pyre asked. “They must be livin’ on something? Right?”

Salt Water nodded. “They brought water with them from Filly. More than enough for them to last a month or so, but they don’t seem to have any intention of sharing it with the rest of us.”

“Fucking Slaver bastereds,” Chesnut grunted, kicking at the ground with her hoof.

I gave a small sigh. “Alright, How about we make a deal,” I said, putting on a small grin. “We’ll help you get in contact with Stable 44 and deal with your Slaver problem, and you can help us locate this Kamari we’re looking for?”

Toffee and her crew exchanged a few glances before turning back to us. “I say you’s got yourself a deal partner,” Toffee said with a small nod. “The Hollow Shade is a dangerous place, we could use all the help we can get right now.”

“I don’t think this is a very effective use of our time Amber,” Crank grumbled, turning his glowing red death stare onto me. “It is likely that Azar arrived here before us and is well on his way to Kamari. We cannot afford to be sidetracked.”

I puffed out my chest a little and stared him down. “Well then you had better come with us to make sure we get things done quickly,” I told him in as stern a voice as I could.

Crank glared down at me for a few moments. For a horrifying second I feared this would be the moment he turned on me and blasted me into ash. Finally he returned to a more relaxed posture. “Fine,” He grunted, before turning away from me and staring off into the wasteland.

I let myself sigh. I had him working with me still. I just had to make sure not to piss him off more.

“So, where is this Stable 44?” Pyre Blaze asked, bouncing up next to Boulder as we began walking. The large pony grunted and continued trudging forward.

“You aren’t going to get much conversation out of him,” Salt Water said, falling in step with Pyre Blaze. “He isn’t much for talking.”

No really? Hadn’t noticed.

“Okay, well my question still stands,” Pyre Blaze soothed, rolling her eyes slightly and turning her head to face Salt Water.

“It’s not far from here,” Salt Water replied, combing his mane back quickly with his hoof. “It was supposed to be easily accessible by the Ponies in the Hollow Shade before the war, so as you’d expect, it was kept close to the Hollow Shade.”

I supposed that made sense. And I wasn’t one to complain, I could always do with a little less walking. my hooves still hurt from the long walk here.

“Far as we’ve been able to tell, the Slavers don’t know about the Stable yet,” Toffee said. She had naturally gravitated to walking at the front of the group. Crank kept casting her angry glares, clearly not enjoying somepony taking the lead with him. “Hopefully we won’t run into any of them on our way.”

“I hope we fucking do!” Chestnut spat, her voice filled with an anger that even my rage after the death of my Stable couldn’t match. “I’m going to fucking give those bastereds what they deserve!” She gritted her teeth together and stomped off ahead of the group.

“Is she doing alright?” I asked, quickening my pace so that I was walking alongside Toffee.

Toffee gave a small sigh. “Unlikely. Chestnut has more reason t’ hate the Slavers than the rest of us,” Toffee said, looking off at Golden Chestnut as she stomped ahead of us. “See her and her husband were escapees from Fillydelphia. From what I heard it was pretty awful in there. When the Slavers attacked the Hollow Shades, her husband didn’t make it out of the battle.”

“Goddesses, no wonder she hates them so much,” I said, sorrow creeping into my own voice. “That must have been pretty hard on her.”

“Still is hard on ‘er. Hard on all of us honestly. He was a good man,” Toffee’s eyes dropped down to her hooves for a bit. “Don’t help that the Slavers took her kid too. Last I saw him he was bein’ shipped off to Filly. Chestnut ain’t takin’ that well either.”

I could imagine.

“Why is she still here then?” Crank asked coldly in his deep, rumbling voice. He looked at Chestnut in the distance, a strange gleam on his glass eyes. “If her child is in Filly, why isn’t she going off to save him?”

“She probably wants too,” Toffee admitted. “But Chestnut’s been loyal t’ this here settlement for a long while now. We brought her and her husband in after they had been stuck in the wastes for nearly a month after their escape. I reckon she thinks she owes us a favor.”

“And what about the rest of your friends?” I asked, gesturing to the two stallions behind me. “What’s there story?”

Toffee gave a dry chuckle. “Well there ain’t much t’ tell bout those two. Salt Water there was born here in the Hollow Shades, he ain’t much for fightin’ but he’s the best damn mechanic in the whole damn wasteland I tell ya.”

I huffed at that. “Oh really? I guess we’ll just have to see about that.”

Toffee gave me a funny look. “What? Ya think you’re a better mechanic than Salt Water?”

I gave the most smug smirk I possibly could. There were many things I was uncertain of, but the one thing that I knew better than the back of my hoof was machines. “Oh, I know I am.”

Toffee seemed to be amused by my statement. “Well I guess we’ll just see about that,” She turned back and pointed at Boulder. “Anyhow, Boulder there spent most of his life livin’ out in New Appleoosa. I think he said somethin’ ‘bout workin’ on a rock farm out that way for a bit, But I ain’t to sure about that one. He’s not much of a talker.”

“A rock farm?” I asked, my pace faltering for a second. I quickened my step to keep from falling behind.

“Yeah, there’s one all the way out by Las Pegasus,” Pyre injected, clearly having been eavesdropping on our conversation. “We used to raid that place sometimes, but raiders don’t have much use for gems. Not many of them are smart enough to actually do anything with them.”

“And what about yourself?” I questioned, the idea of farming rocks still lingering in my head. “What’s your story?”

Toffee raised her eyebrow at that. “Well, I was the sheriff of this settlement till Red Eye’s slavers showed up. That’s been my life mostly. Makin’ sure all my ponies here are safe and all.”

“Must be hard protecting ponies in such a dangerous place,” I commented, thinking about how hard just trying to save ponies in Manehattan was. Not that Manehattan wasn’t dangerous, but the Hollow Shades just seemed lethal on another level altogether.

Toffee grinned at that. “You can bet your ass it’s hard, but we make by,” She glanced mournfully at her few remaining companions. “Or we usually do, anyway,” Before I could attempt to comfort her, she wiped away her sour expression and gave me a smile. “Well that’s enough about us, how ‘bout ya tell me yer story? And the story of yer more peculiar company.”

I cracked a smile. “Well funny story that-” I started, trying to figure out where to start.

I had only just began figuring out how I was going to explain my story when we came to a halt in front of a massive cave leading into the side of one of the Hollow Shades many jagged rock formations.

“We’re here,” Salt Water said, stepping up to the cave and slowly entering the gloom. “Told you it wasn’t all that far.”

The cave looked like the den of a dragon, or as Pyre quickly put it, an oversized Mole Rat. The cave was wide enough that we could all walk side by side and still not touch the sides of the tunnel. Sharp, fang like stalagmites hung in large clusters above our head. I kept glancing up at them, scared on might fall and skewer me.

And the whole cave smelt of rot. A foul scent wafted from within the depths of the cave, circumventing through the black rocks and into the air. A greenish brown sludge oozed down the walls and a couple droplets of some form of blood like substance dripped from the Stalagmites.

“I do not like this,” Xayah whimpered, peering around the dark cavern as we passed through it.

I didn’t like it either. It felt wrong, almost as if the rocks around us were sick. I shivered. I didn’t like how the cave felt alive…

“Everything below the surface of the Hollow Shades is like this. Thankfully you aren’t going to find to many critters in here,” Chestnut grumbled bitterly, having now rejoined the group. As she saw the uncomfortable looks on our faces she gave us a fake smile. “It’s better in the Stable. Assuming we can get inside.”

As we neared the end of the tunnel, I began to make out the huge Stable door. A massive steel gear that had managed to withhold hundreds of years worth of Balefire and Wasteland. A small control panel had been built into the wall beside it, looking almost comically tiny in comparison to the gigantic metal door.

Toffee walked up and placed her hoof on the panel, pushing down on a small red button to the left of the controls. “Stable 44, this is Toffee Lighting. Can you hear me?” nothing. Toffee cleared her throat and tried again. “This is Sheriff Toffee Lighting. Do you hear me?”

Chestnut scowled. “Those assholes can hear you fine Toffee and you know it. They just want to hog all the fuckin’ water to themselves.”

“But why? They have never showed signs of being short on water before,” Salt Water said, shaking his head a little. “I just don’t get what could have happened.”

I turned to look at Crank. “I don’t suppose you could just blast your way in?” I asked, gesturing to his two massive tesla cannons.

Crank shook his head. “These doors were made to survive Balefire bombs. My cannons will do little more than blacken them,” Crank grunted in his usual deep and stoic tone.

Salt Water approached and looked over the control panel for the door. He grunted as he ran his hoof across the metal surface. “You could probably open the door with the proper override code, but without it we’d need to completely rewire the doors from within the control panel, and most of the circuitry is inside of the cavern wall,” he said as he traced his hoof along the sticky rock walls of the cave. “Unless one of you ponies know the override code?”

All my friends looked at me as if expecting me to know it. “I can’t hack a terminal without a terminal in front of me to hack,” I said, raising my hoof. “I’m good with machines, I’m not psychic,” then a thought crossed my mind. I turned to look at Salt Water. “Wait, if we managed to get inside of the rock wall, do you think we could manually override the door?”

Salt Water nodded. “Probably. I mean it would be pretty similar to hacking a terminal, just with fewer numbers and letters and more wires and sprockets.”

“You’d need to actually get inside a solid rock wall though,” Pyre reminded me, tapping the wall with her metal clad hoof.

I pointed to my Hellhound smugly, a wide grin on my face. “These things burrow through rock, don’t they?”

The process was slow. Hellhounds, while perfectly capable of digging through rock, were in no way the most precise method of excavation. I had to instruct the Hellhound to dig slowly, only scrapping a thin layer off of the wall at a time. After a few minutes of digging into the stone, we began to see bits of metal tubing embedded into the rock face. How Stable-Tec ever managed to successfully embed circuitry into the rock was beyond me.

“Careful now,” I ordered as one of the Hellhounds claws came dangerously close to cutting one of the metal tubes in half. I didn’t want to know what would happen if we accidentally broke the circuitry. Would the Stable fail to open again? Open forever? Neither situation sounded pleasant.

“That should be good,” Salt Water said, holding up a hoof and inspecting the hole the Hellhound had dug. “I think I can rewire it from here.”

I ordered my Hellhound to stand down and joined Salt Water as he began fiddling with the metal tubes and loose wires that now protruded from the rocks. “Sooo, you can rewire the door from those?” I asked, looking the circuits over. It seemed impossible, even for me. And I was a master of Stable-Tec technology.

Salt Water nodded. “Yeah, should be that much different from rewiring a robot actually. Pretty much the exact same thing,” A small shower of sparks popped from the wall as he touched two wires together. “Though, maybe this might be just a little more complicated.”

“I’ve never actually rewired a robot. not many robots back in my Stable to do that on,” I admitted, staring over his shoulder as he worked in fascination. “I once managed to hack into the brain of a cyber pony, but that’s about it,” Crank cast me a nasty glare at that comment.

“Well just sit back and watch them,” Salt Water chuckled, his hooves still working furiously to override the door. “Maybe you’ll learn something.”

I groaned, not quite knowing how to feel about being upstaged by somepony at my special talent. My irritation quickly subsided as I was near mesmerized by Salt Waters work. I started picturing what each wire did and where they connected to each part of the door. That much I could at least figure out with some ease.

“What I tell ya,” Toffee chuckled. “Best damn mechanic in the wasteland.”

Despite my wonder, I still had to huff at the comment. “I’ll prove to you yet that I’m the better mechanic,” I grumbled, hitting a rock with my hoof.

Pyre chuckled at that. “Classic Amber, always trying to prove something.”

I gave her a small scowl.

There was a small buzzing sound and Salt Water took a quick step away from the wall. “That’s about as much as I can do,” he cooed, looking up at the large gear shaped door then back at the wall in frustration. “These doors were not designed to be opened from the outside, while I can override it, I would need a large power source strong enough to jump start it, which as far as I can tell, we don’t have access to.”

Crank groaned. “Ugh, how big of a power source?”

Salt Water gave him a sceptical look. “Large enough to power and move a massive metal pendulum. While I doubt Stable-Tec ever put Hellhounds into consideration while designing the Stable’s they clearly had no intention of ponies finding a loophole in the door.”

Crank took a step forward, grumbling something to himself under his breath the rest of us couldn’t hear. Probably a bunch of less than flattering insults. “Point me in the right direction. I’ll get it up and running,” he muttered, a large spark of light blue energy flashing up his jagged horn and sparking at the top.

Unsure what exactly Crank was proposing, Salt Water guided him to a large gap in the circuitry where all the metal tubes seemed to lead to. Crank put his horn to the spot, a massive spark erupting from the tip and sending streaks of crackling energy rippling through all of the wires.

The blast of his horn sent Crank staggering back where he landed on his metal rump, his horn smoking and charred a dark black.

He grunted, rubbing his forehead with a hoof. “Fuck I hate doing that.”

I heard a loud clunking sound as the Stables metal pendulum swung down on the far side of the Stable door and clicked into place before it began pulling the solid metal inwards. Sparks sprayed from the edges of the door as it slowly pulled itself open with a screech before rolling to the side to reveal the Stable within.

Standing in the doorway were five ponies in Stable Security barding. Each one of them was equipped with a shock baton almost identical to mine as well as an assault rifle. For a Stable, they were very well armed.

“Hold it right there!” A mare in a Stable jumpsuit called from the top of the grated stairs leading up into the Stable. “I don’t know how the fuck you managed to get that door open Toffee, but you had better turn your ass around and march on back to your town. You aren’t wanted here!”

Toffee held her ground. “I don’t rightly know what’s going on Purity, but I ain’t leavin’ till I have a proper answer.”

I could see the Stable security cast Crank and my Hellhound a worried look. From the looks in their eyes, I could tell they might just fire on us simply out of fear. I took a step forwards in a hopes to defuse the situation. “Purity, are you the Overmare of this Stable?” I asked, looking up at the mare. “We have just come to talk to you, we don’t have any interest in fighting.”

I could hear Pyre Blaze’s groan of annoyance at the lack of fighting part.

Looking at her closer, she had a solid white coat with a long blue main that looked as if it had been flat ironed. She had dark bags under her eyes. I had seen my fair share of tired ponies while in the wasteland, but these eyes reminded me a great deal of my fathers. This was a pony who had a great deal of stress on them to make sure their ponies were safe.

Toffee had similar eyes, though she seemed to do a better job of looking presentable.

Purity nodded. “Yes, I am. And who might you six be?” Her eyes swept over me and my company. “I don’t believe I’ve seen you before. You aren’t from the Hollow Shades, that’s for sure.”

Toffee shook her head and took a step forward, ignoring the Stable guards that raised their guns at her at her approach. “That’s not important right now. I want to know why y’all shut us all out!” There was a steady inline in the level of her voice. “Y’all know we ain’t got no water out here. Ya knew we would die and run short on ammo!”

Purity scowled. “You have no idea what’s going on in here. We couldn’t afford to continue with that one sided deal with your selfish town out there.”

Salt Water growled. “One Sided? We’ve been supplying you with scraps you can’t get in you Stable for years! How is-”

“And Scraps are all they are!” Purity yelled, cutting him off. “Crates of junk for fresh water, weapons, ammo and an education system is hardly a fair deal!”

“Because of what you did, Red Eye and his fucking slavers have taken over the Hollow Shades!” Chestnut spat, stepping past me to stare Purity down.

Toffee shook her head again. “Then y’all should’ve told us that it wern’t workin’ for y’all. I’m sure we could have come to an arrangement,” she gestured to the Stable Security. “Do ya mind tellin’ yer security here t’ stand down. I think we need t’ talk with a few less guns. Ya know we don’t mean y’all no harm.”

She didn’t withdraw her guards, but she at the very least told them to lower their weapons and allow us into the Stable so that we could discuss everything in a more civil manner.

Stable 44 looked almost exactly like Stable 25. There were a couple of discrepancies in the layout of all the rooms, but for the most part it looked identical. Same dull grey walls, same floor and claustrophobic feeling that came with the roof being so close to my head. I must have been the only pony in the wasteland that got a sense of euphoria from claustrophobic situations.

But it also felt sad, thought I couldn’t tell if that was the Stable itself or my overly emotional memories of Stable 25. I could imagine clouds of pink wafting through the blood soaked halls as the last of the Stable dwellers struggled for breath. Suddenly I was feeling a whole lot less euphoric.

Brisk seemed to be taking the whole ordeal just as well as I was. His eyes kept darting around the metal tunnel as if looking for an escape exit.

I leaned over to him so that only he could hear me. “Hey, you doing alright?”

Brisk nodded slowly. “Yeah, this place just looks really similar. I don’t like it.”

As we walked through the painfully familiar halls, my eyes landed on a room that did not exist back in Stable 25. Curious, I glanced up to the sign above the door that indicated the function of the room. The slightly glowing sign read ‘Library’.

My whole body froze as I looked up at the sign. I quickly pointed to the door. “You have a library in here?”

Purity looked back and glanced up at the sign above the door. “Of course. The ponies in this Stable are all descendants of members of the Ministry of Arcane Science back before the war. A rather large collection of books were collected in here.”

I bit my bottom lip and continued staring at the door. “You don’t think that I could- I don’t know… go take a look inside do you?”

Everypony turned and gave me a quizzical look. Purity raised her eyebrows. “I don’t see why not, though I would appreciate if we could all-”

Before she could finish her sentence I was darting through the door to the library. Inside was like looking at a massive pile of gold. There were hundreds of books. Rows upon rows of bookshelves lined the library walls and created small aisles down the middle. I had never seen such beauty in my life.

“-Stay focused on the matter at hoof…” I heard Purity finish with a sigh. “Is your friend always like this?”

“I really like books!” I called back as I raced through the different aisles of books. They had everything. The complete Daring Do series, power pony comics, the unabridged history of equestria. My eyes landed on a large leather tome that lay neglected in the corner of the room. The words ‘Big Book of Science’ was sprawled in gold letters across the front.

I quickly snatched up the book and pointed to it. “Can I have this one!” I called out in excitement.

The librarian, whom I hadn’t seen until now gave me a quizzical look. “You can borrow it, so long as you give it back. We don’t sell our books to outsiders.”

My face fell. Damn it! I knew there would be a catch. There was no way that I’d be staying around Stable 44 long enough to read the book.

I placed the book back down on the shelf and begrudgingly sulked out of the room to rejoin everypony else. “Darn wasteland, always ruining things,” I grumbled as I fell back in step beside Brisk and Xayah as we continued walking.

The library had given me a moment to disassociate myself with the Stable, but with each step down the hallway, memories of my time in Stable 25 came flooding back to me. I had a sudden urge to turn around and run for the door as fast as I could.

Stable Dwellers were beginning to poke their heads out into the hallway and stare in bafflement as the security ponies marched the ten of us down the hall. Clearly we were an odd sight, and with Crank and a Hellhound in toe, I wasn’t surprised.

Purity and her security entourage brought us to the Overmare’s office overlooking the main atrium of the Stable. I had to use every ounce of self control I had to not instinctively search for my bedroom.

With a tired sigh, Purity pulled herself into her chair and looked at all of us from across her horseshoe shaped desk. “So, would you mind telling me why and how you managed to open the Stable door?” She demanded, folding her hooves in front of her crossly.

“After you abandoned us, Red Eye showed up and took over the whole of the Hollow Shades,” Chestnut growled, stalking towards Purity with a hate filled gleam in her eyes. The security raised their assault rifles as she approached, forcing her to back down. “If you hadn’t cut us off from our main source of weapons and goddesses damned water we would have been able to fend them off!”

Toffee put a hoof on Chestnuts shoulder in an attempt to calm her down, but she simply shrugged it off.

Purity looked over us all again. “I’m sorry about Red Eye, I truly am, but the truth of the matter is that we are having issues with the water ourselves. Our water purifier has been having some trouble. There seemed to have been some form of magical malfunction. We only have enough water reserved for ourselves and even then we don’t know how long it will last us. We couldn’t risk you greedy ponies coming and claiming the water for yourselves,” She told us flatly.

Pyre coughed in a poor attempt to hide a laugh, drawing all of our attention to her. When she realized we were all looking at her she gave us a fake chuckle. “Sorry, ignore me.”

“Is there something you would like to share with the rest of us?” Purity asked, raising her eyebrow slightly.

“Well it’s just that that excuse is brahmin shit and you know it,” Pyre said bluntly, staring Purity down. “And I don’t need to know what it’s like to lead a Stable to know that.”

“And what would you have suggested I do?” Purity asked, giving Pyre a death stare. “Share the water? We both know that the wasteland does not take kindly to sharing.”

“Well you could have asked for help for one thing,” Brisk piped up, taking a small step next to Pyre. It was almost surprising to see him actually agree with her for once. “I’m sure other ponies would have helped you fix the purifier.”

“Or you could have given a warning that you were going to drop connection,” Xayah added, also taking a step forward to join my friends.

Purity cast Toffee a strange look. “Do you mind explaining who these strange ponies are and what they’re doing here again?”

Toffee simply shrugged. “Honestly, I don’t even know myself. But they’re here to help, and I’d be lying if I said I weren’t grateful fer it.”

“I understand that this is hard for you, but if you came her looking for my help, then you had best just leave,” Purity said in a stern tone. “I’m sorry about your town, but I need to think about the Stable first.”

I joined my friends in front of the desk. “The way I see it is that we have three problems here. You don’t have enough water to share or even for yourselves, the trade between the Hollow Shades and Stable 44 isn’t working out and Red Eye has completely taken over,” I summarized, putting everything together. “No pony here benefits from any of these problems.

“So, here’s what I’m thinking,” I continued, turning so that I was facing both Toffee and Purity at the same time. “We band together so that we can get the water back to working order and come up with a better trade agreement,” I turned to face Purity directly. “You said you need to think about the Stable first, well then you’re going to want to think about fixing the purifier and getting a useful form of trade going right?”

Purity seemed flustered at that. “Well yes, I-I suppose that's correct-”

I turned to look at both of them again. “Then we'll deal with those problems first. Once that’s all sorted out we can start working together proper on equal terms and go and deal with Red Eye and his forces as one unit.”

Toffee and Purity cast each other a nervous glance. “Well that sounds like a plan t’ me,” Toffee finally said, reaching a hoof out to Purity. “What do ya say? Together?”

Purity just stared at her hoof for a second before finally reaching out and shaking it. “You got yourself a deal.”

Brisk raised a hoof timidly. “So uh- How do we fix this purifier thingy? And why haven't you already fixed it? I’m sure you have the resources in the Stable.”

“Because the Water talisman or purifier isn’t the issue,” Purity said, looking over at Brisk. “We’ve tested it out and it seems to be in perfect condition.”

“What? Than what’s the issue?” Salt Water blurted, scratching the back of his head. “I thought you said it was a magical malfunction of some form.”

Purity nodded at that. “Yes, but not of the purifier. The malfunction is coming from the water itself. Our piping is getting little more than a dark oozing sludge.”

I glanced at Crank to see if there was any connection between this sludge and the strange black liquid that flowed through his veins. He remained as stoic as ever.

Toffee, Salt Water and Chestnut all slapped their hooves against their heads in unison. “Fuck! You don’t mean-” Chestnut groaned. I detected a small sliver of fear in her voice.

“Mean what?” Xayah asked, glancing from one pony to the next. “What does that mean?”

Toffee turned to face her, her face somber. “It means that whatever is causing the water to go bad is in the cave systems underneath the Hollow Shades.”

“That doesn’t seem so bad,” I said innocently. “I mean, this Stable is already underground, right?”

Purity shook her head. “The deeper you go under the Hollow Shades the more dangerous it gets, and the Hollow Shades is already a dangerous place. There are things down there that we can’t even begin to imagine.”

Toffee grunted. “If that ain’t the understatement of the year. Outside of massive face eating monsters that ya can't shoot or outrun, the cave system is filled with pockets of radiation. Stand in the wrong spot for too long and you’ll be melted right into the cave floor,” She glanced at Chestnut wearily. “And yes, other things that we can’t imagine.”

I gulped. Great. That sounded just great.

On the bright side, Purity had agreed to send us into the caves below the Hollow Shades well equipped. We quickly found ourselves each with an additional twenty shots in our respective guns as well as a generous stash of five healing potions. She was also kind enough to send four Stable Security ponies that had volunteered to help us.

I also had a Hellhound and ridiculously powerful cyber alicorn on my side, so that calmed me down a little.

On the down side, I was currently standing at the mouth of a massive dark, spooky cave that seemed to ooze with the feeling of dread and probably was hiding some unspeakable evil in the shadows.

We had gone to the lower levels of the Stable where a large maintenance hatch had been waiting for us. The hatched bordered on the edge of the dark caverns under the Hollow Shade. One side of the door was the creepily nostalgic Stable, the other was a horrifying rock tunnel.

“You ponies sure about this?” Toffee asked, looking over at me and my friends. “This ain’t yer problem. I’d hate for y’all to get hurt ‘cause of us.”

I waved her concern off. “Don’t worry about us. We’ve been through worse, I’m sure.”

Chestnut coughed. “Anypony that’s spent time in the wasteland thinks they’ve seen worse. Then they end up coming down here. Trust me, you haven’t seen nothing yet.”

“Really helping my confidence,” Brisk grunted, trying to peer into the darkness with his one good eye. “I don’t like what it smells like down here.”

He wasn’t wong. The entrance of the cave smelled like a mix between rotting corpses, bile and bad eggs.

“Once we get going, the smell is going to be the least of your worries,” Chestnut cracked, pulling out her hunting shotgun.

I would have loved to have a few more minutes to prepare myself before charging head first into what sounded like something similar to that of pony hell, but one of the Security ponies with a dark grey coat stepped forwards and began moving into the darkness. “Come, we have spent enough time here already,” He grunted, urging us to all move forwards.

Slowly, the fourteen of us descended into the darkness of the cave. With every step we took, the thick gloom around us seemed to darken exponentially. I quickly turned on my pipbuck flashlight, hoping to get a better view of what was around us.

“Shut that off,” Chestnut hissed from beside me as soon as the light flared to life. “Do you want to attract the things down here?”

Not bothering to question her, I shut the flashlight off and plunged us back into darkness. The blackness that surrounded us seemed to close in like a heavy blanket trying to smother us alive. The blindness was nauseating.

I heard the pipbuck of the Security pony walking in the front start to click as he began entering a radioactive area of the caves. There was a small yelp and the sound of him shuffling backwards.

“Radiation,” The security pony grunted from the darkness, restating what I had already figured out. “Give me a second, I’ll try to find a way around.” We all waited in silence for a minute as the leading security pony shuffled around the edges of the tunnel. Finally we saw a small flash of green light as he quickly flipped his pipbuck on and off to notify us on his location. “There is a relatively radiation free passage this way.”

We began walking down the new tunnel. My pipbuck began clicking as we began descending a steep slope into the cavern. We only seemed to be taking one or two rads a second though, nothing we needed to worry about too much at the moment.

A terrifying tingly feeling slowly began etching its way down my spine. I didn’t know why, but I could have sworn it was the feeling of something watching me. I shivered as I tried to shake the feeling, but it refused to go away.

I felt somepony brush up against my side, their soft coat an unexpected comfort in the dark bowels of the cave.

“Amber, you still there,” I heard Xayah’s soft voice whisper from the gloom beside me.

I nodded, then quickly realised that she couldn’t see me in the darkness. “Yes, I’m right here. Are you holding up okay?” I asked, moving against the warmth of her body a little more.

“I do not like it down here,” Xayah murmured. “I think something is watching us.”

Damn it. So it wasn’t just me that felt that. Something was in fact staring us us from behind the curtain of shadows that filled the cavern. For a second I considered turning on my pipbuck flashlight to see what it was, but I decided for the sake of our sanity, it might just be better to ignore the feeling and move on.

Up ahead a faint green light seemed to illuminate the tunnel beyond. I could see the shapes of tiny glowing green fungi growing out of the cracks in the walls. The radiation on my pipbuck spiked for a second, going from one rad a second to ten. The second we passed the fungi the geiger counter dropped back down.

“Those Flammulina Velutipes should give us some light,” Salt Water said, quickly stepping past the fungus himself. “Course they might give us a few more rads than we would like, but at least we’ll be able to see a little.”

“Flammulina vlewhatawa?” Brisk sputtered, shooting Salt Water a baffled look. “What the hell is that?”

“The glowing fungi on the walls,” Salt Water stated flatly, pointing to another cluster of fungi on the walls a few feet ahead of us.

Brisk gave a small pout. “Dumb smart ponies and there dumb long words.”

I glanced around to see if I could spot whatever was causing the ominous feeling of being watched, but aside from the dark shapes of my friends beside me, I couldn't see anything. Even my EFS wasn’t picking up any other lifeforms around me. Why couldn’t my EFS detect anything?

Now with the irradiated green light of the Flammulina Velutipes, I could begin to make out other things about the caves. Strange green ores ran through the dark rock walls, looking almost like sick veins in flesh. To my displeasure, I could see the melted remains of ponies fussed to the walls, their limbs reaching out as if they had died while attempting to give somepony a hug. Their long dead screaming faces had begun to ooze some form of sludge, giving them the appearance of melting wax.

I shivered and stepped away from the melted bodies. They made me very uncomfortable.

I looked at the four Security ponies that were walking ahead of us, their forms silhouetted by the glowing fungi. “Have you ponies ever come down into these caves?” I asked, jumping slightly as my hoof brushed up against a skeletal hoof that had been protruding from a crack in the ground.

The dark grey buck that had entered the cave first shook his head. “A few times, but this is the first time in a very long while. I don’t think we’ve sent any pony down here in over a hundred years.”

I was beginning to understand why.

Toffee and Chestnut exchanged a small glance. “The two of us came into similar tunnels out by our town,” Toffee said. “It wasn’t very pleasant, nearly didn’t make it out alive.”

“Some of us didn’t,” Chestnut grunted.

“Yes, and some of us didn’t.”

The guard glanced back at Brisk and I. “I noticed you two are wearing Stable barding yourself. What Stable are you from?”

“Stable 25,” I said quickly, not wanting to think much about my Stable. The memory of it hurt too much. Brisk and I exchanged a knowing, hurt filled look.

The grey security pony simply grunted. “Where is that? Manehattan?”

I nodded, then realised he probably couldn’t see me to well in the darkness. “Yeah, not far from Friendship City. Well- It used to be anyway.”

“Used to be?”

Brisk gave a small snort, telling him to back off a little. “It’s gone, the pony we’re looking for destroyed it.”

“Kamari?” Toffee asked from somewhere beside me. We had slowly entered another dark patch in the cave, making it impossible for me to tell exactly where she was.

“Kamari,” I confirmed.

The security pony gave a small grunt from the darkness. “Don’t suppose you being a Stable Dweller yourself has anything to do with how you opened up the Stable doors?”

“Opening the doors was more Salt Water’s doing,” I admitted, gesturing to the blue and green buck beside me. “That and assistance from my Hellhound.”

“Going to be a pain in the ass to fix that damage y’all did to the door,” another security pony grumbled. “Now any wastelander that knows a thing or two about overriding robots can get it open. Granted those are far and few between.”

I glanced over at Crank, who was silently trudging through the cave next to us, not bothering to join in on any of the conversation. I thought crossed my mind. “So Crank, how did you managed to get into Stable 25?” I asked, hoping to pry some more information out of him before his inevitable betrayal.

“Latched onto the Stable 25 emergency broadcaster after you activated it,” Crank grunted, his glowing red eyes remaining forwards and cutting a small beam of red through the darkness. "Once we had a location, we teleported in from Fillydelpia.”

I froze. Teleportation? How the hell had he managed to get his hooves on an ability like that? I had heard of unicorns that could teleport, myself included, but all the way from Fillydelphia and into a Stable seemed impossible?

“How- how does that work?” I stammered, trying to figure out the logistics of teleporting that far into a Stable that had from what I could remember, had a spell that keeps unicorns from teleporting in and out. “Like- with your own magic? And what about Tripwire, Steel Blade and Inferno? They don’t have horns, how did they get in?”

Crank shook his head. “I’m an earth pony. This cybernetic horn can’t do any magic like telekinesis or teleportation. It is more of a gun than anything else,” Figures as much, just a massive weapon of destruction.

“So what? You have some sort of teleportation machine that can bypass even Stable doors so long as you have the proper coordinates?” I asked, slowly piecing everything together.

I could see Crank’s glowing red eyes bob up and down in the gloom, signifying the nodding of his head.

I gulped. I didn’t like the idea of enemies that could teleport anywhere and from any distance. “And Red Eye has this kind of tech in Filly?” I was almost afraid of the answer.

Crank pondered that for a second. “Not yet,” He rumbled slowly. “But he probably will soon.”

“But the pony who sent you to retreive the A.A.S.S has that?” Brisk said from beside me, shifting Crank’s attention to him.

“To an extent. He only had the ability to get us in and out,” Crank grunted. “But given time, I’m sure he will have more access to it.”

I raised my eyebrow at him. “So there’s a he now? When are you going to tell us who sent you?” I said smugly.

Crank simply grunted and stopped ahead of us, refusing to answer my question yet again. Damn it, what was his resistance to telling me to had hired him? Was it part of a contract or something? And if so, why did Crank care? He had already double crossed whoever it was.”

My pipbuck began clicking faster as we began entering another cloud of radiation. The security ponies noticed it on their pipbucks as well, pausing for a second as they contemplated what to do.

“We’re going to have to run through,” One of the security ponies that hadn’t spoken yet grumbled. “I don’t think there is any other way around.”

“Crank and I could just go scout ahead,” Pyre suggested, dancing up to the front of the group in her power armour and trying to look down the dark cave in front of her. I doubt she was able to see anything. “I mean, neither of us are affected by radiation and all that. We could search for another router for you all.”

The gray security pony who I was starting to suspect was in charge shook his head. I only barely managed to make out the movement a few inches in front of my face. “No, I would not recommend splitting up the group down here. We are much safer when we are together.”

“So what? We run through it and hope that the patch of radiation isn’t a long one?” Chestnut scoffed, taking a small step away from the radioactive area. “What if the rest of the cave down there is irradiated or some shit?”

“We will run,” Boulder grunted bravely, taking a small step forwards. I jumped a little at his voice. Despite his immense size, he was so quiet I had completely forgotten he was standing right behind me.

Well I guess that settles that.

Toffee nodded grimly. “Alright, we will run. On three?”

I tensed my legs and I prepared to dart through the darkness. Even from a few feet away from the irradiated section of tunnel I was taking in a lot of rads. I would need to be fast.

“One.”

I could feel Brisk and Xayah begin to crouch low to the ground in anticipation, both of their sides brushing against mine as they prepared themselves. Even Crank seemed to be preparing to charge forwards.

“Two.”

Goddesses, I hoped this tunnel didn’t last long.

“Three!”

We surged forwards as one. My geiger counter went crazy, the clicking going so fast that it began to blur into a droning hum. Twenty rads a second. Thirty rads a second. Forty rads a second. My hooves pounded against the ground as I raced forwards, waves of pain rushing through them as the impact of the rocky ground pulsed up them. I felt something slither under my hooves, but I didn’t dare stop to see what it was.

Five seconds paced. Then ten seconds. Then a minute. We had taken almost two hundred rads. I could feel my insides begin to churn and boil. No doubt we had all been infected with some form of radiation poisoning.

Then, the clicking on our pipbucks halted and and we all collapsed to the ground out of breath. I rubbed my hind hooves as I tried to steady them from shaking after running so fast. I could hear all of my companions gasping for breath around me.

“Is- is everypony alright?” I heard the grey security pony call out in a shaken voice. There was a bunch of grumbles from around the cave as everypony tried to put words to their survival. “Roll-call,” the security pony grumbled. I could hear him pull himself to his hooves. “Cherry, Granite, August?” he called out, allowing me to hear the other security ponies names for the first time. Each one making some form of grunting noise at their name. “Toffee, Salt Water, Chestnut, Boulder,” Again, three grunts of acknowledgment. “Brisk, Xayah, Amber, Crank, Pyre?”

I raised my hoof and called out. “Here,” as if I were back one of the classes back at school in Stable 25. I could hear all of my friends do the same. I reached out and patted the dark coat of my Hellhound to make sure it was there. To my relief it was.

“Alright, that could have gone worse,” The grey security pony I still didn’t have a name for grumbled, walking around and passing out a radaway to each of us. I gratefully gulped it down, ignoring the vile taste of the orange fluid. Thankfully I wasn’t able to see it in the darkness of the caves, that helped me get it down a little better.

I watched in satisfaction as my geiger counter dropped back to around fifty rads. At one point in my life, I would have been panicking if I was even above five rads, but after having spent a couple days in the wasteland, being below one hundred rads seemed like a blessing.

I felt something slimy slither past me, making me jump back a little. Both Crank and my Hellhound froze, their eyes darting around the room.

“There’s something in here with us,” Crank grumbled. I could feel everypony tense up as he said that. He was silent for a few seconds, scanning the darkness with his red glare. As the dim light of his eyes passed over the walls I caught a small glimpse of something fleshing riggling away from the light and up the rock face. “Multiple things actually.”

“Are they hostile?” Xayah asked. I could feel her turning her head to try and spot them. Like me, her eyes found little more than darkness.

I glanced down at me EFS. Still nothing. Were the things down here dead already? Was that why I couldn’t pick them up? I doubted I’d ever know for sure, but the thought terrified me.

Crank was quiet for a few seconds. “Yes, they are just waiting for an opening to attack,” he answered, his tone stoic as ever. Great, so these things were intelligent. Just what I needed. “Do not stop facing towards the walls.”

“Huddle in the middle,” Toffee ordered, pulling herself up and slowly backing inwards, making sure to keep her eyes fixed on what she assumed was the walls of the cave around her.

I pulled myself up began backing up. I felt my rump push up against both Brisk and Xayah’s as we met in the middle of the cavern. Somewhere to my right I could sense the large forms of both Crank and Boulder back to back.

“We won’t be able to fight these things without light,” Salt Water said, a sliver of fear slipping into her voice.

“Pipbuck lights?” One of the security ponies that I now knew as Cherry suggested, tapping their pipbuck with a hoof.

“I thought that attracted the stuff down here?” I squealed, remembering what Chestnut had told me when we first entered the cave. “Isn’t that like… bad?”

“Well we’ve already attracted them,” Chestnut growled, stomping her hoof slightly. “Sure they’ll attack us if we turn it on, but they’ll attack us if we run anyway and we have a better chance of survival if we can see.”

I gulped. That made sense to me. Despite my earlier actions on the train, I really didn’t want to die. Especially not in this dank hole in the ground.

“Alright, everypony ready?” Toffee asked, readying her gun. “Now!”

I clicked on the pipbuck flashlight and let its green light illuminate the cavern. I saw Brisk and the four security ponies do the same. Even Pyre’s helmet shot a beam of yellow light from a flashlight installed my her right ear.

Our light flooded out the gloom of the cave, giving us a glimpse of the cylindrical rock space we had gathered in. For a terrifying second I thought that the cave was made out of a mass of wiggling flesh and tentacles. Then I saw the hundreds of beady white eyes peering back at us. The cave wasn't made of rotting flesh, but covered in… in… things!

A creature lurched off the wall and lunged at me, revealing a circular mouth filled with spinning teeth. Blood oozed from its jaw and spilled down its front as it lashed at me with its gnashing fangs.

Boneless flew into the air and blasted it apart with a single shot, its explosive rounds pulping its head and sending bits of rotting flesh spewing everywhere. It’s form immediately melted into a strange pulpy fluid and dropped to the floor.

Then they were all lunging at us, strange wriggling forms of flesh flashing from the wall and surging around us. My vision was filled with a blur of puss bubble covered flesh, tentacles and jagged gnashing teeth.

I could hear my companions firing shot after shot into the surging mass. Every shot was accompanied by a burst of flesh and blood, followed by the targeted creature flopping to the ground as some strange ooze.

Squirming tentacles began trying to wrap around me and drag me towards a plethora of gaping jaws. I could feel some sort of radioactive ooze seeping from the tentacles and into my coat, causing my body to itch and burn. Long tongues lashed out of the mouths, wrapping around my hooves and trying to pull me in faster.

Xayah lashed forwards, her knife slicing through the tentacles and freeing me from their grasp. I swiveled boneless to face the mass of jaws and fired.

Blam! Blam!

The tongues coiled away from the assault as the creatures were liquified by the explosive buckshot. I pulled out more shells and began loading them back into my gun, unfortunately giving the strange creatures an opening. One lunged at me, clamping its slimy mouth around my forehoof. I tried to shake it off, yelping in pain as the razor sharp jaws shredded my hide. I raised my hoof and brought it down on the creature, crushing its skull and making it liquify.

Then fluid that had once been the creature began to writhe around my hooves. Twisted hooves reached from the flood to grasp at me as the creature began to completely regenerate itself from nothing.

They hadn’t been lying, bullets did nothing against what lurked below the surface of the Hollow Shades.

I massive shock pulsed up my body as Crank’s tesla cannons fired another blast of blue energy into the hoard of monsters. All my hairs stood on end as he fired blast after blast into the onslaught. Fire roared around us as Pyre Blaze’s flamers set the squirming creatures ablaze.

My Hellhound lashed at the monstrosities viciously, tearing them apart with his massive claws and turning them to dust with precise blasts of his energy weapons. Any creature that got close was instantly shredded by the whirlwind of thrashing claws.

And yet they still continued to rise, nothing was slowing them down or seeming to prevent them from regenerating. As soon as one would fall, five more would take their place.

I saw one of the security ponies, August I think, overcome by the waves of creatures. The mass of flesh and tentacles surged over him, gnashing mouths of razor fangs shredding him to the bone in seconds.

“We need to get out of here!” I heard Salt Water yell, managing to shoot one of the creatures through the face with his hunting rifle. “We can’t kill these things!”

More were rising from the dead. Their liquified bodies had pool around our hooves and were beginning to pull themselves up between us. I saw bloody mouths reaching from the ground to eat me as I tried to fight on.

From down the tunnel we had come came more slithering creatures. Their fleshy, snake like bodies wriggling around the walls and crawling up the roof of the cavern. I saw screaming pony faces stretched out across their bodies, as if they were made out of melted and fused pony corpses.

We had to run. This place was a death trap.

Crank sent a massive blast energy towards the exit of the cave, a gaping hole that descended deeper into vile cavern. The creatures covering our escape route were blasted apart into dust and rotting fluid.

“Run! Now!” Crank ordered, charging down the tunnel, his tesla cannons and horn sending massive bursts of bright blue light flashing down the hall, incinerating anything that remained down there. “Pyre, take back!”

I didn’t have time to argue or figure out that specific order for Pyre as I felt the whole group begin charging after him, Pyre Blaze taking the back of the line and sending a wave of fire at the entrance of the tunnel to prevent the creatures from pursuing as fast as they normally would have.

One of the fleshy monsters managed to evade the wall of fire, darting down the tunnel and latching onto Salt Waters hind leg with its jaws. Salt Water screamed in pain as he toppled to the ground, beating at the creature with his hoof. The gaping jaws dug deeper into his flesh drawing blood and ripping most of the hide from the bone.

I blasted the creature with a shot from Boneless, spraying blood and bits of rotten flesh across Salt Waters face. I pulled him up and helped him run along as we did our best to keep pace with the galloping group.

Another blast of fire from Pyre’s flamers set the tunnel ablaze with firelight. I could feel the heat of the flame flaring around me as the creatures rushed down the tunnel towards us.

The strange snake like creatures bolted through the fire, ignoring the searing heat and flames that raced across their bodies. The Grey Security pony shot up at them with his assault rifle, but the bullets did little to slow down the incoming creatures.

The snake creatures lashed at him, coiling their bodies tightly around his neck. I could see the grey ponies eyes start to bulge as their grip around him began to constrict. Before the pressure could pop off his head however, Boulder’s massive sledgehammer collided with one of the snakes head, making the body fall to the ground. The creature began writhing as it tried to chase us even without its head.

Ahead of us I saw a small glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel. Crank had already left the tunnel, his large form bursting into the cavern beyond. I picked up my pace, doing my best to help Salt Water along as he limped towards the exit.

“Come on! Hurry up!” I heard Pyre growl, another wave of fire submerging the tunnel behind us. I heard the creatures shrieking as they were once again set aflame.

The rest of us shot out of the tunnel and into the gloomy cavern beyond. The second I pulled Salt Water from the tunnel, a blast of light blue energy lanced over our heads from Crank’s cannons and collided with the rocks above the tunnel. The top of the cave collapsed inwards, burying the tunnel under a few feet of black rock and crushing the flesh creatures inside.

I gasped, slowly helping Salt Water to the ground. “What the fuck were those things?” I sputtered, glancing back nervously at the collapsed tunnel.

“No fucking idea,” Chestnut whimpered, not sounding quite so intimidating for the first time since I had met her. “I’ve never seen anything like that down here.”

“Where the hell are we?” I heard Brisk utter breathlessly from beside me. I turned to look at the room we now stood in. instantly my jaw fell open in awe.

We had entered some form of giant underground cistern. Massive stone pillars ran in organized rows through the large space, the tops of them curved into beautifully sculpted archways. The floor was a large body of water about four feet deep with a stunning green and blue tile floor below it. Strange blue light emanates from between the cracks in the tiles, giving the room a spooky glow just bright enough for us to see a few feet in any direction. The room was large and dark enough that I couldn’t see the walls, so whether they were still made of rock or if they were as beautiful as the rest of the room remained a mystery to me.

“We’re in one of the old cisterns below the Hollow Shade,” Salt Water chilled, pulling out a healing potion and downing the contents. The nasty wound on his leg began to heal a little bit, but the strange acidic sludge the creatures had been oozing seemed to be preventing the wound from healing completely. “There’s a massive network of these below the whole area. The Ministry of Arcane Science used to spend a lot of time down here I think, I don’t know where these ruins came from or what they had hoped to find down here though. It’s one of the Hollow Shades many mysteries.”

“More importantly, it’s where Stable 44 gets their water,” The grey security pony in charge informed us, pointing to a water generator sticking out of the water not too far away. The rusted piece of pre war technology clashing with the stunning architecture. “So whatever is causing the issue with the water should be down here too.”

Great, so we just needed to search this area until we found the source. That wasn’t so bad. I remembered the horrifying fight we had just gone through and quickly changed my mind. I suddenly didn’t want to know what was causing all the problems.

I glanced over at Xayah who had taken to looking up at the roof, her eyes fascinatedly looking over something. I slowly limped over to her, pulling a healing potion and quickly drinking the fluid inside to heal the wounds I had received from the fight.

“What are you looking at?” I asked, pulling up next to her and following her gaze to the ceiling.

She pointed a hoof up at a large white serpent like object embedded in the rock roof of the cistern. “Bones,” Was all she said. It took me a few seconds, but I began to make sense of the strange shape.

It was some form of giant skeleton belonging to some kind of serpent like creature. It was hard to tell exactly what the creature had once been as all I seemed to be able to see was a small portion of its massive tail. Even still, each vertebrae of the tail seemed to be bigger than my entire body.

I shivered, glad that whatever those bones belonged to was long dead. I really, really didn’t want to fight something of that magnitude.

“Hey, I think I found somethin’ over here,” Toffee called out, looking off into the water farther out into the dark cistern.

We all wandered over to where she stood and looked at what she was pointing at, the crystal clear water around our hooves slowly transformed into a dark green ooze around the generator and continued off into the darkness of the cistern. The ooze mingled with the water, slowly seeping into it and turning it into a sickening green as well.

“Well we seem to have found the source of the problem,” Salt Water commented, limping on his injured hoof and following the trail of dark sludge into the gloom of the cistern with his eyes. “Guess we better follow it to see where this stuff leads.”

Everypony nodded in agreement and began trudging through the foul fluids and into the darkness beyond. I gulped as I slowly began to walk after them. Something about the area seemed wrong to me, as if the cistern itself had eyes and was watching me from the darkness. I felt like I was standing in the throat of a beast that intended to swallow me whole.

In the distance I could see the far wall of the cistern. the walls were covered in strange ancient drawings depicting strange star beasts. a particularly large image was of a massive pony made out of what I assumed were shadows. A massive archway in the middle of the wall lead to a dark tunnel beyond. Through the darkness, I could have sworn I saw two pony shaped figures standing silhouetted in the archway.

“Bad,” A choppy voice grunted from behind me, shifting my attention from the wall. I nodded, assuming it was Boulder, granting us with one of his few moments of speech.

Then I spotted Boulder walking a few feet ahead of me beside Toffee and the grey security pony. I whirled around to face whomever was behind me. Only my Hellhound stood there, their eyes locked on me with a strange fear filled glare.

“Did- did you just talk?” I asked shakelly. I had had no idea that Hellhound could speak. They seemed intelligent in combat and Watcher had seemed to suggest that they were just as sentient as ponies, but they idea that they could actually converse with us had never crossed my mind. I felt a chill go through me as I realised how truly morally wrong it was to be controlling this hellhound the way I had been. It might as well have just been a pony. I had to do everything I could to stop myself from releasing it right then and there.

“Bad,” The Hellhound grunted again, looking up into the darkness my friends were approaching.

Something was wrong. Why had it waited until now to speak? Was the mind control device keeping it from talking as it normally would, and if so, why was it speaking now? “What’s bad?” I asked, glancing in the way of my friends. I had a sudden terrible feeling that we were walking towards something truly horrifying and terrible.

“It comes,” The Hellhound grunted, taking a step back. A small whimper escaping its mouth. Okay, something was definitely wrong. “Bad. Very bad.”

Before I could ask the Hellhound more or question the morality of my actions, I spotted something hunched over in the darkness. At first I assumed it was nothing but a large rock in the center of the dark cistern, but the longer I stared at it the more it began to unfold. A massive body emerged from the depths on huge gnarled legs. A hulking mass of fleshy tendrils broke the surface of the foul water, writhing as they slowly expanded and contracted from the creatures body. The bodies of hundreds of ponies squirmed from underneath the creatures rotting flesh as they tried to rip themselves free from the massive body. The dark sludge that had begun to contaminate the water radiated off of the creature, the water around it as dark as the shadows in the cave.

Whatever it was, it was the cause of the bad water.

A foul stench began to fill the cistern, reeking of rot and decay. I placed a hoof over my mouth to keep from vomiting.

The creatures head slowly emerged from the water, its limp jaw crooked and gaping as thousands of tentacles pushed their way from the creatures mouth. slowly, its eyes began to open.

I stumbled and fell into the water as the creature turned to gaze at me, dark green sludge surging over me and obscuring my view of the creatures eyes.

I sputtered as the dark fluid poured into my throat. It burned like acid. I broke the surface again and spit it out, bits of sudge mixed with bile and viscera spilling from my lips.

I looked up at my friends. They had all turned to stare in horror at the hulking monstrosity that had emerged. No wait, not starring in horror. They were frozen in place, their jaws slack and their bodies shaking ever so slightly as they stared at the beast. Even Crank stood immobilized, his powerful form twitching as he stared down the creature.

They weren’t there, not mentally. I could tell by their blank expressions. Something about looking into the creatures eyes had frozen them.

I could hear the creature slowly lumbering forwards on its lopsided legs, a blood curdling wail echoing from its strange tentacle filled mouth. My body began to shake at the sound of the wailing. It was Brisk’s cries.

I kept my head low, not daring to look up at the creature as it slowly advanced towards it prey. I dashed over to Brisk and Xayah, waving my hoof in front of their face in a desperate hope to break them free from whatever trace the massive creature had put them in. They just stared back at me, horrified expression on their faces as their eyes darted to a fro.

Making sure not to look into the creatures eyes, I raised Boneless and fired at the creature, the explosive shells bursting against the monsters rotting flesh. A gaping wound was ripped open in the creature, allowing a pony like form to flop out of the body in a wave of blood and yellow fluid before the monsters rotting flesh pulled itself back together like nothing had happened. The massive creature didn’t even seem to notice the attack and continued slowly closing in on us.

Yeah, I hadn’t really expected that to work. Guns were next to useless down here anyway.

I turned back to my friends. There had to be some way to get them out of this trance. An idea came to mind, but I knew it would take time. I rushed away from Brisk and Xayah and stopped in front of Golden Chestnut, the only other unicorn in the group that could do magic. Taking a deep breath I ignited my horn and placed it against her forehead.

My vision flared with a blinding white, a sharp pain shooting through my head. I forced myself to go on, ignoring the pain. Then everything swirled away into blackness.

I was standing atop a large platform overlooking a crowd of slaves as they were herded like cattle towards a large machine. Slavers in dark black combat armour stood over them, occasionally cracking their bladed whips down upon slaves that were moving to slowly. The sky was cast in a deep red haze and a thick smog had settled over the area around us. Above me I could see the shapes of hot air balloons made to look like the old ministry mare Pinkie Pie’s smiling face.

The air was filled with the shuffling of hooves as the slaves were pushed along and the loud buzzing of machinery. Every few seconds a scream would echo from the crowd and pound in my ears. I might have been standing in hell itself.

This could only be one place… the dreaded Fillydelphia.

I saw Chestnut down below me, dressed in rags and her hooves clamped in chains as she shuffled forwards. I could see multiple whiplashes across her back. A strong looking brown stallion slave stood beside her, doing his best to comfort her as they both cried and pushed forwards.

I was about to run up and help her when a dark red stallion with a jet black mane stepped up beside me. I glanced at him, taking in his commanding presence. I saw a dark red mechanical eye on his face, very similar to Crank's eye.

I gasped and took a nervous step back, certain that I was staring at the infamous Red Eye I had heard so much about. He was a cyber pony too! The whole world seemed to be shifting around him, but not in the literal sense. The very air around him felt commanding and headstrong. Some part of me that I hated even admitted that being so close to him was… was comforting. Peaceful.

A particularly large, black female griffon swooped down and landed next to Red Eye. She raised a thick bullwhip and slashed it through the air, causing a massive cracking sound that made all the slaves wince.

“Silence slaves!” The griffon roared from beside me. I had to put a hoof over my ears to prevent them from exploding from the power of her voice. All the slaves below went silent and froze, even the slavers had a moment of pause as the armoured griffon loomed over them.

The griffon took a step back, allowing Red Eye to take the lead. The cybernetic pony strode forwards calmly, taking in all of the ponies that cowered before him. Everypony was silent. No pony dared to interrupt whatever he was about to say, even in the slightest. “Ponies. The world of Equestria from the days of old has gone, replaced with a sick and twisted landscape that we must struggle to survive day by day. But because of your contribution, we will rebuild Equestria and make a world where our children and the generations to come can live a true life. A happy life,” His words struck me as oddly charismatic. Despite the growing hatred I had developed for him over the past few days, I couldn't help but feel an eerie sense of calm by just listening to him.

Red Eye took another step forwards, looming over the crowd of slaves. He reached his hooves out, as if offering to help pull them up to the platform with him. “Let us join hooves. Let us work towards a better tomorrow. Equestria could be a Utopia once again, we just need to make it so,” The word Utopia made a chill go down my spine. Something about that word was starting to feel wrong. Like a sick and festering lie that was slowly curroding away at my understanding of the world at large. Red Eye continued, his smooth, oily words filled with an intelligence I had never seen in another pony. “Today you begin your contribution to the great cause. Today you build a world that your children will be able to live and thrive in. Today we take back this wasteland and make it what it should have been all along through a great unity. Today we take one more step closer to making this world home.”

With that, he turned and slowly walked from the platform and out of sight. I followed him with my eyes as he left, unable to tear my eyes away from the impressively smooth speaker. The second he had left my view I snapped back to my senses as if I had been caught in a trance. For a second I wondered if his words had put a spell on me. I mean he couldn’t simply be that charismatic and convincing, right? There was no way words could be that powerful!

All the slavers stomped their hooves in applause at his words. To my disgust, I saw a few slaves stomping along as well, clearly swayed by his speech.

Remembering what I was here to do, I began walking down from the platform towards where Chestnut and the brown Stallion were being pushed along by the slavers. I had to figure out a way to get Chestnut out of this weird dream state thing before that monster back in the real world reached us and started eating us alive.

None of the Slavers stopped to look at me as I made my way past them. I doubted they could even see me in this bizarre nightmare world I was in.

As I neared her, Chestnut tripped on her own broken hooves. She collapsed to the ground, one of the slaves that had been walking behind her stepping on her chest to get over her as the slavers urged them to move forwards. The brown stallion leaned down to help her, but a slaver with a dull blue coat and cyan mane pushed him away, ordering him to stay in line.

Aggressively, the slaver bit onto Chestnuts ear and yanked her from the line where he threw her down into a pile of scraps. The jagged chunks of metal and broken shards of glass cut at her sides, tearing up Chestnut’s exposed coat as she began to whimper.

I had never seen Chestnut look so defeated and broken. She had always seemed so strong. Not that I had known her for very long, but still.

The slaver raised his whip above his head, readying to lash it against her back for daring to slow down in the line.

I saw his rage filled eyes flash with a pale yellow and a mass of tentacles burst from his mouth. It only appeared for a second, but it was just long enough for me to see.

I knew what I had to do. I had to remove this strange creatures imprint from my companions minds. Seemed simply enough.

“There you are,” I muttered, raising boneless and firing point blank against the slavers head. The slaver burst open, dark ooze spilling from the stump that his head had once been. it swayed slightly, before falling to the ground with a thump.

Chestnut looked up at me, tears in her eyes. Then there was a flash of white light and a spike of pain that shot through my skull. Once again, I was torn away from reality.

My eyes flashed open. I could see Chestnut’s eyes open as well a second later, a look of fear and hurt still played across her face.

She slowly began to tilt her head up to see the lumbering monster again, still consumed by a state of confusion, fear and shock. “What in the world hap-”

I grabbed her head and pulled it back down away from the massive creature, looking her in the eyes and refusing to let her look back up at the monster. “Don’t look into its eyes,” I instructed, keeping her gaze fixed on me. “Looking at it sends you into some sort of waking nightmare. You’ll need to go into your friends heads get them out of the trace as well. Got it?” I instructed, trying my best to both explain everything that was going on as well as understand it myself.

Chestnut nodded, her eyes still displaying signs of terror at what she had just seen. What she had just had to live through for a second time. “How- how do I do that?”

“Do you know how to use memory orbs?” I asked quickly, quickly checking my ammo. I still had thirty five shells. Clearly shooting of a gun in the weird dreamscape I had been inside of didn’t take up ammo. I shouldn’t have been surprised. She nodded quickly. “It’s the same sort of thing. It seems to be embodying ponies that you fear from your darkest moments or some shit. Find the creature inside and kill it. You save your friends, I’ll save mine.”

I could hear the monster getting closer. It was practically looming over top of us now.

Then I was darting back over to Brisk and Xayah as the continued to stare motionlessly at the oncoming horror. I hoped Chestnut would be able to figure out how to get ponies out of this trance state, there was no way I could free all of their minds myself in time.

Even now I saw the creature bend down in the corner of my eye. It’s slithering tentacles wrapped around the frozen grey security pony and began dragging him into his mouth with a disgusting sucking noise.

Something was quickly moving towards me in the water. I couldn’t make out it’s shape as it stayed low below the surface.

Shit, I had to do this fast. There were more things coming.

I turned and placed my horn against Brisk’s head. A sharp pain shot through me and everything swirled away into a blinding white.

I was standing in Stable 25. Not the bloodsoaked metal halls from my last visit, but as they had once been a long time ago. Dull and grey.

I was in the security holding area. A few Security ponies stood around me at all sides, grinning at us with wicked grins.

Shit. I could already tell where this was going.

A filly Brisk lay snivelling in the centre of the room, his green coat sticky with semen and covered in dark bruises. He was dry heaving on the floor, his hooves already in a pool of vomit and bile. He couldn’t have been more than ten years old.

A Security mare stood over him, a look of pleasure still very much visible on her face. She had a dark grey coat and a dusty beige mane, her cutie mark was that of a baton.

Fuck her, I knew her too. She had escorted me to class a few times when the bullying and beatings had gotten extremely bad. She had even helped me with my homework once, a long time ago. She had seemed so nice. So very very nice. Damn her.

The security mare put a hoof on Brisk’s back and pushed him hard into the floor, his face landing in the pool of vomit. She grinned at him, wiping some of the bodily fluids off of her own barding.

I didn’t need to see her face contort into a mass of tentacles to know it was her I had to kill. I raised my baton in my magic and slammed it down across her head, cracking her skull. But the mare didn’t die. She whirled on me, her limbs thrashing. Tentacles began slithering out of every orifice in her body as the deranged creature tried to attack back. it would not let me kill it so easily this time around.

Foul tendrils of flesh began wrapping around my body. They dripped of a vile black slime that burned away at my flesh.

As the tentacle tightened, I began to smell the stench of death. Pink clouds began pumping into the room from the vents above me, slowly making my coat melt away. The once sneering security ponies that circled the room began to cough and clutch at their throats as the iniquitous cloud pushed its way into their lungs.

I bashed the creature over and over with my baton, each hit breaking bones and causing the creature to ooze with more puss filled fountains of blood. I would not let it get to me. I would not let it get Brisk.

And yet still it held tight to me, its slimy tentacles wrapping tighter and tighter around my body, making me gasp for air.

I saw bodies of raider foals at my hooves, blood spilling from their shattered skulls. Their broken forms began to thrash as some twisted magic brought them back from the dead, only for them to start screaming in agony as they felt the damage I had done to their body.

The Creature began to shift, something inside of it expanding and bursting from the flesh of the grey security mare. It took the form of Inferno, his flamers ablaze with light as they sent waves of fire washing over me, burning away at my already melting skin. Then it became the grinning grey and purple zebra Azar, tentacles bursting from every part of his body even as he placed his hoof over the detonator held tight in his grip.

I could feel myself slipping away, dying. It was going to tear me apart from my very body.

I didn’t let them. I began slamming my baton harder against the creatures skull again and again until its head burst open and the slithering mass of rotting flesh inside of it spilled across the floor.

I raced up and wrapped my hooves around the shivering form of the filly Brisk. He pushed me back, coiling away from my touch as his face was marred by burning tears.

The pink cloud began closing around us tighter, my breath became ragged as I started to choke and drown in my own blood.

I took a step back from him and bent down to eye level. “It’s going to be okay Brisk. I’m here for you. You are not alone.”

Then the world flashed white and I felt myself being ripped away from the nightmare of Stable 25 once again. For once, I wasn’t sad to see the Stable go.

Brisk and I opened our eyes at roughly the same time. To my relief, none of the wounds the two of us had received had followed us out of the nightmare. He looked at me, tears brimming the rim of his eyes. He shook his head, trying to shake the image of what had just happened. “Amber, I- I didn’t want you to see that. I- That isn’t me anymore…”

I gave him a tight hug. “I know. You are who you are Brisk. That memory doesn’t define you,” I pushed back from him quickly, realising how little time I had to save everypony. Already I could see the monster turning from where the grey security pony had once been and moving towards Salt Water, it’s large tentacles reaching out to consume him. I never was able to find out that security ponies name. I turned to look at Brisk. “Don’t look the monster in the eye. Get someplace safe!” I shouted as I quickly moved to face Xayah.

Brisk glanced down at his hooves and began backing up, clearly not wanting to go back into the monsters strange nightmare trance.

As I neared Xayah something leapt from the water and knocked me to the side. Damn it, I had forgotten about the weird thing I had seen moving in the water.

As I steadied myself, I took the creature in. It was a ghoul, or at least something very similar to one. It’s rotting and patchy coat was covered in oozing puss bubbles, a few of them popping even as I watched. It’s face had been distorted, twisted into an endless scream and its jaw crooked and impossibly wide. I could see things wriggling below its flesh, as if the creatures veins had turned into maggots and were trying to eat their way out of him.

The ghastly ghoul lunged at me again, swiping at me with gnarled limbs. I leapt to the side, bringing my baton down hard on it’s back.

The creatures spine snapped, it’s back half twisting up at a near ninety degree angle. And yet it refused to die.

The geiger counter on my pipbuck spiked and clicked furiously just by being close to the creature.

It lunged again, refusing to even be a little slowed by its crooked and flailing back half. It’s hooves lashed me across the face. I could feel its mear touch burn away skin.

I reeled back and bashed it across the head with Boneless, causing it to stumble to the side. As it began to realign itself to attack me, I pushed Boneless up against its head and Fired.

Blam!

The creatures head exploded, it’s whole body dissolving into a black ooze as it died.

But it didn’t die. It slowly began to rise again from the water, the black sludge slowly hardening into thrashing limbs. It didn’t seem to be pulling itself together quite right either, it’s head wasn’t straight and it seemed to have a few additional limbs as it began to rise.

Shit. Just like everything else down here, shooting it did little more than use up our ammo!

I turned back to Xayah and put my horn to her head. I had to do this before it finished reforming and attacked me while I was in Xayah’s memories.

I quickly glanced at Brisk, who was doing his best to keep his eyes away from the massive monster. “Keep that thing at bay!” I shouted, pointing to the slowly reforming ghoul creature. I saw Brisk nod as I ignited my horn and let the world swirl away.

We were surrounded. Raiders were closing in from all sides, their wicked grins filled with malice and undeserved hatred for the group of zebra’s I was standing with.

There were three zebras total. The one closest to me was Xayah, that much was obvious. Unlike the other memories I had gone into, Xayah looked no younger than she did in the present day, though she was admittedly in better condition. I hadn’t realised just how damaged looking she had become during her travels with me.

Beside her was a much older looking black and white zebra I could only assume was Xayah’s mother. Xayah was clearly a spitting image of her mother, from the same stripes and colour pattern, to the same emerald green eyes and upward mane.

Squeezed between the two of them, was a young zebra I assumed was Xayah’s daughter Zira- or at least what I thought had been a zebra. She was a lighter colour than Xayah was, being a light grey and black and her mane was a solid white unlike any other zebra I had seen. The zebra glyph on her rump was not a zebra glyph at all, but rather the image of a wooden flute.

Xayah had told me back when we had first met that Zira had been fascinated by zebra glyphs. Now I knew why. Zira was possibly the only zebra with a cutie mark instead. Was she half pony? How did that work?

The first wave of raiders swarmed inwards, a deadly wall of knives and barbwire covered baseball bats surging towards the three zebras. They managed to dodge the first attack with the same surprising agility I had come to expect from zebras, but they were greatly outnumbered and didn’t even seem to be in possession of any weapon. Xayah had told me her family had not been fighters.

A pegasus raider dropped down on them from above, her chainsaw severing off the leg of Xayah’s mother. I noticed that the pegasus’ cutie mark had been burned away and replaced with what seemed to be a replica of the old ministry mare Rainbow Dash’s cutie mark. Odd, what the hell does that mean?

ZIra screamed, racing for where her mother had fallen bloody to the ground. Xayah raced up to her, her hoof deflecting oncoming attacks as she frantically fought for her life against the onslaught.

I narrowed my eyes at the pegasus raider. I had no doubt she was who I was meant to kill to get Xayah out of this nightmare. A flash of pale yellow in the pegasus’ eyes only confirmed my theory.

Xayah was crouched over her broken mothers body as she tried to fend of raiders coming from every side. Even against so many, she seemed to be faring fairly well.

Then a raider broke past her defences and stabbed a rusty knife deep into her calf and it was all over.

Raiders bore down on her mother, ripping her apart limb for limb. Blood and viscera were sent flying everywhere.

Zira screamed, thrashing her hooves against the raiders sides and trying to free her still flailing mother from their attacks. A raider lashed out with a machete, the wide blade slamming down hard on the fillies head.

With a thwack, the blade lodged itself in the fillies skull and stuck. There was a moment of stillness from both Zira and the raider, as if the sudden and anticlimactic attack had frozen them both in place. Then the raider pushed against Zira’s body with a hoof and dislodged his blade.

And just like that, I watched Zira die, at least it had been somewhat quick.

To Xayah’s credit, she managed to hold herself back from bursting into uncontrollable sobs as both her mother and daughter were slaughtered before her eyes. Not that I was surprised. I don’t think Xayah had even learned how to cry until after the death of Stable 25.

The pegasus landed atop Xayah’s mother’s body, her chainsaw swinging down and decapitating the thrashing zebra’s head. She stared up at Xayah, her vile gaze passing straight through me. “Chain that one up,” The pegasus raider cackled. “I want to have fun with that one.”

I gritted my teeth. I had killed this bitch once before. I’d be damned if I couldn’t do it again.

I rushed forwards, firing Boneless against the pegasus’ head. The shot missed as the pegasus rocketed towards the sky with a powerful flap of her wings, but this time I knew that I couldn’t run out of ammo here. Here I could be a little more reckless.

I fired up twice at the pegasus as she dove down towards me. The first shot missed again, but the second shot made its mark, shredding the pegasus’ wings and dropping her to the ground. Instantly tentacles began shooting from its mouth, trying to wrap around me. I wouldn’t let it. I quickly reloaded and fired again, this time into its mouth. The tendris were blasted apart into visera.

Then the raiders began attacking me. Their faces had twisted, now resembling something similar to the ghoul creature I had fought back in the cistern.

Damn it, this thing was learning. It wasn’t just going to sit back and let me kill it, it was going to start throwing everything in had at me. And in a dreamstate that it controlled, ‘everything it had’ could be virtually anything.

I leapt to and fro, doing my best to dodge the unexpected assault of raging ghouls. A hoof swept out my hooves out from under me, sending me topping to the ground. The mass of ghoul raiders, lunged, clawing at me and tearing away flesh.

I screamed and pulled away from them, reverting my attention to the brutalized mutating pegasus. These ghoul raiders didn’t matter, only her.

I telekinetically swung Boneless to face her. I could see the creatures eyes widen as it realised it was only seconds away from being blasted apart once again.

It began shrieking, a large hole in the fabric of existence began tearing its way out of the air between us. Through the hole I could see what appeared to be the wastelands equivalent of a dessert.

The vile pegasus lurched forwards, throwing itself through the portal and towards whatever was on the other side to escape me. Seconds after it began to close, and with it the whole world began to crumble. Manehattan skyscrapers fell, its already broken spires crumbling and raining down on us from above. The ground was ripped apart and broke beneath my hooves. I could feel my very being beginning to cease to exist.

The terrifying idea of dying in here and having my mind forever tapped deep in Xayah’s twisted subconscious, unable to return to my body flashed through my mind. The idea was horrifying.

Not knowing what to do, I shook the ghoul raiders from me and leapt into the closing portal after the monster. It felt like I was being squeezed through a hole the size of a straw. My whole body convulsed, my battered form clenching tight around my guts. For a horrifying moment I thought my ribs might snap and burst through my chest.

Then I was standing in a ramshackled house. Out the window I could see a radioactive desert. An old sign had been hastily spray painted to read ‘New Appleoosa’.

A slightly younger looking Xayah stood shivering in the corner of the room. A trail of blood drizzling down her hind legs. A large buck with a lasso for a cutie mark towered over her, his face a strange mix of sickening pleasure and rage.

“Y’all should never ‘ve come t’ this town,” the stallion snarled, pinning the shaking Xayah down with a powerful hoof. “We don’t take kindly to zebras ‘round here. Now you get down and beg!”

Xayah crouched down even lower, her eyes filled with a fear I had never seen in her. The stallion’s strong hoof pounded her across the face, making her fall flat on her stomach. The Stallion laughed and said something, but I wasn’t able to make it out.

Not because he said it quietly though, in fact it was quite the opposite. The stallion had practically yelled at her. But I was so angry, blinded by a burning rage that bordered on death of my Stable levels of anger that I had lost the ability to do anything other than seethe in rage.

How dare he! How dare he touch her like that! For… for what? Being a zebra?

With Brisk, I had at least been somewhat prepared. As sick and fucked up as it had been, I had at least been mentally preparing myself to face the atrocities of what the Stable had done to him. When I had gone into his mind to save him, I had known deep down that I was going to witness his rape.

But not with Xayah… I had no idea…

Crank had told me. I should have listened. Damn it!

I saw the Stallion lay a hoof on her head. Xayah whimpered at the contact, her left forehoof starting to shake violently. I knew it would never stop.

“You Fucker!” I screamed, lashing out at him with my baton. The heavy shock baton hit, sending the stallion crashing down on top of Xayah’s shaking form. I pushed him off of her, allowing her room to pull herself away and huddle in the corner. My baton beat down again, snapping both of his front legs. “You fuck! You- You fucking rapist!”

I could see the stallion slowly morphing into the hideous tentacled monster again, but I didn’t care. I just wanted to bring pain to that stallion. Give Xayah some form of justice for what had been done.

My baton slammed down again, and again, and again, and again. Electric shocks rippled through the creatures body with each hit. I felt bones break, limbs crunch. Blood was gushing onto the floor. I raised my hoof and slammed it down across his face, only to feel his face give way to the punch, my hoof lodging itself halfway through his skull.

The squirming stopped.

I looked up at Xayah. She was afraid. So goddess damned afraid. And she was shaking, she wouldn’t stop shaking.

Both our eyes burst open. We stared at each other for a long moment, both of our eyes welling up with Tears.

“Xayah, I… I had no idea,” I muttered softly, wrapping her tightly in a hug.

Xayah sniffled, hugging me back. “I did not want you to know. You would- you would worry about me. And- and... I… I did not want myself to know.”

I didn’t have time to ask what that meant as the ghoul like creature slammed into me again, knocking me off balance. So much for Brisk keeping it away from me.

Then I spotted Brisk doing his best to deal with two other ghoul things. Shit! There were more of them?! Where the hell were they coming from?

I heard Chestnut and a now freed Toffee screaming as they blasted at the massive monster with their guns. I turned to face them, finding the monsters gaze away from me and locked on the pony it quickly sucked into its mouth. I saw the last few seconds of Salt Waters life before he disappeared into the mass of tentacles in the creature's mouth. Salt Water gave a loud pained scream, clearly having broken from his trance mere seconds before he was devoured.

A fucked up part of my brain sighed that I would never be able to prove I was a better mechanic than him, before the more emotional side of me began to sob uncontrollably, realising I had just watched a friend get eaten alive.

I watched as Toffee fired a shot from her shotgun, the buckshot ripping a massive hole in the hulking monsters side. Like what had happened with I had shot it, a pony sized glob of something fleshy flopped out of the monsters bleeding wound.

Terror shot through me as I realised what was happening. I reached a hoof out, signalling for the two of them to stop attacking it. “Stop! Shooting it just makes more ghouls!” I screamed, hoping they could hear me over the chaos. “Just focus on getting everypony out of the transes!” They seemed to hear me. Chestnut began running over to Boulder, and Toffee began focusing her attacks at the few ghouls that had wiggled their way out of the creatures flesh.

Xayah and I turned to face the ghoul thing that had jumped at me, both our bodies tensing up as we saw it preparing to lunge at us again. It’s attack never came.

Before it had the chance to move, Pyre’s massive power armoured form collided with the ghoul, her armoured hooves stomping down on its head and crushing it flat.

“Get going!” Pyre shouted, stomping her hooves on the creatures head again as it began to rise back up. “We need to find a way to kill that thing!” Yeah, no shit. But I was happy to see her all the same.

Apparently Chestnut had freed Pyre Blaze as well. I wasn’t complaining, there wasn’t any pony better to have in a fight than her. Well, I guess there was one...

I quickly looked over at Crank standing frozen a few feet away from me. Him and Boulder seemed to be the only two that hadn’t been set free. I could see the two remaining Security ponies fending off ghoul things while doing their best to not look directly at the massive abomination.

The monster had begun to move again now that it had finished eating Salt Water. It’s long tentacles began reaching out, twisting their way towards Crank. For a second I considered just letting the monster eat him. It would be one less enemy I would have to worry about and it would save me a lot of trouble in the future.

I sighed, shaking my head a little. No, if I didn't save him I wouldn't be Amber Aura. I needed to save him.

Fucking morallity. Worst. virtue. ever.

I began racing through the dark cistern. A ghoul jumped out at me, it’s hooves slashing at my throat in a savage attempt to rip it out. I ducked low, my chin just barely skimming the surface of the black water.

My Hellhound lashed out, cutting the ghoul in half before it could attack again.

Apparently Chestnut had freed my Hellhound too. Clearly she was faster than I was at the whole dreamscape thing. That or the memories she had to deal with were easier. I almost laughed at that. I doubted Pyre’s past was easy.

I skidded to a halt before Crank. I could feel the massive monster behind me looming over me, slowly drawing closer and closer. I could see it’s tentacles slither towards us like snakes. One began wrapping around my hoof, another around Crank’s thick neck.

It was now or never. I took a deep breath and put my horn to Crank’s forehead.

“Alright, lets see what the mighty cyber alicorn fears,” I said, almost whimpering in fear as I realised how dangerous what I was about to do was. I ignited my horn and sent my world into a blinding white.

This time wasn’t like before. Before I had found myself in a horrible memory while terrible things happened to ponies at the hooves of monsters just as foul as the one making these nightmares occur. But this wasn’t a memory. It was a void.

A void that had been filled with corpses. Everywhere I looked I saw bodies. Many blasted apart and oozing blood. I recognised the many wounds that coated all the bodies. These were all of Crank’s victims. Goddesses there were so many.

I could feel the presence of the creature searching through Crank’s mind, searching for the perfect nightmare. It was either having trouble finding one, or there were too many to choose from.

The bodies around me seemed to be glowing slightly. I drew closer to them, spotting a strange pulsing sphere of light inside of them. They were very similar to the silver orbs I had seen when inside Inferno’s head. Whether these were a cyber pony thing or just what memories looked like I couldn’t be sure. I guess they did kinda resemble memory orbs in a way.

Slowly, I reached out and touched the body of a buck who had been ripped open. Instantly the world flashed into a brilliant white and I found myself standing in the wasteland.

The corpse of the buck was no longer a corpse, but rather a pony standing beside me. A few other ponies stood behind him as well, pulling a large wagons full of scraps down the cracked roads of Manehattan.

I could see four figures approaching from the distance, the light of the cloud covered sun gleaming off of their metal plating. The ground seemed to rumble as they approached, each one of their hoof steps causing a miniature earthquake.

The group of ponies slowed to a stop as they spotted the four cyber ponies nearing them. Many of the ponies quickly reached for their guns, not sure what to make of the oncoming death machines.

All four cyber ponies stopped a few paces from the group. I could see all four of them, their mere presence sending chills down my spine.

Inferno, Steel blade, Tripwire and Crank. Four of the most deadly fighters the wasteland had ever seen. Just seeing them all at once gave me a creeping sense of dread. I had managed to kill three of them so far, but not without a great deal of effort and a lot of luck and unfair advantages. The idea of facing down all four at once chilled me to the bone.

“Well hello there,” the buck said, taking a nervous step forward. He did his best to hide the fear in his voice, but he was unable to conceal it completely. “Can we help you four with something?”

I could see Crank’s red glass eyes narrow. “We are looking for a pony named Diesel. Have you seen him?” His voice was a low commanding rumble that made all of the ponies, myself included, take a fearful step back.

A wave of discomfort washed over the ponies. Just from their reactions I could tell that they not only knew where this Diesel pony was, but he was in this very group right now. Inferno clearly felt the discomfort as well. He stepped forwards, sneering at all of the ponies with a cruel and wicked sneer. I could see the ends of his flamers start to heat up.

“Point me towards him,” Inferno inquired simply, his tone almost sweat. My skin crawled just hearing the vile cyber ponies voice again.

There was another moment of uncomfort. Finally I heard somepony from the back of the group call out. “We don’t need to tell you anything.”

His comment only seemed to make Inferno grin wider.

“You would dare defy us and the will of our god!” Steel blade bellowed, stomping his hoof on the ground. The other three cyber ponies seemed to roll their eyes at his outburst. Now given a moment to take him in, I realised how much smaller Steel Blade was compared to the rest of the cyber ponies. Crank hadn’t been lying when he said Steel Blade was the weaker of the four.

“Your deaths can easily be arranged,” Crank snarled bluntly, taking a step forward, his tesla cannons and horns glowing a brilliant blue. “Bring him forwards and the rest of you can walk away.”

There was a moment of silence, followed only by a fairly small and frail looking stallion pushing his way to the front of the group. He shook in fear before the four death machines. “I… uh… I’m Diesel.”

Instantly, a ray of blue light blasted from Crank’s horn and lashed through Diesel’s chest. The stallion screamed and clutched at the gaping hole that was just ripped through his front. Blood spilled across the dark concrete road as he flopped over and died.

It all happened so fast.

Everypony stood in shocked silence, staring at the blood spilling across the road. Finally the buck who I had first seen roared with rage. “How dare you! You… You monster!” he rushed forwards, pointing a shotgun at Crank and firing off a round in pure anger.

Crank didn’t even bother to dodge as the buckshot bounced of his metal coat harmlessly. Crank’s bladed tail lashed out, sending a massive spike through the bucks forehead. The buck spasmed for a second before going limp on the end of Crank’s tail. With a quick flick, Crank send the body flying away to the side.

“Make sure that stallion wasn’t just covering for the real Diesel,” Crank snorted, fanning out his bladed wings. “Do whatever you feel is best.”

Crank rocketed off into the sky, leaving the remaining ponies alone with the three cyber ponies. Inferno grinned, trotting up and looking down at a filly who was cowering in fear.

“Oh, I have a few ideas,” He smirked, his vile black tongue licking his lips as he looked down at the filly. Then the three cyber ponies surged forwards, their weapons blazing with light.

Then I was back in the void, staring out at the massive collection of corpses. There was a story behind all of them. They had all met a tragic end at Crank’s hooves. I spotted the bloodied corpse of Diesel beside me. So many deaths.

I moved through the bodies, doing my best not to touch them. Occasionally, one would brush against my side making their last few moments flash through my mind. I saw ponies being torn apart, blasted to bits and turned to ash. It was horrifying.

I could sense something moving through the darkness around me, obscured by the shadows and mounds of corpses. The creature I was here to kill perhaps? Or something else?

Why the hell was this so different from all the other nightmares?

As I walked forwards, I found an area of the void that wasn’t filled with corpses. A sad wailing like sound seemed to fill the air as I began walking through it. Up ahead I could see a lone corpse floating in the blackness.

It was a mare. She seemed to be about my age, if not a little older. She had an auburn coat with a beautiful orange mane that flowed slightly in the strange breeze that passed through the void. Unlike the rest of the bodies, she seemed at peace.

She was truly beautiful. A ray of light amongst the darkness of Crank’s subconscious.

Curious, I reached a hoof forward to touch the glowing light that seemed to be emanating from her.

“Don’t you dare touch her!” Crank snarled form behind me, making me jump and spin around to face him. I hadn’t heard him approaching. Crank’s eyes were filled with anger as he glared at me, his glowing red eyes cutting through the gloom. “Step away. Now!”

I did, quickly moving away from the mare. I looked at him as best I could in the darkness. Something about him seemed off. “I don’t understand,” I muttered, looking away from him and back at the floating corpses. “Why is everything like this? It wasn’t like this in the other’s heads.”

Crank snorted, slowly advancing on me. I could feel myself backing up on instinct to get away from the lethal cyber alicorn. “Don’t you understand?” Crank grunted. “This is my greatest fear. The ponies that have died because of me.”

I could understand that far too well. Again I saw Crank not as a machine of death, but as an older version of myself, twisted and ruined by the wasteland. That image was quickly destroyed as Crank growled, his eyes flicking back to the glowing body of the mare.

“But where are the ponies that wronged you?” I asked, glancing around as if the creature was going to emerge from the darkness. I had no idea how to get Crank out of here if I couldn’t find the creature to attack.

Then, as if on cue, I saw Crank’s glowing eyes flash a sickening yellow. It was him… The creature was inside of Crank! He was the pony he feared the most.

Damn it, this wasn’t going to be easy, was it?

I raised Boneless and leveled it at Crank’s head. “Just trying to save you,” I muttered, before firing off a round at his head.

Crank dodged, evading the shot and rushing at me with impossible spreed. His tail lashed forwards, coming dangerously close to slicing me in two. The only thing that saved me being my baton blocking the path of his attack as I quickly swung it up to meet his bladed tail.

The shock of the impact sent me stumbling back into the darkness, my baton now completely ripped in two. Before I had time to steady myself, Crank was on top of me, slamming down on my chest with his hooves. I felt bones break under the heavy assault.

I blasted another shot from Boneless into his face, the explosive buckshot ripping apart some of his his remaining flesh. Faster than the regeneration of the other three cyber ponies, his flesh melded itself back together. He didn’t even react to the attack as he continued slamming down on me.

My body was torn open, blood spilling from the gaping wound in my chest. I could feel my mind slipping away, melting into the darkness of the void. My body would become one of the many that surrounded me soon.

Crank’s face moved down inches from my own, his jagged metal jaw now filled with writhing tendrils of rotting flesh. His tesla cannons began to charge, readying themselves to blast me into oblivion.

Blam!

A booming shot rang out in the darkness. The bullet tore through Crank’s skull, sending black sludge like blood spewing from his head. He staggered, stumbling off of me as his skull began to pull itself back together.

I rushed to my hooves, feeling a wave of pain wash over me as the movement caused more blood to rush from my body. I looked over to where the shot had come from.

Brisk was standing in the darkness, his horn glowing with a pale light. I could see his face strained with pain as he tried to keep his magic concentrated enough to remain inside of Crank’s head.

I stared at him with a mix of shock, wonder and pride. “You… you’re using magic,” I beamed breathlessly, looking at him and his glowing horn.

He gave me a pained grin. “Well it’s kinda like memory orbs right, and I can do those things.”

We didn’t have time to talk more as Crank turned back to face us. His blood soaked face twisting with anger. He lunged at us, his wings slashing at the air in an attempt to rip us apart.

The two of us dove to the sides, scattering and began our attack on him from all sides.

The air filled with gunfire as Brisk and I shot at him with everything we had. But despite our best efforts, Crank would not go down. He was faster, stronger and far more experienced than both of us combined. Not to mention he was being possessed by some massive tentacle monster. His tesla cannons flared, sending explosive blasts of sparkling blue energy in all directions. With each blast the black void was filled with blinding light.

We ran and dodged, doing our best to stay on the offensive while evading his powerful blasts. Crank could afford to be hit by our attacks, he would just regenerate all the damage in a matter of seconds. But I knew that if either Brisk or I got hit by even one of his attacks, we would die.

My whole body screamed in protest as blood continued to gush from my wounds. Every time I tried to evade his deadly attacks I felt myself slowing down. The pain was unbearable, threatening to throw me into unconsciousness at any given moment.

This was getting us nowhere. We couldn’t hurt him, and we could only evade him for so long. How long would it be until he managed to land a shot? A couple seconds?

I glanced up at the body of the beautiful glowing mare. Crank had seemed protective over her. Perhaps if I could just...

I rushed towards the mares body, dodging another blast from Crank’s tesla cannons. I didn’t avoid getting hit by it’s massive shock wave though. I was sent flying forwards and crashing into the body of the mare.

Crank roared in rage, blasting at me yet again. The glowing blue light of the tesla cannons collided with me. I felt my forehooves get blown apart and my coat burned until I was little more than a flailing pile of flesh. I went blind in one eye, no doubt it had been melted under the searing heat of the cannons. I screamed as I felt every bone in my body shatter and my insides begin to boil. Blood was everywhere, spilling out of my body and into the darkness around me like a waterfall. It was pain like I had never experienced before. But I wasn’t dead yet. I still had a chance.

I could hear Brisk screaming, blasting at Crank with his 10mm pistol. The attacks did nothing. Crank ignored him as he Charged towards me.

I pushed myself forwards on my back legs, the only part of me that seemed somewhat intact. My already ruined vision began to fade even more as my remaining eye began to liquify. Pain shot through my body, causing me to scream out as I pushed myself closer and closer to the body of the mare.

Just a little closer.

I realised I had no idea if this would even work. Goddesses I hoped it would.

I reached out, my hoof touching the mares body. At the same time, Crank roared. His tesla cannons fired again, the blue energy blasting me apart and blowing off the lower half of my body. The light of the tesla cannons mingled with the light of the mares body, the dazzling silver merging with the glowing blue.

For a split second I wasn’t in the void at all. I was someplace else, flashing through a collection of memories that I couldn't understand. Crank’s memories. I saw his whole life flash by me in a second, filling all of my senses with his own. Pain, loss, grief, failure, even brief moments of joy and love flared through my mind. It was so fast, I didn’t have time to register any of it.

Then I was back in the void. I could see Brisk rushing towards me as my vision began to darken more. Tears streaked down his face as he called out. I couldn’t hear him, my hearing was gone as well. All I could hear was this endless buzzing and the rapid beating of my own heart.

With my last bit of strength, I turned my ruined, nearly liquified head to look at Crank. Blood spilled from the top of my head, obscuring my dissipating vision.

Through the blood and the rapidly growing darkness I saw Crank staring at me, a look of sheer terror on his mechanical face. He had seen what I had too, his whole miserable life splayed out before him. Every mistake, every failure, every death.

Crank growled, but it wasn’t at me. “Get out of my head!” He screamed, bashing at his skull with a hoof. “Get the fuck out of my head!”

He lashed at himself with his hooves breaking open his own skull. A writhing mass of tentacles burst from his head, spilling across the floor and wrapping around his hooves. He growled again as his face pulled itself back together, his tesla cannons blazing brighter than ever as fought back against the creatures possession.

Brisk was standing over me, doing everything he could keep me conscious and stop the bleeding. But he couldn’t stop the bleeding. How can you stop it when I was bleeding everywhere.

I saw Crank’s cannons fire, blasting apart the fleshy creature and blowing his own body apart. As I slowly faded into death embrace, I saw Crank scream in rage, his horn burning with blinding light. Then the monster was turned to little more than ash as I drifted into nothingness.

I was alive. My eyes popped open, bringing me back into the dark cistern. Crank must have killed the creature inside mere moments before I had died. I felt a wave of relief wash over me. I had been far too close to death there for my comfort.

Then I realised I was no longer on the floor of the cistern. I was half way between the ground and the massive mouth of the creature. It’s tentacles had wrapped tightly around me and was slowly dragging Brisk, Crank and I into its razor sharp jaws. Hundreds of gnashing mouths reached out for us as it pulled me in closer.

I thrashed against it screaming, trying to get myself away from its jaws. Brisk was squirming beside me too, trying to free himself from the lumbering creatures grasp. Damn it, I didn’t want to die like this!

Then Crank emerged from the nightmare. He glanced around, only taking a second to take in what was going on. Then he bellowed with rage, the walls of the dark cistern shaking from the noise. His tesla cannons flashed, turning the creatures tentacles into ash. Blood surged from the ruined stumps of where the tentacles had once been as Crank send blast after powerful blast into the creature.

Brisk and I fell to the ground as the tendrils of flesh holding us aloft were ripped to shreds. Brisk crawled over to me, clearly glad that the injuries I had received inside of Crank’s mind hadn’t followed me out. Not in the physical sense anyway, but I could still remember the agonising pain. I doubted that memory would leave me for a long while.

Another blast of Crank’s tesla cannons drew my attention back up to him as he battled against the massive monster. The huge creatures head exploded, raining dark visera down around us. I saw swarms of ghoul creatures tearing them self through the monsters flesh, spilling out onto the floor of the cistern around us.

Killing this thing was going to unleash and army of ghouls on us!

“Wait stop!” I yelled, hoping Crank could hear me. Either he couldn’t or he simply didn’t care. Crank continued to fire. Blast after blast, bloody holes were ripped into the monster. Finally, with a massive burst of light from Crank’s horn, the beast exploded. Black sludge and bits of bone showered down around us as the massive monster finally died.

Crank landed with a big splash on the floor of the cistern. His heavy metal hooves cracking the flood and causing the whole cavern to shake. A ghoul lunged at him, its rotting teeth doing little but scratch his thick armour plates.

Crank glanced around at the massive swarm of ghoul that were rising from the water. “Everypony get down!” Crank ordered as his horn began to glow brighter. When Crank demanded something, you obeyed. We all dropped below the surface of the water. I noticed that now that the monster was dead, the water had already begun to clear.

A flash of blue light flared above our heads. The water distorted the sound, making it sound like a far of gunshot.

Out of breath, I pushed myself back above the surface. All the ghouls still stood standing, but their entire top half had been sliced clean off. After a second, they all fell limp to the floor. I doubted that would stop them from coming back to life again, but it gave us a few minutes at least.

I glanced over at Crank as the rest of my party began to break the surface of the water as well. He was shaking a little, clearly still hurting from whatever it was he had seen when all those memories flashed through his mind.

“Fuckin’ shit!” I heard Toffee exclaimed as she looked around the cistern. “Now I’ve seen some fucked up shit in my day, living my whole life in the Hollow Shades and all, but that was fucked,” She glanced nervously at Crank. “An’ maybe you weren’t lyin’ ‘bout taken on all them slavers yerself.”

We heard a slow clapping sound from across the cistern. We all looked up towards the crooked archway I had seen right before we were attacked. I hadn’t been mistaken, there were two pony shapes in there.

Slowly the figures emerged, coming closer towards us. One of the forms clearly more brave than the other.

The first pony I saw in the gloom wasn’t a pony at all. It was a zebra. A zebra with dark purple stripes. I felt my stomach clench as the strange zebra grinned at us with mocking praise. Azar…

My eyes drifted to the second pony. The pony was shorter than Azar, with a lavender coat and a long white mane that was very reminiscent of the old ministry mare Rarity. My eyes locked on the pony.

Shade!

What the hell were they doing down here? Unless these tunnels lead to Kamari...

I snarled and moved towards Shade, Boneless tight in my telekinetic grasp. I fell a rage building inside of me. The same rage I felt when I had watched my Stable die.

Shade backed away from me, cowering behind Azar as I approached. Azar grinned back at her, before pushing her forwards with a hoof, as if instructing her to go join me. Shade’s eyes widened as she was pushed forward.

“Go to them,” Azar grinned, giving her a slightly harder push, making her stumble forwards and land by my hooves.

“But… They’ll kill me!” Shade squeaked, scooting away from me on her hind legs. “You said you would get me away from the Stable!”

“And I have,” Azar smirked, looking down at Shade with mocking pitty. “Now get. I tire of you.”

Crank stepped forwards, his glowing eyes locking with Azar’s even stare. “Give me the A.A.S.S Azar!” He boomed, his powerful voice filling the whole cavern.

Azar didn’t even flinch, in fact he just grinned wider, showing off uncomfortably white teeth. “I do not think so. I think I would very much like to give it to Kamari myself,” Azar soothed in his deep and methodical voice. I could feel Xayah cowering behind me as she heard the mighty zebra speak. “Though you are of course welcome to try and take it.”

With a roar, Crank lunged at Azar, his cannons blasting at the strange zebra. to my surprise, Azar swiftly leapt to the side, dodging the attack before kicking back and striking Crank in the neck with his back hooves.

Crank was knocked sideways upon the impact, seemingly shocked that Azar had managed to hit him. His tail lashed out, slashing Azar across the face. Blood spilled from the open gash before the zebra’s purple stripes glowed a deeper purple. The wound stitched itself back together.

Of course Azar could regenerate. Because of fucking course.

The two powerhouses clashed, incredible speed and agility verses unparalleled strength and firepower. For the first time, I saw Crank face off against somepony that seemed to be equally as deadly.

The cavern flashed with blue light as Crank tried to blast Azar apart. Crank was fast, yet somehow Azar managed to outmaneuver him every time. Azar was strong, yet Crank managed to shake off every attack that Azar hit him with.

Fear gripped at me as I watched the two powerful combatants battle it out. They were both so deadly, far beyond anything I had the ability to kill.

I saw something slowly moving away from me out of the corner of my eye. I turned just in time to see Shade start running away. Boneless swung up, knocking her legs out from under her as she tried to flee. I pushed my hoof down on her to keep her from running and snarled at her.

“You aren’t going anywhere!” I screamed, rage still building up inside of me. How dare she! She had been my friend!

Shade curled up in the shallow water and whimpered. “I’m sorry Amber. I’m so sorry.”

Brisk was next to me, his eyes burning with anger as he glared down at Shade.

I heard a loud shout from Azar as one of Crank’s lethal blasts made contact. The blast had ripped one of Azar’s legs clean off. As I watched, his stripes began to glow and the limb quickly pulled itself back together.

Crank wasn’t looking at Azar anymore though. I followed his gaze to where a small black device had fallen. The A.A.S.S.

Realising the device had fallen from his Saddlebags, Azar Began rushing towards it. Crank got to it first, snatching up the device and taking to the air on his bladed wings. Azar leapt for him, leaping higher into the air than anypony should have been able to. His hooves collided with Crank’s left wing, denting the metal and making Crank drop down towards the ground.

Azar’s hoof flashed out, striking Crank across the face and sending him staggering backwards. Crank quickly recovered and blasted a beam of blue energy towards Azar from his horn. Azar jumped back to avoid being turned too ash and into the darkness of the tunnel beyond, disappearing from view.

Crank snarled and pounced forwards, landing in the large archway. He glanced back at us, his glowing eyes landing on me for a moment. “You saved me from that monster Amber,” His voice was low, and for the first time since I met him, he seemed to not want to blow me to pieces on the spot. “So I’m going to let you live. Don’t come after me or Kamari, this is beyond you.”

I stared at him in shock. Was he sparing me? Would this have been the moment he would turn on us, had I not just saved his life? Not how I had expected the moment to go down. “You know I will be coming for Kamari,” I said, holding my ground before the mighty cyber alicorn. "Nothing will stop me from trying."

Crank shook his head, seeming to understand, but also disappointed. “Go home Amber. I will not be so generous next time we cross paths.”

His massive tesla cannons swiveled at his sides to face the roof of the cistern. There was a loud bang and and flash of blue light. The rock ceiling collapsed down above us, blocking the entrance to the tunnel to keep us from following as Crank charged into the darkness after Azar.

I stood there in the darkness, staring at the blocked off exit of the tunnel. “Home…” I muttered, my heart sinking. I could feel a tear roll down my cheek. I could feel Shade squirming underneath me and Brisk breathing heavily to my right. We were all that remained of Stable 25. “What home…”

Footnote: level up.
New perk: Robotics Expert -- +25% damage to robots, can shut down robots by sneaking up on them

Author's Note

This was originally supposed to be the shortest chapter in the whole story, however as you might have noticed, things didn't turn out that way. In fact, I've ended up splitting it into two parts. I got really into the story of the Hollow Shades I guess and I wanted to explore it in greater depth.

Fallout Equestria belongs to Kkat

I hope you all enjoyed and have a lovely day!

Chapter XIV: Battle for the Hollow Shades

"I don’t like killing, but when done righteously, it’s just a chore, like any other."

Dreams.

I was no stranger to dreams, particularly dreams of the nightmare variety. They were common back when I was living in the Stable, but once I had entered the wasteland they had become a constant. A certainty. From emotionally draining nightmares about how I had been treated in my Stable or my Stable’s horrific fate to being forced to relive the terrors of the wasteland again and again.

It wasn’t even all that uncommon for me to have a lucid dream. It had happened back in the Stable a few times and even once while I had been imprisoned by the Steel Rangers. I could always tell those dreams were fake. They were usually too good to be true.

But this dream… This dream was different.

Usually when I had a nightmare I was looking through my own eyes. I could feel my own emotions and thoughts. Not this time though. This time I wasn’t inhabiting a body at all. I was floating through the air as a casual observer of the scene that was unfolding before me. Almost as if I was a very slow moving fly or spec of dust slowly making its way to the ground.

I hadn’t remembered falling asleep either… how odd.

I could see the forms of two ponies curled up together in an abandoned house, their hooves tight around each other to share their warmth to fend off the cold winter night of the wasteland. One an earth pony stallion, the other a unicorn mare. The mare was asleep, her chest slowly rising and falling as she took what appeared to be pained breaths.

I recognised the mare almost immediately. Even covered in ash and marred by cuts and bruises, she was too beautiful to not recognise. I saw an auburn coat with a beautiful orange mane. She was the mare I had seen inside of Crank’s mind. Her amber eyes slowly drifted open, looking up at the strong stallion that had wrapped his large hooves around her protectively. Her eyes were almost identical to mine.

The Stallion was one of the largest stallions I had ever seen. He had a dark orange coat and a short brown mane. His cutie mark was a small glimmer of white, surrounded by an oncoming darkness. What that meant, I had no idea. I didn’t recognize him, but something about him seemed familiar.

“Hey,” The mare said, looking up at the stallion before placing a quick kiss on the tip of his muzzle.

“You should be asleep,” The earth pony stallion said in a deep voice. Had I been inhabiting a normal body, I would have frozen in place. The voice sounded younger and more alive, without the metallic rumble I had come to know, but it was definitely his voice. Crank’s voice. This was Crank from before he was a cyber alicorn.

The mare just gave him a small smile and kissed him again. “Like I can sleep when you’re around,” she tightened her grip on him and cuddled into him closer.

I could see Crank’s tense muscles relax as she curled up into his chest, but he shook his head anyway. “You need sleep,” He insisted, running his hoof down her tangled mane and doing his best to untangle many of the knots. “At least until we can find some Radaway for you.”

The mare just rolled her eyes and giggled. What she was giggling at I couldn't tell. “We could always stop at Tenpony, I’m sure we can get healed up there.”

Crank frowned at that. “You know full well we can’t afford Tenpony,” he grunted, his hoof stopping for a second before he continued stroking her mane. “But I’ll get you in. Don’t you worry. I’ll find a way.”

The mare pushed herself back a little and stared up at him, her eyes both wide and stern. “We will get both of us in,” She insisted, placing her hoof on Crank’s chest. “Not just me. Both of us.”

Crank gave a small sigh. “Of course. Both of us.”

The sound of pounding hooves on asphalt drew both of their attentions to the window outside. I heard a few yells as some group of ponies outside surrounded the building. Crank sprung to his hooves in seconds, clearly he was fast even before his cybernetic transformation.

“Raiders,” Crank snarled as he whipped out a large hunting rifle. It seemed strange to see him fight with a weapon that wasn’t his usual massive tesla cannons.

The mare whimpered and pulled out her own her own pistol with her glowing red magic. She tried to pull herself to her hooves only too collapse back down.

Five raiders marched in. The first four seemed no different than normal raiders if not a little bit rougher and better equipped. The fifth raider however was a huge, hulking earth pony wielding a massive sedgehammer in their mouth. I knew him too. Skull Crusher.

These were Las Pegasus raiders.

“Well well, look what we got here boys!” Skull Crusher chuckled, stomping one of his massive hooves on the ground. The raiders behind him cheered, clearly getting hyped up for the kill they would get to have soon.

The mare shivered as Crank protectively stepped in front of her. “Get lost, I’m not going to ask you twice,” Crank growled, levelling his rifle with Skull Crushers head.

The raiders sneered back at him, but I could feel a small sense of hesitation as the ferociousness of Crank’s growl. Skull Crusher seemed unamused and unfazed. His bloodshot eyes narrowed as he stared Crank down.

“Grab the mare,” Skull Crusher bellowed, seemingly ignoring Cranks threat. He took a step forwards, the ground cracked below his hoof. “Red eye’ll give us a pretty little price for a unicorn.”

With little warning save for a roar of rage, Crank surged forwards, his rifle firing off a few rounds in Skull Crushers direction. Faster than he had any right to move, Skull Crusher rolled away from the shots and slammed his sledgehammer down hard on Cranks back legs.

Crank fell, his legs broken and twisted in an awful way. But he refused to stay down. Crank pushed himself up on wobbly legs and began to fire again. His first shot took the head off a charging raider, sending their already twitchy body into a violent spasm before finally falling still. The three other raiders surged past him, one managed to get a knife into his foreleg while the other grappled into the mare, knocking her gun aside.

Cranks eyes burned with rage as he watched the raider strike the mare. He began to rush towards them, only to find Skull Crusher ram his chest with a devastating blow of the sledgehammer. Crank’s chest caved in with a vile sounding crunch.

Skull Crusher glared down at him with a sneer. “Never cross Las Pegasus raiders,” He smirked, raising his hammer up again and bringing it down hard on Crank’s forehoof. The hoof snapped, making Crank scream out in pain. I had never seen him so hurt.

The mare pushed past the raiders and limped in front of him, holding her hoof up above her head protectively. “Leave him alone!”

The hammer swung again, this time crashing into the mares side and sending her stumbling across the room. “You don't get a say in this!” Skull Crusher bellowed, stomping his hoof down on the ground. The tile floor cracked more below the force.

Crank glared up at him, a hatred in his eyes I had never seen before. When he spoke, his voice was low and filled with malice. “I will kill you,” It wasn’t a threat. It was a promise.

Skull Crusher almost seemed startled by the cold and confident certainty of Cranks words. Finally a grin returned to his face, wiping away the shock. “Unlikely,” If only Skull Crusher knew what I did.

The hammer swung again, finally breaking Crank’s last usable leg. Crank screamed, coiling away from the hammer.

“I said leave him alone!” The mare yelled again, pushing herself back up. Her side was bleeding badly and I could have sworn I could see a few broken ribs.

A raider lashed out, knocking her back to the ground with a strike of his hoof. “Tie her up. We bring her to Red Eye.” Skull Crusher ordered, kicking Crank’s trembling and broken body aside with his hoof. The raiders grinned wickedly and advanced on the wounded mare, slowly dragging her from the building and away from Crank as he bled out on the floor in a disheveled and broken heap.

It took me a second to figure out where I was when I opened my eyes. For one horrifying moment, I feared I had gone blind. Then I saw a dull green light reflecting off of some jagged rocks a few feet above my head. A cave! I was still in the caves beneath the Hollow Shades.

I bolted up to my hooves, the blood quickly rushing to my head and making me dizzy from moving upwards so quickly. I stumbled, trying to remain upright as the world spun around me. I felt something warm and soft that had been curled up next to me jump at my sudden movement.

“A-Amber?” I heard Xayah squeak from beside me. “Are you alright?”

I blinked a couple times, trying to make sense of my surroundings. What the hell had just happened? I nodded a few times, hoping she could see me in the dim light of the cave. “I-I’m fine. I just… I thought I saw...” I glanced around, trying to get my bearings. “What’s going on?”

As my head began to clear, noises began filtering into my ears. A distant and haunting howl was echoing down the tunnel towards us, far off, but still very much there. The sound of a hammer was slamming against rocks and I could have sworn I heard sobbing amongst the darkness.

As my eyes began to adjust to the dim light, I began to make out the shapes of all my remaining companions. Boulder stood at the entrance to the tunnel we were in, his huge sledgehammer continuously crashing into the side of the cavern. To my right, Brisk and Pyre stood over the shaking body of Shade, making sure she didn’t run anywhere. Finally, Toffee, Chestnut and the two remaining security ponies stood in a lopsided circle while they discussed something. All four of them seemed to be crying.

“After Crank chased after Azar you just dropped,” Xayah explained with a hint of worry in her voice, returning to her spot by my side. Her warm presence making the vile and sick feeling cave feel a little less hopeless. Those strange ghoul creatures that Crank killed started rising from the water shortly afterwards. Pyre had to carry you as we ran.”

I listened quietly, trying to work out exactly what happened. I had just… dropped? I had had some sort of vision from Crank’s past? Why?

Before I had time to dwell on it, the top of the cavern entrance crashed down from the top as Boulder swung his sledgehammer into it with an exceptionally strong slam. With an ear shattering crash, the rocks tumbled down and blocked off the exit.

“There. Should hold them for now,” Boulder grunted in his deep voice, taking a step back as to not get crushed under the miniature avalanche himself. He silently looked over his work of blocking off the entrance with a sort of stoic pride.

Toffee trotted over, quickly wiping a tear from her eye and putting on a strong face. “Good, we should get goin’. I don’t want t’ be down here any longer than we ought to. We’ve all lost enough down here already,” she turned and caught my eye. Toffee’s face seemed to relax a little at the sight of me being awake, but she still looked stressed and distraught. “Glad yer awake. Can ya walk?”

I nodded, pushing aside some of the drowsiness from my mind. “I-I’ll be fine. Just a little dizzy.”

Toffee nodded solemnly before turning back to the rest of the group. “We’ll leave in five minutes. Everypony catch their breath. It shouldn’t be too much farther t’ the Stable.”

On shaky legs, Xayah and I pulled ourselves over to where Brisk and Pyre loomed over Shade. Now a little closer, I could make out the intimidating silhouette of my hellhound just behind them. His black fur blending into the shadows of the cave.

I bit of guilt flashed through me. That Hellhound was intelligent in some way, I knew that now. I had no right to be controlling it like I was. I was beginning to understand why Star Breeze had been so opposed to having the mind control devices wipe their memory completely. It was beyond immoral. I’d have to let this thing go somehow when all of this was done and through.

As we got closer I began to make out Brisk’s words, his tone a quite yet sharp hiss. “So what, You just thought you’d kill everypony!” Brisk snarled, his voice rising a little at the end.

Shade was in tears, cowering away from the seething green unicorn and the stoic raider. I had never seen Shade so scared, nor Brisk so angry. For that matter, I had never seen Pyre so stoic. She didn’t even attempt to slip in a witty or sarcastic remark as Brisk rounded on the cowering unicorn.

Shade’s eyes landed on me, her pupils wide with fear. She took a nervous and desperate step towards me, keeping her head low and eyes down. “I-I didn’t mean for everypony to die Amber. I really didn’t. You have to believe me. Azar told me to do it. He's responsible, not me.”

Rage flared up inside of me at her words. Pure and powerful rage. How dare she! I could almost see the pink ooze like cloud seeping from the Stable door as the ponies inside were melted alive. She had let the zebra's in and now dared to say she was innocent! My hoof lashed forwards on instinct, striking Shade across the face and sending her toppling backwards where her head smacked against the far wall with a thud.

My friends jumped back at my assault, clearly taken aback by the unexpected lash. I didn’t pay them any heed as I stomped forwards and sent another hoof into Shades face. Shade yelped as the hoof struck her, blackening her eye. She tried to push herself backwards and away from me, only to find herself already pushed up against the wall.

“Amber please. You’ve seen how screwed up the Stable was. You know how-”

I struck her again, her whole body was slammed downwards by the impact and her head cracked against the rock floor, bouncing slightly. Both Brisk and Xayah rushed forwards, pulling me away from Shade. I fought against them for a second, trying to get in another punch before simply going still and staring at Shade with loathing.

“You had better start explaining yourself,” I hissed, my voice low.

Shade slowly pulled herself back up, her hoof pressing against her temple to stop the bleeding that had accompanied my last attack. “Azar contacted me over the speakers in the generator room. He told me that if I opened up the Stable door for Inferno and those zebra’s that he would take me away from the Stable and somewhere safe in the Wasteland,” She said, scooting back a little as her panicked gaze met mine. “He just said that he was going to take something from the Stable, but things didn’t go as planned at first. I didn’t think he was going to kill everypony! I just thought Inferno was crazy or some shit.”

Well at least she was right about that last part. Inferno was crazy, who knew how of script he might have been from the original plan.

I pushed Brisk and Xayah off of me with a small shake of my shoulders and growled at her. “That was the first time you opened the door, what about the second?” I snarled. I started stomping towards her, but stopped when I saw Brisk and Xayah’s worried expressions. I took a deep breath. I had to keep my anger under control. I can’t let it consume me. “You knew Azar would just kill everypony, so why the fuck did you open it again.”

Shade began shaking. She wrapped her tail around her and curled up into as small a ball as she could before us. “I just- I don’t- I just wanted to get out of there. I couldn’t stand it any longer… please. I never wanted to kill anypony…”

I felt the rage inside me beginning to grow again. Higher and higher. I had to use all my energy to not simply strike out at her again. Slowly, I dropped to the ground in front of her. “Why couldn’t you have just talked to us. We could have helped you… you were…” I sniffed. I could feel the tears coming, but I managed to hold them back. Not yet. I wasn’t going to cry yet. “You were my friend. We could have helped you,” I finished softly. Were we friends? We used to be…

Shade shook her head. “You were gone when I opened up the door for the first time. I didn’t think you would ever come back… and the second time…” She paused, hesitating on how to continue. She lowered her head, not daring to look me in the eye. “I had gone too far by then. I had no other choice…”

“You always have a choice,” I retorted grimmly. I was still angry at her, and it was very apparent in both my eyes and tone, but I had calmed down enough that I wasn’t yelling anymore. Then my glare hardened again as a thought crossed through my mind. “Where is Kamari,” I rumbled, my eyes locking with hers again. “I know Azar was taking you to him.”

Shade shook her head sadly. “I don’t know… Azar just said that going through the tunnels was the safest way to get there. He never said where that was.”

Going underneath the Hollow Shades was the safest way? What other route could be more fucking dangerous than this one? And if Crank destroyed the only entrance… Shit, I really didn’t like what that implied.

“Why did you even want to leave the Stable in the first place or whatever,” Brisk asked from behind me, his voice was still sharp and hateful, though now slightly more hesitant.

Shade gave him an angry look. “Don’t you talk to me about wanting to leave the Stable Brisk Spark!” Shade snapped, narrowing her eyes at him. Her eyes shot wide again and she scooted back a little more against the wall as she realized she probably wasn’t in the right position to be scolding any of us right now. She glanced down at her hoof and drew a small circle on the rook with its tip. “You both know how screwed up it was in there. The security brutality, the blatant mind control,” Her voice sounded far away. Her eyes turned to once again face me. “Your father was actively involved in secret Stable-Tec sanctioned experiments on the residence,” She gave a small sad chuckle, but it felt forced. “And honestly, I don’t think I could stand another day listening to that Stable-Tec March song they kept playing.”

I let my head rest on the cold floor of the cavern. I could feel myself trembling. “They didn’t need to die,” I muttered, my voice sounding just as far away as it felt. “We could have found another way.”

I could feel Brisk shaking behind me, his eyes burning holes into Shade. Finally he grunted and marched off. “I need a fucking Buck,” He grumbled, struggling to pull the tin from his saddle to get at the chems.

“I hear them,” Boulder grunted from across the room, his ear pushed up against the wall that he had collapsed. “They are not far away.”

I was beginning to hear them as well. At first they simply seemed like an elongated and distant moan echoing through the cave, but the longer I listened the more I began to pick up on the individual grunts and shrieks that were coming from the darkness. Coming from and getting louder by the second.

“We need to get moving,” One of the security ponies that I now knew as Granite said flatly, picking themselves up from the ground. “If we get moving now we should be able to get to the Stable before they reach us, but we’ll need to hurry,” They turned to an exit tunnel a few feet down the cavern from us.

A loud crash from behind drew all our attentions to the wall Brisk had walked towards. Brisk stood seething next to the wall, one hoof grabbing onto the cold rockface for support. His now empty jar of Buck lay at his hooves where he had violently tossed it. He scrunched up his face and resisted the urge to scream. He did a bad job.

“Fucking shit!” Brisk hollered, picking up the empty jar just so he could throw it again. It toppled through the air and hit the far wall with a clang, rolling away into the gloom. “Celestia fucking hell!”

“Brisk? Are you alright?” I asked quickly, limping over to stand next to him. Xayah followed swiftly behind me.

Brisk’s head whipped over to look at me so fast I was surprised he didn’t get whiplash. To my surprise I found him in tears. “Do I look fucking alright Amber!”

I took a step back, unsure how to properly react to his sudden outburst. “What… what’s wrong?” I had to do my best to keep the worry out of my voice.

“I just… I just need some… You know what? Never mind Amber, it’s not important,” He grumbled, turning away from me and walking towards the tunnel. “Just need some Buck, that’s all.”

Everypony glanced around at each other as he stumbled past them, they all looked concerned. I glanced down at his fore hooves that had been injured so long ago. The scars that had once marred his coat had all but almost healed and he seemed to be limping more on some wound to his back leg than his front.

“I-I don’t think you do,” I muttered, slowly shifting my gaze to face Xayah beside me. Her face was grim as ever.

Brisk whirled around and slammed his hooves down on the ground in front of him, only confirming that his fore hooves were fine. “Yes I fucking do!” he shouted, his voice echoing around the small cavern. He blinked for a second before looking around, as if realizing how outrageous his outburst was for the first time. “Sorry, I-I don’t know why I did that…” He cast a nervous glance around at everypony, taking in their worried expressions. “Sorry, I’m sorry. Lets just keep going… I’ll get some Buck later or whatever. It’s all cool,” he turned from us and quickly continued walking down the tunnel.

Pyre Blaze walked up, stopping briefly beside me as I stared down the tunnel entrance after Brisk. “Now I’m all for experimenting with chems, hell it’s one of my favourite things to do, but that pony needs to see a doctor or some shit. That stuff is killing him,” Pyre grunted, following my gaze.

“I did warn you he had an addiction,” Xayah said quietly from beside me. She wasn’t bragging or boasting, simply stating facts in her blunt, zebra logic like manner. I figured when all of this was done, we would all need some help and a long, long rest.

In my saddle bags I could feel the light weight of the small jar of Buck I had found so long ago. Now probably wasn’t the best time to mention I still had some.

With the sudden drama out of the way, everypony began making their way down the tunnel exit. The tunnel didn’t seem any different from any of the other tunnels below the Hollow Shades. Dark jagged rocks made up the long twisting passage and every surface seemed to drip with a foul green slime. Like before, we walked in near darkness using only the rare and dim light of the occasional Flammulina Velutipes. We didn’t dare use the light of our pipbucks in fear of attracting more attention to ourselves in the depths. To my relief, the tunnel seemed to be going up at a steady state.

I found myself walking alongside Toffee as the two security ponies led the way up the tunnel. As we passed one of the few glowing mushrooms in the cave, I spotted the green light glisten of silent shining tears racing down her cheeks. I took a few awkward steps towards her, trying not to trip and stumble in the darkness.

“You alright?” I asked in a low whisper, trying to keep our conversation just between the two of us in the confined space.

Toffee glanced over at me, trying to make out my features in the gloom. “I-I’m fine. Just thinkin’ ‘bout Salt Water. He was a good pony. One of the best. I’ve lost a lot of friends in the last few hours Amber, I guess it’s all just catchin’ up t’ me now.”

I nodded. “I know what you mean. It’s never easy,” I did know what she meant. It had only been four days since I had watched Stable 25 get slaughtered and my mind was still reeling from that loss. I wouldn’t be surprised if some part of me would always feel broken and empty.

Toffee simply nodded. “I’m sorry yer friend betrayed you back there. I’ve gone through my fare share of betrayals myself. Always stings a bit after.”

I shook my head. “I’ll figure out how to deal with Shade later. I don’t really want to think about her right now.”

Toffee raised her eyebrows and gave me a quizzical look. “I was referrin’ to the Cyber alicorn. It’s gonna be a mighty lot harder takin’ out those Slavers now that he’s not on our side. Was really startin’ t’ appreciate havin’ that death machine around. Made fights a whole lot easier than they would have been.”

I gulped. Right, we still had to deal with a whole army of slavers to deal with once we got out of this. The horrors and hardships of today just never seemed to end.

A loud echoing bang bellowed up at us from down the tunnel. We all froze as the sound reverberated around us. For a few seconds after there was silence, then the screaming began. Long drawn out wails of fear and pain rose from the darkness of the tunnel, making my body start shaking all over again.

“I suppose they broke down that barrier of yours,” Chestnut grimaced, glancing over to an ever stoic Boulder. He just gave her a small grunt in return, whether he was agreeing with her or simply acknowledging that her heard her I had no idea.

“Then we should pick up the pace and get out of here,” One of the security ponies said from in front of us, though I couldn’t tell if it was Cherry or Granite. “The last thing we want is to be swarmed by a bunch of unkillable ghouls in this confined space. And we can’t risk letting them get into the Stable either.”

If that wasn’t a terrifying thought, I don’t know what was.

We all began moving quicker down the passage. At first we began going at a quick trot, but we soon found ourselves galloping at full tilt as the haunting sounds of the horde of ghouls grew louder behind us. They sounded like they were moving fast. Very fast.

“Are you sure this heads up to the Stable?” Pyre asked, rushing past me and up to the front with the two security ponies. Her heavy power armour making loud thunking noises as her metal hooves pounded into the ground.

Cherry tapped her pipbuck with a hoof before motioning ahead. “My pipbuck map says there should be an old elevator down here that accesses a long abandoned part of the Stable,” She replied between breathes as we raced onwards. “If we can get into that we should be safe.

The howling of the strange immortal ghouls seemed to be getting closer with every step. I couldn’t see much in the darkness, but it felt as though they were right behind us, breathings down our necks as they swarmed in for the kill.

Fuck I hated these caves.

But as we raced forwards it wasn’t just ghouls we had to worry about. Our clatter was beginning to attract other things from below. Out of the corners of my eyes, I began to see dark and almost ethereal shapes bolting from shadow to shadow around us. once again, the feeling of being watched overcame me. I knew something was there, waiting in the shadows just beyond my line of sight.

“They’re coming!” I heard Shade shriek from somewhere behind me. The clamor of the ghouls had increased. I dared myself to look behind me.

Pale yellow eyes stared at me from the darkness. A vile stench attacked my senses, making me want to retch and vomit. It was the smell of rot and death. They were almost upon us!

Turning back to face ahead of me, I began running as fast as I could. My whole body screamed in protest as I pushed forward. I could feel some of my wounds begin to reopen as I overexerted every part of me that I could get to work.

“The elevator! Up ahead!” I heard Granite shout. I glanced up, not daring to slow my pace. Sure enough, a small, almost ramshackle looking elevator sat in the dim and flickering lights of some LED fixtures built into the stalactite covered ceiling of the cavern. We were almost there. We just had to run a little farther.

Cherry reached the elevator first, quickly activating it with her pipbuck and swiftly stepping inside as the steel and glass double doors of the shaft jerked open. “Come on, everypony in! Now!”

We began quickly shoving our way into the elevator. It clearly had been designed for a smaller group of ponies, but so far, we didn’t seem to be having too much trouble all fitting in.

Then I heard Xayah scream.

Goddesses no!

I turned to see two of the gnarled and puss covered ghouls lung forwards and wrap their twisted hooves around Xayah, dragging her to the ground. She batted at them with her hooves, her well aimed punches did little against the creatures as they clawed at her and tried to drag her back toward the oncoming mass.

Without thinking, I lunged from the safety of the elevator. Boneless was raised in an instant, swiveling up to face the two ghouls.

“Amber! What are you doing!” I heard Pyre shout after me as I rushed forwards. I didn’t listen to her.

Blam! Blam!

Boneless’ explosive buckshot ripped into the ghouls. Both ghouls heads burst open in a shower of foul puss, their bodies dropping to the floor. I knew that wouldn’t hold them off for long, already I could see their heads beginning to pull themselves back together. What the fuck had the Hollow Shades been through to make these goddess damned things?!

I rushed forwards and pulled Xayah back to her hooves. She stumbled, her legs bleeding from multiple nasty bite wounds on her fetlock and a few around her neck. She let out a sharp yelp as she tumbled back to the ground.

More ghouls were spilling in all around us, and not just from down the tunnel either. The foul creatures began scuttling out of smaller tunnels higher up around us, crawling out of the walls and surging down the side of the rock face like the rotting ooze that coated it.

Another ghoul rushed forwards, its jaw open and revealing rows of jagged fangs as it went to bite into me. I swung my baton out and cracked it against the ghouls leg, breaking the bone just below the joint. It didn’t even slow as it continued its mad and deranged rush forwards.

I swung at it again, missing by inches as it dove below my attack and sunk its jagged maw into my fore hoof. I screamed, trying to shake the ghoul off and swatting at it helplessly with my free hoof. The more I struggled, the deeper its fangs seemed to sink into my flesh.

Using what little strength she had left, Xayah leapt forwards. Her back hoof slashed at the ghouls throat, tearing it out and sending a waterfall of oozing bile and blood to spill down its front. The ghoul tumbled backwards, ripping out a large chunk of flesh from my fore hoof as it went. A second strike flew through its face, sending brain matter flying across the room.

Note to self, don’t let Xayah try to punch me.

More ghouls were rushing towards us now, their mutilated limbs reaching for our throats as they prepared for their attack.

I pushed myself back up despite my bleeding legs protest, my side brushing against Xayah as we slowly began pushing our way back to the elevator. But there were simply too many ghouls. With each step they grew closer, their pale and hollow eyes burning into us with an unprecedented desire to… no, need to tear us apart. Another ghoul made an attempt, slashing at us with their hooves.

The attack never landed as a blast of purple energy flashed out from behind us and shot a hole through the ghouls chest, dropping it to the ground.

I glanced back to the elevator, picking out Shade's glowing horn as she almost dropped to the ground from the exertion caused by the spell. She had… saved me?

Pyre leapt in front of us as ten more ghouls charged forward, her two huge flamers flaring to life and sending waves of fire into the oncoming creatures. The ghouls backed up slightly as the front line of ghouls were turned to ash. But their charge didn’t hold for long. These things were without fear.

“Get back! Get back now!” Chestnut shouted over the chaos. A few ghouls darted past Pyre Blaze and made a rush for the open elevator.

I could hear the ponies behind me screaming and open fire as Xayah and I slowly pushed ourselves back towards the elevator one small step at a time. Over the booming noise of Cherry and Granite’s assault Rifles, I could make out the distinct sound of Brisk’s 10mm pistol and the occasional crack of Toffee’s shotgun.

From the corner of my eye, I saw Boulder take a brave step forwards, the minigun strapped to his battle saddle whirring to life and sending round after round into the hoard of ghouls. Even my Hellhound lurched into the oncoming wave, its massive claws tearing them open as they began to pile atop him.

I pulled Xayah into the elevator, both are bodies falling limp to the ground with exhaustion as we stumbled in. Brisk and Toffee quickly went to work administering healing potions to both of us, slowly making the bite wounds dissipate. The large chunk of missing flesh on my fore hoof doing little more than clotting over slightly.

“They’re clear! Get back into the elevator, now!” Cherry shouted from beside me, her assault rifle firing a few more times into the ghouls as she covered for Granite as he messed around with a small terminal next to the door.

Boulder began quickly backpedaling, his minigun tearing apart any ghoul that go to close to him. Pyre began moving back as well, but she was much closer to the waves of ghouls than Boulder or even Xayah and I had been. Each step she took gave the ghouls a little more room to advance in on us.

“Come on! Get in!” I shrieked, helping Xayah back to her hooves and firing Boneless’ last shot out the door, blasting the head off another ghoul. I quickly began to reload, popping three more shells into the gun.

At my command, my Hellhound threw the ghouls off of him and began tearing its way back through the ghouls to get to the elevator. The Hellhounds relentless assault on the ghouls gave Pyre a little more leeway in her retreat.

Xayah’s sniper was out, nearly defining me as she fired carefully aimed shots into the ghouls. She fired five shots into the swarm before she needed stop and reload herself.

I could see Brisk needing to reload as well, our stream of fire at the ghouls temporarily slowing. The ghouls saw their chance and took it.

They swarmed forwards, ignoring the wall of fire Pyre had created and surged over her. Pyre Blaze was overcome by the ghouls, her whole body submerged under the wriggling mass. I could see small bursts of flame shoot out as Pyre tried to escape the deadly onslaught.

“Pyre!” I screamed, horror racing through me. I couldn't let her die! Not like this! I once again rushing forwards and emptying Boneless into the ghouls atop my friend as I tried to get them off of her.

Boneless clicked empty, but I had caught the ghouls attention now. A few of them removed themselves from Pyre and scrambled towards me on broken limbs.

With no time to reload, I whipped out my baton and began slamming it into the ghouls, breaking limbs and heads as they lunged at me. But despite my best efforts, nothing was slowing them down. There were simply too many and those that fell refused to stay down.

My attack did however lessen the amount of ghouls on Pyre, giving her a chance to escape. With an almost monstrous roar of rage, Pyre Blaze burst from beneath the mound of ghouls, her flamers blasting jets of fire and her intense force throwing ghouls in all directions.

She rushed past me, her metal clad hooves ripping into the ghouls around me as she slung me over her back and leapt a full four feet through the air. She landed inside the elevator with a thump, nearly crushing Chestnut below her hooves and sending a massive shock through my whole body as I fell from atop her back.

The second we were inside the small elevator, Granite hit a button and the reinforced steel doors slammed shut behind us.

“Granite, get us out of here!” Cherry cried as the wave of ghouls began crashing into the side of the elevator. Through the glass, I could see hundreds of pale eyes staring at us with seething hatred. Twisted hooves battered at the bulletproof glass with a strength such frail and rotten hooves had no right to possess and I could see jagged and foaming maws.

“I’m trying!” Granite shrieked back, typing furiously at the terminal with his bleeding hooves. “This elevator hasn’t been used since the Stable was being built, my security pass code doesn’t work on it!”

“What!” I heard Chestnut yelled from beside me, her gun aimed at the ghouls as they tried to bash down the door of the elevator, her eyes wide with fear and her pupils dilated to pinpricks. “What do you mean you secur-”

She was cut off as a ghoul’s hoof smashed through the glass of the door and began trying to reach for us. Xayah shrieked, pushing herself away from the door and as far away from the hoof as she could as it tried to grab at her.

Brisk sent a shot out, the bullet piercing the gnarled hoof and making the ghoul retract its limb from the window. But it wasn’t the only ghoul that we had to worry about. Multiple hooves began smashing through the glass, sending sharp shards of glass spraying across us as more than half off the window shattered.

I quickly pushed Granite aside and began typing furiously at the terminal, pulling up its coding. Shit, it was a hard password. Who the fuck makes the password to an elevator nine letters?

“What the fuck are you doing?” Granite yelped, firing a shot out the window at the ghouls. I heard a howl of pain as his shot landed and blew the head off a ghoul.

“Hacking the terminal!” I shouted back, slightly aggravated I was needing to explain myself in such a stressful situation. “We don’t have time for anything else right now!” I didn’t hear Granite respond, so I assumed he agreed with my sentiments.

“Shit! More of those things coming!” I heard Toffee frantically shout over the sound of gunfire. At first I assumed she meant more ghouls, but as I dared to glance over the top of the terminal I felt a wave of fear wash over me.

Larger shapes were beginning to emerge from the darkness beyond the ghouls. Hulking non pony forms covered in a slithering mass of fleshy tendrils. They weren’t quite as large as whatever we had fought in the cistern, but they were still huge… and there were lots of them.

A blood curdling howl echoed down the tunnel as they approached, their lumbering bodies slowly picking up speed as they surged towards us.

I heard multiple ponies screaming as one of the massive abominations smashed into the elevator, shaking the whole structure and threatening to bash in the door. The rest of the already broken glass shattered, leaving a large gap in the door.

Ghouls began squeezing in to get us, their twisted hooves and dagger filled maws reaching out to ripp us limb for limb.

I looked down at the terminal as I began trying to hack it with renewed desperation. I was trembling, my whole body shaking as I tried to stay somewhat calm and get us out of here.

My hoof slipped, clicking the wrong word. Damn it! No letters were correct! I only had one shot left!

“Help me!” A desperate wail echoed around us, emanating from the howling mouths of one of the hulking creatures. I felt a shiver raced down my spine. Fear gripped at my chest and threatened to lock up my whole body. It was Salt Water’s voice! “Please! Toffee! Help me!”

Toffee’s eyes went wide as the voice reached her, her whole body started shaking and her eyes welled with tears. Her shotgun fired again and again as she tried pushing her way past the ghouls and back into the tunnel beyond. “Salt Water! I’m coming!” She screamed, her hooves lashing out and batting a ghoul aside as it rushed at her.

I saw Chestnut reach out and throw her back into the elevator. Like Toffee, her eyes were wet from tears. “He’s dead Toffee! It’s not real!”

More ghouls began trying to push their way in, their gnashing teeth clamping tight around Granite’s forehooves. With a sudden tug, the ghouls pulled him from the elevator. His blood curdling screams echoed around us as the ghouls tore into him.

“Granite! Damn it!” I heard Cherry scream, her assault rifle firing into the ghouls that were tearing him apart. “No more! I won't lose another one!” Before anyone could stop her, she rushed from the elevator to fight off the ghouls around Granite.

A ghoul rushed into the elevator, its maw latching onto Pyre’s leg as it tried to bite it’s way through her armour. Before it could do any real damage, my Hellhound blasted it apart with a shot from its energy weapon.

“How’s the terminal going!” I heard Pyre shout as she crushed a ghoul below her hoof and tossed its slowly regenerating corpse from the elevator. It’s body crashed into two more ghouls as they tried to claw their way in. There was no sarcasm in her voice, only fear.

Before I could answer, the elevator was rammed by another one of the massive monsters. The whole thing shook and a shower of sparks began erupting from the already flickering light. The lights shorted out, sending us into complete darkness for a second before it flashed back to life and began flickering faster, plunging us into blackness every couple of seconds before re-illuminating the elevator shaft.

“There’s too much happening! I can’t concentrate!” I screamed, squinting my eyes and trying to make out the terminal scream through the strobing light as I searched desperately for the right Password. I only had one shot!

I could see Shade cowering in the corner as ghouls continued trying to pour in, all her energy already spent on that one blast that had saved my life. Brisk and Xayah stood back to back, keeping a constant stream of fire on the broken glass entrance to the elevator, keeping the ghouls from completely overpowering us as Pyre and Boulder tried to keep the massive abominations at bay.

We were running out of time! I had to think fast!

To my surprise, Cherry stumbled back into the elevator. She was bleeding all over from numerous cuts and bite marks and she carried a near dead Granite on her back. Her Assault rifle fired behind her as she sprayed the ghouls with lead as they tried to claw at her.

“Please! It hurts me!” I heard the haunting scream of the grey security pony I had never gotten the name of come from the vile mouths of the abominations.

“Amber! We need to get this elevator moving now!” Pyre urged, her flamers turning from the abominations and to the mass of ghouls as they began to overpower our defences. “We are all going to die here!”

My eyes darted back and forth between the coding of the terminal. “Come on! What is it!” I screamed at myself, slamming my hoof down on the floor of the elevator. Pain shot up me at the contact.

I needed more time! There was just so much, I couldn’t concentrate! I needed to slow everything down!

An idea shot through me head. Flicking my hoof to my pipbuck I quickly activated SATS. Instantly the whole world quieted. To my horror I could still see the ghouls and mass of tentacles moving in towards us in the magically induced stillness, though they were dramatically slowed.

In the slowed state of SATS, I stared down at the terminal. Password… password. Come on, I was good at this! Hell it was my special fucking talent!

My eyes popped open as I finally figured it out.

I quickly deactivated SATS, returning me to the hectic reality. Ghouls shrieked and pounded against the doors, trying to push past us. I stumbled a little and almost lost my train of thought as the banging sounds and rapid, jarring motion abruptly assaulted my senses. Trying to stay on task, I pushed myself towards the terminal and typed 'stabletec'.

There was a second of delay, then the elevator began to shake and move upwards. I could have screamed with relief, but I was simply was too exhausted to do much more than drop to my stomach as we began our assent back up to the Stable.

I looked around the elevator as we moved away from the screaming hoard of nightmares below. We weren't looking well. Xayah and I had received numerous cuts from the first ghoul attack and Pyre’s power armour was so damaged it looked about ready to fall off of her. Toffee and Chestnut lay in a disheveled heap, tight in each other's embrace as they wept openly for their lost friend. Cherry and Granite were a bloody mess, now looking more like ghouls themselves due to their shocking amount of gashes and missing chunks of flesh and fur. Granite lay unconscious in Cherry’s hooves, the only indication he was alive being the slow and unsteady rise and fall of his chest.

It had been hell, but we had made it. We had travelled into the depths of the Hollow Shades and made it out alive.

I cast a sad glance at the two weeping groups of ponies that now lay almost still on the elevator floor, too tired and emotionally devastated to do anymore. Well… some of us had made it out alive at least. My group had been lucky this time, but others had not.

No one spoke as we slowly moved towards the surface. It had been a long day, and no one had the strength to do any more than lie on their side and cry. When we finally reach the surface we passed two healing potions to each one of us that had sustained injuries in the fight and began shakily crawling and limping our way through the abandoned parts of the Stable.

Cherry had been right, the elevator led up to a broken down and closed off part of the Stable I doubted anypony had been in for a long time. Dust coated every surface and a thick layer of grim seemed to be slathered across the cracked floor.

“Why was this part of the Stable abandoned?” I asked, breaking the silence as we painfully limped up a small flight of metal stairs. The lights in this part of the Stable had long since gone out and we had to rely on our Pipbuck light to see any more than an inch in front of our face, giving the abandoned metal halls into an eerie and haunting look.

Cherry shook her head as her eyes darted around the gloom, no doubt still expecting a ghoul to launch themselves at us at any second. We were all very shaken by the attack. “This area has been closed off since long before we were born,” She said, as she cast a worried glance to Granite, who now hung limp from Pyre’s back. “My best guess? Something from below got in.”

I shivered at that. The idea of a Stable turned nightmare was still all to real in my memory. I could still very clearly remember the blood soaked halls of Stable 25.

I didn’t remember walking through the abandoned parts of the Stable. One minute we were all limping and stumbling through the dark and eerily empty corridors, the next we were flopping to the ground inside the brightly illuminated and very much populated hallway of Stable 44. In my hazy and darkening vision I could see a few medics rushing towards us, picking up the most heavily wounded first and rushing them off to medical.

I saw them try to help Pyre, only for her to shake them off and stomp down the hallway after Brisk and Xayah.

Hooves slowly picked me up from the ground and rest me down on a stretcher before beginning to whisk me away to what I assumed was medical as well.

I could feel myself slowly falling into unconsciousness from overexertion and blood loss. Then the word went black.

I was floating again. A silent, bodiless observer watching over the scene below. Below me I could see the wounded and heavily bandaged form of Crank as he hid behind a large broken down factory wall. Once again, it was him before he was the cybernetic monster he is today. His mud and ash coated coat still revealing a little bit of his scarred orange hide and brown mane.

The air around us was red and smogy. In the distance I could see large metal smokestacks pumping out large billowing clouds of red and black smoke. Far above hot air balloons made to look like the smiling face of Pinkie pie leered down and teams of griffons darted through the sky.

The screams of slaves and the crack of whips echoes around the city like a never ending drum.

It was the second time I had seen a memory of somepony in this cursed place. Fillydelphia.

Five slavers clad in heavy combat armour rushed past the crumbling wall Crank hid behind. “Come on! I think he went this way!” One of them yelled, darting past and down an adjacent street.

As soon as the squadron of slavers passed, Crank limped from behind his hiding spot and began rushing towards a tower not to far away from where he currently was. He had to duck back into hiding or simply crouch low in the shadows and smoke filled air a couple of times as slavers or griffins passed by.

The large tower he was approaching was surrounded by a large barbed wire topped wall. The only entrance leading through being a heavily guarded iron gate. Two turrets sat atop the wall, looking down and slowly scanning the area below for any possible intruders. I didn’t know what was inside, but from the amount of security I could make pretty damn good guess.

This must be where Red Eye himself resided.

Taking a second to console himself, Crank took a deep breath and slowly approached the gate. All of the guards raised their weapons up and aimed at him as they spotted him.

“Stop right there!” A large brown griffon demanded, taking a step forwards and leveling her anti-material rifle with Crank’s head. “Who the fuck do you think you are?”

“I have an appointment with Red Eye,” Crank stated bluntly, keeping his steady gaze locked with the griffon. “Let me through.”

The griffon scoffed... Or rather squacked... It was a strange noise. “With that many firearms? I don’t think so,” The griffon spat sharply. I began to realize that Crank was armed to the teeth with guns and weapons. A few grenades hung from his battle saddle and I could see something large inside his saddlebag. “We would have needed proof of your meeting arrangements and for you to hand over your weapons. But it doesn’t matter now. Red Eye is on lockdown. Somepony just breached the wall and was seen heading here. No one goes in or out now.”

Crank gave off the deep and annoyed sounding grunt that I had come to associate with him. “Well, it was worth a shot I suppose.”

Before the griffon had time to react, Crank had a combat shotgun in his mouth and fired three shots into her head. The griffon’s head was pulped, spraying the rest of the stunned guards with blood and viscera.

The turrets sprang to action before the guards did, spraying a rain of fire down at Crank’s position. Crank reacted fast, dodging to the side and rolling out of the way of the automated machine gun fire. He ducked behind one of the recovering guards and used him as a living shield as the turrets ripped into him.

The guard fell, bleeding from multiple bullet hole in his legs, chest and head. But the other guards were beginning to recover from the initial shock now as well. They turned, spraying Crank with bullets from their own weapons.

There was a loud pop followed by a sudden rush of wind as a rocket shot out from behind the dead guards body and rushed towards the five other guards.

BOOM!

The rocket impacted, blasting them apart as Crank pushed the corpse aside and stepped out with a huge rocket launcher over his shoulder He quickly dropped it down where it almost magically clicked into his battle saddle and fired up at one of the turrets.

The turret got one shot out before the massive missile collided with it and blew it half to hell. Metal shrapnel rained down from where the missile had detonated.

“Shit! At the gate! At the gate!” A slaver yelled as a group of ten or so slavers rounded the corner of the wall and began charging toward Crank, their weapons already out and firing upon his position.

Crank leapt back to avoid the attack of the remaining turret and turned to face the huge entryway. Once again, his rocket launcher blasted forwards and sent a missile into the gate. Impressively, the door held, but part of the top blew slightly apart under the explosive hit.

A slaver rushed at him, a large whip cracking down towards the earth pony. Before the blow could land, Crank whipped out a machete and dove to the side, slicing the blade through the tendons in the back of the slavers legs.

As a pony that had had that happen to them before, I can say from experience that that hurts a lot.

The slaver screamed and dropped to the ground. Crank dove forwards, driving the point of the machete into his neck and completely severing the slavers head from his body.

Not daring to wait for the rest of the slavers to catch us, Crank fired a second rocket at the door. Again, it collided and did little more than dent and blacken the metal.

I could see Crank grit his teeth together and hiss. “Fuckin’ damn it. Just open!”

The turret fired again, forcing Crank to dive to the side while he tried to load another missile into his launcher. The slavers didn’t let him finish as one lunged into his side and knocked him over.

With a roar of rage, Crank threw his machete at the slaver, skewering him through the chest with the huge serrated blade. The Slaver fell, his torso ripped open by the brutal attack.

Two more slavers began firing at him with assault rifles forcing him to backpedal as he tried to load the rocket. Between steps he would bite down on the trigger of his saddle to fire off a shot from his combat shotgun. One of the slavers legs were blown out from under them from the near rapid fire buckshot.

Having a few seconds to reload, the turret swiveled to face him. Crank gave a loud grunt of pain around the trigger of the battle saddle as the turret sent a bullet through his already injured hoof.

He turned and fired his combat shotgun at the turret, finally blasting it to bits. Unfortunately for him, that left him open to the slavers as they charged forwards. Firing upon their now open opponent. Two more bullets made their mark, sinking deep into Crank’s side and making him stumble back in pain.

Crank growled and bucked a slaver in the face as he neared, the force of the attack strong enough to send the slaver sprawling back a few feet and collapse to his side. Not waiting another second and with his rocket launcher now properly loaded, Crank spun to face the wall and fired off a third and final rocket into it.

With a loud crash, the gate was blasted apart, leaving a smoking hole into the grounds around the tower.

Shots pinged around him as Crank lunged forwards on shaky legs and began rushing as fast as he could through the opening and towards the tower. Adrenaline pushing him far past his physical limit as the slavers already within the wall began rushing forwards and firing at him.

More slavers were beginning to pilling through the gateway after him, calling for him to stop or even keep running if they were sadistic enough and wanted the hunt. From up above I could see groups of Griffons begin diving down towards him in tight formation and even a few mighty alicorns protected by their annoyingly powerful shields.

And yet Crank kept going, determination, fear, adrenaline and desperation surging through him and keeping him from collapsing as he continued pushing forwards. His combat shotgun blasted apart any slaver that dared to get within range and the occasional swing of his machete promptly severed the head of anypony that managed to get within swinging distance.

Up ahead a doorway into the massive tower loomed before him. Not daring to slow down, Crank fired his rocket launcher, blasting open the doorway with one mighty explosion. Seconds later he was speeding through the door, his body already bleeding from the numerous bullet wounds he had received.

Slavers were massing behind him now as they tried to squeeze themselves through the small entryway into the tower.

Somehow that I will never be able to properly understand, Crank managed to swing the tides of the battle to his favor. His ferocious and seemingly unstoppable combat skill using the door he had just run through as a choke point against the slavers as they tried to pile in after him. Both his combat shotgun and rocket launcher fired, blasting apart the first five rows of slavers that managed to get through the door.

One by one they fell. Within seconds, Crank had somehow turned his own seemingly hopeless situation in a massacre. For one astonishing second, I thought Crank might actually win.

But then the slavers from within the tower began to spill down the stairway from the floor above. Their guns ringing out as they fired upon the lone earth pony.

Crank faltered, his stream of fire switching to his new attackers as he had to dodge with all he was worth to avoid the onslaught that was coming at him from all sides. And yet despite everything, he managed to hold his own for a few moments, trapped between practically endless waves of slavers.

Both his shotgun and rocket launcher clicked empty. There was a quick silent moment where no one fired. Horror crossed Crank’s face as he began quickly rummaging through his saddlebags for ammo.

Slavers were grinning as they advanced upon him, certain their victory was at hoof. Guns were lowered and whips were raised as numerous slavers went in to claim their new prize.

Then Crank threw something from his saddlebag. The strange shape flew through the air and landed on the stairs where a large group of slavers blocked his path to the higher floors. The slavers stared at it in shock for a second before a wave of panic washed over them.

Crank dove to the side and under the closest table he could find as word of what had been thrown went out. “Balefire Egg!”

The stairs were hit with a massive explosion rivalled only by the detonation of a full balefire bomb. Slavers were sent flying, bloodied limbs and bits of gore splattered against the walls or sailing over the remaining slavers head as they all dove for cover. Eardrums burst and the air was filled with a loud ringing sound that deafened anypony that was too close to the explosion.

Quickly pulling themselves to their brutalised hooves, Crank charged past the wounded and disoriented slavers and bolted up the stairs, his two primary guns once again fully loaded. One blast of his shotgun bursting one of the few standing slavers into gore as he tore past him.

“Don’t let him get away!” one of the Slavers shouted from below as Crank raced up the steps.

The exertion of his single pony siege on the tower was beginning to take its toll on him. His already wounded legs began to slow as the exhaustion and pain of his newly inflicted gunshots wounds began to hit him at full force. But he never stopped running. He screamed as he pushed himself, forcing himself to go beyond what any living pony should have been able to bear.

Bullets whizzed past him as the slavers gave chase. A few griffons began soaring into the building behind him, their shots ripping chunks out of the walls as they fired at the intruder.

But he kept going. Nothing could stop him now! He had come too far. Rage had consumed him so much. Even from my bodiless, birds eye perspective on the firefight below, I could feel his raw rage flowing through him and pushing him onwards. He had a score to settle, and no pony would stop him.

At last he reached a large doorway with two griffons standing guard outside. The front of the door had a large red symbol of a red eye engraved into it.

This was it!

Crank’s shotgun fired, killing both griffons before they even had a chance to properly acknowledge his presence.

Not waiting for his pursuers to catch up, Crank burst through the door into the office beyond, quickly turning and locking the door behind him. I could hear the slavers yelling and banging on the door as they tried to get through. Many of the screams were that of rage, but I could pick out a few fearful ones as well. No doubt they feared for Red Eyes life… or for their own after what Red Eye might do as punishment for their failure.

Turning around, Crank let his eyes take in the room. Almost instantly, his eyes landed on the red and black stallion that sat behind a desk close to the centre of the room.

Red Eye sat in the center of the room. He looked almost exactly the same to how I had seen him when I had gone into Chestnut’s memories, though he did appear to be a few years younger. His glowing red cybernetic eye looked over Crank, almost as if interested in who this newcomer might be. I had noted before that Red Eye’s eye had looked similar to Crank’s eyes, but now as I looked him over, I realized it wasn’t just similar, but exactly the same.

What caught me most off guard about Red Eye however was the strange calm that his face seemed to suggest. His organic eye seemed to hold an intense curiosity and his eyebrows were raised in a way one might while looking down upon a child as they told a ridiculous tale.

If I had had a body I would have shivered as I looked upon the great slave master. His very presence made me feel strangely comfortable and at peace regardless of my constantly growing hatred for him.

Red Eye looked over Crank for a few more seconds before allowing his mouth to grow into a small yet oddly warm and charismatic smile. “May I help you?”

Crank growled and stomped his hoof on the ground before him, readying his rocket launcher to fire upon Red Eye at any moment. A part of me wished he would fire and blow that likeable smile off of Red Eyes face, only I had enough foresight to know that Red Eye was still very much alive to this day.

“Where is Scarlet Dusk?!” Crank demanded, slamming his hoof down on the floor again. His booming voice drowning out the pounding of the slavers outside. “Tell me where she is or I will bast you apart here and now!”

Red Eye raised his eyebrows a little higher at the remark. His hoof raised slightly as if gesturing for Crank to calm down. Red Eye’s charm may have been uncomfortably effective on me, but Crank was having none of it. “The new unicorn? Auburn coat, orange mane?”

Even Crank was visibly taken aback by Red Eye’s knowledge of all the slaves that worked under him. I questioned if he knew every single one of his slaves names or if Scarlet was simply more well known. Judging by Red Eyes expression, I guessed it was the former.

Crank snarled, flourishing his rocket launcher in an attempt to intimidate the cybernetic earth pony. “Where is she?! Take me to her!” Crank demanded, taking a step forward.

Red Eye simply continued to stare Crank down, his smile never fading. “I’m afraid I cannot do that. I am sorry, but every pony must play their part in restoring Equestria if we are ever to have unity.”

“I don’t need you to find her! I can’t find her myself! Don’t make me need to do this the hard way you son of a bitch!” Crank roared, clearly going into some for of hystarics at Red Eye’s refusal to cooperate with his demands. I doubted this was how Crank had expected this confrontation to go down. “I don’t need you! Tell me or you’re dead!”

Red Eye simply gave Crank a sad smile and shook his head. “I’m sorry, but I’m afraid that won’t be possible.”

There was a loud pop of air as the rocket burst forth from Crank’s rocket launcher and hurtled towards Red Eye at an alarming speed. The rocket detonated, the huge explosion sending furniture flying around the room or simply blasting it apart.

As the smoke cleared, I found Red Eye still sitting behind his desk, the warm and now almost sorrowful smile still very much present on his face. Both him and his desk remained completely unharmed by the explosion. Now that I looked a little closer, I could see the faint glimmer of a magical shield around him. He must have alicorns hidden somewhere casting a shield spell to protect him, of course Red Eye wouldn’t be so foolish as to let all this happen without some form of failsafe.

Crank’s eyes widened as he took Red Eye in. His fatigue and wounds quickly caught up with him and he promptly toppled over before Red Eye’s desk. Victory had been so close, only to be stripped away.

The doors burst open and the large group of Slavers, griffons and alicorns rushed into the room, surrounding Crank and dropping their guns down to face the defeated earth pony. Even a large cybernetic dog bounded into the room and snarled down at Crank’s trembling and nearly unconscious bloody form. The same large black griffon I had seen in Chestnut’s memory swooped in and landed before Crank, one talon pressed down upon his chest and her large Anti-Machine Rifle swinging down to press against Crank’s forehead. The griffon’s talon quickly tightened around the trigger of the rifle.

“Wait for a moment Stern,” Red Eye’s smooth voice said calmly from behind his desk. His voice was quiet, not coming even close to as loud as the rest of the hubbub in the room, yet despite that everypony froze and took a small step back from Crank.

The large griffon I could now Identify as Stern glanced back at Red Eye, her head tilting to the side in that weird way that griffons do. “Are you sure?”

Red Eye simply nodded. Begrudgingly, Stern complied, removing herself and rifle from Crank. Red Eye took a few steps around his desk and approached Crank, though I noticed he didn’t leave the safety of his magical shield.

For a brief moment he loomed above Crank, his two different coloured eyes looking over every part of his being. Then, to my surprise, Red Eye knelt down to be at Crank’s level.

“Getting to me here was quite impressive,” Red Eye’s voice was low and even. He almost spoke in a whisper that I doubted anypony except Crank could hear. “Not just anypony can fight their way all the way through Fillydelphia, not to mention on already broken limbs.”

He was right, the longer I looked at Crank, the more I realized that his limbs weren’t just injured, they were broken in the same places I had seen Skull Crusher break them. He hadn’t gone to a doctor or waited to heal his wounds. He had come right to Fillydelphia in a desperate rush to get his mare back. From the dark bags under his eyes, I doubted he had slept at all either.

Crank slowly tilted his head up to look at Red Eye. His strength betrayed him and his head dropped back down to look at the floor. “Please…” Crank’s voice was weak and almost inaudible. A stark contrast of the powerful booming tone he had had only moments before. With hope had gone his strength and will. “I need to save her… Please…”

Crank moved forwards slightly and wrapped his fore hooves around Red Eye. whether it was a weak and pathetic attempt to make an attack or a desperate act of begging I couldn’t tell.

Every slaver in the room raised their guns as Crank touched their leader, but Red Eye waved them all off with a hoof, clearly not concerned about what Crank might do.

“Perhaps you will be happy to learn that Scarlet has signed up Stable duty at the mall. If she can survive the next two years, she will be granted freedom from Fillydelphia,” Red Eye soothed, not reacting to Crank’s desperate pleas.

“No! I-I need to get her out… She cant… I can't ...” Crank was in tears now. Hot streaks of tears were rolling down his face, cleaning away the ash and grim that had coated his hide.

Thoughtfully, Red Eye stood back up, Crank’s weak grip on him faltering and making the whimpering earth pony fall back to the ground. “Then perhaps we can make a deal. I have an associate that has been looking for a pony like you for quite some time,” Red Eye began, slowly walking back around his desk and taking a seat. “Perhaps if you would volunteer yourself to work for him in his little… how do I put this… Crusade… we can shorten your mares sentence quite dramatically.”

Crank looked back up to Red Eye, a new found hope glimmering in her tear filled eyes. “Yes… YES! If it will get her free. I-I’ll do it!”

Red Eye raised his hoof again, making Crank go silent. “Be warned, this will not be easy on you. My associate is less generous than I am. I cannot guarantee your safety there. Not for your body, and not for your mind.”

“But you can guarantee hers?” Crank asked, slowly pulling his damaged and beaten body from the floor to stand proudly before Red Eye and the rest of the Slavers. “You can keep her safe and get her out of Fillydelphia?”

Red Eye gave Crank a small, sympathetic smile. “I can, if this is truly the road you want to take. Again, let me remind you that you-”

“I’ll do it!” Crank insisted urgently, stomping his hoof on the ground with more determination than ever. He didn’t even wince as the hope was once again restored to his body. There was no sadness or fear in his eyes for his future or well-being, only the desire to do what he must for the one he loves. “For her, I’ll do it!”

My eyes fluttered open. The sudden brightness of the room blinded me temporarily as I tried to make out what was around me. As my eyes began to focus, I could make out the roof of the medical bay of Stable 44. I could recognize the dull, slightly rounded roof of a Stable anywhere.

My whole body felt sore and the places that I had been bitten by those strange ghouls still ached like hell. That said, much of the pain from before had subsided and I could feel that odd itchy feeling that lingered a few minutes after taking a healing potion. Some of the larger wounds I had received that were beyond the help of a simple healing potion had been wrapped up in now bloody bandages.

Upon hearing the soft sound of breathing, I turned my head to the side a little to look over at the shape of Xayah sleeping next to the medical bed. Her head and fore hooves resting on the lip of the bed while her bandaged back hooves lay curled up beneath her on the floor.

It was a small comfort to know she was still there. I needed comfort after everything I had seen in the ghastly depths of the Hollow Shades.

Not wanting to wake her, I lay still and silent for a few seconds, trying to make sense of the strange vision of Crank’s past I had once again witnessed. What the fuck was happening to me? Did it have some connection to something that had happened when I was inside of Crank’s head? If so, why was this happening to me and not Brisk? He had gone in there too.

I remembered being stuck between the glowing light of the mare I now knew to be Scarlet Dusk and the blazing blue light of Crank’s own mental canon blasts. Something had happened then. Crank’s whole life had flashed before me. Crank had seen it to, it’s what gave him the strength to fight back against whatever that strange monster had been.

Had I somehow gotten some of his memories transferred into me? The idea was terrifying. How often would I have these strange memories that didn’t belong to me? Would it only happen when I sleep? Or could I simply fall unconscious at any moment like the first vision seemed to suggest.

A horrifying idea crossed over me. What if I started having difficulty separating his memories from my own?!

“It’s okay Amber,” I said quietly to myself in a failed attempt to calm myself down. I didn’t even know if that was what had happened yet, it was only speculation at this point. Though deep down, I knew that I was right… at least to some extent.

Not being able to bear sitting still any longer, I slowly crawled out from under the covers, doing my best to not wake Xayah as I pulled myself up. I had only gotten one hoof onto the floor when-

I slipped and tumbled out of bed, smacking the bottom of my jaw on the cold floor of the medical bay with a small yelp.

Luna fucking damn me! Can I not get out of bed once without falling over! I mean seriously! Just once would be nice!

My yelp of surprise prompt jolted Xayah from her sleep. Her eyes widened as she saw me struggling on the floor as I tried to untangle my hooves from the dull blue blankets that had somehow tied themselves around me. She quickly rushed over and gently pulled me out from under the blankets.

“Amber, are you alright?” She asked, shocked by my sudden fall.

“I seem to get asked that a lot,” I grumbled, standing up proper and giving my bed the stink eye. One day, one day I will arise from my sleep trip free! I turned back to face Xayah, a small blush across my face. “How long was I out?”

“But a few hours or so,” Xayah said, the worry slowly draining from her face and her tone returning to that soothing and melodious rhythm that zebra’s seemed to have. She picked up a glass of water from the table beside us and gave it to me. “Here, you should drink. Return your strength.”

I took the glass in my magic and looked it over quietly. “I’m taking it that we successfully fixed the water issue then,” I said with a grin, levitating the glass to my lips and taking a quick sip. I don’t think I had ever drank something so refreshing. I tried to remember the last time I had drunk something so clean. Did that one bottle of wild pegasus I shared with Shade back in the Stable count.

My eyes narrowed at the once relieving and almost happy memory, now soured by the current events.

Xayah nodded and hopped up onto the bed, sitting with her hooves dangling off and her back straight up. It was a weird looking way to sit. “Yes, Purity was most pleased at our success,” Xayah said, almost gleefully, though there was a melancholy tone in her voice. “Though she was rather upset by the losses.”

“And everypony that did make it out? Are they all okay?” I asked, praying to the goddesses that they were.

Xayah gave another small nod. “Everypony from our party came out with only a few minor injuries. Nothing a healing potion can’t fix. I haven’t seen Toffee and her crew, though they seemed most fine when we got back.”

I gulped. “And Cherry and Granite?”

Xayah hesitated at that. “They will… um.. Cherry will make it for sure, though she is going to be out likely for the next few days. Granite is alive... but they do not know for how long. Perhaps they can save him, with the right luck.”

I gave a pensive nod. That was the best I could hope for at least. I slowly trotted forwards and hopped up onto the bed next to her, resting in a much more comfortable position than the one she had taken. “And yourself? How are you doing?”

“My wounds will heal,” Xayah said nervously, clearly understanding that it wasn’t talking about her injuries. “It will perhaps take me a while to not jump at shadows after what we saw down there, but I will recover.”

I rest my hoof over hers. “I’m not talking about your wounds. I saw what happened to you when I was in your mind. I- Well… I wanted to make sure you were okay. And I mean really okay,” I said softly, scooting a little closer to her. “You’ve somehow managed to stay stronger than any of us through this whole thing, but I know you’ve been through bad stuff, even before we met. This group of ours has been hiding enough of our own issues from one another for too long.”

I could feel her left hoof slightly trembling beneath my hoof. A terrible and constant reminder of what had happened to her in New Appleoosa. Glancing up, I could see her eyes wide and fearful, her pupils darting back and forth as they tried to figure out how to approach my question.

Slowly, she withdrew her hoof from mine and tucked it beneath her body as she leaned into me. “I will be fine. You do not need to fret about my well being.”

I knew that was a lie, but I simply didn’t know how else to respond. So instead of pushing her on the subject more, I wrapped my hooves around her and hugged her tight.

That was how Brisk found us a few minutes later as he marched in with a power armourless Pyre Blaze behind him. He raised his eyebrow at me as he looked the two of us over. I gave him a simple shrug before pulling myself away from Xayah and walking over to give him a big hug as well.

“What? I don’t get a hug?” Pyre smirked sarcastically, walking past me and sticking a packet of Party-time Mint-als that were lying on one of the tables into her saddlebag, clearly having no real interest in actually getting a hug. To her surprise, I reached out and pulled her into my hug as well, simply happy that they were both alive. To stunned to actual move away from my embrace, Pyre simply grumbled and awkwardly stood there, not rejecting the hug, but not quite returning it either.

As we pulled apart I looked between the three of them, noticing one very key pony that was missing. “Where’s Shade?” I asked, doing my best not to growl at the mere mention of the pony.

“Under the watch of Security,” Brisk replied quickly, stepping around me and sitting into one of the rather uncomfortable metal chairs in the corner of the room. “Don’t worry, we aren’t going to let her out of any ponies sight for a while.”

“And how were the negotiations going?” Xayah asked, looking over to Brisk as he closed his one remaining eye and tried to get a little bit of rest right there and then.

“They’re going boring!” Brisk complained in a whiny tone, not bothering to open up his eye. “They spent the first hour just talking about what qualifies as good scrap to bring in from the wasteland!”

“To answer your question, it’s going well. Stable 44 has decided to help fight off Red Eye’s forces,” Pyre said flatly. “We left shortly after they started doing a plan of attack. They said they’d debrief us when you were a wake,” She directed that last line at me.

It was good to hear that everything was coming together. All that was left to deal with was the battle with the slavers. After what we had just gone through below the surface, I had faith we could deal with a couple of armed ponies. I could feel a smug look crossing my face. An amused looking glare from Pyre made me suddenly want to rethink that thought.

“What?” I asked, meeting her stare.

“Feeling confident are you?” Pyre asked mockingly, taking a small step towards me and looking down at me. Damn it, why did she have to be so much bigger than me even without her armour.

“I-I mean… with everything that happened down there I figured that… well, I thought…” I stumbled with my words as I tried to figure out what to say. Gosh darn it Pyre, stop calling me out on stuff like that. “I mean we’ve fought Red Eye slavers before. We can do it again, right?”

“I seem to remember us running from Red Eye’s slaver a lot,” Brisk muttered, his eyes still closed. I shot him a grumpy look that he couldn’t see.

“This isn’t just a simply every day skirmish Amber,” Pyre Blaze grunted, her usually sarcastic tone dropping into something much more serious than I had ever seen on her. “This is a war. Two big groups battling it out. There’s strategy and intrigue involved now. Ponies die in war. It doesn’t matter who you are.”

At some point during her miniature speech I had started shaking. I quickly stopped myself. “I don’t think this is quite a war yet. I mean, it’s just one fight. Nothing on the scale of the great war or anything.”

Pyre Blaze scoffed. “You got that right, it's not anywhere near that big. But that don’t make it not a war. Bloodshed is coming, you can be assured of that.”

There was an awkward silence after that, none of us really knowing how to follow up the conversation. After a few minutes, a security pony came in and told us that Purity wanted to see all of us.

The security pony began leading us down the long hallways to what I could only imagine was the Overmare’s office. Having lived in a Stable my whole life and with the shocking similarities this one had to my own, I probably could have gotten there by myself, but I took the opportunity to ask the guard if they had heard any news on Cherry and Granites state. Unfortunately they hadn’t seemed to have heard anything.

As we walked down the halls, I saw ponies getting into Stable security barding and loading up as many assault rifles as they could. It still surprised me how much military weaponry this Stable had access to. I guessed that since this Stable had connections with the ministries more so than the others, they had gotten access to more stuff.

As we entered the Overmare’s office we found a group of twenty ponies crowding around the horseshoe shaped desk. Purity sat in her seat, looking over a map of the Hollow shades. Toffee, Boulder and Chestnut stood to her side, the initial rags we had met them in now replaced with dark blue combat armour bearing the Stable-Tec logo. The rest of the gathering consisted of Stable security and a couple of doctors and scientists.

Purity and Toffee looked up as the five of us walked in and gave us a quick nod each before returning their attention to the map.

As I got closer I could make out a bunch of bottle caps located across the map that I assumed indicated the location of different troops. Pyre had been right, they weren’t treating this like any other battle. This was something new.

“I want to be there in the front lines!” Chestnut spat, pointing to a small collection of caps positioned at the front gate. “I’m going to give those slaving bastards what’s coming to them!” Clearly the horrors of the deep had done little to diffuse her hatred of the slavers.

Toffee shook her head. “I assure ya, there’ll be plenty of slavers to kill in there, but we need ya in the extraction team. Those ponies in there need to see some familiar faces. They need t’ know they can trust us.”

“Then send Boulder!” Chestnut growled, her hoof shifting to point up at the large, quiet stallion with the mini gun and sledgehammer. “They’ll all recognize him!”

Again, Toffee shook her head. “We need ponies that can get the slaves out quietly and discreetly. And let's be honest here, regardless of his personality, Boulder’s fightin’ style ain’t exactly quiet or discrete,” she glanced up at Boulder to make sure she hadn’t offended him. He simply gave her a small nod of acknowledgement in return. “Besides, we’ll need him on the front lines. That’ll be where the main action is.”

Chestnut grumbled and crossed her hooves, but didn’t speak up again.

“I guess that puts me on the front lines to then,” Pyre said casually, her seriousness from our previous talk once again gone.

“If ya think you can carry those big flamers of yers without that fancy suit of power armour,” Toffee agreed.

“Ha! You think I need the power armour for those? I’ve been using those babies since I was a little filly!” Pyre grinned, bouncing up and down a little on her hooves.

I cast Pyre a quizzical glance. “Why won’t you have your armour?” I didn’t like the idea of her going into battle unprotected. I had seen Pyre rely on her armour to get her out of tight spots before, and if this coming fight was as bad as everypony seemed to thing, then I wanted her to to be at her prime.

“Got broken pretty bad by those ghouls in the caves. It’s getting repaired now, but it won’t be ready till after the battle,” Pyre shrugged nonchalantly. “Don’t you go worrying ‘bout me cutie. This ain’t my first rodeo.”

I huffed. “I’m not cute…”

“Alright, so the plan is settled then,” Purity said, looking over the map with harsh skepticism. “Chestnut will lead a group of ponies into the Hollow Shade here and here,” She started, pointing to two locations on the map that had been marked with an X. “Once inside you will split into two groups. Chestnut will lead one to get the slaves out of there and to safety. Once outside we can supply the slaves with guns and armour if they wish to aid us in our fight while the rest get to shelter in the Stable. A medical team will be on standby outside for the surviving slaves when they get out. The second group will sneak to the main gate and open it up for the rest of us outside.”

“And how do we plan on getting these groups past the wall in the first place?” One of the security ponies I didn’t recognise asked, looking over the battle plan. “As far as I know there is no other entrance to the settlement.”

Purity glanced over at me, as if expecting me to answer the question. What was that look for? I didn’t know the plan yet? Finally, Purity sighed. “Amber, do you think you can get that Hellhound of yours to dig two tunnels into the settlement?” All the eyes at the table turned to face me.

“Oh uh… Yeah. I don’t see why not,” I responded quickly. The security pony nodded at that, clearly satisfied with the answer. Everypony turned back to address the plan.

“Once the slaves are clear and the door is open we’re going to launch a full fledged attack at the front gates. Toffee, Pyre and Boulder will lead the charge, backed by as many security ponies as we can spare. The previous infiltration team will re enter the Hollow Shade through the Hellhound tunnels and flank the slavers from behind. Meanwhile, a smaller group of ponies will launch an attack on the opposite side of the wall. I doubt that attack will be able to do little more than annoy the slavers, but if we can spread out their forces enough we might stand a shot at this.”

“And what do you want us to do?” I asked, looking back and forth between Brisk, Xayah and myself.

Purity looked us over thoughtfully for a moment. “Amber, We could use you in the extraction team with Chestnut. Brisk and Xayah, I’ll need you two to lead the team in opening the gates. That is if you three still think you can fight?”

I nodded eagerly. The Hollow Shades might have beaten us down, but we were far from out.

“Alright then,” Purity said grimly, returning her gaze to the map. “We are outnumbered, gunned and are going to have to fight our way through a chokepoint to get in, but I think we can do this. You’re all dismissed. Meet up at the Stable door in two hours,” She turned to face the few doctors that stood around the table with her. “You three stay with me, I want to go over your placement in all this. There is no room for error here.”

“Have you ever in an all out battle before?” Chestnut asked as she loaded three explosive shells into a newly acquired combat shotgun before throwing a few more into her saddle bag.

I shook my head. “I’ve been in fights before, but I don’t think they’ve been this big yet,” I pulled on one of the straps on my new combat armour as I tried to tighten it. No matter how much I tugged on it, the whole set of armour still seemed loose. All the reinforced plates seemed to dangle off of me as if I wear a little filly trying to wear something clearly made for a fully grown stallion. I probably could have stuck my whole hoof between my body and armour if I tried. “You?”

We were standing in the Stable’s armoury. Most of the gear had already been taken by ponies when the call to arms had first gone out. Xayah had been looking through it with me for a few minutes before picking up a silenced sniper rifle and joining Brisk outside. Now the boxy metal room felt almost empty as the two of us searched for equipment to fight with.

“Fights? Sure, probably same as you,” she grunted, tightening her own suit of armour up with ease. “I had to fight for my life when my husband and I escaped Filly. Hardest damn fight of my life,” She looked off at the wall longingly. “But that wasn’t a war. That was an escape. A desperate run for freedom against impossible odds. This is different.” She glanced at me trying to pull myself into my armour. “You want some help getting into that?” I nodded quickly. She walked over and started tightening all the different straps.

As she began pulling straps tighter, I flipped the channels on my pipbuck to the radio. It had been a long time since I had had a moment to simply sit and listen to DJ Pon3.

“-Loud and proud!” The Voice of the DJ said over the radio as I finally found the right channel. I must have just missed the beginning of the news. “Now you all might be wonderin’, how does the great and powerful DJ Pon3 know that I can hear him all the way out in Vanhoover or other less favorable places like Fillydelphia? It’s ‘cause of that wonderful Stable dweller, that's how! That crazy mare snuck into Filly, right under Red Eyes nose and back out again safe and sound. And now thanks t’ her, I’m broadcasting all across the wastes for all t’ hear, Yeehaw! Can’t stop the signal baby! Can’t stop the good fight! And now, some music,” Slowly, one of Sweetie Belle's songs began to play over the radio.

I caught Chestnut looking almost longingly at my pipbuck as the radio switched to music. All this talk about Fillydelphia must have been getting to her, “What was it like? Fillydelphia, I mean?” I asked, unsure if this was something I really should be asking.

Chestnut cast me a weary glance, telling me I was already treading on thin ice with this topic, but she didn’t seem to be as opposed to talking about it like I had expected. “Filly was like hell,” She started bluntly, adjusting the large shoulder piece that I had somehow put on backwards. “They say no pony escapes Filly. It's just an endless nightmare with no feasible escape.”

“But you escaped it, right? And the DJ just said that stable dweller got out,” I pointed out, hoping to brighten up the somber mood in the room.

Chestnut smile a little at that, though it seemed sad. “I don’t know if I really ever escaped. I still have nightmares about the things that happened in that place. All the pain I had to go through… the things they made me do…” Her eyes looked distant as she finished tightening the last strap. She stood back up and looked me over, making sure everything was in place. “I don’t think I’ll ever truly be free of it. There are some wounds that even time can't heal.”

“Well you’re out now, they cannot hurt you any more,” I stated flatly, still trying to lighten her mood just a little. “We’ll get them you know. Red Eye and all his slavers. We won’t let them keep doing what their doing. Somepony will stop him, I just know it.”

Chestnut simply looked pained by the comment. “They have my child in that place again Amber… I- Well... I think I’m going to be going back there sooner or later. You can’t escape Filly. Not forever,” She turned to go before stopping and looking back at me. “How old are you again?”

I was a little taken aback by the question. “I’m uh… twenty. Brisk and Xayah are too I think. We never really talked about it much. Why?”

“You just seem so-” Chestnut stopped and hesitated, quickly looking at the exit of the armoury as if questioning if she should just drop the train of thought altogether and get ready for the battle. “You just all seem so young,” She finally said, not daring to look me in the eye. “The wasteland is cruel. Ponies like you don’t deserve to be stuck in it like this.”

With that, she turned from me completely and sulked out of the room to join the gathering of ponies at the Stable door. I let her words sink into me a little bit before shaking them from my head and following her out. It didn’t matter if I deserved this or not, I was in it now, and there was no going back.

We spent hardly any time at the Stable door. Purity and Toffee said a few words before we broke into our designated groups and moved out towards the settlement of the Hollow Shades.

Upon my request, Shade accompanied me and Chestnut as we lead a group under the wall to rescue the slaves. She was half the reason I was in this mess right now and I’d be damned if I didn’t make her at least try to help fix it. To my surprise, Shade seemed fairly determined to help when she was told. Despite all my hatred and resentment towards my old friend at the moment, it was becoming very clear to me that she regretted what she had done. My caps were on her hoping she could make up what she had done to me somehow.

Chestnut, Brisk, Xayah and Shade all pulled up next to me behind a small jagged rock formation overlooking the Hollow Shades. A small group of ten security ponies crouched in anticipation a few feet behind us, five for each team. Several medics waited a few feet down the hill, awaiting for when we managed to get the slaves back out.

I pulled out a pair of binoculars Purity had given me and began to survey the area below us. Off to the right, I could see Pyre and Toffee organising a much larger group of armed ponies just out of view of the settlement gates. Surprisingly, I couldn’t see Boulder among them, considering his large size, but I knew he was down there somewhere. Even farther off in the distance I could see a small group of twenty or so ponies moving around to flank the slavers from behind when the battle broke out in full.

Shifting my gaze to the Hollow Shades itself I could see groups of slavers patrolling the walls. They were well organised, at no point leaving any area around the settlement undefended. Red Eye never left things to chance and always tried to stay a few steps ahead of everypony, that much I had learned from my strange vision of Crank’s past. Within the walls I could see even more slavers, probably upwards of one hundred or so. They were just going about their normal business at the moment, cooking meals, setting up tents. I did spot a few adding additional fortifications around the perimeter of the settlement.

beyond even that, I saw the dark monolith like tower of the Ministry of Arcane Science Building looming in the background. a radioactive green glow seemed to emanate from around it and seep into the already overcast sky. The tower stood as a silent observer of the hell that was to break loose in the valley below.

Brisk squatted down beside me, trying to make out what I was looking at with his one eye. “It’s crazy to think we’ve come all this way, huh.”

I looked down from the binoculars and over to him. “What do you mean?”

He gave a small roll of his eyes. “I mean it seems like only yesterday we were running from the Stable and into the great unknown. Getting in near death situations with small bands of raiders and ghouls or whatever,” He said, his eye still fixed on the scene down below. “Never woulda thought we’d be involved in a war or anything.”

I gave a small nervous chuckle. “Guess were some super awesome wasteland hero’s now or something,” I joked, before realizing I was only half joking. Wasn’t that a weird thought.

Brisk just grinned, seeming to like the idea more than I did. “I guess we are, huh. Bet that’s a bit of a confidence boost, eh. You’ve come a long way since the Stable.”

I gave him a small nudge with the side of my hoof. “You’re a little less annoying than you used to be yourself,” I gave him a grin, it was somewhat real.

Brisk’s face grew a little serious for a moment as he averted his gaze from the settlement below and looked over at me. “Amber, there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you.”

“Mh-hmm?”

He scratched the back of his head nervously and blushed slightly. “Well, I don’t know if this’ll be weird or whatever… After that whole crush thing you went through with me and all, but…” He hesitated, but he had my full attention now. “When you told me, I said it would be weird because after you saved me I started viewing you kinda like a little sister and stuff… and well I thought… uh… well...” He paused again, making sure he wasn’t doing something he would regret.

“Do… do you want to be siblings?” I asked, trying to fully understand what he was saying.

Brisk looked at me nervously for a moment before nodding. “I mean if you’d have me… it’s just- you know... After security killed my parents, I never really had someone I could consider a friend, let alone family. Then you just kinda popped into my life and well- I’d love if we could like… I don’t know. Be siblings or-or some shit,” He finally wrapped up lamely, realizing he was starting to ramble. "I don't know. maybe I'm just being dumb or some shit. Those caves were just kinda getting to my head and all."

"I don't think you're being dumb," I said, almost defensively. I looked at him for a moment, trying to judge if this was some kind of weird Brisk joke or if he was genuine. From the nervous and almost scared look in his eyes, I could tell he was being serious. I bit my lower lip for a second before I let my lips twist into a warm smile. “I'd like to be siblings too bro.”

I pulled him up close with a hoof and held him in a tight embrace. Not knowing what to say, he just accepted the hug with a growing blush. "Uh... Thank you sis."

“Brisk, we need you to go over the plans of getting to the gate,” One of the security ponies said, marching up and interrupting our little moment.

Brisk groaned and pulled himself up and away from me. “Fine fine. Just please let it be less boring than the first battle meeting we had,” He swiftly followed after the security pony. My eyes followed him a bit until my gaze landed upon Shade watching me from a few feet away. Our gaze locked for a moment before she looked away.

“Are we all ready?” Chestnut asked a few minutes later. Her whole body looked like it had gone tight with anticipation for the coming fight. Her eyes had taken to an eager and violent look.

I turned to look at my Hellhound waiting silently behind me before glancing over to my friends. “We’re ready. Let's do this.”

I had never seen a Hellhound burrow quite like this before. I had seen them rip apart the surface of the earth and had even seen them dig with an almost uncanny precision as I tried to open up the Stable door of Stable 44, but now as I stood behind my massive Hellhound and watched it dig, I saw just how fast they could be. Rock didn’t slow the hellhound down in the slightest. It dug and clawed its way through solid rock at a slow jogging speed as we descended down into the earth. After a few minutes of digging, I felt the large tunnel it was creating for us start to slowly arch and angle upwards as we began a slightly slower assent up towards what I could assume was behind the large wall.

We all huddled close as we slowly moved upwards. I was beginning to make out the muffled sound of hoofsteps and talking above us. We were under the slavers. From the way it sounded, I doubted we could have been any less than a foot below them.

I quickly waved for my Hellhound to stop. It obayed mechanically, a twang of guilt pasting through me as it did. I really needed to free this thing at some point, but it was just so useful.

Chestnut glanced back down the tunnel, trying to gauge exactly how far we had gone. She quietly counted for a few seconds before looking back at all of us. “This is it. We should be directly under the jail where they’re keeping the slaves,” She whispered in a hushed voice, making sure she wasn’t loud enough for us to get heards. “The Hellhound can let us in here, then take the rest of you to a location closer to the gate. Stay quiet and try not to draw attention to yourselves until all of the prisoners are clear.”

I nodded, pushing the side of my head up against the roof of the tunnel and listening to the voices on the other side.

“She’s fucking what!” The muffled voice of a slaver blurted out, the small layer of rock and dirt between us making it fairly difficult to make his words out. “Why the fucking hell is Stern coming all the way out to the Hollow Shades!”

“Beats me. To be honest, I don’t even know why Red Eye is so interested in this location,” A second slaver grunted. I could hear the muffled patter of his hooves as he paced back and forth. “I mean I know this place has been on his radar for a while, but it's out in the middle of nowhere Equestria and their ain’t all that many resources here anyhow. We lost some good ponies securing this spot.”

Before I could scoff at the idea of a slaver being a good pony, a third slaver spoke up. “The point is, Stern’s coming. I don’t know why, but it is crucial that we don’t fuck it up when she gets here. I’ve heard she’s pretty pissed off right now about that stable dwellers friends ransoming her to Red Eye.”

“Ransomed back to- Where the fuck did you hear that?” the first slaver that spoke said.

“Everyponies’ talkin’ about it,” The slaver responded, his voice rising slightly and making it a little easier to hear him. “I don’t think Red Eye want’s anyone to know, but words spreading pretty damn quickly 'bout it.”

I turned back to the ponies waiting patiently behind me in the tunnel. “There are three slavers up there,” I informed them as quietly as possible. I turned to face Xayah directly. “Do you think you can take them out quietly?”

Xayah gave a quick nod of confirmation before I signaled for my Hellhound to continue. In one fluid motion, the Hellhound burst from the ground, it’s massive paw tearing one of the slavers in half at the same time. A large cloud of dust, ash and rock billowed into the air around the Hellhound, obscuring the remaining slavers view. Before the other two slavers could make heads or tails out of what was going on and raise the alarm, Xayah lifted her newly acquired silenced sniper over the lip of the hole and fired two shots.

Both slavers fell dead, a bullet hole in the center of each of their foreheads. Save for the quick smashing sounds of my Hellhound ripping open the floor, we had taken out the slavers almost silently. And even then, my Hellhound had been shockingly quiet.

I could hear the slaves in the cells beside us whimpering as the Hellhound loomed over them.

The room was fairly small. Twelve or so cages lined two of the wall and a round, now toppled table lay in the middle. Dozens of scared and wounded ponies had been thrown into the cells or chained to the floor. Most of the cells were only made to fit a few ponies, making most of the prisoners need to squeeze together awkwardly as they tried to fit into the cramped space.

The slaves had all seen better days. Dressed in little more than chains and the occasional rag, they all looked tired and beaten. I could see bloody gash marks across many of their backs where the slavers bull whips has lashed against their hide. One mare in the corner of the room had a broken leg.

Chestnut quickly climbed from the hole and approached the cells, making sure all of the prisoners could see her clearly. She took in the state of the slaves, trying her best not to cry at the sight. She quickly turned back to Brisk and the five security ponies that had gathered around him. “Start getting to the gate. Stay low. We’ll join in on the attack when Toffee gives the signal,” She ordered quietly, quickly turning back to face the prisoners.

I hadn’t heard anything about a signal, but Brisk seemed to understand. He motioned for Xayah to join them as the Hellhound began digging another tunnel into the earth. Brisk cast me a quick glance before he moved further into the tunnel. “I’ll see you on the other side lil’ sis.”

Xayah cast us an odd lock at the remark and began to follow after him into the hole. She paused for a second as she passed me. “Make it out of this alive alright,” She said quietly, turning to look at me with the corners of her emerald green eyes.

“I’ll be fine. And you better come out of this okay too, got it?” I said quickly, trying my best to smile despite the dire circumstances.

Xayah nodded quickly, returning my smile. She hesitated for a second, before leaning in and giving me a small kiss on the cheek. Before she could see my reaction, she dropped into the hole after Brisk and began to move away into position.

I could feel my face heat up from my growing blush. That had been nice… still didn’t know how to take all of this crush stuff though.

“We are here to get you all out of here. Stay calm and keep quiet,” Chestnut informed the prisoners as she started looking around for a key. I found it first, picking it up off one of the fallen slavers and tossing it over to her. She caught it in her magic and quickly began unlocking cages.

“Everypony into the tunnel,” I ordered quietly, pointing down towards the hole as the panicked ponies began emerging from the cells. “There are doctors waiting on the other side with medical supplies.”

I saw a few security ponies help up the mare with the broken leg and start carrying her down the tunnel. Even Shade started tending to some of the more minor wounds and leading ponies towards the escape.

One of the ex-slaves nervously trotted up to Chestnut, her eyes wide and fearful. “Chestnut, did… did Salt Water make it out okay?” The mare asked, a small glimmer of hope in her near lifeless eyes.

Both Golden Chestnut and I visibly flinched at the question. Chestnut reached forwards and wrapped her hooves around the shaking mare. Her voice was low. “He was very brave Ruby. He was very brave.”

One by one, the security ponies and I helped to escort the slaves into the tunnel, gently helping them down the short drop into the hole. There were a few more ponies with broken limbs than we had initially thought that needed additional help getting down the Hellhound made passage.

“Where are all the foals?” Chestnut asked, looking around as some of the last few slaves started climbing through the hole. “Surely they weren’t all sent to Filly?”

“The slavers took them to the town hall,” One of the slaves said, pointing out the window to the largest building in the settlement. “They wanted to keep a close watch on them to ensure we didn’t try to run.”

Chestnut froze at the comment. The muscles in her neck clenched as she resisted the urge to not scream and blow our cover. “Fucking slaver cunts,” She rumbled, trying to contain some of her rage. She pointed over to the last security pony that was with us. “Get the rest of them to safety, and inform Brisk and Xayah to hold off on opening the gate as long as they can if you’re able. Amber, Shade, you two with me. We’re going to get those foals out of here.”

“Would it not be more practical to wait until after the battle once the slavers are gone? How do you hope to get a group of foals all the way from that building to the tunnel undetected?” The security pony argued, helping the final pony into the hole.

“Those slavers took the foals to keep the slaves from trying to escape. If we start a full out attack, they might take it as an escape attempt and kill the foals. We need to get them out of their before the attack begins,” Chestnut growled, stomping her hoof and turning to the door. Her eyes locked on the town hall on the other side of the settlement.

“Should we maybe get that useful Hellhound to dig its way there and get the foals out without needing to go into the open?” Shade suggested, speaking up for the first time since the caves. She glanced out the window and took in the slavers that stood between us and the foals. “That’s a lot of slavers we need to get through.”

I shook my head, the levity of the situation coming down upon me with full force. “This whole operation is counting on Brisk and Xayah getting the gate open. We can’t jeopardize that or we risk everything,” I could feel my body going cold as I realised what had to be done. “We’re on our own.”

The second the coast was clear, we slipped out of the prison and began creeping around the edges of the camp that the slavers had set up in the middle of the town. The sun was still high in the sky, washing out almost all of the shadows and making hiding spots near impossible to find. It felt like every few steps the three of us had to duck behind cover as slavers walked past. We were making slow progress.

I attempted to quicken my pace as I remembered the slavers might kill the foals if we didn’t get them out before the battle started. We were racing against our own side to save them. We had no way of knowing if news of out attempt to save the foals had reached Brisk and Xayah’s ears.

A formation of three griffons soared above us, keeping a birds eye view of the area and keeping a lookout for intruders and escaped slaves. I shivered as I thought I saw one of their eagle like eyes pass over me, but they simply continued on, unsuspecting of us for the moment.

As we drew closer to the town hall, Chestnut motioned for us to follow her around back as she spotted two slavers standing guard outside the doorway. “There is another entrance at the back. Hopefully it is less guarded.”

We began moving around the building. We were halfway around the building when we froze. The loud booming sound of a horn echoed over the town, causing most of the slavers to look up from what they were doing and direct their attention towards the gate. To my horror, I saw the huge gate creak, and then swing open!

No! Not yet! We weren’t ready!

But the slavers didn’t seem to be panicking. From my limited field of view I could make out the shapes of Slavers pulling the large gates upon.

The slavers were opening the gates themselves?

Our small army of ponies were not the ones standing on the other side like I had been expecting. Instead I could see the vile shapes of about a dozen raiders, each one better equipped than your average wasteland psycho. At the front of the group stood a blood soaked mare, grinning at all the slavers with a wide, unsettling grin.

The slavers backed away and let the crazed group of raiders in, flinching whenever the deranged looking mare got too close to them. To my horror they seemed to be walking towards the town hall. Towards us!

“We need to move. Now,” I urged, pushing Chestnut along as she stared off at the new raiders. Both her and Shade quickly agreed and began scurrying along the side of the building.

Chestnut pulled up beside a small door on the back of the building. To my relief, there didn’t appear to be any guards. Pulling out a key, Chestnut quickly unlocked the door and ushered us inside. As we piled in, she slipped the key back into her pocket. “Toffee gave me that key ages ago, never thought I’d actually need it,” She grumbled, more to herself than Shade or I.

The sound of hoofsteps drew our attention to the stairway to the second floor. We could see the shadows of a particularly large looking slaver slowly marching his way down the steps, every second step stalling slightly as the large slaver limped forwards.

Chestnut froze, her eyes wide. She recognized that rhythm of that walk, I could tell she did.

“Hide,” Shade hissed, pulling the two of us back. We stumbled backwards, doing our best to hide behind a large, dirty looking sofa as the slaver entered the room.

The slaver was huge. Perhaps not as big as Crank or Boulder, but he definitely would have towered over Pyre or even Skull Crusher if he were still alive. Like many of Red Eye’s slavers, he was dressed in a full suit of heavy combat armour, his painted a dark black with the crimson insignia of Red Eye engraved onto the front. His coat was a dirty grey and he seemed to emit a foul musk.

“What the fuck is happening out there!” The slaver roared, his heavy limping step thudding onto the floor from the stairs. I could see Chestnut tremble more as his booming words reached her ears. “Somepony answer me! NOW!”

“Raiders, sir,” A slaver that I had not heard enter said, his voice sounding almost as scared of the massive slaver as Chestnut was. “But they aren’t here to fight us… they… they want to make an alliance.”

I gulped. Shit! We didn’t need more ponies to fight, we were outnumbered enough here as it is. Shade and I exchanged a worried look, our frightening situation allowing me to put aside me resentment towards her for the moment.

The huge slave master stood in stunned silence for a moment before chuckling to himself. “Good, we could use the help dealing with those ponies and their foolish rebellion attempt.”

My blood ran cold. They knew. The battle hadn’t even started yet and they were a step ahead of us. I should have known this would happen with somepony like Red Eye calling the shots. I glanced back at the door, wondering if I would be able to sneak back out and warn everypony before this turned into a massacre. But the huge slaver was blocking my path and if we left now, we would be leaving the foals at the mercy of slavers.

And now raiders as well, I added to myself grimly.

There was a loud, yet playful sounding knock at the door. Before either of the slavers could move to open the door, it swung open, a sharpened and gnawed on looking bone jammed into the lock. A crude and literal skeleton key. Standing on the other side of the door stood the psychotic looking unicorn raider mare.

Now up close I was able to make out her features. She had an oddly beautiful cream coloured coat with a light pink mane that slowly fade to a light blue around the tips. Her dazzling blue eyes had a scarily alert yet insane look to them as they scanned over the room as if inspecting every inch of it. Like most raiders, her body was covered in long crisscrossing silver scars and her hooves had been tied to deadly sharp bone blades. I recognized the blades immediately as Hellhound claws.

Her very presence seemed to fill the room with a stilted uncertainty. Even the huge slave master took a step back at her sudden intrusion.

Not bothering to wait for either of the slaver to invite her in, the mare waltz into the room, wiggling her rump in the air slightly as she moved and dancing to a song than none of the rest of us could hear. Her Hellhound claws scraped across the floor every few seconds, making me want to cover my ears and beg for the noise to go away.

Leaping into the air, the raider mare flopped onto the couch across from us and struck a seductive pose that would make any mare or stallion that wasn’t currently fearing for their life swoon. She raised one of her hind legs up into the air and began to lick her coat, as if she were a cat trying to groom herself.

The huge slaver cleared his throat and took a small step forwards. “Excuse me, may we help you?” Even while nervous, his loud and commanding voice sent shivers down my spine. I could see Chestnut cowering behind me more with every word.

Not bothering to lower her leg, the raider lazily glanced over at him, her tongue still dangling from her mouth. “Well duh. You think I came all the way here from Las Fucking Pegasus just for kicks?” So these were Las Pegasus raiders. shit. Her voice reflected exactly how she looked. That being completely insane and strangely seductive. “Me and the boys want to make a deal. You interested.”

The slaver simply grunted, not daring to let his gaze drift away from the raider as she went back to licking herself. “Very. what is this deal of yours?”

The raider gave him a warm smile. “As I’m sure you are aware, there is a group of ponies waiting just outside your walls. Me and my boys can help defend your little outpost from them,” She finally lowered her leg and sprawled across the couch lazily. “They have a pretty solid plan at the moment, and a lot of guns. As it stands, they have a pretty good shot at winning this fight.”

The slaver kept looking her over as if trying to make sure she wasn’t secretly a bomb about to explode at any moment. “I know you raider type. What do you want in return?”

The mares grin widened, showing off a set of sharpened white fangs. “A few things. Mostly the life of one of the ponies helping them. There’s a traitor from our gang named Pyre Blaze. I want her dead after what she did to Skull Crusher!” her grizzly smile morphed into a snarl and his hoof claw flew out, slashing at the couch she lay on and ripped it in two. Unsatisfied with the result she continued slashing at the couch, ripping out chunk after chunk of fluff. “Skull Crusher might have been dense, but he was good at givin’ a hard fucking when I told him to. Really knew how to make lady feel special, you know?”

This was bad. Really, really bad. I had to find a way to warn Pyre. I mentally threw that onto the list of things I had to do before this fight.

As she ripped more and more into the couch, the two slavers stepped back, afraid to get caught in her wrath. After a few seconds the large slaver cleared his throat again. “I’m sure that can be arranged. What are your other demands?”

The raider whipped around and gave the slavers and innocent smile, all traces of anger and violence had disappeared from her face. “We want free slaves. Now don’t get me wrong, the winged rats up in Las Pegasus are fine and do their job well, but Jinx says I can't fuck a single one of them! Apparently they’re under her protection or some shit! Do you know how hard it is to not fuck those flying cunts? I sure do! And I really really want to fuck some cunts!” She began waltzing around the room again, doing her weird butt wiggle dance walk. “So I want some personal slaves, free of charge! Us raiders ain’t huge fans of paying for things, don’t you know,” She bat her eyes at the slaver. She might have looked cute had her face not been matted with blood.

“Absolutely not!” The large slaver bellowed, his hoof stomping down hard on the floor and almost making me squeal with surprise as the shockwave made me bump slightly into the air. “Red Eye would never allow it. Everypony must play their part in uni-”

The slave was stopped abruptly as the mare flew into him, her hind hooves wrapped around the front of his face and her two front hooves pressed tight against his throat as she dangled from his head upside down. From behind the couch, I could see her Hellhound claws digging a little into his flesh, just going deep enough to draw a little bit of blood. “I might have called this a deal, but I have no intention of negotiating,” She snarled, her eyes narrowing as her hoof claws tightened around his throat. “You will give us what I want or I swear I will rip off your dick and face fuck you with it so hard that you-” She froze, her eyes drifting around the room. “Do you smell that?”

The large slaver was actually shaking as he slowly shook his head. “No, I don-”

“It is!” The raider yelled gleefully, hopping off of him and taking a deep sniff of the air. “I smell fear!” She held the vowels in the word fear for a few seconds longer than she should have. “There are some little ponies in here that don’t belong!” She sang out in a singsong voice as she started slowly stalking around the room, her hoof claws tossing aside every piece of furniture that could be used to hide behind, and even some that couldn’t. “Come out, come out wherever you are my little ponies! I'll only fuck you a little bit!”

Shade and Chestnut began trembling beside me as the crazed raider sang out. Had I not been so frozen with fear I probably would have been shaking too. I could hear her getting closer, each step followed by a crash as she threw aside a new piece of furniture.

I could hear the sound of the mare licking her lips as she approached the couch, her large hoof claws causing ear piercing scraping noises to ring out with each step as she dragged them across the floor. “I’m gonna find you! Yes I am! Yes I am!” She called out playfully, her voice in a childish and almost mocking tone.

Snapping out of the fear that had grasped me, I pulled out Boneless and readied myself. Both Chestnut and Shade quickly followed suit with their own weapons.

The raider was practically standing over top of the couch now. I could feel her hot breath as she began clawing at the ground. I heard her sniff a couple times in our direction. “Oh? What have we here?”

The door to the town hall burst open again, drawing the attention of both the slavers and the insane raider. A smaller slaver walked in, clad in little more than some light leather barding. He was riddled with gunshot wounds and was bleeding all over the floor. “Sir, we’re under attack! The wall has already been breached, they’re attacking us from all sides!” with that, he dropped to the floor, dead.

Looks like our time was up. Brisk and Xayah had opened the gate.

The large slave scowled. “Alright raider. You have a deal. You and your raiders kill these ponies, you get some slaves. Seems like a fair trade to me.”

The raider mare squealed with delight, completely forgetting about looking for us and bounded over to the large slaver, wrapping him up in a bag hug. The large slaver stiffened at the contact. “Oh I knew you were reasonable you big cute. Just remember, Pyre Blaze is mine!” She didn’t sound at all angry anymore, simply like a little filly on hearts warming eve. She clapped her hooves together happily. “Oh I’m going to fuck that bitch so fucking hard! Look out Pyre, I'ma comin’!” And with that she bounded out of the door.

I was starting to be able to hear the sounds of gunfire echoing in from outside. The sounds of screaming laced with the occasional explosion was slowly becoming overpowering, even from this distance.

The large slaver turned back to look at the only other slaver in the room. “They are no doubt here to free the slaves. I won't allow this,” He paused, glancing out the door at the firefight I couldn’t see yet. “Red Eye is going to hate this…” He took a deep breath, before a look of grim determination crossed over him. “Kill the foals.” Not waiting for the smaller slaver to acknowledge his demand, the large brute of a slaver marched from the building, a large shotgun raised in his mouth.

My mouth dropped. He was willing to murder the foals… Just to spite us! How dare he!

Clearly, Chestnut had very much the same reaction. She leapt over the couch and rammed her shotgun into the remaining slavers face. The slaver fell back, clutching his broken muzzle with a hoof. Chestnuts levitated her combat shotgun over his head and fired, bursting his head open like a gore filled balloon.

“Come on, we don’t have much time!” Chestnut shouted as she started racing up the stairs. Shade and I leapt from behind our cover and started racing after her as fast as we could. Already I could hear a few slavers on the top floor racing down to see what the shots were.

“How the fuck did they get in already!” I heard a slaver shout as they raced down the steps and rounded the corner to meet us. Boneless was up and firing before he managed to get a shot in. One of his legs were blown out from under him, making him topple down the stairs and lie in a bloody heap.

Two more slavers came bounding around the corner, hunting rifles raised in their magical grip. We dove to the side as they opened fire upon our position, blowing holes in the walls and ripping up the dirty carpet that covered the floor. I pushed Shade behind a wall as she was almost blasted apart by the lethal fire.

Chestnut dove from cover, her combat shotgun firing off six rounds of buckshot before she had to jump back behind cover and quickly reload her shotgun.

I could hear three more slavers start rushing down the stairs towards us, the loud cracks of their rifles joining the orchestra that bombarded us with fire. There was a small click from somewhere above me followed by the sound of something small bouncing down the stairs towards us. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a grenade roll to a stop by our hooves.

My eyes shot wide with alarm. “Grenade!” I screamed, pushing Shade out of cover with me and back down the steps. I saw Chestnut dive after us, followed a second later by the ear ringing boom of the grenade going off. Chunks of shrapnel flew over us, a few cutting into my coat and ripping hole in my Stable barding.

Through the smoke, I saw the five slavers advancing, rifles drawn and ready to shoot at anything that moved.

Reaching out with my magic I unlatched the magazine on one of the slavers guns, making it drop to the floor with a loud clatter. The slaver looked down, realising his predicament. “What the fuck!”

The group of slavers surprise and hold of fire was long enough for us to turn the tables. Chestnut and I both fired up with our shotguns, each one of us blowing the heads off of two slavers. Their bodies fell limp onto the stairs, making the others slavers stumble as they tried to reorganize themselves.

I moved back behind the corner of the wall, quickly reloading three shells into Boneless. One of the slavers spotted me and rushed forwards, swinging his rifle around the corner to get at me.

Bang!

The slaver dropped dead, a well aimed shot from Shades gun tearing out his neck. The precision suggested she had used SATS to line up her shot. I glanced over at her, taking in her mortified, wide eyed expression.

“I just killed somepony,” She uttered softly, a small tear rolling down her dark, lavender cheek. “Goddesses, I just kill somepony.”

The last slaver looked at his fallen comrades, before looking up at the three of us slowly closing in on him. Wisely, he turned tail and started bolting back up the stairs as fast as he could. He didn’t get far before Chestnut’s shotgun blasted out his back two legs, sending him flopping to the ground and smacking his head on the stairs. Upon impact, he went very still.

Without a word, we raced up the rest of the stairs. At the top, several fillies and colts huddled up together in a large cage in the corner of the room. Thankfully, none of them seemed to be hurt. A slaver that had remained behind to stand guard over the foals fired at us as we made it onto the floor, already awaiting our arrival.

The three of us scattered. A trail of bullets pounded into the wall behind me as the slaver chased after me with his fire. The foals screamed and tried to push themselves away from the booming sound of the gunfire.

I swung my baton out with my magic, knocking the slavers gun away and sending it spinning across the floor. He dove away as Chestnut shot at him with her shotgun, the buckshot missing completely and instead blasting a hole into the wall and out into the raging battle beyond.

The slaver rushed for his gun, knocking Shade aside as she tried to jump into his path. His mouth clamped around the grip of the gun and swung it up just in time to see my baton as it once again rammed into him, this time sending him flying across the room and crashing into a wall.

Chestnut’s combat shotgun roared as he tried to pull himself back to his hooves, pulping his head and making his now bloody body slump over. She quickly turned back to the foals in the cage and knelt down to their level.

“Don’t worry, everything is going to be okay. We’ll get you out of here,” She turned back to look at us. “Shade, come with me!” She looked at me directly. “We’ll hold down this position and give you time! You get to picking the lock on that cage!”

I flushed at that. “Might be a bad time to mention this, but I can’t pick locks.”

Chestnut just gave me a flat stare before eyeing my cutie mark. “You’re telling me that you don’t have a lockpicking cutie mark?”

I felt my blush growing. “NO! Why does everybody think that! Does no pony know what screwdrivers are actually for? And surely ponies sometimes pick locks with a screwdriver that isn’t red!”

Chestnut groaned and walked over to the cage. “Fine! You two hold the position, I’ll see what I can do,” she bent down and started working away at the lock. Her hooves were shaking a little and I could tell she didn’t have nearly as much skill with lock lockpicking as Brisk did.

I gestured for Shade to follow me as I went to go stand at the top of the stairs. If the slavers tried to break in, this would work as a good choke point. Without hesitation, Shade scrambled forwards and stood next to me, her weapon drawn as we awaited any unwanted guests.

I could hear the sounds of battle picking up outside. Gunfire mixed with pained howls and panicked screams. Somewhere off in the distance I could hear a loud booming noise as some sort of heavy artillery gun fired at charging ponies, mowing them down on the spot. Soon, the wild whoops of raiders began drowning out even the sound of gunfire as they surged in for the kill. I prayed Pyre Blaze was going to be okay with that psycho out to get her.

After a few seconds of listening to the battle, I began to make out the sound of Shade trying to catch my attention. The fighting below was simply so loud I hadn’t been able to hear her from right beside me.

“What!” I snapped at her, not bothering myself enough to look her direction. I wasn’t really in the mood to talk to her at the moment.

Shade gulped, taking a small step away from me. “I just wanted to say I truly am sorry. For what I did. I don’t know what I could ever do to earn you trust again bu-”

“You already tried apologizing,” I growled, swinging my head around to face her at last. “Saying sorry isn’t going to get you off the hook for what you did! I saw you look all shocked that you killed that slaver back there, but the truth is Shade, you’ve killed a lot more than just him!”

“Amber, I’m trying to-”

I snorted and stomped my hoof. “I don’t give a damn! Stable 25 is on you Shade! I trusted you! You- we were friends! And you fucked it up! Now you need to live with it!” I could see Chestnut cast me a worried glance as she heard me yelling over the gunfire. I lowered my voice and turned away. “You can’t fix what you have done.”

Shade was silent for a moment, simply staring at me with sad old eyes that betrayed her age. At last she too looked away and down the stairs to the floor below. “I know I can’t fix it… I just… Maybe I can do a little good before this is all done and through.”

I heard a loud smash from down below followed by the sounds of angry shouts as a group of slavers burst through the door. I could hear their surprised yells as they found the bloody corpses of the slavers we had killed. “Shit! Mother Fucker! There already in here!” A slaver yelled. I heard them all start running for the stairs as a unit.

“You want to do some good? Then help end this,” I grunted, readying Boneless for the incoming slavers. Shade gave me a small nod and readied her own gun, a 10mm pistol with the Stable-Tec logo engraved on it.

The first group of slavers turned the corner. We fired upon them, sending them into hysterics as the ones leading the charge were blown apart by Boneless’ explosive fire.

Blam! Blam! Blam! Reload.

Another round of slavers began rushing forwards, their assault rifles firing as they tried to fight their way through the chokepoint.

Blam! Blam! Blam! Reload.

They were beginning to put a pattern to my attacks, leaping out from behind the cover we had initially used whenever I would reload. Shade’s pistol cracked off a few shots, most missing their target, but two finding their home in a slavers legs as they rushed towards us. The slaver fell, collapsing in front of two other slaver that were trying to rush up the steps and making them stumble.

A few shots whizzed past me, causing me to duck back and fire blindly from behind my cover. I heard a slaver yell in pain as the buckshot blew into him, but I didn’t know if he died or not. More shots pinged off the walls around me, spraying me with rock, dust and plaster.

Shade screamed as a bullet tore through her forehoof. She tumbled backwards and fell, clutching her bleeding hoof.

“Damn it,” I grunted, swinging out my baton and bashing a slaver that had reached the top of the stairs across the head. They stumbled back, their head crumpled in from the heavy blow. “Chestnut, how’s the lock going!” I shouted at her frantically, taking another blind shot down the stairs.

“Give me a few more seconds!” She cried out, her concentration entirely directed towards getting the lock to the cage open. “I haven’t needed to do this since Filly!”

More shots lanced out at me, making me duck back as I tried to aim up a shot. To my surprise, Shade had pulled herself up through the pain and was making potshots down at the slavers below us. A second shot rang out, tearing through Shade’s already injured hoof. Again she collapsed to the ground with a scream, this time unable to pull herself back up proper.

Two slavers made it to the top of the stairs, their guns firing at the first pony they could find. A shot blasted out Chestnuts back leg, sending her falling away from the cage. Foals cried out as they watched her fall, reaching out as if hoping that by grabbing onto her, they could save themselves.

Chestnut growled in pain and spun her shotgun around to face the slaver that shot her. Four rounds went straight into his face, reducing his head to little more than a bloody blob.

The second slaver spun around to face me, his rifle firing a round straight into my chest. The heavy impact of the blow knocked me from my hooves and sent me falling backwards, the heavy plating of the combat armour Chestnut had helped me into being the only thing that kept the bullet from penetrating my heart.

Shade fired two shots from her pistol at the slaver, one of the two embedding itself in his side. Howling with pain, the slaver reared up and bucked shade across the face. Shade’s head was slammed into the ground from the impact.

Boneless fired again, ripping the coat and flesh off of the slavers torso and sending him limp to the ground.

Trying my best to ignore the pain, I pushed myself back to my hooves and took a defensive position at the top of the stairs again, facing off against the twelve slavers still on their way up. Behind me, I spotted Chestnut pull herself over to the cage and continue trying to pick the lock open, but her hooves were now shakier than ever before.

I could see five more slavers rush around the corner and make a mad rush up the stairs towards me. There were just too many! We couldn’t hold them all off!

Blam!

A bullet ripped into my fetlock. I yelled as the throbbing, burning pain raced up my body. I fired two more shots into the slavers below, only managing to stagger one before I once again ducked behind cover and collapsed, trying to reloaded my weapon with trembling hooves.

There was a click and I saw Chestnut swing the cage door open. The foals rushed from the cage and cowered behind any cover that they could, their hooves raised above their heads defensively as they whimpered. “They’re out!” Chestnut shouted, pulling herself up and quickly limping over to me to hide behind the cover, her combat shotgun out and ready to fire. “We need to get them out of here!”

Thanks for stating the obvious.

I heard Shade fire off three more shots from where she lay on the ground before her gun ran empty. I heard her curse and roll behind the wall, still unable to pull herself to a standing position with her wounded leg.

“Everypony down!” I heard one of the slavers shout. I peaked around the edge of my cover to see what he had been yelling about. What I saw made me stop dead in my tracks.

At the bottom of the stairs sat a massive artillery machine gun that the slavers had wheeled into the building. A slaver stood behind it, aiming it up the hallway at us.

Well fuck me! I quickly ducked back behind my cover. "Get down!"

The massive gun fired. My eardrums exploded as the rapidfire gunshots blared through the building. Massive hoof sized bullets whirred past me and tore open everything they came in contact with. The walls, the furantre, the roof. Bullets ricochet around us, threatening to slash open our throats and burst open out heads. A massive hole was ripped open in the sky as the artillery gun roared, giving us a clear view of the dark cloud filled sky. Even the dim glow of the sun couldn’t seem to seep through the thick layer of black smoke that had consumed the air around the Hollow Shades.

“The roof! Get them to the roof!” Chestnut yelled, levitating her combat shotgun around the corner the second the huge gun ceased firing and firing off a few shots herself.

I turned to the foals and began helping them each up to the roof. I wrapped a field of telekinesis around as many of them as I could and began trying to lift them up and out onto the crumbling ceiling. I screamed from the effort it required to levitate them up. I saw a few bullets from the battle outside fly over the rooftops from the large hole the slavers artillery had made.

“Keep your heads low!” I ordered as the first foals began scrambling onto the roof. A few foals gave a horrified squeak of acknowledgement as they wriggled themselves up onto the somewhat sturdy roof of the building. I saw a filly duck as a bullet flew past their head.

“The roof! They’re going to the roof! Cut them off!” I slaver started yelling. Seconds later, Chestnut’s combat shotgun silenced them. But the word had already gotten out. Slavers were beginning to break off from the main group and head in a different direction.

Chestnut’s yell of alarm and the spinning of the large artillery was all the warning that I got. “Move aside! Move aside now!” I yelled frantically to the foals as I myself took cover behind the wall. The foals scattered as the heavy artillery once again open fired.

I heard a colt scream as he was torn apart by the extensive explosive fire. The loud booming of the gun and massive wave of air drowning out my screams and forcing my eyes to go painfully dry as I watched the colt fall, his body now a broken and bloody mess.

Damn them!

The slavers that hadn’t broken off were pushing forwards, using the large guns devastating fire to keep us at bay while they advanced. I could hear them firing off shots, a few of the rounds coming dangerously close to many of the foals.

Chestnut jumped forwards, taking the bullet for one of the foals as a slaver fired upon them. She fell back onto the crying foal, a large gun wound in her side.

Gritting my teeth I lifted the last few foals onto the roof. As soon as the last one scrambled up, my magic popped and I staggered backwards, exhaustion quickly overtaking me. Chestnut pushed herself up and helped haul me to my hooves. “Come on Amber, we aren’t out of this yet!”

Adrenaline racing through me, I rushed over and threw an almost unconscious Shade over my back. She was loosing a lot of blood. We were all loosing a lot of blood actually. I could feel my head grow lighter every second as the blood poured from my body.

Shade wasn’t very heavy, but I wasn’t a very strong pony. I struggled to maintain my balance with the new weight on my back and began trying to climb my way to the roof. Bullets slapped into the rubble around me as I darted upwards and latched my hoof around the edge of the hole. Four fillies quickly rushed to my aid and helped pull me up with them.

Now outside and on the roof, I had a clear view of the massive battle raging all around us. Hundreds of ponies charged and fired at each other while other lashed and cut with knives and blades. Fires raged around the darkening landscape, filling the air with a dark black and red smoke. Ponies were dying left and right, some dropping on the spot as a stray bullet blew out their brains while others lay screaming on the ground with broken limbs before someone finally put them out of their misery.

The artillery in the town hall wasn’t the only one either. Slavers wheeled large guns around and placed them at the end of long rows of buildings to prevent ponies from making a charge.

Off in the distance I could see large jets of fire spewing over large groups of Slavers as Pyre, Toffee and Boulder let a large group of ponies in a direct attack against the slavers.

It was chaos. That was the only word to properly describe it. I felt myself shaking more as I stared down at the endless bloodshed. There didn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason, simply a desperate attempt to kill as many ponies as you could.

Chestnut began racing across the room towards the hole. As she neared she jumped into the air, her hoof extending for the lip of the roof. Another bullet shot through her hind leg. She fell short, collapsing to the ground with a scream of pain.

“NO!” I scream, dropping Shade onto the roof and jumping back down to the floor below. Slavers shot at me as I wrapped my trembling hooves around Chestnut’s waist and began hauling her up the rubble. I felt her helping to crawl forwards on her aching limbs as we slowly made our way back up to the roof.

As soon as we had reached the roof I rolled off of her and tried to catch my breath. It was all to much.

“There they are! Get them!” A slaver yelled. A hatch farther down the roof slammed open as four slavers began pulling themselves up onto the roof with us. Still in a battle, no time to rest.

Feeling too weak to use my magic, I raised Boneless into the air with my mouth and fired. The shot ripped apart a slavers foreleg, sending him falling off of the roof and tumbling down where he hit the ground with a solid thunk.

“Next roof! Go! Go!” Chestnut urged, finally pulling herself up completely and ushering the foals towards a nearby roof they could jump to. I was amazed she still found the strength to stand after all of her injuries.

The foals began rushing towards the edge of the roof, leaping off at the last moment and landing heavily on the lower roof opposite them.

Following in Chestnut’s example, I pulled myself up and slung Shade over my back. I fired another shot at the slavers clamoring towards us. The targeted slaver jumped aside, avoiding the shot, but it gave Chestnut and I enough time retreat backwards and hop to the next roof as well.

The slavers baulked and started firing after us, their shots ripping holes in the adjacent buildings roof and shattering two hundred year old shingles.

“Keep going! Don’t stop!” Chestnut instructed, rushing the foals along the roof and onto the next. Slavers from down below were beginning to look up at the commotion and spot us, turning their weapons skywards and peppering us with fire.

I skidded across the roof as I tried to avoid a bullet, only to find myself slipping down the sharp incline, Shade's added weight dragging me down faster. My hooves clawed at the roof desperately as I felt myself start sliding down and losing my hoofing. Finally I managed to snag my hoof on a broken chunk of the roof and steady myself before rushing back across the roof after Chestnut and the foals. I could hear Shade trying to mumble something from my back, but either due to the blaring noises of the gunfight, or that she was simply too weak to speak coherently, I was unable to make out any of it.

Ponies on our side of the fight we starting to spot us as well, shifting their efforts to keeping the slavers off of us as we made a mad rush for the town prison. The gunfire around us lessened, but it didn’t let up entirely.

As I jumped the gap of a building after the foals I made out the shape prison. It seemed untouched so far compared to the wreck the battle had left most buildings in. It didn’t look like the battle had managed to make it there yet.

We were going to make it!

The roof behind us was blown apart as a slaver with a rocket launcher began firing up at us. I was almost knocked off my hooves at the roof started to collapse below me.

“Run!” I screamed, thrashing my back hooves and rushing forwards with a small burst of fear induced speed. As if telling them to run was going to make them run faster.

A second rocket slammed into the roof between me and the foals, separating me from the group. Chestnut turned back, holding out her hooves as if suggesting she’d catch me if I jumped. I waved her off. “Keep going! Get the foals to safety!”

Regardless of if she heard me over the battle, she seemed to understand what I was saying. I saw her yell something to me that I didn’t catch before darting after the foals to the prison. I hoped they could get into the Hellhound tunnel and out of the settlement safely. I glanced back at the limp form of Shade and my own bleeding body. Hell, I hoped I could get there safely, neither of us were in any condition to fight as we are now. We needed healing pronto.

The slaver with the rocket launcher fell to a bullet between the eyes, pulling the trigger of his huge weapon in his last seconds. A rocket flashed out towards us. I dropped through the broken hole in the roof from his previous attack and rolled over Shade to protect her with my body as the rocket detonated above our heads, sending debris raining down upon us. A large chunk of wood crashed down onto the back of my head, threatening to throw me into unconsciousness.

I pushed the debris aside and pulled myself to my unsteady hooves. With a groan of pain, I once again slung Shade over my back and pushed my way through the collapsing building. Each step sent a new wave of agonizing pain shooting through me.

Finally, I managed to stumble to the door and out into the street. A group of slavers rounded the corner of the street, yelling frantically and firing behind them as they rushed in my direction. One of the slavers spotted us, his gun spinning around to face me.

I yelped and started running towards the prison as fast as I could, which in my state wasn’t very fast. A felt the rapid whooshing of air as bullets flew past me as the slavers gave pursuit. Up ahead another group of slavers came running around the corner, guns raised and aimed at the two of us.

“Oh come on! Give me a break!” I screamed in frustration, dashing forwards and trying to make it to the prison before the slavers in front of me blocked it off. “Can I just have one thing go my way for once! JUST ONE!”

Something went my way. From behind the slavers emerged a large group of security ponies, their assault rifles cracking down on the slavers moving in to block my path. The slavers turned returning fire upon the greater threat as the security ponies gave me the opening I needed to escape. Slavers and Security ponies were dying everywhere, each second leading to a new pony to drop dead to the ground. It was all to much. Just to much...

I never saw who won that skirmish as I darted into the prison with Shade still limply draped over my back. As I bolted in, I saw Chestnut directing the last foal into the hole that led to the Hellhound tunnel below.

Chestnut looked up as I burst in her eyes going wide as she spotted something behind me. “Amber, down!” I dropped as her combat shotgun flew out, blasting the head off a slaver that had chased me in. She quickly gestured for me to get into the hole. “Come on!”

I rushed past her and dove into the hole, landing harshly on the rough rock tunnel floor. Picking myself up with a great deal of effort, I began my slow descent down the tunnel. I could sense Chestnut limping a few inches behind me, but my world was spinning so much I was having trouble staying awake.

“A-Amber,” I heard Shades weak voice stutter from atop my back. Her voice was frail and shaky. “W-Why?”

It took me a few seconds to clear my head enough to properly answer, or even fully comprehend the simple question. Why was I saving her after everything? everything would probably be easier for me if I had just left her to the mercy of the slavers back there. “Because you’re trying,” I finally grunted, almost falling over as the effort of talking almost made me loose my hoofing. “I don’t forgive you, I probably never will... but at least you’re trying.”

I could hear Shade gasp for breath a little as she tried to make her mouth form words. “Th…” She choughed, blood dripping from her mouth. “Thank you,” With that, she went limp on my back.

By the time I hauled Shade from the tunnel and into the embrace of the medical team on standby that immediately went to work on our wounds, I was so far beyond tired that I simply fell limp to the ground With Chestnut. I felt the doctors pick Shade up and whisk her off, mostly likely for some more serious treatment.

A medic in a Stable-Tec lab coat bent over me and pushed a healing potion to my lips. I felt the magical fluid drizzle down my throat and heal over most of my bleeding wounds. Beside me, I could see another doctor doing the same for Chestnut.

“F-Foals…” I groaned, trying to sit back up. The whole world seemed to be spinning and I was seeing double of everything.

“Yes, the foals are alright,” The medic said, gently pushing me back down. “They are safe now. So are you.”

Chestnut bolted upright, pushing herself into a sitting position. Her hooves lashed out and grabbed the doctor tending to her by the collar. “How’s the battle going! Are we winning!”

The doctor hesitated at her question. “Things are… not looking good. A gang of raiders we weren’t expecting joined the fight. I don’t know if anypony else is going to make it out of there alive.”

I suddenly felt very much awake, the drowsiness that had consumed me quickly getting washed away with fear. Brisk and Xayah were still in there! And that psycho was going after Pyre! By Chestnut’s widening eyes, I could tell similar fears were racing through her mind as well. “Give me another healing potion, and some chems if you have any,” Chestnut demanded, crawling to her hooves and raising her combat shotgun in her magic.

I pushed myself up, ignoring every scream my body made at the sheer effort of doing so. “I’m coming with you. I’ve got my own friends in there,” I said, putting on a brave face and trying not to show my fear.

The doctor shook their head, urgently trying to get us to sit back down. “There is no way I’m letting either of you run in there in your state. You hardly made it out as it is! You’d die if you went back in like this!,” They said, placing a hoof on Chestnut’s shoulder. She pushed the hoof aside. “I took an oath to do everything I could to keep ponies alive! I simply cannot let you do this!”

“Well I’m going in regardless!” Chestnut snapped, the strong, determined look I had come to know her for returning to her pale face. “My friends and family are down there… and so is Bomb Collar. I think I’ve been trying to escape from that monsters for long enough. If you want to keep to your oath, you’ll give us the healing I asked for to help us stay alive the best we can.”

I gave a strong nod in agreement. The doctor looked back and forth between the two of us, before sighing and pulling out medical supplies from their bag.

Chestnut and I raced down the Hellhound tunnel. Each step bringing us closer and closer to the raging battle ahead. As we drew closer, my senses were once again assaulted by the overload of sound and smells. Gunfire, screaming, explosions, the crackle of a dozen large fire. My nostrils filled with the rancid stench of rot and smoke.

I could still feel the tingling sensation of the three healing potions I had downed. Much of the aching and shooting pains in my hooves and chest were beginning to dissipate. The potions however had done little to remove the growing fatigue in my mind. For that we had each taken a tablet of Buck and a small dose of some other chem I hadn’t of heard before called Dash.

For the strangest reason, I felt great! Like I could take on the whole army of slavers by myself. Was this what Buck did? Was this how Brisk felt all the time? I could see why it was addicting. Granted, this could all be the Dash talking. I had no idea.

“Who was that slaver back in the town hall?” I asked as we raced along, finding running a lot easier than it should have been in my injured state. “You recognized him, didn’t you?”

Chestnut nodded, he pace not slowing. “Bomb Collar. He was my old slave master back in Filly. One of the old school Slavers from before Red Eye. Worked for a real monster I often heard about named Shackles.”

Sounded like somepony that needed to be stopped. For some weird reason, I found myself grinning from ear to ear. “Then let’s go and end that fucker!”

Chestnut gave me a grim, almost loopy smile in return. Yup, we were on way to many drugs.

We crawled our way out of the hole in the prison and made our way to the door. To my growing pleasure, I found that the fight I had left behind in my desperate run for the prison had been won by the security ponies, who now stood guard around the prison to ensure no slavers could get through the Hellhound tunnel and make it to the escaping slaves.

One of the security ponies turned to us, quickly giving us a one over before pointing towards a small barrier of sandbags they had set up. “There’s another group of slavers coming this way! Take that position and hold it. We need to last this out!” he ordered, raising his large assault carbine and preparing for the slavers to round the corner. The two of us quickly ducked behind the designated location. “If we can’t wait this one out we should be free to advance further into the settlement. It should take a few minutes before the Slavers will be able to launch a third-”

The first slaver rounded the corner before he could finish. In an instant, all the guns were up and firing at him as he sped towards us. Bullets ripped apart him limbs long before he had a chance to defend himselves.

“Steady! Here they come!” Another security pony yelled out. There was a tense moment of stillness while we waited for their approach. I could have sworn my heart almost stop several times in the span of a minute. Waiting in war seemed almost as deadly as the war itself.

Then the slavers burst from around the corner, their guns spewing a constant fire upon us as they charged. Our side returned fire, our shots tearing into them just as much as theirs tore into us. There was no dodging or diving for cover here. Simply a desperate rush and hope that you don’t get shot.

With my horn still suffering from the exertion of lifting the foals onto the roof, I fired shot after shot at a the slavers with Boneless clamped tight in my mouth. Twice I thought I had been shot, only to find that the blood splashing across my face belonged to somepony else.

Within a minute all the slavers lay dead, their broken and bloody bodies scattered across the street and soaking the scorched ground red. More than half of our platoon had been decimated, only the few that had been lucky enough to be at the back had survived. Chestnut placed her hoof over a a bullet wound on her shoulder that poured blood and applied pressure.

“Where are most of the slavers gathering!?” Chestnut called out, keeping her eyes fixed on the corner in case more slavers decided to ambush us.

The security pony we had first talked to now lay dead at my hooves, so another pony stepped forwards to answer. “Most ponies are gathering at the front gate! The diversion at the back wall failed. They had been waiting for us! The charge at the front is doing all they can to keep from falling back at the moment!” They yelled over the din of battle. Half of their words were completely drowned out by a sudden explosion in the distance, making me need to fill in a couple of the words with my mind.

“That’s where he’ll be!” Chestnut shouted to me, vaulting over the sandbags and starting moving towards the gate. “He’ll want to be leading the charge!”

Not bothering to question her, I rushed behind her to keep up as we raced through the war torn streets. Up ahead, a small group of slavers and security ponies shot at each other from the cover of two broken houses. We raced forwards, doing our best to evade being shot by either side as we pushed towards the main gate. I could see it up ahead. A large swarm of slavers and raiders pushed back against the slightly smaller group of ponies trying to force their way through the chokepoint. I could see the burst of flame as Pyre send anypony that got within range ablaze.

As we got closer a rain of fire started firing down on us from above. Chestnut and I ducked to the side, getting under cover as a squad of talon merc flew above us, their large anti-material rifles picking off anypony that seemed to be a threat. I even saw one griffon shoot one of their own slavers. I suppose in war you didn’t have time to take chances.

We pushed forward again, just barely dodging the massive explosion of a grenade as it detonated behind us, filling the air with dust and smoke. The sudden blast nearly knocked me off my hooves as I was sent sprawling forwards a few feet.

I skidded to a stop in front of a surprised raider, swinging my baton out and sending him crashing to the ground. I saw Chestnut do something similar, her combat shotgun already drawn and sending buckshot into two raiders from behind.

“Well well! Look who decided to join the party!” I head Pyre shout over the madness around us. Despite what she said, her face and tone of voice were as serious as ever. “Welcome to the real fight Amber!”

Pyre jumped to the side as a raider plowed towards her. Her hind hoof lashed out, catching the raider across the face and throwing them with a strength I didn’t realize Pyre possessed outside of her power armour back into the oncoming slavers. Her flamers roared and set another slaver on fire as he tried to shoot down a weaponless security pony.

Beside her stood Boulder, his face as stoic and grim as ever. His massive battle saddle mounted mini gun let loose a constant fire upon the slavers and raiders. Any that dared to get close to him were met with a powerful swing of his sledgehammer. Somewhere behind them, Toffee blasted at slavers and raiders alike with her shotgun while she organized the troops into some form of attack.

A raider leapt at me, a massive serrated machete clenched in it’s mouth and swinging for my neck. The near silent shot of Xayah’s sniper somewhere above us shot a bullet straight through the raiders brain, making him fall short and collapse at my hooves.

I looked up, I spotting Xayah, Brisk and one other pony as they tried to secure one of the tower walls around the settlement as a wave of slavers rushed towards them.

Even through all of this, Xayah was looking out for me. I could find an odd comfort in that.

We were being surrounded on all sides, overpowered at every move. We were outnumbered, out gunned and our attack plan was failing. We needed to end this! We needed to cut the head of the snake!

“Push then back!” I heard the booming voice of Bomb Collar ring out over the chaos. From the way Chestnut locked up, I could tell she heard him too.

I gave her a quick nod. “Let's finish this!”

We rushed through the violence towards the commanding sound of his voice. Every few seconds we were needing to backtrack and take a new route as the one we were currently taking either collapsed into rubble or was consumed by never ending violence.

At last we saw him. The massive slaver towered over most of the combatants on the battlefield, his thick combat armour deflecting a majority of the bullets that came his way. Every few seconds his shotgun would fire off a round, more often than not hitting his targets with a deadly accuracy a shotgun shouldn’t possess. Five slavers surrounded him protectively, making sure he had cover from all sides as he commanded the small slaver army in the attack.

I could see a rage building up in Chestnut as she strode towards him. Her shotgun raised and leveled with the huge slavers head. “Bomb Collar!” She yelled out, drawing his attention to her.

The moment his eyes landed on the smaller pony, Bomb Collar's face broke into a huge grin. “Well if it ain’t the little slave gal that thought she could get away from Fillydelphia! How’s that working out for you!” He bellowed, gesturing to the violence around us. He seemed to be relishing every second of the mayhem. “I told you back when you were my slave that you could never escape. Everypony ends up back in Fillydelphia somehow!” he gestured for his guards to advance and pointed a hoof at Chestnut. “Bring her to me! I want that one in chains!”

I rushed to go help her, only for five raiders to slam into me from the side, each one of them welding a jagged and rusty knife in either their mouth or magic. I rolled to the side as they swung their blades at me.

A shot from Xayah up above sent one of the raiders flying backwards, their chest spewing blood from the brutal gunshot wound.

The rest of the raiders pounced, lashing at me with hooves and blades. I rolled aside again and jumped to my hooves, the effects of the Buck and Dash allowing me to move far faster than I ever had before. But these raiders were merciless and relentless, these were las Pegasus raiders. When fighting them, you don’t get time to rest. Each and every second seemed to be marked by another attack, as they pushed in on me.

Boneless fired two shots, emptying the gun into one of the raiders head. I popped my gun open and backpedaled trying to give myself time to reload as the raiders moved in. I was starting to run low on ammo too, only ten shots left before I had to rely only on my baton alone. And in a firefight of this scale, I didn’t like the idea of that.

I had better make these shots count.

With Boneless now loaded to full capacity, I jumped into SATS and targeted each of the three remaining raiders head. The SATS spell ended and Boneless roared forth. The first two raiders were blasted open, the third ducked to the side, having a few seconds to realize what was happening.

The dodge saved him from my attack, but it didn’t save him.

A tall beige stallion with a long brown coat and wide brimmed fedora atop his head fired a shot from his .44 revolver beside me. The last raiders head was blown open as the stranger shot him down with terrifying accuracy.

I turned in shock to the strange appearance of the mysterious figure. “You again! How did you-” He gave me a small wink and tip of his wide brimmed hat and he was gone. I blinked, not sure what the hell had just happened.

Turning back, I saw Chestnut engaged in a bloody hoof to hoof combat with Bomb Collar, three of his guards laying broken and brutalized on the ground. I couldn't tell what happened to the other two through all the chaos. Both of their shotguns lay a few feet away where they had dropped them, either knocked away during combat or simply tossed aside to engage themselves in the much more personal fight. Regardless of Chestnuts determination and will to kill the one who had hurt her, she was constantly being beaten down by his sheer size and power and he pummelled into her. One massive Amber Aura sized hoof raised up and slammed down on Chestnut’s head, sending her sprawling to the ground before the great slaver.

I screamed and rushed forwards, shoving my horn upwards, it’s sharp tip jabbing into Bomb Collars underbelly. The force of the attack sent a shock shooting through my body as my horn threatened to get rammed into my skull from the impact. Bomb Collar roared and slammed me across the chest with one of his huge hooves, sending me flying back and crashing into a group of security ponies.

I hauled myself back up, my hooves feeling heavy as I tried to rush the slaver again. Clearly the effects of the Buck and Dash were wearing off. Glancing down at my body, I realized it was less the decline in effect of the chems and more how broken my body truly was. I was bleeding everywhere from a multitude of wounds I didn’t even know I had received. If anything the chems were the only thing still keeping me from collapsing on the spot.

Bomb Collar turned to face me, his grin still etched across his face as his eyes rolled over the desolation around us. He raised his shotgun and prepared for my charge.

Chestnut beat me to it, pulling herself from the ground and flying at the huge slaver with a flurry of hooves. Bomb Collar whirled with surprise, batting her attacks aside with his hooves as she tried to pummel him into the ground.

I charged again, using all of my strength to swing my baton at his head. The black shock baton collided with his noggin, sending a bolt of electricity pulsing through his body. His whole form went rigid for a moment, before he shook himself out of the shock and sent the back of his hoof crashing into my chest.

I was flung back, my whole body spinning end over end as all the air was thrown from my lungs. My head smashed into the thick stone wall of a collapsing structure and all went dark.

The world I woke up in wasn’t much better than the one I had just left. I found myself in a small enclosed metal chamber, with the only exit being a rusted yet sturdy looking barred door leading further into whatever building this was. Even inside, the air was tinged a crimson red.

Below me I could see the forms of Crank and Scarlet tight in each others embrace, each one of them wrapped in bandages from the numerous wounds they received from Red Eye’s slavers. I could relate with them with that.

“What are they going to do?” Scarlet asked, her voice betraying much of the worry that she felt. “I can stay in here for the two years, find a different way out. This can’t be the only way!” her worry was slowly turning into panic.

Crank raised his hoof and ran it down her long matted mane. “It’s going to be alright, you’ll be safe.”

Scarlet pushed him back a little. “It’s not supposed to just be me! It’s supposed to be both of us! We are supposed to do everything together!” she protested. “Stop just trying to protect me and think about yourself for once. Just once! Please…”

Crank simply shook his head and continued running a hoof down her mane as she shivered and cried into his shoulder. “It’s going to be okay,” He repeated in his deep voice. “I’ll do what they need me for, and when I’m done, I’ll come and find you. I’ll get you through this.”

He sobs were becoming uncontrollable. “But I need you! I- I can’t do this without you…”

Crank simply nodded and lifted her chin before gently placing a kiss upon her lips. For a short, near magical moment, Scarlets sobbing subsided.

Heavy hoofsteps echoed down the hall towards their cell. The both looked up as a group of twenty slavers approached them. Red Eye was taking no chances here. “It’s time,” One of the slavers grunted, pulling aside the door and gesturing for Crank to follow them.

Crank stood, standing protectively over Scarlet for a moment before taking a shaky step forwards. He was scared. More scared than he had been in his whole life. And yet he still walked forwards. Scarlet wailed and threw her hooves around his as he moved towards the slavers. “No! I won’t let you take him!”

“Scarlet, please,” Crank soothed, his hoof lifting up her chin once again. “Be strong for me. It will all be alright in the end. I promise.”

Scarlet sniffed, taking a small step back and nodding. “You come back to me you hear. Please goddesses come back to me.”

Crank nodded, giving her a warm smile. “I will... I love you.”

Then he walked away to join the slavers, glancing back only once as they pulled him away towards a fate he could never properly comprehend.

I was violently thrown back into the waking world as a grenade detonated a few feet from me, showering me in shrapnel and sending my near limp body flying across the battleground.

I pushed myself up, spitting out the ash and dust that had accumulated in my mouth and quickly jumped aside as the body of a security pony fell dead next to me. I looked around trying to make sense of the world around me. Everything seemed to be spinning and a loud ringing noise attacked my ears.

Pyre Blaze rushed past me, her flamers spewing fire as she tried to buck three raiders that had leapt onto he off. I saw a stray bullet pierce Boulders thick armour, the large stallion dropping dead to the ground without so much as a final word to join the building pile of corpses. Something fell from above me, a griffon’s body perhaps? I didn't have time to check as it was covered by more blood and corpses.

Another explosion launched me into the air, sending my already turned around sense of direction into even more disarray. I slammed against a slaver, knocking him down as I landed. Ponies were dying all around me. I couldn’t even tell who was who any more. They all just seemed to be moving blobs in a fuzzy world.

But I could make out one shape. The large form of a slaver looming over everypony else as they bashed his hooves down against a small unicorn again and again. the mare cried out, her face bloody and broken almost beyond recognition. Bomb Collar!

Pushing through my dizziness with the last bit of strength I had I rushed at him, my horn glowing with amber light as the last bit of magic I had left in me went into raising Boneless and firing. The buckshot ricochet off of his armour and staggered the huge slaver, but doing little more than that. He glared up at me, hatred in his eyes.

That was all the time Chestnut needed. With her own last bout of magic, she raised her combat shotgun and placed it against the huge slavers chin. Bomb Collars eyes went wide as he felt the cold end of the gun barrel press against his head. “I’m never being your slave again!” Chestnut roared defiantly, her combat shotgun firing all seven rounds into the slavers head.

Bomb Collar exploded much like his name suggests he should. His head burst open in a shower of blood and guts as the seven explosive rounds ripped through his coat, flesh, skull and brain. His huge body stayed up right for a moment, swaying slightly as if some part of him was still struggling to keep fighting, even after death before crashing unceremoniously to the ground.

The whole slavers army paused for a second as they watched their leader fall, a sudden wave of panic washed over them as they realized they were without command. Pyre’s vicious onslaught against them never slowed, even as they did. She charged forwards, taking advantage of the temporary shock and completely flipping the tides of the battle.

Under Pyre and Toffee’s charge, our forces pushed forward against the slavers. Where once the slavers had been pushing them back and wearing them down, they were now being pushed back themselves farther and farther into the center of the city.

From my spot on the ground, I lay and watch the battle begin to change in our favour. I was far too tired and broken to move or contribute. I simply lay and watched with blurry and slowly darkening eyes, my part in this battle was over.

As I watched, a massive yell of rage bellowed out from behind the slavers lines. Bursting from the doors of the prison, the freed slaves charged forth, now fully healed and armed to the teeth with weapons. they had come to join the fight, either to protect those they loved or for simply revenge.

Up above, I heard a massive cheer as Brisk and Xayah took complete control of the cities outer wall. security ponies and Hollow Shades citizens alike swarmed across the length of the wall, sending a rain of fire down upon the remaining slavers.

The slavers panicked as angry ponies flooded towards them from all sides. We had gone from being out gunned to outgunning them.

Pyre’s flames wrecked massive damage amongst the slavers as they tried to get away. Every attempt to shoot down the flaming raider failed as she proved too fast without being slowed by her normal heavy armour.

As long as Pyre stood leading the charge, we couldn't fall. we kept advancing forwards, each and every step bringing a look of hope and victory to the faces of our forces… and then the impossible happened.

Pyre fell.

A whirlwind of cream, pink and blue slammed into her, sending Pyre flying back and crashing straight through the wall of a crumbling building.

From all around us, bloody raiders surged in. They had never joined up with the slavers proper. They had been waiting behind walls and in buildings while they waited for their leader to make the first real move of the battle. With Bomb Collar now dead and the slaves now freed, the raiders had little use left for the slavers as they closed in on and slaughtered both armies alike.

Just like that, we were outnumbered again. But this time, it was by more than a few. the raiders outnumbered all of us by the hundreds. The amount of raiders spilling into the city were beyond that of either of our armies put together. They had planned this from the beginning, and they had played us all for fools.

The deranged raider mare rose from where she had landed, waltzing around Pyre as she tried to slowly climb back to her hooves as well. Pyre never got the chance to stand as the mare kicked her across the chest and sent my friend stumbling back to the ground.

The raider mare laughed, circling Pyre again and placing her hoof over her throat. I wanted to scream as I saw the razor sharp Hellhound claws digging into Pyre’s flesh. without her armour, those Hellhound claws could easily rip her apart! “Did you really think you could actually escape us Blazy?” The mare cooed resting her chin on her hoof as she pushed down on Pyre’s throat more. “You don’t get to leave the Las Pegasus raiders! Nono! Well you can’t run anymore now, can you!”

She raised her hoof again and lashed Pyre across the side, three large gouge marks being ripped open on her coat from the attack.

Xayah shot down at the raider, but somehow the mare reacted with more than enough time to easily step away. She glared up at Xayah with hatred. “This is between me and this traitor! Stay out of this!”

She turned and launched onto Pyre again both her hoof claws extended to rip Pyre open. Pyre rolled away with just enough time to avoid getting raked in two, but not enough to completely dodge the attack as three deep cuts were ripped open across her back.

Painfully, Pyre pulled herself to her hooves, thick hot blood pouring over her body. Both her flamers had fallen off of her, leaving her completely defenceless. “Fucking hell Viscera! This has gotta be the single worst fucking time!” Pyre groaned, taking a small step away from the bloody raider. “Can we do this some other time please?”

Viscera hissed at her, her long Hellhound claws scraping large grooves into the ground. I thought she was going to lunge again, but instead her eyes widened as if she were actually seeing Pyre standing in front of her for the first time. She stared at her for a moment, her mouth slightly a gape before leaning her head back and roaring at the sky. “Cunts!” It wasn’t directed at anypony in particular, simply a curse to the goddesses above. “Pussy fucking damn fucking shit! Fuck me hard! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” She screamed, stomping up and down like a filly having a tantrum. Her hoof claws started flailing around her madly and ripping up anything she could, the ground, the walls, an unfortunate raider that was too close. She turned back and glared at Pyre with loothful eyes. “Where is your fucking clit fucking armour you bitch fucking cum guzzling slut!”

Everypony took a nervous step back at the stream of expletives that were bursting from her mouth. Even Pyre’s mouth dropped open at the excessive profanities spewing towards her. “Uh… it’s broken. I was getting it… um… repaired…” I had never seen Pyre so lost for words. A smug look quickly crossed her face as she stared Viscera down. "Ha! I bet that fucks up your plan a bit, huh?"

Viscera glared at her for a moment, before righening herself and giving off a warm smile. “Okay! That’s fine! I can work with this. I CAN! It’s all okay,” She trotted over, once again dancing to a song I was beginning to guess was some sort of voice in her head and wiggling her rump. She approached Pyre slowly, her tail running along Pyre’s chin and flicking her cheek. “It’s all good, really! I should have told you I was coming! Honestly, what kind of guest am I? I’ll come back when you’re all your best, I want this to be a fight for the ages!” she turned to look at the rest of her raiders that had gathered around and gave them all a sweet smile. “Let’s make this fight a little funky, what do you all think? Kill the rest of the slavers would you dears? We’ll let Pyre and her friends off this time.”

The raiders looked around at each other, clearly confused, but they weren’t going to miss the opportunity to rip into pony flesh. They swarmed in on the slavers, ripping the remains of their forces to shreds with their teeth and blades. The security ponies stumbled back to evade the attack, but the raiders kept true to their orders and only tore into the slavers.

Viscera turned back to Pyre giving her a warm smile before launching herself forward and pinning Pyre to the ground, her hoof pushing down on her head. Viscera’s kind tone and mannerisms reverted to an animalistic snarl. “But I’ll be coming back for you Blazy, and this time you’ve had your warning to prepare!” Viscera sneered, her hoof claws digging into the flesh on Pyre’s scalp, making her yelp. “Until then I’m going to be leaving you with a little gift, to make sure you don’t forget where you came from and who's coming after you you whore!”

Viscera’s hoof claws slashed down Pyre’s face tearing three massive claw marks down her front and ripping out large chunks of her mane. Pyre screamed, her hooves flailing as Viscera stepped over her and waltzed back towards the gate, her hoof lashing out one last time and slicing the throat of a cowering security pony.

With the slavers now in bloody tatters around the city, the raider scurried after her, their coats and mouths soaked in the blood of their kills.

Pyre struggled to pull herself up before collapsing back to the ground, blood spilling across her mutilated face. she lay their limp, her chest barely moving as she blacked out.

I looked around through hazy vision at the scene around me. We had taken the city, freed the slaves and beaten the slavers. This had been a victory… so why did it feel like we lost...

The day that followed was about as dreary and miserable as one might have expected. Many of the survivors spent the day pulling the broken bodies of their loved ones from the rubble and carrying them out to be buried in the cemetery outside the city walls. The corpses of the slavers and raiders were unceremoniously tossed into a pile and set aflame. There was no mourning or final rights for them.

The wounded, myself included, were rushed to the broken down remains of the hospital. Medics both from Stable 44 and the survivors of the Hollow Shade massacre as it was coming to be known worked tirelessly over the bleeding and crying ponies.

It wasn’t until much later in the day when the sun had almost dropped below the skyline that I was allowed to leave the hospital. I had been beaten pretty bad in the fight, but I had been among the lucky ones. Save for severe blood loss and a minor concussion, I had come out relatively alright. One of the doctors confessed to wanting to keep me longer, but there were more dire patents that needed attention. The hospital was overcrowded as it was anyway, I was more than happy to give up my bed to someone more deserving. I really didn't deserve the healing as it was, not after all that I had done.

Upon release from the hospital, a massive worry that had been building up over the course of the day was extinguished. I found Brisk and Xayah alive and well. They were waiting for me outside the hospital anxiously as I limped my way out. I rushed forwards and wrapped them both in a tight hug, wishing I never had to let go of them again. These past few days had been far more than I could handle.

"Glad to see you're alright sis," Brisk said with a short and pained laugh. His right fore hoof had been wrapped in a thick wad of bandages. Xayah gave a grateful nod of agreement, pulling tighter into our embrace

Even Pyre and my Hellhound seemed to have come out relatively okay. Pyre had received three huge blistering scars down the front of her face from Viscera’s last attack. She seemed quieter and more reserved than she normally did, only responding in short and quick answers when addressed, otherwise she was silent.

Even Chestnut and Shade seemed to be recovering slowly, but the doctors insisted they keep Shade in the hospital at least until tomorrow morning for a full recovery.

Not an hour after I had left the hospital, a messenger found us and told us Toffee wished to see us all in the town hall.

The town hall had been cleaned up a little. The bloody bodies of the slavers Chestnut and I had killed had been removed and a small memorial had been erected where the young colt had been torn apart by the slavers heavy artillery gun. Most of the rubble and debris remained scattered across the floor, making the structure look like nothing more than a collapsing and gutted structure like every other in the wasteland.

Toffee stood in the middle of the room, her back turned to us as she surveyed the numerous bullet holes that peppered the walls.

“I’m sorry Boulder didn’t make it out of the fight,” I said cautiously as the four of us walked in to meet her. “He was a good pony.”

Toffee sniffed. “A lot of good ponies died today, many of them were close friends of mine. Boulder was only one of the many that I lost,” She said sadly, whipping a tear away and turning to face us. “But I didn’t call ya'll here t' mourn those we lost. There will be plenty of time for that in the days to come. You four have helped us here at the Hollow Shades far more than I could have expected. I really lucked out running in t' you ponies,” she reached into her saddle bag and pulled out a large stash of caps and hoofed it over to me.

I took the cap stash. It was much heavier than I had expected. “How-how much is this?” I asked, trying to weigh the amount. it was more than I currently had, that much was for sure.

“Two Hundred caps,” Toffee said flatly.

My mouth dropped. “Two- two hundred caps!” I exclaimed, unsure whether I was really worthy of taking such a large reward. “We didn’t do this for caps!”

Toffee nodded. “I know, but I’m givin' them t' ya anyway. The wasteland needs more ponies like you. Maybe these will help ya live a little longer out there fer the rest of us.”

I blushed at the compliment. I could see Brisk and Pyre staring at the cap stash in awe. “Thank you… I don’t know what to say.”

Toffee waved my thanks off. “Hold yer horses, I got more for ya,” She reached back into her saddle bag and pulled out a large leather tome. My heart skipped a beat. A Big Book of Science! I had always wanted to read it! “Purity saw your interest in this book back in the Stable, she wanted to give it t' you as a thanks.”

I greedily snatched the book up and hugged it tightly. Perhaps some good might actually come out of this horrid day. "Thank you! Thankyouthankyouthankyou!

Toffee face softened for a second. Then her expression stiffened, her face growing more grim. “There is one more thing as well. Don’t you go thinkin' I went and forgot about our original agreement,” I was suddenly very, very interested. I looked up from the book to meet her steady gaze. “I went askin’ ‘round about this Kamari bloke ya’ll were looking for. Just kept running into a bunch of dead ends at first. But then I found somepony that spotted a group of zebra’s passing through the Hollow Shades 'bout five days back. Said they overheard them mention this Kamari figure.”

That was it! Those must have been the zebra’s Kamari had sent to attack Stable 25 with Inferno! “Where! What did they say?” I demanded, my grip tightening on the Big Book of Science.

Toffee gulped and looked me dead in the eye. “They said they had just come from over the area that we here refer to as the Glowin’ Sea,” Toffee paused, looking around at the four of us. “Said they came from the Ministry of Arcane Science.”

Footnote: level up.
New perk: Fast Metabolism -- +20% hit points restored with healing potions

Author's Note

Holy, this chapter took forever to write! Constant combat like that can be tricky. Sorry it took so long, hopefully it was worth the wait and that the next one will be out sooner! Thanks for reading and have a good day.

Fallout: Equestria belongs to Kkat

Chapter XV: Memoirs of Twilight Sparkle Part: 1

“In the Capital Wasteland. Seek a place called Dunwich. Within is an obelisk, itself a wicked thing.”

Annihilation.

Two hundred years ago, the world of Equestria had been obliterated by war and balefire. What remained after the years of bloodshed and hatred was a desolite husk of what the world had once been, a grim shadow of pony kind. But despite everything, the remnants of ponies emerged from below the crumbling and radioactive surface to once again reclaimed the ruin of Equestria. Settlements had been built, gangs, tribes and communities had been formed, even a form of economy had found its way back into the new world. In many ways it was beautiful; the endurance of civilization, assuming you could look past all the death, violence and misery.

But the Glowing Sea was nothing like that. The bombed, radioactive wastes of the glowing sea held no life, no signs of civilization, and no hope of ever returning to the ways of the old world. It was a peeling scab on the surface of the planet, a festering wound that would never truly heal. Its annihilation was total and absolute.

Dunes upon barren dunes of ash and cracked rock stretched out before me as far as the eye could see. The few trees that littered the desolite expanse were little more than charred and shriveled corpses with gnarled, skeletal branches. We passed the remains of an old pre war house, nothing but the crooked and unhinged front door remained. What did remain however, were skeletons.

There were hundreds of skeletons scattered across the glowing sea, many of them half buried in the radioactive ground. A few corpses still remained standing, the speed in which the balefire had descended down upon them leaving an almost statue-like remains of a pony, preserving their final seconds forever. They seemed to have died running, their faces twisted into an eternal scream.

It was death on a scale grander than any other. Complete annihilation.

Off in the distance, I could see the looming monolith like tower of the Ministry of Arcane Science. The towers smooth, black walls towered far above us even from this distance, making me feel small and insignificant before it. The thick green atmosphere gave the whole structure an even more sinister and imposing look. It felt… wrong… Like a sickening thing that wasn’t quite of our world.

We had hit the Glowing Sea like a wall. One minute we had been walking through the empty outskirts of the Hollow Shades, the sky no different than it usually was. Then, as if at the flip of a switch, the air turned thick and grim, clouding our view and obscuring most everything around us. The dead ground gave way to charred rocks and ash mixed with the occasional glowing pool of radiation and almost immediately my pipbuck began click click clicking as it warned me of lethal levels of rads in the air. Even with rad-x pumping through me and a hazmat suit tightly fitted over my body, I feared the radiation would melt me into a puddle on the spot.

Brisk and Pyre had returned from Stable 44 the night before with far more supplies than I had been expecting. Aside from Pyre’s now repaired power armour and a large stash of radaway and rad-x as we had planned, they had come carrying four bright yellow hazmat suits. The sight of them gave me a few moments of relief before realizing it meant I would have to cross the Glowing Sea without any real protective barding.

We had also gotten some ammo from the Stable as well, each one of us getting ten more shots for our guns respectively. It would have been nice to get more, but after the Hollow Shades Massacre, it was all Stable 44 was able to spare. I didn’t want to take too much ammo from them anyway, the last thing I wanted was for them to be unprepared if Red Eye decided to send more slavers to secure the location again.

My thoughts turned to the slaver forces of Fillydelphia as we moved along the uneven and rocky ground of the Glowing Sea. Even they had seemed confused by Red Eye’s decision to take the Hollow Shades. The settlement was simply too far out from any location of interest to be of any real tactical value to him. I had no doubt in my mind that Red Eye was less interested in the Hollow Shades, but rather who he might encounter in the desolation around it.

Red Eye was interested in getting his hooves on the A.A.S.S. Or at least somepony working with him did. If Kamari had it, then Red Eye would be coming here to get it. And I wasn’t going to let him do that.

Shade walked a few steps behind me, her head held low as she stumbled over the rough terrain in her baggy hazmat suit.

The doctors had released her from the hospital early in the morning, saying they needed more space for the more injured patients. Shade had healed enough that she was able to move with relative ease, though I could tell from her slow shaky limp that she was still in a fair amount of pain after the fight. She hadn’t complained once though, she probably didn’t feel like she deserved healing anyway after what she had done to our Stable.

Upon release, Shade had immediately requested to accompany us to the Ministry of Arcane Science hub. I had been sceptical to let her join at first, having no real interest in seeing her any more than I had to, but Brisk had convinced me that it was best to let her tag along. At the very least I could let her try to atone for what she had done. Not that I ever thought she would be able to.

The rest of my friends walked in front of me, their weapons drawn as they moved through the radioactive haze. The strong light on Pyre’s helmet illuminated most of the area before us, cutting through the thick green cloud like a knife.

Much like Shade, Pyre had remained almost completely silent as we walked. Even through her heavy armour, I could see her slumped back and defeated look. Whomever this Viscera was had really gotten under her skin. The large claw marks that raced down her face as a constant reminder of their fight no doubt added to emotional baggage she was clearly trying to suppress.

I trotted up to her and gave her a small tap on the shoulder to alert her of my presence in the gloomy fog. To my suprise, she jumped slightly. I don’t think I had ever seen Pyre Blaze so jumpy.

“Hey, you doing alright?” I asked, trying to keep my voice low enough that the rest of our party didn’t hear. I could see my Hellhounds ear twitch at my voice, but I wasn’t overly concerned about it over hearing. “You haven’t seemed yourself lately.”

Glancing away from me, Pyre looked out at the dunes of ash around us. “I’m fine. Just a little shaken. I’ll be able to fight,” she grunted, her voice betraying the embarrassment she must have felt from jumping at my touch.

I raised my eyebrow at her, before realising she wouldn’t be able to see it through the tinted dome of my hazmat suit. “I’m not worried about if you can fight, I’m making sure you’re okay,” I said flatly, trying to comfort her slightly with… whatever it was she was going through.

Pyre scoffed, not bothering herself to look back at me. “I’m in this group ‘cause I can fight Amber, don't try to pretend like I’m one of your friends. I said I can fight, so I’ll be fine.”

“We are friends,” I interjected, slightly taken aback by her statement. “I thought we had established that already?”

All I got was a small snort in return. Pyre glanced over at Brisk and Xayah as they bickered back and forth. “We aren’t friends like you three are friends. I’m here because I need you and you need me. Mutual benefit,” she started walking ahead faster, leaving me behind a little.

I quickened my pace to try and stay beside her. “But what about what we said back in Stable 25?”

Pyre simply snorted again and tried to push forwards. “That was then, this is now. I’ve been trying to run from my past, but Viscera made it very clear that I’m not escaping it anytime soon. So until then, I’m just here because y’all are of use to me,” She glanced back at Brisk and Xayah, I could see her gaze hold on Brisk for a few seconds longer. “Besides, the rest of your little troop aren’t as accepting as you have been.”

She finally managed to walk at a pace fast enough that I ended up tripping to try and keep pace. I fell and landed flat on my face. I groaned as I pulled myself up and brushed the ash of the hazmat suit. It was stuffy enough in this suit as it was, I didn’t need to go adding to the discomfort.

I felt Shade rush up to me and help brush off the ash. “You okay?” She uttered, trying to help me as best she could. I pushed her back slightly, probably a little harder than I should have.

“I’m fine, it’s just ash.”

Turning away from her, I focused on my Pipbuck that had been clamped tightly over the outside of my hazmat suit. I shuffled through my different audio files until I came across the one I wanted. It had been a while since I listened to one of SIlver Ace’s recordings and I was anxious to find out more about this Utopia program he kept mentioning. Not to mention how it might be connected to the A.A.S.S.

For a second, the recording held little more than static. Slowly, I began to make out the slow, quiet breaths of what sounded like an elder pony. “I don’t know where to start…” The sad voice of Silver Ace spoke. His voice was low and reflective. He sounded a lot older than he had in the other recordings. He sighed and I could hear him shifting uncomfortably in his seat. “...Maud Pie died earlier today. She was helping the Ministry of Image with some gem studies in creating stealth technology here in Manehattan. Apparently some zebra sympathisers caught wind of it and got word to the zebras. Pinkie’s... well, Pinkie’s furious…”

I could hear him sigh again. There was a long pause as he tried to figure out exactly what to say next. “The MOM is cracking down on ponies even more than they used to. I don’t think half of the ponies their accusing are even sympathisers. This war is causing us too much… there’s so much damn hatred,” He stopped again, his breath catching slightly. I could tell he was crying. “I was so certain I could stop all of this… the war… make everything okay between ponies and zebras… Fuck… Why did it have to come to this… This hadn’t been the plan... I just wish there was another way…”

The recording cut out, leaving me alone with my thoughts. I didn’t know who this Maud Pie was, but she must have been close to Pinkie somehow. I had heard horror stories of what the Ministry of Moral had done back during the war, that must have only made it so much worse.

No new news about that Utopia thing though…

I reached down to play another recording when my eyes landed on my Hellhound up ahead. They had frozen in place and were crouched down into a battle position. I checked my EFS, trying to spot whatever it was my Hellhound sensed. Nothing.

Of course they were no red bar on my EFS, this was the Hollow Shades. Monsters were tougher and EFS was useless.

Everypony else seemed to notice my Hellhound and I’s stance. They quickly silenced themselves and started looking around, waiting for something to emerge from the thick fog. Shade, being the least experienced of all of us, cowered behind me with her pistol drawn and swiveling around in her magic frantically as she tried to see whatever was coming.

“Amber, what do you see?” Xayah asked, her sniper swinging around to face a direction that no one else was facing yet. Clearly they assumed I had spotted it myself.

“No clue,” I grunted, turning to face my Hellhound. “Find it,” I ordered, keeping Boneless up and ready.

Slowly, the Hellhound pushed forwards, his nose sniffing the air every few seconds as it tried to pinpoint whatever it was. Then it froze, it’s eyes locked on something in the distance. I turned to see what it was and froze myself.

Something huge was coming towards us, its size comparable to that of the monsters we had fought below the surface. A large cloud of ash and dust was being kicked up into the air around it, making it nearly impossible to make out. Its huge scaled and serpent-like body was so wide and tall I could have mistaken it for a large hill had it not been darting towards us with terrifying speed. Through the green haze, I could see a massive maw the size of a small house filled with swirling, jagged fangs.

Smaller creatures were slowly rising from the ash around it as it advanced, their twisted and rotting forms somewhat resembling that of a pony. The smaller ghoul-like creatures that rushed forwards didn’t seem to have normal pony heads however. Instead, a large gaping mouth reminiscent of the large creature snapped and oozed from the stump of their necks.

I could see Pyre take a few horrified steps back. “Holy fucking shit!” She cried, her flamers whirring to life. “Run! Run fucking now!” she spun on the spot and began galloping as fast as she could from the creature and towards the looming black spire ahead of us.

Not waiting for a second longer, the rest of us jumped into action, spinning on our hooves and rushing after her. I heard Brisk fire two shots behind us at the onslaught of creatures, but they seemed to take the bullets like they were nothing and kept charging.

“What the hell is that thing!” Brisk screamed as he raced ahead of me next to Pyre.

“A fucking tatzelwurm!” She screamed back between heavy breaths. “I thought they were a fucking myth!”

The huge tatzelwurm was gaining on us. With each step we took it seemed to only grow larger and larger. I could feel the ground vibrating under its slithering movements. From around us, more pony-like creatures were crawling from the ashes. Their rotting bodies stripped of their once beautiful coat and missing bits of flesh to reveal the strange warped green bone underneath.

I gulped as I saw one of the skeletons we had been passing start to writhe and pull itself from the ground. I had been told Kamari might be meddling with necromancy, now I had my confirmation.

There was an ear piercing shriek from behind us and the deafening sound of the earth being ripped apart. I glanced behind me with just enough time to spot the huge form of the tatzelwurm dive below the surface.

Shit! This thing could burrow!

One of the zombie-like ponies slammed into me, knocking me from my hooves and sending me sprawling across the charred rocks. The sudden horrifying realization that if their attacks ripped my hazmat suit I would die of radiation poisoning in seconds flashed through my mind. I scrambled back to my hooves and leapt to the side as another zombie lurched at me, doing my best to evade any and all attacks.

This wasn’t a fight we could win, we simply had to run!

I swung Boneless through the air and shoved it’s three barrels down the zombies throat. One shot of buckshot obliterated its maw like head, sending bits of glowing viscera flying everywhere. Almost instantly, I saw the thick radioactive air surge through the zombie’s wound and pull it’s head back together. Not even Crank’s impressive regeneration could match up to this.

I pushed off from the ground and darted towards my friends as a horde of zombies clawed their way from the surface and charged me. I felt one of their large mouths clamp tightly around my back hoof, making me stumble again.

Before their sharp fangs could rip at my hazmat suit, Pyre Blaze leapt over me and crushed the creature flat with her powerful hooves. Her flamers blasted out behind me, setting my pursuers alight with flame.

I managed to pull myself away from the still squirming zombies grasp as it began pulling itself back together around Pyre’s hoof.

Pyre looked down too late as the zombie completely reformed, her hoof still embedded in it’s head. The creature's teeth sank into her leg, bending the armour and sending jagged pieces of metal crushing into Pyre’s hoof. By some miracle, the armour itself didn’t seem to get any holes in it.

Brisk pulled up next to us, his baseball bat clamped tight in his mouth as he swung it down and once again burst open the zombies head. Pyre pulled her hoof back the second it was free, using her free hoof to push us away as two more zombie things lashed at us with their gnarled hooves.

“Come! We must flee!” I heard Xayah yelled from ahead of us, her voice missing the normal enchanting rhythm and replaced by a pressing fear. “We are almost at the-”

The rest of her sentence was drowned out as the huge tatzelwurm broke the surface before her, cutting off our path to the Ministry of Arcane Science hub. A massive cloud of ash and rock billowed out around the tatzelwurm as it loomed over us, still keeping my vision of it obscured.

Xayah yelped with fear as the shockwave of the huge monster sent her stumbling backwards. She landed hard and skidded across the ground to a stop next to me.

The six of us cowered together, our backsides pushed up against each other as more and more creatures began crawling from the ground and closing in on us. The massive tatzelwurm began slithering forwards, its huge scaly body seeming to radiate clouds of radiation towards us as it drew closer.

From below the ground came the sound of scratching claws as the bodies of zombie Hellhounds began pulling themselves to the surface. Their pale yellow eyes seemed to burn into us as they joined with the rest of the oncoming horde.

I was very quickly understanding better than ever why Azar had said that even going through the caves of the Hallow Shades was a safer way to get to the dark spire.

The first Hellhound lashed out at us, it’s claws extended to rip us apart. Xayah shot it through the chest with a precise shot from her sniper, but it did little more than stagger the raging beast as it continued closing in.

Bullets and violence were useless here. This lesson, I had learned before.

I rolled to the side as a zombie rushed me. My baton swung up and crushed its skull, sending it into a short spasm as it pulled itself back together again and continued its assault.

I could hear the almost pathetic sounding cracks of Shades pistol as she fired shot after shot towards the advancing tatzelwurm. Even my Hellhounds mighty roars sounded more like whimpers amongst the howling of the undead army.

The tatzelwurm opened its huge mouth and screamed, the noise forcing the rest of us to cover our ears. I could feel a trail of blood leaking from my eardrums and running down my face. Several long fleshy tendrils shot out of the tatzelwurm’s mouth like bullets. The slimy tongues lashed out and wrapped around our hooves as it began slowly pulling us all towards its huge maw. I struggled against it’s tight restricting grip, but nothing seemed to faze the huge creature.

We were surrounded and had no way of fighting off such unkillable adversaries. It almost seemed like a cruel joke, for me to have come so far, only to die in perhaps the most desolate part of the wasteland, where no pony would ever even find my body. Assuming I even had a body left after the radiation ate away at me.

I could feel Xayah shivering behind me as countless creatures began descending towards her. Another tendril shot out and wrapped around her throat, choking the air from her lungs. I tried to reach out and help her, but the oozing tongues that held me pulled me back. There was nothing we could do! We were going to die!

Then everything froze. If not for the occasional twitch of one of the vial ghouls I would have assumed they had quite literally been turned to stone. Even the huge tatzelwurm seemed to pause, its gaping maw only inches away from swallowing all of us whole.

Then it realised us and darted away. We all dropped to the ground panting as the horde of zombie creatures turned and began crawling back into the ground which they had come from.

“Their leaving?” Shade gasped from beside me, slowly trying to pull herself back up. “Why?”

Pyre managed to get herself back to her hooves before the rest of us, her eyes darting around at the now seemingly empty wastes from behind her visor. “They’re running away…” Her whole body seemed to tense as she realized what that entailed. “We need to move, now!”

As we pulled ourselves up, a massive roar echoed from around us from all sides. A chill passed through me. Whatever that was, it was huge.

Some dark form was rising from the haze in the distance. Even from here, it seemed to tower over everything. I could make out the silhouette of huge bulging limbs and massive building sized spines that raced down it’s gigantic form. Two monstrous wings slowly unfolded themselves from its side.

I stared in horror as the growing shadow against the horizon began to take a horrifyingly familiar shape. I had seen it once before, in the first memory orb I had ever viewed… A dragon!

I was so frozen with fear I forgot to run. I just stood there, staring up at the massive form that towered above us. We were in the Hollow Shades, I knew that wouldn’t just be any dragon. This one would have been mutated by years upon years of slumbering in one of the most radioactive places in the whole wasteland. And we had just woken it up.

It took Brisk slapping me across the face to pull me from my terrified trance. His slaps were not nearly as strong as Xayah’s, but they did the job. My head snapped to the side to look at him, even through the tinted dome of the hazmat suit I could see his fear.

“Run!” He yelled, giving my flank a strong push and forcing me to rush towards the looming monolith. Now out of the trance, I didn’t hesitate to comply.

I could hear the booming steps of the dragon as if thundered after us, each step it took shaking the ground and threatening to knock me over. The monster roared again, the sound disorienting me and making me stagger slightly before I got my bearings and continued running. Then the thundering steps from behind us stopped and were replaced with the heavy sound of flapping.

Fwap! Fwap! Fwap! Fwap!

I turned back slightly to see the mighty dragon take to the air, each flap of its massive wings disrupting the thick layer of ash that had settled upon the dunes of the Glowing Sea and sending them into the air like a massive sand storm.

It was gaining on us! Fast!

Did I ever mention how much I hated enemies that could fly? It's so unfair! Why can’t I be a pegasus or something!?

“It’s coming! To the Tower! Hurry!” I heard Pyre’s desperate commands as we neared the massive spire.

Up close, the tower seemed even more wrong and alien. I couldn’t quite seem to place my hoof on it, but something about it just felt incorrect, like a poorly drawn picture of a pony with all the wrong proportions. Just being close to it made me want to curl up and hide. It was almost scarier than that dragon.

Pyre reached the black tower first. She charged towards a large set of metal doors in the towers base and began slamming her hooves against them to get them open. The doors didn’t budge.

“Amber, the terminal!” Brisk screamed as he reached the doors as well and turned to face the soaring dragon. He pointed towards a locked terminal that lay next to the large doors. He raised his pistol and aimed at the dragon, as if his tiny weapon could actually do something against a creature of that size.

I pulled up next to the terminal and began typing. Immediately I groaned. Fifteen figures! The password was fifteen fucking figures! There was no way I could hack that quickly!

The dragon was getting closer, the booming flap of its wings was beginning to drown out all other noise as it closed in. I was beginning to make out more of its horrifying visage as it grew closer. I had been right, it was no ordinary dragon.

Where once shining green scales had once been were now a myriad of festering scabs and blisters. Hundreds of smaller mouths gnawed aimlessly at the air from the few places that the oozing scabs had been pulled away to reveal rotting skin, dotting the flesh like zits. Its huge, pony sized eyes were pale and lacked pupils and its mouth was filled with rows upon rows of massive sharp fangs. It’s tale alone was the size of the tatzelwurm!

A sickening horror passed over me as I realized its tale wasn’t simply as big as a tatzelwurm, it was a tatzelwurm! The end of the spiked tale opened and closed as the tatzelwurm’s mouth helplessly lashed out at anything that it could get close to.

I hate the Hollow Shades! Only it could create horrors like that fucking thing!

I turned back to the terminal, trying to bypass the lock with my shaking hooves. I only had three chances, I could do this! hopefully!

Pyre sent a large steam of flame towards the dragon. Her flamers had an exceptionally far reach for a flamer, but they still didn’t have the same range of a normal gun and definitely didn’t have the range to hit the flying dragon above us. But Pyre didn’t seem to be caring much if she hit it or not, she just kept a stream of fire towards it as she zigzagged back and forth, slowly moving away from us.

“Pyre, what are you doing!” I heard Xayah call out. She jumped to the side as the Dragon swooped down and racked towards her with its claws. The claws missed by meer inches, digging massive grooves in the ground as it’s attack carried through. The dragon's claws lashed against the wall of the MAS hub, causing a shower of blue sparks to erupt around me. To my surprise, the wall itself remained unharmed, not even slightly scratched by the huge dragon.

“Distracting!” Pyre called back breathlessly, rushing up and managing to blast the dragon with a bit of fire before darting away as the dragon lurched at her. “Keep it away from Amber! We need to get that door open!”

The rest of our party seemed to understand and agree with her train of thought and immediately went into action, trying to draw the dragons attention toward any direction that wasn’t me. I wanted to protest and help them fight, but I knew far too well that if I didn’t get this door open we were all as good as dead. Still, it didn’t feel right to have all my friends risking their lives for me.

I took a risk and clicked on a potential password. I wanted to scream with frustration when it informed me I had gotten the password incorrect.

Okay… this is fine… only two chances left, I could still do this.

The dragon dropped straight down from the sky and crashed against the ground. The whole ground seemed to shake as it landed, making me lose my hoofing and fall flat on my rump. The dragons roared, its fang filled maw dropping widening. Out of the corner of my eye I could see a burning glow slowly building from within the dragon's throat.

I heard a quick scream of fear from somewhere behind me before my whole world was submerged in flames. Fire flared around me in every direction, nearly blinding me as the flames filled my vision and caught the tips of my tail aflame. I could feel the immense heat scorch my back and cause blisters to rise on my pink hide. Thankfully, the dragon didn’t seem to be directing it’s mighty blast in my direction, the flames washing over me only seeming to be the edges of the huge jet of fire that licked out at my writhing form.

I batted my tail with a hoof, trying desperately to put out the fire before it completely burned my tail off.

As the flames died down, I saw the stumbling form of Pyre as she struggled to pull herself from the ground. She had managed to avoid the attack, but just barely. Her metal armour steamed and glowed a dull hot red. I had no doubt that the searing metal was burning her from the inside. Had it been any other pony, they probably would have been dead. But Pyre was stronger, she had grown to not feel the burn of flame. Yet even she was screaming.

The dragon lurched around, its huge tatzelwurm tail sweeping across the ground and knocking more ash into the air. I ducked down as the tatzelwurm swung over me, crashing into the walls of the tower. Once again, a shower of blue sparks burst from where the dragon hit the smooth black walls, sending burning blue embers down upon me. I rolled to the side to avoid them burning through my hazmat suit.

Blam! Blam! Blam!

Brisk’s pistol cracked off three shots into the dragon's head. Two of the bullets ricochet off of its tough natural armour, the third embedded itself right in the creatures eye. Instead of reacting in pain like any normal creature should, the dragon simply turned to glare down at Brisk, its pale eye slowly pulling itself together.

“Hehe… Amber! You almost got that door?” Brisk asked timidly as he met the dragon's gaze straight on. The dragon lunged at him before I had a chance to answer, not that my answer was of any use at the moment.

Brisk rushed to the side as the dragon lashed its huge claws at him, tearing out large chunks of the earth as it did.

I turned back to the terminal. Two attempts left, fifteen letters… I took a deep breath and went back to work. I could hear the screaming of my friends as they tried to keep the dragons' attention away from me. I couldn’t let them down… not now.

I dropped down as the huge beast tail swung over top of me again. My hoof slipped and I accidently hit a random password on the terminal. The terminal beeped.

>Access Granted

Huh… well would you look at that… I quickly checked what password I had hit. Twilightsparkle. Figures, should have guessed that one right away.

A massive stomp from the dragon behind me reminded me I didn’t have time to dally. I quickly advanced through the terminal.

>Welcome, Twilight Sparkle

>All Systems Operational

>Override Emergency Gate

[Confirm]

I clicked confirm as fast as I could. The large door abruptly burst open with a speed and fluidity that no post apocalyptic door should have been able to have.

I turned back to everypony else for a brief second. “The door is open, Everypony in!” I yelled, before turning and darting through the door myself. Behind me, I could hear my friends start diving for the door themselves, their hoofsteps drowned out by the thundering noise of the dragon as it gave chase.

My Hellhound scrambled into the building after me first, followed closely behind by the rest of my friends, Pyre Blaze taking up the rear. I thought I saw something smaller dart past the doorway and scuttle under a table, but there was so much going on, I didn’t have time to check.

The room within was a large circular chamber with three large doors against the far wall. A small platform rest next to the door and the floor was covered in boxy desks, each equipped with a dull grey chair and terminal.

“What! How did you get in!” I heard the rhythmic voice of a zebra call out. Looking up, I saw three zebras standing guard inside, their curved blades raised for a fight.

The zebra’s eyes widened as they spotted the huge shape rushing after us. Their jaws went slack as they took in the gigantic dragon. “Dragon!” One of them yelled, rushing for the emergency door controls on an elevated platform to the left of the door.

I felt the build up of heat on the back of my neck as the dragon prepared for a second blast of fire. Even before it left the creatures mouth, the heat was intense.

“Get to the sides!” I screamed at my friends as I pushed myself up against the wall as much as I could. My comment wasn’t necessary, they had already begun to move away from the door as fast as they could.

The dragon let loose another jet of smoldering flames. The fire pushed through the doors, setting the three zebras ablaze long before they could reach the emergency door controls. I pushed myself up tighter against the wall as the flames licked at my hooves. As the flames subsided, only three charred skeletons lay where the three zebra’s had once been.

“Get to the door controls!” I shouted, pointing to the elevated platform on the far side of the room from me. Xayah, who was closest to it, quickly began rushing towards the platform.

The mutated dragon's head burst through the open doors. It’s body couldn’t fit all the way though, but it’s head and serpentine neck seemed to have no trouble. It’s pale eyes scanned over the room looking for us.

It’s gaze landed on me. I felt a shiver race down my spine as its eyes locked with mine. It began moving its head towards me, even without the rest of its body giving it height, the massive beast towered above me.

Brisk and Shade shot off a few shots from their guns, but the dragon all but ignored it as it readied itself for an attack. It maw opened wide and it lunged it’s head down towards me, intent on swallowing me whole.

The door abruptly slammed shut on its neck, jerking the dragons head away from me and crashing against the wall. The powerful doors pushed against its armoured neck, slowly crushing it. The dragon roared with pain as the door tightened, a burning light once again forming in the back of its throat.

“Everypony down!” I screamed, lunging under the closest desk I could. I could see Brisk and Pyre do the same. I wasn’t able to see what happened to Shade, Xayah or my Hellhound. I hoped they found cover.

Seconds after I pulled myself completely under the desk, the Dragon let out another breath of flame. It’s head thrashed around the room, trying to dislodge itself from the large mechanical doors grip. Its thrashing motion sent the stream of fire spewing everywhere, blackening the walls and completely melting many off the desks. I could feel my skin boiling as the fire momentarily passed over the desk I cowered under.

There was a final mighty crash, and the large doors completely slammed shut, severing the dragons head from it’s body outside completely. The roaring fire went out immediately, only the lingering flames that burned away at the few wooden objects in the room remaining. Blood splattered against the walls and spilled from the severed stump of the dragon's neck.

Even decapitated the head squirmed back and forth, trying to snap at us. Finally, after a few seconds of thrashing and shrieking, the massive dragon went still and died.

I glanced up at the platform to see Xayah slowly pull herself out from behind the emergency door control. Thank the goddesses she had closed that door in time or I would have been dragon food. Xayah gave me a nervous smile as she caught my eye and waved.

I quickly checked my pipbuck. To my surprise, there didn’t appear to be any radiation inside of the MAS tower. Pyre must have noticed the same thing because she was quickly pulling herself out of her still steaming power armour.

I gasped as I saw the wreck her body was in. Pyre’s fiery coat had always sported a large collection of scars and burn marks, but now it was a complete wreck. The large claw marks from Viscera still throbbed a deep red across her side, back and face and most of her hide had been burned off by the dragons attacks.

I quickly rushed over to her and passed her a healing potion. She took it in her mouth without complaint and chugged the contents. Her coat and blistering wounds patched over a little, but the damage was still pretty bad. I passed her another one, but she just pushed it away.

“You only got five of those things left, save them for something really important,” She said, pulling herself to her hooves and looking over her steaming armour. “Shit, I just fixed this armour…”

Brisk trotted up, still limping on his leg. He seemed to have been unharmed by the dragon like most of us. “Is the armour still usable?” He asked, surveying the hunk of metal on the ground.

Pyre poked at her armour with a hoof. Had I been the one to touch it, I probably would have recoiled at the searing heat. Pyre however, kept her hoof on it for a few seconds, allowing herself to take in exactly how hot the metal really was. “The armour is usable, sure. But it’s too hot to wear, even for me,” she grunted as she pulled her hoof away. “And we don’t really have any water to dump on it and cool it off, so fuck me I guess.”

“I still have all that Wild Pegasus whisky in my saddlebag,” Brisk said, pulling out two bottles. I could see a few more still inside the bags. “Might make your armour a bit sticky, but might cool it down some.”

Pyre just grinned at him. “Ha, like my armour hasn’t been sticky with worse,” She joked, taking a bottle herself and dumping it on the armour herself.

“Like what?” I asked absentmindedly, puzzling over her statement, my thoughts still not fully all together after the whole dragon attack.

Pyre just gave me an amused look. “I’ll let you figure that one out Amber.”

I raised an eyebrow as I rolled it around in my head. I could feel my ears warm up and a blush cross my face as the answer finally managed to get through my thick skull. “O-oh…”

Pyre just smirked and poured another bottle of wild pegasus onto the armour. “Yeah, Oh.”

Shade hauled herself up from under a half collapsed desk and shakily looked over at the severed dragon head before turning her gaze to us. Her eyes widened in fear as she saw a bottle of her favorite whisky get dumped onto the steaming suit of armour.

“We had Wild Pegasus this whole time and none of you told me!” She gawked, watching in horror as the third to last bottle was unceremoniously dumped out.

Brisk scoffed and looked over the armour for a second. Deciding that the armour had cooled down enough, he shoved the last two bottles back into his saddlebag. “They weren’t for you.”

Xayah hopped down from the platform and joined us as Pyre slowly crawled back into her power armour. The metal still seemed hot to the touch, but nothing that Pyre wasn’t accustomed to already.

We quickly stripped out of our hazmat suits and pulled our normal barding back on. It felt good to be out of that stuffy thing.

“We should get going, no doubt our entrance has gotten us a fair amount of notice,” Xayah said, glancing around the large room. Her eyes landed on the three big doors on the far wall.

Brisk nodded, taking a few steps towards the doors. “I second that, you got a plan sis?” he glanced over at me. He had asked about my plan, but I could tell from his eyes he was also making sure I was still okay with the whole sibling thing.

I gave him a small smile before straightening up and approaching the three doors myself. “I don’t have a plan so much as an objective. Find and kill Kamari, then get the A.A.S.S. back if we can.”

“Any idea where Kamari might be? I mean this place is huge,” Pyre asked, looking over the three doors. “Do we split up to cover more ground or what?”

I shook my head. “I wouldn’t split up, who knows what's in here. Besides, one of the few things we do know is that both Crank and Azar are somewhere in this building as well. It’s probably best to not run into either of them alone.”

They all quickly agreed to that. The idea of fighting either of those powerhouses was terrifying in it of itself, let alone fighting them by yourself.

I turned to the center door and activated the terminal beside it. Locked, but not nearly as hard as the one outside had been. I unlocked the terminal in a matter of seconds and the large metal doors slid open.

The hallway beyond felt like an unnatural version of the caves below the Hollow Shades. The circular black tunnel distended downwards into the earth at an alarming rate. A strange feeling seemed to be emanating from it, making me want to run and hide.

We pushed forwards into the cavern like hallway. Every few paces a doorway beside us would automatically open up, making us jump. Through the doors we could see the large office spaces filled with rows upon rows of desks and terminals.

As I looked over the nearly pristine desks, the wrongness of the MAS tower suddenly hit me. The reason it always looked so wrong suddenly made a whole lot of sense.

“It’s in perfect condition…” I gasped, as my eyes left the office area and returned to the long, dark hallway. Where any other structure in the wasteland would be crumbling and riddled with large holes, all the walls inside and outside of the MAS tower were still perfectly intact. Even the desks and chairs that lined the rooms were still in perfect condition.

Brisk glanced up at me. “What do you mean?”

“This tower was hit point blank with multiple Balefire Bombs… how can it still be in such good condition?” I said, wording my thoughts into a more coherent and understandable sentence.

“I saw the dragon's claws deflect off of the walls outside,” Pyre added, walking slowly behind us. “That thing should have been able to tear right through those walls like a Hellhound with dirt.”

“So what are we dealing with? Indestructible walls?” I asked, trying to wrap the mystery around my head.

Pyre simply shrugged. “Beats me, but probably not. The Balefire bomb would have still knocked over all the furniture. This shits magic or something.”

Of course it was. Because my life had to be difficult in every possible way.

Up ahead, I could see the shape of a large door at the end of the hall. Like the last door, it was locked with a simple terminal that I managed to hack at record speed. The doors squeaked open and revealed the large room beyond.

The large chamber was filled with exactly what I would have expected. Rows upon rows of terminal topped desks ran in perfect lines across the floor. Large blackboards covered with diagrams and equations so complex even I had trouble understanding them had been installed onto most of the walls and a large, multi screen monitor that had long since gone dead hung from the ceiling. At the far end of the room was a large set of double oak doors that lead into a room beyond and off to the right was the entrance to what appeared to be another long hallway.

“Looks like the main office area,” Shade said, walking amongst the desks and looking over the terminals. She glanced over at the large oak doors at the far end. “And I’d guess that's the ministry mares office.”

“Twilight Sparkle,” I added, not really knowing how much that fact actually contributed to the topic at hoof. Shade simply nodded in response.

Brisk waltzed up to the large doors and looked over the lock. “I can probably get into here if you want?” He stated, looking over to me for confirmation. He then proceeded to pick at the lock without waiting for my response. “Though it might take a second… Holy shit this lock is tough.”

“Make sure nopony sneaks up on us,” I ordered my Hellhound, pointing it towards the doorway we had just come through. I didn’t know how many zebras Kamari had working for him here. We hadn’t seen any others than the three at the front door, but if what Crank had told me was true, then he had a whole army hiding in here somewhere.

I thought for a second before slowly following my Hellhound to the door. I coughed slightly to catch its attention, but it didn’t seem to react. “So uh… I was just wondering… do you have a name?” I asked the Hellhound awkwardly. It stood there like a statue, ignoring my question. I scratched the back of my head awkwardly. “Heh… right…” This felt weird, I didn’t even know how intelligent this thing was, not to mention it was kinda being mind controlled at the moment. Not really something I could have a conversation with. Not knowing how to proceed, I decided to cut right to the point. “Look, uh… Hellhound. I’m sorry I had to drag you all the way out here and stuff. Once Kamari is dead, I’ll let you go, I promise.”

The Hellhound remained silent and unmoving, but to my surprise, I saw the muscles in the back of its neck relax a little. So it could understand me, at least somewhat. That shouldn’t have been a surprise, it had been following my orders.

Whatever had motivated it to speak in the cistern below the Hollow Shades had past. It would remain silent now.

I patted it awkwardly on one of its big clawed arms and turned back to the room. Not knowing what to do while Brisk picked at the lock, I walked along the rows of desks with Xayah slowly trotting beside me.

“Why do you think this place is still so intact?” My zebra friend asked, looking at the many terminals cautiously. “I have never seen anything like this in the wasteland before. Granted I did not do very much traveling before we met.”

I shrugged. “No idea. It just seems wrong.”

Xayah glanced nervously back at the Hellhound. “I am glad you are deciding to free that thing, but how do you plan to do that without it attacking you?”

I gave her yet another shrug. “I haven’t the slightest idea.”

Eventually, I picked a terminal at random and stopped in front of it. I clicked it on and scrolled through the different files. There were a few logs that had been saved to it, all of which had been named very creatively log #1, log #2, and so on.

I clicked the first log and let it open up

>Log #1

>So a buddy of mine told me to keep note of all the stuff I need to do to help me remember everything. Kept saying that I have shit memory or something. Told me to write everything I need to do down so I won’t forget it. Shit, I think I said that already- point is, I’m taking his advice so, yeah… just bear with me, okay.

>Anyway, Twilight has us working around the clock on that strange Impelled Metamorphosis Potion stuff they’ve been shipping in from the Hippocratic Research Building. That stuff gives me the creeps. I can’t tell if the label on it is supposed to be a cruel joke or not, cause if it isn’t then nopony should be meddling with that shit. I mean, ‘Don’t touch, Breath or Stare at’? Are you kidding! I don’t want to go anywhere near the stuff. Not to mention the nasty side effects that it has. Just the other day, I heard somepony fell into a vat of it, apparently they currently have tentacles growing out of their eye sockets and an extra seven mouths. I almost feel sorry for the poor bastard for having somehow managed to survive the ordeal.

>In any case, the big purple unicorn herself has us making sure every vat of that I.M.P. shit is perfect before we ship it off to Maripony. We’ve been ordered to dump all flawed batches of I.M.P. into the cave system below the Shades where it won’t hurt any pony. I just hope that that’s far enough away. That stuff is weird and I sure as hell don't want tentacles growing out of my eyes.

>I’ll update this on any other advancements in the I.M.P. production.

I read over it again to make sure I had read everything right. Tentacles and extra mouths? Sounded offley familiar. My best guess was that this Impelled Metamorphosis Potion they had been dumping in the caves had been the cause of the strange mutated creatures we had seen. No doubt the balefire radiation had only enhanced it, but that at least explained why these things were so different here from everywhere else in the wasteland.

Curious, I clicked open the next log and started reading its contents.

>Log #2

>That I.M.P. is causing more deaths around here than the MAS is willing to admit! Daisy accidentally looked too long at one of those rainbow vats yesterday and she blew up! I’m not even fucking with you! They were serious when they said don’t stare at it! Then I found out this morning that the Ministry of Image was here and that there never was a record of a Daisy Wallflower in the MAS! They’re just fucking erasing us to cover their own tracks! Daisy was a good mare, and the fact that they can just pretend she didn’t exist is terrible!

>Fuck, I don’t even know how to take all this- it all just seems so crazy. Like some bullshit dystopian novel I read back in grade school.

>Weird conspiracies aside, the I.M.P. seems to be coming along pretty good. We’ve been getting positive responses out in Maripony, so I guess we must be doing something right. Not that they bother to tell us out here what the shit’s actually for, that's apparently some big ministry secret or something. Doesn’t matter. We all get the day off tomorrow, apparently Twilight is meeting with some important guests or something that she doesn’t want us to see. I don’t know who the hell it is, but I ain’t complaining about getting the day off. They should drop by more often.

That didn’t tell me as much as I would have liked. Of course, the fact that the Ministry of Image was covering up for accidents that happened was rather disturbing, though not really of any value to me.

I was about to read another log when a small clatter sounded from down the hall we had been yet to enter. My head shot up and looked towards the door. There didn’t seem to be anything there… but that didn’t mean nothing was. I glanced down at my EFS. I spotted one lone green bar.

I raised Boneless and slowly pulled myself towards the door.

“Amber? What is it?” Xayah asked from beside me, crouching down a little and letting her hoof hover over the gem on her stealth cloak. “See something?”

I narrowed my eyes at the doorway. “I don’t know… I’m seeing movement on my EFS. It’s not hostile,” I took another step closer to the door.

“Need some company?” Xayah whispered, pulling out her own sniper.

I waited for a second, my eyes still locked on the doorway. Then, from down the hall I saw it. A small filly was staring at me, half its face and body obscured behind a wall. The darkness of the hallway masked most of its colours in shadows, but I could still make out the fillies mane… my mane. The image of a red screwdriver rest on the fillies flank. Even from here, the symbol seemed to be calling to me. A thin, mischievous smile was etched across the small fillies face. A second later and it was gone, darting behind the doorway and into one of the rooms down the hall.

I shook my head. “You stay here. I’m going to go check it out?”

Xayah looked up at me nervously. “Are you sure? I find it unwise to split up in this place.”

I just shook my head again and moved into the hallway. “I’ll be fine. Just be ready in case something goes wrong,” I said.

I pushed down the hall, each step seeming to echo around me. I hated this place, it felt sick. I could sense movement in the far room, but I couldn’t seem to hear or see anything.

I slowly pushed the door open with the tip of my shotgun. The door swung inwards with a creak, revealing the room beyond. I gulped as I took the small, dusty room within. It was an abandoned nursery. Wooden blocks and stuffed animals lay scattered across the floor as if the fillies and colts that had once played with them had simply disappeared and left them behind. Three baby blue cribs sat in a half circle in the middle of the room, the center crib slowly rocked back and forth as if being rocked by a ghost.

I took a shaky breath. “Hello? Anypony in here?” I knew they were. A single green bar was still present on my EFS. “It’s okay, you can come out,” I tried to sound soothing and calm, but the whole ordeal had me a little too nervous to fully hide the terrified squeak in my voice.

From behind one of the cribs, I saw a pair of large pale eyes peeking over the rail and staring at me. Its large amber pupils seemed to glow slightly in the dark like a cat. I tried to get a better look at it, but all I could make out were those amber eyes and slightly curly pink mane streaked with blue.

I gulped and tried again. “Who- er… what are you? You’ve been following me for quite a while now, haven't you?” This was what? The third time I had spotted this tiny version of myself. I took a step forward, only for it to take a timid step back. I tried talking to it again. “Why do you look like me? Or a younger me anyway?”

The filly me’s mouth opened slightly as if preparing to say something. It hesitated for a second, its devious grin slowly shifting to a slightly more nervous expression.

“HA! Got it!” I heard Brisk yell from back down the hallway. I jumped a little at his outburst and turned to look out the door. I realized my mistake too late and spun back only to find the filly me gone. Once again, it had vanished before I had a chance to find out who or what it was.

“What the fuck is going on…” I muttered to myself as I left the room and slowly walked back out to join my friends.

True to what Brisk had said, the large double doors now lay open, letting us enter the large office on the other side. The room could only be described as organised chaos. Books upon books lay in organised heaps on the floor and the walls were lined with towering wooden bookshelves that had been categorized in such a complex and intricate manner that it actually became harder to find what you were looking for. A book covered desk sat in the center of the room with a flickering terminal on it. On the far wall was a large painting of the Ministry mare herself, Twilight Sparkle.

I had never taken Twilight to be the kind of pony to hang a large picture of herself on her office wall. Granted I only knew her from vague quotes and references in old pre war textbooks. That aside, the painting was gorgeous. The painting was of Twilight standing in an almost heroic pose with the magnificent site of Canterlot castle in the back, five books floating around her in her sparkling magic and the image of a six pointed star had been emblazoned on the golden sky behind her.

Brisk groaned the second he saw the room and the endless piles of books that were scattered around the area. “Are you kidding me! I spent all that work picking that lock, and Twilight was a fucking egghead!”

I grinned at him. “I think you should read more bro, maybe you could get some more brain cells in that big empty head of yours,” I joked, picking up the first book I could find and looking it over. I was in book heaven right now, and I was loving it.

Brisk just gave me a smug smirk and chuckled a little. “I’m perfectly happy with my two brain cells as it is thank you!” He stuck his tongue out at me playfully.

“Well it doesn’t look like Kamari is here, or that there is a passage here that might take us to him,” Pyre grunted, picking a book up herself and flipping through a couple pages. Deciding she had no interest in the book, she shot a small burst of fire from her flamers and turned the old book to ash. My heart cried a little at the sight.

“So what do we do? Try a different hallway and hope for the best?” Shade asked, peering into the room from the main office area. “We probably shouldn’t linger in any place for too long.”

My eyes locked on the terminal on Twilight's large desk. “Give me a second, maybe we can find some answers in that teminal there,” I turned back and addressed all my friends more directly. “Look around and see if you can find a layout of the building. There’s probably one lying around somewhere.”

Brisk gave me a quick salute and began rummaging through everything with Xayah. I turned back to face the terminal and turned it on. To my surprise, it was unlocked. The first log caught my eye and I clicked on it.

>Log #1 Painting

>Rarity just came by and dropped off this painting for me. Not my usual choice in decor, but I appreciate the thought. It’s been so long since all of us have been together, soI ’m not going to complain when I get the chance to catch up. I believe she gave a painting to Rainbow and Applejack as well. I think she’s trying to keep us all connected through all of this, I really hope she can.

>I’ll be honest, I don’t really know what to do with it. Most of my offices don’t really have room for a painting this large and I don’t know if I really want a big portrait of myself hanging above my desk, despite its intentions. I’ll probably leave it here in the Hollow Shades. I don’t come out here very often, but I simply can’t just get rid of a gift with so much heart in it.

>At the very least I can use it to cover that ugly back exit Princess Luna insisted I have. I understand what she was thinking, and I don’t disagree with her, but did the architect really need to have it built a few feet off the ground? It looks ridiculous.

Finishing the log, I quickly moved onto the next one, deciding that the information about the painting really wasn’t all that interesting or important to me at the moment. I spotted a file that read, ‘Important guest - war delegations’. Sounded interesting enough.

>Log #6 Important guest - war delegations

>They have agreed to have a private meeting with me tomorrow! If this all works out, then we might finally be able to get that edge over the zebras. Just imagine what we can accomplish if we combine the magic we have been researching here with that of the [REDACTED]! And if we get the Ministry of Image involved, we might be able to make better infiltration methods than even the zebras currently have!

>I think I’m getting a little ahead of myself. Nothing has been agreed to yet, and our alliance is still completely hypothetical. I have ordered everypony in the MAS that is uninvolved in the delegations to remain home tomorrow. While I have no doubt that [REDACTED] and her [REDACTED] will have no issue meeting me without drawing too much attention to themselves, I really want to make sure that this goes off without a hitch. The last few delegations have not really gone over too well.

>Silver Ace will be accompanying me to this delegation. He is very eager to hear the outcome, and I have no doubt that he wants to have [REDACTED] involved with [REDACTED]. I guess only tomorrow will tell what will happen for sure.

I stared at the terminal in frustration. If these ponies that Twilight was meeting with had only been mentioned once, I might not have minded. But this was the third fucking time somepony had mentioned them and I still had no idea who they were. The fact that their names had been straight up redacted from the terminal was almost insulting.

With a groan, I flipped to the next log titled, ‘B.S.S.G.’ With any luck, I’d get something more interesting out of this log than the last two.

>Log #7 B.S.S.G.

>Applejack has finally finished having the MWT instal the B.S.S.G. or Ballistics Surface Shield Generator into the MAS tower here in the Hollow Shades. The MWT initially created it to install into those Steel Ranger suits to create an indestructible suit of power armour. Applejack is taking making those armours very seriously since Big Mac- Unfortunately, while it does help to keep the armour protected, it seems to be doing very little to help the ponies within, and it is currently far too bulky to be properly installed into a combat based suit of armour. Not to mention too expensive. Pureblood doesn’t seem to be very interested in investing in it...

>Thankfully, it seems perfect for structures. On the few tests we've done, structures installed with these can withstand practically anything. I don’t plan on testing out a full on Balefire bomb on the building, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it held. With any luck, it should make Zebra’s getting their hands on I.M.P. samples or sabotaging our operations out here a lot harder.

>The way the B.S.S.G. work’s is fairly simple. Once activated, it will make a scan of the structure and project a powerful magical field around the whole thing. The walls and floors are no less destructible than they were before, but a thin two way shield will have been snuggly fitted around the structure to give it that appearance. It really is a magical and technological marvel. Applejack should be really proud of this, even if it doesn't have quite the functionality that she wanted.

So that was it. The reason the building seemed to be well preserved was because it was. This B.S.S.G. had created some sort of magical force field that had protected the MAS tower, even to this day. It was truly amazing what ponies are able to create if given the chance. I suppose that only made the war more tragic.

With my hope renewed that the terminal might actually contain some interesting information, I turned my attention to the last log on the terminal, simply skipping over all of the others. The log was titled, ‘Luna Prime’. Without hesitating, I opened it up.

>Log #59 Luna Prime

[REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED].

[REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED].

I stared at the file for a second, lazily reading over the repeated word. I would read a few lines of it before I would lose my spot and gave up trying to read it all together. Finally I just sighed. “Well that was anticlimactic.”

My Hellhound gave a loud growl from where it was standing guard outside the room, alerting us to the quick clopping of multiple hooves powering down the hallway towards us. Before we had time to properly react, the Hellhounds growl turned to a booming roar. There was the sudden swish of a blade and the roaring went silent.

We all turned to face the doorway. A large, round object covered in thick, glossy black fur tubbled through the door and stopped at my hooves. I stared down at it in horror, making out the glazed over eyes staring up at me from my Hellound’s now severed head.

A pang of guilt shot through me. It had died my slave. I had kept saying I would free it, and I never did. I closed my eyes for a second, taking a deep breath to calm myself.

“I’ll do right by you somehow,” I whispered to myself, my voice so quiet I doubted that anypony else could hear me. I took a quick second to mourn for the Hellhound before opening my eyes and taking in the intruders.

My eyes met Azar’s powerful gaze. The strange dark grey and violet zebra stood in the large doorway to the main office, one of the curved zebra scimitars held in his hoof. He stood proudly, one striped hoof placed firmly on the limp and headless corpse of my Hellhound.

Five zebra’s flanked him. Two were equipped with similar curved blades, while the other three held large zebra sniper rifles up and aimed at us. They all had zebra stealth cloaks draped over them.

I stared the zebra down for a few seconds, taking him in. He was here, alive and well. Which meant he had done the impossible. Azar had defeated Crank in combat. The idea seemed almost laughable, yet was so very terrifying.

Not for the first time, I realized how dangerous this mysterious Azar really was.

Azar’s violet eyes shifted to look at Shade who had taken to cowering behind me. He gave the dark purple pony a twisted grin. “I see you all made it across the Glowing Sea. You all impress me so,” Azar said calmly, his voice as headstrong and authoritative as always. “To think I thought of you all as little more than pawns in Kamari’s game, I was clearly mistaken.”

I took a step forward, standing shoulder to shoulder with the rest of my friends. I knew we didn’t stand a chance fighting this zebra, so I figured the best course of action was to talk my way out of the situation. “We aren’t here for you Azar. We’re just after Kamari.”

Azar just cocked his head at me in slight confusion. “And you expect me to simply step aside? I think not. You ponies will not be leaving this tower alive.”

Multiple turrets popped out from the ceiling and walls, their barrels swiveling down to aim at all of us. I gulped as I took in the sudden extra firepower that was pointed towards us. I counted fifteen turrets in total.

I heard the heavy hoofsteps of Pyre as she marched forwards. For once, she seemed to be wanting to back me up on getting out of this in a more diplomatic fashion. “Oh come now, I think Kamari will be very interested in seeing us. You’d hate to need to be the zebra that told him you killed us.”

The attempt was foalish and clearly played on the hopes that Azar was less intelligent than he really was. Instead he simply gave us all a wide grin. “Oh Kamari can see you fine,” He raised his head to look up at the huge monitor that hung from the ceiling. “Everything working on your end Kamari?”

There was a sudden buzz of static and a foul, grating laughter filled the room. The sound bounced off the tall, metal walls, making the laugh echo around us as if it were coming from every direction. “Oh, I am seeing everything perfectly Azar,” A voice boomed out over the speakers. The voice was gravelly and deep, filled with a sick sounding gargle that dramatically contrasted its rhythmic tone.

The monitor flickered to life above us, at first showing little more than static before it began to faze into a real picture. A zebra glared down at us through the screen, his emerald eyes landed on me, making me freeze.

I let out a heavy breath and whispered in a fearful tone. “Kamari…”

Kamari wasn’t just any zebra, he was a zebra ghoul. But more than that, he was a glowing zebra ghoul. Where once he might have had a dazzling white coat, it had been stripped away and burned, now resembling black rotting flesh and scabs. His stripes, which to Xayah’s dismay were strange swirls and glyphs that resembled orbital paths of planets more than actual stripes, now glowed a vile, baleful green. His scarred and wrinkled face was marked with glowing claw like spirals criss crossing into horrific images.

And his eyes… They were the worst part. They were old and seemed to be filled with dark knowledge I could never hope to truly understand. Strong, powerful, intimidating; I found myself shivering just looking into them. But they seemed sad and tired too, like a pony that had seen and done far more horrors than any sane pony should be able to bear. Dark bags had formed below his baleful green eyes, but I couldn’t tell if it was from fatigue or simply a permanent part of his dark rotting flesh.

I could sense Xayah trembling behind me as she stared up at the horrifying monstrosity that at one point had been a zebra. “Power of the stars on their side,” She breathed, rephrasing what we had heard one of the zebras say back in Stable 25. I could hear the tremor of fear in her voice.

“So you are the ponies that have been such a thorn in my side,” Kamari spoke, his voice sending more shivers racing down my spine. He seemed almost bored with our presence, if not a little amused. “It is good to finally meet you.”

“Where are you!” I snarled, trying my best to hide my fear. Even while not in the room with him, he was terrifying.

Kamari chuckled, clearly amused by my obvious surprise and fear. “Irrelevant. You will never reach me.”

I could feel my ever growing rage brewing inside of me, trying to push itself to the surface. This was the monster responsible for the death of Stable 25! All my pain and strife had been because of him! And yet, for some reason, I couldn’t seem to let that rage take me as it usually did. Kamari’s sudden presence had shaken me, kept me off kilter.

“I’m going to kill you!” I growled up at him, trying my best to sound intimidating. What came out was little more than a sad squeak.

Kamari just stared down at me for a second, almost surprised by my statement. Then he laughed. His cold laughter shot through me like a bullet, shredding me of any confidence I might have been holding. “You are most amusing Amber Aura,” The glowing zebra ghoul chuckled, pulling himself back together. “But you are far too naive. This conversation is over. Azar, deal with them.”

The screen shut off, once again reverting to a moment of buzzing static before going dark altogether. My heart sank as the screen shut off. I could feel my anger finally push through. “You get back here! We aren't finished with you yet!” I screamed, waving my hoof frantically at the large monitor above us, as if hoping it would come back on line. “Kamari! Get back here!”

Azar chuckled at me from across the room as he watched my antics. He stepped over the slumped body of the Hellhound and began approaching me at an alarming rate. “Kamari is correct, you ponies are most entertaining. Unfortunately, this is where we must end this.”

I swirled around and glared at the strange purple zebra. “You bring him back! You bring him back right now or I swear...!” I shouted, raising Boneless and leveling it with Azar’s head.

Azar just gave my triple barrel shotgun a lazy look and kept advancing. “I fear that shall not happen,” He turned to look at the five zebras that were flanking him, his voice hardening. “Kill them!”

Before I could react, Brisk and Pyre rushed past me and slammed the large doors to Twilight’s office. I could hear the sound of automatic fire as the turrets in the room beyond opened fire upon the door. Hole were blasted through the sturdy oak wood as their bullets tore into the surface. Seconds after, the door shook as the zebra’s began ramming themselves against it, trying to knock it down.

The door was strong, but it couldn’t hold somepony as powerful as Azar for long.

I turned back to my friends, ducking slightly as one of the turrets shot a bullet through the door and whizzing over my head. “Anypony got a plan!” I shouted over the gunfire and ramming. All I saw were scared expressions in return.

“Come on out Amber! You are only stalling the inevitable!” Azar chuckled from beyond the door. There was a loud thump as he rammed himself into the door. The door shuddered, almost being knocked from its hinges from his force.

I pushed my shoulders up against the door, trying to keep it from collapsing in. A bullet burst through the wood next to my head making me jump.

With my back against the door, I was able to fully take in the room. There was no escape save for the way we came in! We were trapped.

Then my eyes landed on the large portrait of Twilight Sparkle at the back of the room. What had she said in her terminal? That she would use it to cover a back exit?

“The painting! Move the painting!” I shouted over the din.

Xayah made it to the painting first and pushed it aside. Sure enough, the doors to a small elevator escape lay beyond it a few feet off the ground, just as Twilight’s terminal had suggested it would be.

“Everypony in! Now!” Pyre roared, hoping up into the elevator.

I grimaced as I managed to push a chair up against the door to help barricade it. “Just so you know, I have the worst track record when it comes to not having elevators collapse when I’m on them!” I said, only half joking.

I pulled a trembling Shade of the ground and pushed her into the elevator. She gave a small squeak of fear as I lifted her up, but didn’t complain.

“What floor!?” Pyre asked hastily, her voice cutting through the banging of the door and boom of automatic gunfire. Her eyes scanned the large collection of buttons beside the door. “Shit this place has a lot of floors…”

“Don’t care, just get us out of here!” I screamed back, once again ducking as another bullet burst through the hard wood of the door. I was far enough away from the door that those bullets couldn’t hit me, but I ducked anyway.

“Top floor it is then!” Pyre shouted back, pushing the topmost button with a hoof. At once, the elevator began moving upwards. I was surprised to find it’s movement fluid and not janky like the last two elevators I had been in.

Was this how elevators were supposed to move?

The doors to Twilights office burst open. Azar strode in, his eyes staring at us from across the room. At once, his violet stripes began to glow a dark purple. To my surprise, a black magical aura wrapped around the elevator. The elevator jerked, and then dropped a bit as Azar’s oddly powerful magic held it in place.

Azar could do magic! Who the fuck was this zebra!

Sparks burst from the side of the elevator as Azar’s dark magic ripped the elevator from it’s tracks. Shade fell into me as the elevator jerked and slanted slightly.

Xayah raised her sniper and fired off two shots into Azar’s chest. The mighty zebra took a small step back from the impact, but seemed generally unfazed.

The other three zebra’s were beginning to close in on us now, their long curved blades held tight in their mouths as they galloped forwards. The first one managed to rush all the way across the room and leap towards the elevator before I managed to take a swing at them with my baton. The sparking rod cracked against their head, staggering them, but not dropping them.

“Anypony have a plan!?” Pyre called out, her flamers blasting to life as the other zebra’s neared. She spun around and gave a heavy buck to one of the zebras as they leapt into the elevator, the attack sending the zebra flying back out of the elevator. “Because I feel like right now would be a really good time for a plan!”

I did have a plan, but I didn’t like it. I pulled out my Balefire Egg Launcher and heaved it up to rest on my shoulder. “Damn, I was hoping to use this on Kamari…” I grunted, staggering slightly from the heavy weight of the weapon.

“Well we can’t kill Kamari if we don’t get to him!” Pyre pointed out, hoping to the side to avoid a blast from one of the zebra’s snipers. “So now might be a good time to use it!”

Brisk threw his front hooves up in the air frantically. “Wait!” I glanced over at him to see what the problem was. He gave me a smug grin. “Can I fire it sis? Pleasepleasepleaseplease!”

I shrugged and passed the massive weapon over to him. He grinned maniacally as he hoised the huge gun over his own shoulder.

Azar’s eyes opened. They no longer held pupils, but rather glowed with a dark violet light. Then they revered back to normal as he spotted the huge Balefire Egg launcher that was aimed right at him. Fear flickered across his face for a second as he took in the huge gun. He opened his mouth to say something, but Brisk didn’t give him time.

“Say hello to my little friend!” Brisk yelled joyously. He pulled the trigger on the Balefire Egg Launcher and fired off it’s final shot. The force of the blast sent Brisk flying back and off his hooves where he crashed into the back wall of the elevator with a thunk. But the balefire egg still shot true.

Azar’s stripes dropped their strange glow as he began backpedaling, trying to move away from the incoming attack. He got far enough back to avoid being hit directly, but not far enough to evade it altogether.

The balefire egg exploded, green fire erupted throughout the room and blinded us. The ear deafening boom of the blast exploded through the room, drowning out all other noise. The five zebra’s assailing us were blown apart, their limbs violently ripped from their bodies or bursting into paste. I could see Azar on the far side of the room, his face twisted in pain and his stripes glowing as his magic began regrowing his now obliterated legs.

Now torn from the elevator tracks and no longer held aloft in Azar’s magic, the elevator dropped. The movement was sudden, making it feel like my stomach was pushed up into my mouth. The sides of the elevator skidded against the walls of the shaft, sparks shooting over us from every direction.

I hate elevators...

We were dropping down fast, so fast that I found myself flattened to the roof of the elevator. Fear shot through me as we plumbited. If we hit the ground at this speed, we would die!

I reached out with my magic, trying to slow our descent with my telekinesis. I felt the elevator lose a bit of momentum, but we were still going really fast. Lights were flashing past me, making it hard to keep my focus on maintaining my magic. Shade’s horn beside me started glowing, as she caught onto what I was doing and tried to add her magic to mine. The elevator slowed a little more…

I screamed in both pain and determination as I put everything I had into holding the spell. My horn throbbed and pain shot through my whole body. Then we hit the ground floor and everything went dark.

I wasn’t in my body, or any body for that matter. I floated a few feet in the air, once again a simple observer of the scene to unfold. Around me was a heavy darkness that settled around the room like a thick blanket. Through the shadows though, I could see the faint image of towering metal walls that rose up around me on all sides.

A thin beam of golden light flashed down from the ceiling, illuminating a large platform in the center of the room. I tried to look through the gloom to see what was creating the light, but it was still too dark to see anything above me.

Changing my gaze to look at the platform, I found myself looking down at four metallic figures standing in an unorganised clump. The large metal figure at the head of the group caught my attention the most.

It had only been about a day since I had seen him in the flesh… or at least, as much flesh as he still had, yet it felt almost alien to see him once again as the horrifying cyber alicorn. Having those strange visions of his past had made me almost forget how fearsome he truly was.

Crank stood at the head of the group of cyber ponies, his body now comprised mainly of metal and machines. His large blade like wings were neatly folded up against his side and his eyes once more glowed a deep red.

I had thought I was through seeing strange glimpses of Crank’s past. Apparently not.

“Is Diesel dead?” A vial nasally voice echoed down from above us. I had heard this voice before when I had gone through Inferno’s memories. It sounded familiar though, even beyond that fact. I couldn’t place my hoof on it.

Steel Blade took a step forward, his head low as he bowed to whomever was above us. “He is my lord. We made sure of it,” The other cyber ponies just groaned at his words.

“Good,” The voice soothed. “I will not allow traitors of our great cause to simply walk free. Now, I have another task for you all...”

Crank pushed Steel Blade back behind him with a wing and took a step forward, his front hooves resting on the edge of the platform. “If you will, I’d like to talk with you alone for a moment,” Crank grunted, his voice steady.

Inferno sneered from behind him. “Oh, you got something you don’t want us to hear?” The insane cyber pony cackled, his flamers shooting off a small burst of flame. “Wouldn’t happen to be about that cute little mare of your’s, would it? Not like she’d love you with what you’ve become. Perhaps if we run into her I’ll…”

Inferno never finished his sentence. Crank’s tail lashed out and ripped out his throat, turning whatever Inferno was going to say into a sickening gargle. Crank was on top of him in a second, his tesla cannons charging and his face meer inches from Inferno’s.

“Mention her again, and I will kill you!” Crank growled down at Inferno, his burning red eyes piercing into the cyber pony below him like a knife.

The large gash on Inferno’s neck pulled itself back together, once more giving him the ability to speak. Inferno laughed, trying to pull himself up from under Crank. Crank simply held him down, not giving him the satisfaction of standing. “Kill me then, see if I care. We both know I like the pain!”

“Enough!” The voice from above bellowed, making the four cyber ponies temporarily freeze.

Steel Blade bowed low again, keeping his eyes low. “Of course my lord. Your wish is my command.”

Tripwire slapped Steel Blade across the back of the head, making the bowing cyber pony stumble slightly. “Oh can it with your preaching,” he growled, his voice low enough to not make too loud of a noise.

“I will speak with you,” The voice agreed at last, it's high and nasally tone sounding slightly more exasperated than before. “The rest of you are dismissed.”

Inferno gave Crank a final scowl, before pulling himself up and marching out of the room with Tripwire and Steel Blade. Crank watched them leave, his eyes never once leaving them as they stalked towards the door. As soon as the door closed he returned his gaze to whomever was above us.

“You need to let me see her,” Crank demanded, stomping his hoof on the ground and making the whole chamber shake. “I have done everything you asked without question for the last four years. I deserve to see her again.”

A sick, snooty laugh echoed through the chamber. “That was not the deal Crank,” The voice mocked. “The deal was that in exchange for her freedom, you were to work for me. I decide when you have paid off that debt in full. Until then, you will do as I decree!”

Crank’s eyes glowed brighter for a second and his massive tesla cannons began to crackle with deadly energy. For a second I thought he was actually going to attack. Then he paused, the slow rumbling sound of his tesla cannons charging up dying.

“Let me do this,” Crank insisted, his voice taking on a slightly more civil tone. “Let me find her and I’ll never ask you for anything again. Please, just this once…” he was begging now.

There was silence from the voice for a moment as it pondered what to do. Finally it responded, its voice low and threatening. “You have three days. I expect you to return or there will be consequences.”

With that, the world swirled away into darkness.

I woke up to the feeling of somepony shaking me awake. I slowly let my eyes flutter open to take in the dark and gloomy room around me.

Half of the elevator lay in a ruined wreck off to one side of the room, the other half lay on the far side of a thick metal wall that had been completely reduced to rubble. Much of the ceiling had caved in, making it impossible to tell how big the room had once been. A long dark tunnel lay to my left, I had no idea where it led.

The only light in the room was a slow and seemingly patternless blinking light in the smashed elevator and the dull green glow of Shade’s pipbuck beside me.

I sat up and looked over to Shade who looked relieved to see that I wasn’t dead. She was bleeding a little from a small gash on her head and she was covered in a couple of bruises, but she seemed relatively okay. “Oh thank the goddesses, you stopped breathing and I thought… I thought…” Shade had to stop herself and catch her breath.

“I’m fine,” I groaned, pulling myself up to my hooves. I staggered slightly as all the blood rushed to my head and made me dizzy. Shade rushed to my side to help support me, but I quickly pushed her away. I didn’t want her help.

I quickly looked around the room, trying to make sure I hadn’t missed anything important. I had, or rather, the room was missing something important. “Where is everypony?” I asked, fear trickling into my voice. I spotted Brisk’s saddlebags half covered in rubble. I rushed over and picked it up.

Goddesses, please don’t be dead.

“We’re okay! But we are a little stuck over here,” I heard the muffled sound of Brisk’s voice from the other side of the collapsed wall. “At least, Pyre and I are.”

I quickly rushed up to the pile of rubble and tried to move it aside to get to my friends. The mound of heavy rock and metal between us refused to budge. “Are you two alright?” I called back.

I heard Pyre Blaze give a loud, pained groan. “A little dinged up, but alive. How are things on your side?”

I glanced back at Shade. “We should be okay, just a few cuts and bruises. Any idea what happened to Xayah? Is she okay?”

“I don’t know,” Brisk spoke up, his voice filled with worry. “We haven’t seen her,”

I image of Xayah crushed and suffecating below all the rubble flashed through my mind. Fear flared through me and I immediately began desperately trying to dig through the rubble. I managed to do little more than move a couple of the smaller rocks aside.

“Xayah! Xayah!” I cried out desperately. My fear was slowly giving way to panic. I couldn’t lose her, I just couldn’t!

I heard a small muffled cough from somewhere to the right of me. “I’m- I’m alive…” Xayah’s voice croaked out. She sounded weak and far away. I felt my whole body go weak with relief. “I- I think my hoof is broken.”

My relief dissipated. “Okay, don’t worry, we’re coming for you. I’ll get you out of here,” I insisted, hoping to comfort my injured friend somehow. I turned back to where Brisk and Pyre were trapped behind the wall. “Can you guys find a way out of there?”

I heard a bit of mumbling as Brisk and Pyre exchanged a few words with each other. “There’s a tunnel in here, but we don’t know where it leads,” I heard the muffled voice of Brisk say. “Neither of our EFS’ are detecting anything, but I guess that doesn’t mean much in the Hollow Shades.”

I gulped, it didn’t. And we weren’t just in the caves below the Hollow Shades anymore, we were in the Glowing Sea. There was bound to be some awful shit down here.

“Just try and do the best you can. See if we can meet up with each other,” I ordered, trying to keep the tremors out of my voice. “Shade and I will do the same. We can do this.”

“You sure? I think we already went over how bad of an idea it is to split up in this place,” Pyre said gruffly. I could hear her trying to break apart the wall of rubble between us, to little effect.

“Do we have any other choice?” I retorted back, already knowing the answer. Pyre remained silent.

“Alright, we’ll meet up with you,” Brisk affirmed, I could hear him and Pyre start moving away. His hoofsteps paused. “Oh and Amber?”

“Yeah?”

I heard Brisk take a deep breath. “Just… Stay safe sis, okay? We haven’t come all this way for nothing, remember that. No matter what Kamari says.”

I let a small grin reach my face. “I won’t. That asshole is going to pay,” My grin faltered as I heard the two of them rushing off. I turned back to where Xayah was obscured behind the broken wall. “Xayah, are you still there?”

There was a small cough in response, followed by a timid whimper. “Yes, I am here.”

“Can you walk?” I asked, afraid of hearing the answer. “If you can, try and find someplace safe that we can find you. We are coming for you. I’m not leaving without you.”

I heard some shuffling on the far side of the wall. “I am not sure, but I will try. Thank you.”

I turned back to Shade, who was looking increasingly worried. “You’re coming with me. Come on,” I slung Brisk’s saddlebag over my back and started walking down the tunnel, praying it led me back to my friends somehow.

“A-Amber?” Shade whimpered, taking a few timid steps after me.

“What?” I half groaned half snarled at her, slowing my pace slightly so she could catch up with me. “What do you want?”

Shade bit her trembling lower lip for a second. “It’s just that… never mind. It doesn’t matter.”

I grunted and kept walking down the tunnel. Of all the ponies to be stuck with, I had to be stuck with this treacherous pony. I wanted to cry just thinking that thought. What had happened to our friendship? So much for friendship being magic I suppose.

The tunnel had started off as a long metal hallway, but very quickly that began to change. The smooth black metal gave way to jagged rocks and the only proof of ponies ever being down here were a collection of metal beams that held up some of the weaker parts of the roof. The occasional lantern lay against the wall. Although the flame inside them had long since gone out, I could still smell the scent of oil on them. They had been used recently.

“Looks like this place used to be a mine of some sort,” Shade remarked, trotting ahead of me a little to take a look at a broken down minecart in front of us. “What the fuck do you suppose the Ministry of Arcane Science needed a mine for? And why below their own hub?”

We let those questions hang above us in the air, neither of us having the answers to them. Turning the corner, we found a small room that had been dug into the side of the rock tunnel to make a small office. Spotting a terminal inside, I quickly ducked into it to investigate.

The room wasn’t very large, with just enough space to fit the two of us inside without any discomfort. The walls had been fitted with a cold metal lining, making the office feel a little less like a cave than it really was. The terminal I had spotted sat on a wooden desk at the back of the room next to a curled up skeleton.

I pulled myself into the chair behind the desk and clicked on the terminal. As I had expected, it was locked. “Give me a sec, I’m just going to hack this terminal,” I said, not bothering to look up at Shade as I began typing.

I clicked the first password option, only for the computer to tell me I had picked the wrong one. Before I had the chance to try again, the terminal clicked.

>Access Granted

I blinked, trying to figure out why it opened. I glanced up at Shade to find her meddling with the back of the terminal with a screwdriver. I let my mouth fall open a bit.

“H-how did you do that?” I asked in amazement, looking back and forth from the unlocked terminal to Shade. “You can’t just hack a terminal without hacking it! It's against the rules or something!”

Shade just gave me a sly, yet nervous look. “I was the head of maintenance for a reason kiddo. They don’t just let anypony overlook machinery that could get everypony killed,” She almost looked proud for a moment, before realizing she had quite literally gotten everypony killed. Her face dropped. “Sorry.”

I sighed, tired of being reminded about the tragedy of Stable 25. “Don’t mention it. I know,” I said softly, ignoring the tight knot that had formed in my stomach. “I’m sorry too,” I didn’t fully know what I was apologizing for, but it felt like the right thing to say.

Shade seemed to be a little comforted by that, though clearly a little taken aback as well.

I turned away from her and looked through the terminal. There were only a few entries, none of which really caught my eye. That is until I spotted one labeled ‘Luna Prime’. There it was again. Hopefully this time it wasn’t simply ‘redacted’.

I clicked the log open.

>Log #4 Luna Prime

>As I said in my last log, I don’t know what the fuck Twilight has us down here looking for. We’ve been spending a lot of resources digging, and nopony will even tell us why. The only thing we are told is to report something if we find something. I know, not very descriptive, right? But here’s where things get interesting. See there’s a rumor going around that Twilight is looking for something for this top secret project she’s working on called Luna prime. Fuck if I know what that is, but some ponies have been saying its some sort of mega spell. Spooky stuff…

>Course then we stumbled across that weird Cistern down in the caves. Nopony knows why it's there or even how it’s there, just that it is. Now Twilight’s got us digging in it and searching it inside and out for anything of interest, so my bits are on it being connected somehow.

>I don’t like it down here though. Things are weird, and I always feel like I’m being watched. Not to mention that theres this spooky as fuck carving on the monolith of a creepy pony made out of shadows. Gives me the willies.

>Twilight was nice enough to install a medical bay into the cavern though. Guess she’s worried something bad is gonna happen like when they found the place. Not that I’d want to be stuck in a hospital down here. I don’t even want to imagine trying to sleep the night in these spooky as fuck caves. Probably wouldn't be found in the morning.

So that explained what the ministry was doing down here… kinda. Okay, actually, that terminal told me less than nothing. I still had no idea what they were looking for. I skimmed through the rest of the terminal entries, but didn’t seem to find anything of interest.

“Shit, someponies coming,” Shade whispered to me, glancing out the doorway and into the tunnel outside.

My ears picked up as I heard the sound of rushing hoofsteps. “Our friends?” I asked hopefully. Please tell me they had found us.

Shade shook her head. “Zebras,” She hissed back.

Damn it. I quickly pulled Shade away from the door and behind the desk. Not two seconds later a group of zebras rushed past the room. They didn’t speak or make much noise, signs of true assassins.

I heard one of the zebras stop. There was the small clopping of hooves as they slowly strode into the room. I put my hoof over Shades mouth to keep her quiet.

I had no doubt I could take on this zebra, but I had no idea how many there were, and the last thing I wanted to do was alert more of our location.

After a few seconds, the zebra grunted and stalked out of the room, their hoofsteps getting quieter and quieter the further away they got. Once I was sure they were gone, I pulled myself out from behind the desk.

“We should get moving,” I said flatly, slinking over to the door and peering out. I didn’t see anything, nor did my EFS pick up on any movement. “The longer we stay here, the more likely we get caught.”

Shade quietly agreed and followed me out of the office as we continued down the tunnel. Up ahead, the mineshaft seemed to go on into the gloom with no signs of opening up into anything else.

After a few moments of walking, I felt Shade gently tap my flank with a hoof to get my attention. Before I could say anything, she put her hoof to her lips and shushed me. “I think we’re being followed,” She said in a hushed tone, her voice still very filled with fear.

I tensed up and glanced behind me. I saw nothing but the suffocating gloom that blocked out my view of the tunnel we had just walked through. “Did you see something?” I hissed back, my voice just as low. From my first encounter with him, I knew Azar could be sneaky.

Goddesses, please tell me Azar hadn’t found us already.

“I-I think I saw a small filly watching us from the shadows,” Shade whimpered back, her ears folding flat against her head.

I had no doubt she had seen that smaller version of me I kept running into. Up until now, I hadn't been sure if the filly had been real or if I had simply been hallucinating the whole thing. I didn’t know if I should be thankful I wasn’t insane or scared that that creepy foal was still following me.

I decided not to let Shade see any of my concern and simply grunted in response. “I know. She’s been following me for a few days now.”

Shade gulped as we continued walking forwards. I was now acutely aware of the small patter of hoofsteps far behind us as we began to move again. “Who is it?” Shade asked, not daring to raise her voice. “What does it want?”

I shrugged. “I wish I knew.”

We reached the end of the tunnel. It had been so dark that I hadn’t even seen the large chamber up ahead until we stepped out into it. What we saw made both of us gasp.

I had been in the cave system below the Hollow Shades before. Hell, I had even been within the strange cistern, but nothing I had seen yet could even come close to compare with the sight before us now.

We were in a massive cave, so large in fact that I was unable to see any off the walls. Even the floor lay hundreds of miles below us. Scaffolding had been built up through the massive cavern, creating small walkways and platforms that crossed over the huge casm. Tools and mining equipment lay in large crates along the catwalks and a few pickaxes lay on the ground where ponies had left them two hundred years ago. Like the cistern I had seen before, massive stone pillars that looked older than Equestria itself rose from the depths of the casm and formed into towering stone archways that supported the stalactite covered ceiling far above our heads.

In the center of the cavern, or at least what I assumed was the center as I couldn't see any off the walls, stood a massive black monolith. Strangely shaped rocks twisted up the sides of the monolith like writhing tentacles reaching from the deep and pony skulls had been embedded in its rough surface. Horrific images of creatures made out of stars and strange zebra glyphs ringed the monolith and at the very top was a huge carving off a pony seemingly made of shadows.

“What the fuck is that thing,” Shade squeaked, taking a terrified step away from the looming monolith. Even the air around it felt wrong, as if a thousand chanting voices were calling out from within.

It took me a second to realize I was so shocked by the cavern that my mouth was refusing to work. I took a deep breath and tried to steady my heart rate which seemed to be going at a few hundred miles a second. “I have no clue… but it’s just a rock, it can’t hurt us,” I tried to comfort her, but I didn’t even know if I believed my own words. The thing was simply so damn scary looking.

We pushed forwards, slowly making our way across the scaffolding. To my displeasure, I found that the catwalk seemed to be slowly taking us down into the darkness below us. I really didn’t want to find out what was down there.

I considered turning back and trying to find a different route, only to remember that there wasn’t one. This had been the only tunnel we could go down.

Then a thought hit me. I quickly turned back to Shade. “Those zebras that ran past us, you don’t suppose they’re going to come back once they reach the crashed elevator, do you?”

Shade’s eyes widened as she realized what I was saying. This was the only tunnel. Those zebra were coming back, and probably soon. “We need to get moving,” She insisted, quickening her pace. She didn’t need to tell me twice.

The catwalk ahead of us split into three directions. We glanced down each quickly, trying to gauge which one was the best option. Not seeing any difference between the three, we headed down to the left, hoping the zebra’s didn’t take it when they came back.

As we slowly moved down toward the bottom of the casm, we began to see a soft silver light slowly pulsating amongst the darkness of the cave. The lights felt slow and mournful. Just being close to it made me feel sad.

The closer we got to the light the easier I was able to make out what it was. It wasn’t a light at all, but hundreds of smaller light. Small silver balls of light bobbed up and down in the air around us, like large silver fireflies. They were both beautiful and terrifying.

“What are they?” Shade whispered, jumping back a little as one of the floating lights came close to her.

“They’re memory orbs, I think,” I said slowly, looking over one of them closer as we continued walking. “But I’ve never seen memory orbs like this.”

That wasn’t entirely true, and I knew it. The memories inside of Inferno's mind had looked just like this. But right now, the last thing I wanted to do was acknowledge the fact that the implications of that implied this whole place was alive. I don’t think my sanity could stand that.

Slowly, and without really thinking, I reached out towards one of the lights with my hoof. The glowing orb seemed to shutter and float away from me slightly, as if afraid of my touch. Then it seemed to decide otherwise and let my hoof place itself gently on it’s glowing surface.

Unlike most memory orbs, the world didn’t swirl away. There was no flash of blinding light or sudden flare of pain. I was simply inside the memory, as if I always had been.

I sat at the head of a table, my purple hooves crossed in front of me as I looked around at all those present. Most of the faces around me I could recognize. To my right sat a very tired and frazzled looking Rarity, a red pair of reading glasses rested on her muzzle as she read over a rather lengthy and boring looking document. To my left sat a less than happy looking Rainbow Dash, her hooves crossed grumply over her chest. The final pony I recognized was a slightly younger looking orange pegasus mare with a purple mane. I had seen her on Stable-Tec posters back in Stable 25. I couldn’t quite remember her name though, I always got the Stable-Tec leaders confused. Was she… Sweetie Belle? Yes, that must have been it.

The three other ponies that sat at the far end of the table I did not recognize. Two unicorn stallions sat on each side, seemingly acting as bodyguards to the green and orange mare that sat in the middle. She looked like she was a photographer of some kind, with a camera hanging around her neck.

Rarity looked up from the document, magically lifting her reading glasses off of her snout and placing them gently on the table. “Yes, this is a rather extensive and thorough confidentiality form darling, but when are you going to tell us what exactly it is for?” She asked. “I don’t appreciate being left in the dark, and I’m sure Rainbow feels the same.”

My host raised their hoof. “I’ll explain in a moment, we’re just waiting for a few more important guests,” That voice, so intelligent and well read with just a little bit of snark to it. Without having even heard her before, I knew I was looking through the eyes of the ministry mare Twilight Sparkle.

“Well yes of course, normally I would fully agree,” Rarity agreed, before holding up her own hoof, signifying there was a ‘but’ coming. “But, I don’t even know who this important guest is.”

“Well I do!” Rainbow Dash interrupted, flapping her wings and shooting up from her chair. “This important guest is slow! That’s what they are! I could have had this meeting five times already in the length it’s taking them to get here!”

Rarity just chuckled a little. “Well you know ponies with important schedules Rainbow. Always trying to fit more meetings into their allotted time.”

Rainbow Dash just rolled her eyes. “That doesn’t mean they aren’t slow. Seriously, I swear it took Luna longer to get back from the moon than it is for them to get here!”

“I’ll need to be more punctual then,” Princess Luna said calmly from the doorway as she walked in. She gave Rainbow Dash a small smile and seated herself next to Twilight.

Rainbow Dash’s mouth dropped open. She quickly shut it. “Wait, Princess Luna? You’re the important guest?”

Luna gave the rainbow coloured pegasus a small smirk. “I’m not the only one.”

Pureblood stalked into the room, his nose held so high above his head it almost looked ridiculous. The air in the room seemed to get a little more uncomfortable the second he entered. Pureblood paused as he passed Rarity. He gave a small humph sound. “Rarity…” His voice was as snooty and nasally as ever.

Rarity let out a loud Groan. “Pureblood, always a pleasure,” From her tone, I could tell this meeting was anything but a pleasure.

“Are we ready now?” Rainbow Dash pestered, her wings flapping restlessly at her sides as she looked over to Twilight. “Or are there any other surprises you would like to drop on us before we start?”

I felt Twilight open her mouth to respond, only to be cut off by a new voice from the doorway. “I’m sure there will be quite a few more surprises before this meeting is through.”

Everypony turned to look at the new earth pony Stallion that had entered the room. The stallion looked old and tired, dark bags having formed under his pale, grey eyes. He had a dull silver coat with a mane that was almost exactly the same colour, if not a little darker. A saddlebag had been slung over his back and I could see a large collection of old looking books resting inside. His cutie mark was a single black spade.

Both Rainbow Dash and Rarity stood up immediately, their reaction a mix of Shock and protest.

“What is he doing here!” Rarity shouted, pointing a white hoof at the stallion accusingly. “I demand he be removed from this meeting immediately.”

“Girls,” Twilight said calmly, trying to catch their attention, but neither of the ponies seemed to hear her.

“I haven’t forgotten what you did with those mega spells!” Rainbow Dash growled, her eyes glaring at the pony with disdain.

“Girls!” Twilight tried again, her voice much louder than last time. Both Rarity and Rainbow Dash stopped and looked back at her. Twilight straightened up in her seat a little and took a deep breath, placing her hoof against her chest before breathing out slowly. “Silver Ace is the one that called this meeting.”

Both Rarity and Rainbowdash’s faces were priceless.

So this pony here was the Silver Ace I had heard so much about? Not what I had expected, but I knew looks could be deceiving. Something about him rubbed me the wrong way though. I let my eyes land on his head. He was an earth pony… but I thought I had heard somewhere that he was a magic expert.

Silver Ace cleared his throat and slowly walked into the room, sitting closer to where the three ponies I didn’t recognize sat. “Yes, thank you Twilight,” He looked around at everypony present. “Has everypony signed the confidentiality form?”

Rarity huffed. “I was just about to, but now I’m not so sure if I should.”

Twilight placed a hoof over Rarity’s. “Please Rarity, this is important. And we can’t let you in unless you sign.”

Rarity sighed and looked down at the form in front of her. “Alright, but only for you Twilight,” She leveltated up a pen and started signing her name on the numerous pages.

“Where’s Applejack and Pinkie?” Rainbow Dash asked as Rarity flipped a page over and began signing the next. “I thought they were supposed to be here too?”

“Yes, and Fluttershy?” Rarity asked, only half paying attention as she continuously scribbled down her name.

“Pinkie… er… Pinkie wasn’t invited,” Twilight said, her gaze dropping to the table. “I didn’t want to see her after-”

“Pinkie refused to show up,” Silver Ace corrected, his cold gaze distant. “I invited her, and she refused.”

Twilight shot Silver Ace a glare. He ignored her disapproving eyes and continued looking through the large stack of books he had brought in.

“Applejack and Fluttershy did not need to attend,” Luna said, cutting off the awkwardness before it could fester. “They are both already informed on everything that is transpiring.”

“And what exactly is transpiring?” Rarity asked, finishing off the forms and placing them in a neat pile in front of her. “What could possibly be this important?”

“Before we begin, I just want to restate what is already said on the forms you just signed,” Silver Ace soothed, his silver hoof gesturing to the large stack of papers. “Nothing said in this room is to leave this room under any circumstances. Nopony can know… and the last thing we want is OIA involvement.”

There was a round of nods as everypony around the table agreed, though I could see the discomfort on Rarity and Rainbow Dash’s faces. Satisfied with the response, Silver Ace gestured for Twilight to take the lead.

“Thank you SIlver Ace,” Twilight said, standing up before the gathering of ponies. She cleared her throat and took a moment to console herself. “As most of you know, I have been reaching out to the other kingdoms around Equestria. Unfortunately, most of my attempts were met with little success. What most of you do not know, is that I have managed to make contact with another kingdom and have managed to form a temporary alliance with them.”

“That’s wonderful news darling!” Rarity exclaimed, resting her hoof on the table. “Which kingdom?”

Twilight exchanaged a knowing glance with Luna. Slowly, Twilight turned to face the three ponies at the end of the table that I didn’t recognize. They had managed to stay almost silent so far, I had almost begun to forget they were even there. “When you’re ready,” Twilight said to the green and orange mare in the middle.

The mare gave Twilight a devious smirk. “We’re always ready,” She cooed. Had I my normal body, I would have shivered at her voice. The voice had a strange echo to it. It clearly wasn’t pony.

Both Rarity and Rainbow froze as the voice reached their ears. They recognized it.

Three columns of magical green fire surged up from around the three ponies hooves, completely obscuring them from my view. When the flames subsided, the three things that stood in their place looked like something from a nightmare.

The two creatures that had once been unicorn stallions had sprouted thin insectoid wings and hard beetle like shells. Their now solid blue eyes lacked pupils and two large fangs hung from their mouth.

The mare in the center however had turned into something much, much worse. She stood high above everypony on gnarled, spider-like legs. Her green eyes gleamed out at everypony from below a head of greasy, blue, matted hair. A jagged horn protruded from her brow and a pair of tattered insect wings fluttered at her side.

Everypony with the exception of Twilight, Luna and Silver Ace were on their hooves in an instant. “Changelings!” Pureblood shrieked, his mane and tail practically standing right on end. “Somepony call the guards! They have infiltrated us!”

“Luna! We must get you to safety!” Rarity cried out, jumping in front of the laid back princess of the night as if expecting to take a bullet for her.

“You’re gonna learn you’re messing with the wrong ponies!” Rainbow Dash yelled down threateningly as she readied herself for attack.

The large Changeling just sat back in her chair and looked around at all the chaos with a sick sense of amusement.

“Everypony! Calm down! Please!” Twilight’s voice cut over the sound of panic. Everypony took a second to breathe, trying their best to assess the situation better. “Please sit back down. Chrysalis and her changelings are here with my permission and Luna’s blessing.”

Everypony who had stood up did as they were told, but didn’t seem overly pleased about it.

“Twilight? What is the meaning of this?” Rarity asked, her voice filled with worry. “I mean, these are changelings we’re talking about! Surely you remember what happened at your brother and Cadence's wedding?”

Twilight gave a quick nod. “I know Equestria and the Changeling empire haven't exactly seen eye to eye in the past, but Chrysalis has agreed to sign a temporary treaty with Equestria. She plans to help us with the war effort.”

“And how do we know she won’t betray us?!” Rainbow Dash pushed in a brash tone, casting the three changelings a suspicious glance. “I mean, they aren’t exactly the element of honesty Twi.”

Chrysalis’ grin widened. “Because Right now you need us. Equestria is far behind the zebras technology and skill set in infiltration. We can fix that,” The changeling queen said smugly. “And with recent events, I doubt you will ever be able to catch up without our help? How is Maud by the way?” The last line was directed at Rarity.

“You all can’t be serious!” Pureblood exclaimed, pushing himself back up and pointing a hoof at Chrysalis. “Changelings have been enemies with Equestria for even longer than the zebras! They aren’t even ponies!”

“I can assure you Pureblood, that I have thought this all through and deemed it best for Equestria,” Princess Luna said, hoping to calm the snooty unicorn down slightly. He remained silent at her words, but didn’t seem all to comfurted.

“And what do you hope to get out of all this!” Rainbow Dash spat at the three changelings, her wings rustling against her side anxiously.

Chrysalis looked almost offended as she put a hole filled hoof to her chest in mocking offence. “Why can't I simply want to help out my neighbors? I’m hurt you would think I’m doing this for myself!” her echoey voice dripped with sarcasm and malice. She dropped her hoof back to her side. “If you really must know, I want Equestria to win. Zebra’s have created an effective way to unveil our disguises, and with the dragons now having joined their side…”

“Dragon’s tend to lack love towards other creatures,” Twilight Explained, picking up where Chrysalis had ommonusly trailed off. “A dragon run Equestria is an Equestria that Changelings simply cannot live in.”

Chrysalis gave a crooked grin. “Perciscely.”

“Regardless of your opinion on the alliance, there are more important things to discuss,” Silver Ace said, returning the attention in the room back to him. “Chrysalis and her changelings have agreed to help us on a project we have been working on.”

“Which is?” Rarity pushed, not enjoying Silver Ace’s dramatic pause.

Silver Ace gave a sly grin. “Twilight, Luna, Pureblood and I have been working on it in secret for quite some time now. It is possible that you all have heard vague rumours of it over the past few months. I believe it is time to let you all in in full,” he took another pause, adjusting one of the books he had laid out in front of him. “It is called The Institute of Arcane Technology… Though we simply call it The Institute. Think of it almost as a seventh ministry. A combination of all the ministries best works combined into one massive facility. Already we have been able to develop stealth technology that far exceeds the capabilities of the normal zebra stealth cloak.”

“And with our assistance, I can assure you winning the stealth race will not be a problem,” Chrysalis added, her voice low and hushed, as if letting everypony in on a big secret. I suppose in a way she was.

“But why keep this ‘Institute’ so secret?” Rarity inquired, cocking her head to the side slightly. “As it seems to thrive on collaboration, would it not be better to open it up to more minds?”

“The Institute must remain completely confidential. We are both in the planning stages and development stages of some of the most powerful and war altering advancements in science and technology in pony history. The zebra’s have already been known to steal some of the most secure secrets from the ministries as it is, if they were to get their hooves on what we have in the Institute…” He let that linger in the air for a bit.

“It is also best if the general public is left unaware,” Luna stated. “If ponies knew about a secret government facility below the city creating weapons and spyware on the scale we are, there would be panic. The last thing we need is for the zebra’s to take advantage of a mass panic in Manehattan.”

“How advanced exactly are we talking?” Rainbow Dash puzzled, raising her eyebrows a little. “Like mega spell level weapons?” her eyes widened. “Bigger than megaspell level weapons!”

“The Institute isn’t just making weapons. While there are weapons in development, that is far from the Institutes only or even main focus. But you know just as well as I that the public will jump to that conclusion, just as you just did,” Silver Ace said plainly, a bit of hurt behind his tone. “As for how advanced… Well… Scootaloo? Would you like to take it from here?”

Darn, it wasn’t Sweetie Belle… I should have known Sweetie Belle was the yellow and red one.

Everyone turned to face Scootaloo, whom until this point had been yet to say anything.The orange and purple pegasus stood up slowly and looked around at everypony. “The Institute has been fitted with my latest model of Crusader Mainframe. The updated model should possess five hundred times the power as the initial three. The mainframe should be capable of anything you need it for.”

“A Crusader mainframe?” Rarity gasped. “Why, I thought there were only three ever made. Were they not too expensive for production?”

“Money won’t be a problem,” Pureblood soothed from across the table, his gaze still locked on the changelings on the other side of the room. As if to prove his point, he pulled out a bit and fiddled around with it in his hoof. “The Institute has my complete and full support. Whatever is being done will be properly funded for and covered up by the best lawyers Equestria has to offer.”

“Your lawyers won't need to worry their little pony heads,” Chrysalis soothed at him. “I’ll keep everything nice and quiet.”

“What is the mainframe being used for right now?” Rainbow Dash asked, finally looking away from a very smug looking Chrysalis and towards Silver Ace.

Silver Ace exchanged a look between Pureblood and Scootaloo. “I’m afraid that is confidential, but rest assured that the Mainframe is still very much capable of running all of your projects as well.”

Chrysalis stood up from her chair. At full height, I was able to see just how tall she really was compared to everypony else in the room. “I think these introductions have gone on for long enough,” She said, her once sarcastic and calm tone now slightly annoyed and rushed. She clearly wanted to switch topics, that much was obvious. “I say it's time we get into the real business...”

I was unexpectedly thrown from Twilights memories and back into my own body. Just like going into the memory, there had been no warning or strange nauseating feeling of the world swirling out from under me. I was simply just back.

“That was… interesting…” I muttered to myself, trying to once again adjust to the dark surroundings. Had the cave always been this dark? It was horrifying.

“Amber we need to go,” I heard Shade whisper fearfully from beside me as she heard my voice. I looked over to see her crouching low behind me as she looked up at the entrance we had come through far above us.

Following her gaze, I saw the source of her fear. Twenty or so zebra we quickly making their way back down the catwalks towards us. They were moving quickly, though not rushing, so I assumed they hadn’t spotted us yet.

I nodded quickly, ushering Shade along as we continued moving. Our attempts to stay low and quiet were slowing us down somewhat, allowing the zebras to cover more ground than us. They were gaining on us quickly, and to my displeasure, I saw them turn at the fork in the same direction we had gone.

“Damn it.”

Moving forwards with only the dim, pulsing lights of the many floating memories, we descended farther and father into the massive cistern.

Who the hell even needs a cistern this big? I mean really? I thought to myself. Even after having descended this deep, I couldn’t see the bottom. I glanced back at the huge sinister monolith that seemed to be staring down at us pitifully. Just looking at it made my whole body feel cold. There was more going on below the depth than simply collecting water. This place was evil somehow. Something terrible had happened here.

With my head turned to look back at the vile totem, I wasn’t able to see where I was going. My hoof bumped into a metal bucket that had been left on the catwalk. I stumbled slightly, but managed to catch myself on the rail before I could fall. The bucket however, fell. It clanged loudly against the side of the scaffolding as it toppled over and rolled off the edge of the catwalk, clanking against another below us as if fell into the gloom.

We both froze and glanced up at the zebras. They were all staring at us, their yellow eyes glinting in the darkness.

“Think they see us?”

“There they are!” one of the zebras called out in a loud, yet monotone voice.

I slapped my hoof across my face. “Yup, they see us…”

We turned tail and started booking it as fast as we could across the catwalks. I heard the cracking sound of the zebra’s pulling out their snipers and firing down on us from above, their snipers resting on the rail of the scaffolding to steady their aim.

Zebra’s wielding long curved scimitars came charging down towards us, many hopping over the railings and jumping down to lower catwalks to get to us with surprising agility.

I whirled around, my baton swinging out and colliding with one of the curved blades mid air as one of the zebras neared. The two melee weapons clashed, making both of us stagger backwards slightly. I managed to regain my balance first, swinging my baton again and bringing it down hard on the zebras leg. The limb snapped at the joint making the zebra scream out in pain and fall backwards onto their rump.

I jumped back as another shot from the snipers above nearly took out my head. Shit these zebra’s have good aim. I shouldn’t be surprised, Xayah was the best shot of my party after all.

I backed up and started running after Shade who was now a few feet ahead of me. I saw her duck as a few shots lanced over her head.

Two more zebras rushed up behind me, their blades drawn and aimed for the back of my neck. I ducked low, dodging the first swing and kicked out with my hind leg to knock one of the zebras down. They both quickly leapt over my attack with a speed and agility I didn’t possess.

Now up close to them, I could see that something about them wasn’t right. The whites of their eyes had been tinged a pale piss yellow and their coat seemed to stand on end as if electrically charged somehow. They had a strange glazed over expression, lacking the emotion and intelligence I had seen in most ponies.

I realized their expression wasn’t just blank, it was also the same as my Hellhound had once had. These zebra’s weren’t in control, but being controlled.

Kamari had some sort of magical mind control too… that was just great.

I didn’t have much time to think about it as the two zebra’s began swinging at me again. I rolled away from their attack, luckily avoiding another sniper shot at the same time and hoped back to my hooves. Boneless swiveled into the air and blasted the head off the first zebra. Their body slumped over, their ruined neck spilling gore.

I hoped back as the second zebra swung at me. I saw three more quickly approaching behind them. Shade pushed past me, her pistol firing two shots into my attacker. Only one shot landed, tearing apart the zebra’s left forehoof. The zebra recoiled from the attack, giving me time to steady myself and send an explosive buckshot into their face. The zebra’s head was quickly pulverized.

We quickly turned and kept running, not bothering to try fighting the zebra that quickly filled the space the last two had just occupied. One of the zebra snipers shot down at me, the bullet just barely missing my hoof. I lurched to the side as they fired again, this time with a better aimed shot.

The movement made me stumble, my left side skidding to the edge of the catwalk and slamming into the railing. The railing didn’t hold. Two hundred years of neglect and water damage had weakened the railing and it gave way like paper as I collided with it, sending me flying off the side of the catwalk.

Screaming, I frantically reached out and grabbed onto the edge with my hooves, my back legs dangling over the side precariously. Shade darted over, reaching down to help pull me back up.

One of the snipers shot Shade through one of her hind legs. With a yelp of pain, she dropped to the ground next to me, still trying with all her strength to pull me back up.

“Shit, shit, fuck! Come on!” She grunted between gritted teeth as she pulled against my hooves with all her might.

The zebra’s behind us were closing in, their blades glinting from the floating silver obs. We only had a few seconds before they reached us, though they seemed to be slowing as they took in our predicament.

Shade glanced down at something below me. “Drop!” She instructed, pushing herself up on her injured leg and quickly jumping over the side of the rail.

Seeing her movement, the zebra’s began rushing towards us faster. No time to question if she was crazy or not, I just had to act.

I let go of the catwalk and dropped down. The air rushed past me, my heart beating faster than ever as I was plunged into the darkness below. Then my body hit another catwalk that had been a few feet below me, just far enough down that I hadn’t been able to see it through the gloom. The air was pushed from my lungs as I collided with the catwalk.

“Come on!” Shade pushed, pulling me up and forcing me to keep running down the catwalk. Her run was slowed as she hobbled on her shot back hoof.

The zebras were quickly following behind us, many jumping over the edge of the upper catwalks to land on our level while others continued racing up above to cut us off. Now a little lower and obscured by the higher elevated scaffolding, the zebra snipers had to rush to a new position to get a good aim at us. We had bought ourself a bit of time, but not a lot.

“There’s a tunnel up ahead!” I shouted, pointing towards the end of the catwalk. We had gotten closer to the walls of the large cistern. I could see that the rough rock walls were filled with hundreds of smaller tunnels, some near the ground while others remained halfway up the rock surface. Many off the catwalks led into them, assumably leading into other parts of the mine.

A zebra jumped down from the catwalk above, landing in front of our path. I whipped Boneless out only for the zebra to knock it aside with a kick of their hoof. I dodged to the right as they swung at me with their scimitar, the curved blade slicing through the air and clattering against the metal catwalk. Shade whipped the zebra across the face with her gun, knocking them back a little.

The zebra stumbled, trying to regain their balance as their vision whirled from the sudden impact against their skull. I wrapped my amber magic around their hoof and tugged, sending them flying off the edge and freefalling into the darkness below. I didn’t hear them land.

“Fuck, how deep is this place…”

The sound of gunfire alerted us that the snipers had managed to get back into a position where they could shoot down at us again. Bullets rained down at us from all sides and blasted at the catwalk below our hooves, blowing holes to the vertigo inducing drop below.

“Now would be a good time to get to that tunnel!” Shade shouted, rushing forwards towards the end off the catwalk. I quickly started after her, my magic reaching out and picking up Boneless as I went. My hooves were starting to ache from all the running and I could slowly feel the exersion starting to sap away at my energy. We were so close to the tunnel now, only a few more feet and we would be there.

A zebra pulled a grenade from one of their saddlebags and threw it down towards us. The grenade bounced down and rolled across the catwalk to land by are hooves. I wrapped Shade in a field of magic and pulled her back just as the explosive went off.

Shrapnel burst towards us, the small, jagged chunks ripping open small cuts in our coat. The catwalk wobbled, the area in front of us leading to the tunnel collapsing inwards. Then the whole thing started to crumble. Scaffolding started breaking below us and pieces of the Catwalk began cracking and falling into the abysse.

“Go back! Go back!” I shouted, pushing Shade back as the part of the catwalk we had just been standing on started collapsing.

I saw the zebra’s that had been chasing after us quickly start climbing up to higher levels to escape the crumbling structure.

With all the strength I had, I magically threw Shade up to the level above us. Her front hooves clutched onto the rail as she slowly pulled herself up. She turned and reached out her arm, gesturing for me to jump up to her.

I shook my head, there was no way I was going to make that jump.

The catwalk broke off below my hooves. I hoped to the side, just barely avoiding falling into the darkness below and started running for all I was worth. With each second, the catwalk seemed to collapse faster, the breaking pieces of scaffolding seeming to fall away behind me more and more with each step.

The zebras above me continued firing down, their shots bouncing and ricocheting around me. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Shade jump backwards to avoid the swinging curved blade of a zebra that had begun to assail her.

I jumped from the catwalk, my hooves outsteched and reaching for a small platform a few feet below me. The second my hooves left the catwalk, the whole structure collapsed, crumbling away into the depths and out of sight.

My chest struck the floor of the platform hard, knocking the air out of me. I quickly rolled over as a zebra tried to fire another shot at me. The bullet missed by a hair, thudding against the metal platform and ricocheting away mere inches from my eye.

I pulled myself up and glanced over to Shade. She was rushing down one of the catwalks above me towards another platform as three zebra’s gave chase. She fired behind her blindly, hoping to take out or at the very least slow her pursuers. The zebras were managing to evade her attacks with a great deal of ease. I started charging up the catwalks to help her, only for two of the snipers to begin shooting down at me, forcing me to duck and move away.

I had to get rid of those snipers, otherwise they were just going to pick us off.

I glanced up at the catwalk suspended by scaffolding far above me where a majority of the zebra snipers had located themselves to get a clear shot at most of the surrounding area. If only I could...

I was hit with a plan.

I ducked behind some scaffolding as they continued shooting down at me. Out of my line of sight, it was going to be a lot harder, but I wouldn’t be able to do it if they continued shooting at me like that. I reached out with my magic, trying to remember exactly what position the zebra’s had been in with the quick glance I had gotten of them.

Using magic on something you couldn’t see was hard. Really hard. But not impossible.

Hoping I had managed to grab what I needed in my telekinesis, I gave a quick tug with my magic. At once I heard a zebra shout and saw a saddlebag tumble off of the catwalk. I quickly wrapped it in my magic and brought it over to me.

I opened it up. Sitting inside were several grenades. Perfect.

Using my magic I pulled all the pins at once. I jumped out from cover, locked eyes with the sniper zebras and pictured all of the grenades up with them. The moment the zebras spotted me their snipers turned and fired. One of the shots lanced through my leg, dropping me to the ground in pain. But it was too late for them. Seconds before the grenades exploded there was a pop of amber light and I teleported all seven of them up onto the catwalk with them.

The catwalk above exploded. Bits of metal and broken pipes from the scaffolding rained down around me as the whole thing began to crumble and collapse into the abyss. Most of the zebras were ripped apart in the blast, but a couple managed to jump from the collapsing structure. I saw a few bodies of frantic zebras falling past me into the darkness, their hooves flailing as they tried to grasp onto something.

Two zebras landed on the catwalk in front of me. They started to pull themselves to their hooves, but I quickly grabbed both of their heads in my magic and rammed them together, knocking both of them over the side.

I saw a zebra on a catwalk above me fall to a shot from Shade’s pistol. She was keeping them at bay for the moment, but I could tell she wasn’t going to be able to hold them off for much longer.

Trying my best to ignore my aching legs, I rushed up a sloped part of the catwalks and headed towards Shade. Before I could reach her, a large part of the scaffolding I had just blown up collapsed into the catwalk behind me, making the whole structure lurch awkwardly to one side. I stumbled on my hooves, doing my best to keep from falling.

I could hear the creaking of the scaffolding as the base slowly began to break away. The whole catwalk tilted dangerously and slowly began toppling downwards.

“Shit!”

I pushed with my back legs to propel myself forwards and raced for the end of the ramp. The whole catwalk wobbled, making it impossible to get any good hoofing as I sped towards the end. I wasn’t going to make it! It was falling too fast.

I leapt from the catwalk and grabbed onto the scaffolding across from me as the catwalk completely collapsed. With a groan of pain I began pulling myself up the side of the scaffolding and towards the platform it suspended above me.

I heard Shade shout something, but I wasn’t quite sure what it was she said. I heard her gun fire off a few more rounds, but I couldn’t tell if any of them made their mark.

I pulled myself up onto the platform and began rushing down towards her. Five zebras had circled her, their blades raised to rip into her.

I screamed, drawing the zebras attention to me as I charged up and fired Boneless point blank into one of their faces. The zebra's head was blown from its body, blood and viscera splashing up against us and coating our coats in red.

The four remaining zebras spun around to face me, their scimitars swinging in my direction. I jumped back and evaded the first strike, only for another blade to cut deep into my side. I yelled in pain as a large gash was torn open in my side.

Blam! Blam!

Two shots from Shades pistol pierced a zebras leg, making them collapse and fall screaming from the platform. I lashed out with my baton, knocking a zebra back before they had a chance to swing at me again.

One of the zebras lunged at Shade, their hooves wrapping around her neck and trying to strangle her. I moved in to help her, only for the other zebra to charge into me. I felt the zebras hooves wrap around me as they tried to leap from the platform.

They were trying to throw us off by tackling us! Even if that meant they would die as well! Were they insane?! One glance at their pale yellow eyes reminded me they weren’t even in control, let alone thinking straight.

I bucked at the zebra, trying to make it release its grip on me. It’s grip held tight. It pushed against me again, sending me a little closer to the edge. I felt my back hoof slide over the edge and dangle over the pit.

My whole body lost its balance as my hoof went out from under me. I fell, my whole body going over the side of the platform, taking the zebra with me. My hooves lashed out grabbing onto the rusted scaffolding before I could plunge to my death.

The zebra grabbing onto me held tight to my neck, continually trying to drag me down. It batted at me with it’s striped hooves, each strike hitting with a sharp and painful precision.

I magically pulled out my baton and slammed it against the zebra's head. The zebra jerked back, its face bloodied from the attack. It’s hooves loosened and it fell from me, falling away into the darkness.

Blam!

A gunshot rang out above me, followed by the body of the last zebra slumping over and falling from the platform.

I saw Shades head peek out over the edge and look down at me, her face filled with relief as she saw I was still alive and hanging on. She had a large bruise on her neck where the zebra had been choking her.

“You still hanging in there?” she asked, reaching down a hoof to help pull me up.

I rolled my eyes and accepted her hoof, letting her haul me back up onto the platform. “Haha. very funny,” I grumbled, pulling two healing potions out of my saddlebag and passing one to her before drinking one myself. I could feel the magic in the potion start to take effect and patch up some of my wounds.

Shade just gave me a sly, nervous smile before drinking her own healing potion.

Then the platform shook. I bounded to my hooves and glanced down. One of the toppled catwalks had collapsed into the platform, breaking apart some of the scaffolding. The whole platform slanted, making our hooves slip out from under us.

“Get to safety first, joke around later,” I cried out as the scaffolding supporting the platform broke away completely. The platform began plummeting downwards, what little scaffolding that remained intact breaking away under the sudden force.

My head darted around, looking for another platform or Catwalk to jump to. We were moving too fast, I couldn’t see one.

“Hold on!” I shouted over the sound of rushing wind as we began practically freefalling towards the darkness below us. I saw Shade wrap her hooves tightly around the edge of the platform.

I couldn’t see the bottom, so I shut my eyes and guessed how far down it was. This was a jump in the dark. I knew if I got this wrong, we were dead. I gulped, I really hoped I was right.

I wrapped my hooves around Shade and let my magic envelope both of us. With all the force I had left, I pictured what I really hoped was the bottom of the cave and cast the spell.

We teleported. I had hoped we would teleport to the ground, but it turned out the cave was even deeper than I thought. We materialized in the middle of the air, still plummeting downwards at a sickening speed.

I heard the booming crash of the platform we had just been on smash into the ground. That meant we were close to the ground too, really damn close!

I could see the rocky ground below us. It was just a few feet away now. It seemed to reach up towards us, rising at an accelerating speed.

I tightened my grip on Shade and tried to cast the spell again, but I didn’t have enough strength left. Not for two ponies anyway. I could only teleport one of us, the other would have to fall.

I made a choice.

My horn flared and I immediately teleported Shade to safety.

Then I was falling alone. Down, down into the deep. Moments before I collided with the ground, my flailing body hit one of the floating silver orbs that filled the air and everything changed.

End of Part One

Author's Note

Darn... so I was really hoping to have this just be one chapter, but after writing it I realized it was simply too long for that.

I hope you have a wonderful day.

Fallout: Equestrian belongs to Kkat.

Chapter XV: Memoirs of Twilight Sparkle Part: 2

I was once more in Twilight Sparkle’s body. Like before I was simply in her body, not thrown into like most orbs. I was walking down a long corridor, the same corridor in fact that Shade and I had just walked down to reach the large underground cistern. I could hear the soft clopping of hoof steps as a pony walked along beside her, but Twilight had her gaze fixed on the upcoming chamber making it impossible to see who it was.

I found it surprising to see the tunnel lit with light. I had seen it as a creepy, dank cave, but here it seemed simple and almost welcoming. Pretty lanterns lined the walls, filling the hall with a cozy, warm glow and the sound of bustling people in the distance made it feel like we were somewhere we were supposed to be instead of a deathtrap full of killer zebras.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Twilight finally said after a couple seconds of silence. I was unsure how long they had actually been walking before she had decided to speak up. “It just feels so wrong keeping this a secret from everyone. Especially Celestia…”

“My Sister put me in charge, it is no longer her place to say what is right or wrong,” I heard the voice of Luna say from behind me. Twilight turned her head a little, letting me make out the majestic form of the goddess walking beside me. “Besides, she will understand. Do not think I am unaware of her mega spell. Silver Ace and I simply think it would be wise if I had one as well. If we are to rule, then we are to rule properly.”

“Silver Ace?” Twilight asked cautiously. “When did Silver Ace get involved in this? I thought he was busy with all his responsibilities out at the MAS hub in Manehattan and his assistance with Fluttershy?”

The princess of the night nodded. “He is, but I have been checking in on progress there and have had a few talks with him. He was quite interested in the idea.”

“Silver Ace is interested in any idea, so long as he thinks it can be used to stop the zebras,” Twilight grumbled. It was interesting seeing her in this more casual manner. In the meeting it had seemed like she agreed and supported Silver Ace. Here she seemed to agree with, but be weary of him. “If it’s experimenting with magic or simply learning new magic, then he’ll agree to it. I guess I can relate with him on that.”

“Having second thoughts are you?” Luna asked, walking a few steps faster than Twilight so she could look at her properly. “I thought you wanted to do this?”

Twilight bit her lower lip, thinking how to proceed. “I did, It’s just... Celestia Prime is manageable. We can control it in the MAS Hub. But this? What if we aren’t able to control it properly? It could cause damage like we have never seen, and not just to the zebras.”

Luna gave Twilight a small smile. “We will. I have complete faith that we will be able to maintain and control Luna Prime.”

This was it then… Luna Prime. It was some sort of weapon then that Twilight at Luna had been working on. Something big. A mega spell. But what did it have to do with the cistern and conjoined caves below the Hollow Shades? And why keep it so secret?

A bright yellow stallion in a red hard hat came running up the tunnel towards them. His face was filled with fear. “Twilight! I was just sent to find you!” The yellow stallion gasped between breaths. His eyes landed on Princess Luna and he immediately dropped to one knee. “Your highness!”

“What is it Hammer?” Twilight Sparkle asked, reaching out a hoof and putting it on his shoulder to comfort him. “What did you find?”

The pony I now knew as Hammer glanced back at the tunnel he had come through. “The cave just broke open into this huge cistern of some form! There-there's something in there! Oh goddesses! It’s coming for me!” He put his hooves over his head and curled up into as small of a ball as he could.

Twilight knelt down to be at his level. “Where is everypony else?” She said, slightly worried. “Are they okay?”

“T-t-there still in there… Goddesses! You need to save them!” The stallion cried out as tears started racing down his yellow cheeks.

Twilight and Luna exchanged a look before rushing down the rest of the hallway, wasting no time. As they came to the end of the tunnel, they burst out into a large cavern. Unlike the cavern I had been in before, the floor was level with the entrance of the tunnel and the roof hung only about ten feet above our heads. Like before, columns rose up from the ground, slowly twisting above our heads and curving into arches that disappeared into the rock ceiling. In the center of the chamber stood the horrific monolith. It was exactly as I remembered, covered in skulls and zebra runes. The only difference was that now only the tip of the monolith protruded from the ground. The eyes of the shadow pony carving poked over the rocky ground, the only part of the twisted art I could still see.

A group of several ponies all dressed in hard hats knelt before the horrifying monolith, their heads bowed and their bodies still. They were chanting something, but I couldn’t seem to make out exactly what it was.

“What is going on here!” Luna demanded, striding towards the group. “You’re princess demands to know what is going on!”

At the sound of her words, the ponies around the monolith seemed to break away from their weird trance. They looked up, seeing the monolith for the first time. Then they began to scream. And scream. And scream.

One by one, their mouths dropped and a sickening, ear splitting scream erupted from their lips. They flailed their hooves and clawed at their ears as if trying to get a noise from out of their heads. Their back legs kicked and pushed them away from the monolith, trying desperately to escape it as if it were chasing after them.

Twilight rushed over to the closest pony. “Are you alright?! Talk to me!”

The pony looked up at her, her face filled with horror. “The voices! They won't stop!”

“It’s okay, we’re here now,” Twilight assured her, helping her to her hooves. She turned back to look at the rest of the ponies “We need to get you out of here, please head back to the tunnel.”

It took a few moments for the ponies to all come back to their senses and a few more to get them all out of the cavern and back into the tunnel. Once they were all gone, Twilight turned to look back at Luna.

Luna was standing in the center of the chamber, looking up at the huge monolith. Even while mostly submerged under rock, it was massive.

“Princess Luna?” Twilight asked, taking a cautious step forward. “L-Luna, are you alright?”

“Yes Twilight Sparkle. I am quite alright,” Luna said flatly, her gaze shifting to the mostly submerged carving of the shadow pony on the monolith. “I have seen one of these before. A long time ago underneath Hoofington.”

“Underneath… You mean when you became Nightmare Moon?” Twilight asked, looking at a pony skull that rest within the carved rock.

“Indeed. Though this one seems weaker. The one in the Hoof felt alive… this one feels…” Luna looked for the right word, her eyes remaining transfixed on the shadow ponies eyes.

“Dead…” Twilight finished for her, dropping her eyes to the alicorn beside her.

Luna looked up, a little surprised. “You can feel it too?”

Twilight nodded. “Yes, I think everypony can. It seems to be emanating some sort of dark magic similar to what I saw from Sombra in the crystal empire, just a lot weaker. Kinda like it's below us.”

They both glanced at the base of the monolith and the shadow pony carving that was half buried in the ground.

“How deep do you suppose it goes?” Luna asked, slowly walking around the monolith to inspect it from all sides.

“I’m not sure,” Twilight admitted. “But there is only one way to find out. My best guess is that what we are looking for is at the bottom.”

Luna glanced up at her and nodded before looking at the shadow pony carving once again. “When I was young, my teacher Starswirl the Bearded went missing,” Luna said quietly. Twilight suddenly looked very interested. “No pony ever knew what happened to him, but they said he fought a pony of shadows that came from the Hollow Shades. That a pony named Stygian had come here to gain power.”

Twilight glanced nervously at the monolith. “Do you think he found it here?”

“If I found my power to become Nightmare Moon near one of these out in the Hoof, perhaps this Stygian did the same here,” Luna suggested, finally looking away and to Twilight. “We had best start digging. We will need to do all we can before the zebras find out about this. I feel they will be less than pleased.”

I opened my eyes with a groan. I was in agonizing pain on a level topped only by the memory I had shared with inferno of getting turned into a cyber pony. Every part of my body throbbed with splitting pains and my horn felt like it was on fire. I tried to roll onto my hooves, only to find that I couldn’t move.

Panic flared up inside me. Goddesses, why couldn’t I move!

I tried to remember what had happened. I had been falling and… I had saved Shade. I had let myself fall. It was a miracle I was even still alive. But that didn’t change the growing fear that I had broken my spine or worse.

I tried to roll onto my hooves again, only to find myself still completely immobilized. Unbearable pain shot through my whole body as I tried to move.

Unable to move my neck, I glanced down at my hooves with my eyes. Goddesses, that wasn’t good. My legs probably weren’t supposed to bend in seven directions at once. I groaned loudly and tried to move them again. The most I could do was get my left hind leg to twitch a little, each twitch sending pain shooting down my leg and up my spine. They were definitely broken. All of them, everything. I had to resist the urge to scream as more and more fear and panic began to rise in me.

That memory orb must have saved me from feeling my body hit the ground. I had no doubt that had I been in my own body when I hit, I would have died from the agony alone. Bless the goddesses that I had at least managed to teleport most of the way down before I had hit the ground.

The idea of dying broken and bloodied in this dark fucking hole in the ground was terrifying. I would have been lying if I said I hadn’t had countless thoughts of ending my own life, but here in this lifeless pit, all I could think about was how badly I wanted to live.

I saw bits of rubble a few feet away get pushed aside as Shade slowly pulled herself from the collapsed catwalk. Apparently I had teleported her directly into the rubble. Save from a few cuts and bruises and the bullet wound in her hind leg, she seemed relatively okay.

She stumbled around for a second, trying to properly orient herself. She put a hoof to her head and shook herself, trying to shake the dizziness from her head to no success.

She slowly looked down, her gaze landing on my broken body. Her eyes popped wide as she took me in, an expression of true terror crossing her face. She rushed over to me in an instant, rummaging around in our saddlebags for any form of healing supplies. We only had three healing potions left.

She quickly poured the first two down my throat. I could feel the itching sensation as they patched up the many cuts that covered my body. Slowly I felt the blood stop trickling down the side of my head.

Shade went to pour the third potion down my throat. “N-no…” I managed to croak out before they could administer it.

Shade stared at me in confusion and fear, though mostly just fear. “Amber, you’re dying! You need this!”

“No…” I managed to croak out again. Each time I tried to speak it felt like I was swallowing nails. “Xayah needs one too. Need to find her.”

Shade gave me an awed, yet slightly angry look. “Amber! You need this more than her right now!” She spat, trying to give it to me again. I kept my mouth closed as to keep her from administering it. “Damn it Amber, take the fucking potion! I can't let you… You’ll… You’re all I have left! Damn it, don’t die!”

I just shook my head. Pain shot through my whole body just by doing the motion. “Won’t help… not broken bones… Find Medical bay…” I grunted, trying to keep from wailing like a foal as the act of talking sent shooting pains down my body. “Should be… down here…”

Shade nodded eagerly and looked around the gloom. The dull, flickering green glow of her pipbuck did little to illuminate the vast dark space. She pulled herself up and wrapped her hooves around me, gingerly trying to haul me onto her back. I did my best to help climb up onto her, but without the use of my hooves I was less than useless.

I moaned as I felt Shade place me over her back. She was trying her best to be gentle, but that did little to help the hurt.

“You hang in there, got it kid?” Shade instructed as she took off at a quick trot. “You aren’t going to die on me, you hear!” I did little more than whimper in response.

Shade moved forwards through the dark cave, her pipbuck lightning only a few feet ahead of her at a time. I was bounced up and down on her rump lightly as she bounded forwards, making my spine scream at me in protest.

I tried to reach for my own pipbuck to turn on it’s light, but my legs refused to move. I grunted as I tried to reach for it again. Nothing. I had never felt so helpless.

As it turned out, Shade didn’t need anymore light. Up ahead, her pipbuck light glinted off a large sign embedded into a rock face above one of the tunnels. As we drew closer, the faded and near scratched out letters became legible. They read, ‘Medical Bay, Geology Research Facility and Mega Spell Research’.

Had I the ability to move my neck, I would have taken a double take. Instead, I just took to blinking at the sign in disbelief. Mega spell research!? Were there megaspells down here? And if so, did Kamari have access to them? The last thing I needed right now was to have Kamari fighting me with something of that scale.

Pain shot through me again as Shade started rushing towards the tunnel. Right, first thing’s first… don’t die and get to the medical bay. I definitely couldn’t fight Kamari in this state, mega spells or no.

The Medical bay was the first room in the tunnel. Clearly Twilight had wanted the medical bay to be easily accessible in case something bad happened down here. I was thankful for that.

The room was a large square metal chamber, starkly contrasting the rough rock walls of the tunnel outside. The walls were lined with desks covered in an assortment of paper, medical boxes and terminals. A single medical examination bed lay in the center of the room, its light blue sheets now grey with dust and age.

Shade gently lifted me off her back with magic and placed me on the bed. I almost screamed as my back was laid out against the hard mattress. Goddesses I was in so much pain.

Shade immediately took to searching the room for anything of value. She threw open cupboards and ripped open medic bags, hoping for any sort of healing supplies. I could clearly see her distress after each and every thing she looked in she found empty. Clearly the medical bay had been looted already. Kamari had probably picked the whole place clean I suppose.

Shade slammed her hoof down on one of the desks violently, knocking papers and a lone, empty glass vile to the floor. The vile shattered, sending small shards of glass skidding around her violet hooves. “Fuck! There’s nothing here!” She slammed her hoof on the table again, this time cracking the rotting wood. From my spot on the bed, I could see the glistening tears in her eyes glinting in the dim light. “Damn it! I won’t be responsible for another pony from my Stable to die!”

I grimaced and tried to open my mouth to speak, only to find I was in far too much pain to make words. I choked and tried again. “Not your…” I was unable to finish the sentence, but the message was clear. Not your fault.

Shade picked herself up and glanced over at me weirdly, her eyes seeming to glow in the darkness from the tears that raced down her face. “But it fucking is Amber, and you know it! You wouldn't even be out in the wasteland if it wasn't for me! You could have teleported yourself to safety if you hadn’t saved me! I haven’t even been able to help you! All I've done is gotten in your way!” she had to take a second to catch her breath as her whole body was wracked with sobs. She wiped the tears away and stood up straighter, a look of determination across her face. “But I’m not fucking things up this time… I’ll fix this, I swear. Celestia damn me, I’ll fix this.”

She turned away from me and bolted from the room, not bothering to explain to me where she was going. I tried to call out to her, to say something. Anything. But I couldn’t. I was far too weak to speak.

I lay there on my back in the darkness, not fully sure what to do or what I even could do seeing how I couldn't move. So I simply just lay there and waited. And waited. Time was passing, though I couldn’t tell how long. Every second that passed felt like a minute and every minute an hour. I started trying to count the seconds to give me a good gauge on how long I had been lying there, but the near unbearable pain in my spine and legs made it impossible to keep any consistent train of thought.

As I tried to count to ten for the fifth time, I simply gave up and let my mind wander. I hoped Xayah was alright. She had sounded so weak after the elevator had crashed. Granted, I supposed I was probably in far worse condition then she was. Brisk and Pyre were probably okay, they were both strong and Pyre had been through some tough shit before.

My ears picked up at the sound of approaching hoofsteps. I was thankful to find that I could still move my ears. I tried to turn my head to face the door, but finding that impossible, I instead had to use momentum to roll my whole body to one side.

I waited as the hoofsteps grew closer to the door. I expected Shade to march in… I was wrong.

A zebra turned the corner and walked into the medical bay, a curved scimitar tight in their mouth. Their eyes locked with mine, a twisted grin spreading across their face. Even with the gruesome smile, their expression felt empty, lacking that spark that seemed to burn inside of every sentient creature.

It took a step forward, it scimitar pointed towards my neck. I tried to reach out for Boneless with my magic, only for a sad looking spark to shoot from my horn and trial lamely to the ground. Horn burnout! Now of all the fucking times!

I wanted to scream with frustration. Of course I had to lose my fucking magic now!

I inched forwards on the bed and slowly picked up the triple barrel shotgun in my mouth. My whole body spasmed slightly as I tried to move it past what it’s current state would allow.

The zebra saw my movement and began rushing forwards. With a loud groan I managed to aim Boneless and fire off a shot.

Blam!

The zebra jumped back a little, the buckshot ripping apart the ground by the zebra’s hoof. The zebra glanced back up at me and sneered. It took another step forward, then another. Then it was once again coming at me.

Blam!

I fired again, this time missing completely as the lack of moveability in my head refused to let me aim the shot. The zebra didn’t even wince as the buckshot flew past them and peppered the wall behind them with its explosive fire.

The zebra closed in, their face now only inches away from mine. They reared up, the curved blade aimed down at my neck.

Blam!

I fired again, this time blowing the zebra’s hoof clean off. Blood splattered around the room as the zebra stumbled back, nursing their wound as they tried to stop the bleeding. I lined up another shot, and pulled the trigger, my three barrels aimed at the zebra’s head.

Click.

Boneless ran empty. I pulled the trigger again, to make sure it simply hadn’t malfunctioned. Nothing. I needed to reload, and without both the use of my hooves and magic, that wouldn't be possible.

The zebra glared at me, their yellow eyes practically glowing with anger. They pulled themselves up and limped towards me, staggering to the side slightly as they tried to steady themselves on three hooves. “You will pay for that pony,” The zebra hissed as they pulled up next to the bed. They wrapped their remaining fore hoof around the edge of the bed to stay upright as they readied themselves. Once again they raised their scimitar, the curved blade splattered with their own blood.

I tried to pull myself back, but my body refused. I tried to thrash and squirm, but my legs remained unmoving. I tried to scream, but even my voice had failed me.

The blade came down.

The sharp blade pierced my chest. I could feel the cold metal slip between my ribs. Pain erupted through my whole body, my chest searing with a pain I had never felt. My legs twitched and spasmed, more of a reaction from my nerves than of my own free will.

The zebra smiled and twisted the blade again, ripping open more flesh around the wound. Blood began spilling over my body, a small geyser of blood squirting upwards from around the cold blade. My mouth twisted into a soundless scream as I tried desperately to call for help. I could feel blood quickly surging up into my throat and drowning me.

The zebra’s yellow eyes began to change, slowly glowing a baleful green and that spark of life returned to the zebra’s face. “Ah, Amber…” It was Kamari’s deep and gravelly voice. “Did I not tell you that reaching me was impossible?”

I moved my mouth to counter him, but my words were obscured behind the fountain of blood that pushed past my lips, the dark red fluid bubbling as I tried to breath through it. I spat it out at the zebra, the blood missing his face. “I… will… kill…” I coughed up more blood, pain surging around the pain in my chest and down my spine.

The zebra chuckled darkly, kamari’s voice slowly fading away as the green glow subsided from its eyes. “It has been fun Amber…”

The zebra’s head exploded, bits of brain splattering across my face. The striped body dropped to the ground with a solid thump, letting me see past the zebra to the door. Shade stood there seething with rage, her pistol in her mouth. Her coat was matted with blood and I could see a few more cuts and gashes on her body.

“You will stay away from her!” She growled at the lifeless body of the zebra. She spotted the curved blade protruding from my chest. Her face darkened and she snarled, her eyes narrowing at the headless corpse. “You fucker!” She quickly rushed over to me, something rattling around inside of her saddlebags. “Hold on just a few moments Amber, it's going to be okay. I promise…”

“S-Shade I-” Blood spilled from my mouth, cutting me off.

Shade put a hoof to my chest as she worked. “Don’t talk kid, I’ll fix this. I swear to the goddesses I’ll fix this!” She hooked something up above my head, but I wasn’t able to see what it was. As gently as she could, she put her hooves over the blade in my chest. “I’m sorry about this Amber, this is going to hurt.”

The blade was ripped from my chest. I screamed out, blood spilling like a waterfall from my chest as the metal blade blocking it was removed. My hind hooves spasmed, kicking out and hitting Shade across the side. She staggered slightly at the sudden and unexpected attack, but remained focused.

I felt myself start slipping into unconsciousness. The pain was simply too much for my body and it was starting to give out. Shade reached out and slapped me awake. “Come on, Stay with me! Don’t fall asleep! Stay awake Amber!”

I blinked, trying to stay alert. A sudden pain made my eyes pop wide as Shade started applying pressure to my chest. I bit down on my tongue to prevent myself from shrieking. My teeth dug into my tongues soft flesh, drawing blood.

Shade’s horn began to glow, her magic wrapping around something that she held aloft above me. The light started to grow, but it wasn’t the light of her horn. It was a bright blinding pink that washed out everything else in the room.

I could hear Shade struggling to maintain whatever spell she was casting. She glanced down at me, one eye closed as she tried to focus on her spell. “I don’t know if this is going to hurt or not, I’m sorry.”

I think I managed to nod, but with the amount of pain I was in, it was hard to be sure.

The pink light grew and grew until it filled my entire vision. The air was getting warmer, as if I was stuck inside of a gigantic oven. My legs and chest flared with pain, pink fire shooting from every gash I had and rushing up the inside of my body.

I saw Shades eyes open with worry as my whole body began being torn and burned apart from the inside. I screamed, no amount of blood being able to stop me from making my pain known. My scream didn’t sound like a pony, but some strange and hurting creature of the night howling at the black sky.

Then I was gone. My whole body burst apart, pink flames spewing from the open gashes in my body. My pained howls ceased as my mouth burned away into nothingness.

And then I was back, my body stitching itself together as if nothing had ever been wrong. Then I was simply fine.

I wiggled my hooves a little, to my surprise they seemed to work perfectly. Even my magic seemed to have returned to normal.

I stared up at Shade with a horrified expression. “What the fuck was that!” I blurted, my mind still reeling from what had just happened.

Shade stared back at me with a look of both horror and relief. “A healing mega spell… I, um… I didn’t know it was going to do that.”

I sat up, rubbing my back with a hoof. My whole body still ached, but the unbearable pain had vanished as if never even existing. “That thing just… I was just ripped apart and put back together again!” I exclaimed, the horror of what had just happened flaring through my mind. I looked over my healed hooves and then back at Shade with astonishment. “How did you even get your hooves on a mega spell!”

Shade gave me a sheepish grin. “The megaspell research facilities are not that far down the hall. They have a whole bunch of mega spells down here.”

“And Kamari doesn’t have any guards down there?” I asked in disbelief. “Seems like a stupid thing for him to do.”

Shade shook her head. “No, he had guards there… I uh… might have killed them all.”

My eyes widened a little wider. “By yourself?” I let my eyes drop to the numerous gashes that now scored Shades legs.

“Yeah, I mean, there were only two and I wasn’t just going to just let you die,” Shade answered, almost embarrassed. “I told you I’d fix this.”

Slowly, I climbed the rest of the way out of the bed. My legs felt wobbly and almost rubber-like, but I was still able to stand easily. “We need to get out of here. Kamari knows where we are now. And if you killed his guards at the mega spell research facilities, he’s almost definitely going to be sending more to make sure that place stays secured,” Shade nodded and let me lead the way as we swiftly left the medical bay. I paused as I reached the door and looked back at her. “And Shade… thank you.”

Shade gave me a nervous smile and glanced back down at her hooves, not daring to make eye contact. She quickly followed me out without saying a word. It wasn’t until we were half way down the tunnel that she spoke up. “There’s something else Amber, something I noticed while I was getting the mega spell.”

“Yeah?”

“Most of them are still there. That is, except for the Balefire bombs,” I gulped at her words, a bead of sweat racing down my forehead. Great, he had balefire bombs at his exposal too. Was there anything he didn’t have? “As well as something called Luna Prime.”

I stopped and looked back at her. “Luna Prime? Did it say what that was?”

“I had heard Azar mention it briefly when I was traveling with him. I never really thought much of it back then, he always seemed to be muttering to himself,” Shade admitted. “But when I saw that a mega spell of the same name was missing, I checked some terminal logs to see if I could find anything out about it,” She winced. “Though I probably should have saved you first, sorry…”

I shook my head. “Don’t worry about it, I get curious too. Did the terminal say anything?”

Shade shook her head. “Everything was redacted with the exception of one word… or two words I guess,” She paused, taking a deep breath. “Nightmare Moon.”

I felt my stomach drop. I remembered what I had overheard some zebras saying back in Stable 25. That they would have the power of the stars on their side if Red Eye ever came looking for them. I remembered Twilight and Luna talking about whatever they were looking for possibly being at the base of the huge, nightmarish monolith.

“I think we need to look at that monolith again,” I said, quickening my pace and moving out into the large cavern. I saw the toppled ruins of the catwalks we had just fallen from and used them as a guide to the centre of the chamber through the gloom.

“Why the hell do we need to see that thing!” Shade blurted, following behind me. “That thing gives me the creeps!”

Up ahead, I could see the huge monolith stretching upwards and into the darkness above. For the first time, I was able to make out its horrific base. Mounds of crushed zebra skulls had been piled up around the bottom and large carvings of dragons decorated the rough surface. Something white glinted off the light of my pipbuck as we got closer.

I crouched down and brushed the dust away to get a better look at whatever the white thing was. A large spine like bone protruded from below the monolith. I took a step back as I took the thing in. the monolith had been built upon the back of some huge creatures skeleton. I shivered just looking at it.

“Fucking shit, glad that things dead,” Shade grimmaced, looking over the large bit of exposed bone. “I’ve never seen any living thing that big before.”

“Hopefully we never will,” I grumbled, eyeing the bones suspiciously. Course with my luck, I’d been fighting something of this magnitude before the night was through. Hell, with my luck I’ll be fighting this thing’s significantly larger mother.

There was the pattering of hooves somewhere in the darkness. I quickly turned off my pipbuck flashlight and ushered Shade to the side before pulling her into a small side cave. The cave wasn’t large, more of a nook than anything else, but it served its purpose and kept us concealed.

A few seconds later, a large group of zebra rushed past, their hooves pounding against the rock ground. I managed to count thirty or so of them before I lost track. “Kamari says they were at the medical bay,” One of them shouted, their voice surprisingly lacking the rhythmic zebra tone. “The rest of you scout out this cavern, see if we cannot find them in here.”

“What do we do?” Shade whispered as the large group of zebras split up and began searching high and low for us.

I pulled out Boneless with my mouth to keep from making light or noise with my magic and got ready for them. “We wait, hopefully they leave soon enough.”

Shade gave me a quick nod and readied her own gun. I could see the gun shaking a little in her grip as she waited. Clearly she wasn’t used to needing to use her mouth.

For the second time since I had fallen into this pit, I waited. The cave was vast, making it so that the zebras had to spread themselves out a fair amount. I considered taking out a zebra that came close to our hiding spot, but I quickly realized if I started shooting I would attract the rest of them. Best if I try and get out of this without attacking at all if I could.

Before long, most of the zebras had moved a decent distance away from us. Far enough that they were out of sight and ear shot, but not far enough that their red bar disappeared from our EFS. I glanced out cautiously, trying to see if there was a way out of the caves past them. To my displeasure, I spotted a few zebras still searching the gloom, making a current escape impossible.

I sighed as I ducked back into the small rock nook. “Looks like we might be stuck here a few minutes,” I informed her, making sure to keep my voice low. “At least until the zebras leave. The zebras back on the catwalks were hard enough, I don’t think we’d fair as well against so many.”

Shade grumbled and kicked a rock with a hoof. “Damn, how long do you think they’ll stick around for?”

“Till they find us I guess,” I said flatly. “I suppose they’ll find the medical bay empty sooner or later and realize I survived. They won’t stop until we’re found. We’ll just need to find an opening and take it, so keep your eyes on your EFS.”

Shade nodded and looked down at her Pipbuck, her eyes moving back and forth as she followed the red bars that darted around. I glanced over at Brisk’s saddlebag and pulled out the two bottles of Wild Pegasus Whiskey he had saved. I passed one over to Shade. “Here, I know it’s your favourite.”

Shade’s eyes widened a little as she took the bottle in her hooves and looked it over. She glanced up at me nervously. “A-are you sure?” She asked cautiously, a small tremor in her voice.

I shrugged. “Why not, We don’t have anything else to do for the next couple minutes. We might as well try and enjoy it.”

Shade looked back down at the bottle again. “It’s just… uh… Why are you suddenly being nice to me? After everything?”

Why was I offering her a drink? I hadn’t forgiven her for what she had done to Stable 25, had I? It hadn’t even been that long ago that I had been angry at her, simply for being present. What had changed? Was it because she had saved my life? That might have been part of it, but it still didn’t seem quite right.

Then the reason hit me. I reached into Brisk’s saddle bag and pulled out a glowing memory orb. I hesitated for a moment, the orb making a pang of guilt race through me. “This, this is why?” I placed the orb in front of me and stared at it angrily. “You aren’t the only one who has killed ponies… nor are you the only pony with regrets.”

“What is that?” Shade asked, looking over the orb with curiosity. “It looks like one of those floating silver things.”

I shook my head. “It’s a memory orb. My memory to be exact,” I took a deep breath, forcing myself to continue talking. “Shortly after I left the stable I did something terrible... I- I killed a bunch of foals. Raider foals, but still foals. I hated myself so much after I had done it that I forced Brisk to take the memory away,” I gritted my teeth at the memory of finding the orb on the train. “It didn’t really work in the long run. The point is, I understand how it feels to be responsible for something terrible and how much that hurt and guilt can eat away at you.”

Shade glanced away, not sure how to respond. “Amber, what you did and what I did aren’t-”

“I almost killed myself when I found out what I had done,” I continued, cutting her off. “I hated myself so much that I thought I could never really be myself again. If it weren’t for my friends, I probably would have pulled the trigger… So, it must really hurt for you to need to go through something like that without friends to pull you up.”

Shade’s head bolted up at my words, her eyes once again shining with tears. “W-what are you saying Amber?”

What was I saying? I hadn’t exactly thought any of this through before saying it.

I gave a long sigh. “I guess what I’m saying is that I don’t forgive you… I don’t think I ever can, but… I’m willing to give you a chance. I’m willing to try to be your friend again,” I glanced down at my own unopened bottle of Wild Pegasus. “Besides, us Stable ponies gotta stick together, right?”

Shade was silent for a second, her tear filled eyes locked with mine. Then, faster than I could have reacted, she rushed forwards and wrapped me in a tight hug. I sputtered a little as her hooves practically strangled me. I pushed her back a little, but didn’t reject the hug. “Can’t breathe, can’t breathe,” I managed to choke out.

The tight hug loosened a little and Shade gave me a small blush. “Sorry.”

I gave a small chuckle and returned her hug, wrapping my hooves around her slightly larger form. Finally, I pulled back and gestured to the Wild Pegasus. “Well, don’t let me stop you.”

Shade gave me a smirk and popped the cap off the bottle. There was a small popping noise, but nothing loud enough to alert the zebra’s searching for us. I watched as she took a big sip off the top before I turned to open my own. I was a little less graceful with popping off the cap.

After a bit of struggling, I managed to get the cap off and shove it into my saddlebag. I sniffed the bottle, taking in the foul sent and took the smallest of sips. I immediately spat the whiskey back out. Nope, still couldn’t handle the burn.

Shade chuckled a little. “Yup, you’re still adorable.”

I flushed. “Am not. I could drink this whole thing if I really wanted to.”

“But you don’t want to. I know, I’ve heard that before,” She gave me a smug smirk and for a calming second, it felt like I was back in Stable 25.

I put the bottle to my lips again and poured as much of the liquid into my mouth as I could. My cheeks bulged as my mouth filled with the burning taste of whiskey. “ffwee, I can dwink it if I wifthhh,” I slurred around the mouthful.

Shade just gave me an amused look. “Drinking it includes swallowing it Amber.”

I pouted and forced myself to swallow. The burning liquid surged down my throat, making me sputter. I had to put a hoof over my mouth to stay quiet. “See, I can drink it. I’m not cute,” I declared, almost proudly.

Shade eyed my bottle sceptically. “That wasn’t even a quarter of the bottle…”

I groaned and put the bottle down in defeat. “Ugh, never mind. I can’t do this. It tastes terrible.”

“And as I said, You’re adorable,” Shade affirmed with a small laugh. She quickly downed the rest of her bottle before picking up mine. She looked down at the bottle for a second before lazily glancing up at me. “So, I’m interested, what’s the story between you and the zebra?” she asked, catching me off guard with the question. The faintest hint of a smile played on her lips.

“Xayah, her name is Xayah,” I corrected, feeling oddly defensive about her name at that specific moment. “And the two of us are just friends at the moment, that’s all.”

Shade raised an eyebrow sceptically. “At the moment?”

I blushed. “Yes, currently we are friends. Why? What does it matter to you?” I didn’t know why I felt so embarrassed right now.

“I’ve known you since you were still in your mother's womb, which means I have also known you long enough to know you swing both ways there kid,” Shade said smugly, taking a sip from my bottle of whiskey. “When you returned to the Stable, I thought you mighta had a crush on that Brisk fellow, but now y’all are treating each other like siblings, so I reckon that’s out.”

“Just because I don’t have a crush on Brisk anymore, doesn’t mean me and Xayah are a thing,” I insisted, waving my hooves in front of me as if to ward her off. “Like I said, we’re just friends.”

“Friends that kiss each other on the cheek before running into battle and give up a healing potion that might save their life so the other might have it?” Shade asked, her voice sounding more sarcastic and rhetorical than curious. “And yes, don’t think I didn’t see that kiss she gave you.”

I simply gave her a nod. “Yup, just good good friends.”

Shade smirked. “You keep telling yourself that kiddo.”

My eye caught some movement along the rock wall beside us. Not an organic movement, but some strange ooze slowly dripping from a large crack in the wall. My brows knitted together as I looked at it. “What is that?” I leaned in a little closer to get a look.

It was some sort of strange rainbow fluid I had never seen before. Shade spotted it too. She reached her hoof out to touch it.

My memory flashed back to the terminal I had read about the I.M.P. stuff that they had been working on that I suspected was the cause of the strange mutations in the Hollow Shades. How had they referred to it? It had been in rainbow vats?

My hoof jerked forwards and slapped Shade’s hoof aside. “Don’t touch it, that’s I.M.P!” I still wasn’t fully sure what I.M.P. was, but anything that was labeled with a warning saying ‘don’t touch, breath or Stare at’ was dangerous in my books.

I realized immediately after I said that, that I had forgotten to lower my voice.

“What was that?” I heard one of the zebra’s shout from somewhere in the darkness. “I think it came from over there!”

Damn it! Welp, now was as good a time as any to get out of here I guess.

I turned to Shade, who suddenly had a look of panic on her face as she heard the large group of zebras rushing towards our location. “Shit, we need to go, now!”

A zebra who had already been close to where we had been hiding jumped into the hole with us, their curved blade out and swinging for our throats. I grabbed their head in my magic and rammed them into the strange rainbow fluid that was dripping out of the wall.

The zebra screamed as they ooze found its skin. I saw the zebras striped coat and flesh burn away just at the touch. Something squirmed below the zebras skin, slithering its way down the inside of its neck and towards its heart.

Note to self, don’t interact with I.M.P… Ever!

I bashed in the zebras skull, more as an act of mercy than an actual attack. The shock baton thudded against their skull, making the zebra go still.

I grabbed Shade by the hoof and pulled her out of the nook and back into the cavern. I heard the zebra’s shouting and started to give chase as they spotted us.

“We need to find a way out of this pit!” Shade shouted, jumping to the side as a bullet whizzed past her. She glanced behind her at the small charging army of zebras. They were gaining on us fast and my legs still felt like rubber from the mega spell.

There was no way we could escape them in this open space, they would just pick us off. We needed to find cover and a way to lose them.

I spotted the entrance to a tunnel to the left. I quickly angled myself towards it and started running as fast as I could. Shade followed closely behind me, occasionally sending off a shot behind her to try and slow down the oncoming zebras.

We zipped into the tunnel, the zebras still hot on our tail. The tunnel air was humid and stale and the walls seemed to slowly move in and out as if the tunnel as if it was breathing. It felt as if we were charging down the throat of a giant beast.

“Elevator to our right!” Shade announced, pointing to an elevator shaft not too far away. “We can get out of here on that!”

“I’m not going anywhere without my friends!” I shouted back in response, powering past the elevator. “We find my friends, kill Kamari, then we leave. No other order!”

Shade grumbled, but didn’t protest as she raced past the elevator herself. At least we knew how to get out of here now. Something told me we would be needing to escape in a rush.

a bullet flew past my face as we thundered forwards. I lurched to the side, just barely managing to dodge the attack. I spun around, my baton swinging out and crashing against the closest zebra’s head as they lunged towards me. The zebra fell, its head now caved in and leaking blood. I spun back around, not daring to wait for the other zebra’s to catch up.

Up ahead I could see the tunnel split into three. Shade looked between them, her eyes darting back and forth. “Amber, which way!?”

Without slowing my pace, I charged down the left tunnel. Shade quickly followed. I didn’t dare say the tunnel out loud, hoping we could use it as a way to shake the zebra off our trail.

I heard shouting from somewhere behind us. “Split up, find the ponies!” so we hadn’t lost them, but we had lessened the amount following us at least.

Once again, the path ahead split, this time only into two. I grinned, we might actually be able to lose them. I raced down the left tunnel again, hoping that the zebras were far enough behind us that they couldn’t hear or see which way we had gone.

A zebra from one of the side tunnels limped out and slammed into me, the force knocking me prone on my back. Boneless was out in a second, swinging towards the zebra and firing at their head.

The zebra leapt back with a timid yelp and skidded away from me, the shot just missing their head. “Amber, it’s me!” Xayah shouted, her voice filled with both fear and shock.

I dropped my shotgun, taking in the black and white zebra for the first time. “Oh goddesses, I’m so sorry, I thought that you were a zebra!”

Xayah gave me a funny look. “I am a zebra…”

I slapped my hoof to my face. “You know what I mean,” I looked back up at her and took her form in. Her right fore hoof was most definitely broken, twisted awkwardly to one side and bleeding profusely from a large gash on one side. I quickly passed her our last healing potion as well as one of the medical braces that Brisk had worn so long ago. “Here.”

Xayah gratefully took the potion while I quickly started strapping the brace onto her leg. “What is going on?” She asked, glancing around the dark tunnel. “I haven’t run into anything since we fell down here.”

“Then you were lucky,” Shade said flatly, her back turned to us and her pistol raised as she waited for more zebras to come down the tunnel. “We’ve been having a bit of bad luck.”

Xayah’s ears perked up as she listened to the sound of distant hoofsteps. “Zebras?”

“You guessed it.”

The first zebra came racing around the corner. Shade’s pistol fired, blowing out its leg and making it collapse to the ground. The zebra screamed out, alerting the others. I could hear the footsteps in the distance pause before rushing towards us.

Xayah’s sniper flashed out, a shot ringing out and nailing the zebra between the eyes. The zebra’s head burst open, ending its screams.

“Can you run?” I asked, glancing down at her braced leg.

Xayah gave a nervous nod. “I can do my best.”

I reached into my saddlebag and pulled out my Buck and passed one to her. “Here, this should be able to help.”

She glanced down at the tablet with distaste before popping it into her mouth. “Normally, I would not take chems, but I suppose I will bend that rule under our current circumstances,” Xayah said strictly, swallowing the tablet. “Does Brisk know you have those?”

I shook my head. “No, and I think it best he doesn’t find out.”

Three more zebra’s came charging around the corner, their sniper already out and firing down the hallway towards us.

I spun on my back hooves and started running again. “Well, time to get going!” I shouted, racing forwards and around the corner. Shade and Xayah bolted after me, Xayah no longer having trouble now that the buck was pumping through her.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw five more zebra rush around the corner to join the chase. There was no time to slow down and chat, we would be swarmed.

We burst into another large chamber, though not nearly as large as the one we had seen with the monolith. Metal barrels of I.M.P. littered the ground, most of their rainbow contents already spilled out across the rock floor. On the far side was a large tunnel leading deeper into the caves and to the right was a large metal door with the words ‘Mega spell launch chamber’ above it in huge letters. Like any self respecting door, it appeared to be locked with a terminal.

More zebras were charging at us from the far side of the cave. A zebra in the lead stared at us, their eyes slowly changing to a foul looking green. The zebra pointed across the cavern toward us, instructing the zebras to charge. “You have come far,” I heard Kamari’s vile voice sooth ooze from the zebras mouth. “But you have only wasted your time.”

“You keep saying that,” I growled back at him, rushing over to the large metal doors leading to the mega spell launch chamber. I jumped over a puddle of I.M.P. not daring to let myself touch the evil ooze. “Yet somehow, I keep surviving! So maybe you should be a little less ignorant!” I ducked as a bullet flew past me.

Across the room I could see the zebra grinning at me. “You have come farther than most, but for nothing. I assure you, you will not leave here alive.”

I raised Boneless and practically fired blindly behind me. The explosive buckshot burst from my gun, blasting open the head of the zebra Kamari had been possessing. “We’ll see about that!” I shouted angrily. Kamari’s confidence in me failing was beginning to get on my nerves.

Another zebra's eyes began to glow, this zebra only a few feet away from me this time. “Soon the power of the stars will rise from the deep!” Kamari’s voice continued, refusing to be silenced. The zebra lashed out at me with his scimitar with deadly speed. I had to do everything I could to keep from being cut clean in two. “Luna Prime will be activated and Nightmare Moon will once again walk free!”

“Luna Prime? What is that!?” I called back, hoping to stall for time. The zebra ignored me and continued moving forwards.

Blam!

Xayah sent a bullet through the zebra's head, dropping them to the ground. “Not if we have anything to say about it!” She growled, standing defensively in front of me as I began hacking away at the terminal. Shade moved up next to me as well and began helping me decrypt the password.

Yet another zebra’s eyes took on the baleful green. “Ah, Xayah. These ponies do not know of the power I threaten them with, but you do. You understand and fear the stars as any sane zebra should,” Kamari grinned, slowly closing in on us with the rest of his zebra’s. The zebras were moving around the puddles of I.M.P. quickly, the elongated root to get to us barely slowing them down.

“I do, and I will not allow you to do whatever evil you have conspired to do here!” Xayah yelled back, her sniper firing and taking the head off another zebra that was getting too close.

The glowing gaze left the zebra and appeared on another. “I have been planning this for over two hundred years, do you really think a ragtag group of wasteland hero wannabes can defeat me!”

Another shot from Xayah’s sniper dropped the zebra. “I believe that Amber will get us through this.”

Another green eyed zebra’s grin widened. “Then you are a fool, just like your pony ‘friends’…” the zebra raised their sniper and fired. The shot blasted out, striking Xayah in the chest. Xayah fell to the ground with a scream, her hooves clutching at her chest to stop the bleeding.

“Xayah!” I screamed, turning from the terminal and crouching over her protectively. Shade took my place at the terminal and began trying to hack it on her own. I growled at the zebras closing in around us. They had formed a tight circle now, almost close enough to be within melee range. “Don’t you dare touch her!”

The voice of Kamari once again switched to a new zebra. “As I said Amber, all of your fates were sealed the moment you entered the tower. There is no escape.”

Boneless took off the grinning zebra’s head. “I think you got it backwards Kamari. You sealed your own fate when you decided to mess with my Stable!”

The large doors behind me slid open with a loud clang. “Get in! Now!” Shade yelled, bounding into the darkness beyond the door.

I threw Xayah over my back and darted for the door.

“Kill them! Kill them now!” Kamari screached, the mass of zebras lurching forwards with a sudden unexpected speed. Bullets whizzed past me, one nicking the tip of my ear and drawing a bit of blood.

I leapt into the air, my body flying the last few feet and landing with a thump on the far side of the door. The second I was through, Shade shut the door, the large steel doors slamming shut just as quickly as they had opened.

I had expected some sort of large chamber like the last room. Instead we found ourselves in another long hallway, leading to another room at the end of the hall. A few doors lined the metal passage, leading to smaller offices.

“There, that should hold them,” Shade huffed, looking up at the large door. I could hear a few zebras slamming into the door on the far side. “This door was designed to hold out mega spells, it's practically a Stable door. There’s no breaking it down.”

The door suddenly slid open again, all the zebra’s on the far side staring at us with an awful twisted grin. A zebra with Kamari’s glowing green eyes stepped forwards. “Did you really think I didn’t have the override code for my own door? I have control over this entire facility,” Kamari’s voice mocked, taking another step towards us. “I feel you do not fully comprehend the condition you are in right now. Do not worry, I will ensure that you understand before the end.”

“Shit. Run! Run!” I urged, turning and bolting down the hallway. A zebra jumped at me, their hooves wrapping around my legs and dragging me to the ground. I fell over, my face hitting the ground hard.

Xayah rushed forwards, her knife stabbing deep into the zebra atop me and pushing them off. Somehow the Buck pumping through her must have managed to keep her on her hooves despite the bloody bullet wound to her chest.

Two more Zebra’s raced forwards, their knives drawn as the tackled Shade to the ground. I rushed to help her, only for a zebra with Kamari’s glowing eyes to block my path. “How far have you fallen Amber? What hope of escape do you think you have?”

I let Boneless answer for me, pulping the head of the zebra. I grimaced as I realized I had once again dropped below ten shots. I really, really needed to be more careful with how much ammo I used.

Xayah and I stood back to back as more zebra’s moved towards us. I saw Shade manage to push the zebras off her and start moving towards us, only to be blocked off again.

“The fuck is this!?” I heard a voice exclaim loudly from over the din. I looked up, my ears perking as I recognized the familiar voice. “A fight that we weren’t invited to? How rude!”

A jet of fire shot through the zebra’s ranks, setting a large portion of them aflame. Pyre Blaze stepped through the fire, striking her most dramatic pose she could as the zebras around her screamed and burned. I don’t think I had ever been so happy to see that damn raider in my whole life!

Blam! Blam!

I heard Brisk’s pistol crack off two shots, each one blowing the head off a zebra as he marched up to stand dramatically beside Pyre. He gave me a smug grin. “Hey sis, what I miss?”

“You two have got to be the most over dramatic ponies I have ever met,” I scowled at them, but I couldn’t help keep a small smile from my face all the same.

Pyre shrugged and let loose another stream of fire into the zebra. “Eh, what can I say? There's nothing like a good ol’ dramatic entrance!”

Brisk’s pistol fired off another shot, the bullet smashing into the terminal outside the large door and making the whole thing begin to spark. Pyre whirled around, her flamers clearing the way for her as she pushed herself towards the inner terminal and manually shut the large door.

There was a screech as the door once again closed itself, this time for good. The door slammed shut, blocking off a majority of the zebra’s that had failed to make it through the doorway before Brisk and Pyre had intervened.

The few zebras that had managed to get through clumped together, forming a tight circle they could defend from all sides. That was the biggest mistake they could make. You can’t defend yourself from a wave of fire and inferno.

Pyre’s flamers let loose a massive jet of fire, consuming the small cluster of zebra’s and setting them all ablaze. They zebras screamed as they fire engulfed them, and to my horror, I saw the yellow tint drain from their eyes seconds before their bodies completely burned away.

Brisk gave the door a smug grin. “There we go, try opening up that door now!” He gave the door a small kick. “It only opens from this side now, so ha! How do you like them apples!?”

There was a low grating sound over the speakers that I quickly realized was the sound of Kamari growling. “Clever, but futile,” The voice of the glowing zebra ghoul paused, thinking over his words before speaking again. When he spoke his voice was low and dangerous. “Congrats, you have almost reached me. Please continue, I have a present for you up ahead.”

The speakers cut out with a small burst of static.

I quickly turned to Xayah and looked over the bullet wound on her chest. “Does anypony have any gauze or something?” I called out desperately, placing my hoof over her bleeding torso. Xayah winced at the touch, but didn’t pull away.

“Yes, but you’re the one with my saddlebags,” Brisk pointed out, gesturing to the two sets of saddlebags flung over my back.

I blushed a little at my foolishness and quickly dug around in his bag until I pulled out a large wad of gauze. Who knows where Brisk picked that up. I passed Brisk’s saddlebag back to him and quickly started applying the gauze to Xayah’s chest. “We’ll get you a healing potion as soon as we get one, I promise,” I said solemnly as I wrapped the gauze tighter.

Xayah flinched as I pulled the gauze tight. “Of course, but I will be fine until then.”

With Xayah’s wound tended to, I turned and glanced down the hallway to the smaller door at the end. It didn’t look all that different from any other door, just a metal frame with a metal sliding door reminiscent of the doors in Stable 25.

“Think there’s a trap in there?” Brisk asked, slowly walking down the hallway and looking at the metal door.

“I’d be surprised if there wasn’t,” Pyre grunted, quickly trotting up and joining him. She glanced back at me with one eye. “So, what’s the plan Amber?”

“Don’t ask me, I’m not the leader of this group,” I said with a shrug. Everypony gave me a flat stare. “What, I’m not!”

Pyre just snorted. “Well, we’re here because of you, so we’ll let you call the shots. What’s the plan?”

I glanced at the door. “Well we can’t really go back, not with all those zebra’s out there… so through the door is really our only option.”

Pyre rolled that around for a second. “True enough. In we go.”

The door slid open automatically at our approach. The first thing I saw was the collection of silver memory orbs that floated through the air like they had back in the large cavern. There was a large steel door on the far wall, a large sign hanging over it read ‘Mega spells - do not enter’. As I looked down, I saw the silver light of the floating orbs glinting off the grimy metal of some large form that had been chained to the centre of the room.

I squinted, trying to make out what it was. Slowly, the shape began to take the form of a large metal pony, their metal wings clamped tight against their side and a magic reduction ring had been placed over their jagged horn. The figure raised its head, its blood red glass eyes piercing through the dark air into me.

I could hear my whole party gasp as they finally put a name to the figure chained down before us. “Crank…”

I had seen Azar in the MAS building. I had known that Crank had been defeated in combat. But even still I was surprised to find the mighty cyber alicorn chained up. The chains stretched out from him and across the room at all sides and pulled taut, keeping him from even moving an inch in any one direction.

I looked down upon him, my eyes seeming to understand exactly who was before me for the first time since I had met him. His eyes locked with mine, a deep hurt playing out across his face. At that moment I knew I was not the only pony to have been having visions of Crank’s past. He had been seeing them too. All his failures and hurts had been pushed back into him. No torture that Kamari or Azar could have done to him since he had wound up here could have compared to what his brain had been doing to itself.

“What did you do to me Amber,” Crank growled, his voice low and almost pitiful. “What did you do…”

I shook my head. “I don’t know, but I’m sorry. I was only trying to save you at the time.”

Crank snarled, his horn glowing slightly, only for the magic reduction ring to snuff out the glowing blue light. “I only wanted to save her Amber… Scarlet deserved better than me…”

“Do you like my gift?” Kamari’s voice crackled smuggly over the speakers, making all of us jump a little. “Behold my favourite little pet.”

Crank growled in response, but I could clearly see the hurt in his glass eyes.

“Let him go Kamari!” I yelled up at the speaker. I don’t know when I had started caring enough about Crank to wish for him free, but I had. Probably at some point when I had been inside his memories I suppose. Finding out my enemies sob stories always seemed to make me empathize with them more than I should.

Kamari chuckled at that. “I was intending to,” The chains around Crank’s body released, allowing him to stand to full height. The metal ring around his body and horn released, freeing his wings and horn. “Kill them my pet. Kill them and you can redeem yourself to me.”

Once again, the speakers cut out with a small burst of static.

Crank turned his head to look at me, his red gaze seemingly cutting through me like a knife. I saw his back arch as he prepared to lunge at us.

We all took a step back. I held my hoof out in what I hoped looked like a peaceful gesture. “You don’t have to do this Crank, you can defy him still! Do you really think this is what Scarlet would have wanted?”

Crank gave a low, animalistic growl. “Don’t you dare speak her name! And it doesn't matter anymore! I cannot save her unless I am free! And if killing you is what I need to do to get that, then I will.”

We all took another step back, fearing the sheer hatred that we could feel radiating off of the cyber alicorn. The hate wasn’t directed at us, but at the wasteland, at the cruel fates that had forced him to where he was now. We were simply in his way. We were always the ones standing in his way.

Crank had given up everything. His body, his way of life, and now his sanity, all for one mare. One mare, who I was beginning to realize I had no idea the fate of. Was she even still alive? I had no idea.

I raised Boneless and prepared for his attack. I could see all of my friends do the same. Five against one, under any other circumstance, those would have been pretty good odds. But here, I prayed that we even stood a chance.

Crank attacked first, launching himself past the floating silver orbs and rocketing into me with tremendous force. I was sent sprawling back, my whole body spinning head over hoof as I stumbled down the tunnel.

Pyre lurched forwards, her strong, metal clad hooves pounding into Crank’s face. Crank took the hit, his head hardly even moving as the force that would take off any other ponies head simply bounced off of him.

Crank’s tail lashed out, its side catching Pyre across the side of the head and hurtling her into Brisk who had only just begun to attack himself. They hadn't even landed yet when Crank was upon them, his hooves pinning both of them down and his tesla cannons glowing a brilliant blue.

Xayah leapt onto his back, her knife cutting deep into the gap of fur on his neck. The blade sunk deep, drawing dark, sludge-like blood.

Crank bucked her off with a single mighty kick, sending the zebra tumbling to the ground with a painful sounding thud.

I pulled myself up and charged him, hoping to get the cyber alicorn off of my friends. In a similar fashion to how he dealt with Pyre, Crank’s tail flashed out at me, it’s long bladed appendage speeding towards my neck and trying to rip out my throat.

I ducked low, evading the attack and placing my shotgun tight against his head. I never had time to fire as he pounced off of Brisk and Pyre and rammed into me. All the air was knocked from my lungs as what felt like a wrecking ball plowed into me.

Blam!

A shot from Shade’s pistol lanced through Crank’s head, spraying the tunnel wall with black viscera. Crank shook the sudden pain off, his head knitting itself back together as his hydra infused blood did its work.

His tesla cannons swiveled at his sides, aiming towards Shade. I screamed out, urging her to move. She followed as I instructed, jumping to the side as Crank’s huge cannons blasted a massive blast of energy towards her. Our vision erupted into a blazing blue and all of my hairs stood on end as the powerful energy surged around the room.

Brisk was back to his hooves, his baseball drawn and swinging at Crank. The bat cracked against Crank’s head, the whole thing splitting in two against the cyber alicorns near indestructible metal plating.

I pushed myself up, grasping at a missing patch of fur on my foreleg that had been blown off by simply being in the near vicinity of Crank’s tesla cannon blast. “Crank please! We can help you help her!” I insisted, practically begging. “Do you really think Kamari will keep his word!?”

“I don’t think any of you will keep your word!” Crank growled, rounding on me. “For all my time in the wasteland, for all the mistakes I have made, one thing has been made very clear to me time and time again!” he stomped his hoof on the ground, his tesla cannons once again beginning to charge up. “It’s every pony for themselves in the wasteland! Friendship might have been magic once upon a time, but here… in the desolation and ashes, true friendship is dead.”

His cannons fired. I leapt away, just barely avoiding being turned to a pile of smoldering ashes on the ground. The shock wave of the blast hit me mid air, sending me hurtling back into the room full of orbs.

I looked up, trying to orientate myself as the world spun around me. I saw Crank’s glowing eyes moving towards me through the dust and gloom, a brilliant glowing blue slowly building around his horn.

I heard the sound of gunfire as both Shade, Brisk and Xayah blasted at him with their guns. Crank ignored them and kept moving towards me, their bullets either bouncing off him harmlessly or having their damage healed over within seconds.

“I spent years trying to save her Amber! I’ve lost everything for her!” a blue beam of energy lanced out from his horn. I rolled aside as the blue beam slashed at the ground next to me, charring the ground in a straight line. “I became a monster Amber! All because of a deal! I’m through with making deals!”

Another beam lanced out, nearly taking off my ear as I rolled to the side again. I noticed Crank’s aim was a little worse than normal, not enough to bet on him missing, but enough that I was able to keep from being hit and dusted immediately. Those memories must have been doing a number on him and keeping him off kilter.

Pyre rushed him, her flamers blazing and consuming him in a steady inferno. Crank’s wings shot out, there blade like feathers slashing into one of her flamers canisters. The flamer exploded, the blast knocking Pyre a few feet back and slamming hard against the wall of the tunnel.

I pulled myself up, backing up slowly until I was practically pushed up against the floating orbs. “Then don’t make a deal with me, but don’t make one with Kamari either. He’ll never let you go as long as he needs you!”

“Then I’ll just need to kill you both!” the cyber alicorn roared, rearing up on his hind legs and spreading out his bladed wings as he rose to his full height, towering over all of us like the sinister monolith. He sprang forwards, his hind hooves pushing him off and making him accelerate at a seemingly impossible speed. His cannons fired, their blue energy blasting towards me.

I leapt aside, trying to move out of the way of the blast, but Crank was thinking ahead of me this time. His horn shot out, its powerful blue laser lancing through my fore hoof and making me stumble.

However, Crank wasn’t the only pony who had been thinking ahead. I had been standing with my back nearly pressed against the glowing silver orbs. The same silver orbs that Crank now sped towards at full speed.

The cyber alicorn realized what was happening seconds before he would have hit the floating spheres. He planted his hooves firmly on the ground, his whole body skidding to a stop inches from the orbs.

I didn’t let him escape my trap. Ignoring the burning pain in my forehoof, I pushed forwards and tackled him. With my minimal strength, I was able to do little more than make his head bob slightly forwards, but that was all I needed. The tip of his horn bent down, the end brushing up against one of the silver memory orbs. Crank’s whole body went still as his mind was sent swirling into what I could only assume was another of Twilights many memories.

Unfortunately, I had flung myself at him with enough momentum that I was unable to stop myself from skidding forwards. I pressed my fore hooves against the ground in the same manner I had just seen Crank do, but without his immense strength, I could do little but make myself stumble more.

I tumbled and collided face first with one of the floating orbs myself.

For the third time that day, I found myself inhabiting the body of Twilight Sparkle. She sat behind her desk, the large painting of her that Rarity had given her resting on the wall behind her. She fidgeted her hooves slightly in agitation as she waited for whatever it was that she was waiting for.

There was a small rapping sound on the large oak doors. “Come in,” Twilight called out, straightening her back a little.

The door creaked open and a brown buck with a cyan mane marched in, a stack of papers held tight in his magic. The pony quickly closed the door behind him. “Twilight, I’m glad you’ve managed to make time to see me. Hopefully I won’t be long, you just need to sign a few things,” The stallion said in a bit of a rush, teleporting the papers over to her. He seemed nervous, if not outright scared.

“You must be Train Tracks, am I right?” Twilight asked, ignoring the papers for the moment and focusing on the nervous looking pony. “The spokes pony for Four Star?”

Train Tracks nodded, glancing down at his hooves nervously. I felt a bit of worry build up inside me. I didn’t know much about the company Four Star, but I knew a bit. In particular, I knew that they were zebra sympathizers and traitors to Equestria.

“We just need you to sign there. Just some legal permission to have the Manehattan Monorail connect to the ministry of Arcane Science hub. That’s all,” The stallion said, doing his best to keep his voice steady.

Twilight turned her attention to the papers and quickly read them all through. Holy shit she was a fast reader. She nodded her head and signed the paper with a red quill. “Alright, is there anything else you need?” she asked, looking up from the page.

“W-well… there is one thing…”

Before Twilight could ask what it was, a single red dart shot out of seemingly nowhere and embedded itself in Twilight's neck. Twilight’s body twitched with surprise for a second, before going rigid and still. Her mouth opened and closed silently as she tried to speak, but no words escaped her lips.

There was a shimmer in the air beside Train Tracks and a zebra in a stealth cloak flickered into view. I saw the zebra smile deviously from below his hood and give the skittish stallion beside him a pat on the back. “You did well, pony. You are dismissed.”

It was Kamari’s voice. Missing the sickening gurgle that accompanied being a ghoul, he sounded even more powerful and commanding.

Train Tracks gave a nod and slipped out of the room, making sure that the door never opened enough for anypony outside to see what was happening within.

Kamari waited until the Four Star representative had left before dropping his hood, revealing his strange spirally, black and white stripes. Now seeing him without the baleful glow, I could see that at one point in history, Kamari had had dazzling blue eyes.

“Do not think that anypony will overhear us,” Kamari soothed, slowly approaching Twilight’s desk. “Your room is magically sound proofed and my spies have already deactivated your security cameras.”

I felt Twilight’s eyes widen with fear, the only part of her that didn’t seem to be paralized by whatever poison that dart had been laced with. Kamari quickly gestured to the dart smuggly. “Do you like it? My own personal recipe. Immobilizes any pony for an hour, then erases their memory afterwards. Not that that last part will need to apply to you.”

Kamari began circling the desk, moving up beside the paralized ministry mare. “But do not worry, I still have need for you. I am simply here to erase your memory. Everything about the Institute, the Utopia program and Luna Prime,” Kamari grinned smugly as he spoke, relishing in his immobilized captive. “I realize that you have also just learnt about that little book of mine Rarity has been using. I’m afraid I will need to remove that from your mind too. Can’t have ponies I don’t want reading my masterpiece.”

Twilight opened and closed her mouth again, still trying to say something to little success. Her pupils had dilated into pipricks as she tried to figure out how to get out of this situation. Nothing came to her mind.

From out of Kamari’s saddlebag came a dark book, itself a wicked thing. He placed his hoof to an open page for a second, his blue eyes closing and a strange chant escaping his lips. When he opened his eyes again, they glowed the baleful green I had come to associate with him. “We’ve been playing you for a long time from the Shadows Twilight Sparkle, now we are simply cleaning house.” He reached forward, his hoof tapping Twilight on the forehead.

At once, Twilights body went slack, her body slouching over and her head hitting the desk with a small thunk. She stared out with lifeless eyes as whatever spell Kamari had just cast took effect.

Though faded vision, I could see Kamari’s grin widen. “You will awake in an hour or so with no memory of any of this. Fret not, your secrets are all safe with me.”

There was a small clapping noise from behind him. Kamari turned to see a green mare with an orange mane and a camera hanging around her neck leaning against the far wall. She gave him a sly grin. “You talk too much. Never talk. Let’s the ponies get the better of you,” that voice, I could never forget it. Chrysalis.

Kamari looked surprised at the unexpected mare. His hoof flying back to the black book by his side. “Who are you!” He demanded, his tone losing the arrogance and calmness it had just possessed.

Chrysalis let her grin widen more. “No pony interested in that silly Luna Prime that you’re after, I assure you. But I do care about one thing you just stole from our little Twilights brain,” Chrysalis glanced down lazily at the black book held tight in kamari’s grasp. “And put down that book, that will do nothing against me.”

Kamari lowered the book slightly, but didn’t lessen his grip. “What do you want with me?”

Chrysalis cocked her head to the side before letting loose a short laugh. “With you? Please, I want nothing with you. You do not know me, and honestly I suspect we will never meet again. But you have done me a great service. I was just here to do very much the same thing,” Chrysalis looked towards the painting behind Twilight. “And I advise you to take the elevator behind that painting. It should make your escape easier.”

Kamari glanced back at the large painting, his eyes glossing over it for a few seconds before turning back to Chrysalis. “Why are you…” His voice trailed off as he realized she had disappeared.

I was back in my own body, the world around me flashing past as we sped down the long hallway. I pulled my head up and looked around, trying to get my bearings. I was being carried on Pyre’s back as we rushed down a new hallway towards what looked like a large chamber at the far end.

“What’s happening?” I asked drowsily, trying to make sense of everything.

“We took advantage of Crank being stuck in that memory orb to rush past him! Good thinking getting him trapped in one of those by the way,” Pyre exposited. “We have until he gets out of that orb as a head start-” A loud roar of rage echoed down the hallway after us. The blaring sounds of Crank’s massive cannons firing after us filled the air and drowned out all other noise. “And there’s the end of our head start! Hold on!”

Pyre learched forwards, carrying me the rest of the way down the tunnel before dumping be on the ground in the large chamber at the end. The rest of my friends quickly pilled in around me, weapons drawn as the sounds of the enraged cyber alicorn thundered down the tunnel after us.

The chamber we entered was vast, even larger than the one containing the vile monolith. We stood on a long catwalk, the metal pathway stretching out over a massive pit and towards a huge platform in the center of the chamber. Smaller catwalks broke off from the main one, connecting to other platforms around the cavern. Lining the outer wall of the cavern, huge glowing green spheres rest in strange tube-like chambers. I grimace as I recognised them as much larger versions of Balefire eggs. These were full on Balefire bombs.

The large platform in the middle held what looked like a massive, makeshift mainframe that towered over everything. The top of the mainframe was a collection of jagged metal spire like machines that attached to a massive glowing blue orb. A mega spell, and I think I knew exactly which one… this was the chamber holding Luna Prime.

Emerging from the massive rock face in front of the looming mega spell was the dangling remains of a massive skeletal dragon. It was without question the largest thing I had ever seen, each tooth alone the size of a gnarled tree. It’s snarling bone head and bits of its claws lay exposed from the rock, as if it had died mid lunge and remained there until hundreds of years of rock had covered it. The rest of its body remained concealed within the stone. Strange zebra glyphs had been carved into the dragons bone, each glyph glowing a faint, icy blue. I recognized the glyphs, I had seen those very markings in the first memory orb I had ever viewed.

The sounds of cheering howls rose up at us from the depths of the pit and down below I could see the squirming mass of hundreds if not thousands of zebras as they stared up at the huge platform and monstrous dragon skeleton in anticipation. Two figures stood atop the platform, standing proudly before the army of zebra’s.

The first was Azar, his purple stripes glowing a brilliant violet as he stared down at the army with a smug grin sprawled across his face. His hooves were once again fitted with metal horseshoes like they had when I had first encountered him and his usual stealth cloak was draped over his shoulders, the hood pulled back to reveal his sinister face.

The second figure was the one I had come here to kill. The one I had lost so much to, and fought against so much just to find. His spiral like stripes glowed a sickening green, contrasting his rotted black flesh and his eyes seemed to illuminate the whole chamber by themself. He was dressed in a black robe, some sort of ceremonial attire and now in the flesh, I could see that his strange stripes seemed to move and writhe around him. Kamari…

Something in me snapped simply by looking at him. I felt rage building up within me, its burning warmth spreading throughout my whole body. The very rage that had been brewing since Stable 25 had been extinguished burst through me at full force, tinting the edges of my vision with red. My lips curled back, twisting my mouth into an animalistic snarl. “Kamari!”

Kamari turned, his baleful eyes locking with mine. His expression for the first time was one of shock, before he quickly concealed it with a vile sneer. “You have made it far Amber, farther than any to try before you… But you are too late, Luna Prime will awaken the great dragon! Nightmare moon rises!” I could hear a roar erupt from the amassing zebras below.

So that was it then. The mysterious mega spell Luna Prime reanimated a massive dragon from the dead. I’m sure there was more to it than that, but that alone was enough to make me quake in fear.

“You think that dragon is Nightmare Moon?!” Xayah scoffed, her tone more dangerous than I had ever heard it. “You are insane!”

Kamari just gave here a leer filled grin before turning to Azar, his face grim. “Kill them, do not let them interfere with Nightmare Moon's return!” He turned back to face the army of zebras below. “Kill those that dare to stand in the way of our mother of the night!”

All at once, Azar and the zebra forces charged forwards. Hundreds of zebras began clambering up the slopped catwalks towards us, knives, scimitars and snipers gleaming in the glowing light of Luna Prime. Turrets popped up from the elevated platforms, their metal barrels swinging around to face us. Azar stalked forwards, his lips twisted into a terrible grin.

This was it, the reason Kamari had been so confident that us five wastelanders were doomed to fail. How could we possibly stand against all of this!

I sprang into action at once, spinning around to face all my friends. “Alright, here’s the plan! Pyre, Brisk, you keep Azar off of us, kill him if you can! Xayah, Shade, take out as many zebras as possible! Don’t let them overtake the catwalk or we’ll be overrun!”

“And what about you sis?” Brisk asked, his pistol already in his mouth and firing off a few shots at the oncoming hordes.

I grimace and turned back to the tunnel we had just burst through. “There’s one last cyber pony I need to deal with…”

As if on cue, Crank burst through the doorway, his tesla cannons blazing blue light as the entrance was literally blasted open to allow him entry. He stared at me, his eyes loathing as he charged up for another blast.

“You know what you need to do, now let's do this!” I yelled out, my legs bending and every muscle in my body tensing as I readied myself for what was to come.

“What about Kamari!” Xayah yelled, her voice nearly drowned out by the crack of her own snipers fire.

I glanced over at the glowing zebra ghoul. He was crawling up the large makeshift mainframe, already halfway to the top. He seemed to be heading towards a large pod at the top near the mega spell. There was too much going on and not enough of us to deal with it all. “We’ll figure that out after, first we need to survive!” I yelled back, jumping to the side as the zebras started shooting up at me.

Crank thundered towards me, each powerful step of his piston enhanced hooves causing the catwalk to shudder under his tremendous force. I leapt aside, my hoove grasping around the edge of the catwalks rails as I threw myself over the edge and swung around to land on the catwalk behind him. I was glad to see these rails were in better condition than the ones in the first cavern.

Crank spun around faster than I could have expected, his cannons firing off a powerful static filled blast of energy towards me. I jumped back, the massive explosion only missing me by inches and the shockwave once more knocking me off my hooves.

I rolled across my back and sprang back up to my hooves, the effect of the healing mega spell form earlier making my body feel more agile than it had in ages. Boneless raised in my telekinetic grip, its three barrels aimed at the raging cyber alicorns head, yet I hesitated to fire.

“Please Crank! You don’t need to do this!” I yelled over the booming gunfire, trying one last time to get through to the cyber alicorn before me. I didn’t know why I seemed so determined to help him, but I did. After everything I had seen, I couldn’t find it in myself to hate him. “You can be the pony that you want to be! Not just the monster that the wasteland thinks you are!”

“Stop saying that!” Crank roared, once again charging into me and sending me flying from my hooves where I hit the catwalks guard rails with a clang. My head throbbed and my vision spun from the impact. “There is no redemption for a monster like me! The wasteland is right to fear me!”

He reared up his hooves, slamming them down towards me. I rolled to the side, his metal hoove smashing the catwalk where my head had just been. Behind him, I could see Pyre and Brisk in a violent combat with Azar, his hooves lashing out at a speed I was having trouble comprehending as he deflected both of their attacks while still managing to stay on the offensive. One of his hooves lashed out, catching Brisk along the side of the face and sending him flying across the catwalk.

“But you aren’t a monster! I’ve seen it! I’ve seen the real you!” I yelled back, rolling again as he stomped another hoof down at me, this time the bottoms of his hooves shooting jets of flame as his jet hooves activated. The catwalk below his hoof was crushed and charred. “I mean look at what you’re doing! You have given up everything for somepony else! Doesn’t that count for something!?”

“I said stop talking about her!” Crank roared his tesla cannons firing a powerful shot down at me. I ducked below his legs and pulled up behind him as the blast detonated, his own cannons blowing off his two front hooves. Before I could even righten myself, his hydra infused blood patched his hooves back together and he whirled on me. His hooves shot out, catching me by the collar of my stable barding and hoisting me over the side of the catwalk. He held me there, his blazing glass eyes cutting into me. “You do not understand me! You do not understand my pain! I’ve done things you could never understand Amber! Things that your worst nightmares couldn’t even begin to comprehend!”

His hooves let go of me, sending me falling from the catwalk. I stretched my hooves out, grabbing onto the rail with both of them and holding on for dear life. I could see the zebra’s below as they glared up at me, their snipers swiveling up to face me. I twisted to the side as a few shots fired upon me, the large bullets ricocheting off the metal rails by my hoof.

Not far from me I could see Xayah and Shade side by side, their guns firing down upon the zebras as they charged up at us. A few zebras had managed to get past their defenses, their scimitars out and swinging at my friends. Beyond even them I saw Kamari reach the peak of the mainframe, his grin only growing as he began to strap himself into the pod.

Crank loomed over me, his huge form blocking out the glowing light of the Luna Prime mega spell. He sneered down at me, his hoof raising as he prepared to kick me off the rail.

I squirmed, trying to move away from his impending attack. I found nowhere to go. “You’re right, I don’t understand! But that doesn’t mean anything! You said yourself that you were trying to be a good pony! Back on the train, you said a sob story doesn’t make you a monster, it’s only a way to push the blame off yourself!” Crank’s hoof slammed down, the immense force shattering the bones in my left fore hoof. I screamed, grabbing onto the rail tighter with my unbroken hoof as the now broken one swung free. “So you’re right! I don’t, can't understand you! But I understand friendship! You’ve been fighting this battle alone! Trying to save Scarlet from a world determined to tear the two of you apart! But it doesn’t need to be that way!”

I saw Crank raise his hoof again as he prepared to slam it down on my remaining hoof. I imagined the shield spell I had seen those monstrous alicorns cast so many times and made a gamble. As the hoof came down, my horn flared. A thin shield of amber magic materialized between my hoof and his, stopping his attack mid air. Crank snarled and pushed down upon the shield harder, causing thin cracks to form in its amber surface.

“We can help you! Really we can! My friends have traveled through hell and back for me, and I promise that we could do the same for you!” I yelled up at him pleadingly. Beads of sweat were rolling down my face as I put my effort into maintaining the spell. “My friends have gotten me all the way here! Closer to killing Kamari than any pony ever has! We could help you save her! You just need to believe me!”

Crank’s head drew close to mine, his whole force pressing down against my pathetic looking shield. His black, slug-like tongue lolled from his mouth as he pressed his jagged teeth together and hissed. “You don’t understand Amber! I don’t know how much you saw inside of my mind, but clearly you didn’t see it all!”

My shield broke and his hoof slammed down. I let go just as his hoof shattered the railing in two and grabbed onto the edge of the Catwalk itself. Crank’s horn began to glow brighter and brighter, each second punctuated with an electrical crack as the power within him began to build.

“I know! I said that-”

I was cut off as he slammed his hooves down on the catwalk in rage, black tears spilling from his eyes and down his metal cheeks. “Scarlet is dead Amber!” His bellows of rage sent chills down my spine. “I was given three days to find her, and when I did…” His voice trailed off, slowly changing into a low rumble. “She had been viciously murdered. Some raiders had raped and tortured her, torn her apart like animals!” he was seething, his blood red eyes glowing brighter. “All of this! I lost my body and freedom! Everything was for nothing! I gave up everything for her and the wasteland stole her away!”

I gulped, my grip on the edge of the rail loosening as my sweat began to make my hoof slippery. “I know what it’s like to fight so hard for something, only for it to be stripped away from you! I did things I will never forgive myself for so could save my Stable, only for it to be taken away from me when I thought I had won. I’ve killed foals and am plagued by nightmares worse than I ever thought possible, and in the end it was all for nothing!” I could feel tears start dripping down my face. Ever since the destruction of Stable 25 I had held them back, pushed down my feelings until I couldn’t feel anything. That time was over. And goddesses it hurt.

Hot tears spilled down my face, mingling with Crank’s as we both cried openly upon the catwalks. I could feel a shiver racing through my body as the horrible last few seconds of my Stable flashed through my mind. I tried to push aside the tears and pain, but they wouldn’t stop. “But just because the wasteland takes what you love away doesn’t mean you need to become a monster! I forgot that myself for a bit! I was so focused on my rage and revenge that I shut the rest of the world out! You can be better than me Crank! You can be the pony you are supposed to be! The pony Scarlet used to love! Still loves! Hatred and rage aren’t the only way!”

Crank’s face was conflicted now, I could see his glass eyes darting back and forth, trying to make sence of everything around him. His face would soften for a second, only to be covered up by a hard snarl. Then just as quickly he would look around scared, as if seeing the horrors of the wasteland for the first time.

He glared down at me, his red eyes begging for me to show him another way. “I don’t know how Amber,” His voice was so low, I almost couldn’t hear it over the booming gunfire and screams. “I don’t know how to be a good pony…”

I tried to reach out to him, but with one hoof broken and the other clutching the edge of the catwalk for dear life, it looked more like a weird wiggle. “Then let me show you! We can figure out how to be better ponies together!”

Blam!

A zebra below landed a shot on me, the bullet piercing through my hind leg, making me scream out in pain. I lost my grip and my hoof let go of the catwalks.

Then I was falling. Down, down into the pits of the Hollow Shades. Zebras cheered as they watched me fall, their blades extended skywards as they readied themselves to rip into me as I landed. I screamed out, my broken hooves flailing as I tried to reach out for anything that might save me. I tried to teleport with my magic, only for my fear gripped mind to be unable to focus.

I hit something hard, pain shooting through my whole body as my fall abruptly ended. I opened my eyes, taking in the sight of the massive cavern soaring around me. I was airborne, held aloft atop Crank’s metal back.

I stared at him, my jaw slack as I realized he had come to my rescue. “Crank… I…”

“I am not a good pony Amber, and I doubt I will ever truly know how to be one…” Crank growled as a few zebras shot up at us, their snipers ripping oozing holes upon on his underbelly and sides. “But I will try. For Scarlet, damn me I’ll try!”

We landed on the catwalk with a thunk, the whole structure shaking as Cranks metal form pounded into it. A zebra rushed us, only for Crank’s wings to lash out and sever its head from its neck.

“Thank you,” I muttered breathlessly, still surprised I had managed to sway the ferocious cyber alicorns mind.

Crank just grunted at me in return as he turned to face Azar. “Deal with Kamari, Amber! I will hold off Azar!” then he bounded forwards, racing past a wounded Brisk and Pyre and ramming head first into the strange zebra, knocking the zebra off his hooves and tumbling across the catwalk.

Brisk looked back at me, his expression confused as he glanced back at the cyber alicorn. “What just happened?” He uttered, clearly confused as to what I had managed to do.

“A miracle is what!” Pyre shouted back, pulling herself up and letting her single remaining flamer shoot a jet of flame towards a zebra that was trying to flank us.

“You two help Xayah and Shade defend the catwalk from the zebras!” I instructed racing past them and towards the large mainframe. The turrets on the surrounding platforms spun to face me, firing off a constant stream of lead as I ducked behind the large mainframe to get cover.

Azar pulled himself up, his glowing purple stripes de-caving his skull from Cranks attack. “Ah, so you have sided with the ponies?” the strange zebra chuckled, hoping back slightly as Crank blasted at him with his tesla cannons. “I think our last match proved you stand little chance against me.”

Crank snarled and blasted at him with his horn. Azar dodged, the blast flying out and striking a random zebra down.

I raced forwards, my hooves wrapping around the sides of the mainframe as I began to climb it. My broken hoof screamed in protest as I pulled myself up on it and my whole body ached from my fight with Crank.

Turret fire sprayed the area around me, forcing me to jump sporadically from mechanism to mechanism. I saw the turrets bullets bounce off of the mainframe with a small shower of sparks. The large machine must have been protected by the B.S.S.G. that the MWT had installed into the MAS building. Well there went the blow it all up idea.

The massive mega spell above me began to glow brighter. Strange blue magic began gathering around it, the whole orb beginning to pulse with neer blinding light. As if answering its call, the zebra glyphs engraved in the skeletal dragon’s bones began to glow.

I leapt aside again as a turret blasted at where I had just been standing. The blinding light of Luna Prime and the other balefire bombs that lined the cavern the only light I had to see by as I tried to find my hoofing.

My hoof slipped, my whole body falling down before I managed to catch onto a lower part of the mainframe. My hind hooves swung out over the vast pit below me, the many glowing yellow eyes of possessed zebras staring up at me from the darkness.

Up above I could see a vile green light emanating from within the pod atop the mainframe. Thin, near invisible beams of green lanced out, wrapping around the bodies of fallen zebras and slowly pulling their bodies back together. Necromancy.

I saw Xayah and Shade pull back as two zebras were reanimated before them. We weren’t just fighting a massive army, we were fighting an undead army!

I swung my hoof up and climbed higher, doing my best to dodge the turrets fire or the rare shot from one of the zebras that dared to turn their attention from my friends below. I crept closer, the pod at the top almost within reach.

I used my magic to swing Boneless above my head and fire at the pod. The explosive buckshot burst against the glass, doing little but raining shrapnel back onto me. Of course the pod was indestructible, nothing could ever be easy for me.

“You are persistent!” Kamari hissed at me, glaring at me through the tinted glass of the pod. Now up close, I could see that he had strapped himself into the machine more fully than I had realized. Wires raced from the sides of the pod and into his body and a large metal helmet similar to that which I had put on my hellhound rest on his head. A single tube ran up his nose and I could see bits of vapor going through the tube and feeding into his body. The pod was some kind of weird mix between a mind control and a life support pod. He didn’t think that… was he trying to control the dragon remotely from this mainframe?! The idea seemed insane, but then again, Kamari seemed anything but sane.

My eyes locked on the vapor being pumped through the tubes into his body, I had seen it before. It was the work of the A.A.S.S. Everything he had done, all the pain he had put me through, had been to create this machine. And I was going to do everything in my power to take it away!

I bashed against the glass of the pod with my baton, sparks spraying out around me as the baton sent bolts of energy into the already electrically charged surface. My attempts were in vain as my baton simply bounced off of the shielded surface.

I snarled at the zebra ghoul through the glass. “You are going to pay for what you did to my Stable!” I screamed, my baton slamming down again only to bounce right back.

Kamari grinned his wicked grin. The huge mega spell above me pulsed brighter, a huge beam of energy blasting from it and hitting the gargantuan skull of the dragon. To my horror, I watched as the massive bones began to shift and writh, coming to life with a horrific necromantic energy. “Behold the power of the stars, Amber! You are nothing before it!” Kamari cackled, his insane voice rising to simply be heard over the thunderous sound of the mega spell.

There was a crackle of noise over the speakers and the static filled voice of Twilight Sparkle spoke out. “T-minus 5 minutes till launch.”

I glanced around, panic rising up in me. Blaring red lights began flashing everywhere, large timers blinking to life on all of the balefire bomb chambers that surrounded us. Kamari was doing more than just resurrecting a long dead giant dragon, he was bringing about a second balefire annihilation! He was going to kill everypony in the wasteland!

I scrambled over the side of the pod and down the back of the mainframe. There had to be a way to shut it off! Some sort of override!

I spotted a terminal embedded in the back of the mainframe. There!

I pushed towards it, forcing myself to move back into the range of the turrets. They fired up at me, forcing me to jump forwards and grab onto a small ledge on the huge machine.

One of the turrets hit me, their shot tearing through my already broken fore hoof. My grip slipped, sending me plumbitting from the side of the mainframe. I hit another platform, my head ringing and the whole world spinning around me. I looked up, spotting the terminal only a few feet above me. I started crawling forwards, each time my hoof pulled me up causing pain to shoot through me.

Far below I saw the zebras push past my friends, their overwhelming numbers and inability to die giving them the strength to prevail against my friends teamwork. I saw Azar leap atop Crank, his metal covered hooves ripping apart pieces of metal with each well aimed attack.

I pulled myself up to the terminal, my hooves immediately reaching for the keys to activate it. Locked! Of fucking course it was! And thirteen letters too! Fuck!

A few zebras shot up at me, their shots bouncing off the tough metal of the mainframe as I dodged to the side, swinging Boneless down to fire at them.

Blam! Blam!

Two shots fired out, two shots made their mark. Both zebras fell dead to the ground, their bodies oozing blood and viscera.

I glanced up from the terminal, my gaze landing on a dark, oblong device resting inside of a glass case. Thick tubes had been hooked up to it and were pumping its nutrients filled vapors up into the machine. The A.A.S.S.

I raised my baton and slammed it as hard as I could against the glass. It didn’t shatter completely, but a small crack did form across the front. I grimaced and slammed the baton down against it again and again, each hit making the crack stretch farther and father across the thick pane. With one last mighty thwack, the glass shattered, its shards seeming to lash out at me and cut at my flesh.

Ignoring the pain, I wrapped the A.A.S.S. in a field of magic and yanked it as hard as I could from the mainframe. The wires tugged against me, holding the oblong device in place for a second before I overpowered it and ripped it free.

Up above, I could hear a howl of rage as Kamari noticed the sudden stop in vapers being pumped into his body. “Stop her! Kiiiilllll!” He shrieked out, his voice rising to a near impossible octave.

I saw zebras break off from their assault on my friends and start rushing towards me. Pyre Blaze leapt in their path, her remaining flamer at full blast as she turned them to ash. But there were more coming and we simply couldn’t hold them all off!

Several more pushed past her, charging fearlessly past Crank and Azar’s mighty battle and rushing the huge mainframe. I had no time to lose.

I turned to the terminal and started clicking away. “Password, password, password… What’s your password Kamari!” I grunted to myself, scrolling through the data.

“T-Minus 4 minutes till launch.”

Shit shit shit shit! An idea crossed through my mind and I made a gamble. I typed ‘Nightmaremoon’ into the terminal.

>Access Granted

I grinned. Yup, still got that magic touch. The terminal beeped open, giving me access to the two things inside.

>Mega spell launch options:

>Luna Prime - Active

>Balefire Bomb chambers - Active

There was a booming roar, causing me to look up. The huge skeletal dragon was moving on its own now, its huge maw wide open as it let loose and ear piercing roar. Its eyes glowed with the same light as the glowing glyphs and I could have sworn that the whole thing seemed to sparkle similar to how I had seen princess Luna’s mane in Twilights memory.

I clicked on the ‘Luna Prime - Active’. The terminal screen began beeping large flashing red lights blinked out at me.

>Access Denied

>Download to begin manual override

Download to- My eyes popped wide and I quickly hooked up my pipbuck to the terminal. I glanced down, seeing the shapes of the zebras rushing up the mainframe to reach me. I didn’t have long.

>Download initialized - please wait

A small green bar appeared on both my pipbuck screen and the flickering terminal. The bar blinked on and off as it slowly began to fill up. “Come on! Come on!”

“T-minus 3 minutes till launch.”

The zebras were firing up at me now. I ducked low to avoid a bullet as it whizzed over me and ricochet of the mainframes metal with a blast of sparks. The turrets opened fire again, sparks flying around me everywhere as the bullets cascaded around me.

The bar was half full, I was almost there.

The first zebra reached me, swinging their curved scimitar at me head. I rolled to the side, swinging my baton up to meet them. Our weapons clashed, my shock baton sending a small spark shooting down their metal blade and charring their mouth.

The zebra reeled back, snarling. They swung again, their blade slashing against the side of the monstrous machine as I leapt to the side. Sparks shot up from the machine as the B.S.S.G. protected it from the assault.

I turned and bucked at the zebra in the face with my hind legs. There was a crack as my hooves broke their jaw. They stumbled back, tripping over the machinery and falling from the mainframe. Their body fell past the catwalk plunging into the darkness of the pit.

The huge bone dragon lurched, rocks tumbling away as it began to claw its way to freedom. Its wings burst from the cavern wall, sending huge boulders erupting across the room like shrapnel from a grenade.

It’s head reared up, a bloodcurdling roar escaping its lipless maw. I shoved my hooves against my ears to try and block out the all consuming sound of its screams, only to find blood trickling down the side of my head.

Rocks began crashing down from the ceiling as the massive skeletal dragon ripped apart the walls keeping it imprisoned. Its jagged jaw opened wide, a heinous green fire burning in the back of its throat.

I didn’t have time to give out a warning as a huge jet of green flame burst from its maw and started lashing around the room. I ducked behind the mainframe as the fire surged and churned around me. The blazing heat licked at my hooves and blistered my flesh. I could feel the immense heat as it burst towards me.

The green bar on my pipbuck fully filled and the screen started flashing a multitude of different warnings. I gave as much of a smile as I could while in as much pain as I was. Now or never.

>Luna Prime downloaded

>Deactivate?

[Yes]

[No]

I didn’t hesitate. I pushed yes.

More and more sparks burst from the glowing Luna Prim mega spell above me, the huge beam of energy connecting it to the massive dragon flickered, then exploded. The whole cavern was hit with the shockwave, sending everypony unprepared flying from their hooves. I was flung backwards, crashing into the side of the mainframe.

I could hear Kamari’s enraged screams as the massive bone dragon slumped limp to the cavern floor, the strange blue glow around it slowly fading away into nothing. I saw the glowing zebra ghoul’s green eyes glaring down at me from the pod above. “What have you done!”

I gave him a smirk. “Foiled your plans did I?”

“T-minus 2 minutes till launch.”

My smirk was washed away. Why was it still counting down!? I looked around the cavern, my eyes wide as I took in the hundreds of blinking timers connected to the balefire bomb chambers. I might have delayed Kamari from using the Luna Prime mega spell, but there were still hundreds of balefire bombs primed and ready to annihilate the rest of the wasteland, and nothing was to stop him from reactivating Luna Prime once I was dead or gone.

I pulled myself over to the terminal, reaching for the Balefire Bomb chamber controls. I clicked it open, my eyes skimming through my scarily limited options.

>Status: Activated

>Do you wish to activate manual detonation?

[Yes]

[No]

I could have screamed. There was no deactivate option!? Only detonate now or detonate later!? What asshole designed this thing!

The second zebra pulled themself up to my platform. Their sniper spun to face me, firing a bullet straight into my shoulder. I fell back with a scream, clutching the bleeding wound as pain shot up my body.

I rolled aside as they fired again, Boneless swinging up and cracking against their skull. The zebra stumbled back, but remained upright.

I saw the turrets preparing to fire again. I rushed forwards, tackling into the stumbling zebra just as the turrets let loose their fire. The barrage of bullets tore into the zebra as I used them as a meat shield. The zebra’s body spasmed above me as it was sprayed with the automatic fire.

As soon as the turrets fire subsided, I pushed the zebra off of me and let it slump down to the metal platform.

Down below, I saw Pyre get knocked off her hooves by a charging zebra and fall not far from the base of the mainframe. She sprang back up quickly, her power armoured hoof lashing out and crushing the offending zebras skull.

I took a deep breath. I knew what I had to do.

“Pyre! I need you to get Brisk and Xayah out of here!” I called out, catching her attention. I was surprised she could hear me over all the action. “There’s an elevator just down the hall! You all need to get out of here, there isn’t time!”

“What about you!” Pyre called back, her flamer shooting a jet of flame at a group of zebras that were rushing towards her.

I gulped, gesturing around to the ominously blinking balefire bombs around us. “They can only be detonated manually. I need to stay behind to activate them!”

I saw Pyre’s eyes widen below her helmet visor. “Are you crazy! You’ll-”

“I know!” I called back, a small tear rolling down my face. “I know… but it’s the only way. Please Pyre, do this for me.”

Pyre stood there conflicted for a second, her eyes darting back and forth as she tried to decide what to do. FInally she groaned and gave a low growl. “Fucking hell Amber, you really are somethin’. Fucking shit!” She turned from me, charging through the groups of zebras and swiping Brisk and Xayah up onto her back. The two looked down at her, trying to figure out what was going on. “Shade, get over here! We’re leaving!”

My friends charged past Crank and Azar, still engaged in a brutal combat. Azar leapt away from a massive blast of Crank’s cannons, his violet eyes glancing towards my friends as they fled. “What is-” His eyes locked with me. “Ah, clever pony…” He put his hoof to his ear, activating a small intercom I hadn’t noticed before. “Luna Prime is a failure. Get me out of here!”

Crank roared and lunged at the strange zebra. Just as his hoof was about to collide with Azar, a beam of blue light shot down around the zebra. Within seconds, Azar flashed out of existence and disappeared.

“What about Amber?” I heard Xayah ask from Pyre’s back over the gunfire. Pyre remained silent and kept charging for the exit. “Pyre!”

“T-minus 1 minute till launch.”

Xayah’s eyes widened in horror as she looked up and met my steady, yet sorrowful gaze. A second of understanding crossed her face as she realized what was happening, only to be covered by panic. She beat her hooves against Pyre’s armoured side, trying to get her to let go. “Amber! Pyre, turn back, we need to help her!” She screamed, her whole body thrashing as she tried to pull herself from Pyre’s tight grip.

I just stared at her, not sure what to do or say. This was it, the last time I would see any of them, I knew that now. Just like I knew Kamari had been right in saying I would never leave this tower alive. I could feel the tears beginning to pick up and roll down my face. She would be gone any second damn it, say it!

My voice died in my throat as I watched Pyre struggle to drag Xayah through the doorway. I gulped and forced my mouth to move. “I love you,” the words were quite, I hardly heard them myself, but I meant them, that was something I knew now too.

Xayah’s eyes welled with tears, her body finally going limp against Pyre’s side as she stared up at me. She had heard me, goddesses only know how, but she had.

Then they were around the corner and out of sight. Gone from my life forever. Not that I had much of one anymore. Funny how one can be so determined to kill themselves, only to wish they could have had just a little more time when their time had really come.

I wiped aside a tear, trying to clear my vision. “Bye… and stay safe…” I really hoped they would be.

I turned from the door and back to the terminal, my hoof resisting over the detonate button. I had to give them as much time as I could to escape.

With my friends now gone, the zebras began closing in, a tight circle formed around the base of the mainframe. More guns turned towards me, their constant fire making me need to constantly seek cover.

Somepony pulled themself up next to me on the platform. I whirled around to attack them, only to find myself muzzle to muzzle with Shade.

I gaped. “What are you doing! You were supposed to be getting out of here with them!”

Shade shook her head, her pistol spinning in the air and firing down a few shots into the oncoming zebras. “I’ve made mistakes Amber, one’s that neither you nor I can ever forgive!” She fired again, her shot taking off the head of a zebra that reached the platform. “I’m not going anywhere until I fix what I’ve done! Besides, you need somepony to cover your ass! You can’t take on all of this alone.”

“But…” My voice once again caught in my throat. “You’ll die!”

Shade gave a grim nod of resignation. “I know. And honestly, I think that’s for the best. Us Stable ponies gotta stick together after all.” She turned from me, her pistol firing shot after shot as she tried to buy me more time.

Crank shot towards us, his massive wings seeming to rip apart the air as bolted forwards. His metal hooves crashed against the platform as he took up a defensive position in front of me, using himself as a shield from the incoming bullets.

“What do you need Amber!?” His gruff voice boomed out. His cannons charged and shot a massive blasts of energy into the zebras, ripping apart the few unfortunate enough to not evade him.

“Are you sure you want to do-” I started, but Crank cut me off with a wave of his bladed tail.

“You already went through that with Shade. I’m a monster Amber… It’s about time I changed that.”

I nodded, a hardened expression crossing my face. “Alright, hold off the zebras as long as you can. I need to detonate the balefire bombs manually. We need to give my friends as much time as they can to get out of here!”

Crank grunted and fired off another shot from his cannons. Even while not directed at me, I had to do everything I could to keep from having the shock wave knock me from my hooves. Crank turned his head to look at me, one of his glowing red eyes peering into mine. “Do you think Scarlet is with the goddesses, Amber?” he asked, his voice low but unmistakable.

I gave him a timid nod. “She’s waiting there for you now. You know she’ll never stop waiting.”

I saw the smallest of tears roll down Crank’s face and to my suprise, the smallest hint of a genuine smile. There had been a few times I could have sworn I had seen the pony within him, but now, I hardly even saw the machine.

Crank gave a mighty roar as he let loose his full fury upon the zebras. Blast after blast, slash after slash. Shade stood by my side, her pistol firing off shots as fast as she could.

I raised Boneless and fired off shots of my own. Each shot a killing blow as my SATS enhanced aim targeted the heads of any zebra that dared to get in firing range.

And there, upon the peak of apotheosis, we made our final stand.

Something jumped down from above, it’s frail form clattering against the platform beside me. I turned too late as it swung out a glowing hoof and lashed me across the face.

I spun backwards, my hoof rushing to my face. Where the hoof had struck me, my coat had burned away and the flesh beneath had boiled.

Kamari advanced on me, oozing green blood from where he had ripped the wires from his own body. His face was twisted in rage, a rage that I knew very well.

“You’ve ruined everything!” The deranged ghoul shrieked, his eyes wide and blazing with a pure, untempered insanity. “Everything was perfect and you ruined it!”

Kamari lunged at me again, his radioactive hooves reaching out to strangle me. I duck to the side, my pipbuck’s geiger counter clicking furiously just by being in close proximity to him.

I swung Boneless and slammed the end of the barrel against his head. Kamari whirled, his mouth widening and shooting out a thick cloud of radioactive green fog.

I stumbled back, my skin boiling from the contact. I lost my telekinetic grip on Boneless and it clattered to the floor of the platform. I reached forwards, trying to wrap my hooves around it, only for Kamari to kick it away, sending my weapon spiralling into the abyss below.

I jumped back to my hooves, trying to pull out my shock baton. Before I could, Kamari rammed into me, his powerful hooves slamming into my chest and pinning me to the ground. My pipbuck clicked faster and I could feel my insides churning at the touch. Holes were burned away in my Stable barding where his hooves held me down.

Kamari leaned down, his glowing maw foaming with glowing saliva. “You will pay for what you have done!”

“T-minus 5 seconds till launch.”

My eyes darted up to look behind him. I forced myself to give him the single most smug looking grin I could muster. “Funny, I came here to tell you the same thing. This is for Stable 25 asshole!”

Kamari’s eyes widened and he spun around to find the barrel of Shade’s pistol pressed against his forehead.

Blam! Blam! Blam!

Three shots fired point blank into the glowing ghouls head. Kamari’s head burst open, glowing viscera bursting from his mutilated neck as his body slumped down above me. I pushed him off, his body falling lifeless down into the darkness below.

“T-minus 4 seconds till launch.”

I gave Shade a small smile. She returned it. “Thank you…”

A stray bullet tore through Shade’s throat. Her screams died as blood surged up into her mouth and drowned her. Her body spasmed for a second, before falling limp to the floor.

“Shade!” Damn it! I pulled myself up, my whole body aching. I hauled myself over to the terminal and raised my hoof. The time had come.

“T-minus 3 seconds till launch.”

Behind me, Crank was overcome by the seemingly endless waves of zebras as curved blades ripped into his flesh and tore out anything they could. His huge cannons blasted apart the zebras pilling onto him, but there were simply too many.

“T-minus 2 seconds till launch.”

I felt my hoof shaking. Burning tears slipped from my eyes and rolled down my face. I had done good. I had saved the wasteland. That was more than most ponies could attest to.

I glanced at my rump, the image of a red screwdriver stared back at me. Maybe I wasn’t destined to lead a Stable, and maybe my special talent was just to fix machines. How ironic that I was about to die destroying the very thing that I had spent my life trying to maintain. Life was funny like that.

“T-minus 1 second till launch.”

I let myself smile. A real smile.

That was okay, I was okay. For the first time in my life since that darn cutie mark appeared on my flank, I was happy with who I was. I was Amber Aura, and that was the greatest thing in the world.

My hoof pressed down on the terminal.

“Balefire Bombs laun-”

The balefire bombs exploded. My vision flared with green and my body dissolved into nothingness.

Footnote: level up.
New perk: Silent Running -- +10 sneak, hoof speed and armour weight no longer affect sneaking
Quest Perk Lost: Rage -- Vengeance has been taken. You no longer gain a +3 to your intimidation attempts

Author's Note

This chapter was a bit of a personal goal for me to reach. I always looked towards this chapter as something in the far off future that I needed to write. It almost feels weird to have finally written it...

Hope everyone has had a good day!

Fallout: Equestria belongs to Kkat

Chapter XVI: The Long Ride Home

“Parents? Hah! I was born from the sun and have sand in my veins!”

Miracles.

I can’t say that I was ever a big believer in miracles. Back in Stable 25 there was never a need or want for them, everything was predictable and nothing out of the ordinary ever happened. I might have considered a day without somepony beating me up a miracle, but I knew that was just a mix of good luck and self induced Isolation.

And in the wasteland… Well, I had seen enough atrocities in the blood and ash coated wastes to know without a doubt that there were no miracles here. Even good luck was simply the wasteland telling you it wasn’t done toying with you yet. There was no mercy, survival was simply a slower and more painful death.

As I had stood atop the platform within the MAS tower, I had been so certain that I was going to die. In fact, I had even managed to come to terms with the idea somewhat. There was no pony left who could save me, no logical way to escape alive. There I would die, blasted to pieces and what little remained of my corpse buried below hundreds of miles of rock.

And yet, a miracle happened. As it turns out, I had been wrong about there not being any pony to save me. That there was one pony that I or even Kamari couldn't have possibly accounted for. Somepony that had been with me for a long time now, and finally decided to take action.

One moment I was slowly bleeding out atop a platform far below the surface of the earth, my hoof pressed on the detonation button to activate over a hundred balefire bombs around me. Then the next moment I was standing in the radioactive landscape of the Glowing Sea, a dull green light slowly fading from my vision.

I blinked, taking in the desolate landscape and huge towering black spire of the MAS hub in front of me. “What the fu-”

I was knocked off my hooves as the entire tower exploded. Once again my vision flared with green as the hundreds of balefire bombs detonated at once.

I hit the ground hard, my head cracking against a rock. My ears rang, but I couldn’t tell if it was from hitting my head or the ear splitting, thunder-like boom of the balefire bombs. It was probably both. I shook myself, pulling myself back to my hooves to look at the tower.

The MAS tower was practically gone, the only proof of it ever existing at all being the small, black shards of glass like metal that now scattered the Glowing Sea like leftover shrapnel. A huge, billowing green, mushroom shaped cloud of flame and smoke was slowly rising into the sky above me, making the once looming monolith like tower seem tiny compared to its vast size and might.

The explosion had done more than just blast apart the horrific tower though. Up above me the clouds had been ripped apart, giving me a clear look at the brilliant blue sky far above. A beam of sunlight seemed to shine directly through it, warming me with it’s golden light. A single streak of beauty amongst the desolation.

I saw a small flicker of light from around the explosion, itself a strange and unnatural shape. For a second I saw an etherial apparition of the MAS tower, a spire like ghost amongst the ashes as the B.S.S.G. finally gave out and dissipated.

I had to squint my eyes just to look at the huge explosion and glowing sunbeam. Tears streaked down my cheeks and I could feel my eyes sizzle a little. I glanced away quickly. Stinging, sizzling eyes probably wasn’t a good sign to keep staring.

I accepted the massive shockwave of fire and kicked up ash to slam into me, killing me in the impending fallout. But the shockwave never came. My gaze met the radioactive ground around me. It was untouched. Not a single speck of ash around the exploding tower had been moved by the blast. What I had taken for a shockwave that knocked me off my hooves had simply been me jumping in fright at the booming noise.

I remembered Twilights terminal saying something about the B.S.S.G. shield the MWT had installed being a two way shield. I had put that into account when I had decided to detonate the balefire bombs, but seeing it in action was still a little mind blowing. It kept everything except the tower and sky above to be completely untouched by the balefire.

“Huh… Guess Twilight was right,” I choked out, my voice dry and pained. “That B.S.S.G. really can withstand a balefire bomb… or two… or hundred I suppose.”

It hurt to talk. I glanced down at my body and gasped. I was covered in cuts, bruises, gashes and bullet holes from the fight inside of the tower. Blood was spilling from my body fast, hot red fluid spilling down my body and pooling around my injured hooves.

Now that the sudden shock of being alive and seeing the balefire explosion was wearing off, I was becoming painfully aware of the loud clicking of my pipbuck. My eyes widened. I was in the Glowing Sea without my hazmat suit! I hadn’t even taken any Rad-X!

My hooves fumbled to my saddlebags immediately, pulling at the yellow hazmat suit I had folded up within. My small collection of Rad-X and radaway tumbled from my bags, scattering across the ashy ground. I pulled it out, struggling to clamber into it as fast as possible.

My vision swam, dark, black specks swarming into my view. I coughed, blood burbling from my lips. I could feel my insides churning as I took in far more rads than I had ever thought possible for a pony to take.

I managed to slip one hoof into the hazmat suit before I toppled over, radiation filled haze spiralling down my throat and into my lungs. I gasped out, my body instinctively trying to get a decent breath of air. There was no clean air for my body to get.

I tried one last time to pull myself into the suit, only for my wounded legs to scream in protest and make me yelp in pain.

Then my whole body seemed to go limp, all my strength sapped. I froze, both from the pain and radiation poisoning. My mouth opened and closed aimlessly as I tried to utter something, anything. Nothing came out.

Just before my vision blacked out completely, I saw the blurry face of a pink filly standing over me, her amber eyes looking down with interest into mine.

I awoke with a cough and a sputter. I bolted upright, my vision still spinning.

I looked around, trying to take in everything. I was still in the Glowing Sea, the ruins of the MAS tower still crumbling not too far away. My pipbuck still ticked, but the vile sensation of radiation poisoning and even the burning feel of my wounds had dissipated.

I was in my hazmat suit somehow, the yellow suit tightly fitted over my body. I checked my pipbuck, finding that my rads had once more dropped to zero. My saddlebags lay beside me in a messy pile, now empty syringes of Rad-X, Radaway and even a few empty healing potions scattering the area around it.

“How the-” I started, my eyes once again lifting to look at the ruins of the MAS tower.

“Ouchie!” a voice squeaked out from me behind me, making me spin around with a start. “Never let me do that again! Damn it!”

Behind me stood a filly. A pink filly with a pink and blue mane and Amber eyes. My eyes glanced down at her cutie mark, a red screwdriver stared back. The filly me.

Her horn was charred black and steaming a little from the top. She rubbed it gingerly with her small hooves, trying to brush away the pain from the smouldering appendage.

“You!” I blurted, immediately jumping to my hooves and pointing at her with a hoof. My hooves slipped on the ash coated ground and I fell back to my haunches.

The filly me jumped, noticing that I was awake for the first time. She scampered back, quickly ducking behind a large rock with a startled yelp.

“Oh no you don’t! Not this time!” I yelled, jumping forwards at the filly as she scampered away. “You aren’t disappearing on me again! I want answers!” I leaped over the rock, diving to where I thought the filly would have been hiding. My hooves met air and I tumbled face first into the ground.

Did that count as falling out of bed? I had just woken up… damn it wasteland! Just once, I want to not fall on my face!

I heard a small giggle from above me. I rolled over, flopping on my back to look up at the top of the rock where the filly had somehow managed to perch herself. She lay on her stomach, her fore hooves crossed in front of her to support her head.

I glared up at her and pointed at her with an accusing hoof. “Who are you and what do you want!” A thought passed through me and I glanced back at the broken tower. “Were you the one that got me out of there?”

The filly gave me a nod and a smug grin. She suddenly winced. “Sorry I couldn’t get your cyber pony friend out too…”

I shook my head, not sure how to take that. “It’s… uh… okay. I don’t think he wanted to get out of there anyway,” That stung far more than I expected. It would have been a bit of a stretch to call Crank my friend, but his death was unexpectedly hitting me pretty hard. He had only just begun to become a better pony, only for the wasteland to rip that away from him. Just like it had taken everything else he cared about away.

I glanced back at the shattered remains of the tower. I suppose it was possible he had survived, Crank was rather resilient after all. But I doubted even somepony as powerful as the mighty cyber alicorn could survive hundreds of balefire bomb detonations point blank.

I shook my head and pushed the idea from my mind. I’d mourn for him and Shade later. First, I had to figure out what the fuck was happening. I looked back up at the filly. “How did you even manage to get me out of there? Teleportation?”

That seemed like the most likely possibility.

“Well, kinda I guess,” the filly me responded, kicking a bit of ash off of the top of the rock. “I mean I got you into the hazmat suit and gave you some rad-X and some Radaway, but my magic isn’t strong enough to teleport both of us that far by myself. I needed a little bit of help to cast the spell,” She glared up at her smoldering horn. “Took a lot more power than I was expecting.”

“Help from who?” I asked, still having no clue whatsoever about what was going on.

The filly chirped up at that. “Oh, my friend of course! He’s around her somewhere I think!” She turned away from me and surveyed the area around us. She put a hoof to the side of her mouth. “Oh mister nice pony!” She waited a second before turning back and giving me a shrug. “He must have left, but don’t worry, he’ll be back. Probably. I never really know with him.”

Okay, this filly was a little on the odd side. Not to mention looked exactly like me. That was still unnerving me a fair amount. “Who, er… What are you? Why do you look like me?” I inquired, leaning in a little. I suddenly realized that she was standing in the Glowing Sea perfectly fine without a Hazmat suit. “And how the hell are you resisting all that radiation?”

The filly grinned and held up a large pile of empty Rad-X syringes and Radaway. “I found a good collection of these back in the Hollow Shades. They should keep me okay till we get out of the Glowing Sea.”

I nodded. Okay, that made sense. “And your appearance?”

The filly gave me a nervous look. Her eyes darted around, clearly questioning if she could avoid answering by running away. From the way her blackened horn looked, I figured teleportation was out of the option for her.

She turned back and glanced down at her hooves, shuffling them atop the rock shyly. “That’s not important.”

I narrowed my eyes at her. “Yes, yes it is,” I insisted stubbornly. “Are you one of those synth things I’ve heard about? A robot that looks like a pony!”

The filly me gave me a quizzical, if not amused look. Slowly, a wide smile broke out across her face. She rolled onto her back, her hooves clutching her stomach as she giggled maniacally. “You thought that- that- I was a- Hahaha!” She burst out laughing, her mouth twisted into a wide grin. Eventually she stopped rolling with laughter and looked back at me, wiping away tears. “You’re a riot Amber Aura!”

I didn’t get the joke. I tried again. “Well if you aren’t a synth, then what are you?”

The fillies face hardened again, and her eyes once again darting around. “I said that wasn’t importan-” The fillies horn flickered green. She yelped, quickly diving behind the rock and out of sigh.

She had a green aura… so she wasn’t a complete copy of me at least.

I hastily moved around the rock, praying she hadn’t disappeared again. Thankfully, she was still there, smacking at her flickering horn with a hoof. A small green spark flickered from the tip before disappearing. She backed up nervously when she saw me.

“Look, maybe it would just be best if you pretended you never saw me, okay?” She said timidly, backing up a little bit more. “I’m having second thoughts on all this and-”

“Nope, out of the question!” I stated, stomping my hoof down firmly. “You’ve been following me around for who knows how long for some reason and you look exactly like me, but younger and I want answers now!”

“I really don’t think that-” her horn flickered green again. She yipped and tried to dart behind the rock again, but she didn’t move fast enough this time.

As she scuttled around the rock I saw a small pillar of green fire-like magic swirl around her body, momentarily revealing a strange insect looking creature with translucent blue wings.

My jaw dropped. “You’re- a changeling…” I suddenly had the urge to turn around and run away as fast as I could. Changelings were, simply in concept alone, horrifying. The idea of a creature that could pose as somepony you loved and feed of your life force was perhaps one of the most terrifying things I had ever heard of. I had heard stories about them back in the Stable, but never really believed them. It had been quite a shock to learn in the MAS tower that they had in fact been real creatures at one point, but I had calmed myself by assuming they had all died in the apocalypse over two hundred years ago.

Apparently not.

There was a small flash of green light from behind the rock. A few seconds later, I saw a pair of wide amber eyes peek over the top of the rock to look at me. “Um… no. W-why would you think that?” She was lying, that much was obvious. But even with the truth revealed, she managed to make a pretty damn good performance. Changelings needed to be good actors I supposed. There was an awkward moment of silence, neither of us really knowing what to do. Finally, the filly I now knew to be a changeling dropped their head and stared at her hooves. “Okay, maybe I might be a changeling just a little bit…”

I realized my jaw was still hanging open and quickly shut it. “You’re a changeling!” I repeated again, the shock and horrified awe in my voice still very prevalent.

Nodding, the filly crawled out from behind the rock to let me get a good look at her. She took a deep breath, before letting her horn spark a little. Magical green fire surrounded her for a second, the magic flaking away her pink coat and revealing the dark insectoid shell underneath.

She didn’t look much different than the two changeling guards I had seen in Twilight Sparkles memories. Black shell, wide blue eyes, curved horn, two small fangs protruding from her upper lip. But she was a lot younger than the changelings from the memory, clearly a filly herself even outside of her disguise. Her eyes were a little larger and her fangs just a little smaller.

I almost screamed in fear out of instinct.

No Amber, it’s okay. She’s not attacking you. I reminded myself, forcing myself to hold my ground. Besides, I had had a similar reaction when I first met Xayah, and look how that turned out.

I gulped. “Well that… certainly wasn’t what I was expecting…” I dared myself to take a small step forward and looked at the filly changeling a little closer. “How long have you been following me? And why?”

The changeling’s horn sparked and she quickly changed back into a filly version of me. “You’re not going to run away?” she asked timidly, her eyes huge.

Was that an invitation to run away? If it was, the offer was tempting. For some reason I shook my head. Despite the fillies race, she didn’t seem to have nefarious intentions, it would be wrong for me to abandon her. Damn my morality. “No. not until I find out what’s going on at least. So now answer my question.”

The changeling looked away at the dunes of ash. “I’ve been following you since I saw you kill all those raider foals,” She finally said simply, giving me a small shrug.

I balked. That was way longer than I thought she had been following me for. “Since you saw me- Why the fuck would you follow me after you saw that!” My hoof clamped over my mouth. I realized too late I probably shouldn’t be swearing like that in front of a little foal. Did that even matter around a changeling? I had no idea.

The changeling gave me a crooked grin. “Oh right, like I’ve never heard that word in the wasteland before,” She gave a small chuckle, before looking back up at me. “And yes, since I saw you do that.”

“But why? After seeing me do something like that, Wouldn’t I be the last pony you’d want to follow?” I asked, the memory of the foals broken bodies flashing back into my mind. I turned away, the thought causing both shame and guilt to flare through me. Here I was, thinking this filly a monster, when I had gone and done monstrous things like that.

The changeling shook their head. “Yeah, you were pretty scary. But like, this is the wasteland, I’ve seen worse,” I winced at her comment and the sad truth about the wasteland. “And while it might have been scary, it also showed me two things about you.”

I raised an eyebrow. “And what would those be?”

“Simple,” The changeling said with a timid grin. “First was that you would do anything for your friends, I mean not just any pony kills a whole bunch of fillies and colts to protect somepony they care about. Changelings sure don’t. And secondly, I saw you convince your friends to go into that building to save a fillies parents. Now their parents might not have actually been captured by raiders, but you didn’t know that and still went in to save them all the same. Very few ponies would do that.”

I blinked. The idea that I had killed the foals to save Xayah had crossed my mind before, it was one of the few facts that kept me sane after I had found out about what I had done. But the idea that going in there in the first place was some sort of heroic deed in it of itself was a new thought.

“Okay…” I said, rolling what she was saying around in my head. “So why did that make you start following me? Curiosity?” I felt a pang of fear pass through me. “You weren’t trying to feed off my love for my friends were you!” I took a couple steps back as that insane idea began to suddenly feel a little too real. I considered reaching for Boneless, only to remember it was now obliterated by balefire and lying hundreds of miles beneath my hooves.

The changeling jumped back, a frightened look crossing its face. “What! No!” I could hear the hurt in her voice. I had offended her somehow, or at least hurt her feelings. “I mean, yes. I am hungry. But that’s not what I was doing! I promise!”

That calmed me down a little bit. I suppose if it was trying to drain me of love it probably wouldn’t have pretended to be me. “So then why were you following me?”

The changeling bit her bottom lip a little, her eyes looking anywhere except at me. Her horn flickered again, and for a brief second I saw her insidious insect-like form. Then she flashed green and she was back to being a smaller version of me. “I, uh… I kinda need someponies help.”

I pointed to myself with a hoof dumbly. “You need my help?” What the hell could a changeling want from me?

The changeling bit her lip again and gave a shy nod. “Mm-hmm. I considered going to that Stable dweller the DJ keeps talking about, but they’ve been off the radar for a bit and honestly, they’d probably just send me to Junction R-7 or something like that. I thought about asking Security too, but that just seemed like a death wish, and she’s pretty far away.”

Great, so I was just a backup. That’s fine, not like I had any pride anyway, right? I straightened up a little bit. “Okay, so what is it you want?”

“Oh, uh… Just a bit of help finding somepony. It’s nothing big really,” The changeling fidgeted, clearly nervous about talking about the whole thing.

I gave her the most skeptical look that I could. “You’ve followed me for over a week and half way across the wasteland for me to help you find this pony and it’s nothing big?” Not even good acting could fool me on that remark. “I can’t help you if you don’t know what you want.”

The changeling fillies eyes dropped. “You’re gonna make me say it huh…” she paused, trying to figure out how best to proceed. “See, the thing is… um… I never really knew my mom and stuff, and like I was hoping that maybe… um… maybe it would be okay if…”

My ears perked up a little. “You need help finding your mom?” The changeling gave me a small nod in response. That was it? Tragic, sure, but simple. I had been expecting far worse. Another thought hit me. “Don’t all changelings have like… the same mom or something? Like isn’t the changeling queen the mother of all changelings?”

I had no idea how changeling reproduction worked. Until today I hadn’t even though they were real, let alone considered how changeling babies were made. But I had read a bunch of books about insects, and a lot of them reproduced asextually. It only seemed logical that changelings were the same.

The changeling filly gave me a stupid look. “That’s a dumb question,” She soothed, her statment ending in a small chuckle. She didn’t answer the question though, I duly noted.

Finally I gave the filly a small smile and nod. “Alright, sure. I can help you find your mom.”

The changeling’s eyes popped wide with excitement. “R-really?!” Before I could even think to get out of the way, the changeling rushed forwards and tackled me with a tight hug. I stiffened at the touch, afraid just being too close to the weird little creature might sap me dry of my life force. “Thank you so much! I’ll be a huge help! I promise!”

I peeled the filly off of me with my hoof and scooted her back a little bit. “Okay, but I have a few rules first if you’re going to travel with us,” I started. The changeling quickly sat down to listen, nodding vigorously to imply they were listening. I took a deep breath. “First off, no more disguising yourself as me, it's weird and it creeps me out.”

There was a flash of green and the changeling turned into a filly version of Xayah. The tiny zebra grinned up at me. “Okie dokie pokie!”

I shook my head. “No, no turning into my friends either. Just stay as yourself like the rest of us please.”

The changelings eyes shot wide and they quickly morphed into their natural form. They curled up a little, as if trying to hide themself from me. “A-are you sure? Ponies don’t like me much when I look like this… I think I’d be more comfortable if I could hide around other ponies.”

I looked at them for a second, what they were saying piercing itself together in my mind. She wasn’t wrong. If I had reacted the way I had after she had saved my life, I could only begin to imagine how other ponies might react. I remembered how the gathering of ponies in Twilight’s memory had freaked out when Chrysalis had revealed herself, and that had been with Twilight and Luna’s permission. Perhaps it was best if she didn’t walk around in her true form.

“Alright, you can shape shift, just don’t impersonate my friends and I,” I finally compromised. “Can you do that?”

The filly nodded, then thought for a second. “What if I have a really fun joke I want to tell and it involves me turning into one of you?” she quickly turned into a small yellow and pink filly that I didn’t recognize.

I just stared at the changeling for a second, not really sure how to answer that. Finally I just shook my head and continued on, ignoring the question. “Rule number two, don’t hurt my friends. That includes not feeding on our love and stuff. I don’t know how all that works, but I want nothing to do with it.”

The changeling grinned. “I’m sure I can keep my feeding under control. Probably.” I didn’t want to think about that. “Are there any other rules?”

I thought about that for a second. Two rules felt strange and I had some weird desire to make it three. Three was a nice number. I tossed a couple of possible rules around in my head, but nothing really stuck. “Rule three is that I need to know your name,” I finally said lamely, realizing it was hardly a rule. But I supposed if she was going to be traveling with us, then I had better at least know her name.

The changeling blinked up at me, her head cocked slightly to the side in confusion. “My… name…?” She puzzled, her voice almost a low whisper.

“Yeah, I can't just keep going to call you changeling or mini me forever,” I said, waiting patiently for her to answer my question.

The changeling filly just continued to look at me blankly. “I, uh… I don’t think I have a name…” She said, her head dropping to look at the ground.

“You… You don’t have a name?” I restated in surprise. Was that like, a changeling thing or something?

The filly gave me a sad smile. “I mean yeah, I didn’t exactly have my mom to give it to me you know.”

The full realization of just how alone this changeling must be abruptly hit me in full force. No parents to raise them or even name them and no pony they could turn to. She had to resort to following me, a complete stranger, all the way across the wasteland just to get help. I suddenly felt really bad for acting so poorly at them being a changeling. They were just a filly that needed a place to belong.

“Well you said you had a friend that helped you get me out of the MAS tower, what do they call you?” I asked, hoping for her to give me something to go off of.

The changeling just shook their head. “He’s not really much of a talker. He just kinda shows up sometimes,” She said quickly.

I sighed. “Alright, then. I guess that means you can have any name that you want? So what do you want to be called? Is there a name you like?” I asked, slowly sitting down myself before the filly.

The changelings eyes widened and she quickly transformed back into a tiny me. “Any name that I want! But there are so many! How could I choose?”

“Hey, I said no changing into me!” I blurted, pointing at her quickly with a hoof. “That freaks me out!” She quickly turned back into a yellow and pick filly.

"Sorry, it's a habit of mine," The Filly changeling admitted with a blush. "I do that when I'm nervous."

An idea struck me. “Hey! How about we call you Mirror?” I asked, Feeling a little proud of myself for coming up with that on the spot.

The changeling just stared at me with an amused look. “Mirror? What kind of name is that!?” She blurted. She rolled back onto her back, giggling to herself. “Mirror, what a silly name!”

I pouted at her. “Oh come on! I thought that was kinda clever, what with all your mimicking and such!” I crossed my fore hooves grumpily. “If it’s such a bad name, why can’t you think of something better?”

The changeling stopped her giggling and looked up at me thoughtfully. “No no, I can work with Mirror. I’ll just tweak it a bit,” She tapped her chin thoughtfully for a second. “How about… Mirra?” Her eyes shot wide. “Ohoh! I like that! Can I be Mirra! Can that be my name!”

I nodded, giving her a small grin. “Sure Mirra, the name is yours,” I pulled myself up and looked out across the wasteland. “I don’t suppose you know where my friends are, do you?” I asked, hoping they weren’t too far away.

I suddenly realized they probably all thought I was dead. I gulped, finding them I suppose would give me some good foresight on what would happen when I really do die.

Mirra nodded, standing up herself and taking a small sniff of the air. “They aren’t that far away. Come on!” quickly, Mirra began moving in the direction she had been sniffing.

I reached down and picked up my saddlebags with my mouth. The open sack flopped open and a black, oblong device tumbled to the ground. I stared at it, realizing I had actually managed to pull the A.A.S.S. out of the MAS tower with me.

I shook my head, stuffing the device back into my saddlebags and slowly following after Mirra.

“We should have fucking killed you when we first met!” I heard Brisk shout. We hadn’t been walking for very long, a few minutes at most, when I began to pick up the angry yells of Brisk and Pyre as they squabble back and forth.

“I told you already! Amber told me to get all of you out of there!” Pyre shouted back, her voice a mix of anger and irritation. “If you want to die of radiation poisoning then fine, go throw yourself into that balefire crater! You’d get the fate you seem to want so badly!”

“I never said I wanted to fucking die you bitch!” Brisk shouted back, his voice rising. “But we could have helped her! We could have at least tried to get her out of there and find another way!”

We were slowly getting closer, their voices echoing out from behind a large rock outcropping jutting out of the ash covered ground of the Glowing Sea.

“Find another way? We had a full fucking minute to get out of there before those balefire bombs went off! There was no other fucking way!” Pyre growled in return. “Amber trusted me to get you morons to safety, and that’s what I did! The only alternative was for you to stay behind and die along with her, and I’m pretty fucking sure that’s not what Amber would have wanted!”

I turned the corner of the rock to see Brisk and Pyre face to face. Pyre was sporting her usual power armour while Brisk had pulled himself into his hazmat suit. They were snarling at each other, muzzles almost touching and eyes locked as they engaged in some sort of battle of will.

I stopped a few feet away, not quite sure how to proceed. Did I make a joke to break the tension? Simply say ‘I’m alive’?

Turns out I didn’t need to do anything. Brisk looked away from Pyre’s gaze, unable to meet her eye anymore. His eyes found me. He looked at me for a second, his eyes distant from behind the tinted visor of his hazmat suit. He stared past me, as if I were invisible.

Then his gaze locked on my visor, in particular the lock of pink and blue mane that had been pushed up against it. His ears shot up immediately. “Amber?!”

I raised a hoof and gave him a small wave. “Hi. I'm back...”

For the second time since I had been teleported out of the MAS tower, I was tackled into and wrapped in a tight hug before I could think to move. Brisk’s hooves wrapped around me tightly, pulling me close as if he were afraid if he let go I would disappear.

He pulled back, staring me right in the eye. “I thought you were dead sis!”

I tried my best to give him a smile in return. “I thought I was dead too. Turns out I’m a harder pony to kill than everypony thought.”

I saw his eyes harden through his visor. “Don’t you ever even dare doing something stupid like that again! We’re a team Amber, that means we do stuff together! No more taking the bullet for the rest of us!”

I nodded, but mostly to keep him from strangling me on the spot.

“Alright, alright. Give the filly some space,” Pyre grumbled, pulling Brisk back a little. He clung to me for a second, before finally letting go and standing a few paces back. “I’d need a little space too if I just walked out of a balefire bomb explosion like that.”

I shifted my gaze to face her. “Thank you for getting everypony out of there, Pyre. I’m glad you all made it out okay.”

Pyre just shook her head sadly. “Glad at least one pony isn’t pissed the fuck off at me for that,” She cast Brisk a grumpy side glance. “And don’t thank me yet. Shade didn’t make it out with us. I’m sorry Amber, I thought she was with us- but when I realized she had fallen behind, it was too late to go back for her.”

“I-I know,” I said, forcing a smile onto my face and giving her the smallest shake of my head. “She stayed behind to help me. She- she died a hero… Crank did too,” I could feel my gut clench up just thinking about that.

“How the fuck did you even get out of there?” Pyre blurted, asking what must have clearly been on both of their minds. “I mean, you were hundreds of miles underground, surrounded by hundreds of zebras and in the center of hundreds of balefire bombs going off! Thats a lot of fucking hundreds Amber!”

“My new friend helped pull me out,” I said with a small grin, turning to my side. “Say...” Mirra was gone. I glanced around, trying to spot where she went. “...Hi?” I spotted a green bar behind the rock outcrop on my EFS. I turned back to face Brisk and Pyre with a sheepish grin. “Sorry, would you two give me a quick second?”

I quickly slipped away from them, moving back behind the rock. As I moved away, I saw Brisk and Pyre cast each other a strange glance. If they thought that was weird, wait until they saw Mirra.

I found Mirra cowering behind the large outcrop, shivering slightly as she peeked around the corner to look at Brisk and Pyre. She had taken the form of a cream coloured filly with an orange mane. Still just a filly, I noted. I wondered if she even had the ability to turn into adults. I crept over and knelt down next to her. “Hey, you coming or not?”

Mirra gave a timid shake and looked up at me with pleading eyes. “What if they don’t like me?”

I shook my head, almost repulsed by the simple idea. “Look, if I can make Brisk and Xayah put up with Pyre Blaze’s snide remarks and raidery past, I’m sure I can make them like a cute filly like you.”

“But what if they still don’t like me?” Mirra pushed, her whole body trembling. “Will you still help me find my mom if they won’t?”

“They will, I promise,” I insisted, nudging her towards the edge of the outcrop. “And if they don’t at first, I’ll talk some sense into them. They’ll listen to me.”

A small swirl of green magic enveloped her and suddenly Mirra was a blue pegasus filly with a turquoise mane. “Maybe it would be better if I just stay in disguise and let them think I’m a normal pony.”

There was a small spark of magic from atop her hornless forehead. For a second she flickered back into view as a changeling, before quickly changing back into the blue pegasus filly. She whimpered a little, rubbing her head as a spike of pain shot through it.

I shook my head at her. “Your horn doesn't seem to be working quite right after pulling me out of the MAS tower. There’s no way you would be able to hold up that facade,” I informed her truthfully. She glanced down at her hooves nervously, dropping the spell and revealing her true and hideous form. “Besides, if you want them to like you, the last thing you want to do is lie to them. Especially about something that important.”

Mirra nodded solemnly, her body still shaking a little, but she seemed to have calmed down a fair amount. “Okay… I’m trusting you Amber. Please don’t let them attack me.”

I scoffed. “That’s probably the last thing they’ll try and do,” I thought on that remark for a second. “Well, maybe Pyre might… But she wants to attack anypony.”

With a little bit more encouragement, I managed to fully convince her to come out. I stepped out first, signalling for both of my friends to stay wear they were. Brisk and Pyre exchanged another look, their faces still very much perplexed. Slowly, Mirra crept out from behind the rock, her black, insectoid shell glinting of the hazy, clouded sunlight from above.

Immediately, Brisk and Pyre crouched into a battle stance. The tip of Pyre’s lone flamer sparked with fire and Brisk’s pistol whipped into the air with lightning speed. Mirra shrieked and dove behind my hoof, her body morphing into that of a pony filly.

I slapped my face with a hoof. Seriously! They seriously had to jump right into attack mode after I promised that they wouldn’t… fuck my life.

“Amber! Step away, that fillies a-” Brisk started, his eyes narrowing on the filly cowering behind me.

“I know it’s a fucking changeling!” I spat back, feeling more annoyed at their reaction than angry. I winced and looked back at Mirra. “Sorry, I’ll try not to swear anymore.”

Mirra rolled her eyes, still shivering a little. “I’ve heard ponies say fuck before Amber.”

Brisk’s eyes still bore into the shivering changeling with an unwarranted hatred, but Pyre had already let the fire at the end of her flamer extinguish. Through the visor of her battered helmet, I could see the edges of her mouth twist into a wide grin.

“Well damn, Amber. You are full of surprises today, ain’t ya!” Pyre chuckled, taking a few steps forwards to get a better look at Mirra. I could see her eyes light up as an idea crossed through her. “Say, changeling… Can you turn into Amber?”

I could see a confused look cross Mirra’s face. I opened my mouth to tell her not to, but before I could there was a flash of green and Mirra morphed once again into a tiny me.

“Hey! Pyre! I told her not to do tha-”

I was cut off as Pyre suppressed a small snicker. “And here I thought that you couldn’t get any cuter Amber! Looks like I was wrong again! HAha!” She turned back to look at Mirra, her grin widening. “I don’t suppose you are any good at impressions, no?”

I could see the confused look on Mirra’s face get wiped away as she realized what Pyre was asking of her. A small, yet devious grin spread across her face. She put a hoof to the sky and struck the most dramatic pose that she could. “My name is Amber Aura, and I’m not cute at all!” She squealed, in the most spot on impression of my voice. Her voice squeaked a little at the end, making her seem even more adorable. “I love books and I have a super duper big crush on that zebra!”

Pyre Blaze was rolling on her back with laughter, her armoured hooves clutching at her stomach as she cackled. I felt my ears grow hot and my cheeks flush.

“Wha- what! I never- I don’t sound like that! And I’m not that obsessed with books!” I sputtered, by blush only growing. “And who said I have a crush on Xayah! I didn’t say that! You have no proof!” My outburst only seemed to make Pyre and Mirra laugh more.

“Changelings can sense love Amber!” Pyre informed me between laughs. “So if she thinks that, it’s probably true!” she rolled over, laughing more.

Mirra’s devious smirk grew to a point that I thought it might jump right off her face. “She even told the zebra ‘I love you’ back in the tower!”

My face was so hot I felt like it was going to catch fire. “What- but- how! You heard that!” I folded my ears back against my head and narrowed my eyes at the changeling. “Don’t encourage Pyre, she’s the worst.”

Pyre began snorting as she tried to hold back her uncontrollable laughter. “Oh this is too good!” She had to stop for a second to catch her breath. She looked over at Mirra and extended her hoof to her. “You’re okay kid. The name’s Pyre Blaze. I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship!”

Mirra’s eyes widened and she quickly accepted Pyre’s hoof. “Friends! Really, you mean it!?”

Pyre snickered. “Oh, you got that right! We’re gonna mock so many ponies! It’s going to be great!” Pyre glanced over at Brisk who was still standing with his gun drawn, not quite sure how to proceed. She pointed at him enthusiastically. “Do him next! Do him!”

Mirra stuck out her tongue. “Ew! But he’s a boy!”

That only made Pyre laugh harder. She rolled over to face Brisk with a snide sneer. “Hear that, you’re so gross she doesn’t even want to turn into you!” Brisk just gave her a grumpy look in return.

"Pyre! I told her not to change into us-" I started, but Mirra's laughter cut me off.

“Oh oh! I know!” Mirra burst into flame again and turned into a filly Brisk. She jumped up and down, imitating Brisk’s seemingly endless energy. “I’m Brisk Spark and I never take anything seriously! I think I’m suuuppper funny, but no pony actually likes my jokes!” her voice was a perfect imitation of Brisk’s own.

“Hey! Ponies like my jokes!” Brisk interjected, defensively placing a hoof over his chest.

I had to hold back a snicker of my own at that remark. “No offence bro, but your jokes are pretty awful.”

“Wait wait, who does Brisk have a crush on!” Pyre snorted, her hoof beating at the ground as she laughed. “There’s got to be somepony!”

Brisk began blushing himself. He waved a hoof, indicating for them to stop. “Okay, I think that’s enough of this!”

Mirra was rolling around on the ground herself now, no longer able to suppress her giggles any. “Oh.. Haha! Oh I’m Brisk and I think fliers have the cutest bodies!” She put a hoof to her mouth to hide a snicker. “They’re just so sleek and their wings are so soft or whatever.”

I laughed along with them as Brisk’s blush grew as red as mine. She had even gotten his trademark 'or whatever' line down. I looked at him almost pitifully. “Don’t worry bro, your secret is safe with us.”

Brisk crossed his fore hooves. “I don’t think it is anymore,” he said with a grumble, but the smallest of smiles had managed to creep onto his face.

“It’s too bad Xayah missed this, she would have gotten a good laugh out of this whole ordeal,” Pyre giggled, reaching out and giving Mirra a hoof bump.

Alarms went off in my head. I looked around, trying to spot my zebra friends. “Uh- where is Xayah?” I felt a little bit of fear creeping into my voice. She had made it out of the tower before it exploded right!? Pyre and Brisk would have said something if she hadn’t, wouldn’t they?

Almost immediately, Pyre’s laughing stopped. She gave Brisk a worried look before she stood up and faced me directly. “She’s fine Amber. Alive, anyway.”

“But where is she,” The tight knot in my stomach was getting tighter and it was refusing to go away.

Brisk finally approached us, his expression a little distant. “Amber, we all thought you were dead… That hit her pretty hard…”

I felt like I was getting bucked in the face. I whirled around, not bothering to listen to whatever else Brisk was about to say. My EFS picked up a lone green bar not too far away. “Give- give me a moment guys. I need to do something.”

I found Xayah sitting at the edge of a large cliff overlooking the vast, empty expanse of the Glowing Sea. Far in the distance I could see the rocky crags and billowing smokestacks of the Hollow Shade’s settlement and even beyond that on the tip of the horizon I could make out the faint red glow of Fillydelphia.

Xayah’s shoulders were slouched forwards, her shoulder blades pressed tightly against her back and pointing up towards the sky. Like the rest of us, she was back inside her hazmat suit, the suits bright yellow now dulled by the ash and grim of the wasteland. She looked like a wreck.

I cleared my throat, trying to figure out the best way to get her attention. I saw her ear twitch a little at the noise, but she didn’t turn to face me.

“Brisk, I told you I wish to be alone,” Xayah said back, her melodious tone empty and emotionless. “I-I just need a moment.”

I crept a little closer, not quite sure what exactly to say. Finally I just sighed. “Xayah... It’s me. I’m okay,” What else could even be said.

Xayah’s ears shot straight up. We were both silent for a moment as we tried to figure out exactly what to do. I could see Xayah’s whole body start shaking and heard a small sobs escape her lips.

I saw it coming this time, but I didn’t dare try to move out of the way.

Xayah spun around, her striped hooves reaching out and wrapping around my neck in the tightest hug I could have possibly imagined. I let my hooves wrap around her as well as I held her, holding her close as she cried into me.

After a few moments, Xayah pushed herself back and looked at me, her emerald green eyes locking with mine through the tinted visor of our suits. “Amber… I- I thought you were…” She trailed off, her expression growing hard. Her hoof lashed out, striking me across the face. “Don’t you ever do that again you foolish pony!”

I rubbed my face with a hoof, trying to dissipate some of the pain. I had almost forgotten how painful Xayah’s slaps were. They were powerful and precise. I gave her a sheepish grin. “Sorry. I already promised Brisk I wouldn’t do that again.”

Xayah shook her head in disbelief, still trying to figure out if I was actually sitting in front of her or if life was giving her a very cruel hallucination. “How did you even survive…”

“A new friend of mine pulled me out,” I replied, gesturing over the hill where Brisk, Pyre and Mirra were waiting patiently. I questioned myself if I should inform her that Mirra was a changeling now, but I decided I’d cross that bridge when I got there. “Something about a mysterious friend of hers helping to pull me out. I don’t really understand it myself, but it used up a lot of her magic. Want to go meet her?”

Xayah shook her head. “Not yet, give me another minute,” She leaned forwards and wrapped her hooves around me again, finding comfort in my presence. “I think I’d just like to sit with you a little longer.”

I smiled, cuddling into her closer. We were silent again, comforted by the warmth of the other. Eventually, Xayah tilted her head up a little, peering up at me with one of her green eyes. “Amber, there is something I want to ask you?”

I nodded skeptically, not fully sure what exactly there was left to ask. “Yeah sure, what’s up?”

Xayah gulped. “It’s… well…” She bit her lip, trying to think what exactly to say. “It’s about what you said back in the tower. Right before Pyre pulled me out of there…” I gulped myself. I knew exactly what three words three words she was referring to. Xayah hesitated for a second. “Did- did you actually mean that? I know since your Stable and all you’ve been a little confused and you wanted to sort out your emotions before you gave me a definite answer, so… I mean if you’re still not sure about how you feel about me, that’s fine, I can still wait if you-”

I put a hoof to her lips, silencing her. I took a deep breath, preparing for what I was about to say. “Xayah, back there I thought I was going to die. I didn’t think that anypony was going to pull me out and I thought I was never going to see you again. You’d think something like that would jumble my emotions more, but they didn’t,” I started, trying to put my thoughts into words. “I started thinking about all the things I did wrong, all my regrets. Everything I had done right as well. I don’t think my mind had ever been so clear in my whole life.”

Xayah’s eyes widened a little. “So… are you saying that-”

I gave her a small nod and an encouraging smile. “I can’t say I’m very experienced with this whole romance thing, I mean I haven’t even kissed a pony before, let alone had a special somepony, but I’m willing to give it all a shot if you will.”

Well, I guess Mirra had been spot on in her impersonation after all.

Xayah grinned back at me. “I’d love that,” She pushed herself against me again, cuddling in even closer than she already was. “And I'm new to all of this too, so… I guess this is a first for both of us,” Our heads moved closer together. The bulky dome on our hazmat suits clinked together, knocking our heads apart a little.

I chuckled. “I’ll give you a real hug when we aren’t completely covered in this uncomfortable suit thing.”

Xayah just smiled. “That would be nice.”

“Come on, I’ll introduce you to my new friend,” I said, pulling myself up. Together we walked back towards where our friends were waiting, our hooves intertwined.

As Xayah and I walked over the crest of the hill we could make out Brisk, Pyre and Mirra sitting in a circle talking to each other. Mirra was in her natural form, her jet black insect body sticking out amongst the dunes of brown and grey like a sore hoof.

Xayah froze beside me as her eyes landed on the small changeling, her whole body going rigid. “Star spy,” She hissed through gritted teeth, crouching down into an attack position. Her hoof reached for her sniper by her side. “I thought they were a myth.”

I caught her hoof with my own before she could pull out her weapon. Damn it, I knew I should have told her before we arrived. “That’s Mirra. She’s the one that saved me,” I blinked. “Wait, Star spy?”

Xayah nodded, her eyes still fixed on the changeling. “Zebra’s believed that changelings were spies sent from the stars above to cause mischief among pony and zebra kind alike. They are much hated by all races.”

I nodded. “Yeah, I was pretty spooked at first too, but Mirra’s cool. I promise,” I insisted. The idea that Mirra was a spy sent by some evil star god was ridiculous, not that the idea of star gods made much sense to me anyway. “Besides, Mirra isn’t like other changelings, she’s really friends. A little shy maybe, but friendly. I don’t think she’s here to spy on us.”

Xayah hesitated, looking back at her sniper for a second. Finally she rightened herself. “Alright Amber, I will give this star spy a chance. But only for you.”

I gave her a soft smile. “Don’t worry, you’ll like her.”

Together, we slowly approached our friends below. Brisk spotted us first, waving us over with a bright green hoof. His eyes landed on our locked hooves and he gave a cheeky looking smile.

“Well well, looks like we have some love birds here,” Brisk smirked as we drew up next to the small circle.

“I think we just went over the fact that you’re the one here that likes flying things,” I shot back, causing both Pyre and Mirra to giggle foalishly. Xayah just looked confused by my remark. I turned to face Xayah and Mirra and gestured towards the changeling. “Anyway, Xayah, this here is Mirra. We’re going to be helping her find her mom.”

Xayah stepped up the Mirra, looking down at the changeling as if it were a timebomb. “So you are the one whom pulled Amber from the explosion?” She asked, hesitating on whether she should get closer or not. Finally she sighed. “Thank you for saving her star spy.”

Mirra cocked her head in confusion. “Thank you. What’s a star spy?”

Xayah looked a little confused at that remark. Slowly she pointed a hoof at Mirra. “Um.. You are star spy.”

Mirra giggled a little. “I’m not a star spy silly, I’m a changeling?” She shook her head chuckling to herself. “But everypony here calls me Mirra! Isn’t that such a great name?! I made it myself!”

“Hey, I helped come up with it,” I pitched in before realizing that absolutely no pony cared about that tiny detail.

Xayah looked a little lost for words. “You are not how I expected a star sp- a changeling to act. You are much less intimidating.”

I chuckled a little. “She’s plenty intimidating when you keep seeing yourself out of the corner of your vision for a week or so,” I said with a mix of both a laugh and a grumble. “And when you see her in an abandoned nursery. That was just creepy.”

Mirra gave an innocent looking shrug, but I could see a devious smile on her lips. “Eh, had to keep you on the tips of your hooves somehow.”

Pyre cleared her throat and pulled herself up to full height. “As great as it is that Amber is still alive and well, I think it would be best if we don’t stay here,” She grunted, looking around at the dunes of ash and rock around us. “Let me remind you all that this is still the Glowing Sea. The last thing I want is to be attacked by another Tatzelwurm or Celestia forbid another mutated dragon thing.”

We all agreed, pulling ourselves back up to our hooves.

“So, where are we off to next?” Brisk asked, looking off into the distance.

Well wasn’t that just the question on everyponies mind. “Back the the Hollow Shades first I suppose,” I said, turning in the direction of the settlement. “The train should be back by now, so we can probably get a ride back to Manehattan.”

“And after that?” Brisk pushed. “I mean all the cyber alicorns and Kamaris are dead, the A.A.S.S. is destroyed and we won’t be saving our Stable anytime soon so… what? Did we win? Is everything over?”

I shook my head and reached into my saddle bag as we started moving towards the Hollow Shades. “The A.A.S.S. is fine, I managed to grab it before the bombs went off,” I informed them, pulling the dark oblong device out. “And there are a few things left for us to do. We still don’t know who Crank’s original client was, the one that sent him to get the A.A.S.S. in the first place. Plus we need to find Mirra’s mom now too, so there’s a few more adventures for us along the way.”

I could see Mirra gave a small grin at that last bit.

“Plus, we never did find that Rubber Bands Character that Flask told us to find back when we were in Fetlock the first time,” Brisk added. “Looks like we actually have quite the list of things to do when you add it all up. So what first?”

“First is Tenpony!” Pyre interjected, jumping ahead of us a little bit. She turned to look at me. “You promised we’d go to Tenpony Tower when we were done with Kamari, and I’m holding you to that! I need my cheese!”

I gave her a nod. “Tenpony first,” I affirmed, with a small smile. “I think we all need a bit of a break after all of this. Besides, we aren’t in a rush like before. As far as I’m aware, there is no sudden and impending doom. A day or two without any violence will do us all some good.”

Brisk stumbled a bit at that. “Wait just a second! A few days without any adventure! Who do you take me for?!”

“Not a single adventure, we are going to go relax and you’re going to like it,” I informed him strictly. “No getting shot, blown up, stabbed or dropped by an elevator.”

Brisk grumbled, but didn’t complain as we slowly made our way back across the empty expanse of the Glowing Sea.

“I saw the tower explode, so I figured y'all did somethin’ over there,” Toffee said with a frown. She had met up with us shortly after we had arrived back in the Hollow Shades. She had traded the rags we had met her in for a dark brown leather duster and cowpony hat. A golden star now rests over her heart, signifying her position. “But a crazy zebra cult and a giant dragon bein’ resurrected by a mega spell weren't my first couple guesses.”

We had told her the whole story as she walked with us to the train station. She had been quiet at first, but the further through the story we got, the more and more questions she seemed to ask. The idea that all that had been happening not all that far away from her town had clearly unnerved her.

I glanced down beside me where I could see a small shift in the air where Mirra had hidden herself under Xayah’s stealth cloak. We had told her Toffee was a friend, but she insisted that she stay out of sight until we were out of the town. At least until her horn stopped flickering and revealing her disguises.

“It was pretty crazy, but it’s done now,” I said, looking back to Toffee. “Kamari won’t be causing trouble any time soon.”

Toffee grunted and pushed her cowpony hat up onto her head a little higher with a hoof. “Well I reckon I own y’all again, even if I had no idear that all that was goin’ on.”

“You own us nothing, we are just happy to have aided your town,” Xayah said flatly as she walked beside me. She seemed almost naked without her stealth cloak on.

As we approached the train station, we found another familiar face waiting for us. Chestnut stood on the planked platform of the station. She held herself up with a set of crunches and she had two large saddle bags slung over her back packed full of an assortment of different supplies.

There were a few other ponies as well, five in total, all packed and ready to leave for what I could only assume was Manehattan. They were all wounded in some way, clearly ponies that had fought in the Hollow Shades Massacre.

The train itself was in much better condition than when I had last seen it. Most of the damage caused by the bandit attack had been patched up and all of the wheels seemed to be in working order. The wagon Crank had destroyed in the battle was still missing most of its walls, but it looked like it would still function.

“Glad to see you all got through the Glowing Sea intact,” Chestnut said as she spotted us. I winced at that. Of course she didn’t know about Shade and Crank. “Sorry I couldn’t join you, what with being stuck in the hospital and everything.”

I walked up to her quickly, glad to see she was out of the hospital and walking around. “Are you coming with us?” I asked her, gesturing to the near overflowing saddlebags she was carrying.

Chestnut gave me a sad shake of her head. “Nah, I figured that now that the Hollow Shades is somewhat safe, it’s about time I go give Red Eye and his Slaving fucks what’s comin’ to em. My son is still somewhere in Filly, and I’ll be damned if I don’t get him back,” She told us, stamping her hoof on the ground to emphasise her point. “I’m just taking the train about half way and hoofing it the rest of the way to Filly. I hear there are some of those new applejack rangers out that way that are making a resistance there, so perhaps I’ll join up with them.”

“Are ya sure you don’t need thin’?” Toffee asked as she pulled herself to a stop beside me. “I’d love to help out some. Red Eye screwed me here just as much as he did you. I’d love to see that bastard get what’s comin’ t’ him.”

Chestnut just shook her head again. “You’re needed here. The Hollow Shades are gonna need somepony to help pull ‘em out after the Hollow Shades Massacre. And don’t even think about trying to give me more supplies, I got more than I can carry anyhow.”

Toffee gave a nod of understanding. “They you be safe. And get yer son back, got me? He's a good kid and don't deserve to be in the hellhole,” Toffee turned to look at me. “And that goes for you folks as well. I don’t want t’ hear on the radio that the wasteland lost another one of it’s heroes, ya hear? We have so few as it is these days.”

“No promises,” Brisk said with a grin, playfully trotting onto the train. “Trouble is kinda what we do best.”

We all said our goodbyes and boarded the train. Chestnut got onto a different train car to talk to some other ponies that were leaving as well, leaving us alone in our battered train wagon.

The ghoul conductor started traveling through the different train cars, collecting caps from everypony for passage on the train. He froze when he reached our cart, his eyes darting back and forth at all of us. “Ah fuck, not you ponies again! I was hopin’ y’all would die in the Hollow Shades,” he grumbled stumbling over and collecting our caps before putting them into his hat. “You ponies know how hard it was to fix up my train after it got blown up! I’m fuckin’ two days behind schedule 'cause of you wasteland hero wannabes.”

“We won’t be blowing up your train this time, don't worry,” I said, trying to calm him. He didn’t seem to be very calmed by me and went on grumbling to himself as he moved to the next train car.

As soon as no other ponies were around, Mirra ducked out from under Xayah’s stealth cloak and handed it back to the black and white zebra, the changeling filly now in the form of a pink earth pony with an orange mane.

I climbed up onto the seat next to Xayah and looked out the window with her as the train started pulling away from the station. Far off in the distance the glowing remnants of the massive explosion that had blown apart the MAS tower could still be seen. Even a few hours after it happened, the smoke seemed to still be rising. The cloud layer was completely reformed though, I guess the Enclave had seen to that.

“I keep thinking about all those zebra’s back in the tower,” Xayah said, breaking the silence. “It is hard to believe that so many would rally behind a zebra so openly declaring himself as a follower of the stars.”

“I don’t think they did,” I said, remembering the yellow tinted eyes and the lifeless expressions. “Kamari was using some weird magic in that place. They were all under some sort of mind control spell.”

“Then it is even more the tragedy,” Xayah sighed, her gaze never moving. “At least we were able to free them from whatever dark place Kamari had trapped them.”

I gave her a nod, not really sure what to say. I hadn’t even thought about all those zebra. Who had they been? Kamari was using necromancy, so were they even alive? If not, how had they died? So many questions I knew I'd never get the answer to. At the very best, it was good to know I had stopped him from being able to send any more troops out to help that Remnant faction in the Hoof I had heard about.

“It’s crazy to think what we set out to achieve is finally done,” Xayah said, her eyes locked on the green glow haloing the horizon.

I shook my head. “We aren’t quite done yet, but yeah. I know what you mean. It kinda feels like the end of an era in a way.”

“Hopefully that new era will be a little happier,” Xayah said with a warm smile.

I gave a small yet sad chuckle at that. “That shouldn’t be to hard, these last couple of days have been fucking aweful,” I looked away from the horizon and over at Xayah. “Besides, I have you now. I know things will be much better.”

“Don’t jinx it,” Brisk grimaced, walking over and sitting down on the seat across from us, plopping his head down on the sill of the open window to let the fast moving wind whip his short mane around. “Say shit like that and we’ll end up needing to actually fight a giant unkillable dragon.”

“On the bright side, we all came out alive,” Pyre said lazily, walking towards us whilst carrying Mirra atop her back. The changeling filly grinned down at us, clearly enjoying the ride.

My face dropped. “Not all of us…” I muttered, all of the losses from the tower flashing through my mind. The hellhound I never got to free, Shade and Crank. Even Kamari’s death had left a strange hole inside of me that didn’t seem to want to fill. My rage would leave me hollow, that’s what Crank had said.

“Er, sorry. At least we five got out alive,” Pyre corrected, realizing her mistake.

“Perhaps they all found a way out too,” Xayah suggested, seeing the clear distress on my face.

I shook my head. “Shade didn’t make it to the explosion. She was killed by a zebra before it even happened. And Crank… Well, he can survive a lot, but I don’t think even he could have gotten out of that.”

“Perhaps he teleported,” Brisk said, tapping his horn. “I mean, he does have a horn after all. He still has a chance.”

“He was an earth pony under all those cybernetics. His horn didn’t have magic, not in the traditional sense anyway. It was more a gun than anything else,” I told him. “I suppose it’s possible he survived the blast and regenerated himself, but I wouldn’t count on it. I’m pretty sure that there needs to be at least something left of him to regenerate, and we’ve proven a few times now that a cyber pony can be taken to the point where their body simply fails them.”

There was a strange silence between us all. Everypony knew what had to be asked, but no pony dared to say it. Finally, Xayah cleared her throat and cuddled a little closer into me, somehow finding the courage to speak up. “And what about you Amber? Did you make it out of there?”

Everyponies eyes turned to face me. Of course I had physically made it out alive, but I knew that wasn’t what she was asking. I had had so much rage, it all slowly burning away everything inside me until I was only to be a shell of what I once was. Everypony had seen it happening, Crank had even warned me of it.

I tried to find that burning rage within me. Nothing. I just felt a little cold. But I didn’t feel hollow, not like how I thought I would have. I had been told to hold onto something, something to keep me moving forwards.

I gave them all the best smile that I could. “I’m going to be alright. I’m not sure what I’m going to do next, but I know that as long as I’m with all of you, I’ll be okay,” my smile only grew as I realized what I was saying wasn’t just some lie to make my friends feel better. I genuinely meant it. “I spent so long holding onto my anger. It’s time for me to learn how to let go.”

Brisk gave a smile to match mine. “Maybe going to Tenpony will be good for us or whatever. I think we’ve all kinda lost a bit of ourselves since Stable 25. It’ll be good for us just to learn how to be us again.”

Xayah turned to look at me, her expression still a little worried. “And what about now? What are you holding onto?”

I could feel my smile growing even more as I looked back into her emerald eyes. I wrapped a hoof around her and pulled her a little closer. “Well I've got you don’t I?”

Pyre put a hoof to her chest dramatically. “Oh, now aren’t you two just adorable,” Then she gagged a little. “Please don’t tell me this means we need to put up with a bunch of gross lovey dovey stuff now?” Xayah’s eyes grew wider, her worry washing away in replace of a large blush. Before I realized what was happening, she launched into me and pressed her lips up against mine. I could hear Pyre groan. “Oh shit, we are going to need to deal with it now, aren’t we!?”

My eyes widened with surprise at Xayah's kiss. I closed my eyes, letting the wonderful feeling of her lips against mine fill my senses as I kissed her back. Not how I expected kissing to be like. It was so much more normal than books made it out to be, but it was still nice. Somehow, the realism of the kiss only made it all the better.

Mirra put a hoof over her mouth as she flickered back into her changeling form. She quickly sprung off of Pyre's back and darted as fast as she could for the door of the train car. “Sorry! I can't!” Then she was out the door and into the empty train car beyond.

Xayha pulled herself off of me and looked around at the rest of us all awkwardly. “Heh, sorry about that,” Brisk just gave her a nonchalant shrug.

I gave her a smug grin as I pulled myself back up into a sitting position as well. “Hey, I’m not complaining,” That only seemed to make her blush more. I glanced over at the door Mirra had just darted through. “I suppose I should probably go see what that was all about, shouldn't I.”

I climbed down from my seat and moved towards the doorway leading into the next train wagon. I knocked on the door, drawing the attention of the small changeling inside. “Hey? You okay if I come in?”

“I think it would be safer if you didn’t,” I heard Mirra’s timid voice reply through the door.

I shook my head. “Nope, that’s not happening,” I pulled the door open and walked inside. At first I didn’t see her, but quickly I noticed a small shivering black form curled up underneath one of the seats. I crept up next to her and knelt down to her level. “Hey… what was that freak out about?”

To large blue eyes peeked out at me from under the seat. “Sorry, I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean to do it,” Mirra squeaked, curling up a little tighter. “I won’t do it again. It just kinda happened.”

I shushed her with a hoof. “Alright, slow down there. I don’t even know what you did,” I said, trying to understand what had happened. “Just tell me what happened and I’ll try to help, okie?”

Mirra nodded, slowly crawling out from underneath the seat. “Sorry. Um… Well the wasteland doesn’t really have all that much love in it, so I was really really hungry and…” She trailed off, looking away from me. “I promised you I wouldn’t feed off all of your love, but then the zebra kissed you, and I was hungry and instinct kicked in and… I might have fed on you a little,” She finally admitted shamefully.

I took a small step back. Okay, that was creepy. I tried my best not to show how creeped out I was by that. I didn’t really feel all that different, so it mustn't have been all that bad. “Thats- er… that’s okay, just try not to do it again, alright?” I said, trying to hide my discomfort. “And the zebra’s name is Xayah. You don’t need to call her the zebra.”

Mirra nodded shyly. “I-I-I’ll try. But it’s really hard. Especially if you two are going to go kissing each other like that all the time.”

I blushed a little and awkwardly scratched the back of my neck. “Yeah, sorry about that. We’ll try to keep that under control while around all of you from now on. Does that sound good?”

Mirra gave a small smile and nodded. “Y-yes. That might help. I’m really really sorry misses Amber.”

I gave a small frown at that. “You can just call me Amber. Amber Aura if you really want, but Amber will do just fine,” I sat back for a second, trying to figure out what else to say. I couldn’t think of anything. I realized that I knew next to nothing about this changeling I was now traveling with. Welp, time to fix that. “So Mirra, tell me a bit about yourself,” I asked, hoping to draw the conversation away from the uncomfortable topic of feeding off of my emotions.

Mirra hesitated. “Well, there isn’t all that much to say. I’ve traveled a lot of the wasteland looking for my mom. I mostly just hide from ponies, no pony wants to be my friend after they find out what I am.”

“That’s it? You haven’t had a single pony to talk to?” I asked, feeling fairly sorry for the small changeling.

Mirra cracked a tiny smile. “Well there’s my friend that helped me get you from the tower, but he doesn’t talk very much, and sometimes I might go for moons without seeing him. He’s mysterious like that.”

“And your mom? Do you have any leads on her?” I pushed. “If I’m going to help you find her, I’ll need to know as much as I can.”

Mirra gave her head a sad shake. “I haven’t been able to find anything. I don’t even remember what she looks like,” The changeling filly said sadly. She reached somewhere behind her and pulled out a jagged slab of white metal and held it up to me. “This is all I have to remember her, but I don’t really know what it means.”

I took the piece of metal and looked it over. Along the surface a few words had been scratched into the metal. “We’ll meet again - Mom,” I read aloud, looking over the rather small note. I glanced back up at Mirra. “Not really much to go off of, you’re right.”

Mirra extended a gnarled hoof and turned the piece of metal over in my grasp. “There’s something on the back too, but I don’t know what it is either.”

It took me a second to even see what she was talking about. The more I squinted at the surface, the more I began to make out the faded shape of some sort of symbol. The symbol was familiar in a sense, being a faded and scratched picture of the Stable-Tec logo. I could make out it’s horseshoe shaped image with a small circle in the middle and three sharp lines stretching out from either side. But the symbol was different as well, with the head of a unicorn with a glowing red eye embedded on the circle in the middle of the symbol.

“Something to do with Stable-Tec I think,” I said dumbly, not really knowing anything about the unicorn head in the middle. “Maybe the unicorn head has something to do with the mare on the moon, but I don’t really know beyond that.”

“Yeah, that’s about all I can get from it too,” Mirra declared sadly. “I haven’t been able to find that symbol anywhere else.”

I passed the chunk of metal back to her. “We’ll find her, don't you worry,” I scooted forwards a little to sit next to her. I made sure not to get too close in fear of her presence quite literally draining my life away. I still had no idea how all that worked. “You know, I lost my mom too. I don’t really remember what she looked like, outside of what my dad told me.”

Mirra looked up at me, eyes huge. “We… we could search for her to…”

“I don’t think that would help any,” I said with a sad smile. “The wasteland got to her long before my father could. She’s up with the goddesses now.”

“Do you think my mom’s okay?” Mirra asked, the idea that her mother might be dead frightening her.

I shook my head and tapped the chunk of metal she clutched tight to her chest. “I have no idea, but that says you’ll meet her again, so I wouldn’t give up hope,” I stood back up and turned to face the door. “Now come on. You aren’t making any friends by hiding yourself away.”

With a grin, Mirra stood up and followed me back into the train wagon with the rest of my friends. As I pushed open the door and stepped between the moving wagon, my eye briefly caught with Pyre’s as she looked out the window at the distant glow of Fillydelphia.

I had just gotten to know one companion of mine, might as well get to know them all.

Leaving Mirra behind with Brisk and Xayah, I trotted over to Pyre. It was one of the rare times that she had taken her helmet off, revealing her orange coat and fiery red mane. As I neared I realized she wasn’t looking out the window at all, but looking at the large claw marks that raced down her face in her reflection on the dirty glass.

“I already know what you're going to ask Amber,” Pyre grunted, her eyes flicking up to look at my reflection behind her as I came to a stop. “You’re going to ask what’s been up with me since that raider attack. And the answer is that I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Actually, I was hoping that we could just talk about you for a second,” I said honestly. “We’ve been traveling together for almost a week and I still know practically nothing about you and every time I try to talk about it out you just shut me out. I’ve only just met Mirra and I think I already know her better.”

Pyre groaned. “Trust me, you don’t want to know about my past. I’m not your friend like the others over there.”

“But you are my-”

“I’m not,” Pyre spat back. “We are mutual allies. I help you, and you help me. That’s it.”

I crossed my fore hooves. “We’ve both risked our lives for each other numerous times. I don’t care what you say, that makes us friends,” I insisted. “You’ve even called me your friend before. It feels like you want to be friends, but you're scared of it for some reason.”

Pyre humphed. “You wouldn’t understand.”

“Well obviously I don’t understand, you won’t tell me anything about yourself!" I threw my fore hooves above me in annoyance. "Maybe I could relate with you more if you would perhaps, I don’t know, open up a bit?”

Pyre turned her head to look back at me with her eyes. “You really want to know, huh?” She sighed. “Fine, the reason I don’t want friends is because I’ve either kill my friends or my friends eventually tried to kill me. I'm worried that if I become friends with all of you, you'll all just end up dead too.”

I nodded. “You told me after what happened in my Stable that somepony forced you to kill all your childhood friends,” She had said something else, but I had been a little too emotionally broken at the time to really listen all that much.

“Yeah, I was five when that happened,” Pyre said glumly, looking away and out at the dunes of rock and ash. “But that wasn’t the beginning of my problems. My father was a piece of work. He beat me and raped me and did a bunch of other shit I don’t particularly want to mention. Did all that shit to mom too. One day he just got bored of me and sold me to some slavers that owned a rock farm. Life was a little better there I guess, but that’s not saying much. Finally one of the slavers got particularly nasty and told me he’d set me free if I killed all the friends I had made since I got there.”

“That must have been hard,” I said, trying to imagine what a life like that must have been like.

“I’m just surprised that the slave master there actually gave me permission to kill all those foals. I guess they had the ability to buy more or some shit, I don't know. I was pretty social back then so I ended up killing pretty much every foal expect for this one dumb ass green pegasus who had had his wings broken on an anvil. I suppose he was lucky I picked on him so much. Probably saved his life,” Pyre said, a loathing towards her captors very clear in her voice. “Anyway, the whole thing was just some cruel joke. They didn’t let me go. I was their bitch for another few years. Fuck me if I know how long. Eventually some big shot slaver that worked for Red Eye came along and bought me. His name was Adversary, nasty piece of work he was.”

That name sounded familiar. It took a few seconds to put a face to it. “Wait, was he a tall black stallion?” I asked, memories rushing back to me.

Pyre looked at me with a bit of shock crossing her face. “Yeah, how the fuck did you know that? The bastard’s been dead for years.”

“I saw him inside of Inferno’s memories. He was the one that taught Inferno how to fight,” I said, surprised by the sudden connection between my flamer wielding friend and the flamer wielding cyber pony.

Pyre gave a small snort. “Can’t say I’m too surprised. Adversary had a knack for picking up ponies that were exceptionally fucked in the head and had a love for burning ponies alive. It would explain how Inferno seemed to always know my moves, if he learned to fight under that son of a bitch.”

“Adversary trained other ponies as well?” I asked. In Inferno’s memory I had only seen him dealing with Inferno. There hadn’t been any pony else.

“Sure, the asshole was one of Red Eyes head ponies back in the day. He’d find some desperate foal that had been fucked over by the wasteland and twist them into killing machines. He was damn good at it too. I wish I could have seen it when that shit finally got what was coming to him,” Pyre sighed, leaning back a little. “After his death though, I found myself alone in the wasteland. I wandered around for a bit before finally settling down in Friendship City. That was probably the only good part of my life.”

I gulped, knowing full well things were about to go downhill very quickly in this story. “Then what happened?”

Pyre gave a small growl. “I met a cute little filly a year or so younger than me named Viscera. The name probably should have given me a hint that she was bad news, but she was cute and we got along pretty well so I just ignored it. See she had been fucked over too, raped, tortured, you name it. But unlike me, she wasn’t trying to run away from the horrors of the wasteland, she wanted to get even with them,” Pyre paused, her face oddly reminiscent and euphoric. “Viscera proposed that we start up our own band of raiders, take back what had been taken from us. I was young and it seemed like a good idea at the time...”

The train lurched forwards a bit, making me stumble slightly before it continued along the tracks to Manehattan. “This Viscera, is that the same one that attacked you in the Hollow Shades?”

Pyre nodded. “While building up our gang we ran into a big buck named Skull Crusher. He fit into our little clique perfectly. In a weird way we were a happy family, so long as you overlooked the murdering and raping side of our profession. It didn’t take long for us to become one of the more feared gangs in Manehattan. We called ourselves the Manehattan Scourge. Everything was great for a while, but when a raider gang gets as notorious and daring as we were, it's starts to catch the attention of other raider gangs."

“Las Pegasus?” I guessed, knowing full well that was the gang they were to inevitably end up in.

“You got that right, but it wasn’t just them,” Pyre said, her voice dropping to a low octive. “Las Pegasus was interested in recruiting us, that gang has always been notorious for finding the best of the best and recruiting them into their ranks. Other gangs just wanted us dead. There was this big clan called the Bloodletters. We pissed them off a fair amount and they were slowly picking us off one by one. With them on our flanks, our options were quickly reduced to battling the leader of the Bloodletters in combat, which was to say near impossible, or joining up with las Pegasus for protection. I’m sure you already know what we chose.”

“Is that why Viscera is so determined to kill you?” I asked, recalling how hostil that psycho was toward Pyre.

Pyre chuckled. “That crazy bitch is pissed off cause she sees my leaving of the Las Pegasus raiders not only as treason to the gang, but also a direct betrayal to her. She never took kindly to betrayal.”

“Then why did she let you live?”

“Because of this,” Pyre grunted, tapping her hoof on her heavy power armour. “Viscera is bat shit insane. It doesn't take a smart pony like you to figure that out. She wasn’t my death to be a big show, a grand finally to the legend of Manehattan Scourge. She wants me at my best when she kills me. She won't settle for anything less.”

“Do you think you can beat her?” I asked. "When you're at your best that is."

Pyre put an armoured hoof to the claw marks on her face. “Does it look like I can beat her. You saw the fight back in the Hollow Shades. She whipped my ass, and she’ll easily do it again if given the chance.”

The train breaked again, this time coming to a complete stop. I stumbled backwards, falling onto my rump. Brisk and Xayah bolted up, looking around.

“What happened? There’s no way we’re already there,” Brisk stumped, glancing out the window opposite to Pyre and myself.

Pyre turned her attention from me, glancing out at the wastes. “Oh fucking shit,” She grumbled, qucikly bolting upright and placing her helmet over her head.

“What? What is it?” I asked, struggling off my rump and looking out the window as well. Outside stood well over sixty slavers, all dressed in full suits of combat armour. A few pulled wagons full of empty cages and large red banners were hefted up on spiked poles, depicting Red Eye’s wicked symbol. I turned back to Pyre nervously. “I thought you said Red Eye wouldn’t attack this train? That it was under his protection or something.”

“It’s supposed to be,” Pyre uttered, a small flame flickering to life on the end of her lone flamer. “Something must be going on.”

The slavers started moving towards the train, bursting open doors into the train wagon and charging upon the cowering ponies inside.

“Search the train, find any trace of Kamari or his associates!” A large slaver shouted, directing a few more in our direction. Around ten slavers were quickly moving towards us, weapons already drawn and aimed.

Mirra scuttled over and hid behind Pyre’s large leg. “W-What is happening?” she squeaked, her eyes darting back and forth between the approaching Slavers and her body rapidly switching between her different forms. She finally settled on a small yellow pegasus filly with a long pink mane.

The slavers burst down the doors, their guns already pointed at our heads. I reached for Boneless, only to once again remember it was destroyed and at the bottom of a balefire bomb crater. The rest of my friends were a little less defenceless, their guns spinning up and pointing towards the slavers that held them at gunpoint.

“Put your weapons down, and no pony needs to get hurt,” The slaver that seemed to be in charge growled, pulling me up against him and leveling his hunting rifle with my head. “I’d hate for this little pony to get a bullet where her brain should be,” Then his eyes turned to face me, a small smile breaking out across his face as he recognized me. “Well, well, well. If it isn’t the group of ponies that Red Eye put a reward out for. Perhaps what we are looking for is on this train after all,” he turned to another one of the slavers, his gun still aimed at my head. “Fetch Stern. She’s going to want to see this.”

I tried to struggle against the slavers tight grip, but while I was many things, a strong pony was not among them.

One of the slavers quickly ducked out, while two more spilled into the wagon to take their place. Brisk dared himself to take a small step forward, his gun trained on the slaver that was holding me hostage. Two guns quickly spun to face him.

Pyre snarled, taking a step forward to stand next to Brisk. “What’s going on, I thought that this train was under Red Eyes protection?”

The lead Slaver scoffed. “Red Eye has us making sure nothing leaves the Hollow Shades that we don’t want. And it looks like we found what he was looking for.”

A large black griffon strutted into the wagon. While it was my first time seeing her in the flesh, I had come to recognize her fairly easily through a few of the memories I had seen both in Chestnut and Crank’s mind. This was Red Eye’s second in command. This was Stern.

The large griffon looked down at me, her head cocking to the side of a second. Finally she grunted. “Search through their saddlebags.”

Strong hooves reached around me and pulled my saddlebag from my back. I tried to fight back, but they pushed me back, sending me skidding off the floor to lie in a heap by my friends hooves. Other slavers moved in, ripping the saddlebags off my friends and beginning to dump their contents onto the floor.

I heard a loud clattering noise and saw the A.A.S.S. fall from my bag and roll across the floor to rest by Stern’s claws. The griffon looked down at it for a second, before picking it up and admiring the oblong device. She turned to me, her face a snarl. “Where did you get this?”

I pulled myself up hastily and prepared to lunge at the griffon when Pyre’s hoof shot out and held me back. I struggled against her, trying to free myself and attack the griffon. Pyre leaned down, her mouth only an inch from my ear. “Stay down Amber,” She whispered aggressively. “This isn’t a fight you can win.”

I calmed down a little but kept my eyes locked on the griffon. Stern took a step towards me, her large Anti-Machine Rifle swinging out to face us. “How did you get your hooves on this?” She repeated, her voice growing more, well, stern.

“I stole it from Kamari!” I spat, my eyes burning into the griffons. “Right before I killed him.”

Stern looked at me with surprise, before a strange calm settled on her face. “I suppose that makes my job easier,” She turned to the slaver that had initially been leading the group. “Spread the word. We are no longer going to the Hollow Shades.” The slaver gave her a saluet and moved out of the train car. Stern returned her strong gaze to me. “I suppose I should be thanking you pon-”

Two slavers burst into the train wagon. One pushed a battered looking Chestnut forwards while the other held a shotgun to her head. “Stern, this one tried to attack us. She killed two of our men. What do you want to do with her?”

Chestnut pulled herself up and glared at Stern. As their eyes met, Chestnut froze, her face temporarily going slack with fear. “S-stern…” Then the shock and fear was gone as her face welled with anger. “You slaving bitch!” Her horn flared and she reefed the shotgun aimed at her head away from the slaver and spun it around to face the large, black griffon.

Blam!

Stern dodged to the side, easily avoiding the shot. Her tail lashed out and knocked Chestnut’s newly acquired shotgun from her grasp as she spun. Chestnut dove forwards to attack Stern with her hooves, but her broken limbs slowed her dramatically.

Before she could reach the griffon, one of Stern’s claws flashed out and grabbed Chestnut around the neck. With a mighty heave of unpony-like strength, Stern raised Chestnuts squirming body up into the air before slamming her down into the metal floor of the train wagon. The whole wagon shook as Chestnuts body collided with it.

One claw clamped tight around Chestnuts face, pinning her to the ground as she squirmed while the other swung her Anti-Machine rifle to face her. The large griffon leaned down, preparing herself for the kill. She glanced back at the slavers behind her and gestured towards us. “Kill them, they are of no more use to Red Eye.”

The slavers grinned and turned on us, their weapons raised. My whole group tensed as we awaited the attack.

“What the fuck is the meaning of this!” The ghoul conductor yelled as he burst into the wagon, anger blazing from his eyes. “This train is under Red Eye’s protection, you can't kill any of the ponies on it! That’s part of the fucking deal!”

All the slavers glanced at the ghoul, not quite sure how to proceed as the ghoul bravely strode towards them. They looked to Stern for orders as the ghoul conductor moved in. clearly this wasn't something that the slavers encountered often. Stern straightened herself and addressed the ghoul directly. “Red Eye has ordered that we retrieve something for him, something these ponies were in possession of,” Stern decreed, holding up the A.A.S.S. “Do not get in the way of Red Eye business.”

The ghoul conductor gestured to the device in the griffon's claw dumbly. “Well you have it now don’t you?! Now respect the goddess damned fucking contract, let them go and get the fuck off my train. Unless you are planning to take a ride on it!”

For a second I thought Stern was going to attack the ghoul, but finally she removed her claw from Chestnut’s face and retracted her gun. “A Talon always respects the contract,” She turned back to face the rest of her slavers again. “Pack it up, no slaves here.”

Without saying another word or even looking at any of us, Stern turned and marched proudly out of the train wagon, the A.A.S.S. still in her claws. The rest of the slavers groaned and followed her out, a few casting us all dirty glances as they left.

She was going to let us live because of a contract? Griffons were weird.

As soon as the last one was out of sight I pushed past Pyre and rushed for the door, only for Pyre to grab me again and pull me back again. “Damn it Pyre! Let me go! They have the A.A.S.S!”

“Leave it Amber, fighting them won't do us any good,” Pyre hissed, grabbing my back hooves and slamming me down onto the ground. Xayah jumped forwards, standing protectively between Pyre and myself. “There are too many of them, and too few of us. Not to mention we are low on medical supplies, half dead and you’re missing a weapon. Let them go, we’ll find a way to get it back.”

I stopped struggling and let Xayah help pull me back up. “But they’ll get a head start to Fillydelphia!” I spat, glaring at the power armoured raider. “If they make it too Red Eye’s city there will be no chance of us getting it back!”

“I don’t think they’re heading for Filly right away,” Brisk said, rushing up to the window and looking out at the slavers that were slowly leaving us behind. “They’re moving in the opposite direction.”

“Rumour has it that that crazy Stable Dweller and her friends recently made a fool of Stern in Filly. I’d be surprised if she would dare return without a large collection of slaves,” Pyre told me, looking out the window at the slavers. “They’ll probably make a few stops before Filly. And they’re a large group they’re not going to be going anywhere fast.”

“What if they send a smaller group to take the A.A.S.S. back while the rest keep hunting slaves?” I insisted, looking around for anything I could use as a weapon. I saw nothing short of stealing one from my friends.

Pyre shook her head again. “With something that is clearly that valuable to them. They wouldn’t dare risk that. Our best shot it to stick to the plan. Get to Tenpony, get a good night sleep and stack up on supplies and ammo. Then we’re going to need to find some allies to help us, we can’t take all of them on alone.”

“But what about-” I started, but this time Xayah cut me off.

“We are outnumbered and outgunned you foolish pony. The only thing stopping them from ending us now is that we’re on this train,” She said, resting a striped hoof over my now trembling shoulders.

“That’s right, listen to you special little zebra there,” Pyre sneered, turning from the window to face me. “You go after them and you're dead. This time you won’t come back to life.”

“Besides, we don’t really need the A.A.S.S. anymore,” Brisk pointed out, moving back towards me. “Why don’t we just forget it? It’s not going to help us save the Stable any.”

I shook my head. “It’s not about saving the Stable Brisk. I don’t know who it is that wants it, or why they sent Crank and the other cyber ponies into our Stable to get it, but I’m not going to let them have it. Not after everything. And if they’re working with Red Eye, then that’s only more reason to need to stop them.”

But I knew my friends were right. There was no chance any of us could take on a group of slavers that size. Not alone and definitely not in the state we were now.

Mirra shyly approached the ghoul conductor who was glaring angrily around at all of us. “Um, thank you for helping us Mr. you really saved us.”

The ghoul glanced down at the disguised changeling. “Hey, I don’t remember you paying to board the train.”

Mirra chuckled nervously and passed him a hoof full of caps.

Chestnut finally pulled herself up. She rubbed her face where three small claw marks now lined her brow. They were nothing compared to the claw marks Pyre had on her face, but they must have hurt all the same. “Fuck. I forgot how fast that dumb griffon is.”

I rushed over to her and hoofed over one of her crutches. “You okay?” I asked, helping her up to her hooves.

Chestnut gave me a pained grumble in return. “I’ll be fine. That was just a reminder of what might happen if I mess up,” She turned to the ghoul conductor and gave him a polite nod. “Thanks for saving our asses there. I owe ya one. I think I’ll be getting off here. It’s about where I was planning to depart anyhow.”

The ghoul conductor gave a stiff grunt. “Don’t thank me, thank Red Eye for makin’ that contract. Now get the fuck out,” The ghoul turned to us. “I don’t suppose you five are going with her?” I shook my head. “Damn, well then just don’t cause any more trouble till we get to Manehattan. And I don’t want to see you back on this train for a good while.”

I tried to give him the politest look I could. “We’ll do our best. And thank you…”

“Hello Wastelanders! This is DJ Pon3, singing out t’ all of you loud and proud,” Shortly after the train had started moving, I had turned my radio to DJ Pon3. It seemed that a lot of interesting things had been going on in the wasteland, and I wanted to make sure I was all caught up. “The wasteland is a hard and grueling place my little ponies, I’m sure you’re all well aware of that. But this week has come with a couple of little surprises that just might make it a little bit better. First of all, Hallelujah! If you haven’t heard the news yet, the whole wasteland can hear me! Take that Red Eye! Take that Lonesome Pony! I’m still the best station around. Second of all, them Steel Rangers I always need to warn you about just went through a bit of a break up. That’s right, some of them are actually fighting t’ protect ponies now. They’re callin’ themselves Applejack’s Rangers. So if you see a ranger sporting a new black and red colour scheme, feel free to say hello. And I bet you can all guess who had a hoof in that. You guessed it, that crazy little Stable Dweller.

“But that’s not the only thing our Stable Dwellers done. No no! See she just left Tenpony a day ago for Maripony, and now she’s comin’ back! Wooh! Probably already dealt with whatever unspeakable evil was residing there. I swear that gal is after my own heart. A vindicator of peace and comin’ around to see little old me. If I wasn’t always takin’ a peak at all those letters my assistant Homage keeps writin’ t’ her and learnin’ about the crazy shit they get up to behind closed doors, I’d probably be askin’ for her hoof in marriage myself.

“But enough about the Stable Dweller, though I’m sure I could talk about her all day. See my little ponies, even when things look like they're gettin’ better, some rain is bound t’ fall. Red Eye is sendin’ more and more troops out towards the Everfree forest. I don’t know what they’re doin’ out there, but I’d recommend steering clear. And I’ve gotten a few reports about a balefire bomb that went off by that small settlement in the Hollow Shades. Was the explosion for good or bad? Hell if I know, but I would never count on balefire being good.

“That’s all for now pooonies! This is DJ Pon3, tellin’ you to keep on fighting that fight! You know the one! The good fight ponies!... And now, for one of my favorites sung by our very own Velvet Remedy herself! This is Broken Wing blues!”

As the voice of DJ Pon3 died out a slow sad song began to play from my pipbuck. I let the song play out, listening to Velvet Remedy's enchanting voice as the train moved closer and closer to Manehattan.

It was always weird hearing about my exploits on the radio. Or course everything that I did always seemed to get overshadowed by this Stable Dweller. She must have been some real deal wasteland hero.

“The Stable Dweller is quite the hero,” Xayah said from beside me, stating my thoughts aloud as she looked out at the rapidly approaching suburbs of Fetlock and the looming towers of the Manehattan skyline. “Gives me hope that we might actually be able to save the wasteland some day.”

“It would be great if we could,” I agreed. “The wasteland needs more heroes like her,” That couldn’t have been more true.

The train pulled to an abrupt stop at the Fetlock train station. I stepped out onto the rotting planked platform of the station, taking in the smogy, but seemingly clean in comparison air of Manehattan. Ah, it was good to be back home. The city where encounters were random, but far less emotionally devastating. I at least knew a good old fashioned bullet would actually kill my enemies here.

Not far away I could see the silhouette of the huge, menacing gun atop the Steel Rangers base and the towering structure of the Ponypalooza Hotel. I never did end up going to that hotel, and from what I had heard about it, hopefully I never would.

To my surprise, I found a familiar looking pony waiting on the platform. The weathered, tattooed face of Tales grinned at me, the burned off hide on the left side of his face twisting into weird patterns as his grin widened. “Well if it ain’t Amber Aura. Didn’t think I’d see you again,” The old storyteller said gleefully, pushing his black stetson up higher onto his head.

“Tales? What are you doing here?” I asked, walking over to him. It had been a long few days and I had almost forgotten about the old eccentric storyteller. “Leaving Manehattan?”

Tales stuck his corn cob pipe into his mouth a leered. “I heard there was a balefire explosion out in the area ‘round the Hollow Shades. Sounds like an interestin’ story to me. Thought I might check it out.”

I chuckled awkwardly. “Heh, that may or may not have totally been me.”

I could tell Tales was about to respond, but before he could, Pyre Blaze came waltzing from the train wagon to join me on the platform. Brisk, Xayah and Mirra slowly walking out after her. Tales eyes locked on Pyre, his face twisting into a snarl. “YOU!”

Pyre looked around before pointing at herself innocently. “Me?”

We all cast Pyre an interested look. “You’ve met Tales?” Brisk asked, taking a small step away from both Pyre and the seething storyteller.

Tales stalked forwards toward Pyre, his back arched as if he were a cat preparing to lunge. “You’ve got a lot of nerve, facing me again!”

“I’m sorry, have we met?” Pyre asked, genuinely confused as to what was going on. “I feel like I’d remember your ugly face.”

Tales gave her a growl and pointed to the burned off coat on the left side of his face. “You’re the fuckin’ reason I’ve got an ugly face you raidin’ bitch!”

Pyre just stared at him for a moment, trying to remember. Finally a look of comprehension crossed her face. “Oh yeah! You were the buck that hid in a radroach pit!” Pyre chuckled to herself a little. “I gotta say, that was a smart move. Hiding from our EFS like that... Look, we all make mistakes so no hard feelings or anything, right?”

“No hard feelings!” Tales gaped at her. “You told your raiders to skin me alive! I had to hide in a radroach pit for three goddess damned fucking days! And you say no hard feelings! I lost half of my face ‘cause of you!”

Pyre just casually waved a hoof to brush aside his remarks. “I used to tell my boys to skin everypony alive. They only sometimes did it,” She admitted with a smirk. She lazily gestured to the rest of us. “I even told them to skin these goofballs and now we’re traveling the wasteland together.”

Tales stuck his nose up in the air and turned away from Pyre, grumbling to himself. He turned back to look at me. “You ever manage to catch up with those cyber ponies you asked me about?”

I nodded. “Yeah, the last one died as of yesterday. We’re just heading to Tenpony to have a bit of a break now that they’re all dealt with.”

Tales took on a grim look. “Careful while going to Tenpony. Red Eye has been surrounding the tower ever since that Stable Dweller escaped from Filly. No pony knows why, but it can't be good.”

I slapped my hoof against my face. “Damn it! Really? Can I not just have one day without bad shit happening?!”

Welcome back to Manehattan Amber, I thought to myself glumly. In the Hollow Shades or not, nothing good ever happens here.

Footnote: Half way to next level.

Author's Note

What's this? Another fallout: Equestria story with a same sex love interest? I mean, it's just kinda tradition to do that at this point, right? Surely you all saw this coming.

Fallout: Equestria belongs to Kkat

Chapter XVII: One day Without Bloodshed

“...Cut the Ghoulies a break. If they’ve got the caps and you’ve got the space, it’s a win-win, right? So what do you say?”

Society.

Not once through my whole time in the wasteland, did I ever imagine that there would be a place as civilized looking as Tenpony Tower. I had seen it before, far off in the distance, but up close I was able to make out just how grand it actually was.

The tower was tall, easily towering over every other structure in Manehattan. I’m sure that at one point some of the surrounding ruins had rivaled it in height, but now only Tenpony had miraculously survived the bombs. The looming marbled walls were topped with four large dome-like shapes in each corner and a large broadcasting tower was built atop it. The entrance to the tower, which appeared to be a rather lavish looking train station, was sealed by a set of reinforced ornate double doors. A message in red adorned the large doors simply reading ‘No Zombies’.

Under better circumstances, I would have sat back and marveled at the beautiful majesty of the tower. Unfortunately, these were not ‘better circumstances’.

As Tales had informed us, the tower was surrounded by Red Eye’s troops. None of them seemed to have gotten particularly close to the large tower entrance, but there were still quite a few among the large monorail that lead there. Far below me, I could make out the forms of multiple caravans surrounding the tower and upon looking up, I could make out alicorns dotting the roofs of many of the abandoned ruins. Even a couple squadrons of griffons flew through the air above us.

Getting onto the large monorail that led to the tower was easier than we had expected, though still not without obstacles. Our first issue was getting onto the monorail unspotted, which proved easy enough. We just followed the monorail from the ground until we found a spot that wasn’t guarded. Clearly Red Eye’s troops were not nearly as intelligent as Red Eye himself.

Of course then there was the issue of actually walking all the way across the monorail undetected. It didn’t exactly have many hiding spots and there were far more slavers then there were of us. There were a couple ramshackled structures that had been erected upon its otherwise empty surface, but they did little to cover us the closer we got.

I pulled my friends in behind a small fortification on the monorail that looked like it was used by Tenpony security before Red Eye’s troops showed up. Not a second after we had ducked below the patchwork structure, three slavers started slowly approaching, chatting to themselves about something I couldn’t really hear.

Pyre cast me a sideways glance. “Do you want me to jump out and take them?” She spoke in a hushed whisper. “We could take their clothes and try and sneak our way to the tower?”

I glanced over the fortification at the three approaching slavers. I shook my head. “To noisy. Besides, there are only three of them, and we need to disguise four of us.”

The slavers were getting closer, I was beginning to make out what they were saying. “I’m telling you, Stern’s just lucky Red Eye didn’t have her shot for getting caught like that.”

The other slaver scoffed. “Red Eye values that griffon a lot. a lot more than the rest of us, anyway. I don’t think he’s going to have her executed any time soon.”

“Still, she’s got a long way to go till she has any of our respect again.”

Brisk glanced around at our group. “We could disguise Amber, Xayah and myself, then give the stealth cloak to Pyre to keep her hidden?” He suggested, gesturing to each of us as he spoke. “That might get us through.”

“What about me?” Mirra piped up, looking up at Brisk with her big, blue changeling eyes.

Brisk scratched his head for a second. “I don’t suppose you can shapeshift into a slaver pony?”

There was a small flash of green and Mirra became an identical copy of one of the three approaching slavers. Well, identical in all but one regard. She was still just a foal.

“Any chance of turning into a pony older than ten?” Brisk asked, slightly annoyed. Mirra shook her head, switching to a brown pegasus filly. Brisk facehoofed and groaned. “Alright, we could pretend you’re our slave or something.”

“Wouldn’t they get suspicious when they realize that we are heading into the tower?” Xayah asked, her eyes nervously darting towards the approaching slavers. “None of them have gotten overly close to the doors.”

“We’ll lie and say Red Eye told us to bring the filly into the tower,” Brisk added. He glanced at Pyre. “You did say Red Eye treats foals well, right?”

Pyre nodded. “Yeah, but he doesn’t let them go. There’s no way he would let them get anywhere near Tenpony.”

“So what? Do we stay hidden?” I asked, trying to keep up with the rapid fire planning we were doing. “I guess we could silently kill them and just keep sneaking forwards.”

“Anyway, you hear ‘bout that balefire bomb that went off in the Hollow Shades?” One of the three slavers grunted. They sounded a lot closer than I had expected. They must only be a few feet away at this point. “What was up with that?”

“Fuck if I know. I’m just hoping Bomb Collar was at the center of it. That ass hole deserved to die,” The slaver that hadn’t spoken yet chimed in. “Now I’m for given slaves a good beating now and again, but that shitface went through more slaves than we could supply him with.”

The slaver beside him laughed. “Wait, you haven't heard? Apparently one of his own slaves popped a few rounds straight into his face. Blew his head clean off!”

“Okay, well they’re about to find us, and we don’t have a plan. So can we at least all agree that we need to kill them?” Pyre snorted, making sure her voice was low enough that the slavers couldn’t hear her.

I grimace. “But shouldn’t we at least try to resolve this peacefully? I don’t want to fight them if we don’t have to.”

Pyre gave me a quizzical look. “Is that a fucking joke? What happened to the Amber Aura that would do anything to get her revenge?”

“I got my revenge I suppose,” I grunted back, narrowing my eyes a little. I tried to look intimidating, but I don’t think I did a very good job.

The slavers moved past us. We all froze as they marched past, not seeing us at all as they continued on with their conversation.

We were silent for a second, before Xayah motioned for us to start creeping forwards. As a unit we all began moving around the fortification, hoping to get to the other side as cover. We didn’t get very far.

One of the slaver glanced back, his eye catching our movement as we scuttled forwards. “What the fuck! Hold it right there!” The slaver spun around and aimed his shotgun at as.

Damn it. Pyre cast me a look. “Can I kill them now?” I was about to give her the green light to attack when...

“Dude, what the fuck are you doing?!” The slaver beside him growled, pushing his shotgun to face away from us. “You can’t just shoot them! We have a direct order from Red Eye to let them into the tower!”

My jaw dropped. They had a what!

The slaver that had pointed his shotgun at us snarled at the intervening slaver. “Are you talking about that bullshit you said earlier! Even if what you said was true, this isn’t even the Stable dweller.”

“You’re trying to tell me that that there isn’t the stable dweller?” The slaver growled back. He glanced over at us as we stood in tense anticipation for the fight that was supposed to have just broken out. “Have you listened to nothing? The stable dweller is a small unicorn traveling with another stable dwelling unicorn, a steel ranger, a zebra and a pegasus!”

I raised my eyebrows and glanced over at Mirra who was still in the form of a brown pegasus filly. I looked back towards the arguing slavers, not sure how to react. Were they mistaking us for that other stable dweller I kept hearing about over the radio? I mean Pyre Blaze certainly wasn’t a steel ranger, but I could understand the confusion.

“That’s not the stable dweller you idiot!” The shotgun wielding slaver shot back. “I saw the Stable dweller back when she was in Filly. She looks nothing like-”

“Nothing like that? You must be blind!” The intervening slaver retorted, pointing a hoof towards us lamely. “She matches what I’ve heard to a T. Small, cute, unicorn, wearing stable barding. That’s the fucking Stable dweller!”

Brisk leaned towards me. “Do you have any idea what is going on?” He asked, his eyes fixed on the squabbling slavers. I just shrugged.

The slaver with the shotgun snarled again. “Besides, our orders are to keep the Stable Dweller out you halfwit! That’s the whole point of surrounding Tenpony in the fucking first place!”

“I know that jackass! And Red Eye just ordered us to let her in!” The other slaver shot back. “You need to pay attention to your radio more you arrogant fuck!”

“What, like that time you thought Red Eye ordered us to attack those rangers? Face it, you're notorious for hearing orders wrong!”

“Am not!”

“Are too! Besides, she isn’t the Stable dweller, so we should just kill her anyway!”

“But she is the fucking stable dweller you numbskull!”

“Why don’t we ask her?” The slaver yet to have voiced his opinion said lamely, looking over to me. “Well? Are you or are you not the Stable Dweller?”

I folded my ears back slightly, not sure what exactly to say. “Uh… yes?”

The slaver turned back to his arguing friends. “She says she’s the stable dweller.”

They both just gave him a blank expression. “And you just believed her!?”

The three launched into an even more explosive debate than before. I turned to my friends and gave them all a confused look. “So like… I guess we’ll just be going now…”

Pyre and Mirra both broke into a hysterical fit of laughter as we quickly walked away from the arguing slavers and towards the tower.

As we quickly approached the ornate doors of Tenpony tower, we found a lone ghoul standing at the gates. She was small, around the same size as me and had a rack of clothes on wheels beside her. My eyes widened as I recognized who I was looking at.

“Sorry, we don’t allow zombies in Tenpony tower,” A stallions voice said over a speaker positioned to the left of the large door. “I don’t know how you got past all those slavers out there, but it would probably be best if you just left the way you came.”

“Coco pommel?” I asked in surprise as we pulled up beside the ghoul. It had been a long while since I had last seen the fashion forward ghoul. Or maybe it hadn’t and it only felt like forever… It was hard to gauge time in the wasteland.

Coco turned to look at me, her eyes taking me in with an equal amount of surprise. A bit of her light cyan main fell from her head at the movement. “Amber? What are you doing here?”

“Hoping to get at least one decent night of rest,” I grumbled, suddenly realizing how tired I actually was. I looked over at the rack of clothes at Coco’s side. “Still trying to expand Rarity’s boutique?”

The light opal ghoul gave a small nod. “From what I hear, ponies still try and maintain high society here at Tenpony. I figured this would be the best place to expand to next,” Coco cast a grumpy look at the large door. “That is if they would let me in.”

“I’ll see if I can do something about that,” I said with a small smile. I walked over and knocked on the door. “Hey, can you let us in please?”

There was silence from the other side of a second. “Not if that ghoul is with you. Make her go away, then I’ll open it up.”

I snarled at that. “No, you open up this door right now. What did Coco ever do to you!?”

There was another pause from the pony on the far side. “Nothing, those are just the rules. No zombie ponies allowed inside of Tenpony tower.”

Coco Pommel slowly walked up behind me and placed a rotting hoof on my shoulder. “It’s alright Amber, thanks for trying though.”

I gave her a stern shake of my head. “No, no it’s not okay. These ponies are going to let you in or I swear to celestia that I’ll-”

“Look, we have caps,” Pyre soothed, cutting me off before I could get violent. “A lot of caps actually, thanks to Toffee’s payment,” The power armour clad raider walked up to the speaker and tapped it with a hoof. “Hear that, lots of caps. We’ll pay you to let this ghouly in.”

I could hear the pony on the far side hesitating. Finally he gave a small cough to clear his throat. “One hundred caps and I’ll let the ghoul in.”

I was about object when I heard another voice over the speaker. “Well this just isn’t something I wanted to see,” A female ponies voice said. “Come on Ricochet, that rule isn't even in effect anymore. Not after what happened to Grim Star. I don’t even know why we still have that damn sign on the door.”

I backed up a bit, letting the argument on the far side of the door play out. I cast a glance over at my friends, only for them to give me a shrug in return.

“But… We can’t let some rotting pony just walk around! We have a reputation at Tenpony to uphold!” The Stallion was insisting, his voice now sounding a little nervous.

“Oh come now. Let the poor ghoul in,” I heard her snicker a little through the crackle of the speaker. “Don’t make me tell DJ Pon3 on you. Last thing you want is a shoutout about this sort of thing,” She sounded more mocking and sarcastic than actually threatening, but the threat had its intended effect anyway.

“Damn it, Fine, but if we get in trouble for this, I’m blaming you,” The stallion grumbled. I could hear somepony shuffling around on the speaker and a loud clunk as the large lock on the door fell away.

A few seconds later, the large door swung open to let us all into the station inside. Standing in the doorway were two ponies, clearly the two that had been talking over the speakers. One was an earth pony stallion with a dark grey coat and green mane. The mare that had stepped in had a steel grey coat with a wild Blue mane that reminded me of a picture of an old pre war DJ I had once seen in a book.

The mare stepped forwards and gave us all a warm smile. “I’m sorry about him, we’re all getting used to some of the new changes that have been going on around here as of late,” She looked over the group, seemingly finding a great amount of interest in all of us. Her eyes lingered on me for a second, her smile faltering slightly as her gaze passed over my rather ragged looking stable barding. Quickly she put her warm smile back on. “My name is Homage, welcome to Tenpony tower.”

The grouchy grey and green stallion behind her gave us a less than enthusiastic grunt, his eyes burning holes into Coco Pommel through the doorway. His gaze shifted slightly, his eyes landing on the bloody visage of Pyre Blaze. “Is that a fucking raider! We can’t let a fucking raider in here!”

“She’s with us, she won’t hurt anypony,” Brisk said bravely, stepping forwards. I was surprised to see Brisk come to Pyre’s rescue with how much he clearly didn’t like her.

“She better not,” The stallion grumbled, turning away and returning to his post not far from the door. This must be our lucky day, two conflicts that both ended without a single shot being fired. I almost felt like I was dreaming.

After paying the proper amount of caps to get in, that being around twenty caps, Homage led the six of us into the large train station that was used as the entrance to Tenpony tower. I had thought that Tenpony had been gorgeous from the outside, but that had been nothing compared to what awaited us inside. Large marble pillars rose from the ground to support the hanging chandelier covered roof. Ponies dressed in clothes far nicer than I had ever seen before walked along, minding their own business as they went about their day to day life.

I could see Coco pommel’s eyes widen as she took in the lavish architecture and fashionable ponies. How long it must have been since she had seen anypony dressed in more than rags.

“I’m afraid this is where I must leave you,” Homage said politely as we reached the base of a large set of stairs that went further up into the tower. “I’d love to get to know you all, but I’m awaiting some very important guest. It’s the only reason I’m down here. Normally I’ll be up with the DJ at the top of Tenpony.”

My eyes widened a little. “Wait, DJ Pon3 lives here at Tenpony?” I had never really thought about where that strange and mysterious DJ might or might not live. Though now that I thought about it, I did remember him saying something about being at Tenpony on the radio.

Homage gave a small laugh. “I can see you’re fairly new to the wasteland. Yes, DJ Pon3 works and lives here at Tenpony tower. I’m his assistant. If you want to talk to him and tell him your story he’s alway itching for more news. I'm sure he'd be more than interested in what you all had to say,” She looked out across the station to the large doors where a sky wagon being pulled by brown and orange pegasus was slowly being pulled inside. Homage turned back to us, grinning much wider than she had been before. “You’ll find the main marketplace just up those stairs. Enjoy your time here,” Then she was moving away from us and towards the parked sky wagon.

“Thank you!” I called out to her as she quickly skipped away. I wonder what has her in a rush.

Coco turned to me and gave me a quick hug. The hug was squishy… I hate to say I enjoyed it a lot less than I was willing to admit. “Thanks for standing up for me back there,” Coco said, pulling away from me. She eyed my tattered looking stable barding which she had patched up not that long ago. “I’m going to go see if I can start setting up my clothing stand. Feel free to drop by. I’ll fix up your stuff, free of charge.”

I gave her a grin. “That sounds wonderful, thank you. I’ll definitely take you up on that offer,” As the ghoul started walking away I turned back to my friends, taking on a more serious tone. “Alright, so we need to get some more supplies, get some rest, then head back out to take on those slavers that stole the A.A.S.S.”

Pyre gave me a playful bump on the leg. “Calm down there Amber, we’ve got quite a few hours of daylight before we go hitting the hay. Relax a little.”

Brisk nodded in agreement. “As much as I hate to say it, I agree with Pyre,” We all cast him a surprised look. He just shrugged. “What, y’all convinced me yesterday. Besides, we really could use some down time after the last couple days we’ve had.”

“And I want to try this Cheese Pyre keeps telling me about,” Mirra squealed gleefully, hoping up onto Pyre’s back. I could see Pyre grinning underneath her helmet.

Xayah rest a hoof over my back. “We could all use a break, you most of all Amber,” Those words finally made me relaxe a little.

“Alright, one day of no bloodshed,” I smirked, starting up the stairs to the main marketplace Homage had told us about. That wasn’t that hard, right? We could go a day without killing somepony. “Besides, I’m rather interested in this cheese shop as well. I don’t think I’ve ever heard Pyre so excited about something.”

“What do you mean the shop is closed down!” Pyre growled, stomping her hoof down heavily on the tiled floor.

“I mean it's closed,” the pony working beside the now boarded up cheese shop said, wiping his table down with a wet cloth. “The pony that ran the shop was executed for crimes about ten days ago or so.”

Had Pyre not been wearing a helmet, I’m sure I would have seen her jaw drop. “But that was the best fucking cheese in the wasteland! Do you know how long I’ve been waiting to have some again! A long fucking time!”

The pony just shrugged. “Eh, don’t yell at me. It was that stable dweller everypony keeps talkin’ about that got him killed. If you’ve got a problem, take it up with her.”

Pyre grumbled and turned away from the closed down cheese shop, mumbling something under her breath about, “Stupid fucking wasteland heros.”

The main area of Tenpony was just about as lavish and grandiose as the rest of the tower. It resembled a large mall area with a plethora of different shops and restaurants. The floor was filled with a collection of round tables, many of which seated groups of ponies eating or talking amongst themselves. To my right was the entrance to what appeared to be some sort of guest room area with the sign above it reading ‘Goldentail’s Luxury Suites’. Farther down the mall area I could make out a hallway that led to both a small hospital and what Xayah and I had been talking about earlier… a Spa. Whatever the heck that was.

It was fairly busy, being the middle of the day, though not nearly as busy as I had seen Friendship city. Tenpony Tower was clearly much more exclusive. Most of the ponies were all dressed in expensive looking clothing and had their noses raised high enough in the air that I had trouble figuring out exactly how they saw where they were going. If Pureblood had somehow survived the bombs and lived over two hundred years, I knew he would have felt right at home.

But snooty, upper class ponies were not the only ponies to inhabit the marble walls of Tenpony tower. Amongst them I could see a couple of wasteland travelers like us, their ragged and mud caked clothing making them stand out amongst the strange cleanliness of the residence.

I saw one group of particularly interesting looking wastelanders running alongside a stretcher pushed by numerous doctors that worked over the dying unicorn that rested on it. The unicorn, or at least what was left of her, had a white coat and red and black mane. Along with her missing horn and bleeding, empty eye sockets, she was missing all four of her legs and seemed to be hooked up to the circulatory system of one of her friends beside her. Hell if I know how her friend was even still alive with half of her body opened up like that.

I shivered just looking at the bloody mess of the unicorn as she was wheeled around the corner and into the hospital. The sight made me realize with a sickening horror that no matter how bad things got for me, they could always be worse. At least I wasn’t that mare, whoever she was.

Mirra had once again hid under Xayah’s stealth cloak to stay hidden. I hoped that her horn started working properly soon and Xayah could go back to keeping her hood on in populated areas. I knew Xayah wasn’t a big fan of crowds, and from the constant dirty looks ponies kept shooting her, I could tell her discomfort wasn’t unfounded. Ponies really did not like zebras.

I put my hoof around her and pulled her a little closer to me, making one stallion that was glaring at her look away. Xayah gave me a warm smile, clearly glad to have my presence to fend off the unwelcome stares.

My eye caught a gun vendor amongst the many shops in Tenpony tower. Perfect, I was in desperate need of one since the unfortunate loss of Boneless in the MAS tower. I grinned and began trotting over, pulling the rest of my friends along with me. As I got closer I began to overhear the conversation the weapons vendor was having with a yellow and rust brown stallion that stood in front of his stall.

“Look, I’m not going to tell you again. You need caps to buy a gun. No caps, no guns,” The weapons vendor said, rolling his eyes a little and trying to shoo the stallion away.

The yellow stallion placed his hooves on the table. “But I need one! They’re after me and if I don’t have a weapon they’re going to-”

“Look buddy, everypony has problems. Somepony always wants somepony dead,” The weapons vendor cut in, shutting the yellow buck up. “It’s a hard world, and your problems aint mine. So either you pull out some caps and buy something or you buck off!”

I finally trotted up to the vendor, my friends following in toe. “Perhaps I could help, is there a weapon you want?” I asked, looking over to the yellow buck. He seemed to have some sort of misshapen circle as a cutie mark. The yellow buck almost jumped out of his skin in fright at my sudden intrusion in the conversation, clearly having not noticed me approaching.

Pyre gave me a nudge from behind. “Amber, we have caps, but we can’t just go around-” I cut her off with an angry glare. She quickly quieted. “Fine, fine. Go spend our hard earned caps on some random pony. That’s cool. No problem.”

I rolled my eyes and turned back to the yellow stallion. “Well, is there something you want?”

I could see the surprise on both the weapon vendor and yellow stallions face. “You’re just going to buy me something? Just because?” The yellow buck said, his mouth agape. “I-Is that some kind of cruel joke or…”

“Nope, what do you want?” I said with a shrug. I didn’t understand everypony's disbelief. Was it really that hard to be nice to other ponies out here. I thought back to everything I had seen in the wasteland so far. Yes, yes it was.

“Well, uh… If you’re offering, a hunting rifle would be nice,” the buck said, shuffling his hooves a little. “And maybe some ammo, if you wouldn’t mind.”

I gave him the nicest smile I could and turned to the weapon vendor. “I’d like a hunting rifle and some ammo please,” I saw Xayah almost beaming proudly at my actions. Brisk and Pyre just rolled their eyes. Who knows what Mirra did under the stealth cloak.

The vendor gave me a quizzical look. “You sure you want to do that missy?” I gave him a determined nod. He grunted and went to fetch something from behind him. “Is there anything else you’d like?”

“Yeah, what do you have in the way of shotguns? I’ve been looking to get a new one,” I said, letting my eyes wander to the shelves of weapons behind the vendor. There were quite a decent amount of weapons that he had stocked up on over the years.

The weapons vendor cast me a weird look. “You want a shotgun?” He asked flarly, one eyebrow raising. “You sure you don’t want something a little more your size? You’re pretty small.”

I gave him a grumpy look. “I’m not that small! And why does everypony think it’s weird I use a shotgun!?”

The weapons vendor just looked at me for a second before shrugging and placing a hunting rifle and some ammo on the table. “We have a couple of shotguns, yeah. I’ve got a combat shotgun in nice clean condition if you’re planning to be seeing some action with it.”

“Any chance at a triple barrel shotgun?” I asked hopefully, not wanting to give up the comfort I had grown accustomed to with Boneless.

The weapons vendor just shook his head. “Them triple barrels are pretty damn rare, you’d be lucky to ever get your hooves on one these days. Not as rare as a quad maybe, but rare all the same.”

My heart skipped a beat. “There’s such a thing as a quadruple barrel shotgun!” I gasped, my ears shooting upwards.

The vendor gave a small nod, pulling out a combat shotgun and placing it next to the rifle with a hoof full of ten of shotgun slugs. “Yeah, Ironshod Firearms made a few before the war. Had the power of a normal shotgun mixed with the speed of a combat shotgun. Never seen one myself, but damn do they sound like a fine weapon.”

I turned to the yellow Stallion as Brisk and Xayah went about buying ammo for their own weapons. The buck gave me a grateful look. “T-thank you, I really was in trouble there. I’ve been staying here at Tenpony for protection, but I don’t have any caps left and I’m going to need to start searching for a new place out in the wasteland.”

“No problem, I’m always glad to help out,: I said, offering him my hoof. He gave it a quick and nervios bump. Jeez this pony seems jumpy. “My name’s Amber Aura, what’s yours?”

The stallion's eyes darted around, as if looking for anypony that might be listening in. “It’s uh… R-rubber band.” I froze, eyes locking with his. I glanced down at his cutie mark, realizing for the first time that what I had mistaken for a misshaped circle was in fact a rubber band. Rubber Band noticed my reaction and quickly started back peddling.

Pyre looked over her shoulder back at us. “Oh, is this the Rubber Band pony y’all said you were looking for? Are we here to kill him or…?” Rubber Band’s face grew pale at her words, his eyes darted for the hunting rifle on the table I had just bought him.

I shot Pyre another grumpy look. “No, we aren’t here to kill him!” I turned back the Rubber Band. “Have you heard of the Friendship Express?” It had been a long while since I had thought about that group, so I hoped I remembered the name correctly.

Rubber Band seemed to calm down at that. “You ponies are with the Friendship Express?” He asked, sounding almost hopeful. “I thought you would never find me!”

I nodded, thought for a second, then shook my head. “We are… well… we aren’t exactly part of the Friendship Express, but they did send us to find you,” Brisk and Xayah had joined us now, hauling over their new bought ammo as well as the two purchased guns.

Rubber Band glanced around again, taking in the ponies around us. “I think the Institute has agents in Tenpony, we can't talk here,” He said, his voice lowering. “Meet me in my room in three hours. I have a place in Goldentail’s. We’ll talk more there,” He looked around again, thankfully taking the hunting rifle before ducking away into the crowd.

Brisk blinked a couple times, trying to connect the dots of what he had missed from the conversation while buying ammo. “Wait, did we just stumble into the synth Rubber Bands that Flask told us to find?” I gave him a nod. Brisk was silent for a few seconds before shrugging. “Eh, not the weirdest coincidence ever.”

“Emissary said he was heading to Tenpony when we met him, perhaps he is still here,” Xayah said, recalling the rather brief exchange we had had with the Friendship Express operative on our first visit to Friendship City. “If so, we can inform him of Rubber Band’s whereabouts.”

I thought about that for a second before giving my head a small shake. “We should talk to Rubber Band first, see what is what before we get any other ponies involved,” I said, not feeling particularly trusting of a faction like the Friendship Express that was nearly as secretive as the so called Institute I kept hearing about.

Brisk gently kicked the ground with his hoof. “Alright, so we have three hours before we meet this uh… what is he? A robot?” I shrugged. Rubber Band sure didn’t look or act like a robot. But then again, wasn’t that the point of synths? “So what do we do until then?”

I smirked and gestured down the hallway at the end of the marketplace. “Well, we did come here to relax, didn’t we?” I said, my grin growing. “We could always go to the spa for a bit.”

Pyre Blaze’s eyes widened with what appeared to be fear behind her visor. She raised her hooves frantically and started backpedaling. “Oh no, you aren’t getting me all pampered up. Not today!”

“The fucks a spa?” Brisk snorted, glancing wearily from Pyre to me.

Xayah and I exchanged a funny look and smiled. I turned back to Brisk, giving him a shrug. “We have no idea, but apparently it’s nice. Might as well give it a shot right?”

Brisk mouth twisted to match our grin. “Well I never turn down an adventure, and doing new things you’ve never heard of is about as adventurous as it gets. Count me in.”

“I’d like to come too!” Mirra squeaked, peeking her head out from under the stealth cloak. I jumped a little at finding the tiny changeling beside my leg. I had forgotten she was standing so close.

We all shifted our gaze to Pyre who was slowly backing away from us. Our raider friend just scowled. “Oh no you don’t. I’m a badass renegade from the las pegasus Raiders! I’m one of the founders of the ruthless Manehattan Scourge! I burn ponies alive just for the fun of it! I don’t do that spa! There is nothing you could possibly say that would get me to go into that hellhole!”

“How the fuck did I get talked into this?” Pyre grumbled, pulling herself into the white, tiled room behind us, her tail tucked tightly between her hind legs as she sulked. She had been forced to remove her battered Power Armour upon entering the spa, giving us all a good look at her burned and scarred body underneath. She looked a mess.

The spa had looked even cleaner than the rest of Tenpony Tower, which was saying quite a lot. A thick cloud of near white steam wafted around the entirety of the spa, simultaneously making it hard to breath and relaxing my tensed up muscles.

The ponies at the spa had taken one look at us and gasped, before practically stripping us from our barding and shoving us towards a room appropriately labeled as ‘Showers’. Brisk had quickly been pulled away from the group and was dragged towards a different shower room, a confused look sprawled across his green face. Clearly the showers were split by gender.

I stumbled over to one of the showers on the wall, my hooves practically giving out below me as I neared it. The warm, steamy air that seemed to be relaxing my whole body was beginning to make me realise just how hurting and tired my body had truly been. I reached for the shower valve, then froze.

Below the shower head hung a mirror, giving me a good look at my body. I was a ruin. The mud and grime that covered my body made me look as if I were a dirty brown in colour instead of a bright pink. My mane was matted and far longer than I had ever seen it before, clearly I was in good need of a mane cut. But worst of all were the scars. Unlike the mud and messy mane, those couldn’t simply be washed away. They were a part of me now, thin silvery and pink lines raced across my form, twisting into strange patterns. I might as well have been a zebra with the amount of damage that covered me. There was a small clip in my left ear that seemed to be suffering from some sort of infection. When had I even gotten that?

I shook a little as I stared at myself. It wasn’t the first time I had seen the devastation the wasteland had done to my body, but that didn’t make it any less shocking. If I had seen what I would become before I left the Stable I probably wouldn’t have believed it. I looked nothing like the Amber Aura I knew.

Xayah walked up beside me and turned on her own shower. A stream of warm water began cascading around her, sinking into her matted coat and washing out much of the muck that had accumulated on her. She glanced over at me, noticing my pause as I glared in horror at my own reflection. “Amber?”

I just kept staring at the mirror. I could feel something trickling down my face, but I couldn’t tell if it was my tears or the condensation of the thick steam of the spa. I bit my lip, watching as the hideous pony that was my reflection mimic my movement.

“Amber, is everything alright?” I heard Xayah ask again, but her voice was beginning to sound distant.

A sudden stream of water poured down atop me, jolting me from my thoughts. I flinched back, having not expected the shower to burst to life. “Gah! What the fuck!” I glanced down and saw Xayah’s striped hoof on the shower valve. I looked up at her unamused and took in her smug expression. “What was that for?”

Xayah just batted her eyes at me innocently. “You needed a shower,” was all she said in response.

I looked back at the mirror, taking in my reflection again quickly as the surface began to fog up. I was still a mess of course, though with admittedly less mud caking my coat and my mane now plastered to the side of my face. I could see mucky brown water rolling off of me and pooling around my hooves before getting sucked down a small drain. Who knew so much filth could reside on one pony.

“Amber, are you feeling quite alright? You seem lost?” Xayah said, moving over from her shower to stand next to me, her hooves reaching up and beginning to rub the grime out of my mane.

I continued to stare at the fogged up mirror, my eyes squinting as I tried to make out my visage in the foggy surface. “Just thinking I guess. I can’t remember the last time I had a shower.”

The last shower I had had was before I left the Stable for the first time, I knew that much. But how long ago was that? It had to have at least been a month, right? I tried to think back, counting the moons since I had stepped hoof in Manehattan. No, not a month, but two weeks. It had only been fourteen days! It felt like so much longer.

Xayah gave a quick nod and continued brushing out my mane. “Such things are less than common in the wasteland. Few get to enjoy such luxury.”

That only made me feel worse. Why was I allowed to have such a thing when there were other, more worthy ponies out there. Why should I be able to relax after all the blood I had spilt. After the foals I had slaughtered…

I suddenly had the pressing urge to scream and run as far from the spa as I could. This felt wrong, like I didn’t deserve it. Where was Shade? My father? Where was Crank, he should have gotten to be here with me. I could feel my bottom lip begin trembling. This time there was no denying the water racing down my cheeks were tears.

Xayah seemed to notice my distress, which I suppose wasn't overly hard, and wrapped her hooves around me, holding me tight as I balled my eyes out in the shower. Through my tear filled eyes I could see Pyre cast us a look and open her mouth to make a snide remark before apparently thinking better of it.

I didn’t even know why I was crying. Had it been my reflection? The thought that I was getting rewarded when there were others more deserving? Was Shade and Crank’s death finally breaking me? I felt my body get wracked by painful sobs. It wasn’t fair, none of it. How could the wasteland have been so horrible that something as basic as a warm shower could push me over the edge like this.

I leaned into Xayah’s tight embrace more, trying to wish away the tears. They refused to leave.

Xayah ran her hoof through my mane again, whispering soothing words. I was in no state to comprehend what she was saying, but her methodical tone seemed to be calming me down somewhat. Xayah pulled a bar of soap out from somewhere; I never did see where she picked it up. “Come now you foolish pony, let’s get you clean,” She said, helping to pull me back to my hooves once my crying had subsided somewhat. I just gave her a stiff nod and clambered back up as she began rubbing the bar of soap behind my ears.

“You know I can clean myself, right?” I said, wiping a hoof across my face to flick away some of the remaining tears. “I am a unicorn, my magic is more than capable of cleaning me.”

“Mm-hmm,” Xayah replied quickly, not slowing down as she continued to rub out the filth. “But I’m not, so I expect you to clean me just as much once I am done with you.”

I made a noise that was half way between a groan and a laugh. “I should have known there was a catch,” I gave her a smirk and kissed the top of her muzzle. “Sorry, I’m a bit of an emotional mess. Love you.”

Xayah stopped for a second, looking up at me and returning my smile. “Love you too.”

This time Pyre failed to hold back the snark. She made a gagging sound and stuck out her tongue. “Ugh, you two need to get a room!” she growled, flipping her red mane out of her face, sending a spray of water across the room.

I glanced over Xayah’s back to look at Pyre. “You’re just jealous,” I shot back, wiggling my eyebrows a little bit. I saw Mirra suppress a snicker.

To my surprise, Pyre Blaze’s face went bright red. I had actually managed to make the tough, heartless raider blush. “Wha-what! I am not! Your PDA is just disgusting!” She shot back, turning away and facing the shower nozzle as the hot water rained down on her. From the amount of steam coming off of the water, I could tell she had set the water temperature to a heat that most ponies should have found uncomfortable.

“I think they’re cute,” Mirra giggled, her black shell practically gleaming from the wetness of the shower. She had been a lot cleaner than the rest of us and the grime had washed off of her slick body much faster.

Pyre cast her the stink eye. “Don’t side with them,” She grumbled, stomping her hoof on the floor for emphasis. The motion almost made her slip. She cast me an angry look. “I liked you two more when you weren’t all lovey dovey.”

I gave my head a small shake to disguise my laugh and turned back to Xayah as she moved her hooves down to my back and continued cleaning my sides. I let a soft sigh escape my lips. This was nice.

Brisk was waiting for us in a large pool when we finally emerged from the showers. Clearly he had taken a lot less time to clean up than the rest of us. He sat with most of his head and body submerged under the warm water with only his ears and lone eye above the surface. He was blowing a stream of bubbles out of his mouth and had what appeared to be a rubber duck balanced atop his head.

I slapped a hoof over my mouth as I tried not to laugh. He looked ridiculous.

Brisk straightened up as he saw us walk in, the rubber duck flopping off of his head and into the water and a large blush colouring his cheeks red.

I lowered myself into the water next to him, letting the warm water flow around me. My whole body seemed to relax and loosen within seconds of touching the water. How long had the muscles in my shoulders been like that? That couldn’t have been healthy.

“So this is a spa?” Xayah observed, leaning down and sniffing the water. “The water smells different,” she looked a lot cleaner after I had scrubbed her down. I had forgotten how dazzling her black and white stripes really were. Though granted, I doubt I had ever seen her fully clean before.

“Yeah, the ponies at the front said something about it being mineral water or whatever. I didn’t really pay attention,” Brisk said, lowering himself back down and resting his head on the edge of the pool. “They apparently have something called a sauna as well. Plus they do massages! I can’t remember the last time I had a massage.”

Xayah crawled into the water beside us and let her chin rest on my shoulder. I could feel all the muscles in her neck releasing as the warm water washed over her.

“They make the water too cold,” Pyre grunted, dipping her hoof into the warm pool before shaking her head and simply sitting on the ledge beside us.

“Come on, it’s not that bad,” I said, casting Pyre a look. She just scowled back at me. “What’s your problem with going to the spa anyway?”

“I’m a raider, I don’t do pampering,” She grunted back, flicking her red mane out of her face with a hoof. “If word got back to the Las Pegasus raiders that I was lounging around in a spa and getting my hooves painted I’d be a fucking laughing stock.”

“I don’t think those raiders could hate you any worse than they do already,” Brisk pointed out, stretching his legs out. “I mean, they already want to kill you, so who cares what they think?”

Pyre just growled. “I have a reputation to uphold here! I’m a wasteland badass, not some prissy princess.”

“Well we’re the only ones here, and we won’t think anything less of you,” I reassured her, gesturing for her to join us with a hoof.

Pyre just stuck her muzzle in the air with a humph. “Absolutely not!”

A field of green magic wrapped around Pyre and lifted her into the air. Her eyes shot wide as her whole body was lifted off of the ground and levitated overtop of the pool. Pyre glared down at a snickering Mirra as the small changeling stepped out from the showers.

“What are you doing!” Pyre balked, waving her hooves around in the air frantically as if trying to run away from the magical grip. “Put me down this instant!”

Mirra just put a hoof to her mouth and simpered. “If you say so,” The magical green field around Pyre popped out of existence. The raider sat suspended in the air for a second, glaring at all of us in anger before plopping down into the water with a splash.

I ducked my head a little as the large wave that accompanied Pyre hitting the water splashed over me. Chuckling, I looked up to see Pyre sitting up in the center of the pool, her wet mane plastered down over her face and obscuring her eyes. She turned to look at all of us, a grim expression on her face. “I’ll get all of you for this. Just you wait!”

Mirra giggled as she fluttered over and perched atop Pyre’s soaked head. She leaned over and looked into Pyre’s eyes upside down. “Doubt it,” She chuckled, brushing a bit of Pyre’s mane away.

The glumb looking raider tried to shake the tiny changeling off, but Mirra just fluttered her wings and glided down into the pool with a much smaller splash.

“You’re the one that told me I needed to relax a little,” I scoffed, tilting my head to the side and letting it rest atop Xayah’s. Pyre grumbled, but stayed quiet.

Brisk pushed his hoof gently against the floating rubber duck in the water and watched as it bobbed up and down. “Can’t say I was overly excited to come here and all, but I’m glad we did,” He said thoughtfully, not taking his eyes off the bath toy. “We really did need a little down time, especially after the last week.”

I just stared at the rubber duck, not quite sure what to say to that. On one hoof, I agreed. It had been a rough week and I knew full well that we needed this break for both our physical and mental health. On the other hoof however, I hated the idea of just sitting around while those Slavers got further and further away with the A.A.S.S. “Do we have a game plan for tomorrow?” I finally ask, lifting my head a little off of Xayah’s. “For getting the A.A.S.S. back and all.”

Both Brisk and Xayah shook their heads. “We could try stealing it?” Xayah suggested, sitting up a bit. “Try a similar strategy to when we attempted to take it from Tripwire back in Fetlock.”

"That resulted in us almost dying," I pointed out, remembering the numerous near death experiences I had gone through while battling the cyber pony.

"All of your plans result in you almost dying," Pyre pointed out, her expression still grumpy from being dumped into the pool.

“Or we could… I don’t know… leave it,” Brisk said, trying his best to sound casual. “It’s not like we need it anymore or anything.”

I cast him a sour look. “It’s not about us needing it Brisk. I’m not going to let Red Eye get his hooves on it. Not after everything he's done.”

Pyre raised a hoof out of the water. “I’ve got an idea that might work, though it’s not our usual style of doing things?”

I sent her a skeptical look. “If this plan involves anything even remotely raidery, then no,” I said flatly.

Pyre raised an eyebrow. “Says the pony that has been doing borderline raidery shit since their Stable died,” She scowled back. “And no, it’s not raidery. Quite the opposite in fact.”

“Well, let’s hear it?” Xayah said, moving a little closer to Pyre.

“Well, you’ve all heard about that new Steel Ranger splinter group, yes?” Pyre said, pulling herself up to her hooves. The water reached up to the bottom of her barrel when she stood at full height. We all gave a few nods. “Well they are located out by some Stable in Fetlock apparently, and if what the DJ has been saying is true, then they’re friendly.”

“So what? We join up with the Steel Rangers?” Mirra asked, her body flickering to that of a green filly with an orange mane.

“The Applejack Rangers specifically,” Pyre corrected. “They’d gladly help us take out a group of slavers, especially if those slavers are taking prisoners. And if my memory serves me correctly, they had a whole lot of cages with them when they attacked us on the train.”

I gave a thoughtful nod at her idea. “That might actually work. If my last encounter with the Steel Rangers was any indication, they’d make quick work of those slavers.”

“Course we’d need to find these Applejack Rangers first,” Brisk interjected, splashing at the water a little with a hoof. “Fetlock isn’t a small suburb by any means. We’d need to know where we were going if we want any hope of finding them.”

“Ya’ll don’t listen to the radio much, do you?” Pyre snorted, once again flicking aside a strand of dripping hair. “They’re in Stable 29.”

“We’re looking for a pony named Rubber Band. Do you know where his room is?” I asked the clerk at the front of the Goldentail’s Luxury Suites. “He’s expecting us soon.”

The clerk peered down at us in disgust through the lenses of his glasses that rested so far down his muzzle I was surprised they didn’t just fall off. After a thorough cleaning and long soak in the spa, we were all looking a lot cleaner and undoubtedly more approachable than we had been. That said, we still didn’t look like a particularly friendly bunch. Our bodies were still covered in cuts, bruises and scars and no amount of washing can remove the fatigue that must have been prevalent in our eyes.

The clerk turned their gaze to look down at some sort of ledger that rested on their desk for a second before looking back up at us. “Four doors down the hall to your right,” He said in a snooty tone that made my skin crawl.

I thought for a second before speaking again. “There isn’t another pony here by the name of Emissary staying here as well, is there?” I asked, my hopes slightly higher than they ought to have been.

The clerk flipped through his ledger a few more times before finally giving a small nod. “Indeed, seven doors down to the right,” He said, his voice never loosing its snooty tone. I gave him a small smile and nod before turning and starting to walk down the hallway. Before I could get far, the clerk raised a hoof to stop us. “And don’t cause any trouble, do you hear?”

Pyre gave her a grin through her power armour helmet. “Oh, we never cause trouble,” Said the power armour wearing raider with two massive flamers attached to her side. I noticed she had at some point replaced the flamer that Crank had destroyed in the MAS tower.

The clerk looked sceptical, but dropped their hoof and let us pass. We quickly marched past and to the door that the clerk indicated. I reached out and rapped on the wooden surface of the door a couple of times in quick succession.

We heard some frantic shuffling from the far side of the door followed by the muffled sound of a gun cocking. “Who is it!” The frightened voice of Rubber Band called out from behind the door. “Be w-warned, I h-have a hunting rifle, and I’m not afraid to use it!”

I cast a nervous look at my companions. “Uh- It’s us… the ponies with the friendship Express. Remember,” I said, reminding the supposed synth of our meeting three hours prior.

There was more shuffling and a small yelp from the other side of the door. Suddenly, the door burst open, letting the five of us into the dimly lit room. Rubber Band stood on the other side, an embarrassed expression across his face. “S-sorry about that. Please, d-do come in,” He stumbled, gesturing for us to enter his abode.

I gave him what I hoped was a reassuring smile and walked in, taking in the room beyond. The room wasn’t very large, though notably bigger than our living space back at Friendship City. A single double bed rest against one side and a boarded up window was set into the far wall. Through the small cracks in the boarding, I could make out the broken down skyscrapers of Manehattan down below us.

I tried to peek out one of the cracks in the window, but it was hard to get any real good view. From what I could see however, the view should have been stunning. “Why would you board up such a nice view?” I asked, turning from the window and addressing Rubber Band as he ushered the rest of my friends in hastily before slamming the door and bolting it shut.

“Because the Institute is everywhere,” Rubber Band hissed back, casting a worried glance at the window. “Who knows how they might be spying on me.”

“We’re like… really high up,” Birsk said flatly, trying to look out the window himself. “I don’t think they would be able to get up here and look through your window.”

Rubber Band shook his head as he sat down on the large bed. “If you think that then you clearly underestimate the Institute. They can be anywhere and be anyone. All they’d need to do is get a bird or pegasus synth to fly up and look in.”

“A bird synth?” I asked, sitting down on the floor in front of him. They have robot birds?”

Rubber band winced at the term robot, but didn’t seem to make a big deal out of it. “No idea, but they might. They can make synths of anything. If they can do ponies, why not birds? You haven’t been in the Institute like I have. You have no idea what they are capable of.”

“Wait! Slow down! You’re trying to tell us you’ve been inside of the Institute!” Pyre gasped, jumping to her hooves. “As in the most secretive and well kept secret in the entire fucking wasteland Institute!?”

Rubber Band gave a timid nod and rapped a hoof atop his head. “I was made in there. Soon as I went rogue though, most of my memories of the place were removed. I have no idea how to get back inside, even if I wanted to,” He turned and took us all in. “You five certainly don’t look like what I expected Friendship Express operatives to look like.”

“We don’t work directly with the friendship Express,” I said, reminding him of what I had told him earlier. “We’re just helping them with a couple of errands.”

“Do you know how to get in touch with them? I need to leave Tenpony soon, and I don’t know how long I can last in the Wasteland with the Institute tailing me,” Rubber band asked, fidgeting with his forehooves a little.

“Well that’s why we’re here,” I told him. “There is a Friendship Express operative that goes by the name of Emissary a few doors down. If you want we can inform him you’re here.”

Rubber Band’s brown knitted together. “You didn’t tell him already?” He asked, seeming genuinely confused.

“We wanted to get all the facts straight before we told anypony about your location,” I stated matter of factly. “As I said, we aren’t from the Friendship Express ourselves, so we wanted to make sure everything was in order before getting Emissary involved.”

The synth nodded, seeming to understand the train of thought. “Well if he truly is with the Friendship Express then I need him. You ponies couldn’t have found me at a more desperate time.”

Xayah’s face crossed with worry. “Why? What has happened?”

Rubber Band glanced around nervously, as if expecting some vile monster to emerge from the shadows. “I don’t remember much from my time in the Institute, but there is one thing that the Institute didn’t remove,” He paused again, looking this way and that. “The Institute has these special ops called Coursers. They’re killing machines. If operations go wrong or a synth goes missing, a Courser is dispatched to deal with it… T-they are very good at what they do.”

Brisk sat a little straighter at the mention of a killing machine. I suppose talk of things like that could put anypony on edge. I know I was. “What does that have to do with us finding you at this time,” His voice shuddered a little. We all already knew the answer.

“B-because I th-think I saw one,” Rubber Band said, his voice soaked with fear. “Here... in Tenpony Tower!”

That was bad. Really, really bad. I quickly turned to Brisk. “Do you remember what room that clerk pony said Emissary was staying in?”

Brisk gave me a quick nod. “Yeah, seventh door on the right,” He replied quickly.

“Good, go get him. We need to get Rubber Band out of here now,” I ordered sternly. Brisk didn’t wait, he simply stood up and rushed from the room, closing the door behind him with a soft click.

“How do you know it was a Courser you saw?” Mirra asked, flipping the hood of the stealth cloak off of her head and popping into view. She was currently disguised as a mint green filly with a bright blue mane.

Rubber Band shot to his hooves in an instant, reaching for his hunting rifle on the pillow beside him. I raised a hoof defensively to try and calm the startled synth. “It’s okay, she’s with us. Sorry, we should have told you she was here,” The thought of informing him of Mirra’s presence had completely slipped my mind. Mirra was so quiet that I often forgot she was there myself.

Rubber Band eyed up the disguised changeling for a second, not sure what to think of the small filly. “I-I don’t know how I knew. Some inset fear of them I suppose,” He leaned in to get a closer look at Mirra, his eyes narrowing slightly. “Have we met, you feel familiar?”

Mirra just shrugged. “I travel a lot. You probably saw me then or something.”

That didn’t sit right with me. Mirra was always changing shape. I found it unlikely that somepony would recognize her. I pushed the confusion from my head and turned my thoughts back to the problem at large. Mysteries for another day I suppose. “Is there anything that you do remember about the Institute?”

Rubber Band thought about that for a second. “Not much. I just remember a lot of white lights. And... “ he rubbed the bottom of his chin with a hoof thoughtfully for a second. “I-I think I remember some s-sort of symbol, b-but it’s kind of blurry. Like some dream I had a long time ago.”

“What do you remember of this symbol?” Xayah asked curiously, curingling her tail around herself as she sat next to me.

The synth thought for a few more seconds before his eyes landed on the collar of my Stable barding. He gestured towards it. “Well it kind of looked like that there. Though a little bit different I think…”

I suddenly felt my heartbeat quicken, a sickening feeling washing over me. I slowly turned to Mirra, not knowing how to say what I was going to say next. “Mirra, do you have that piece of metal your mother gave you on you?”

Mirra’s ears shot straight up as she realised what I was suggesting. She quickly pulled out the chunk of white metal and passed it to me. “Y-you don’t think that…?”

I shrugged as I rolled the smooth metal shard around in my hooves. “I don’t know, but it’s worth a shot,” I turned the metal to face Rubber Band and showed off the symbol of the Stable-Tec logo with the mare in the moon in the middle. “Is this the symbol you remember?”

At once, Rubber Band was on his hooves, his hunting rifle in his mouth as he inched away from the metal shard. “Where did you get that!?” He shrieked, his eyes locked on the hideous visage of nightmare moon in the center of the symbol.

Mirra’s eyes widened. “You’ve seen this before!” she flung herself forwards landing near the base of the large bed. “Where? The Institute?”

Rubber Band was slowly inching away, his eyes never leaving the symbol. “I-I don’t know… Goddesses! I don’t even know!” There was a loud knock on the door, making all of us jump. Rubber Band twisted the hunting rifle around in his mouth to aim at the door, his lower lip trembling. “I-I-I have a gun! Tell me w-who you are or I-I’ll shoot!”

There was a stunned silence from behind the door for a second. “Um… Hi. It’s me, Brisk again,” I heard Brisk’s muffled voice call out. “I’ve got Emissary here with me too. Say hi Emissary.”

There was another two seconds of uneasy silence. “Uh, yes. I am here also,” It had been a long time since I had heard Emissary’s voice, he sounded a lot older. I could see Rubber Band visibly relax at the voice of the Friendship Express operative.

I quickly stalked over to the door and creaked it open and let Brisk and Emissary into the room. Emissary was much as I remembered him. A tall grey buck, dressed in a dark black suit, shades and wide brimmed fedora. An unlit cigarette hung from his mouth and this time around, I spotted a Talisman in the shape of a lantern hanging around his neck.

Emissary’s eyes landed on Rubber Band at once. He took a few small steps forwards and extended his grey hoof out to the quivering synth. “You must be Rubber Band. We have been searching for you for quite some time.”

“Not very well,” Pyre scoffed, hiding most of her words behind a forced cough. I cast her a warning glance that only made her grin.

Rubber Band nodded slowly and and lowered his hunting rifle somewhat. “Ye-es-s… You're with the Friendship Express?”

Emissary gave a polite bow. “I am. It is a pleasure to finally meet you,” He glanced away for a second and gestured towards Brisk. “Our friend here tells me you spotted a courser?”

“Yes. Just yesterday. I think h-he's looking for me,” Rubber Band stuttered, his whole body shaking.

The Friendship Express operative gave a thoughtful nod. “We’ll need to try and get you out of this tower as quietly as possible. You can stay in my room for today, hopefully that will throw the Courser off your trail if we keep moving you around,” He thought for a few more seconds, rolling the situation around in his head. “We’ll leave tonight under the cover of darkness and head for the Manehattan Metro tunnels. We can meet up with the rest of the Friendship Express there and get you to safety.”

“Is there anything we can do to help you?” Xayah asked, pulling herself back up to her hooves.

Emissary just gave a small shake of his head as he looked around at all of us. “You five are a rather… unique looking group. The most you can do is try and stay clear of us and draw the Courser’s attention away from Rubber Band,” he turned to me and gave me a thin smile and a tip of his hat. “I got word from Flask not long ago that you delivered that package I gave to you. You’ve already done more for the Friendship Express than was ever expected. You five will always be friends with the Friendship Express.”

I gave him a smug smile and salute in return. “It’s our pleasure. We’re always happy to help.”

“I am aware that Flask offered you some form of payment to find Rubber Band, but I’m afraid I don’t have anything to give you. You must excuse me, but I’m afraid I was not expecting you five to meet me here in Tenpony,” Emissary quickly eyed Pyre Blaze and Mirra. “Or that there were going to be five of you for that matter.”

Mirra pointed towards the white chunk of metal I still held in my hoof. “Mr Emissary? Do you recognise this symbol?” she tapped gently on the image of the Stable-Tec logo with the horned pony head in the middle.

Emissary quickly looked the symbol over before shaking his head. “No, I don’t believe I’ve ever seen it before. Why? Should I have?”

“We think it might be connected to the Institute,” I replied, returning the piece of metal to Mirra. “Rubber Band seemed to have some memory of it, but he isn’t sure where the memory is from.”

Rubber Band gave a nod of confirmation. “P-probably something I saw inside t-the Institute. Most of my missing memories are from there,” He shivered as a horrifying thought passed through him. “A-at least I hope those are most of the memories…”

Emissary tapped his chin for a moment. “It is possible I suppose. But it isn’t the Institutes insignia, I know that much,” He reached into his coat and pulled out a small folder. As he flipped it open I saw a bunch of papers and pictures that I could only assume was all the Friendship Expresses information on the Institute. There was shockingly little. Paperclipped to one of the top papers was the image of a pony silhouette, surrounded by a thin circle. The ponies hooves stretched out from its body to the inner edges of the circle along with a stretched out pair of wings and a horn that just protruded past the outer edge of the ring. Emissary pointed to it quickly. “From everything we have be able to gather, this is the symbol that the Institute uses to identify themselves.”

Mirra seemed to deflate at that. “So this symbol has nothing to do with the Institute?”

Pyre gave a shrug. “It still might. I mean, we know next to jack shit about this Institute place. Maybe they have more than one insignia.”

I gave Mirra a gentle pat on the shoulder. “Don’t worry kid, we’ll find your mom yet.”

The main marketplace of Tenpony Tower was bigger than I had initially released. Even on my second pass through it, I was finding more and more shops and places to get food. It really was a testament to just how powerful pony kinds will to survive was. Even after two hundred years and total annihilation, we were still kicking.

Shortly after our meeting with Rubber Band and Emissary, I had dropped by Coco Pommels newly set up clothing stand and dropped off my Stable Barding to be fixed up. Despite her earlier offer, I had tried to give her some caps as payment, but she had been adamant to do it for me for free. Perhaps not the best marketing strategy on her part, but a generous offer all the same.

A small memory tugged at the back of my brain as I turned to leave. I dug around in my saddlebags and pulled out the small statuette of Rarity I had found below Rarity’s boutique so very long ago. Attached to the bottom was still the small note that read, ‘If we never meet again Coco, Thank you’. I quickly hoofed the small statuette over to the ghoul. It felt weird to be apart from it, but I knew it was the right thing to do.

“Here, I found this back when we first met. I think Rarity wanted you to have it,” I said, blushing slightly that it had taken me so long to actually get it to her. In truth, despite my attachment to it, I had forgotten that it had been in my saddlebag.

Coco took the statuette and rolled it around in her hooves. Her lower lip trembled slightly and I could see the smallest of tears form in her eyes. She turned away from me a little to hide her tears. “Th-thank you. I don’t know what to say…”

I just gave her a smile. “No need to say anything. It was supposed to be yours all along anyway,” I turned and left the ghoul to her thoughts. As I walked away, I saw the biggest of smiles across her face.

Pyre had gone off to who knows where with Mirra to go and get her armour fixed up, Brisk had gone to get us a room and Xayah had mentioned something about getting cooking supplies for dinner. That left me with… well, me. I looked around the shops, trying to figure out what I should do next. I spied a small vendor selling more of that Radigator meat from Arbu, but I figured I had better hold off on food until Xayah could cook up her magic. No amount of irradiated alligator was ever going to compare to the wonders that zebra could cook up.

As I walked through the semi crowded market I heard an almost silent groan from one of the nearby tables followed by a rather creative profanity. “Celestia use the sun and moon as anal beads!”

My ears shot up and I swung around. There was only one pony I knew that could come up with swears that colourful! I scanned the area, expecting to spot the lavender and mint green form of the enclave scientist Star Breeze at any second. Instead, my eyes landed on a small, steel grey unicorn mare with a brown mane sitting with her face between her hooves at one of the tables. She was dressed in classic stable barding that had been reinforced with pieces of leather and even metal barding and she had what looked to be a pipbuck as a cutie mark.

She looked almost as down and out as I had after watching my Stable get massacred. Welp, there was only one true remedy for that...

I turned and dropped six caps on the top of a food vendor beside me. “Can I have two Sparkle-cola’s please?” The vendor gave a small nod and passed me two chilled glass bottles of Sparkle-cola. That is, not before he pocketed the bottle caps off the top of each of course.

Grabbing both bottles in my magic I swung myself over and plopped myself down in the chair across from the small grey stable dweller. I took a loud slurp of the top of my bottle before levitating the other bottle over to her. “Sparkle-cola?”

The gray mare bolted upright with surprise and looked at the levitating bottle in front of her. She gave me a weary look before taking the bottle in her own field of green magic. “Thank you?”

“You’re welcome,” I said smugly, taking another sip of the beverage. “Now let me guess, you’re that Stable Dweller I keep hearing about?”

The Stable Dweller didn’t even look all that surprised by the question. No doubt she got asked stuff like that a lot. I guess that’s what happens when the DJ seemed to have taken a liking towards you. “Yup… names Littlepip. Uh… sorry, who are you?”

“Amber Aura,” I said, reaching my hoof out to her. Littlepip extended her hoof hesitantly and gave mine a little bump. She had to actually stand up to reach the full distance; and I thought I was small. “You were looking a little down there, what’s on your mind?”

Littlepip blinked a couple times, still clearly confused as to what was going on. “I-um… wait, have we met?”

"Nope," I said quickly, giving the small mare a grin. I went to gesture at my stable barding, only to remember I had left it with Coco Pommel to be fixed up. “I'm another Stable Dweller. You might have heard of me. I’ve been cleaning up a lot of the problems around Manehattan.”

Littlepip just continued to look at me with confusion. “Um… I haven’t, but it’s nice to meet you anyway.”

I gave her a flat look. “Really, has nopony heard about all the stuff I’ve done!? Seriously?” I shook my head and groaned a little. “Look, the point is that you looked down, so I figured I’d get you a drink.”

“Well… thanks,” Littlepip took another swig of the sparkle-cola. “I just have this plan. I don’t like it all that much.”

I gave a grim nod of agreement. “I never seem to like any plan, mostly because they usually involve me getting shot at. Though, usually mine are all spur of the moment, so the fact that you are planning one ahead of time is impressive,” I took another sip of my drink and waited for a second. “Well, don’t leave me hanging? What’s this plan of yours?”

“You won’t believe me even if I told you. I’m doing it and even I think it’s crazy!” Littlepip replied, her eyes fixing on her bottle as she floated it a few inches in front of her. she waited a few second, but when it was clear I was still listening she continued. “Have you ever heard of the goddess?”

I thought for a second before giving a quick nod. “I’m assuming you’re talking about whatever all those crazy alicorns are talking about and not Celestia, Luna and Cadence?”

Littlepip nodded. “I have a plan to take her out. But I’ll need to erase my memory of the plan to do it.”

I grimaced, thinking back to the memory orb of my slaughtering the raider children. “Losing memories to memory orbs is alway confusing, but yeah, a plan that you don’t remember is pretty crazy,” I let out a small snort like laugh. “And I’ve had my fair share of crazy. Just yesterday I blew up a bunch of balefire bombs underneath this crazy zebra cult leader. Any plan is probably more sound than that one.”

Littlepip’s ears shot up. “Wait, what?”

I gave a smug nod. “Yeah, I was lucky to walk out of that one alive actua-”

“No wait, what was that you said!” Littlepip asked, standing up a little. She seemed suddenly very interested in what I had to say. There was a strange glint in her eye. I saw a calculating expression cross her face as she started putting something together in her mind.

“Uh… I blew up a balefire bomb on-”

“No, no. The other parts!”

I raised an eyebrow and tried to think about what she might be referring to. How was the balefire bomb part not what interested her. “Uh… let's see… I blew them up underneath… crazy zebra cult…”

“Blew up balefire bombs underneath… zebra…” Littlepip whispered thoughtfully in a hushed tone. The amount of thoughts that seemed to be flashing through Littlepip's mind seemed to be going far faster than I could have imagined. “Xenith could plant the Balefire bomb underneath of them instead of me carrying it in in my saddlebags!” She finally grasped, pushing herself up fully.

“Uhhhh… What do you mean by that?!” I was suddenly getting a really bad feeling. “W-what are you talking about?!”

Littlepip reached forwards and gave my hoof a quick shake. “Thanks! You’re a genius!”

“I-I am?” I had no idea what was going on at this point.

Littlepip gave an enthusiastic nod and started rushing away, her half empty bottle of Sparkle-cola trailing in her magic behind her. “Good talk! Thanks for the drink!” She yelled back, before darting away and out of sight.

I sat there for a second, trying to figure out what had just happened. Suddenly I bolted upright. “Wait! Balefire Bomb!” I turned the way Littlepip had run off. “Don’t you go dropping Balefire bombs on anypony! You hear!” A couple of ponies walking past me cast me a confused and rather worried look as I shouted at seemingly nothing about Balefire bombs.

I groaned. I don’t know what I just did, but hopefully it doesn’t come back to bite me in the flank later. I turned back and took a slow gulp of my Sparkle-cola. My eyes landed on a dark black, unicorn stallion that was now standing just behind where Littlepip had been sitting. He wore a large black leather overcoat and a pair of shades over his eyes.

I cocked my head at him. “Uh, hi. Can I help you?”

“I was informed that you were spotted with a pony that identifies as Rubber Band,” The dark stallion said, his voice stoic and calculating. His words made shivers race down my spine.

Alarms started going off in my head. My eyes darted over the stallion, taking in all his details. He didn’t seem right. Not in the sense that there was something visually wrong, but he just didn’t seem to fit. As if he wasn’t fully pony. I had the sinking suspicion that I knew who this pony really was.

I gulped. “Nope, I’ve never met a Rubber Band in my life.”

I could see the dark ponies brows knit together as he stared at me from behind his tinted shades. He gave a small grunt and turned away. “Thank you for your time, Amber Aura…” Then he marched away, disappearing from my line of sight before I had the chance to ask him how he knew my name.

The second he was gone I bolted upright. I had to find Emissary and tell him to get Rubber Band out of Tenpony Tower now! I didn’t know how I knew, but I did. That had been a Courser!

Rubber Band was right. The Institute was already here.

In my panic I stumbled forwards, accidentally slamming into Xayah as she started walking away from one of the food stalls, her saddlebags full of a bunch of different ingredients. Xayah fell backwards landing on her rump.

“Oof. Amber? What’s going on?” She asked, rubbing her forehead with a hoof where I had accidentally headbutted her.

I glanced around, making sure that the courser was nowhere in sight. I leaned forward and helped Xayah up, placing my mouth against her ear so that I could whisper to her without others overhearing. “I just ran into the Courser looking for Rubber Band. We need to warn them.”

Xayah’s eyes widened with alarm. She too glanced around, hoping to catch sight of the dangerous synth. “What! When did this come to pass?”

“Just now… He knew my name Xayah…” I felt my whole body going cold at the thought. “I don’t know how, but he knows who we are and that we had talked to Rubber Band!”

Xayah’s eyes widened even farther. “Amber, you understand what that means, yes?” I shook my head in response. I was in no mindset to think too deeply on anything right now. I had to find Emissary and warn him before it was too late. “It means we can’t warn them…”

Her words hit me like a half ton of bricks. “Wh-what do you mean? We have to or else-”

Xayah put a striped hoof to my mouth to quiet me. “If he knows who we are then chances are he, or the Institute is keeping an eye on us. Warning them would only lead the Courser right to them…” I felt my heart sink.

“But we can’t just…”

“Emissary said the most we can do for them right now is stay as far away from them as possible,” Xayah said quietly, her melodus tone for once filling my mind with dread. She reached forward and put a hoof around me. “Come on, lets see if Brisk was able to get us a room. We could all use some sleep.”

Brisk had, indeed gotten us a room. A really, really nice room. I suppose two hundred caps can get you a long way in the wasteland. Brisk had quickly showed us around the room before ducking out, saying something about needing to find Pyre and Mirra.

The room was split into three parts. The first room was a master bedroom. A large double bed almost identical to the one in Rubber Band’s room was pressed against one side with a small bedside table on each side. To the left was a slightly larger room with three smaller single beds. Not enough beds for all of us, but I suppose Xayah and I could just share the large bed like we had in Friendship City. The final room was some sort of lounge area with a small kitchen attached to it. The room made our sleeping area in Friendship City look like a doghouse.

I threw myself down onto the large bed and let myself sink into the surprisingly comfy blankets. Not even the beds in Stable 25 had been this comfy, not that that was really saying very much. I pulled the straps on my saddlebags and let them flop off of my back and onto the floor. Rolling onto my back I stared up at the ceiling, trying to push away the growing discomfort of not being able to warn Emissary.

I hated not being able to do anything to help.

Xayah dropped her own saddlebags off in the kitchen before trotting over and joining me on the bed, sitting on the edge and glancing out at a large window set into the wall beside us.

I groaned and rolled over onto my side to face her. “Do you think Emissary and Rubber Band will be okay?” I asked, knowing full well that Xayah wouldn’t have any sort of real answer.

Xayah gave a quick shrug. “Emissary seems to have been doing this for a long time, I’m sure he knows what he is doing. If this Courser hasn’t been able to find Rubber Band yet, why should he tonight?”

I supposed that made sense, but I still felt terrible about not doing anything.

Xayah scooted a little closer to me and gave me a small nuzzle. “Worry not, we have faced worse than this before, why should we fail now?”

I gave her a small smile. “I suppose so. I guess stuff like this should be nothing to me after walking out of a balefire explosion unscathed.”

Xayah’s face faltered at that comment, but she kept trying to smile. “Yes, after that…”

I raised an eyebrow at her. “You alright?”

Xayah nodded. “Yes. It’s nothing you don’t already know. I was just thinking about when I thought you were dead…”

Oof, way to be blunt about that. I leaned in and surprised her by nuzzling the tip of her muzzle. Xayah’s face flushed a bright red at the touch. “I’ll make sure something like that doesn’t happen again. Don’t worry. No more blowing up in Balefire bombs for me,” I said jokingly, though I suppose I was only half joking.

Xayah smiled and wrapped her hooves around me, hugging me close. “I’ll hold you to that, you foolish pony,” she gave me a small peck on the cheek. The kiss wasn’t much, smaller than others we had shared certainly, but it felt different. We had never kissed alone before. I could feel a very large blush growing on my face

I gave a small, warm laugh and wrapped my own hooves around her. “I had promised you a proper hug once we got out of those stuffy hazmat suits, didn’t I?”

Before Xayah could respond, I pounced on her, the two of us rolling across the blankets as I cuddled into her coat as closely as I could. We rolled to a stop, lying side by side on the bed, our faces muzzle to muzzle. I leaned in, my lips pressing passionately against hers. Xayah practically purred with pleasure as we kissed… and kept kissing. Were we supposed to kiss for this long?

Wait, was I supposed to stop and get air at some point!? I had never done this before, what do I do! I suddenly had a bolt of panic shoot through me as I realised I had no clue what I was doing.

Goddesses, please don’t let me fuck this up!

Just when I thought I was about to run out of breath, Xayah pulled away. Our lips parted, and despite the momentary panic only seconds before, I desperately wanted to go back to kissing. Was that weird of me to want? I don’t know… Damn it, there should be a book on this sort of thing for me to read!

Xayah’s eyes drifted upon a little, staring back at me with a dreamy sort of look I hadn’t seen on her face before. “That was… nice,” she chuckled, a small smile spreading across her face.

I blushed and rubbed the back of my head awkwardly. “Well, you know… we could... keep doing it… y-you know, if you wanted to…” I stumbled, my composure completely lost by the sudden sensation I had just undergone.

Xayah grinned and rolled up on top of me, her scared underside pressing down upon mine. She took my head in her hooves and planted another film kiss on my lips. She pulled away sooner than I would have liked and started moving away.

I was about to protest for her to keep going when Xayah shifted downwards and placed a kiss on my neck. Then my chest. Then my stomach.

My heart started pounding at a hundred miles and hour. Holy shit, this was happening! My whole body felt like it was wiggling with excitement.

Xayah reached the bottom of my barrel. She put a hoof on my stomach to steady herself as she tried to position herself in the right spot. Her hoof was shaking. It was always shaking, but this… this was different. For the first time, I could see how badly it was trembling.

I sighed and put a hoof out to stop her. “Xayah? Are- are you okay?”

Xayah’s left ear twitched and she looked up at me, confused. But there was another look there, very prevalent in her eye. Fear. Fear like I had never seen in her before.

“I- yes… of course. Why would I not be you foolish pony?” Xayah stumbled, clearly trying to hide the look she no doubt knew I could see in her.

I shook my head and sat up a little. “Xayah, I think we need to talk… about what I saw in your head back in the Hollow Shades.”

Xayah tried to smile, only for her thin smile to falter. “I do not know… I do not know of what you are talking about?” But she did. I knew she did.

I took a deep breath. “About what happened to you in New Appleloosa… I know it’s probably not easy for you to talk about, but if we are going to do this, I need to know what you’re comfortable with.”

The zebra nodded slowly and sat up a little, crossing her fore hooves in front of her. “Y-yes. I suppose that is correct…”

We both sat there for a second, not fully knowing what or how to say what needed to be said. “Brisk went through something similar back in Stable 25,” I started, keeping my voice low. “It- it really hurt him… I think it hurt him a lot more than he is willing to let on. If there is anything I can do to make all this easier for you, just tell me and I’ll do it.”

Xayah nodded, keeping her head and gaze facing downward. “I am not sure how I feel. For most of my life I pushed all of my emotions deep down. It left me very confused about many things…” she rightened herself and looked up at me. Most, though not all of the fear that had plagued her eyes was gone. “But knowing that you are willing to do what you can to make me comfortable is all I need. The pony who violated me would not have undergone such lengths. He did not care for my well being. If anything, he set out to destroy it.”

I gave her a small smile, though it was somewhat pained. “Of course. I’m here for you. All of us are. You don’t need to hide what you feel from us. If you are hurting or need something, just say it and any of us will do our best to help you.”

Xayah let her warm smile from before creep back onto her face, this time for real. “And what of you?”

“What of me?” I thought for a second. “I mean, I have tons of emotional baggage, if that’s what you're asking about?”

“But you would be fine if I continued?” Xayah said, her smile widening somewhat.

I nodded slightly. “Yeah, I think I should be fine…” Why was she smiling like that? She looked like she was- Holy Celestia!

My thoughts exploded in my head as Xayah’s tongue found its way into my clit.

And then the door to the room burst open. Brisk marched into the room first, his mouth moving and making words that I couldn’t hear through my sudden unexpected ecstasy. Pyre Blaze followed, Mirra riding atop her back in her natural changeling form.

“I have no idea. What does a fish say when they swim into a wall…” Pyre grunted, clearly tired of the endless stream of bad jokes that Brisk had no doubt been pestering her with for the last little bit.

“Dam!” Brisk chuckled, looking far more proud of himself for the joke than he should have. Pyre just stared at him with the single most unamused expression I had ever seen across her face. Mirra giggled helplessly at the punch line, rolling off of Pyre’s back and flopping to the floor. I was glad to see somepony was able to enjoy Brisk's rather bad sense of humour. Brisk chuckled again. “Hehe, I’ma gonna tell Amber that one. Hey sis!”

He turned to the bed to look at me and froze as he took in the rather intimate moment he had walked in on. His face very quickly went bright red, though I doubt he was blushing even remotely as much as Xayah and I right now.

Xayah peeked over the top of my stomach to look at me. “Um… do you wish for me to stop now or…” My face grew even redder.

I pushed myself up and closed my legs, suddenly feeling very exposed. “NO! I mean… Y-yes... Damn it Brisk…”

Brisk glanced away awkwardly. “Sorry! Clearly this is a bad time! I’ll come back!”

I grumbled. “No, don’t bother… I think the mood has been ruined enough to keep going with that at the moment…” I pulled myself off the bed and tucked my tail between my legs, hoping to hide my currently still wet and winking nether regions.

Both Pyre and Mirra were once again on the ground laughing as they watched the painful awkwardness unfold. Clearly Pyre thought this situation was funnier than any of Brisk’s jokes. Both Xayah and I cast them grumpy stares.

Pyre managed to pull herself back up, wiping a few tears away from her eyes as she chuckled. “Well, now that catastrophe of a moment is over, do you mind if we come in?”

I just grumbled more and as Xayah dragged me into the kitchen with her so we could start getting dinner ready and have at least some privacy.

I was less than talented in the way of making any form of food, so when I say, ‘Xayah and I made dinner,’ what I really mean is, ‘Xayah made dinner while I fumbled around the kitchen awkwardly and made a big mess.’ That said, Xayah more than made up for my lack of cooking ability and once again managed to make one of the best meals any of us had ever had. Not that that was a particularly high bar to meet, there aren't very many good things to eat in the wasteland and I hadn’t even eaten in Stable 25 at all.

We all gathered in the largest room to eat. Pyre, Mirra and Xayah sat atop the three beds while they ate, while Brisk and I sat in the center. Dinner itself was relatively quiet, both from a lack of things to talk about to crimping fatigue to the still lingering awkwardness of what my friends had walked in on Xayah and I doing.

After a few minutes of awkwardness, Brisk cleared his throat. “So like… I think we should set some boundaries or something in the way of PDA or whatever. I don’t want to need to walk in on that again…”

We all very quickly and eagerly agreed.

“I already made a deal with Mirra here that we’ll keep it to a minimum around her,” I said, gesturing to the small changeling beside me who was noisily gnawing on one of Xayah’s famous cookies.

“As much as I tease the two of you for it, I don’t really give much of a damn,” Pyre said flatly, taking a bite of her food. “I’ve been a raider long enough to have see things far worse than you two kissing. But I’m with Brisk. Walking in on you two like that will only be funny so many times.”

“We will make sure we have our own room next time,” I said quickly, my face flushing a bright red. Xayah quickly nodded in agreement as she fiddled with her food.

Brisk seemed to be happy by those very quick and short term. “Great. Glad that the serious stuff is settled…”

I got a bad feeling in my gut. “Uh… what do you mean by the serious stuff?”

Brisk, Pyre and Mirra’s grins were so wide that the sides of their lips practically touched their ears. “He means that now we get to mock you mercilessly about the whole thing!” the changeling filly smirked, fluttering her translucent wings a little.

Both Xayah and I sank deeper into our seats, wishing we could be anywhere but where we currently were.

“I don’t think that will be necessary.”

Brisk grinned more. “Oh, but I think it is sis! I think it very much is.”

I tossed my saddlebag at him playfully. I hadn’t thrown it hard, just hard enough to catch him off guard as it smacked into his face. The saddlebag slumped to the ground with a thunk, the small jar of Buck I had been keeping falling out of the bag and rolling across the ground to rest at Brisk’s hooves.

Brisk glanced down, his eyes locking on the container of Buck. his eyes narrowed.

I gulped and moved forwards to pick it up. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have thrown th-”

“What the fuck is this!” Brisk suddenly spat, bolting to his hooves and clutching the jar of Buck close to his chest. His words were filled with an unexpected venom. “How long have you had these!”

“Brisk I-”

“How long!”

Xayah stood up protectively. “Brisk, I think you need to-”

Brisk growled, cutting Xayah off. “You knew I ran out of Buck Amber! What the fuck! Why didn’t you give these to me!” He stomped his hoof angrily, his eyes burning into me. “Do you have any idea how fucking shit it’s been not having any!”

“Brisk, come on,” I started, reaching a hoof forwards to calm him down. “Give me the Buck.”

Brisk just growled. “I asked how fucking long have you had these Amber!”

I paused. Do I tell him the truth? It didn’t feel right to lie. I dropped my gaze. “Since our first visit to the Four Star Apartments. But you were getting addicted, those things are hurting you!”

Brisk’s expression mixed anger with sheer awe. “You’ve been… since then!” He stomped his hoof again, this time wincing in pain due to the force in which he slammed it. “What the fuck! I thought we were friends!”

Mirra finally joined us on our hooves. “Brisk, are you okay?”

“Am I okay!?” Brisk looked like he was going into hysterics. “I haven't had a single tablet of Buck in three days, only to find out my friend has been hiding them from me!”

“Brisk, you’re overreacting. This is exactly why I didn’t give them to you,” I said, reaching for the jar held aloft in his hoof. “Those things are killing you. Please just give them back.”

Brisk attacked me. His full force ploughed into me before I could even think to defend myself. I was flung backwards, my head crashing into the side of the wall beside the bed. Brisk stood over me, seething with a hate I would never have expected him to direct towards me. His hoof raised, preparing to slam down onto my head.

Xayah pounced, her hooves lashing out and knocking Brisk aside. Brisk stumbled, but managed to stay upright. He swung his hooves, just nearly missing Xayah as she ducked away from his powerful, yet unsteady swing.

Mirra leapt forwards, her curved horn sparking bits of green magic as she charged Brisk. Brisk easily knocked her aside, his lip twisting into a scowl. “Stay out of this kid!”

Xayah lashed out again, this time to be met with a little more resistance as Brisk spun on his fore hooves and bucked backwards, his hind hooves crashing into Xayah’s chin. Xayah fell back, fumbling against the wall beside me as I pulled myself back up.

Brisk charged me again. I readied myself for his attack, only for Pyre to get in the way. The pyromaniac raider stuck her hoof out lazily, sending Brisk off balance and stumbling into the bedpost.

“Alright Brisk, I think that’s enough,” Pyre said, almost bored. Brisk growled and spun around, striking Pyre across the face with a hoof. Pyre blinked at him in shock, surprised he had dared to even lay a blow on her. A foul sneer crossed her face.

Before Brisk could do any more damage, Pyre’s hoof shot out and flipped him onto his back. Brisk struggled, trying to get back onto his hooves like an upside down beetle. Pyre knocked his swinging hooves away and placed a hoof on his chest, pinning him down. “I said that’s enough!” Pyre roared, the walls of the room trembling slightly from her volume.

Brisk glowered up at her before turning his angry and hurt expression over to me. “Why…” He hissed between gritted teeth.

I pulled myself forwards and dared to approach him. “Bro, look at yourself. Those chems are fucking with your head.”

“Don’t call me you’re bro!” Brisk snapped, trying once again to push Pyre off of him to no avail.

I recoiled at that. That hurt, far more than I ever thought it would. I could feel tears start to sting at the corners of my eyes. “B-Brisk… I…”

At the sight of my tear, Brisk seemed to come to his senses. He looked around at all the shocked faces that were looking at him. All eyes were on him now. He trembled a little, a few tears starting to form in his own eyes. “Amber, I didn’t mean that… I- I don’t know what came over me…” he glanced down at the jar of Buck still clutched tightly against his chest. His eyes shifted to the growing bruise on Xayah’s chin before returning to me. “I- I didn’t mean to hurt any pony… I- goddesses…”

I shook my head and looked away from him, unable to maintain eye contact. “I’m going to bed… Pyre, take that Buck from him,” With that I turned and started walking from the room to the main bed. “Come on Xayah.”

As I stalked out of the room, I saw Pyre finally climb off of Brisk, the jar of Buck tight in her mouth. Brisk didn’t move, he just lay there, his eyes shiny from tears as he sobbed on the floor. Mirra gave him a few awkward pats on the shoulder in a childish attempt to sooth him, but it seemed to have very little effect.

Brisk's chest slowly rose and fell as he breathed pain filled breaths, his head curling up into his hooves. His eyes locked with mine just for a moment as I moved away from him. “I’ll fix this… Damn me I’ll fix this…”

As I climbed into bed, I felt the heavy weight of the wasteland fall upon my shoulders once more. We had failed in our mission here. We were supposed to have had one day of relaxation, one day without fighting, but we couldn’t even stop ourselves from fighting each other.

I awoke in the middle of the night to a noise.

Rubbing my eyes awake, I sat up and looked around. Everything seemed in place. Xayah rest beside me, her striped hooves wrapped loosely around my midsection. To my right I could hear the quiet snores of my other friends as they slept.

So why did something feel off?

My eyes landed on the ajar door inset into the wall across from me. Were it not for a thin sliver of pale light that glinted from the opened crack and across the floor, I would have assumed it was still closed. The door swung slightly back and forth on its hinges, creating a small creaking sound. No doubt the sound that had awoken me.

I pulled myself up and gently moved Xayah’s hooves aside, careful to not wake her. I slinked over to the door and peered outside, my eyes darting back and forth across the empty hall as I tried to spot something out of place.

Nothing. Everything seemed just as it should be.

Closing the door, I moved over to the larger bedroom where Brisk, Pyre and Mirra slept. Three lumps rest under the blankets, each one rising and falling slowly as they breathed in and out.

Or at least, that was what it looked like at first glance. I narrowed my eyes, moving a few steps closer to the bed Brisk slept in. The lump beneath the sheets wasn’t moving. I pushed the blanket aside.

Nothing! Brisk was gone!

He wasn’t the only thing gone either. I quickly darted around the room looking for the jar of Buck Pyre had taken from him. It wasn’t there! Brisk must have taken it!

My eyes shot back to the door, now closed and blocking off the hallway beyond. Where the fuck did he go! And why! Did it have to do with our fight! Or the Courser!

I pushed myself towards the door and reefed it open. I had to find him! Before something bad happened to him or he did something bad to himself!

I rushed down the hallway, stopping briefly as I passed the clerk of the Goldentail’s Luxury Suites, who was fast asleep at their desk. I quickly shook them awake.

The clerk bolted upright, his mane falling into their face and temporarily blinding him. “Wha-?! I’m up! I’m up!” He glanced down at me, and gave a slightly annoyed expression. “Oh… What do you want at this goddess damned hour?”

“I’m looking for a Green pony named Brisk, I think he just came down here a few minutes ago? Did you see him?”

“What? The Stable pony with a party hat or something for a cutie mark?” I gave the clerk a nod of affirmation. “Yeah, but that wasn’t a few minutes ago missy, that was almost two hours back.”

“Two hours…” I breathed, still very much in shock. “Where was he going?!”

The clerk knitted his brows together as if trying to remember the events of a rapidly fading dream. “I think he asked me where medical was…”

I sent off bolting down the hallway, ignoring the grumble like yells of the clerk pony as they demanded an explanation for what was going on. I didn’t have one to give him.

I rounded the corner and charged head first into the marketplace. It was mostly empty at this time of the night. A few ponies lingered at some of the vendors, just packing up their wears for the night. For a second I could have sworn that I saw Littlepip and a now cybernetic version of the red, black and white mare I had seen when I first arrived darting away and down a hall.

I turned my attention to the signs hanging over the different areas of the marketplace. If memory serves correctly then… Yes! There! Right beside the sign for the spa was what I was looking for.

The hospital!

I lowered my head and charged towards it again, bursting open the doors and running head first into a grey pony with a bright pink mane and white lab coat just as they went to exit the building. The doctor fell back, landing hard on his rump and rubbing his forehead with a hoof. It was never any fun to get headbutted by a unicorn, even one as small and weak as me.

“Oh, sorry about that,” I said, reaching down to help the doctor back up to his hooves.

The doctor shook his head and let me help him up. “No, my apologies, I should have been looking where I was going. My name is Nurse Heartbeat. I’m afraid both Doctor Helpinghoof and Life Bloom are out at the moment. Now, is there anything that I can do for you?”

I glanced around the room. “Did a green pony come in here? His name’s Brisk. He just ran out and I’m really worried about him,” I quickly shut myself up as I realized I was both rambling and hyperventilating at the same time.

Nurse Heartbeat nodded and gestured for me to follow him as he started moving back into the hospital. “Of course, he is just down here. Quite the nasty addiction he had.”

I blinked. “He… had?” I quickened my pace to keep up with the doctor. “What do you mean by, ‘he had’?”

Heartbeat looked down at me with a sad look. “Brisk dragged himself into the hospital about two hours ago clutching an empty package of Buck, looking for help. That pony is lucky that he didn’t overdose.”

“He came… to get help?” I stuttered, slowly putting everything that happened together. “About the Buck addiction?”

Heartbeat hesitated for a second. “That, and his mental state. He confessed to the Buck he took being an attempt at suicide.”

My heart dropped into my stomach. My whole body suddenly felt heavy and I had the sudden urge to fall over. “Is he… is he okay?”

‘He is better,” Heartbeat said, his face and expression grim. “We managed to flush most of the Buck out of his system. The addiction should be gone, though I am sure that he will be waking up with a terrible hangover in the morning.”

“C-can I see him?”

Heartbeat nodded and pointed towards a door at the end of the hall that we were fast approaching. “He’s just in there. Be gentle with him. This has been a long night.”

I gulped and gave an uncertain nod before pushing open the door and walking in. Nurse Heartbeat hung back for a few seconds before slowly walking in after me.

Brisk lay on a bed in the center of a dark room, his slumbering body shivering underneath the covers as if he were standing in the snow. His hooves clutched and fidgeted at the stained sheets and his eyes seemed to be darting around beneath his eyelids.

I cautiously walked over and placed a hoof on his forehead. It was ice cold, almost death like. I let loose a stifled sigh. “Damn it Brisk. What have you done to yourself?”

“While the addiction is gone, it is unlikely that many of the phycological parts of the addiction will be going anywhere any time soon. He will likely still struggle with coping with certain things without the effect of the chems in his system,” The nurse said from behind me as he took a few careful steps forwards. “It is important that you keep him away from Buck as much as you can. Only use it on him if you have no other choice.”

My tight throat made my forced laugh sound more like a croak. “The only reason he got addicted in the first place was because I had no other choice.”

The nurse just gave an understanding nod. “May I ask, what is your relationship with my patient? You are his marefriend, yes?”

“I’m his sister,” I said flatly, my eyes never leaving Brisk’s frail form. He looked so incredibly weak.

Nurse Heartbeat gave a sad dip of his head. “I am sorry about all of this. These sort of things are never easy.”

I felt Brisk shift a little under my hoof. I looked up to find myself looking into his now open, yet hazy looking eyes. “A-Amber? Sis...?” he croaked out, clearly not fully aware if what he was seeing was real or just a dream.

I clutched his hoof a little tighter. “Yes, Brisk. I’m here. Your sister. How are you feeling?”

Brisk just ignored my question and glazed up at the ceiling above him, his expression distant. “I never meant to hurt anypony… I’m… I’m not a raider. Don’t leave me alone out here…”

I shook my head, a small tear forming in the corner of my eye. “I never said you were a raider Brisk. I’m not going anywhere. Don’t you worry.”

Brisk’s eyes started drifting closed again “I never m-ment to… to hurt anypony sis. I swear… I… I’ll fix this… I told you I'd fix this…” then he fell back against the bed, his body stilling slightly as he drifted into a slightly more peaceful sleep.

“I know it looks bad, but he will be much better by the morning, trust me,” Heartbeat said, pushing a strand of his pink mane out of his face. “That said, I’d recommend that he stay here in the hospital for a few more days. How long will you two be staying here in Tenpony?”

I grimaced. “We were planning to leave tomorrow morning…”

Nurse Heartbeat’s grimace matched my own. “I suppose like most wastelanders, you are leaving to do something important and don’t have time to wait around?” I gave a sad smirk to confirm his guess. The nurse gave a small sigh. “Very well. In that case I would like to request permission to accompany you two on your journey across the wasteland. At least until Brisk is fully recovered.”

My mouth dropped open. “You want to join us…? While crossing the wasteland…? What about your job here at Tenpony?” I didn’t even know who this pony was, let alone except for him to be coming with us. Granted, I hadn’t really known any of my companions until after they had started traveling with me.

Heartbeat gave a quick nod and sat down in front of me. “I took an oath to protect and help every pony that I can. I would wish to not leave Brisk’s side until he is back to full health. Besides, Helpinghoof and Life Bloom have got Tenpony tower covered. I spend most of my days just watching over their shoulders anyway,” The nurse looked over Brisk before letting his eyes wander over my own body. “Not to mention that it looks as if you get a fair amount of combat outside the safety of Tenpony. I am sure you could both us a medic.”

I thought that over for a second. It made sense, and he was right. A medic would be nice to have in a pinch. Finally I gave him a small smile. “Alright, your in. Just be warned that we have a tendency to get into situations well over our heads.”

Heartbeat gave a smug grin. “I spent a few years in the wasteland myself before coming to Tenpony. I doubt you will be able to find anything out there I haven’t seen already.”

Bang!

Something crashed into the hallway outside. Both Heartbeat and I jumped, our heads swiveling to face the doorway.

Heartbeat knitted his brows together again. “Well now who would be up and making noise at this hour?”

I pushed open the door and started moving from the hospital, Heartbeat trailing swiftly behind. Reaching the end of the hallway, I moved out into the Marketplace. At once my eyes landed on a trail of blood splattered across the floor.

I didn’t wait a single second. I bounded forwards, my head low as I followed the gory trail. Up ahead I heard a muffled yelp, followed shortly by a strange zap of some sort of electricity. I saw a flash of blue light illuminate the crack at the bottom of a door to my left and bolted towards it.

I swung the door open and burst into what appeared to be a small closet. Emissary lay on the floor, five large, bleeding holes that looked like they were caused by a powerful energy weapon had been ripped open in his chest. He looked up at me, his whole body shivering from the effort.

“Th-they to-took him…” The Friendship Express operative stammered, his voice weak and fading. “They took Rubber Band!”

I knelt down and quickly applied pressure to the bleeding wounds, but there were just to many. “Heartbeat! He’s hurt! Get in here!”

Heartbeat was by my side in a second, his hooves working quickly as he began to simultaneously apply pressure and pull out a medic kit.

Despite the clear pain sprawled across his face, Emissary reached forwards and grabbed my hoof. I felt him place something cold and flat in it. Looking down, I saw he had pressed a talisman into my hoof bearing the image of a lantern on it. The same one I had seen around his neck and in Flask’s possession back in Fetlock. “Something is h-happening Amber… something big…” He coughed, blood drizzling from the side of his mouth, thick and black in the darkness. “Follow th-the Friendship Trail… Find the Friendship Express… Tell them… Tell them th-that they have it…”

“Have what!” I asked, my hooves fumbling through my saddlebags as I tried to find a healing potion. I didn’t have any.

“Th-th-the…” He started to trail off, only for a fit of coughing to bring him back to consciousness. “The Institute has it! It is coming! Goddesses, I can’t stop it! The Utopia Program!”

I felt his hoof tense up, only to go limp. His body seemed to sink, as if a balloon deflating. His eyes rolled back into his head as he stilled. with a final exhale of breath, Emissary lay dead.

Heartbeat sat back, his blood soaked hooves still pressed over Emissary’s bleeding barrel. He glanced over at me with growing intrigue. “The Institute? I take what I said back. This is something new…”

Footnote: Half way to next level.

Author's Note

Due to covid-19, my classes are being cut short. As unfortunate as this situation is, hopefully I will be able to use this to my advantage and get a few more chapters out before my schedule gets busy again.

Hope you enjoyed this chapter, and have a good day.

Fallout: Equestria belongs to Kkat.
Fallout: Equestria - Project Horizons belongs to Somber

Chapter XVIII: Only the Damned Walk Away

“I calculated your chance of success to be… well, I don’t want to be morbid...”

Lists.

Most of my time in the wasteland was spent trying to achieve a singular goal. Get the A.A.S.S. back from the cyber ponies, get back home and keep everypony safe, hunt down Kamari and get my revenge. It was stressful at times, sure, but at least I had known what I was getting into and what I had to do next.

Life since the destruction of the MAS tower was anything but having direction. There were simply too many things on my list of things to do to keep track of. Find Mirra’s mother, get the A.A.S.S. back from the slaver, save Rubber Band form the Institute, find the Friendship Express. The list just kept going and growing.

But one thing was always at the forefront of my brain. Getting the A.A.S.S. back from Stern before she could get it to Red Eye. The A.A.S.S. had been my goal since the beginning, my drive to help me undergo the terrors of the wastes. I wasn’t ready to part with that objective, not yet anyway.

Nurse Heartbeat had taken to meeting Xayah, Pyre and Mirra better than I had hopped. We weren't the most pleasant gang of wastelanders to meet, but he managed to stay somewhat calm and composed, though I could tell Pyre’s snark did tend to put him a little more on edge than he would have liked. He had even found Mirra to be more interesting than frightening, much to both my and the small changelings' relief. Despite his rather unceremonious and abrupt introduction to our little gang of misfits, he seemed to be fitting in with us pretty well.

Brisk was a little less graceful in the morning. True to Heartbeat’s prediction, he seemed a lot healthier and coherent after a few hours of sleep than he had the night before, but he still seemed a little dizzy and out of it. He spent most of the morning in silence, trying his best to avoid eye contact with everypony and staring down at his hooves.

I’d have to sit down and have a talk with him when I had a moment.

Emissary’s body was quickly swept away by a few of the Tenpony guards and most of the blood that blotted the glistening floor was very quickly cleaned up. It didn’t take long before all signs of the gruesome murder had been completely washed away. I doubted that most ponies in the tower would ever even know the murder even happened at all.

I wished I could have done more for the dead Friendship Express operative, but I had things to do and ponies to stop.

I placed my hoof over the strange Friendship Express talisman that now dangled from my neck. I hadn’t put much thought into it since Emissary gave it to me, I had been a little more focused on his death at the time. But it was starting to catch my interest now. What did it do? Could it help me find the Friendship Express? I knew it could open certain locks that the Friendship Express designed, but was there anything else?

I doubted I’d get a chance to find out for a while longer. Such was the life of a wasteland wanderer it seemed.

So as soon as I had the chance, I got everypony packed up and out the large doors of Tenpony Tower. The slavers outside had withdrawn, letting us leave with the ease that was supposed to come with leaving the tower behind.

The ruins of Manehattan seemed even more desolite in the pale morning light, the cracked and broken down peaks of skyscrapers giving the skyline a jagged and thorn like appearance.

We had quickly started our way back to the Fetlock suburbs. I personally had no idea where this Stable 29 that the Applejack Rangers were supposedly holed up in was, but Pyre seemed to have a pretty good idea as she walked ahead of the group confidently, her newly patched up power armour gleaming.

I glanced down at my own patched up Stable barding. Coco Pommel had done a fantastical job of fixing it up, having patched all the rips and tears to look as if they had never been there at all. She had added a few dark blue patches over my shoulder and hocks to add a little bit of extra protection that I greatly appreciated. It seemed to have made my barding a little heavier, but nothing that would slow me down too much. It sure beat combat or metal armour. I had enough time swinging a gun around in my mouth, let alone a heavy suit of armour on my body.

“So how long are you going to stay with us?” Mirra asked Heartbeat curiously from atop Pyre’s back as we walked along. “You seem fun, and I wouldn’t mind a few more friends.”

Nurse Heartbeat gave the changeling a warm smile. “Until Brisk Spark is back to full health,” he said politely, giving a gentle nod in Brisk’s direction. “Though it has been too long since I left the comfort of Tenpony. I would not be unopposed to traveling with you a little longer if you five would have me?”

Mirra glanced back at me as if asking for my approval to keep a puppy. I just gave her a shrug. I wasn’t the leader of this group. It wasn’t my choice if he stayed or went. Mirra gave a happy squee. “Eeeee! More friends!”

I glanced over at Xayah who was walking quietly beside me, the hood of her stealth cloak pulled over the top of her head. “Do you think these Applejack rangers will be willing to help us?” I asked, casting a nervous glance in the direction Pyre was leading us. “I mean, Pyre seems pretty certain, but none of us have even met these ponies before. And not much comradery happened in our last run in with rangers.”

Xayah gave me a casual shrug. “I do not pretend to like how Pyre handles things, but she is more experienced in the wasteland than the rest of us. If she says they will help, then they most likely will.”

I rolled that around in my mind and tried to weigh just how much trust I should put into Pyre’s plans. Sure she was experienced, but she was also a raider. Her plans tended to involve a lot of raidery and violent action.

Not that my plans were usually any better.

I looked down at my pipbuck and checked over the audio files I had taken from Silver Ace’s terminal. By this point, I had listened to almost all of them. There were a few I had listened to last night while I awaited Brisk to recover, but they had been little more than statistics for things I didn’t understand or updates to things I had no context for.

Throughout his logs, Silver Ace mentioned something he referred to as the Collective numerous times, though I couldn't seem to figure out what exactly he was talking about. From what I could glean about it was the Silver Ace considered this Collective to be some sort of anomaly and byproduct. Though byproduct of what, I couldn't be sure.

Scrolling through the logs, I noticed there was only a single file I had been yet to listen to. With nothing better to do while we walked, I clicked the file and let the audio file play out.

Almost immediately, I could tell that something about this audio file was different. My ears were filled with the sound of heavy panting and frantic hoofsteps. Far off in the distance I could hear the distinct and near deafening billow of blaring sirens, signalling an oncoming doom. The sound of a radio newscast echoed somewhere nearby as a news reporter preached about some coming disaster. The hoofsteps came to a halt and I heard the sound of a metal door sliding open.

“Fuckers!” I heard the nasally sound of Pure Blood's voice shout, his ragged breath coming out in heavy, huffs. “This wasn’t supposed to fucking happen!”

“Calm down, we need to get to safety,” I heard the aged, yet surprisingly relaxed voice of Silver Ace sooth. “We need to get to the castle, or this will have all been for nothing.”

I heard a loud snort of anger, followed by the sound of a hoof slamming against someone's head as Pure Blood bucked Silver Ace. There was a yelp and a thud as Silver Ace fell and was slammed against the ground. “This is all your fucking fault! You damn fool!” Pure Blood shrieked, his voice rising as he went into hysterics. "You and that damned fucking pegasus! You stuck your muzzle where it shouldn’t have gone!”

I heard Silver Ace growl as he pulled himself back to his hooves. “I did what I felt was best for Equestria. It doesn’t matter anymore I suppose. Equestria is going to burn…”

The blaring sirens in the distance began to get louder and I could make out the tinny voice of an announcer speaking over some sort of radio. “Please get to the safety of your designated Stable!” The voice rang out, its stoic tone sending chills down my spine, even two hundred years later. “This is not a drill! Repeat, this is not a drill!”

“Utopia better work! Especially after that catastrophe Chrysalis caused!” Pure Blood snarled. I could hear him closing in on Silver Ace again. “If it doesn’t then we are all of us damned!”

“Then perhaps we should get to the castle,” Silver Ace drawled again, the small clopping of hoofsteps ringing in my ears as he took a few steps back from the raging Canterlot elite. “And it will work. All we need is the A.A.S.S. in place and it will be fully operational. I have had Scootaloo install it at the castle for us, if you would just get out of my way so we could get there!”

There was a tentative pause as Pure Blood weighed his options, the only sound being the thunderous roar of the far off sirens. Finally I heard him give a snooty snort. “Fine, lead the way.”

“Our transport should be arriving at my apartment at any moment. We can leave Manehattan through there,” Silver Ace snapped. There was a sudden boom in the distance and the recording filled with static. “Shit! What was that!”

“My goddesses, Canterlot is gone!” I heard the news reporter gasp from the television. “The Prin-princesses are gone... goddesses…” There was another far off boom and the television went dead.

“We need to hurry!” Pure Blood spat. There was the hasty sound of galloping, only for the noise to be overcome by the ever growing sound of the sirens. The wailing sounds continued for a few more minutes before the recording finally went dead.

I looked down at my pipbuck as the final recording from Silver Ace’s terminal came to a close. I had learned less than I wanted to from the files, but I had never really known what I had been expecting to learn in the first place.

A strange thought bounced around in my mind, not for the first time, but definitely the most in a long while. If the A.A.S.S. was made for whatever this Utopia Program was, what had it been doing in Stable 25? Furthermore, if what Silver Ace had said in the recording was true, shouldn’t it have been at whatever this castle they were talking about was. And how did Red Eye and the cyber ponies fit into all of this? Did they even have a part of this or were they a part of something else altogether like Kamari had been?

So many questions I knew would probably take me a lifetime to oncover, assuming I ever uncovered them at all.

“Heads up everypony,” Pyre shouted back from the front of the group. “We’re almost there.”

She hadn’t even finished her sentence when several green bars popped up on my EFS. I could tell Brisk and Pyre spotted them on their own EFS as well, and Mirra seemed to be sniffing at the air like a bloodhound. She quickly shifted into a brown earth pony filly. She seemed to be getting better at controlling her magic and transformations after a good night's rest and the black charred look on the tip of her horn had died down significantly. A few more days and she would probably be back to her full strength, whatever that full strength that was.

“There appears to be some rangers up ahead,” Brisk grunted, breaking his silence for the first time that morning as he looked at the tags on his pipbuck. He pointed in the general direction of the green bars, informing everypony that didn’t have access to an EFS.

I intinctivally went for my weapon, only to remember we were trying to take a diplomatic approach.

I noted quickly that a small marker appeared on my Pipbuck map as we neared a small street corner. ‘Stable 29’ it read.

As we round the corner, we found ourselves only a few feet away from a group of around ten ponies, all clad in heavy power armour. True to DJ Pon3’s broadcast, they were all sporting a new black and red paint job and bore the symbol of the Steel Rangers with the new addition of three apples on it.

They had already spotted us, no doubt all having EFS of their own. Their weapons were drawn, but they didn’t seem to be hostile. Their bars were still green, so I took that as a good sign.

A large Ranger fully clad in power armour took a diplomatic step towards us. I forced myself not to gulp as I took in the rangers rather excessive weaponry. He had a huge grenade machine gun on the right side of his battle saddle while the other side held a massive box like gun that I could only assume was a particularly lethal rocket launcher.

I quickly made a note to not let myself get in a fight with that pony. I would probably meet a very quick and rather explosive death.

Everypony stood in silence for a moment, not fully sure how to proceed. The ranger that had stepped up to us turned to glare at Xayah for a bit before finally looking back to be and making what I could only assume was some snort like grunt. “You are currently in Applejack Ranger territory. State your business.”

Not the friendliest introduction, but certainly a step up from my last meeting with the Steel Rangers. I quickly put on my best smile and tried not to look threatening.

“We are hunting down a group of Red Eye’s slavers that are somewhere in the Fetlock area. We were hoping to get some assistance,” I said meekly, hoping they were interested in helping some random wasteland ponies like us.

The Applejack ranger glanced back at his companions and beckoned them over. The group exchanged a few words amongst themselves that I couldn’t hear as they approached before the leader turned back to me. “You’re in luck,” The leader monotoned. “We just received a distress signal coming from a group of scribes we had located out at the Fluttershy Medical center not far from here.”

The leader tapped something on the side of his helmet and suddenly a fearful, static filled voice started playing out. The sound of panicked breathing and gunfire echoed in the background of the recording. “This is scribe Butterscotch to Stable 29! We are holed up in the Fluttershy medical center and under attack by Slavers! Crusader Dustbowl is dead. I repeat, Dustbowl is dead!”

A loud gunshot rang out and the message went dead. The lead ranger looked up at me. “We were on our way to give our support. You are welcome to accompany us.”

I gave a quick nod. “You can count us in. It seems our goals are aligned.”

The leader gave a grunt-like nod and turned back to the rest of his squadron. “Alright, lets move out.”

A ranger mare stepped up to the ranger and gave a small salute like gesture. “Elder, are you sure you do not wish to remain in the Stable? I could easily take over the mission for you, and-”

The lead ranger shook his head. “I would much rather defend those who are in need then sit in the Stable Star Paladin Crossroads. I will be fine.”

Pyre walked up to me, Mirra still clinging to her back. “I must say, I didn’t expect that to work… Rangers aren’t usually that cooperative.”

I glared at her. “What do you mean you didn’t expect that to work? This was your idea!”

Pyre shrugged. “Eh, I figured we’d need to fight them to get them to work with us. That’s usually how our missions go.”

“You thought that we would need to-” I slapped my hoof against my face. “I need to stop listening to your plans. You’re going to get us killed.”

My irritating raider friend just grinned back. “Well duh. I gotta keep our adventures interesting somehow,” she trotted away from me, carrying a smiling Mirra with her.

“Now can I shoot her,” Brisk grumbed from beside me, rubbing his still dizzy head with a hoof. “Before she does manage to get us shot.”

I just gave him a shrug. “Bro, if shooting Pyre was a solution, I think you would have done it already. Besides, we don't shoot friends.”

Brisk just grumbled something I couldn’t hear and followed after the Applejack Rangers.

I glanced over at Heartbeat as he started to follow after Brisk. “Are you sure Brisk is going to be okay? He still seems a little out of it. Not to mention on the grouchy side.” I asked, almost afraid of the answer.

Heartbeat just gave me a comforting smile and tucked a strand of pink mane behind his ear. “I’m sure he’ll be grouchy for a few more days, but the dizziness should go away soon enough. Worry not, I am here if he needs anything.”

That was comforting at least.

I turned back to Xayah who was still standing beside me expectantly. “Alright, you ready?”

She gave me a weird look. “I do not think I am ever ready to charge into battle against a bunch of slavers, but I suppose now is as good a time as any.”

The Fluttershy medical center was closer than I had been expecting. We hadn’t even been walking for ten minutes when the large, box-like building started rising up in front of us. The structure wasn’t much to look at, just a large grey cube with a large set of broken double doors that now hung off of their hinges.

A large group of slavers were camped outside; far more than there had been when we were attacked on the train from the Hollow Shades. The only reason I could tell it was the same group was because I spotted a few of the same slavers amongst the much larger group. They must have joined up with another slaver caravan while we were in Tenpony.

Looking down at the group of well armed slavers, I suddenly became extremely thankful that I had taken Pyre’s advice to team up with the Applejack rangers, despite her rather violent thinking. There were way more down there than we would have been able to fight on our own.

A few large tents had been set up around a large fire in front of the medical center and a collection of cage filled wagons dotted the side of the building. Even from this distance I could see that the cages held quite a numerous amount of ponies.

Stern was taking a go big or go home strategy right now, and she was definitely going big.

The Applejack rangers quickly took cover behind a ruined house a few miles away from the medical center.

“Alright, we need a recon team to go out and see how many we are up against,” The lead ranger said in his commanding and headstrong voice. “They have captives, so we are going to want to make this quick. We don’t want civilian casualties.”

Mirra’s hoof shot up. “Oh oh! Pick me! I can sneak in! I’m really good at Sneaking!”

The Applejack Ranger Elder gave me a crooked look. “You brought a child with you?”

Mirra crossed her hooves and frowned at him. “Hey! I’m not a child! I’m like… actually I have no idea how old I am… but I’m not a child!”

“You’re a child, kid,” I shot back, giving her a grin. Mirra stuck her tongue out at me with a pout. I looked back at the elder. “And there’s more to her than meets the eye. She’s got a trick or two behind her hoof.”

“I can go with her. I can keep her safe,” Xayah added, pulling up her stealth cloak hood and flickering out of view for a second. I could see the elder hesitate for a second, before finally nodding.

I raised my new combat shotgun and cocked it. “I’ll cover their backs if they get into trouble. I’m pretty small and don’t have power armour like you guys, so I should be more stealthy than most of you anyway.”

The Elder gave another nod. “Alright. Find out how many we are dealing with and report back to us here,” He glanced around at the rest of the ponies. He quickly pointed to two rangers. “I want you two ready a few feet back from them in case things go south. The rest of you, await further instruction.”

Before I could move away, Pyre grabbed the collar of my Stable Barding and pulled me close. When she spoke, her voice was a low whisper that only I could hear. “Keep Mirra safe,” Was all she said.

I looked up at the big raider, her expression unreadable behind the fully enclosed helmet. “Of course I will. You don’t even need to ask.”

“I know…” Pyre said, her voice dropping an octave or two. She glanced over at where Mirra and Xayah were waiting for us. “But I care about that kid Amber. I don’t think I’ve ever cared about somepony like that before. Not even Viscera… I don’t want her hurt.”

I gave a small nod. “If things go bad, I’ll take the bullet for her.”

Pyre let go of my barding and let me join with Xayah and Mirra as we made our way over to the slaver camp.

Up closer, the slavers were an even more intimidating group. They might not have been as bloodsoaked and savage as raiders, but their extensive arsonal and more militarized fashion made them look much more formidable.

Like I had seen from afar, they had a large collection of ponies in cages. Some of them appeared to be scribes from the Applejack rangers as expected, but I could see quite a few wastelanders among them as well, almost all of them unicorns. They didn’t seem to be in very good condition, with whip marks across their backs and dark bruises marring their hides. On the bright side, none of them seemed to be dead.

“So, how many do you think that is?” I asked, peering over Xayah’s shoulder as we crouched behind a large boulder a few feet away.

“I count fifty,” Mirra squeaked from atop my head. She wasn’t heavy, but I wasn’t very strong. I don’t know how Pyre managed to carry her around everywhere and still wear that heavy armour. “Of course, that’s not including any slavers that might be inside the tents.”

“I don’t see Stern,” Xayah pointed out, scanning over the group of slavers with her emerald green eyes. “Shouldn’t she be here as well?”

I nodded. “If what I’ve been hearing is true, Stern won’t be heading back to Fillydelphia without a large collection of slaves in tow.”

“Perhaps she is in one of the tents?” Xayah suggested. “It would keep her out of sight of any snipers that might want to try getting a lucky shot on Red Eye’s second in command.”

“Maybe, but we’d need to get inside the tents to be sure,” I grunted, my eyes locking with a tent that had two guards stationed outside. “Any idea on how to get into those?”

I could almost feel Mirra buzzing with excitement atop my head. No wait… her insectoid wings actually were buzzing.

“I think I might have an idea,” the tiny changeling grinned, pointing a hoof out at something near the cages. I had to squint to get a good look at what she was pointing at.

It was a slaver. A young slaver to be exact. She couldn’t have been much older than twelve. She was dressed in a small suit of combat armour that I felt might actually fit me and she had a small revolver strapped to her leg. I had to grit my teeth together to resist a scream of anger. These bastards had raised a kid to be a slaver!?

I glanced up at Mirra, mostly to look away from the slaver child than anything else. “Okay? So what’s your plan?”

Mirra gave me a flat look and giggled a little before erupting in a small burst of green flame. I jumped with surprise at the sudden burst of fire attop my head, only to find that the flames didn’t seem to hurt me any. When the fire died down, Mirra had changed into an exact replica of the slaver filly, though missing the small suit of combat armour.

The changeling gave me a cocky grin. “Infiltration.”

I gawked at her. “You want to go into a slaver camp in disguise by yourself!” I had to put a hoof over my mouth to keep from making any noises loud enough to alert the slavers of our presence.

Mirra just rolled her eyes. “Do you have a better plan?” She gave me a flat look. “Besides, I won’t be going alone silly. We can hide you under Xayah’s stealth cloak and have you follow me in while Xayah covers us with her sniper from here.”

I glanced at Xayah to get her opinion. She just gave me a shrug. “Your call.”

I sighed. “Alright, but we’re going to have to foalnap that slaver filly somehow so she doesn’t stumble across a second her and raise the alarms,” I slapped my face with a hoof. “That was not something I ever thought I would need to say.”

Mirra just gave me another one of her grins. “Amber, I’m a changeling. Kidnapping and replacing people is kinda my specialty.”

I rubbed a hoof to my temple. “I think the more I learn about you, the more you terrify me.”

I grumbled as I shuffled forwards under Xayah’s stealth cloak, Mirra clinging to the underside of my barrel like a koala bear. “This is ridiculous,” I muttered, trying my best not to topple over while Bearing the small changelings weight.

Mirra simply chuckled. “Get more stealth cloaks then.”

“They aren’t easy to come by,” I grunted back, taking another small step and finally pulling myself up behind the cage closest to the slaver filly. Up close, I could make out the slaver fillies amber coat. It was similar in colour to my eyes, though perhaps a few shades darker. “Alright, what now?” I hissed at Mirra, trying my best to keep my voice low.

“Just give it a second,” Mirra hissed back, finally letting go of my barrel and dropping to the ground below my hooves. While she probably could have stood completely upright while standing under a pony like Brisk or Pyre, Mirra had to lay on her stomach while underneath me.

A large slaver walked forwards, tapping on the cage we were hiding behind and making the pony inside jump with fear. The slaver chuckled and glanced down at the slaver filly who was giving him a weird look. “What? You can’t tell me you don’t like watching them squirm?”

The slaver filly shrugged. “Don’t really care for it. I’m here for the caps, not the joy of slaving.”

The larger slaver shook his head. “I will never know why Big Mino takes such a liking to you. I heard he likes tough slavers. You don’t look so tough.”

“I think he just thinks I’m cute,” The filly slaver scowled back. “Rumor has it the big guy is into fillies.”

The larger slaver scoffed. “That ain’t no rumor Whip Slash. Big Mino doesn’t even take his filly slaves back to Fillydelphia half the time. Keeps ‘em for himself. So what? You fuckin’ the big guy or somethin’?”

The slaver filly I now knew as Whip Slash blushed a bright red. “I am not! Red Eye would have his head for that and you know it!”

The slaver just chuckled. “Red Eye would have his head if he knew Mino was taking you out into the field at all.”

“Do you want something Potshot?” Whip Slash asked, her eyes narrowing slightly. “Or are you just here to annoy me and question my contribution to this team?”

Potshot raised his hooves in mocking surrender. “Oh I’m not questioning anything. We all know you bring in slaves better than most of us. Fuck if I know how you do it. I just wanted to have fun with the slaves is all.”

“Well you can have fun with them later,” Whip Slash scowled back. “I don’t need you distracting me while I’m on watch duty.”

Potshot groaned. “Fine fine. No need to be a cunt about it. I’ll get somepony to come relieve you of duty in an hour or so.”

She gave him a small nod that might have been considered a thank you as Potshot turned and walked back to join the slavers around the fire. She followed him with her eyes for a moment before going back to scanning the area for trouble.

Mirra nudged me and gave me a grin. “Watch this.” Mirra waited a few seconds, watching Potshot from a distance. Finally I saw Potshot crawl into one of the tents and out of view. The second he was gone, Mirra spoke up, this time just loud enough for Whip Slash to hear. “Hey, Slash… check this out…” Her voice had become identical to Potshot’s. Even I jumped a little with surprise.

Whip Slash’s ears shot up and she looked around. “Potshot? I thought I asked you to buck off?”

“Yeah, well I don’t listen,” Mirra said back in a stage whisper. “Now come check this out,” She had to hold a hoof to her mouth to stop from giggling.

“Where are you?” Whip Slash asked, her head whipping around to spot him. She was unsuccessful.

“Behind the wagon,” Mirra informed the young slaver, her voice still perfectly mimicking Potshot’s own.

Whip Slash narrowed her eyes and started moving around the wagon. “What the fuck? How did you get behind me without me seeing you?” She turned the corner, only to see nothing standing behind it. She looked straight through us, unable to see us while obscured by the stealth cloak. She took a cautious step forward. “Potshot?”

Mirra’s horn flared and wrapped around the slaver filly, dragging her under the stealth cloak with us. Before Whip Slash could yelp with surprise, my hoof clamped down hard over her mouth, silencing her. She struggled, trying to break free from my grip, only to go deathly still as her eyes landed on Mirra.

The small changeling grinned at her, showing off her sharpened fangs and forked tongue. “You yell, you die,” Mirra hissed, taking on an intimidating tone I didn’t realise she had. She was threatening enough that I had to resist the urge to quake in fear myself. She leaned down closer so she was almost muzzle to muzzle with Whip Slash. “Are you going to stay quiet?”

Whip Slash nodded quickly, her eyes wide with fear. She gave a small whimper like sound, but nothing loud enough to alert anypony of our presence. I slowly pulled my hoof off of her mouth and let her breath. She took quick, ragged breaths of air, clearly in the middle of hyperventilating. I glanced down at Mirra. “So… What next?”

Mirra sneered and continued to stare at Whip Slash. “You wouldn’t mind if I borrowed your combat armour and pistol, would you?”

Whip Slash couldn’t have agreed to our demands faster.

In less than a minute, Mirra looked exactly like Whip Slash, this time complete with armour and revolver. I quickly tied and gagged Whip Slash up behind the cage and joined the disguised Mirra in front of the cages.

The pony in the cage we had been hiding behind was looking at us curiously, no doubt confused what they had just witnessed.

Mirra stomped her now amber hoof on the ground a few times, signalling to Xayah that we had successfully taken Whip Slash’s place. I couldn’t see Xayah, but I hoped she saw us.

I leaned down and whispered in Mirra’s ear. “Alright, what next?”

Mirra shrugged. “Just follow me and make sure I don’t get killed, okie? I can do a lot of things, but I don’t think I could kill somepony.”

“Didn’t you just threaten to kill Whip Slash if she made noise?”

Mirra starred in my general direction with a flat glare. “It’s called bluffing Amber. I’m not you. I can’t just kill somepony.”

I hated that that was something that could be said about me now. I could kill… what the fuck had happend to me.

Doing her damndest job to look casual and as if she belonged there, Mirra started moving away from the cages and towards the tents. I silently followed behind her, my combat shotgun raised as I awaited an attack. No attacks came.

It felt weird to be so casually walking through a slaver camp like this. If you could consider wearing a stealth cloak and following a disguised changeling casual.

Mirra walked up to the first tent and popped her head in. A second later she popped back out, with an awkward smile on her face. “Sorry, wrong tent…” without breaking character she leaned over to where I was and whispered. “Two slavers…” then moved to the next tent.

I continued following behind. My eyes darted to a slaver as they moved up to Mirra. I raised my gun to fire, expecting him to attack.

“Hey Slash,” The slaver grunted, patting Mirra on the head roughly before moving on. I let out a small sigh of relief.

Mirra gave him a small scowl. “Hey yourself,” She turned and poked her head into another tent, only to once again draw it out a second later. “Sorry, wrong tent.”

Mirra quickly walked over to the next tent and stuck her head in. The second she opened the flap, I started hearing the sound of the two ponies inside. I felt myself suddenly blushing from horn to hoof. I didn’t even know my hooves could blush!

“Oh yes! Harder! Harder!” A mare inside groaned, her voice accompanied by the sound of rough, wet slaps. “I’m almost there! I’m going to… I’m going to…”

I could see Mirra’s mouth drop open a little and a small drizzle of drool roll down her lip. She quickly licked the drool up. “U-uh… Sorry. W-wrong t-tent…”

The slapping sound paused for a second. “Slash?” It was a male voice this time, panting and breathless. “You want to join us?”

I could see Mirra genuinely pondering the question for a second. I leaned in quickly and whispered in her ear. “Snack later. Infiltration now.”

Mirra gave me a small groan, then shook her head at the two slavers inside. “M-maybe later…” she quickly ducked out of the tent before she could change her mind and join them.

We quickly moved up to the last tent, this one with two slaver pony guards stationed outside, both clad in sturdy combat armour. One of them quickly took a step forward as Mirra approached them. “The fuck do you think you’re doing?” The slaver asked, his voice a low snarl.

“Um… going inside,” Mirra suggested, trying to move towards the door again.

The slaver pushed her back. “Into Big Mino’s tent? Are you fucking crazy Slash?”

Mirra rolled her eyes. “What? Is he still having that meeting with Stern or something?” I held my breath. How did Mirra know Stern and this Mino character had been having a meeting? Was she guessing? Is so, that was a ballsy move.

The two guards glanced at each other. “Did you not hear?” the one who hadn’t spoken yet asked. Mirra gave her a small, innocent shake of her head. “Stern took ten of her slavers to get the last of those scribes out of the medical center.”

“So Mino is alone in there right now?” Mirra pushed.

One of the guards knitted their brows together, but he gave a tentative nod. “Yeah, what’s it to ya?”

Mirra gave a shrug. “I don’t know. Just bored I guess. I’ll see you two later,” She quickly turned and walked away from the slaver guards, leaving them with a slightly confused look on their face. Eventually they shrugged and went back to guard duty.

Once we were out of earshot, Mirra leaned into me. “Alright, that’s everything. Let's go get Xayah and get back to the rest of them.”

Before we could start heading towards Xayah, a voice called out. “Whip Slash? Fuck you doin’ away from the slaves?”

I turned to see Potshot striding towards us, a confused look on his scarred face. Mirra gave a small smile. “Oh… uh… I was relieved of my duty early. You won’t need to send anypony to take my spot in an hour anymore.”

Potshot glanced over at the cages. “I don’t see anypony over there?” He cocked his eyebrow and gave Mirra a funny look. “You aren’t… leaving your post are you?” His voice had dropped to a sinister whisper.

Mirra took a nervous step back and scratched at the back of her head awkwardly. “Hehe… Um… maybe…” Potshot’s eyes narrowed at her.

I leveled my combat shotgun with the back of Potshot’s head, certain our cover was about to be blown at any second. After a second, Potshot lifted his head away and laughed. “Good on you Slash. And here I thought you were some goody two fucking shoes that always followed the rules. Good ta see you bein’ lazy like the rest of us. Don’t worry, I won’t tell Big Mino on ya.” he chuckled for a second, before walking away to once again join the fire.

Both Mirra and I let out a long breath. That could have gone way worse.

A few minutes later Xayah, Mirra and I pulled back up behind the broken down house next to the rest of the Applejack Rangers, a squirming and tied up Whip Slash held aloft in my magic.

“You aren’t going to get away with this,” The slaver filly growled as I tied her to a rusted mailbox.

I just gave her a smug grin and a small pat on the head. “You’re welcome for not killing you,” I said smugly, turning away from the grumpy slaver filly captive and looking at the rest of the gathering. “Alrighty, we’ve got about fifty-seven slavers down there. Fifty in the open and seven or so inside the tents, one of which being their boss,” I informed them, relaying all the information Mirra had told me. “Then we have Stern and about ten more slavers inside the building. Apparently there are a few scribes still in there that need our help.”

“And the captives?” The Applejack ranger elder questioned with a grunt. “How are they?” Heartbeat gave a nod as if to inquire the same question.

“Not great,” Mirra admitted from beside me, wiggling over to Pyre and hopping up onto her back. Even though the helmet, I could see Pyre grinning. “A lot of them are beat up and in pretty rough shape, but they’re all still alive it seems.”

Xayah gestured to Whip Slash who was currently trying to gnaw her way out of her bindings. “The captives are currently unguarded. If the slavers plan to use them as leverage in an attack, we’ll have a few moments before any guns start getting pointed at their heads.”

The Applejack Ranger elder gave a grunt of acknowledgement before turning to the ranger standing beside him. “Crossroads, Take five rangers and draw the slavers attention to the left and away from the captives,” He then gestured towards me and my group. “I’ll take these ponies into an assault from the front. Meanwhile, the rest of you will get the captives out of there and return them here where Nurse Heartbeat can give them medical attention,” he pointed to the ground we were standing on, then to Heartbeat a few paces away from me. “Any questions?”

“What about Stern and her slaver inside the medical center?” Brisk asked, raising his hoof in the air.

The Ranger just gave a grunt. “With any luck, they will remain inside of the structure until we have the perimeter secured.”

“Aren’t you forgetting something?” A voice piped up. We all looked around, trying to figure out who had spoken. After a second, all of our eyes settled on Whip Slash, who had somehow wiggled around to a point where she dangled upside down from the mailbox.

“And what would that be,” One of the Applejack Rangers said with a small snort.

Whip Slash rolled her eyes. “Do you guys have a plan for dealing with Big Mino?”

We all glanced around at each other. “Um… why? Is there something about him we should know?” I asked, gesturing for her to continue.

The slaver filly just rolled her eyes. “You ponies foalnapped me and tied me to a mailbox. That’s all your getting out of me. Just telling you, he’s a bit of a tough bastard to fight.”

“We’ll keep that in mind,” The lead ranger said flatly, turning back to face the slaver camp. “Is everypony ready?”

What else was there to say? Time to kick some ass.

It was no surprise to me that the Applejack’s rangers had a very similar fighting strategy to the Steel rangers. That being, charge in headfirst and overpower your enemies with a near unnecessary amount of force and firepower.

We had creeped as close as we could to the camp without being spotted, allowing for the two other teams of rangers to get into position. There must have been some sort of signal that everypony was in place, because after a few seconds of pause, the ranger elder bounded forwards, his grenade launcher firing a barrage of lethal explosives into the center of the slaver camp.

Cries of panic rippled out across the camp as the first wave of slavers were blasted apart. They stood and started fumbling with their guns, giving us a little time to close in and fire without needing to take cover from impending fire. I could see a group of five rangers charging in towards the camp from the left, laser pistols and rocket launchers firing devastating attacks onto the scrambling slavers.

I fired two shots from my new combat shotgun, each blast of buckshot ripping appart the hide off the slavers body. Two slavers collapsed to the ground by my hooves, their bodies still spasming slightly in their final death throes.

Then the slavers organised themselves and shot back. I leapt to the side, a volley of gunfire spilling towards me and ripping apart holes in the slavers canvas tents. Somewhere to my right, I saw Brisk blow the brains out of a slaver, the slavers body flopping backwards and crashing into the small fire, sending a jet of flame shooting up into the air.

Xayah crouched behind the tent with me, every couple of seconds sticking her head over the edge of the tent and firing off a well aimed shot from her silenced sniper.

I slaver bounded past the tent, their shotgun aimed for my head. My combat shotgun sent an explosive slug through his front hoof before he had the chance to fire, sending him staggering to his haunches. Screaming in both rage and pain, he went to aim again, only for me to ram the front of the shotgun into his face, effectively caving his head in.

I picked his dropped shotgun up in my magic and started scavenging his shotgun shells. I managed to collect ten in total.

The Applejack rangers to the left burst fully into the camp, their weapons forcing the slavers to scatter and take cover behind anything they could. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a few more rangers start freeing the slaves from the cages and leading them towards safety.

We were still outnumbered, but we were winning.

The slavers inside the tents started poking their heads out, weapons raised. A few of them clutched at bloody wounds that had been punctured in their sides when both the rangers and the slavers had blindly sprayed their weapons at the tents.

One of the newly emerged slavers spotted me and started to take aim, only for Pyre to barrel into him and simultaneously engulf him in a jet of fire. The slaver began swatting at his burning coat, trying to smother the scorching flames that raced up his body. It was no use. He fell to the ground, his body a charred and withered corpse.

Xayah ducked to the side as another shot fired towards us. Her sniper snapped up, silently sending a round straight into the attacking slavers chest. The slaver stumbled back, his hooves grasping at his chest frantically before he lost his balance and fell onto his back, slowly bleeding out on the ground.

The almost pitiful clatter of a 10mm pistol fired somewhere behind me. I ducked, the rounds ripping holes in the tent I had been taking cover behind.

I pulled myself up, leaping over the sagging tent and fired in the direction of the attack. My combat shotgun tore into Potshot’s hind leg. He scampered back, applying pressure to the bleeding wound as I closed in on him.

I advanced, my shotgun raised in my magic. He fired at me, making me flinch, but his gun ran on empty.

“Shitshitshitshit!” He screamed frantically. Pushing himself away from me as I started sprinting towards him, his hooves fumbling as he tried to reload his weapon.

My shotgun leveled. I prepared to fire.

A massive roar of rage billowed out across the battlefield. I froze, my gun floating mid air in front of me. I could see all my allies locking up as well as the tremendous bellow reached their ears. Even the slavers looked a little shaken.

Something began to rise from within the largest tent. At first all I could see were two curving horns, but as it began to emerge I started to make out other things as well. The dark brown fur, the seemingly endless amounts of muscle on muscle, the huge, hulking arms that were large enough to rip me in half if they got the chance.

My jaw dropped around my hooves. I had read about these things in a book about all the different races that had lived in equestria over the years. I had never thought I would ever see one in person.

“Big Mino is a Minotour!” I gasped, my face still slack with shock and fear.

Potshot kicked up and started running away, but I didn’t care. My eyes were locked on the massive wall of dark fur and muscle that was Big Mino.

The minotaur rose up to its full height, easily towering over everything around him save the medical center itself. How he had even managed to fit inside the tent, I had no idea. His dark, hazel eyes darted around at all of us with a burning anger and a large puff of steam burst from his nostrils with an aggressive huff.

He turned, his eyes locked with my fearful ones. His face twisted into a snarl. “You! Stern told me ‘bout you!”

I gulped. “She… uh… she did?” I was too stunned to speak anything more than a pitiful stammer.

The huge minotaur nodded, his hoof stomping and scratching at the ground as if he were preparing to charge. In hindsight, I suppose he was. “Stern said you come! Stern said kill you if come!”

I took a nervous step back. “Oh… is that all… Uh…”

Pyre was the first one of us to pull herself back together. She charged at Big Mino, her hooves slamming hard against his chest. Her strong hooves, which I had seen crush in a ponies skull, did little more than bounce off the massive monster's tough hide.

Big Mino looked down, his face looking slightly confused at Pyre’s attack. His huge arm swept out, knocking Pyre aside and sending her tumbling to the ground. The Minotaur snarled and stepped past her, taking another step closer to me. He glanced around at all the slavers who had paused and were looking at him in uncertainty and terror. He gave them all a low growl. “What stupid ponies doing!? Kill metal ponies!” Big Mino roared. It was blunt, but to the point and got his message across crystal clear. Mino didn’t seem to have the largest of vocabularies.

Shaken from their fears by Big Mino’s demands, the slavers rallied, their weapons aiming and firing upon us with new found vigor and confidence. The Applejack rangers were forced back a little by the sudden ferociousness of the slavers attacks and the still reeling shock of seeing Big Mino.

Big Mino charged me, his head lowered and his horns aimed to rip out my throat. The ground seemed to tremble around me as his thunderous hooves stamped against the ground.

I jumped to the side, just barely avoiding being impaled on his horns as he practically flew past me. His immense form crashed into the side of the Fluttershy Medical Center, shaking the building and smashing a huge hole through the solid wall.

I raised my shotgun and fired. The buckshot practically bounced right off of his tough hide, doing little more than leave him with a couple of small cuts on his backside.

Big Mino turned around, bits of brick and dust falling from his face where he had rammed his head through the side of the building. A chunk of wall was still stuck to his horn. He took a moment to steady himself before rushing forwards again and slamming at me with his huge pony sized fists.

I rolled to my left, the spot I had just been standing in being crushed by his huge clenched hand. As his hand raised, I saw a large fist shaped groove in the ground. I gulped for the second time since he had emerged from the tent. This was bad.

I ducked and rolled again and again as Big Mino continued to swing at me with his bulging arms. I tried batting at him with my baton, but he didn’t even flinch as the metal rod slammed against his form.

I saw Brisk and Xayah send a couple of shots his way, but with the slavers pushing in on them from all sides, it was hard for them to get a good shot. Two of the Applejack rangers were taken down by some lucky shots from the slavers. They crashed to the ground, their power armour muffling their dying screams.

One of Big Mino’s hooves shot out and bucked me in the chest. I could feel something break as I was sent flying head over hooves through the air. I crashed into one of the small tents, collapsing it completely, the stretched canvas folding around me and threatening to smother me.

I coughed, a wad of blood being flung from my mouth and staining the canvas. I pulled myself up, sturgling out of the maze of tattered canvas like a pony drowning in water. My head had only just broken the surface when Big Mino slammed into me at full force.

The wind was knocked out of me a second time as the two of us went barreling forwards. One of the slavers was crushed under hoof as Big Mino rushed forwards and slammed me into the ground with enough force to make the whole area quake.

His gargantuan fist slammed down at me again. I had only just enough time to duck my head and scoot between his legs before his fist crushed the spot I had just been lying in.

Now behind him, I leaped forwards, wrapping my hooves around the back of his neck and clinging for dear life as the huge minotaur reared up and started trying to shake me off with a bellow of rage. My hind legs flailed around behind me as I focused all of my strength in not letting go. I raised my shogun in my magic and tried to aim it at the back of his head, but I was being whipped around so fast, that even up close, it was hard to line up any sort of shot.

As I was swung violently around I caught a quick glimpse of the Applejack rangers helping free the slaves. They were all out of the cages now, the last few heading over to get medical treatment from Heartbeat.

I felt Big Mino’s hand before I saw it. His massive, uncomfortably muscular fingers wrapped around my body and pried me off of his back. I yelped as he pulled me free from him and raised me up so that we were face to face.

“Punny pony annoying!” He snarled in what I suppose was supposed to be a threatening whisper. Nothing was quiet with this guy.

But he had made a mistake. He had stopped whipping me around. My combat shotgun raised and leveled with his face before he could even figure out what was going on. An explosive round burst forth from the gun, the buckshot ripping at his face. He dropped me in surprise, stumbling back as he grasped at his bleeding face with his hands.

I grumbled, rubbing my head as I shook off the dizziness of being dropped on my head. “Seriously. That didn’t drop you!” I was getting really annoyed by the bullet sponginess of this guy.

Big Mino lowered his hands and snarled at me bearing his sharpened fangs. One of his eyes had been shredded by the shotgun blast, its remenace a goopy paste oozing from the socket. He dropped his head and abruptly dashed forwards, his huge horns aimed at my chest.

His unexpected rampage caught me off guard. I didn’t have time to react as his two, sharp and twisting horns rammed into me, their sharp points going straight through my barding. A stabbing pain shot through my chest and down my spine. I screamed falling backwards and lying helplessly on my back.

I heard the quiet shots of a silenced sniper. A few seconds later, Xayah leaped over me, her sniper firing off two shots into the minotaurs shoulder.

Big Mino snarled, blood spewing from his shoulder where the snipers .308 caliber rounds had punched into his hide. He stomped his hoof, steam billowing from his nostrils in thick bursts.

Xayah crouched down into a battle stance, both her sniper and combat knife held ready. “You will not touch her,” Xayah’s voice was little more than a whisper, but I had no doubts that the minotaur could hear her.

Big Mino let loose another roar of rage and sprang towards us. Despite the pain coursing through my body, I found the strength to roll out of the way and take cover behind one of the tents that had managed to stay upright. Not that that would protect me much if Big Mino launched himself at me.

Xayah did some sort of flying leap. She practically soared upwards, doing a half somersault in the air before landing atop the raging minotaurs horns. Her knife swung down and stabbed him on his blind side, the serrated blade digging deep into his right ear.

Big Mino howled, his whole body shuttering as he slammed himself downwards to get Xayah off of him. Xayah quickly bounded off, landing gracefully on her stripped hooves before Big Mino could crush her completely.

But Xayah wasn’t used to fighting opponents with arms. A big arm swung out and cracked against the side of her head. Xayah was sent flying off her hooves, her body crashing into the dirt beside me.

Big Mino began to rise, blood trickling down one side of his face and making his dark brown coat seem almost black. His hide was a mess of scars and cuts and there was a stagger to his step. But he was still moving towards us.

Finding the pain in my chest too strong to concentrate on magic, I raised my combat shotgun in my mouth and readied myself for him. I was far too weak to wield shotguns without my magic, but I’d half to do my best.

A loud cry came from across the battlefield. We turned our heads, our eyes landing on the newcomers.

The five Applejack Rangers that had been sent to free the slaves as well as a couple of now armed slaves were charging towards the battle. Their weapons were drawn and were firing a wall of bullets towards the slavers. The slavers were pushed back, three more falling to their new combatants.

The Applejack ranger elder’s grenade launcher fired, taking advantage of the slavers new panic. The explosion ripped through their lines, giving him room to advance. The elder rushed forwards, a rocket blasting from his battle saddle and whizzing towards the huge minotaur.

The rocket detonated against Big Mino’s chest, ripping open a gaping hole and sending the minotaur stumbling backwards. Big Mino growled, his muscles seeming to bulge even bigger as he pushed on through the pain. He leaped forwards, his massive arms swinging at the elder.

The applejack ranger elder met him mid air, their bodies colliding and crashing to the ground as a wall of solid metal and firepower battled against sheer size and natural might.

I pulled myself up and helped Xayah to her hooves. “Thanks for that,” I said with a small blush, trying to push aside the pain and raise my combat shotgun with my magic. I was only somewhat successful.

“Do not mention it,” Xayah replied quickly, her sniper aiming in her mouth and cracking off another shot at an incoming slaver.

Brisk rushed by us, his pistol blasting the hooves off of another slaver as they tried to get a shot on us. “Talk later, fight now!” He yelled at us.

I nodded and turned back to the fight, my baton raised and swinging.

The slavers were beginning to look nervous. We had cut down their ranks to the point that we outnumbered them now and our firepower was clearly stronger. The only thing keeping them in the fight was the looming threat of Big Mino.

I saw the Applejack Rangers elder get thrown to the ground, a few new dents in his heavy power armour. Big Mino towered over him, his already battered form now a mix of broken limbs and dangling flesh. The huge minotaur limped over, his fists raised to crush the elder.

I tried to push forward to help him, but two slavers quickly jumped in my path.

As it happened, the elder didn’t need my assistance.

Big Mino slammed his arms down, his huge fists slamming down on the elders armour. At once, the rocket launcher on the elders battle saddle spun up and launched a rocket directly into the minotaurs face point blank.

The missle didn’t even detonate. It ripped straight through the monster's head, spewing a fountain of brain matter and viscera out the back of his noggin. Big Mino’s body was blasted backwards, his whole body stumbling back and crashing into the wall of the Fluttershy medical centre.

The slavers froze as they watched their leader fall. Then, one by one, they lowered their weapons and raised their hooves above their head in surrender. We had one.

I wondered what Stern would have thought of this had she not been inside the medical centre at the moment.

It didn’t take long for the Applejack rangers to round up what was left of the slaver forces outside the center. In only a few moments, they had been all locked away in their own cages, their weapons confiscated.

Heartbeat walked up to me quickly, his hooves already fumbling through his medical kit as he searched for healing supplies. I quickly brushed him off. “Don’t worry about me, there are others that need help first.”

He gave me a flat glare. “Amber, even from all the way over there, I watched you get stabbed by that Minotaur’s horns. The fact that you’re still standing is a miracle.”

Thinking about it, that was odd. I didn’t feel that bad though, just a little banged up. I couldn’t even feel the normal sensation of blood rushing out of my body like I had had in so many other fights. “I… I don’t feel hurt, really.”

Heartbeat just shook his head stubbornly. “I‘m tending to your wounds, and that’s final,” He said sternly. “Please take off your barding so I can see what the damage is.”

I did. It felt weird to be standing in the wasteland without my Stable barding. I know ponies don’t normally wear clothes, but I felt naked without it for some reason.

As I pulled the tight jumpsuit over my head I heard a small gasp escape Heartbeat mouth. I glanced down at my chest to where I expected a large gash to be from Big Mino’s horns.

There was a large, slowly growing bruise, but that was it. No gash, no gaping hole, not even a small nick.

“I… wait, wuh?” I said, my mouth falling open. “B-but I felt the horn penetrate my armour!”

Heartbeat leaned in closer and tapped the bruise gently. I flinched, but the pain was minimal compared to other pains I had felt. Having all my bones broken and then getting incinerated by a mega spell was certainly worse than this.

I could see Nurse heartbeat’s eyebrows knitting together in confusion. “You have two broken ribs, but that's about all I can see…” he bit his lower lip as he tried to think of an explanation. He clearly couldn’t think of anything. “What is that armour of yours made of?”

“Not much. Just fabric and a bit of extra padding that Coco Pommel added,” I admitted. “I’m not really strong enough to wear any sort of other armour for a prolonged period of time.”

Heartbeat held my Stable barding up to the defused light of the cloud covered sun, as if expecting to spot some sort of metal plating on it. Finally he found the hole that had been ripped open by Big Mino’s horns. His mouth dropped open. “Amber, where did you get this!”

I raised an eyebrow. “Uh… My stable. Stable 25. I’ve had it most of my life.” He shook his head and showed me the tear in the fabric. I squinted my eyes at it, trying to make out what he was trying to show me. Something silver glinted between the small threads. “What is that?”

“It’s something called ballistic weave,” Heartbeat informed me, his face still filled with awe. “I’ve only ever seen something like this once. It’s incredibly rare.”

“Coco Pommel had some ballistic weave on her back in friendship City,” I said, thinking back. A thought struck me. “You don’t think she lined my barding with it when I got her to patch it up, do you?”

Heartbeat gave me a shrug. “I suppose that would be the most logical answer. I can’t think of anywhere else you could have gotten this,” I made a mental note to give that ghoul the biggest hug in the history of hugs if I ever ran into her again. Heartbeat cleared his throat, his horn lighting up with a pink aura. “Now hold still, I’m going to try and fix those ribs of yours.”

I gave him a look. “You can’t just fix bones like that, it’s not-” by ribs clicked, mended and snapped into place. I gave a yelp of surprise. “What the fuck! Warn me before you do something like that!”

Heartbeat gave me a smug grin and wiped a bead of sweat off his brow. He looked tired, the spell clearly having taken a lot out of him. “I find the pain is lessened when the patient has less time to hype up what the pain will be like.”

“How did you even do that!” I gasped, feeling my chest for any signs of broken bones. Aside from being a little sore, they seemed to have mended perfectly.

“I didn’t dedicate my life to medicine for nothing,” Heartbeat answered, taking a step away from me.

“Where have you been for the last two weeks,” I smiled. “We could have used somepony who could mend bones like that. Might have saved Brisk from walking around with two braces for half the trip actually.”

“I’m sure you could have,” heartbeat agreed, sharing my smile. “Most ponies in the wasteland often overlook the value of having a medic.”

He moved over to one of the cages where a slavers was curled up and nursing his own broken leg. Heartbeat’s horn flared and the slavers leg mended itself. Heartbeat collapsed to the ground, panting.

“What the fuck are you doing!?” I asked, rushing over to him and helping him back up. “Those are the slavers!”

Heartbeat just gave me a knowing look and a nood. “I know, but I made an oath to help any and all ponies that I can. Even ones that probably don’t deserve it.”

“Not if it hurts you to do it,” I retorted, casting the now healed slaver an angry look. “Besides, these ponies are not nice ponies. Helping them will only let them hurt others.”

Heartbeat tapped his chin thoughtfully for a moment. “Perhaps,” he finally said, looking away from me. “But I don’t think I can sit and do nothing while others are hurting. Even if they are bad ponies.”

He moved away from me, moving on to the next injured ponies.

“We need to get in there and help the scribes trapped inside of the centre while the Slavers are still confused about what is going on,” The Applejack Ranger’s elder said to another ranger that was standing next to him as my friends and I approached them. “They no doubt heard the gunfire and know something’s up by now, Stern isn’t stupid. With luck, they won’t know exactly what they’re up against.”

“What can we do?” I asked, gesturing to my friends.

The elder looked us over quickly. “You five have proven yourself more than capable in combat. Not that I’m surprised. Stable Ponies seem to be very resourceful,” He looked to the door of the Fluttershy Medical Centre. “There’s only one door in, so our plan of attack is limited. But as far as we are aware, we still maintain more firepower than the slavers inside.”

“Seems easy enough,” Brisk said cautiously. I could understand his worry. Whenever things seemed like they might be easy in the wasteland, chances were they weren't. “What’s the catch?”

“Only one door mean’s were going to have to fight through a choke point,” Pyre told him quickly, rolling her eyes as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “And since they no doubt know we’re coming, they’ve probably set up an ambush.”

“There are also civilians inside,” The star paladin I recognised as Crossroads said. “We don’t know if they’ve managed to capture any of our scribes from inside the building yet, but if so, we’ll need to tread carefully. We want to keep casualties to a minimum. Everypony is important to us, especially after the schism between the rangers.”

“Perhaps a stealth mission then?” Xayah suggested, pointing to Mirra and herself. “We might be able to keep deaths minimal that way.”

The elder shook his head. “No. We are tight on time. Every second we spend waiting, the more likely the slavers come to killing our scribes. Besides, if Stern is in there, then we need to get to her before she escapes. We can’t let somepony so crucial to Red Eye’s forces slip through our hooves.”

A Ranger quickly approached us and gave the elder the traditional Ranger salute I had seen in my first encounter with rangers. “Elder Steelhooves, we have a problem!”

The elder I now knew as Steelhooves turned to stare stoically at the ranger. “What is it, knight Blueberry?”

The knight lowered his hoof. “We just got a message from Stable 29. It’s Elder Cottagecheese, sir...”

Steelhooves growled. “Damn it…” He turned to look at Crossroads. “Crossroads, you’re in charge of the rescue mission in my absence. I have something I need to deal with.”

Paladin Crossroads gave him a salute and turned back to us as Steelhooves quickly marched away.

“Get your hooves off me!” I heard Whip Slash’s high voice growl. I looked over to see Two Applejack rangers marching over, the young slaver slung over one of their backs, her hooves still tied.

“Just be quiet please…” One of the rangers groaned as they stopped in front of us and dropped their charge on the ground.

Whip Slash scowled and glared up at me. “So, are you going to kill me now like the rest of the slavers?”

I felt my heart drop at that. I sighed. “How old are you Whip Slash?” I asked, not really sure if I wanted to know the answer.

Whip Slash looked confused for a second, cocking one of her eyebrows upwards. “I-I’m old enough. What do you care?” I just sat there and continued staring at her. “Fine, I’m twelve. Are you happy?”

I glanced over at the mound of slaver corpses a few meters away. After a few seconds I dropped my head and stared at my hooves. I reached out with my magic and pulled the ropes that bound the young slaver off of her. “You’re free to go. Get out of here,” I said, my voice so low that I hardly heard it myself.

Whip Slash gawked at me. “You’re… you’re letting me go?” She looked at the rope that now rested around her hooves. “What do you get out of that? You’ve already killed my family! Why don’t you just kill me too!”

I winced as her voice rose to a furious shout. I just gave her a sad look, my heart heavy. “I’m not going to kill you Whip Slash. I’ve killed enough fillies for my lifetime,” I took a deep breath. “I’m giving you a chance to do better. If you crawl back to Red Eye to continue this life of slaving, I can’t stop you, but you at least should have the opportunity to try and leave it all behind you.”

Whip Slash took a small step back, her face conflicted and confused. “I… What? Are you fucking kidding me! You killed my family and you’re just going to throw me out into the wasteland alone to fend for myself!”

I nodded. “What else would you have me do?”

“Kill me!” Whip Slash spat. “At least I’d be with my family again!”

I just pushed myself back up to my hooves and looked away from her and towards the Fluttershy medical center. “I can’t do that. Get out of her Whip Slash. I hope you can do better.”

Whip Slash just glared at me for a moment, her jaw slack as she tried to process what I was doing. Finally she just shook her head, a small tear rolling down her face. She looked so young. Just a scared filly that didn’t know what to do in this cruel and heartless world.

With a sound that sounded like a mix between a growl and a whimper, the young slaver span on her hooves and bolted away into the wastes. I hoped she would make something better of herself. She deserved that at least.

I suddenly became acutely aware of everyponies eyes staring at me. “What?” I asked, giving them all a casual shrug.

Paladin Crossroads just shook her head. “Nothing, just… nothing...” She turned back to the rest of the group. “Alright, I want five rangers to hold back while we go in. I, along with knight Blueberry and these five here will go in first and try to clear the area. Wait two minutes and then come in behind us. Are there any questions before we go in?” She gestured to me and my friends.

“Why not just all charge in at once? Would it not be easier to take them out if we went in with full firepower?” Brisk asked.

Crossroads shook her head. “We don’t outnumber them by much, and our superior firepower may prove more of a hindrance to us in close quarters. The last thing we need is more missiles flying around in there where they could hit us or our scribes,” She paused for a second, glancing over at the doorway to the Fluttershy medical center. “Besides, the slavers have no doubt had time to prepare for our attack. It would be impossible to fit all of us through that choke point while there is likely a trap beyond. It would be best if the seven of us go in first and clear them out the best we can before the calvary goes in. Any other questions?”

There were none.

The five of us, along with the two rangers moved towards the Fluttershy medical centre. Somewhere beside me, I saw Heartbeat still tending to the many injured ponies from the battle.

The large double doors of the medical centre were far beyond the point of disrepair. The glass that made up a majority of the door had been completely shattered and the metal frame the glass had once sat in was dented and dangled from its hinges like a snapped branch from a tree.

Through the doors was darkness. Not as dark as the caves below the Hollow Shades perhaps, but dark enough that I had to squint to see what was a few feet beyond me.

Paladin Crossroads pulled up next to the edge of the door, her laser pistol raised. “I’ve got two red bars on my EFS just within the door.”

Glancing down at my own EFS, I saw she was correct. I quickly pulled up next to her, my friends quickly following suit. Knight Blueberry took a position up on the opposite side of the door.

“Alright, Crossroads and I will go first,” Pyre grunted, looking at her own EFS inside her helmet. “We’re the most heavily armoured, so we will be most capable of surviving whatever trap is laid out inside there. The rest of you come in a second after us, go in by two’s to avoid being shot down in the choke point.”

Knight Blueberry cast Crossroads a questioning look to see if he should follow Pyre’s orders. Crossroad just gave them a shrug. “As she says.”

After a beat, Pyre and Crossroads spun on their hooves and charged through the doors and into the darkness of the medical center, their weapons blazing with light as they went. I heard the scream of a slaver as one of Crossroads magical energy rifles tore through them.

Blam!

A single sniper shot rang out. A second later there was an earth shaking explosion as five mines that had been placed by the door detonated. Pyre and Crossroads had managed to avoid stepping on the mines, but the slaver had ensured that they trap triggered anyway.

Pyre was sent skidding from the building. Her armour was charred and smoking, but seemed relatively undamaged. She gave us a sideways look. “That was the trap! Give ‘em hell!”

A second later, Brisk and I rushed through the front. I spotted the slaver at the top of a large set of stairs that led to the second floor. He held a sniper in his mouth, which he was whipping around furiously as he tried to aim at all of us at once.

The second slaver was still alive, though with his front hoof bleeding profusely from a hole that had been blasted through it. He pulled himself up a little, his shotgun trying to aim at Brisk as he started rushing up the stairs at them.

Blam!

My own combat shotgun fired, popping the head off of the shotgun wielding slaver before he could fire a shot. Another sniper shot fired, this time from Xayah’s silenced sniper as she put a bullet between the other slavers head.

Both slavers fell to the ground with a thump, their warm blood pooling around their bodies and dripping down the steps of the stairs. The fight was over in less than a minute.

Crossroads was wasting no time. The moment the two slavers were down she was bounding up the steps, knight Blueberry hot on her tail. My friends and I raced up with them. I stopped only for a second to snag five shotgun shells off the fallen slaver.

“Shit, they’re coming up the stairs!” I heard a slaver shout from somewhere above us.

There was the sound of shuffling and frantic hooves beating against the ground. Finally another slaver called out. “Get to Stern. Warn her!”

We barreled up the steps as fast as we could. As we started to near the top, a small metal apple rolled through the doorway towards us. Crossroads was quick to warn us. “Grenade!”

I jumped back, the explosive detonating only a few feet away from me. Shrapnel was tossed about the room, jagged chunks scratching at the walls. Crossroads, the only pony close enough to the top of the stairs for the grenade to do any real damage to stumbled back, a large dent in her armour oozing bits of blood.

“Take them down! Now!” A slaver shouted from ahead of me.

I saw five red bars pop up onto my EFS before I saw the slavers. Three rushed into the doorway, automatic assault rifles blazing. A wall of bullets spilled down at us. Luckily for us, these slavers were a terrible shot. Not as bad as raiders perhaps, but still really fucking bad.

I dove to my right as the assault rifle fire ripped up the part of the stairs I had been standing on, bits of the floor blasted up around me, showering me in dust and broken wood.

Mirra jumped past me, her currently yellow horn glowing a bright green as it wrapped around one of the slavers weapons and tried to reef it from their mouth. The slaver pulled back to keep a hold on their gun. The weapon remained in their grip, but their fire sprayed up at the ceiling away from us.

“Keep behind me!” I heard Pyre yell at Mirra over the din of battle. Mirra gave a grumpy face, but ducked behind Pyre as she asked.

I bolted to my hooves and charged the nearest raider with my shock baton. The raider clambered back, eyes wide as the heavy baton swung down at them. They rolled away from my attack, making my baton swing into empty air. But I was ready for them as they rolled back up, my combat shotgun already positioned to take off their head with a single blast.

I had been closer to the slaver than I usually was when my combat shotgun roared into him. A wave of blood and shredded flesh spewed at me, coating my coat black in the dim light. I stumbled back, momentarily blinded as the slavers blood dripped into my eyes.

I felt the whoosh of air as a rocket launcher strapped to Blueberry’s saddle blasted forwards. The rocket slammed into the area just beyond the slavers, sending many of them flying into the air helplessly as the massive shockwave slammed into them.

I was suddenly very grateful we hadn’t had all the Applejack rangers charge in at once. That much firepower in a confined space was lethal to far more than just the slavers.

A blast from Crossroad’s magical energy rifle turned a slaver to dust before they could hit the ground. Another slaver growled at her, his hooves scooping at the dust as if trying to put his deceased friend back together. Despite his slaver lifestyle, I found myself feeling bad for him.

Pyre finally reached the top of the stairs, her flamers lighting up the whole room with a blazing light. Two more slavers went down, their bodies burning away until little of their hide remaned.

The final slaver started backing up, his eyes wide as he took us all in. He spun around and darted for the door at the far side of the room. He had just reached it when a bullet from Brisk’s pistol tore through his neck and sent him flopping lamely to the ground.

As he fell his hoof reached out and hit a button on the terminal resting next to the door. At once the lights in the hospital shut off, plunging all of us into darkness. Until that point I hadn’t even noticed that this building had somehow had its lighting working on the second floor. The only light in the whole room were small beams of dimmed sunlight leaking through a few cracks in the walls. I could hear the screeching of the large door the slaver had tried to get through slide shut.

“What the hell just happened?” Brisk groaned, trying to make the rest of us out through the darkness. He was having just about as much luck as I was, which was to say none at all.

I clicked the light on my pipbuck on, flooding the room with an eerie green light. “Not sure, did the slaver shut the power off?”

I saw Crossroads give a grim shake of her head. “He activated the emergency lockdown. The place was built like a fortress incase zebras or zebra sympathisers ever made an attack on the patients here. Thankfully, from what I’ve heard, fluttershy was against anything lethal, so there shouldn’t be any defences.”

“So what? We are locked out of the upper floors of the building?” Pyre asked, tapping her hoof on the large metal door that had indeed slid shut.

“I can probably hack through the terminal to get the place running again, but it might take me a bit,” Crossroads said, gesturing to the terminal the slaver had pressed. His bleeding corpse still lay curled up at the base of it. “The bad news is that this gives Stern more time to get to the scribes if she hasn’t already. The good news is that Stern and her slavers are locked in here too. They won’t be getting out of here any faster than us.”

“We could just leave them up there and starve Stern and her slavers out,” Brisk suggested. I quickly gave him a smack on the back of the head.

“And leave the scribes up there to starve as well? Not an option,” I corrected him. “Besides, Stern has the A.A.S.S. in there with her. We need to get that back anyway.”

Brisk knitted his eyebrows together. “So we can, what? Destroy it?”

“No, not until we know what it does,” I snapped back, tired of hearing Brisk suggest we stop chasing down the A.A.S.S.

“We know it lets psychopaths like Kamari use things like Luna Prime! Seems like a good thing to destroy to me!” Brisk shot back. He had a good point. I didn’t even know why I was so determined to keep it from being destroyed myself.

I realised I had just taken to staring silently at Brisk after his last remark. I quickly shook myself and turned away from him. “I don’t think that’s why Red Eye wants it. I don’t even know if Red Eye knows about Luna Prime. We aren’t destroying it yet, and that’s final,” I stomped my hoof to show that the conversation was over.

“Wouldn’t matter anyway,” Crossroads said, glancing back the way we had come as she started typing on the terminal. “The lockdown has most likely trapped us in here as well. It’s a complete shutdown of everything. The loss of power to the lights is no doubt a result of the building putting all of its power into these security doors.

“I suppose that means those reinforcements of ours aren’t coming as well then?” Mirra squeaked, ducking behind Pyre’s hoof.

I gestured to the terminal Crossroads was still trying to unlock to minimal success. “Here, let me hack that. It's my specialty,” Crossroads slowly stepped aside and let me get to the terminal.

I quickly looked over the lines of coding. It was a tough terminal, with a password of about five letters in length, but not even remotely the hardest terminal I’d had to hack in recent days. I should have it cracked in less than a minute.

I spotted an audio recording resting on a table beside me, almost invisible under the thick layer of dust that had gathered atop it over the last two hundred years. With nothing better to do, I floated it over and clicked it into my pipbuck to listen as I worked.

“Hello, this is Dazzling Souvenir… again… I don’t really know why I keep saying my name at the beginning of these. I’m the only one that is going to or even supposed to hear these anyway. But there I go, rambling again. Sorry… uh… me. I’ll get right to the point,” A chipper sounding mare said over the audio recording.

“Wow, a pony that doesn’t sound depressed,” I grumbled to myself as I clicked away at the terminal. That was a new one.

“Anyway, I was just assigned a new project today,” The voice of Dazzling Souvenir continued. “It’s the big one! Memory orb combination. Creating and combining memory orbs that have the ability to hold an entire lifetime of memories, maybe even extensions of those memories like thoughts and emotions. Just imagine if we could successfully create full consciousness inside of orbs! Eeeee!” I winced at the joyful squeal that escaped the recording. “The Ponies keep saying it's impossible, but I don’t think it is. The few tests we have done so far show that our newest model of memory orbs are capable of holding quite a few more hours over the normal length, with the longest being a full month… Still trying to figure out how to get Amethyst out of that orb…”

Great… remind me not to go into any memory orbs here. The last thing I wanted was to be stuck in it for the rest of my life.

“...Silver Ace is working on a spell to fast watch memory orbs, so that we can do proper testing, but it might take him a while. He’s usually pretty busy with his more secretive works,” My ears shot up at the mention of Silver Ace. That pony just liked to pop up all over the wastelands history, doesn’t he. “That’s about all I need to say on that right now, but I’ll definitely update this later. I should probably record it to my terminal though so I don’t just have a million audio tapes lying around… I feel like recording every entry on its own tape is kinda inconven... ”

The sound of a magical energy weapon blared from somewhere behind the door, cutting off Dazzling Souvenir’s final words on the recording. Both Crossroads and Blueberry were on their hooves in a flash. I could see their bodies tensing underneath their armour as they leapt into a battle stance.

“Think those are the slavers getting to the scribes?” Xayah asked, leaning an ear up against the door.

“I don’t think so. That didn’t sound like normal magical energy weapons, and our scribes are only armed with a few pistols for basic self defence,” Blueberry said, his eyes still locked on the door. “We didn’t equip them with more because our resources have been spread thin since the schism between the rangers and this place was supposed to be relatively safe and non hostile.”

“Well if it’s not the slavers and it's not the scribes, something tells me this place has a bit more security than you initially thought,” Pyre scowled. Her metal encased ear twitched and she glanced behind us at the stairs leading to the lower floor.

After a second I heard what she had. The slow grinding of metal on the floor, followed by the occasional blast of a magical energy weapon.

“What is that?” Mirra asked, her gaze moving back and forth between all of us as we began moving into a battle stance. None of us had any answers to give her.

Red bars popped to life on my EFS. lots of them. Enough that I had difficulty telling one red bar apart from the next. The sound of gunfire began to break out in full upstairs. I could only barely hear the frantic shouting of slavers over the ever growing sound of grinding metal and flashing lasers.

The first red bar made it to the top of the stairs, letting me finally make out what was coming for us.

It was a robot of some sort, but like nothing I had seen before. It was somewhat pony shaped, with a mechanical head and barrel, but its legs had been replaced with a large set of tracked chassis. Two metal arm-like appendages stretched out from the front of it’s metallic barrel, each one ending in a strong looking claw.

But it’s head is what caught my attention the most. While the lower half of the face was simply that of a metal ponies, the top half was that of a large glass dome. Within sat something fleshy. A pony brain, still pulsing and jiggling as if it were still alive. From where I stood I could even make out nervous system-like wires hooking into the brain and traveling into the body of the robot.

I gulped. I didn’t want to know what had happened to make a pony have their brain put inside a robot.

“You do not belong!” The robobrain said, slowly rolling into the room. It’s voice was far too pony for my liking. “I must eliminate all life forms that are not regist-”

The robobrain was cut off as a missile sailed from Blueberry’s battle saddle and blasted the robot to bits, sending jagged chunks of metal and, to my growing horror, viscera across the room.

The next two robots to enter the chamber were a lot faster to attack, each one sending a blast of magical energy through the room before they entered. We scattered, trying to avoid being turned to dust by the devastating laser blasts.

Then they began swarming in. They burst into the room in organised groups of twos, their energy weaponry spewing towards us to keep us from using the doorway as a choke point.

Damn, these things were smart. I suppose that’s what you get when you put a brain inside of a computer.

We jumped into action immediately, trying to quickly take control of the situation before the room, and in turn us, were completely overrun.

The first blast of my shotgun proved to be… less than effective. The slugs slammed against the metal plating of the body, doing little more than dent the robots armour. Through the flurry of flying lasers, bullets and missiles, I could see that my friends were having just about as much success. Brisk’s pistol and Mirra’s newly claimed revolver were doing little to damage the plating on the robots and Pyre’s flamers were doing next to nothing at all. My raider friend had quickly taken to bashing at the robots with her hooves, smashing open the glass domes on their heads so she could fry their brains. It worked, but it looked far from easy.

Xayah and the two rangers seemed to be the only ones having any luck. Xayah’s sniper seemed to be powerful enough to punch through the glass domes and into the squishy brains inside and Crossroad’s magical energy rifles were more than effective. And Blueberry… Well, missile launchers are effective against anything and everything.

I jumped back as a robobrain swung at me with one of its clawed arms. I whipped out my baton and bashed it against the robobrains head as hard as I could. The glass on its dome cracked slightly, but didn’t shatter.

“Threat detected! Kill! Kill! Kill!” The robobrain screamed, its oddly pony sounding voice making it far more nerve chilling than I was comfortable with

A missile flew past me, blasting into the side of the attacking robobrain and sending it flying five directions at once as it was blown apart. I glanced over at Blueberry who gave me a quick nod, his missile launcher still steaming. “Quick, shut off the lockdown. Turn them off!”

Best advice I had heard all day.

I bolted towards the terminal, only for another robobrain to get in my path. I ducked low as it swung a clawed arm at me. I didn’t have time to get up as its head blasted some sort of strange pulsing wave of energy at me.

I was flung backwards, the force of the strange energy wave making my head reel. It wasn’t a laser and didn’t seem lethal in small doses, but whatever that attack had been hurt like a bitch. My head spun and I had no doubts that I had a concussion.

“Sorry, just doing what I’m programmed to do,” The robot said, its tracks grinding against the ground as it rolled closer to me.

The robobrain’s words made me stop cold.

These things were being programmed to attack us? Regardless of what the brain wanted? That was just wrong! It might not have involved cages and chains, but this was slavery all the same.

But that wasn’t the only thing that gave me pause. The voice, I recognised it from somewhere. It sounded a little tinny and a little older, but it was still the same voice.

“Dazzling Souvenir?” I asked, my jaw dropping slightly.

The robobrain stalled slightly, its tracks momentarily slowing to a stop. Just when I thought it might drop its hostility and turn green on my EFS it started advancing towards me again, its claws outstretched. “I apologize. Perhaps we can still be friends after I kill you.”

Damn it, I couldn’t do this…

I rolled aside as the claws swung at me, pinching at the air where I had been like a hungry radscorpion. I scampered around it, no longer heading towards the terminal on the wall, but for the robobrain’s back.

I hopped to my left as another robobrain blasted at me with one of its magical energy weapons. “Wait! Stop fighting them!” I yelled, dodging another blast and jumping at the panel on the back of the Dazzling Souvenir robobrain.

Another rocket spewed forth from Blueberry’s battle saddle, blasting apart two more robots. He cast me a confused look, but ceased his explosive fire.

“Are you insane!” I heard Pyre shout, her hooves smashing open another brain case and pulping the fleshy organ inside. “I’d like to not be turned to ash, thank you!”

I saw Xayah lower her sniper next to me and go into a more defensive mode, trying to stay clear of their lasers and swinging claws while doing as little damage to them as possible.

The Robobrain I clung to began spinning in circles, its metal body trying to shake me off. Its long accordion like arms began wrapping around itself, trying to pinch at me and pry me off. “I wish I had been programmed for something else, but it was not to be,” The voice of Dazzling Souvenir said to me from within the robot.

Xayah rolled underneath a swinging claw arm and slinked over to me, her dagger in her mouth and swatting at anything that got too close to her. “What are you planning Amber?”

What was I planning? A good question. I had no idea if this was even going to work. But I couldn’t leave these ponies trapped as slaves to their mechanical bodies, nor could I just kill them. That seemed immoral somehow.

Damn my morality. It always had to make my life harder.

Salt Water had shown me how to hack into things without a terminal back in the Hollow Shades. Time to see if that training paid off. I reefed off the panel covering up the back circuitry and began fiddling with the wires. It looked daunting at first, but after a few seconds of fiddling, a small grin broke out across my face. My expertise lay in Stable-Tec technology, and these looked like they were designed by the MTW, but the basics were the same and I was a fast learner.

A few robobrains shot lasers towards me, forcing me to try and duck behind the Dazzling Souvenir robobrain. I pulled at a few more wires before replugging them in. Suddenly Souvenir’s robobrain stilled.

For a second I thought I had failed and accidently shut it down, but a second later, the robobrain began to move again. It didn’t attack this time though, instead it began looking around the room.

“I… What is happening…” Dazzling Souvenir’s voice echoed from the robobrain, a growing sense of panic in her tone. Her robotic head kept looking around at the swarm of robobrains that kept spilling into the room.

One of the robobrains blasted one of its weird sonic waves at Brisk, knocking him backwards and slamming into the far wall. He slammed against a medical cabinet, collapsing it and sending piles of assorted chems spilling across the floor.

“Whatever you’re doing Amber, do it quick!” Crossroads shouted, jumping aside as three Robobrains closed in on them. “We can't hold them back much longer without using lethal force!”

I quickly turned to the reprogrammed Dazzling Souvenir Robobrain. “I don’t suppose you can get your friends there to stop could you?” I ducked as a laser shot over my head.

The reprogrammed robobrain just stared at me silently for a second, their thoughts and emotions completely concealed by their expressionless metal face. Finally, it turned from me and rolled over to the terminal. Its clawed arms extended towards it and quickly typed ‘Peace’ into the terminal. All at once, the robobrains froze. Then, they’re arms dropped limp and the small lights on their bodies blinked out.

Everypony let out a large sigh of relief as the deadly assault halted in its tracks.

“Everypony alright?” I asked, glancing around the room. I was met with a mix of tired nods and grim smiles that lacked any form of real mirth.

I let my gaze drift to Brisk. He stood not far from where the robobrain had blasted him, his eyes locked on the large pile of chems scattered around his hooves. I could spot the large stash of Buck tablets that littered the area around him. I focused in on Brisk’s face, taking in his wide-eyed expression and quivering lower lip.

I stepped forward to tell him to get away from the Buck, but before I could he stepped away himself. His hooves shook as he stepped over it, very careful to keep from coming in contact with the addictive chems.

I let myself release a breath I hadn’t realised I had been holding.

“What happened…” I heard the pained voice of Dazzling Souvenir say from behind me. I turned to see the robobrain standing behind me. Apparently my reprogramming had made it so she didn’t shut down with the rest of the robobrains. That or she had intentionally kept herself online. “Why can't I feel anything… Everything is so blurry...”

Goddesses, how did you answer a question like that. You’re a brain in a jar now? The worlds dead? There was no good way to answer. So instead, I did the next best thing. I ignored the question.

“We are trying to rescue some ponies upstairs, but the building went into lockdown. Do you think you can get us through the doors?” I asked, gesturing towards the door.

There was silence from the robobrain again, then it rolled back over to the terminal and activated something. The large doors blocking us from the upper floor slid open with a screech. I could hear the doors blocking the exit down below us slide open as well. After a moment and to my surprise, the lights flickered back on.

I gave the robobrain a grateful nod. “Thank you.”

We quickly moved on up the stairs, leaving the robobrain alone in the room filled with what I had come to realise were all her friends and colleges, not pickled brains.

“We can’t just leave her like that?” Mirra said, her breath ragged as she tried to keep pace with the rest of us as we darted forwards. I nearly jumped out of my skin at the changeling seemingly materializing next to me. Her magic was slowly returning, allowing her to perform small acts of teleportation again. “I can’t imagine being stuck in one of those…”

“We aren’t going to leave them like that, I promise,” I assured her, readying my combat shotgun as we reached the top of the steps. “But right now we need to stop Stern and save those Scribes. We’ll help them as soon as we can.”

The top floor was covered in the broken remains of blasted apart robobrains. The bodies of a few slavers lay strewn around the room and I could see a few still smoking piles of ash.

“I guess the robots and the slavers dealt with each other for us,” Brisk said, looking around at the death and destruction.

I poked a pile of ash with my hoof. I quickly remembered it had once been a pony and pulled my hoof away. “You think Stern was dusted?”

There was a crash from down a long hallway, followed by an angry squawk-like yell that could only come from a griffon's beak.

“I’m going to take that as a no,” Crossroads scowled, advancing down the hallway towards the noise. The rest of us closely followed. I had faced off against Stern before. I knew she was no threat to be taken lightly.

We rounded the corner, taking in the sight of Stern. She paced back and forth before a large steel door, her sharp talons clicking against the cracked ground as she walked. Her Anti-Machine Rifle was held tightly in her one claw and her bullwhip rested by her hip, easily within quick reach.

“You can’t fucking hole yourselves in there forever!” the griffon snarled, her claws clacking against the ground again.

“Fuck you Stern!” I heard the muffled, but brave sounding shout of a scribe from behind the door. Stern lashed her talons against the door, causing sparks to shoot in all directions and the door to shake violently. I could hear the scribes beyond whimpering at the sudden sound and motion of the door.

One of Stern’s green eyes landed on us and she stilled. We all stood silently, staring at each other with weapons drawn. Stern’s gaze slowly shifted to me and my friends. “Fuckin’ hell. I’m guessing Big Mino is dead then,” she sounded more annoyed that furious or worried. I gave her an affirming nod. “Fuck. I always need to do everything myself.”

The large, black griffin launched themself at me at a speed I couldn’t possibly have expected. I rolled to the side as her talons raked at the air I had just been in.

My allies opened fire, their weapons peppering the walls with holes as Stern twisted in the air dove out of the way.

The slaver griffin had her whip out in a flash, the thick rope flashing forwards and wrapping around Blueberry’s rocket launcher. She pulled, reefing the large barrel from his side as he fired it. His shot went wide, the rocket missing Stern by a mile and crashing into the far wall, blowing a huge hole into it and out into the wasteland beyond.

One of Brisk’s shots landed, his pistol blasting a small hole in Stern’s side. The griffin flinched back, a spurt of blood erupting from her side, but she remained upright, her face hardly registering the pain of the bullet.

The Anti-material rifle in her talons swirled around and blasted into Brisk’s hoof, sending him toppling to the ground. Brisk Screamed, his pistol falling from his mouth and clattering to the floor.

I pushed myself forwards, reaching for my combat shotgun as I went to protect Brisk from any further harm.

Pyre was faster. She darted past me, her metal enclosed hooves flying towards Stern’s head. The griffin flipped out of the way, her body swooping completely upside down as she evaded what would have otherwise been a lethal attack. Stern was fast, but the bullet hole seeping blood on her right side seemed to be slowing her down.

Mid swoop, her saddlebags opened a crack. Through them I saw the thin glint of light of a smooth black surface. The A.A.S.S.

I continued my rush forwards, my hooves reaching for her saddlebags as quickly as I could. Stern Swung around, her thick tail lashing me across the face and pushing me back. My head bounced painfully against the ground, sending my vision into a fractured blur.

Crossroads advanced, her laser rifles forcing Stern to retreat somewhat. The griffin landed on the ground, her own rifle sending off quick shots towards us. Xayah jumped to the side, what was to be a well aimed shot shooting wide as Stern forced her to dodge.

Pyre launched herself at Stern again, this time her flamers spewing a stream of fire towards her. Stern leapt aside, the tip of her tale burning. Stern growled and slashed at Pyre with her talons, the sharp claws gouging rents into the side of her armour.

I took her momentary focus on Pyre to Snag her saddlebag with a hoof, ripping at the thick fabric and sending its contents spilling across the floor. There was a clang as the A.A.S.S. dropped from the bag and rolled across the floor.

Stern’s head spun in my direction, her beak snapping at my neck as if trying to rip out my throat. She pushed Pyre aside and dove for the A.A.S.S. I dove as well, my hooves reaching for the oblong device.

My hooves wrapped around it at the same time as her talons. I suddenly found myself involved in a frantic and deadly tug war in which I had no hopes of winning. I was not a strong pony, and Stern definitely was. I mean, how am I supposed to compete with lion strength?

Crossroads’ laser rifle blasted a gash across Stern’s side, the burning laser cauterizing the wound before it could start to bleed. Stern scowled from the pain and reached forwards with her talons, refocusing her grip from the A.A.S.S. to pulling me down.

I felt my body give under her overbearing strength and smash against the ground. One of Stern’s talon’s wrapped around my head, pushing my face into the flooring while her other swung up her Anti-material rifle and fired countless shots towards her attackers with deadly accuracy.

My friends scattered, trying to dive away best they could in the tight confines of the hallway. One of Stern’s shots pierced the plating covering Blueberry’s chest. The Applejack Ranger fell, blood spilling from the hole that had been ripped open in him.

Then the cavalry arrives. It was about fucking time!

Five rangers burst down the hall, their battle saddles aimed at Stern. The griffin suddenly found herself confronted by a wall of grenade launchers and magical energy weapons. She glanced down at me, her eyes locking on the A.A.S.S. that I still held in my hooves.

I raised my shotgun in my magic and aimed it at her, adding to the overwhelming amount of firepower Stern was suddenly facing. The griffin scowled at me and quickly retracted her talons. “Don’t think this is over Amber,” Stern purred, her beak snapping slightly in agitation. “Don’t think this is fucking over!” With that, she leapt backwards, and with a mighty flap of her powerful wings, flew out the large hole in the wall and off into the wasteland.

The second she was gone, Crossroads was at Blueberry’s side. “Hey, you alright?”

Blueberry let out a loud groan, his hoof placed tightly over his bleeding chest. “I feel like I’ve been mauled by a Hellhound.”

Crossroads turned to the closest two rangers and gestured them over. “Get him to Heartbeat now. Hurry!” The two rangers quickly obeyed, hauling the wounded knight off as gently and expediently as they could.

I stumbled over to where Xayah was doing her best to wrap up Brisk’s wounded leg, my head still feeling a little dizzy from being slammed into the ground. “Hey, you doing alright?”

Brisk gave me a blank stare. “It would be nice if I could have some Buck…” my eyes widened and I opened my mouth to protest his request, but he silenced me with a wave of his uninjured hoof. “Don’t worry, I’m messing with you sis. No more of that stuff. I promise.”

“We should get you to Heartbeat,” Xayah said, finishing up wrapping his leg. She leaned back and looked over her work. It was better than I could do, but not nearly as good as Heartbeat could do.

Brisk quickly shook his head. “I should be fine for now. He has more urgent ponies to patch up at the moment. I’ll see him about my leg when things calm down a bit,” he glanced over at my saddlebags. “I see you got the A.A.S.S. back.”

I gave him a smug grin. “Hopefully that's the last time we are going to need to chase it down.”

He returned my grin, though his was admittedly more cocky. “Won’t need to hunt it down again if we destroy it,” I swatted at him with my tail.

Mirra scrambled over and sat down next to us. She seemed relatively unharmed, with only a small scratch across her face. I suppose you tend to get through fights better when you have a pony as strong as Pyre Blaze keeping you safe. “Remind me to stick to infiltration next time,” The disguised changeling grumbled, looking over her new revolver in her magic with disdain. “I don’t think I like combat very much.”

I knighted my brows together. “Was this your first fight?” I asked, feeling somewhat surprised.

Mirra gave a timid nod. “Unless you count the small scrimish on the train, but this was the first time I actually fought against a pony before.”

“Well you did good. Better than I did. I think I was a little more squeamish in my first fight,” I admitted, giving the small changeling a friendly bump on the shoulder.

“She screamed,” Brisk said flatly, a hint of a smile on his lips. “Screamed like a girl.”

“I did not!”

“Did too!”

I flustered. “Yeah, well you dance like a girl!”

“Natural talent.”

“You’re the worst.”

“I know.”

Crossroads approached the large steel door Stern had been trying to get through and knocked on it with a hoof. “Scribe Butterscotch, this is Paladin Crossroads. The area is clear to open up.”

There was a bit of shuffling behind the door, followed by a loud creak as the large metal door slid open. Twelve Applejack Ranger scribes stood on the far side. A lot of them looked injured, their clothes ripped and caked with blood. One mare with a white coat and blond mane that was dressed in similar attire to nurse Heartbeat rushed back and forth among them, tending to their wounds.

A scribe with a yellowy-brown coat took a small step forwards, limping slightly on a bandaged leg. “Paladin Crossroads, thank you for getting us out of here. Crusader Dustbowl is-”

“I know Butterscotch. Your message was received,” Crossroads turned and gestured for the rest of the rangers to start helping the scribes up and out of the building. “You did good, protecting our brothers and sisters. Thank you scribe.”

Scribe Butterscotch placed his injured hoof over his chest in the Ranger salute. “I-I have something to report mam, about our findings here...”

Crossroads raised a hoof. “At ease. I’m sure your report can wait. Heal up, get some rest. You’ve earned it.”

Crossroads began to turn to help one of the fallen scribes, but Butterscotch put a hoof out to stop her. “Mam, I think this is very important. It’s about Iron Hock…”

My ears shot up at the name of the Ranger. It had been a long time since I had even thought about that power hungry Steel Ranger. From the way Crossroads froze, I could tell she was surprised to.

“Iron Hock!?” I asked, pulling myself to my hooves and walking over to them. “What does he have to do with this?”

Crossroads cast me a quick glance. “I take it you’ve met him?”

I gave a quick nod. “He kidnapped me! Not to mention kept talking about using the Steel Rangers to conquer the wasteland!”

Crossroads sighed. “Yeah, that sounds like Iron Hock. Nasty piece of work that pony is. Always thought the Steel Rangers could do more than sitting around hoarding tech. He wanted to impose a military run government system upon the wasteland. Of course he wished he would be incharge. He cares less for the protection of ponies and more for the protection of the idea of organized society.”

“I’m guessing he didn’t take well to the Applejacks Rangers then,” Brisk monotoned, limping over to me, Xayah at his side supporting most of his weight as he walked.

Scribe Butterscotch snorted. “Took it well enough. Inspired him to make his own splinter group.”

I gulped at that. “Let me guess. This splinter group of his is all about hostile takeover of the wasteland?” I didn’t need to see Crossroads nod to know that I was right. Perfect. Another faction that was going to start causing trouble, just what I needed.

“Unfortunately, Iron Hock had quite a few followers inside of the Steel Rangers, and the skism only strengthened their beliefs in him. It didn’t take him long to form a group large enough to be a genuine threat. And with Elder Cottage Cheese currently in our care in Stable 29, a lot of Steel Rangers in the Manehattan area are looking for leadership,” Crossroads grumbled, clearly not happy with the facts. “He’s been staying low at the moment, but it's not like Iron Hock to sit with his hoof up his ass. Nor is it like him to think small.”

“That's what I was going to report about mam,” Butterscotch said, gesturing to the room behind her. “We think Iron hock was here, scavenging pre war tech.”

“I’m guessing he took everything of value here then?” Crossroads said flatly.

Butterscotch shook their head. “That’s just it. He seems to have left all of the really valuable stuff behind. He mostly took parts from power generators and robobrains.”

Crossroads head snapped up. “What! Why would he… are you sure it was him? Iron Hock would never leave a piece of tech untouched.”

Butterscotch gave an affirmative look. “We managed to hack into the prewar security cameras here. It was him. Him and a lot of other rangers.”

I could clearly see Crossroads concern, despite the fact that she was doing her best not to show it. “Thank you Butterscotch. I look forward to your full report once you are properly healed,” With that, she started leading the scribe away and down the hallway.

I noticed the medic that had been tending to the scribes was looking at me wearily, her eyes locked on my saddlebags. I followed her gaze to where the A.A.S.S. sat slightly exposed from the top of my bag. I quickly covered it up, making her realise I knew she was staring.

The medic blinked a few times before clearing her throat and approaching me. “Where did you get that?”

I glanced back and forth between my saddlebag and the approaching medic. “Depends, who are you?”

The medic stopped in front of me and extended her hoof for a hoof bump. I returned it. “The name is Reverie, and I work here.”

I blinked. “You… Work in an abandoned hospital?” Reverie nodded. “Do I even want to ask how that works?”

“A lot of ponies need healing in the wasteland. It's not uncommon for wounded ponies to come to the hospital in search of medical supplies. I set up shop here to help those that come looking for just that,” Reverie replied, gesturing behind her where I saw what appeared to a fairly cosy looking living space built into one side of the room. “I also do therapy for ponies that need it. I unfortunately need to charge for health care so that I can keep up my supplies of healing potions and chems, but I can listen to a ponies problems free of charge.”

“I don’t suppose you saw Iron Hock and his rangers when he stormed and ransacked the place?” I asked, hopefully.

Reverie shook her head. “I was out at friendship city at the time stocking up on supplies. Though I doubt I would have been able to stop him even if I was here. I’m no fighter.”

I gestured to my saddlebags suspiciously. “And you know about the A.A.S.S. how?” I asked, one of my eyebrows raising slightly.

Reverie’s eyes narrowed ever so slightly. “A client of mine stopped by here not long ago with that in his possession. I want to know how you got your hooves on it.”

“A client of yours… had the A.A.S.S?” I stammered. That made no sense. “Unless you were giving a powerful immortal zebra or a group of deadly cyber pony death machines therapy sessions, that’s not possible,” Reverie remained silent. I could feel my eyes widening as I began to put together what was happening. “Wait… You actually gave one of those a therapy session, didn’t you.”

Reverie bit her lip, trying to figure out what she should or should not tell me. “I… Crank had stopped by me multiple times. Yes.”

I balked. “You were giving Crank therapy! As in the massive killing machine of ultimate death cyber alicorn Crank!” The idea of Crank sitting across from somepony on a couch and telling them about his problems seemed ludicrous.

The therapist gave a small nod. “He saved me from a group of raiders that attacked me a few years back. I offered to heal him, but he didn’t need it. So instead, I offered him therapy. He accepted reluctantly, but refused to open up. When he left I felt as if I had failed to help or get through to him, but he returned a few months later, this time seeking help. His visits were far and few between, the last time I saw him being the first in quite a few months. I think he was very lonely.”

I just continued to stare at her, my jaw agape. “But… what! What would a pony like Crank even talk about!”

“At first it was about a mare named Scarlet Dusk. But when he found out that she… well, I won’t get into details… but eventually he started talking about how he was looking for a way to become a pony again in our time together. There's a pony out in Las Pegasus that can regrow old limbs. I don’t know how it works, but his price is impossibly high,” Reverie said, a sad look in her eyes. “Crank hated being a cyber pony. He always wanted to find a way to fix what had been done to him.”

I felt it before I registered what it was. A tear was rolling down my cheek. I quickly wiped it away, hoping that Reverie hadn’t seen it. She had. I saw her face fall.

“Crank’s dead… isn’t he…” Reverie’s voice was low and distant.

I felt a thick lump forming in my throat as I forced myself to nod. “He died a good pony,” I managed to get out. My voice sounded like a croak. Another tear rolled down my face. “He… he managed to become a good pony before the end.”

Reverie put a hoof to her chest and let out a long, slow breath. The breath was heavy and pained. “I didn’t think that pony really could die… I know he did bad things, more than he ever told me… I’m glad he could turn himself around before the end,” She took a step past me, her expression grim. “Now please excuse me. I have a lot to think about and ponies that need healing.”

The therapist quickly moved away from me, leaving me alone with just my friends as the rest of the Rangers and Scribes filed out with her. I glanced around the hospital. I had planned to scavenge for healing supplies, but that just felt wrong now that I knew it was still a functioning hospital. Or at least somewhat functional.

“Something on yer mind, Amber?” Pyre asked, walking up and stopping beside me. “You look a little out of it?”

I shook my head. “I should be fine. Just thinking is all. The more I know about Crank, the more it feels like I never knew him at all.”

Pyre looked away and out the large hole in the wall Blueberry’s rocket launcher had made. “It's best not to think too hard about what your enemies were before you put them down. In the wasteland, that will only drive you mad.”

I sighed. “I suppose that’s correct. I just can't seem to stop thinking about him. It isn’t fair! He should have survived! He had only just begun to turn his life around!”

“The wasteland isn’t fair Amber. Ponies die. It's as simple as that.”

Brisk slowly approached us, still limping slightly on his leg. “Hey Pyre, you mind if I talk to Amber alone for a second?”

Pyre shrugged before turning and marching down the hallway. I could see Xayah and Mirra doing the same. Clearly Brisk had already asked them.

I turned to him and raised an eyebrow. “What is it bro?”

Brisk turned and looked out at the wasteland. It looked like a windstorm was starting to pick up outside. Nothing too dangerous, but something to keep an eye on for sure. “I just wanted to make sure you were alright.”

“I… I mean I’m better than I’ve been in a while…” I said, confused. “I don’t think I’ll ever be simply alright again, not after what happened at Stable 25. But I’m doing okay now… Why? Is something up?”

Brisk shook his head and picked something up off a table that I couldn’t see. “What… what is this?” He said, his voice suddenly sounding very interested in something. “Amber, take a look at this!”

He tossed something at me. Instinctively I reached out with my magic and wrapped a telekinetic field around it.

Almost immediately, the world swirled away as my magic took hold of the glowing memory orb Brisk had passed me. The last thing I saw as my surrounding spiralled into oblivion was the sad expression on Brisk’s face.

“I’m sorry Amber. I hope you can forgive me…”

I was in the body of a mare. I was trotting down a hallway. One that I recognized. It was the same one I stood in now, outside of the memory orb.

A lavender mare with a blue mane trotted past, a pile of papers resting on her back. She gave my host a happy wave as she passed. “Morning Souvenir!”

So this was Dazzling Souvenir’s memory.

“Morning Amethyst,” Dazzling Souvenir’s chipper voice replied, giving her a polite smile. “Is your head feeling better?”

Amethyst bobbed her head in response. “It was a little weird being inside of a memory orb for so long, but there doesn’t seem to have been any harmful effects. It’ll take a bit to get used to being a mare again though.”

Chuckling, Dazzling Souvenir continued on down the hall and turned to face a large steel door. The very one the Applejack Ranger scribes would hide behind two hundred years later. She reached out a hoof and knocked politely on the door. Almost immediately, the huge door slid open.

The room inside looked nothing like it would two hundred years later. Where I had once seen blood soaked walls and shattered furniture, I now saw what looked to be a lavish looking library crossed with a fancy looking office. Bookshelves lined the walls, each shelf containing more books than I could ever hope to read in my lifetime. I made a mental note to scavenge the room for books that had survived after I got out of this memory.

Correction. I’d do that after I found out why the fuck Brisk had trapped me in here in the first place!

In the center of the room, standing around a fancy looking dark wood desk stood two ponies. The first I recognised immediately. I had been finding traces of him all across the wasteland as of late.

Silver Ace stood to one side, his silver hoof placed over a large book to keep his place. The dark bags under his eyes seemed to have deepened since I had last seen him. I doubted he had been getting much sleep.

The second pony took a second to register. I recognised them, that was for sure, but not directly. They were a pegasus with a yellow coat and a long pink mane. Three butterflies adorned her flank. It was the cutie mark that finally gave her away. The Ministry mare Fluttershy.

“It’s risky,” Silver Ace said, not turning to see Dazzling Souvenir in the doorway. “If zebras get their hooves on such a spell… the war could get very dangerous very fast.”

“But I can’t just stand by while others are out there getting hurt,” Fluttershy responded. I think she had actually yelled that, but her voice was so quiet it only barely rose to normal talking level.

Silver Ace sighed. “I know… I know… neither can I… We just need to be careful. Other ponies won't take it well if they found out about this Fluttershy. I won’t stop you. Celestia knows that I couldn’t. Just be careful.”

Fluttershy gave him a gentle smile. “Thank you Silver Ace. I’m glad you understand.”

Silver Ace was silent for a second before trotting over to his chair and slowly lowering himself into it. “I don’t know if I understand or even fully agree with it, but I can at least understand where you’re coming from…” His eyes glanced over to the door where Dazzling Souvenir still stood patiently. “Come in Souvenir.”

My host started trotting forwards, giving Fluttershy a respectful nod as she did. Fluttershy returned it before turning and fluttering out of the room. The second she was out of sight, I could have sworn I saw the smallest hint of a smug smile spread across Silver Ace’s lips, but he did a good job of hiding it.

“You wanted to see me sir,” Dazzling Souvenir said, giving the aging earth pony stallion a polite nod as well.

Silver Ace nodded. He reached down and tapped a talisman that rested on his desk. A small white aura glowed around the talisman and floated up at least ten old looking books around him. “Yes, I have been reading over your findings in regards to the memory orb project that I assigned you. I was quite pleased.”

Dazzling Souvenir blushed slightly. “Thank you sir. Memory orbs have always been my specialty,” She gestured towards her flank where I saw a cutie mark of a glowing memory orb out of the corner of her eye.

“I am aware. That is why I am going to be promoting you to the highest level assignment,” Silver Ace said, his eyes seeming to read over multiple books at once.

Dazzling Souvenir’s brow furrowed. “I thought that… I thought that I was already on the highest level assignment?” she said, her voice confused. “Is that not what I’ve been doing?”

Silver Ace smiled slightly, finally looking down from his books. “You have been working on the highest level here at the fluttershy medical center yes. But this assignment is a little bigger than that,” He took a deep breath. “This memory orb project is only a small part of something much much bigger. I want you as my head scientist for a little project I have been working on called the Utopia program.”

“What is Utopia sir?” Dazzling Souvenir asked, her voice peeking with interest.

Silver Ace glanced around, as if looking to see if anypony was listening in. “I’m afraid I can't say here. I’ll explain in more detail once we are somewhere more private,” He started. Had I been able to groan I would have. Of course he wasn’t going to say what it was. Curse my luck. “But I can tell you this. I fear this war is headed towards disaster. I fear that Equestria will be little more than ruin when this is through. The Utopia program can fix that.”

“What exactly do you mean? What disaster?” Dazzling Souvenir asked, taking a small step closer to his desk.

“Equestria has undergone huge advancements in technology and magic since the start of this war. I fear we are reaching the point that our society’s advancements are no longer creating progress, but simply more horrific ways to destroy ourselves. If that ever comes to pass, we need a plan,” Silver Ace said, once again returning his gaze to his books. “We need a way to bring the Utopia of Equestria back from total annihilation…”

I jolted out of the memory orb. As I came back to my senses I could make in the howling wind outside. Perhaps that windstorm was more severe than I thought.

The Utopia program… whatever it was… could fix everything? The idea alone seemed impossible. How could anything fix all of this! All the destruction and death... And why did it need the A.A.S.S?

Instinctively, my hoof reached down and touched my saddlebag where the A.A.S.S. should be. It was gone!

I bolted to my hooves, my head whipping around the room to try and see if it had fallen out onto the floor. It hadn’t.

And Brisk was gone… damn it! That's why he had put me into the memory orb! He was going to destroy it!

I bolted down the hallway, my hooves still aching from the battle not all that long ago.

Xayah, Pyre and Mirra stood in a small clump, talking amongst themselves when I reached the end of the hallway. They all glanced at me, confused by my sudden panic.

Xayah stepped forwards and put a hoof over my shoulder. “Amber? Are you alright?”

“Where is Brisk?” I asked, my voice frantic.

Pyre cocked her head towards a stairway just down another hall. “He just went down there a few minutes ago. Said he needed some time to think. Looked like he was headed for the roof. Why?”

“And you didn’t stop him why?” I asked, turning and starting to move down the hallway Pyre had suggested.

“Was I supposed to?” Pyre asked, her voice only growing more and more confused.

I didn’t stop to answer her as I broke out into a full sprint down the hallway, pushing past the pains that shot up my legs. I heard my friends calling for me to slow down, but I didn’t listen. I had to get the A.A.S.S. back before Brisk destroyed it. I couldn’t lose it now, not after what I had learned.

I remembered the last thing he had said before sending me into that orb. ‘I’m sorry Amber. I hope you can forgive me…’ damn it Brisk.

I barreled up the stairs and burst onto the flat roof of the Fluttershy Medical center. It looked like the windstorm I had seen earlier had begun to pick up in earnest, sending thick swirling waves of ash and dust billowing through the air around us.

Brisk stood at the edge of the roof, his back turned to me, the powerful winds whipping his mane around him wildly. The A.A.S.S. was held alfot in his hoof. He was hesitating, thank the goddesses.

I started moving towards him. “Brisk put it down!” I said, alerting him of my presence, my voice only just loud enough to hear over the storm.

Brisk turned to me, a sad look in his eyes. “I’m going to destroy it, Amber. Then this will all be over!”

I reached a hoof forwards, gesturing for him to give it back. “Don't do this Brisk. I need it!”

“No you dont!” He yelled back, his voice still clearly legible over the sound of howling wind. “Stable 25 is dead Amber! Everypony is fucking dead! The only pony that needs this is Red Eye! So lets make sure that he never gets it!”

I took another step towards him, struggling to move forwards against the violent winds that seemed to be pushing me back. “We can’t do that! I think it can fix the wasteland Brisk! I don’t know how, but it can!”

Brisk gestured to the horror filled landscape that spread out from the medical center in all directions. “Nothing can fix this Amber! The world is dead! It’s never going to stop being dead! But we can end this right now! We can stop Red Eye or whoever else wants this damn thing from ever getting their hooves on it!”

“But what if there was a chance!” I shot back, my voice rising as I took another step towards him. A massive gust of wind blew past me, making me stumble slightly. “What if there was a chance to fix everything! Shouldn’t at least try!”

“I’m tired Amber!” Brisk shot back, raising the A.A.S.S. higher as he prepared to smash it. “I’m tired of constantly needing to chase crazy ponies across the wasteland! I’m tired of getting shot at for trying to stop something that we don’t even fully understand! I’m tired of watching you slowly get crushed and destroyed by the wasteland Amber! You deserve better than this! You deserve to settle down somewhere and live a happy life! After everything, don’t you at least deserve that!”

“Not if I give up a chance to save everypony!” I spat back, pushing a blowing strand of hair from my face. “If I give that up, I don’t deserve anything!”

“Then don’t give up! Let me give up for you!” Brisk yelled, his voice raising higher and higher to be heard over the wind. His hoof came down, slamming the A.A.S.S. against the edge of the roof.

The A.A.S.S. cracked. It didn’t shatter or break completely, but it cracked. Brisk raised his hoof again, this time slamming all of his force down upon the black, oblong device. The crack grew, thin lines spreading across the surface of the device.

I was too far away from him to tackle him away from it. He would smash it into bits long before I reached him. So I did the only thing I could do.

I raised my combat shotgun in my magic and aimed. “I’m sorry Brisk. I hope you can forgive me…”

Blam!

The buckshot ripped through his injured foreleg. Brisk stumbled backwards, his undamaged hoof clutching at where I had blasted into him. Blood spilled from his leg, colouring his barding crimson. He staggered, trying to stay upright and keep smashing the A.A.S.S. He failed. He fell, collapsing onto his side in a heap, chest slowly rising and falling with pain filled breaths.

I lunged forwards, pushing myself the last few feet to where the device lay on the ground. I reached a hoof forwards, preparing to grab onto the device.

Blam!

I staggered back, my foreleg bleeding from a hole punched into the side by Brisk’s pistol. I was pushed aside as Brisk tackled into me, sending me skidding across the rooftop. I climbed to my hooves and pushed back, grappling him away from the device.

We stumbled across the rooftop, hooves kicking and flailing at each other. Brisk’s hoof knocked me upside the head, sending me stumbling towards the edge. My hoof bumped against the A.A.S.S. sending it rolling towards the edge of the roof.

I reached out with my magic and wrapped it in my telekinesis, pushing it away from the ledge and back to the safety of the center of the roof. I let out a sigh of relief, pushing Brisk off of me and once again lunging for it.

Brisk wrapped his bleeding hooves around my midsection and pulled me back. I twisted, bucking him in the chest. I heard a loud crack as my hoof cracked his ribs.

Brisk yelled with pain, stumbling away and clutching at his chest. I tried to pull myself back up, only for Brisk to spin around and Buck me in the face. I flew back, his strength easily tossing around my light body.

I rubbed my cheek with a hoof. Something was definitely broken.

I rolled up, trying my best to push past the pain. I limped forwards, my bleeding forehoof making walking incredibly difficult. I glared at Brisk as I watched him do the same.

“I just wanted to stop this Amber! We’re so close!” He said, a drizzle of blood dripping from his mouth. “We can end this!”

“I won't let you destroy the Wastelands only chance of ever becoming a Utopia again!” I snarled back, spitting out a wad of blood and broken tooth fragments.

We flew at each other again, hooves pounding against each other as we tried to knock the other into submission. One of Brisk’s hooves slammed against my side, pounding against where Big Mino had broken two of my ribs. I yelped, rolling on top of him and slamming my hooves down against the side of his head. His head snapped to the side, a large bruise already forming where the strike had landed.

Brisk tried to push me off, but I held him down. I slammed my hoof down again, knocking out one of his teeth. His hind hooves kicked at me. I felt one of my own ribs snap.

I reeled up, both forehooves coming down hard on his head. There was a crack as Brisk’s head bounced against the hard rooftop. His eyes glazed up, a thick stream of blood spilling from his muzzle.

I leaned back panting, my whole body aching from the fight. I placed a hoof on Brisk’s chest. He was still breathing, thank the goddesses, just unconscious.

I staggered off of him, my hooves threatening to give out from under me. I turned to where the A.A.S.S. had landed and froze.

Somepony stood over it. Or at least I had thought it was a pony at first.

They were made of metal, their body looking almost like an off white mechanical skeleton. There was an insignia engraved on their shoulder. The symbol of an alicorn, hooves and wings outstretched in the center of a circle. The symbol of the institute.

The synth leaned down, its metal hooves picking up the A.A.S.S. Slowly it raised its head to look at me, it’s two glowing blue eyes burning into mine.

I stumbled forwards to stop it, but I was too weak. I collapsed next to Brisk, helpless to stop the synth, blood spilling from my body and mingling with Brisk’s.

The Synth put a metallic hoof to their ear, pressing down on a small intercom on one ear. “The objective has been secured,” It’s voice was tinny and emotionless.

A beam of blue light shot down, and the synth vanished from sight, taking the A.A.S.S. with it.

Footnote: level up.
New perk: Action Girl -- +25 Action points

Chapter XIX: The Silent Sentinel

“I can’t believe that people actually had to pay to see the doctor.”

Tired.

I was so very very tired. I had spent almost every day for the good half of a month constantly running and fighting for my life. I had hardly slept, I had eaten far less than I probably should have, both out of habit and the lack of food, and I had been forced to walk farther distances that I had ever known the world even contained.

After a while, I had just gotten really really tired.

But I was tired of something else as well. I was tired of hunting down the A.A.S.S, fighting against terrible odds, facing death over and over, only to have it taken away from me again and again.

How many times would I need to hunt it down? How many ponies would I need to kill before there would be no ponies left to take it from me. What would it take?

The easy answer, of course, would be to destroy the A.A.S.S once and for all like Brisk had suggested. But I couldn’t do that, not knowing that it might be able to save the whole wasteland.

So I’d just need to keep fighting. Fighting against the damned forces of the wasteland until every bastard that dared to take it back from me lay dead at my hooves. But what would that cost me? Would I still be Amber Aura? Or had I stopped being Amber Aura a long time ago?

It was time to take the fight to them. It was time to end this…

The Institute had done more than just make me focus my sights on them, they had given me a clear objective. Since the destruction of the MAS tower I had grown somewhat aimless, constantly being torn back and forth between multiple, seemingly unconnected endeavors. Not anymore. Now my path was clear.

Get into the Institute and stop the madness at the source.

Everything I had to do was finally falling into place. Hunt down the Friendship Express, get into the Institute, get back the A.A.S.S. and rescue Rubber Bands from their grasp. Maybe even find Mirra’s mother along the way. I had started to develop a suspicion that she was entangled in this long web of conflicts somehow.

The Institute had remained a secret for a long time, growing and festering somewhere in the ruins of Manehattan. I had started to notice the effects of their influence, but the interlocking strings of the great puppeteers had always been shrouded in secrecy, stopping even those that pursued them from uncovering their secrets. But they had finally made a very critical mistake.

They had crossed me. They had ignited the fires of their own downfall.

But not everything was crystal clear yet. Something was bothering me though… Well, a lot of things were bothering me actually, but one thing above the others. I hadn’t seen the synth appear.

And it wasn’t the use of non magical teleportation either that unsettled me, I had seen that done multiple times now. The cyber ponies had done it when they first broke into my Stable all those days ago and even Azar had done it to escape the MAS tower shortly before it exploded.

It was that the synth hadn’t shown up on my EFS. I hadn’t spotted it until I had turned and faced it directly. Perhaps I had simply been too distracted by Brisk to notice the synths bar pop up, but I usually pay close attention to my EFS in combat, it's one of the few things that gives me an edge over most of the wasteland.

No, it definitely hadn’t shown up on EFS, just like the creatures in the Hollow Shades. It had managed to disguise it somehow. Some sort of cloaking field perhaps? And that... that was concerning.

Xayah found Brisk and I on the roof a few moments later. She took one look at our broken and bleeding bodies before turning and calling down to somepony on the floor below. I couldn’t make out her words over the ringing in my ears.

Xayah rushed over to me, her hooves gingerly propping me up. “Amber! Amber what happened!” Her words sounded muffled and distant. I groaned and tried to say something, but the swelling in my jaw made it difficult.

Pyre rushed onto the roof a few moments later, Heartbeat quickly rushing up behind her. The nurse took one look at Brisk and I before breaking out into a full gallop. He rushed up to Brisk, clearly the more injured of the two of us. His horn started glowing and wrapped Brisk in a soft glow.

“Get Amber down and out of the storm!” Heartbeat shouted to Pyre, his focus still fixed on Brisk's heavily bleeding body. “Xayah, go get Reverie!”

I saw Xayah give a quick nod. She planned a kiss on my forehead before darting away into the building.

I was suddenly lifted up into the air, pulled aloft by Pyre Blaze’s strong hooves as she tossed me onto her back. I groaned as my broken ribs landed heavily on her tough armoured back. Pyre cast a glance back at me as she started hauling me back inside. “What the fuck happened Amber?”

I worked my jaw a little bit to try and get it to work. It hurt… a lot. “Brisk and I… got into a fight…”

“Yeah, I can see that,” Pyre scowled, finally pulling me back into the Fluttershy Medical Center and out of the howling winds. “You want to tell me why?”

“He… he was going to destroy it…” I said lamely, trying to let my body relax atop her back. With the amount of pain I was in, it was very difficult. “...I couldn’t let him do that…”

Pyre shook her head as she trotted down the hallway to what had once been Silver Ace’s office. “Why don’t you just destroy it Amber? It would save you a lot of trouble.”

I forced myself to shake my head, despite the pain it caused me. “I think there’s a chance it can fix the wasteland Pyre… I think it can fix everything.”

I bounced up and down a few times on Pyre’s back. It took me a second to realize she was chuckling. “I don’t think anything can fix the wasteland Amber. Even if you removed all the radiation and Taint, the wasteland will keep coming back. That's never fully going away.”

I sighed and let myself fall limp across her back. It was more comfortable that way somehow. “Doesn’t matter now I guess. The Institute took it…”

Pyre stalled for a second before continuing down the hallway. “I’m sorry, the Institute did what?”

I coughed, a wad of flem filled blood spraying from my mouth. “They sent a synth. It took the A.A.S.S.”

There was silence for a few moments. Finally, Pyre gave a long, low sigh. “I suppose we’re going after the Institute now then?” I gave a small nod. “You realize how crazy that sounds, right Amber? I mean, this is the fucking Institue you’re talking about. They're so damn secretive, most of the wasteland doesn’t even think they’re real, let alone know where they are.”

Pyre finally trotted into Silver Ace’s old office and laid me down on an old, stained medical bed. I winced once again as my body was forced to shift positions. I glanced up at Pyre, wiping a smear of blood from my face. “I think if we can find the Friendship Express… they might be able to help…”

Pyre just stared at me for a moment. “And do we know where they are?”

I had to think about that for a second. Did I know where the Friendship Express was? I had never been told. Not directly anyway. “Emissary mentioned that he was going to meet up with them in the Manehattan metro tunnels I think,” I finally said. I reached into my Stable barding and pulled out the talisman decorated with the image of a glowing lantern that Emissary had given me. “He gave me this and said to… uh.. Follow the friendship trail.”

I saw one of Pyre’s eyebrows raise behind her visor. “You want to go into the Metro? Do you have any idea what’s down there? I’ve heard rumours it's one of the most dangerous places in all of Manehattan.”

I gave her a sly look. At least I hoped it looked like a sly look, it was hard to do anything with my face when one side of it was a puffy bulge and the rest was blackened with bruises. “Can't be any worse than the Glowing Sea or any of the other horrors we ran into in the Hollow Shades.”

Pyre gave a small chuckle at that. “You know what. Fair enough. I’ll let you win that one. Into the metro it is.”

The door burst open and Reverie marched in quickly, Xayah following closely behind her. The medic quickly placed a pair of spectacles on her muzzle and looked me over. She reached forwards and tapped a hoof against my chest. It was a light tap, but enough to make me flinch in pain. “Damn,” She muttered, turning her attention away from my chest and down to my leg. She pulled out some sort of metal plier-like tool. “You definitely have broken ribs. As that is Heartbeat’s specialty, I’ll let him deal with that once he is finished stabilizing your friend.”

I looked up at her. “You’ve met Nurse Heartbeat before?” I asked, fairly surprised at her knowledge of our companions expertise.

Reverie gave a nod. “He worked here with me a few years back, before he decided to settle in Tenpony Tower and train under Doctor Helping Hoof. He’s a good doctor… A good pony.”

“Is…” I coughed again, making my chest burst with a burning pain. “Is Brisk alright?”

Reverie gave me a quizzical look before looking back at my leg. “Oh I’m sure he’s fine. If what Heartbeat said is correct then you only shot him with a shotgun once and broke a fifth of the bones in his body. How very generous of you to not break all of them,” She scowled sarcastically. She turned to Xayah. “Hold her down please, this is about to hurt.”

Xayah grimaced, but quickly moved over to me. She looked down at me with wide eyes as she held me down with her forehooves. “What were you two thinking, you foolish ponies?”

I sighed, which was something that hurt far more than it should have. “I didn’t have a choice…”

“I don’t know what the hell this barding of yours is made of, but it stopped the bullet from completely penetrating your leg,” Reverie said, furrowing her brow as she looked over the bullet hole Brisk had punctured into me. “That said, it didn’t stop it from lodging itself halfway into your flesh. I’m going to need to remove it else you risk a severe infection.”

I gave her a pained nod. “That's fine. Just do it.”

For some reason, having the bullet pulled out of me was just as painful as having the bullet put into me. I flinched, as the pliers twisted and pulled out the chunk of lead with a pop. Xayah’s hooves tightened around me, as if expecting me to squirm and thrash. I gave her an amused look. “Xayah, I’ve had every bone in my body broken, been burned alive from the inside out and been trapped within the mind of a cyber pony as they had their flesh peeled and organs dissected. I can handle this.”

Reverie grunted. “I don’t even want to know how you ended up witnessing those last two.”

The door burst open again as Nurse Heartbeat stomped into the room, an angry scowl across his face. “Amber! Do you want to explain to me why my patient has buckshot lodged in his leg and a bunch of Amber Aura sized hoof print shaped bruises all over his body!”

I grimaced. “We got in a fight…”

“No shit!” Heartbeat growled. His horn glowed for a second, surrounding me in a field of his magic. There was a pop and my bones mended and snapped back into place. I gave a surprised yelp as his impressive healing magic did its work. Heartbeat slumped a little as the exertion of the spell washed over him. “How do you expect me to keep my patient alive and well if you’re going to go around beating him up!”

I let my head rest back on the bed and stared up at the ceiling. “It’s complicated. It won't happen again.”

“It better not,” Heartbeat scowled. He stomped his hoof and spun in a quick circle, trying to get out some of his rage. Finally he came to a stop and took a deep breath. When he spoke again, his voice had returned to his normal calm composure, though perhaps with a little sharper of an edge than usual. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be yelling at you like this. From what Brisk said, the fight wasn’t even your fault.”

“He’s awake?” I asked, pulling myself up a little. “How is he doing?”

“He should be fine after a good night's rest as long as he doesn’t do anything stupid. A healing potion dealt with most of the damage from your shotgun and my magic managed to fix his bones. He'll be travel ready by tomorrow, but I don’t want him up and walking about any sooner than that,” Heartbeat reached into his saddlebag and pulled out a healing potion before quick passing it to me. I quickly accepted it and downed its contents. “He was asking for you by the way.”

I stiffened. I was glad that he wasn’t severely hurt… but I don’t think I was ready to talk to him quite yet. Not after he had tried to destroy everything I had been trying to protect and shot me in the leg. I scrunched up my muzzle. “I don’t think I want to see him right now…” I said softly, but everypony could clearly hear the hurt tone in my voice. “Just… tell him I’m sleeping or something.”

Heartbeat raised his eyebrow. “I think Brisk is smart enough to know when he’s being lied to.”

I dropped my head and stared at my hoof as Reverie started bandaging it. “I know, I just… I’m not ready to talk to him just yet.”

The Nurse gave a quick nod before turning away and stalking from the room. “I’ll tell him you’re asleep, but you really should talk to him soon. For his sake and yours,” With that he turned the corner and moved out of sight.

Pyre stretched her forelegs forwards and gave a loud yawn. “Well, as fun as this has all been, I’ma gonna head out. Mirra and I will be outside if you need us.”

I glanced around the room. “Where is Mirra right now?”

Pyre straightened and gestured out the large doorway. “Talking to that robobrain you reprogrammed. What was her name? Dazzling Souvenir or something,” My raider friend rolled her shoulder, her bones making an uncomfortable popping noise. “That bot is starting to realize that her and her friends are a bunch of brains in jars… she isn’t taking it well.”

I sighed. “I’ll need to see what I can do to help them.”

Reverie held up a hoof. “Ah yes, the robobrains. After all my years of living here, I had begun to assume they were all inactive,” She said, giving me a sad look. “Don’t you worry about them. It might take some time, and it will definitely take a lot of therapy, but I think I might be able to repurpose them. If I can, we might be able to turn this place around into a fully functional hospital again.”

“You think you can turn those robobrains back into hospital staff?” I asked, watching as Pyre slowly walked out of the room before returning my attention to Reverie and Xayah. It seemed almost too good to be true.

Reverie shrugged. “I don’t see why not. If what I’ve read in the terminals around here is to be believed, those brains once belonged to some of the greatest doctors and scientists in the Ministry of Peace. Not to mention that Dazzling Souvenir has already shown tremendous cognitive growth in the few hours she has had control over her body.”

“It was a good call,” Xayah said, nuzzling my cheek slightly. “Trying to save them instead of destroying them.”

I forced myself to grin. At least some of the things that had happened today didn’t suck.

“Many of the Outcasts scribes are well versed with MWT technology,” Reverie continued to explain. “With their help I should be able to reprogram the robobrains to not be hostile.”

“The Applejack Rangers are still here?” I asked. “I thought they would be heading back to Stable 29 now that they’ve rescued their scribes.”

“Some of them are,” Xayah said from beside me. “Crossroads for one was called away to deal with something going on back at the Stable. Something about a crusader mainframe I think... but many of the scribes and knights are remaining here.”

“But… Why?” I asked, still not fully understanding.

“Since the schism between the rangers, all sides have been spread thin, both in resources and numbers,” Reverie said, taking a small step away from the bed. “The Applejack rangers needed another base of operations in close proximity to Stable 29 as well as access to medical treatment. I was eager to offer my support.”

“So this is an Applejack Ranger outpost now?”

Reverie nodded. “It’s a good deal for both them and me. They’ll provide me with protection and scavenge for medical equipment, and I’ll provide them with an easily fortified outpost and medical treatment. I was always hesitant to help the Steel Rangers, but under Steelhooves command, I truly believe they have managed to turn themselves around.”

Reverie checked me over a few more times to make sure she hadn’t missed any wounds before finally deciding I was fit to be left alone.

“I know the wasteland is a terrible place Amber,” Reverie said as she started to turn to leave. “I know you must have seen and done terrible things. If you ever need somepony to talk to, I will always be here at the medical centre if you need me.”

I gave her a small nod, though I doubted I’d ever find the time to do such a thing. “Thanks, I’ll keep that in mind.”

Reverie walked out leaving me alone with Xayah. I winced a little as I tried to push myself up a little. My chest was probably going to be sore for the next few days. I looked up at the zebra. “I really need to stop hurting myself like this…”

Xayah just gave me a sad look. "Get some sleep Amber, you need it."

Falling asleep shouldn’t have been hard. I was so far beyond tired and Xayah’s comforting presence made me feel safer than I usually did in the wasteland. But I couldn’t sleep. I was too busy thinking about my fight with Brisk and the impossible task of trying to get inside the Institute.

Getting to Kamari had been one thing. It had been dangerous and grueling, but we had at least had leads. Finding the Institute was a whole different matter. As far as I knew, nopony had even the smallest inkling of where the Institute might be. Not even the Friendship Express knew, and they had been trying to locate it for who knows how long.

When sleep finally overtook me, it was filled with troubled dreams.

I was surrounded by darkness. It was closing in, suffocating me. Something foul laughed from the gloom, taking pleasure in my struggling as I clawed at my neck and gasped for air. I stumbled, collapsing to the ground as the darkness around me crushed me down. I could feel blood dripping down my face.

Figures began to emerge from the gloom. Hunched over cackling raiders, dressed in crude barding and drenched in the blood of ponies. They had vile, makeshift weapons, each one aimed at my throat.

I tried to pull myself away from them, but the darkness had pinned me down. There was no escape.

The raiders closed in. I could feel their vile hooves grasping at me, holding me down even more. A rusted knife drew close to my eye, the raider wielding it grinning as he slowly brought it closer.

The darkness was torn apart with a blinding flash of blue energy. Through the cracks in the darkness I could see the vast expanse of the wasteland.

The raiders reeled back, looking for the cause of the blinding flash. Another beam of energy struck out, striking the knife wielding raider in the chest. The raider howled as his front was torn open. He glowed a dazzling blue before dissolving into dust.

The remaining raiders turned away from me, their focus now on the new intruder. They screamed and charged forwards, facing the volley of blasts that shot towards them. Every blast of magical blue energy hit its mark, lancing through the raiders and turning them to dust.

I pulled myself up, the grip of the darkness around me weakening.

There, standing stoically in the pitch black, was Crank. The cyber alicorn stared at me, his glowing red eyes illuminating my way through the dark. His mouth twisted into a snarl and he turned to face in enclosing darkness.

His tesla cannons wrenched apart the gloom, blasting it away is if it had been nothing but a thick fog. The darkness seemed to scream as it was torn apart, wailing like a ghoul that had been blown into a hundred pieces and yet still found itself unable to die.

Then we were standing in the wasteland. I was sitting on an ash covered hilltop, looking out the jagged Manehattan skyline in the distance. Not far away I could see the Pony of Friendship Statue towering over the harbour.

Crank sat beside me, his stoic gaze locked on the distant horizon.

I glanced up at him, not really sure what to think. Finally, I cleared my throat. “I thought you were dead…” I said slowly, my voice so soft I hardly heard myself.

Crank tore his glowing eyes away from the horizon and looked down at me. Those glowing eyes which had once filled me with fear now seemed to give me a sort of strange comfort I had never felt before. “I did,” He grunted ommonusly, not bothering to elaborate any further on that. He once again looked away, his eyes shifting to the skyline.

“You saved me,” I stated, following his gaze. “From those raiders. From the darkness…”

“No. You are the one who saved me,” Crank monotoned, his gaze never shifting. “You showed me that I could be a better pony. That I could beat the wasteland.”

I slumped. “Lot of good that did you…” I sighed. “You might still be alive if it weren’t for me…”

A strange noise escaped Cranks lips. It took me a second to realise he was laughing. “Alive to what end, Amber? As a monster? To wander the wasteland for eternity, killing for my own gain? And what wasteland would I have to return to? Kamari’s vision of true desolation? His great plan passed down from the stars of wiping out pony kind? My death was the best thing that could have happened to me.”

I felt wet tears sting my cheeks. I scooted myself closer, curling up against the large cyber alicorns side. To my surprise, he didn't coil away. He just sat there, unmoving. I was shaking, I didn’t know why. “But… I could have tried to help you more. I could have helped you try to find-”

“Scarlet was dead long before you left the Stable,” Crank said. He raised a metal clad hoof and stoked the back of my mane. His touch was cool, but soothing somehow. “There was nothing you could have done… I should have given up sooner. I was trying to save somepony that was beyond my reach.”

I shuddered, a new wave of tears washing over me. I looked up at him, our eyes locking for the first time. “This is just a dream… isn’t it.”

A forlorn expression crossed Crank’s metal face. “How perceptive of you.”

“So you aren’t really here.”

The cyber alicorn scoffed. “No. No, I’m quite dead.”

I continued weeping, curling closer against his metal form. “I wish you didn’t need to be. I wish I could have done better by you.”

Cranks hoof paused for a long moment before he continued stroking my mane. “You did.”

The two of us sat there for a long time in silence, staring out at the ruin of Manehattan.

When I awoke I was covered in a thick layer of sweat. I gently pushed the covers off of me, trying my best not to wake Xayah who had rested her head on the edge of my bed when she fell asleep.

The sun had set, casting the room into near darkness. The only light to see by being the pale beams of moonlight that shone through the many cracks in the walls. I considered turning on my pipbuck light, but I didn’t want to arouse Xayah with it.

I stretched a forehoof out, testing the pain. It was still sore, but I had dealt with worse. I tried stretching the leg Brisk had shot. I almost yelped with pain as the movement made it feel like a pike had been stabbed through my leg.

“Sorry about that…” A weary voice said from the darkness of the room. My head shot up, scanning the darkness.

My eyes landed on the form of Brisk, hunched over and leaning against the far wall for support. All four of his legs were heavily bandaged and his mane was a mess. His eyepatch had been removed to give room for a large wad of gauze that had been wrapped over where my final strike had landed, his missing eye giving his bruised and swollen face a gastly look. I had really done a number on him.

I crossed my forehooves and gave him a low growl. “What do you want, Brisk?”

Brisk waved a hoof at me, trying to signal that he wanted to have a calmer conversation. “To apologize. I shouldn’t have done what I did. I’m sorry.”

I scowled. “What? That’s it? You tried to destroy what we’ve all been risking our lives to protect, and you think it’ll all be okay with a simple sorry?”

Brisk’s gaze dropped to his hooves. “No… I didn’t. And the truth of the matter is that I don’t fully regret trying to destory the A.A.S.S… I was apologizing for attacking you.”

An angry yell of frustration almost escaped my lips. I had to stomp at the ground to help channel some of my anger. “So let me get this straight. You aren’t even sorry?”

Brisk shook his head. “Not about the A.A.S.S. no… I am sorry I hurt you though. Really.”

“Why are you even here?” I snarled, resisting the urge to yell again. “Shouldn’t you be in bed recovering? I thought Heartbeat said he didn’t want you walking about until your leg was better.”

“I needed to see you. Heartbeat said you were sleeping, but I knew you just didn’t want to see me. I knew this would be the only way I could get you to talk with me,” He sighed and looked back up. “I don’t really blame you for not wanting to. I don’t think I’d want to talk to myself right now, but I couldn’t just let this anger fester between us. I needed my sister back…”

I felt my animosity towards him melt away at those words. I pushed myself up off the bed and limped over to him. “Why did you do it?”

Brisk sighed. “I told you on the roof. I’m done watching the wasteland destroy you, Amber. You deserve better than all of this,” He gestured at the room around him, as if to show off the wastelands evils. “I thought if I destroyed the A.A.S.S. then you could finally settle down and be happy again.”

I gave him a sad shake of my head. “Brisk, you need to understand that no pony can be happy in the wasteland. The only way to make it so all of us can truly be happy is to fix the wasteland completely. If the A.A.S.S. has the power to do that, then we have to at least try, don't we?”

Brisk looked away and towards the cracked wall of the medical center. “Do you really think that it can fix the wasteland or do you just think that because you’re afraid of letting go the last part of Stable 25?”

His words slammed into me as if I had walked into a brick wall. I had never thought about it that way. Was I only pursuing the A.A.S.S. because it was the last part of my old life yet to be destroyed? Silver Ace had said that it was a part of something that could fix the wasteland, but I had been reluctant to destroy it even before I had heard that.

I took a shaky step back and looked away myself. “I don’t know. Maybe… but it's at the center of something big. Kamari wanted it, Red Eye wants it, and now we know that the Institute wanted it as well. I’ve kept hearing whispers about something called the Utopia Program all over the wasteland. It’s connected to the A.A.S.S. somehow.”

Brisk gave me a confused look. “The Utopia program? Why haven't you mentioned this before if you think it’s so important?”

I rubbed my forehead with a hoof. “Because I honestly know next to nothing about it. It was created by some earth pony magic expert named Silver Ace back during the war. Apparently he made it to fix the world if the war ended in annihilation like he feared.”

“Earth pony magic expert?”

I shrugged. “Don’t ask. I have no idea how that works.

“Great, even earth ponies are better at magic than me,” Brisk grunted glumbly. He sighed and scratched the back of his head awkwardly. “Okay, so what? You want to find this Utopia Program or whatever?”

I nodded. “Right before Emissary died, he told me that the Institute had it. That he couldn’t stop it. I think the answers we’re looking for are inside of the Institute.”

“Wait… isn’t that good then?” Brisk said, his gaze raising a little. “I mean, if the Institute has the A.A.S.S. and this Utopia program, whatever it is, isn't that what we want? They might fix everything for us.”

I shook my head. “Maybe, but think about the megaspells. They were initially created as a mass healing spell… look where that took pony kind. If the Utopia program is anywhere near powerful enough to fix the wasteland, something like that in the hooves of the wrong ponies could be very dangerous. Do you want the Institute to be the one with that kind of power?”

Brisk’s head dropped. “I suppose you’re right, but that's assuming that it even has the potential to be dangerous. For all we know it might be completely harmless.”

“Even still, our next stop was to get into the Institute anyway. We still need to rescue Rubber Band and right now the only lead we have on Mirra’s mother is that the Institute wiped Rubber Bands memory of something pertaining to her,” I said firmly. “If we get there and find out that Utopia is harmless, then we can leave it there with them, deal?”

Brisk hesitated for a second before giving an affirmative nod. “Deal.”

I gave him a sheepish grin. “And for the record, I’m sorry I shot you with a shotgun.”

Brisk waved off the remark as if it were nothing. “Don’t mention it, I’m sorry I shot you with a pistol.”

I paused for a second, thinking back to the day before. “Actually, now that I think about it… I think there actually is somepony we know that might know about the Utopia program…”

Brisk and I found the Robobrain of Dazzling Souvenir in the hallway outside, staring at her reflection in a cracked and dusty mirror. She slowly turned to face us at the sound of our approach.

“Ah, you are the pony that helped to free us from our bodies,” The robobrain said as he came to a stop in front of her. “Thank you for what you have done.”

“You were working on the Utopia program with Silver Ace back during the war, right?” I asked as we came to a stop in front of her. “You must have known what it was.”

The robobrain backed up a little from us. “Where did you hear about that?”

“I haven’t heard anything directly. I’ve just been seeing bits and pieces all over the wasteland,” I admitted. “But I think it has something too with everything that has been going on in the wasteland recently.”

Dazzling Souvenir was silent for a moment. It was hard to figure out what she was thinking when she didn’t have a face. “Utopia was Silver Ace’s life work. Everything he did connected back to it if you went far enough,” The robobrain finally said, its voice sounding somewhat confused for some reason. “It was his everything… He was obsessed with it.”

“But what exactly was it? What could it do?” Brisk butted in. “Is it dangerous?”

Dazzling Souvenir quieted again. “I-I do not remember…”

“You don’t remember?”

The robobrain twisted its body a little, as if suggesting a shake of their head. “To keep secrecy, all knowledge of the Utopia program was removed from our heads and destroyed. Silver Ace was determined to keep most of his projects a secret.”

I groaned. Why was that not surprising? “So you don’t remember anything?” I asked, feeling just a little dejected.

Dazzling Souvenir made a small, strange noise that I interpreted as her thinking. “I was allowed to keep certain parts of my memory pertaining to my work on the project, mostly involving memory orbs.”

“Memory orbs? What do they have to do with it?” Brisk questioned, his ears folding back slightly.

“I cannot remember exactly,” Dazzling Souvenir started, her clawed hand tapping the glass dome that her brain rested in. “But I believe they were involved in the initial concept of the program. Silver Ace wanted to see how much of a ponies memory could be stored inside of a memory orb. Then, by extension, he wanted to know if an orb that contained the consciousness of an entire pony could learn and adapt on its own.”

I raised an eyebrow at that. “What, like an AI system or something?”

“An AI? The hell is that?” Brisk asked, his voice filled with confusion. His expression suddenly took on a bored look. “Wait, this isn’t another one of your boring nerd things is it?”

I scoffed. “AI stands for artificial intelligence. It’s like a robot that can think and make choices on its own. Also, it is not boring nerd stuff!”

“Sounds like boring nerd stuff,” Brisk said glumbly. He turned and gestured to Dazzling Souvenir. “And isn’t that like… all robots?”

“Not exactly,” Dazzling Souvenir said, rolling forwards slightly on her tracks. “Robots have no real free will. They can be programmed to have personalities and act on their own, but when it comes down to it, that’s just advanced programming. And I… well I’m complicated, but I’m still controlled by a pony brain. The theory that Silver Ace proposed was that memory orbs could become a thinking, sentient being on its own, without any form of programming whatsoever. Complete and total free will with a naturally created personality based off of a real pony.”

I thought about that for a second. “Do you have any memory about something called the Atmospheric Administering Sustenance System?”

“I… Do not think so… but as I said, I have little memory of what went on during my time working under Silver Ace,” Dazzling Souvenir’s tinny voice stammered. “Perhaps once Reverie has helped me rehabilitate the rest of my friends I can learn more from them. I know a few of them helped on the project as well.”

I gave her the most reassuring smile that I could. “Thank you. Tell me if you find anything,” I paused, thinking about all the robobrains that currently lay deactivated on the floor below. “And good luck rehabilitating all your friends. I truly hope you can save them.”

I pushed myself up from the medical bed. If I had thought it had been hard to fall asleep before, after Brisk and I had had our conversation with Dazzling Souvenir, it had gotten even harder. I had spent most of the night awake, and now I just felt tired.

Not that I ever didn’t feel tired these days. That was kind of just becoming routine for me.

I glanced down at the side of the medical bed. Xayah had left at some point before I had awoken. Who knew where she could be at now.

“Good to see that you’re up,” A voice said from across the room.

I glanced up to see a dark blue stallion with a short white mane standing on the other side of the room from me. He held a clipboard in one hoof and seemed to be taking inventory on all the medical supplies in the building.

It took me a moment to recognise him. His voice sounded very familiar, but I knew I had never seen him before. “Knight Blueberry?” I asked, trying to put a name to the voice.

Blueberry nodded, lifting up another healing potion before checking something off on his clipboard. That explained it, I hadn’t seen the knight without his power armour on before.

I noticed his chest had been expertly wrapped in bandages. No doubt either Heartbeat or Reveries work.

I stood up completely from the bed and approached him. I was glad to find that my wounds had all healed fairly well. “So, this place is an outcast outpost now, huh?” I asked, curious on the inner workings of the wasteland's newest faction.

Blueberry gave a proud nod. “It’ll give us an advantage over the Steel Ranger contingency in Manehattan. We aren’t large enough yet to properly spread out to places like Fillydelphia yet, but this place will give us the boost we need.”

I furrowed my brow at that. “Fillydelphia? I thought Red Eye owned that area?”

Blueberry gave a snort-like laugh. “Most of it, yeah, and probably more of it since the schism, but Filly is huge. The Steel Rangers have a large base of operations out there and control a decent chunk of the area around the outskirts of Red Eyes industrial nightmare. There is a big Stable-Tec headquarters out there the Steel Rangers have taken up residence in.”

Something nagged at the back of my memory. It was of my conversation with Crank while we were on the train to the Hollow Shades. “One of Stable-Tec’s headquarters is located in Fillydelphia. Take control of the headquarters and you suddenly have access to a lot of the Stables around the Wasteland,” he had told me.

A wave of uncertainty washed over me. “I thought that Red Eye controlled that?”

Blueberry lowered his clipboard and gave me a funny look. “I just said that he didn’t own all the outer areas of Filly. There are areas around it that-”

“No, not that!” I said, cutting him off. “The Stable-Tec headquarters in Fillydelphia. I thought Red Eye controlled it?”

Now it was Knight Blueberry’s turn to look confused. “Wha-what? That’s the Steel Rangers main base in Filly. Why would you think that...”

“There was a cyber alicorn named Crank that was working with Red Eye. He told me Red Eye had control over the Stable-Tec headquarters there,” I explained. “He said that was how Red Eye was getting access to all the Stables.”

Knight Blueberry was beginning to look worried. “That’s what he said? That Red Eye had control over it?”

I bit my lower lip and thought about that for a second. “Well… no. Not exactly. He said it was somepony working for Red Eye,” Blueberry cast a nervous glance at his clipboard. I slowly moved closer to him. “But if Red Eye has somehow infiltrated the Steel Rangers, that can't be good news for anypony… What should we do about it?” The last thing I needed right now was a trip to Fillydelphia, but I'd do it if it meant slowing down Red Eye's plans... whatever those were.

Blueberry looked back up at me, this time a lot calmer than before. “Nothing.”

I took a step back, surprised. “Wha- nothing? What do you mean nothing?”

“I mean we aren’t going to do anything about it,” Blueberry said sternly. “I’ll inform Crossroads, or even Steelhooves if he can spare a minute, but the truth of the matter is that we don't know what that cyber alicorn ment, and even if we did, the Fillydelphia contingency of Steel Rangers was weakened the most by the schism. Their presence in Filly is falling and its likely Red Eye will be taking over the Stable-Tec HQ soon anyway. Furthermore, we aren’t allied with the Steel Rangers any more. If they have a large security leak, then that's not our problem.”

I didn’t like the idea of Red Eye gaining more territory because of the Steel Rangers schism. Positive I didn’t want to know the answer, I asked. “How many rangers are left defending the Fillydelphia area?”

Blueberry’s expression turned very grim. “Practically nothing. Elder Blueberry Saber, along with over half the contingency is dead. Star Paladin Crossroads, along with most of the surviving Rangers, myself included, are here in Manehattan joining up with the Outcasts,” Blueberry took a deep breath. “That leaves about fifty rangers between Red Eye and the rest of Fillydelphia.”

The world suddenly felt very, very heavy. Fifty rangers would be a force to be reckoned with if it was up against most groups, but I had seen first hoof how large Red Eye’s armies could be. Red Eye would take control of the surrounding areas fast. There was no stopping that.

It almost seemed like a tactical error on the Steel Rangers part, but I knew there was more to it than that. The Outcasts couldn’t take the Stable-Tec HQ without losing a considerable amount of ponies in the process and the Steel Rangers couldn’t reinforce it without leaving their other outposts vulnerable to the Outcasts attacks. It was a lose lose situation for everypony except Red Eye. I wondered if Red Eye had somehow orchestrated the schism somehow, even if he was doing it indirectly. Knowing how cunning Red Eye could be, probably.

Reverie took that moment to walk in, a saddlebag full of healing supplies thrown across her back. “Morning Amber, glad to see that you’re up,” She gave me a kind smile before turning her attention to Blueberry. “Well?”

Blueberry glanced down at his clipboard. “Everything is accounted for here. I need to give a few more rooms a sweep through though,” He turned and to my surprise gave me a quick salute before marching back out the door.

Reverie watched him go for a second before turning back to me with a sigh. “Poor buck. He insisted on getting back to Stable 29 to help with some issues they’re having over there, but I insisted he stay here and take it easy for a few days. Nasty wound he took to the chest.”

I nodded, remembering Stern’s anti-material rifle blast straight through Blueberry’s armour and into his chest. The buck was lucky to even be alive. I remembered my dream about Crank, and my face fell. Blueberry was luckier than most.

Reverie clearly saw the distress across my face. She sat down in a large chair and looked up at me. “You look troubled, what’s on your mind?”

I shook my head. “It’s nothing, don’t worry about it,” I lied, stretching my fore hooves and looking around for my Stable barding. I didn’t remember taking it off, so Heartbeat, or one of my other friends must have taken it off for me at some point.

The therapist gave me a skeptical look. “I’ve seen enough traumas in my day to know when somepony is very much not okay,” She said flatly. “And you, Amber Aura, are about as far from okay as it gets.”

I sighed, still looking around for my stable barding. “Fine, the wasteland is grueling, stressful and constantly trying to kill me. Other than that, I’m fine. Really,” I finally spotted my barding and began slipping it over my head. I glanced back to see Reverie still staring at me, her left eyebrow raised. I sighed. “Okay… maybe I’m not okay.”

Reverie gestured to a chair across from her. “Want to talk about it?”

I sighed. “I had this weird dream last night… it was about Crank…” I paced back and forth as I talked, not bothering to sit in the aforementioned seat. “It was really, really weird…”

“What happened in it?” Reverie asked. I saw her face flicker with something, guilt perhaps. I reminded myself that she had known Crank too, perhaps better than anyone. If there was anypony to talk to about this, it was her.

“Well… he saved me…” I started, trying to remember the dream. It had started to fade from my memory the moment I had awoken, leaving most of the details vague and faded. “Then we sat on a hillside. I think he was comforting me as I cried.”

I could see that the contents of the dream pained Reverie somewhat, but she managed to keep a relatively straight face. “What about that was so weird?”

I just stared at her for a second. “Uh… Because it was Crank. Violent, killing machine, probably sociopathic Crank. He wasn’t exactly the kind of pony who would sit and comfort you if you needed a cry.”

I immediately knew that that wasn’t true. I had seen Crank do that exact thing with Scarlet in his memories. From Reverie's smug expression, I could tell that she knew that wasn’t true as well.

But that memory of him and Scarlet had been different, hadn’t it. I mentally tried to reason with myself. He had loved Scarlet, and that had been before the Wasteland had warped and twisted him into a monster.

“I’ve been having these weird visions of Crank’s past ever since I went digging around in his head,” I admitted, clearly surprising Reverie. “They’ve been getting less and less frequent, but I never know when they’re going to happen.”

Reverie’s jaw dropped open. “Wait, what! When did this happen?”

I scratched the back of my neck, ruffling my mane. How long had it been? I counted the nights quickly in my head. “Four days ago, why?”

Reverie still looked shell shocked. “Amber, do you know how a cyber ponies brain works?”

I didn’t and said as much. “I assumed they were simply like pony brains. They still have some organs, don’t they?”

“Well… sort of,” Reverie said, giving a slow nod. “I don’t understand it fully, and my digging around it Cranks head was very minimal and limited to what he would allow me, but from what I gathered, their brains were augmented with memory orbs.”

I recalled my conversation with Dazzling Souvenir. It might be a coincidence, or… or maybe that was connected somehow. Though I was currently too tired to draw and real connections in my head.

Warily, I nodded my head. “Okay… so, what does that have to do with…”

“I found this out when Crank shared a few memories of his past with me,” Reverie confessed. “A cyber ponies' memories are more than just visions of the past, they are part of the construct that makes up who they are, like computer data, or in their case, a virus. Too much exposure to their memories could very well make a duplicate of their consciousness within your own brain based of those memories.”

I staggered back, reeling at the news. Crank’s consciousness had duplicated itself within my mind! That's why I had been reliving his past. Suddenly that dream felt a lot more real than it should have.

A second realization washed over me. “I… I was in Inferno’s head as well… I was in it a lot longer than I was in Cranks…” I remembered the final memory I had witnessed inside of Inferno’s head. My mind had fused with him somehow, making me see and feel what he had seen and felt instead of viewing it from my own eyes. I recalled how I had momentarily referred to his memories as ‘ours’ when I had first emerged from them.

Goddesses, don't tell me that that flamer wielding rapist was still alive somewhere inside of my head.

Clearly able to see my distress, Reverie gave me a few moments to calm down. When I finally did, she motioned for me to sit down in the chair. This time I obeyed, feeling oddly heavy.

“What memories of Cranks did you have?” Reverie questioned, her steady voice calming me somewhat.

I thought about that for a second. “They were all about Scarlet,” I finally said, certain that that was the connection between them all. “About how he lost her…”I remembered being stuck between the glowing lights of Cranks Tesla cannons and the brilliant glow of Scarlet's form. That's when the memories started showing up. I told Reverie as much.

Reverie gave a thoughtful nod at that. “It’s possible that the part of Crank that got recreated in your mind was the part of him that loved Scarlet. The good parts of him…”

I grimaced. “So what does this all mean for me down the road. Am I going to have two cyber ponies having arguments in the back of my head all the time?”

“Truthfully, I have no idea. This is all completely hypothetical as of right now,” From her expression and my experiences over the past few days since the death of my Stable, I was almost certain it was a little more than hypothetical at this point. “But I figure since that hasn’t started happening to you yet, it won't. Best case is that they’ll just pop into your dreams every once and awhile. Worst case is that they start affecting your memories and giving you ones that you never had.”

Great… hopefully I would get the best casinario, but I doubted it. I was never that lucky in the wasteland.

The idea that the Crank in my dreams had been more than just my mind and an actual piece of his consciousness living on within me felt weird. I don’t know if I should feel relieved that he is technically still alive to some extent, sad that he is trapped within my head, or scared that he might end up meddling with my memories. I decided to go with the latter.

Sighing, Reverie pulled herself up from her seat. “I think that's enough surprising epiphanies for today,” She said, turning back to face the door. “Your friends are waiting for you downstairs. You should go see them, so long as there's nothing else you want to talk to me about?”

I shook my head. “Yeah… I think this has given me more than enough to think about as of right now.”

Reverie nodded and started to walk out.

Another memory pulled at the back of my brian. “Reverie wait… There is actually one more thing,” Reverie paused looking back at me. “You said that Crank was looking for a way to stop being a cyber pony. That there was a pony out in Las Pegasus that could regrow limbs. Is there anything You can tell me about that?”

Reverie paused for a second, thinking over the request. “Crank never told me much about that, only that he planned to get treatment from him. There isn’t much I can tell you that I haven't already,” She finally said.
I could believe that. Crank had never seemed like one for talking. I could easily imagine him making a brief, grunt-like statement on the topic before refusing to say any more. He had done that to me dozens of times, and I had only traveled with him for a short time.

But I knew somepony that might now. Pyre had been to Las Pegasus. She had probably spent more time there than she had in Manehattan. If anypony were to know, it was her.

I followed Reverie out with my eyes until she had turned the corner and was out of sight.

Despite the shocking revelation that I might have a cyber pony, maybe even two, inside of my brain, I felt oddly relaxed. It felt good to finally get something off my chest, even if it was only a small fraction of my problems. And while the idea that Inferno was inside my head was concerning, Cranks presence wasn’t bothering me as much as it should.

I thought back to him in my dream, silently watching over me and defending me from the darkness of the wasteland that threatened to swarm in and corrupt my very soul. In a strange way, he had become my own personal guardian. My silent sentinel in the Wasteland.

My friends were waiting for me downstairs just like Reverie had said. They had gathered around a small fire while Xayah cooked us up something. It looked like the zebra was trying to teach the rest of them how to cook, but none of them seemed to be any good at it.

“Just give up Xayah, we’re hopeless,” Brisk huffed in exasperation, tossing down the wooden spoon he had been using to stir whatever was inside of the pot they had over the fire. “It all just looks like food to me.”

Brisk was looking a lot better. A lot of the puffiness in his face had dissipated and he seemed to be moving around without much pain. He was still covered in bruises though. Both of us would probably be covered in those for the next few days.

“I think I got it!” Pyre exclaimed joyously. She was out of her power armour and had a stick in her mouth that was roasting some sort of meat over the fire.

Brisk scoffed. “Pyre, she’s teaching us how to make a stew. A stew doesn’t involve roasting meat on a stick.”

Pyre raised her eyebrows in mock alarm. “It doesn’t? I never would have thought!” the meat on a stick fell from her mouth as she spoke, dropping her food into the fire. Pyre glared at the burning meat glumly for a second before shrugging. “Eh, I like my food burnt anyway.”

Xayah was trying her best not to burst out laughing.

Heartbeat looked up as I approached them, a wide smile on his face. “Ah, Amber. You’re awake. Are you feeling better?”

I gave him a grateful nod. “Yeah. My ribs are a bit sore, but I’ve had worse,” Brisk winced at that comment.

I sat down between Brisk and Xayah and looked at the stew Xayah was teaching them to make. Somehow, Brisk had managed to burn and char the stew.

Brisk scratched the back of his head awkwardly. “Heh… sorry, breakfast isn’t going to be as tasty as usual. I think we can all agree that we should leave Xayah and Xayah alone in charge of baking.”

“And if I am gone from the group for a bit?” Xayah asked, one eyebrow raising.

Brisk looked down and continued stirring the stew, not sure how to respond. His stew was chunky enough that it took genuine work to stir it.

Mirra fluttered over and dipped a hoof into the stew, taking a small sip. “For what it's worth, Brisk, I think it tastes good.”

Brisk seemed to perk up a little at that. “Really?”

Mirra nodded, a devious looking grin across her face. “Yeah, changelings don’t really like the taste of pony food. This tastes so different from food that I find it to be quite appetizing.”

Brisk expression dropped again. “So what you’re saying is it doesn’t actually taste good…” He slapped his face with a hoof. “That’s it! I’m not cooking ever again.”

Chuckling, I turned to face Pyre Blaze who had fished her burned meat out of the fire and was gnawing on the charred husk. “Hey Pyre, I was wondering if I could ask you something about Las Pegasus?”

Pyre dropped the meat again before swiftly picking it up. She did her best to hide it, but something about that simple question had spooked her. Before I could ask if she was okay, she forced a grin onto her face and spoke. “Yeah sure, what is it?”

I hesitated, wondering if I should push on where uncharacteristic jumpiness. I decided against it. “Have you ever heard of a pony out that way that could regrow limbs?”

Pyre’s face scrunched up for a second in disgust. “Yeah. Pestilence.”

Pestilence. That wasn’t a very pleasant sounding name at all. “What can you tell me about them?”

“They’re a ghoul pony. Some scientist from before the war and one of the first Las pegasus Raiders,” Pyre said grimly. She glanced behind her and out a window as if expecting somepony to be standing behind her. “He likes to change and cybernetically augment ponies. Got my own augmentations from him.”

All of us balked at her. “Wait wait wait. You’ve been cybernetically augmented?” I sputtered, looking at our raider friend with alarm.

Pyre nodded. She raised a hoof and pushed back her mane to reveal the back of her neck. A small collection of metal plates and thin wires raced down her neck. “Augmented brain and spine. My spine is like titanium and my brain had a built in SATS.”

I continued to stare at her. She had a built-in SATS? I opened my mouth to speak, but I couldn’t think of anything to say. Brisk spoke up for me. “Doesn’t your armour have SATS built into it already?”

Pyre scowled at him. “Well I didn’t used to have my power armour, now did I. Besides, I wasn’t augmented by choice. Viscera forced me into it.”

“Is she augmented as well?” I asked, recalling the crazed Raider we had encountered in the Hollow Shades. That psycho was lethal enough that I would have been far from surprised if she had enhanced her body somehow.

Pyre laughed. It was a hollow, mirthless laugh. “Same implants as me, and then some,” Pyre growled, her face twisting up. “Viscera was more interested in enhancing her body. Most of her changes were more biological than mechanical.”

“Biological?” I asked, not fully gasping what that entailed.

“In short, she’s more hellhound now than pony,” Pyre grunted, once again glancing behind her worriedly. “Enhanced senses, enhanced speed. The bitch can practically smell you from all the way across Manehattan,” her voice shuddered as she spoke.

My curiosity peaked. “Pyre, are you alright? You seem more jumpy than normal.”

Pyre glared at me for a second before glancing around at the rest of our friends. I noticed her gaze lingered longest on Mirra. “I’ll tell you later Amber, don’t worry about it.”

Brisk began pouring the stew into some small wooden bowls that he had managed to scavenge from the surrounding area. I tried not to turn up my nose in disgust at the gloopy, chunky fluid.

Pyre didn’t bother hiding her disgust. “Brisk, I’ve literally ripped ponies hearts out with my bare hooves, and even I don’t want to put that in my mouth.”

Brisk slumped, passing her the bowl anyway and giving Xayah a scowl. “Never again…”

Xayah only chuckled to herself, taking a bowl from him and taking a sip. She immediately gagged. Grimacing, she said. “I will make us some more stew. This simply will not do.”

Pyre raised her eyebrows. “Did you just make a fuckin’ rhyme?” she grinned across the fire at Xayah mockingly. "Don't tell me you're going to start rhyming all your sentences!"

Xayah just rolled her eyes, unamused.

Mirra, still happily drinking Brisk’s sad excuse of a stew, trotted over to me. “So what exactly is the plan for today?” everypony turned to look at me, interested in the answer themselves. “Pyre said we were going into the metro?”

I gave a small nod. “We need to find the Friendship Express. They’re the only ponies that might have any idea where the Institute is.”

“And these ponies are hiding in the Metro?” Heartbeat pushed skeptically. “If half the things I have heard about the Manehattan metro are true, then that doesn’t seem like the safest hiding spot.”

“Not the safest, but definitely one of the most well guarded,” Pyre smirked back, taking another bite out of her burned meat. “You’d have to be incredibly desperate or an absolute idiot to go down there.”

I gulped. “Well, we don’t really know if they’re in the metro per se, but it's the only lead we have.”

Brisk’s expression was dark, but determined. “We’ve found more with less,” he glanced over at me. “You do know what this Friendship Trail we’re supposed to follow is, right?”

I screwed up my muzzle. “I don’t have the faintest idea.”

“So what you're saying is that we don’t actually have a plan,” Mirra cooed, sitting down and slurping down a little bit more of the stew.

I winced. “Yeah. We don’t really have a plan.”

Footnote: Half way to next level.

Chapter XXI: At the Mercy of Raiders

“Hellhounds, ferals, even bots. They don’t know what they’re doing. But Raiders, they choose to be this cruel.”

Injustice.

The wasteland is filled to the brim with Injustice. It takes and it corrupts, and more times than not, it takes and corrupts those that didn’t deserve it. Thousands died in the Balefire holocaust that tore down the world, many of which were little more than innocent victims trapped in a political struggle that had gone too far.

The ponies of Equestria had deserved better. The zebras of the zebra homelands had deserved better. Every other race that had been massacred in the necromantic fires, cognizant or not, had deserved better.

They didn’t get better. They had been slaughtered. For some the deaths were quick and painless, their small lives blinking out in a bang of glowing green fire. Others had died slowly. Some were still dying.

A bead of sweat dripped down my brow as I helped Xayah lower the bodies of Train Tracks and Rail into the grave we had dug for them. We hadn’t been able to dig a very deep grave, but it was the best we could give them with what we had.

I sat back and looked down at the two corpses. They, like many others, had deserved more than to slowly die in a dark hole in the ground, deprived of light and pony connection. I had wanted to bury them under the light of Celestia’s sun, but the Enclave had ensured that that wasn’t an option. Above ground was the best I could give.

As Xayah slowly started covering the bodies in dirt, I pushed the radio on my pipbuck, letting the sound of DJ Pon3’s tunes send them off to their final resting place. The song was slow and sad, filled with a painful melancholy. It fit the atmosphere appropriately.

Wiping the sweat from my head, I moved to help Xayah bury them faster. I could hear Xayah near silent grunts as we pushed all of the overturned earth back into place.

We both sat together in silence once we were done, looking over the two graves we had dug and remembering who lay beneath. Taking a deep breath, we picked ourselves up and headed back down the road to where the rest of our friends were scouting the areas ahead for dangers.

As we moved away, the song on my pipbuck came to a close and the voice of DJ Pon3 began playing out. “Hello Wasteland! How is everypony doin’?” DJ Pon3’s voice started. “I interrupt your regularly scheduled music with… dan na na! A bit of knews! Here it is…”

My ears perked up as I started to listen to his broadcast. It had been a few days since I had listened in and I was curious what was going on in the wasteland. It always seemed like something new and crazy was going on.

“First I’d like to put out a warning to anypony daring the Ponyville area, or Celestia forbid, the Everfree Forest,” The DJ continued. “Those Fires ponies have been seeing. That’s where they’re coming from. Fires, and lots and lots of slavers. Seems like Red Eye is up t’ something crazy out there. So if you find yourself nearby, either stay sharp, or stay clear.”

Beside me, Xayah grimace. “My family and I passed through the Everfree forest to avoid raiders when returning from New Appaloosa,” The zebra said grimly. “It would have been safer to deal with the raiders. Red Eye is a fool for doing anything out there.”

I thought about that for a second. “Red Eye is a lot of things,” I said finally, trying to put words to my scrambled thoughts. “But I don’t think a fool is one of them. If he's doing something, chances are he has a plan.”

Xayah nodded solemnly, not agreeing with or disagreeing with the statement.

“Now here’s something a little more local for all of you wasteland wanderers out in Manehattan,” DJ Pon3 continued, his voice lowering slightly. My listening intensified. “Do you all remember those Canterlot ghouls I mentioned traveling between the expanse between Filly and Manehattan? No? Well you better start remembering, cause they’re starting to gather in force around Fetlock. In particular, at the Ponypalooza Hotel.”

I froze. I had been aware that the Ponypalooza Hotel had been filled with ghouls, but now a bunch of Canterlot ghouls were coming to Manehattan and moving it? That, and Crank and the rest of the cyber ponies were going to meet their original client at the same hotel before they had decided to betray them for Kamari. There was no way this was just a coincidence.

“And there is one last thing, and this one is from my assistant Homage to that crazy and amazing Bringer of Light. She says,” DJ Pon3 paused as she started to wrap up her broadcast. I could hear the muffled sound of shuffling papers through the radio. “Well, she says, ‘next time let's try to get to 32’… What ever could that mean…? I have no idea. Anyway, this has been DJ Pon3. Keep fighting that good fight children! And now, some music...”

As music started to play out of my pipbuck again, I glanced over at Xayah. From her scrunched up muzzle, I could tell she was thinking many of the same thoughts.

“I suppose we’re probably going to need to stop by the Ponypalooza Hotel sometime soon, are we,” I grumbled. There was just no end to the amount of quests we had to go on, was there. Xayah just nodded glumbly. Still curious about the circumstances, I asked. “What exactly is a Canterlot ghoul by the way? Are they different from normal ghouls?”

Xayah cast me a glance. “Back in Glyphmark, we would get the occasional Canterlot ghoul that would stumble down from the mountain,” She explained. “Unlike most ghouls that were born from radiation, these ghouls originate from powerful necromantic magic. You cannot kill one unless you dismember or vaporise them with magical energy weapons.”

I groaned. “Great, more things that don't want to die like a normal thing. And now they’re in Manehattan,” I glanced up from my hooves to look at Xayah. “Glyphmark must be well defended if you need to constantly defend against those things.”

Xayah laughed. It wasn’t a happy laugh. “Glyphmark is far from protected Amber. Zebra’s do not get well fortified and thriving towns in Equestria like ponies do.”

I furrowed my brow. “What’s Glyphmark like then?”

“You were worried that your Stable might starve if you did not return the A.A.S.S.” Xayah started, her tone grim. “Back in Glyphmark, we fear that every day. But we do not have an A.A.S.S. to give us hope.”

We walked in silence after that, neither of us knowing what else to say.

A small flash of red brought my attention to my EFS. A couple red bars flickered into view on the edges of my compass, only to vanish from sight a second later. Pyre had been right; we were being followed.

A few minutes later we met back up with the rest of our friends. Brisk was quietly looting the body of a charred raider while Heartbeat tended to a small wound on Mirra’s shoulder. Pyre was nowhere to be seen.

Brisk glanced up at us as we approached, a grin across his face. “You guys missed all the action.”

I looked around at the five burning raider bodies on the ground. “It looks like it was less action and more Pyre doing what she does best,” I said, poking a body with my hoof. I don’t know why I was surprised that it was hot to the touch. “Besides, knowing us, there’ll be plenty of action before the day is through to participate in.”

Xayah glanced around. “Where is Pyre by the way?”

Mirra looked up from the bandage Heartbeat was placing over her shoulder. “She’s spreading the Raiders blood around. She said something about confusing Hellhounds noses.”

I winced. I knew exactly what she was doing. She was trying to lead Viscera and her Hellhound raiders away from us. As disgusting the idea of desecrating these ponies bodies was, I understood the necessity.

Heartbeat pulled himself back up and looked out across the street. “I do hope she doesn’t take long. I don't like sitting around in the open like this.”

I gave him a reassuring smile. “Don’t worry, Pyre knows what she’s doing. Some of her tactics might be a little… uh… barbaric… but she knows how to survive in the wasteland. Probably better than any of us,” I saw Mirra give an approving nod at the statement.

“I’m guessing you successfully buried the bodies,” Brisk surmised, turning back to the raider bodies. He seemed to be having trouble finding anything of value. Most of the useful supplies they had had had been melted away by Pyre’s flamers.

Xayah gave a quick nod. “The grave was not as deep or ceremonies as it should have been, but the deed has been done.”

“Good, we should get moving then,” Pyre said from behind me. I jumped a little at her voice, not expecting her to be behind me. I turned my head to see Pyre approaching us from a side alley, her power armour soaked in raider blood. Almost out of instinct, Mirra fluttered over and perched atop her back. “The MWT hub is about a half hour walk from here still.”

I nodded and fell into step with Pyre as she started leading us in the supposed direction of the MWT hub. From my pipbuck map, we seemed to be going the right direction. I leaned in close to her. “You think you managed to lead the Hellhounds away from us?”

Pyre cast me a worried glance. I could see her fear, even through her fully enclosed helmet. “Viscera is one of the best trackers in the Wasteland. I did what I could, but I doubt I did enough.”

I looked back at Mirra who was in the middle of a conversation with Heartbeat. I tapped her on her uninjured shoulder to get her attention. “Hey, would you mind scooting over a bit so I can join you up there?”

Mirra shrugged and fluttered to the edge of Pyre’s rump to make room for me to climb up. Pyre sent a scowl in my direction. “Excuse me? I’m not a personal carriage.”

I gave her a smug look. “No, but you’ve carried me and the rest of us around enough that I know you can easily carry my weight.”

I started to climb up on top of her. Pyre growled. “Just ‘cause I can, doesn’t mean I want to. What makes you think you can just-”

I held the memory orb I had found in the Manehattan metro up with a hoof, cutting her off. “Watching a memory orb. Either carry me or we wait a bit for me to watch it.”

Pyre scowled again, but didn’t protest anymore as I clambered up on top of her. Despite being completely clad in metal, she was actually fairly comfy to sit on. Pyre looked over at Xayah. “For future adventures, let's keep Amber restricted to only riding you.”

Both Xayah and I went bright red with embarrassment. Brisk and Mirra snickered. Yup, now was a good time to go into a memory orb. That was enough of that conversation.

I let my amber magic wrap around the glowing memory orb. The world spun, then swirled away into nothingness.

I was in the body of a mare. Thank the goddesses! It didn’t matter how many memory orbs I went into, I would never get used to the feeling of suddenly becoming a Stallion.

My host looked to her right. Beside her I could make out the shapes of a dark black and grey zebra and another pony.

To my surprise, I recognised the pony. He was a brown unicorn buck with a cyan mane. I had seen him in one of Twilight's memories back in the MAS tower… He had been a Four Star diplomat working with Kamari.

Had I been in control of the body I was inhabiting, I would have narrowed my eyes.

What had his name been again? Though I know I had heard Twilight say it, I couldn’t quite remember exactly what it was.

We were standing in a small shop, more of an outlet than anything else really. The things we were selling were a strange mix of numerous different things, from potions to jewelry. We even seemed to be selling terminals.

“Thank you for helping me with my humble little store,” The Zebra said in a soothing and rhythmic tone, her eyes moving from a customer that walked past to my host. “With ponies here, we have sold more things than ever before.”

My host waved a hoof casually. “Don’t even mention it Zirria, it was nothing really. Anything for a friend,” my host's voice definitely belonged to Rail. It sounded almost exactly as it had in some of the earlier recordings of her I had heard. Not that that was much of a surprise, I had found the orb on her body.

The zebra named Zirria raised an eyebrow. “Are you sure you will not get in trouble being seen with me? That division between us is not what your company would decree?”

The other Four Star member I had seen in the memory with Twilight glanced over with a smirk. “What Four Star? Nah, they’re cool. We will be fine being seen with you,” He chirped reassuringly. “Besides. Nothing could stop us from helping you out. We want to do this. It’s what friends are for.”

I could see Zirria give a kind and thankful smile. My host glanced away, her eye catching on a pony that was quickly approaching us.

Rail quickly bumped the unicorn buck with a hoof, drawing his attention to the approaching pony. The unicorn noticed him immediately, his eyes landing on the approaching buck before darting around to make sure nothing else was out of the ordinary.

The buck came to a stop in front of the three of them. “Zirria,” he said gracefully, giving a polite bow of his head. He quickly turned his attention back to the Rail and the unicorn, his expression hardening. “Rail, Train Tracks, I need you two to come with me. It’s very important.”

My mind blanked for a second. Wait... What!

I suddenly remembered the name that Twilight had called the Four Star Spokesperson in the memory. I had just buried the same pony that had helped Kamari imobalise Twilight and wipe her memories? I felt a little sick at the idea.

Train Tracks nervously glanced at Zirria. “You okay if we head out for a bit?”

The zebra nodded quickly, she pulled out a cloth and started cleaning up the table. “I shall be fine of course. You need not work here all day, I do not force.”

Swiftly moving out of the small outlet like shop, Train Tracks and Rail started following the buck as he led them away from the shop.

“Where are we headed? What’s happened?” Rail said, trying to match her pace with the buck. “Is the MOM onto us? What?”

The buck shushed her with the wave of his hoof. “Quiet, wait until we are in private, please…”

After that we continued to walk in silence.

A few moments later, the buck ushered us into a dark room. Train Tracks and my host shuffled inside, the door closing with a solid sounding thunk behind us.

My host looked around. The room was small. There were a few chairs in the center of the room and a large desk that took up most of the floor. A yellow and blue pony sat behind the desk, a cigar hung from his mouth, nearly obscuring his face with smoke.

Train Tracks baulked. “Boss? What are you doing out here?”

The pony behind the desk raised a hoof to quiet him. “Please. Keep your voice down. This is not the type of place I would normally like to hold one of these meetings, but our employer was absolutely convinced that this was of the utmost urgency and could not wait.”

I felt Rail raise an eyebrow. “And when are we going to meet this employer?” She asked in a hushed voice, a slightly annoyed tone in her words. “This employer has been having us make risky moves. If we keep doing what this mystery employer says then we’re all going to get caught.”

I felt my whole body lock up. Rail silently choked as it suddenly got verry hard to breath. Her body felt numb and strange, feeling in her legs disappeared and she tumbled to the floor with a thud.

All three of the stallions around her sprung to attention, their eyes darting around to see what the cause of her sudden slump had been.

A terrible voice I knew all too well spoke from the shadows of the room. “Question me again, and I’ll prick you with a more lethal poison…” there was a shimmer of air, and Kamari stepped into the center of the room, pulling the hood off of his stealth cloak. A small dagger was strapped to his forehoof, dripping with some sort of venom. He steered down at Rail, taking pleasure in her paralysis. “You need not worry about getting caught. I will personally see to that.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Train Tracks take a step back. He glanced worriedly at the pony that sat behind the desk. “Th-this is the employer… We’ve been working for a… for…” He locked up as he glared at Kamari. “Zirria told me about your kind. You are not welcome here.”

The pony behind the desk raised a hoof again to silence him. He quickly glanced at the pony who had lead Rail and Train Tracks to the room. “Would you mind leaving us for a moment.”

The pony nodded and ducked out. The door closed behind him with a loud click.

Train Tracks returned his attention to his boss. “You can’t be serious! Working with this… with this star worshipper! Most zebras would try to kill us if they knew we were talking with the likes of him! Let alone working for him!”

Kamari leered at Train Tracks from across the room. “I have come with a message from the Caesar directly. My stripes are no longer of a zebras concern.”

I could feel Rail attempting to narrow her eyes at Kamari, but the paralysis was making it difficult. Train Tracks however, had no issues doing so. “How do we know this is not just a trick! Your tribe doesn’t exactly have the best reputation for such things!”

Kamari lazily held up a scroll with a red ribbon and seal. “This is a message directly from the Caesar to you,” Kamari said with a stomp of his hoof. “He wants you to start expanding the four Star Monorail out towards the Hollow Shades. There is something in the deep there that he wants.”

The zebra passed the scroll to the pony behind the desk. He unrolled the scroll and read it over quickly. The stallion nodded a few times thoughtfully as his eyes scrolled across the parchment. Finally he looked up. “Everything is in order.”

Through my hazy vision, I could see Kamari’s grin widening. The zebra turned to Train Tracks, a smug expression across his face. “You are to come with me to the Hollow Shades. We’re going to pay Twilight Sparkle a little visit,” He turned back to the pony behind the desk. “You will not hear from me again.”

Train Tracks gritted his teeth and gestured towards Rail lying next to him on the ground. “And what about Rail?”

Kamari scoffed. “Don’t worry. She will wake up in a few hours with no memory of any of this,” the edges of his lips curled up at the edges as a particularly sinister thought washed over him. “Her fate is far kinder than certain others today…” He gave the pony behind the desk one more nod before pulling his hood over his head and disappearing. A few seconds after, Train Tracks walked out of the room looking scared and dejected.

The pony behind the desk sighed, putting down his cigar and taking a quick sip of what I could only assume was coffee before looking down at my host pitifully. He returned his attention to the door. “Rivets!”

The pony he had previously been asked to wait outside crept in slowly, only casting a small glance at my host's limp body. “Yes sir? What do you need.”

The pony behind the desk took another sip of coffee and gestured to my body. “Bring her back to her apartment and lay her in her bed. Make it look like all of this was just a dream to her.”

Rivets nodded and slowly picked up my host's body with a grunt. I felt a faint tremor race through my paralised body as I was lifted up into the air.

I felt my body begin to be carried across the room to the door. My hosts gaze was fixed on the pony behind the desk, on account of being unable to move my body. He had taken to staring at his coffee cup curiously, as if he had spotted something in it that shouldn’t have been there.

The last thing my host saw as the door slowly closed behind her, was the pony behind the desk’s eyes widen as he began to stare in horror at his cup. His mouth started to foam before he slumped over onto his desk, dead.

The door closed, the pony carrying Rail seeming to not have noticed the sudden death inside.

I Slowly raised my head up from where it lay on Pyre’s back. We were still walking, but now I could see a large building taking up the good half of a road. A cracked sign that had fallen from the side of the building and come to rest on the street read, ‘Ministry of Wartime Technology Manehattan Hub’.

The MWT Hub had been nearly decimated completely by the balefire bombs. The top half of the large tower had fallen downwards towards the street and landed atop the Ironshod Firearms hub on the far side of the road, creating a crumbling and dangerous looking bridge between the two structures. The walls of glass windows had shattered, leaving the street a mess of broken glass and ruble.

We weren’t the only ponies there.

Raiders had made the underpass created by the toppled tower as a home. Grisly corpses dangled from meat hooks under the overpass like twisted wind chimes. Cages and tents littered the ground around the entrance to the MWT tower, all of which coated in a thick layer of filth and gore. I could spot several raiders milling around the area. I could only assume there were more within the tents.

I hopped off of Pyre’s back, quickly tucking the memory orb back into my saddlebags. Pyre glanced at me as I leapt off.

“Good timing there Amber. We’re here,” My raider friend nickered, returning her attention to the raiders blocking our entrance to the building.

We all pulled up behind a broken sky wagon and looked out at the raiders.

“Anypony got a plan?” Brisk questioned, peeking over the top of the sky wagon from beside me.

Pyre seemed to roll her eyes behind her helmet. “There are only twelve or so. We could just run out and fight them,” She kicked at a broken chunk of asphalt with her hoof. “It's not like we’ve haven't dealt with worse.”

“I have an anesthetic spell,” Heartbeat piped up, giving Pyre a quick glare. “We can just immobilize them. No need to kill anypony.”

Both Brisk and Pyre cast him weird looks.

“You do realise they’re raiders, right? They’re scum. Ponies that need to be put down,” Brisk cooed, arching one of his eyebrows. He winced and glanced at Pyre. “No offense.”

Pyre made a small snort-like laugh. “None taken. Hell, I agree with you. The wasteland is safer if we just kill them now.”

Xayah gave a nod of agreement. “We should not let them live and give them the opportunity to kill more ponies. That would be foolish of us.”

“Just because they’re raiders, doesn’t mean we need to be raiders as well,” I pointed out. “If we can do this without killing ponies, shouldn't we try it?”

Heartbeat looked thankful that somepony had decided to take his side. He gave me a thankful smile.

Brisk gave me a crooked look. “Because if we don’t kill them, they’ll kill somepony else. What part of that didn’t you understand? These aren’t some helpless ponies that are struggling to survive. These are psychos that take pleasure in rape, torture and pillaging.”

“Besides, it's three against two,” Pyre said casually, as if to say the minority rules had always been the way we operated. She glanced at Mirra. “Unless you want to pitch in.”

Mirra shuffled uncomfortably atop Pyre’s back. She glanced down at her hoofs. “Well, um… Only if ponies won't hate me for which side I pick.”

Heartbeat shook his head in reassurance. “Of course not. We all have different opinions.”

Mirra shifted around a little more, not sure how to proceed. Finally she spoke, not bothering to look up. “Well… I don’t want to hurt anypony… So can we do it Heartbeat’s way?”

Brisk gave a small groan. “Alright, that’s three against three. Which of course brings us back to square one,” He slowly looked to each of us. “Anypony else have any ideas?”

“We’ll do it Heartbeat’s way,” Pyre grunted. Her voice was quiet enough that we almost missed it. We all turned to gawk at her. She just scowled back. “What?”

“You are choosing to do it the non violent way?” Xayah asked in a low voice. “It is very uncharacteristic of you.”

Pyre just shook her head. “I changed my mind. If that’s what Mirra thinks we should do, we’ll do it.”

Heartbeat gave a sigh of relief. I just nodded grimly. “Alright, let's do this then.”

We did a little bit more planning before creeping around the side of the building, trying our best to stick to the shadows. Pyre was far from sneaky, but the rest of us were fairly successful in keeping our noise and visibility from the raiders.

We came to a stop at the edge of the building and paused, waiting for an opening to attack. I could hear two raiders trot past us, talking to each other.

“Seriously? You haven’t heard about the stranger?” One of the raiders said, his voice sounding just as slimy and ragged as he looked. “The raiders nightmare? Seriously?”

“Never heard of ‘em,” The second echoed grumpily. “Sounds like fuckin’ brahmin shit to me. I mean, really? A pony that appears out of nowhere, shots one pony dead and disappears? Why wouldn’t he just stick around to kill everypony?”

I heard the raider beside him grunt. “Fuck if I know. Legend has it he only appears when the pony he’s gardin’ needs help.”

“He’s a legend now? You’re just makin’ this shit up!”

“I am not!” the raider growled. “Mark my words. That stranger is real, and he’s got a hard on for putting ponies like us in the ground.”

I heard both of them snort at each other and begin to walk away. And walking away meant they weren’t facing us.

I tapped my hoof on the ground twice to signal to my friends behind me before darting around the side of the building.

My baton swung out and snapped both of the raiders back legs before they realised they were under attack. They fell to the ground with a cry of pain, unable to move. Heartbeat cast his spell, numbing the raiders and making them fall to the ground limp.

The rest of the raiders turned, their attention drawn by the sound of their screaming companions. They started rushing towards us the moment they saw us, only for two to fall screaming to the ground, their front hooves blasted out by well aimed shots from Brisk and Xayah’s weapons.

Another fell to the ground, hit by a shot of Heartbeat’s anaesthetic spell.

The remaining raiders reached us, holding up crude makeshift daggers in their mouths. But they were already looking scared. In a matter of seconds we had reduced their numbers by almost half.

Pyre launched herself around me, her metal clad hooves flying out and slamming two of the raiders heads together. The raiders fell, unconscious and twitching. Those two wouldn’t need to be immobilized by Heartbeat.

Now in the center of the raider group, the raiders began to turn towards Pyre, blades ready to swing at her.

The raiders had been expecting a fight. What they didn’t expect was a small insectoid creature to leap at them from atop Pyre, a sticky, green mucus spewing from her mouth and onto their hooves. The raiders tried to pull back, surprised by the changeling's sudden attack. They couldn’t. Two more raiders found themselves immobilized, stuck to the ground by a vile mucus like slime.

The last three raiders stumbled backwards, fear flickering across their faces. Two of them turned tail and bolted, rushing away as fast as they could. The last stood his ground, stomping his hoof against the street as if trying to intimidate us.

He never saw my baton levitate up behind him and smack him across the back of the head. He fell forwards, slumping to the ground like a large rock that had just been dropped out a window.

Heartbeat stepped around me and cast his spell again, this time knocking out the four immobilized raiders that were still conscious.

I stepped forwards and poked one of the raiders with a hoof. They didn’t react, no longer able to feel any part of their body. “So, tell me why you didn’t cast this spell on me when you sawed my wings off?” I asked sceptically, trying not to think about the pain of the bonesaw cutting through my new appendages.

Heartbeat gave me a sad look. “I considered it, and in most cases I would have. But these raiders are most likely going to be unable to move for the good half of the day. I feared that would be an unwise situation to put you through in the middle of the Manehattan metro.”

I nodded. I probably would have told him not to cast it anyway had I known how long those effects lasted.

Mirra quickly zipped around, wrapping all of the unconscious raiders in her gross changeling mucus. I grimaced as I saw the wad of green slim spew from her mouth and fuse the raiders together in one big clump.

Xayah leaned down and sniffed the vile slime. She quickly recoiled, gagging at the stench. “Ew… that is… ew…”

Mirra glanced down nervously at her hooves. “Sorry.”

Pyre gave a shake of her head and gave the small changeling a playful bump on the shoulder. “Don’t worry about it kid. I think it's pretty cool.”

“You would think spitting out mucus is cool Pyre,” I chuckled back, moving past the raiders and towards the doors to the MWT hub.

Pyre scowled. “Hey, give the kid a break. If you could do that, you’d do it too. Admit it.”

I just put my hooves over my head in a playful surrender. “Never said it wasn’t useful,” I glanced down at Mirra. “You did good. Now, come on. Let's try and get this done with and be out of here as quickly as possible.”

I pushed open the doors to the building. Immediately, I was forced to jump back as a ghoul that had been silently waiting behind the door burst out and swung at me with a hoof. I rolled to the side, the ghouls attack just barely missing.

Bang!

Brisk sent a bullet through the ghouls head. The ghoul dropped to the ground, its head now an oozing stump of blood.

“Well, Freedom did tell us there would be ghouls,” Pyre said, poking at the body with a hoof.

I grimaced for the second time in the last few minutes. “Apparently,” I glanced over to Brisk. “Thanks bro, good shot.”

Brisk gave a small nod as he looked over his remaining ammo. “No problem, but I’m running low on shots. I’ve only got 4 left,” I did notice that Brisk had, however, slung a machete he had taken from one of the paralysed raiders over his back. I had a strange rush of nostalgia at the sight.

Xayah gave a quick nod of agreement as she looked over her own supplies. “I am running low myself.”

I quickly riffled through my saddle bags, looking over my own ammo. I had eleven shots left for my shotgun. I gulped. That wasn’t much.

“Don’t fret it,” Pyre said, pushing the door open the rest of the way and walking in. “This is the ministry of Wartime Technology and Ironshod Firearms. This is probably the single best place to get ammo.”

The front lobby of the MWT hub was huge, clearly designed for large gatherings of ponies, or at the very least, a place for lots of ponies to wait while they awaited whatever official business they had with the MWT.

Ghouls awaited us inside. They had been sitting on toppled benches that lay scattered about the room, as if still waiting to attend that official business, even two hundred years later.

Pyre’s flamers burst to life, smothering the first few in flame before they had a chance to rise from their seats and attack. One of the ghouls rushed at her, leaping forwards and grappling onto her power armor. Pyre staggered back, trying to shake off her attacker.

I swung my baton at the ghoul assailing Pyre, knocking it off and sending it sprawling across the floor. Anther ghoul lashed out, this time towards me. I ducked back as its hooves flashed towards my throat.

The ghouls hoof was sliced off as Brisk swung his new machete forwards. The ghoul staggered back, limping awkwardly as it tried to stay standing on only three rotting legs.

I saw Heartbeats horn flare as he cast his anaesthetic spell. One of the ghouls dropped limp to the ground, immobilized by the spell. To my surprise, Heartbeat didn’t leave it at that. He walked forwards and quickly and surgically, slit the ghouls throat, killing it instantly.

More ghouls were approaching us, their mouths twisted into a growl as they staggered forwards.

Before they could attack, one of them dropped dead as a serrated knife plunged into its side. I saw Xayah flicker into view from under her stealth cloak for a second before once again disappearing.

Even Mirra let a shot ring out from her revolver. The bullet lanced through a ghoul's throat, dropping it dead to the ground. Mirra winced. “Sorry…”

I hopped back as one of the ghouls rushed me. It dove forwards, its hooves swinging at my face, only to come in contact with air as I scuttled backwards. I swung at it with my baton, only to miss it as the currently three legged ghoul rammed into me from the side. I stumbled, trying to stay upright as the two ghouls rounded on me.

They lunged at me as a group, slashing and snapping at me from two directions at once. I swung my combat shotgun out at them with my magic. The gun's stock slammed into one of the ghouls head, while the barrel simultaneously blasted buckshot into the face of the other.

Both ghouls lurched back, the one I had shot toppling over as their face and brain were ripped apart by the powerful burst. The other ghoul staggered, bleeding from a large gash on its brow. It snarled and advanced on me, clearly not caring for its wounds.

I took a step back, readying my combat shotgun to fire at it. I never needed to fire.

Pyre moved up behind it, her large forehooves swinging up on either side of the ghouls head and crushing its skull flat between them. The ghoul twitched and tried to spin around to attack her, only to fall to the ground dead.

I gave her a grateful look before turning to look around the room. Despite the building having been surrounded by raiders prior to our arrival, the place seemed relatively unlooted. Freedom had told us that the Friendship Express had been unable to get past the ghouls. It seemed the same could be said about the raiders.

Mirra fluttered over to an open ammo crate to the left of the room and started dunking the contents into her saddlebags. It looked like a strange mix of multiple ammo types, from bullets of weapons we didn’t have to a large collection of apple grenades. Mirra didn’t seem to care that most of it was useless to us though and kept dumping it all in.

“Keep your eyes open everypony,” I said, moving towards a staircase that seemed to lead to the next floor. “There’s a good chance there are going to be more ghouls in here.”

Everypony nodded and slowly began to move after me. Brisk quickly walked up and kept pace with me as I led us forwards. “So what exactly do these anti-cloaking devices and super targeting talismans look like?”

I shrugged. “No clue. I mean the super targeting talismans probably just look like talismans. Maybe a little flashier.”

“And where might we find them? I mean, this place is huge,” Brisk pushed.

“Most likely they are in different parts of the building,” Xayah pointed out, looking up at something above us.

I followed her gaze up to two signs that hung from the ceiling. Each had an arrow, pointing to a separate hallway, leading in different directions. The signs read, ‘Weapons Development’ and ‘Technology Wing’.

I groaned. Great, another large building where we needed to search endlessly for something that may or may not even be here. “Alright, lets split up, we’ll get this done quicker if split into two groups.”

“Right, because splitting up worked great last time,” Pyre quipped, looking down from the signs to give me an accusing look. “Or do you want to end up with wings sticking out of your back again?”

Xayah and Mirra looked at me in horror at the statement. I had never bothered to tell them about what the crazy alicorn had done to me, both because I figured they would sleep better if they didn’t know and to keep me from dwelling to long on the pain it had caused me.

“We’ll split up into larger groups this time,” I assured them all. “That alicorn wouldn’t have stood a chance if there had been more of us…” I thought about that for a second before correcting. “It didn’t stand a chance once more of us showed up.”

Pyre just rolled her eyes behind her helmet. “Alright, if you insist. But if one of us ends up dead, I get to say I told you so,” She glanced back at the signs. “By the way, I call investigating weapons Development!”

Brisk groaned. “Damn it, I was going to call that one…”

Pyre reached out a hoof and pulled Brisk in for a tight hug. Brisk squirmed and tried to escape, but he was no match for Pyre’s superior strength. “Then it looks like you’re coming with me Brisky. Come along.”

Pyre scooped Mirra up onto her back and began dragging Brisk down the hallway, a glumb look across his face. I chuckled as I watched her pull him away. It was no surprise she had pulled Mirra along too.

I turned back to Xayah and Heartbeat. “Alright, I guess that means we’re checking out the technology wing.”

Heartbeat almost looked giddy. “Thank Celestia. I heard that the MWT and MOP were working together a fair amount in this building.”

I raised an eyebrow at him. “What kind of projects did those two work together for?”

Heartbeat shrugged. “No idea, it could be anything really. Or nothing at all. Nopony has spent much time in this building to find out.”

“It seems odd that ponies wouldn’t try harder to get past the ghouls,” Xayah pointed out as we began walking down the hallway. “If the things in here are so valuable then why wouldn’t they work harder to get the thing this building contains?”

“Well, who would be able to?” Heartbeat pointed out. “Most raiders and wasteland wanderers don't really have much use for MWT technology, or even know what it is for that matter. To them it's just a building swarming with ghouls that is more trouble than it's worth. And lets me honest, the ponies at Tenpony aren’t going to do anything unless it has something to do with Twilight Sparkle.”

“What about the Steel Rangers?” I asked, remembering the fanatical, technology scavenging raiders. “Seems like this place would have been right up their alley?”

Heartbeat nodded. “It is, but the Steel rangers don’t have a strong presence on this side of the city. Most of them are closer to Fetlock in Fort Strong… or I suppose Stable 29 if we’re talking about the Outcasts.”

“But you would think they would at least attempt to take the stuff inside of here,” I pushed, unable to believe that such a faction would simply ignore this place.

“I’m sure they have. But Manehattan is a death trap. I’m sure you’ve noticed that by now,” Heartbeat continued. “They would have to travel all the way across the city on hoof, then walk all the way back while carrying all the spoils of their looting. Something like that takes time and resources. Recently, the Steel Rangers have had neither of those.”

We turned a corner into a small room. The floor was covered in rows of dented, dust covered desks, each one covered in flickering terminals and blueprints. A feral ghouls in a lab coat walked back and forth across the room, scratching at itself.

Before I could think to attack, Nurse Heartbeat cast his anaesthetic spell, dropping the ghoul limp to the ground.

I winced as the ghoul fell. “Damn, remind me not to get on your bad side,” I smirked, poking my head into the room and looking around to make sure there were no more ghouls. When I was sure the coast was clear, I walked the rest of the way in and started digging through the drawers.

“I do not like using my anaesthetic spell for combat purposes,” Heartbeat replied sowerly, following in after me with Xayah close behind him. “But if I need to fight, I would rather my enemies need to suffer as little as they can.”

He moved up beside the ghoul, and like the first ghoul he had attacked in the building, surgically slit its throat. I grimaced. “Why do you kill the ghouls after you immobilize them? You left the raiders alive…”

Heartbeat sighed and glanced up at me from across the room. “I’ve had a few ghoul patents over the years. Not many in Tenpony, but a fair amount from my time in the wasteland. Do you know what they all told me?”

I shook my head.

I saw Xayah’s lips twist into a frown as she opened up a terminal. “They told you to kill them if they ever went feral…” She breathed, a grim tone in her voice. “There was a zebra ghoul I knew in Glyphmark that once told me that.”

Heartbeat gave her a sad nod. “No pony wants to go feral. Most ponies would rather die than become one of those…” He took a deep breath to calm himself. “I took an oath to protect ponies… But feral ghouls aren’t ponies anymore. They’re husks. Mindless corpses in a ponies skin. From what some ghouls have told me… the only part of them that's still pony is a small thought in the back of their brian that tells them to kill themself before they kill anypony else.”

I could feel my stomach clench at the thought. “If I ever become a feral ghoul for some reason… I want you guys to promise to kill me too,” I said slowly. “I don’t think I’d want a fate like that…”

Both Xayah and Heartbeat gave an agreeing nod, though Xayah looked terrified by the simple thought alone. Her eyes quickly widened as she read over the terminal she was looking at.

“Amber, you may want to take a look at this,” Xayah said, her eyes scanning over the terminal’s screen. Heartbeat and I moved up beside her and began to read.

>Log #13 Anti-Cloaking Device

>So it turns out that the Ministry of Image is working on stealth technology as well. Apparently that's where Twilight even got the idea for these projects in the first place. Honestly, it's starting to feel like the Ministry mares are working together on everything and leaving the rest of us all in the dark. Fuck if I know when they find the time to do that, I don’t think they have all been seen together all at once in years.

>Course Stealth technology is a risky thing, especially since we know zebras have access to it too. Last thing we need is an army of zebras sneaking up on us without our knowing. But fuck those striped ass hole! This time, we’ve got the one up on them. The MTW has had most of the ponies in the development of StealthBucks shift their efforts to an Anti-cloaking device. Sure they’re only single use at the moment, but that won’t matter much seeing how they last the good part of an hour. If we can’t beat the Zebra’s at infiltration, might as well make it so they can’t infiltrate us as easily, right?

>Anyway, Braeburn caught wind of the project and wanted permission to use it in some weapons he’s making. Applejack was adamant that it doesn’t get involved in weapon development, something about not making new ways to kill ponies. Doesn’t matter. She hardly runs this ministry anyway. More of a figurehead than anything else these days.

>We sent two of the Anti-cloaking Devices over to Ironshod across the street, kept the other for ourselves up in robotics. After we make a few more we’re going to try turning it into an augmentation. Just imagine, ponies with the ability to see right through those filthy zebras stealth cloaks! Applejack’s got to approve of that at least.

>I suppose it doesn’t really matter if she doesn’t approve anyway, I mean how the fuck is Applejack going to find out? 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 checked through the other entries on the terminal. It was the last, possibly written only shortly before the bombs. Which meant there was a good chance that the Anti-cloaking devices were still in the aforementioned spots.

I groaned. “Great, looks like we’re going to need to head over to Ironshods after we stop by robotics here then.”

Xayah gave a small whinny-like sound of understanding. “Lead on.”

We quickly left the room and headed back into the hallway. A few feet away, I saw an old floor plan hanging from one of the walls. I began moving toward it.

As we walked, I found the courage to turn to Heartbeat and ask. “How is Brisk doing by the way? About the Buck addiction I mean?” Xayah’s ears perked up at the conversation, but she didn’t dare interject.

Heartbeat paused for a second, stopping his slow walk towards the map on the wall. “He is doing better. He will never truly recover of course, not from that, but he has shown tremendous strength in fighting against his urges,” He gave a small laugh that sounded both happy and sad at the same time. “Honestly, I don’t think he needs me looking over him anymore.”

I furrowed my brows. “So what will you do then? Are you going to head back to Tenpony?”

Heartbeat thought about that for a bit. He tapped his chin thoughtfully with a hoof before turning back to me with a smile. “One day, definitely, but perhaps not today. I grow tired of the uptight, bigot filled society of Tenpony. While I perhaps tend to have more patients when working at the Tenpony hospital, I feel like I’ve made a bigger difference out here with all of you than I ever did there. Besides, as I said when I first joined you, Helpinghoof and Lifebloom have the Tenpony hospitals more than covered. I think I’d like to stick around and help you ponies for a bit, if you’d still have me?”

I gave him a warm smile. “Of course we would. You’re practically part of our family now. No matter how messy and broken our family dynamic is.”

Heartbeat gave me a grin in return as we continued walking towards the map on the wall. “You ponies, and zebra, certainly have your issues, but to be honest, you’re a closer family than most others out in the wasteland.”

That was a nice thought. A strange and allegedly sad thought, but a nice one.

The map that hung on the wall had long since faded, most of the lines that made up the image having disappeared completely. The only thing on the map that was still clearly legible was the big red dot with the words ‘you are here’ printed above it.

Narrowing my eyes and squinting at the map, I began to search around the area for anything of value. I saw faded images of rooms and hallways. A strange ladder looking symbol I guessed was supposed to represent stairs were a little down the hallway and to our right.

Finally I spotted the words reading ‘Advanced Robotics’. The once black lettering was now closer to a light grey, but I was still able to make out the words. “This way,” I said, pointing down a side hall that led to a staircase leading farther up into the tower.

It took about ten minutes to find the Advanced robotics area I had seen on the map. A lot of the hallways had collapsed in on themselves, constantly making us need to backtrack and find a way around. Often we would need to find and go through holes in walls to get around the crumbling parts of the structure.

When we finally made it into the advanced robotics lab, we found ourselves in a large chamber. The room had been sealed by an incredibly heavy duty metal door, nearly as thick as a Stable door. The roof above us had been torn away, giving us a clear view of the sky and the toppled half of the skyscraper that created a bridge to the Ironshods building across the street. A long catwalk stretched across the top of the room. One side of it had collapsed, leaving a makeshift ramp that led up to the opening in the ceiling.

A metal platform lay in the center of the room with large claw-like appendages dangling down above it. The skeleton of a long dead pony stood in the center of the platform, held upright by a collection of metal clamps.

“What is this thing?” Xayah gasped, looking over the strange device.

I trotted up to a terminal attached to the machine and clicked it on. It was unlocked, and a good thing too, because the security measures on the terminal were matched only by the terminal I had found in Silver Ace’s apartment. Whoever had once owned this terminal had not wanted anypony else to have access to its contents.

>DOCTOR PESTILENCE’S TERMINAL OMEGA-5>

>Augmentation Program Options:

>Logs

>Begin Process

I blinked as I read over the name of the terminal's owner. Doctor Pestilence. Assuming the name wasn’t just a strange coincidence, he had been the pony out in Las Pegasus that Crank had seeked to help change him back from being a cyber pony.

I activated the logs and watched as a wall of text opened up on the screen.

>Test subject 1: Ineffective. The pony was unable to survive the procedure. The MWT is furious… Applejack would probably shut me down if she found out… she won't find out. The subject had a heart attack in the middle of the procedure. Well, when I say heart attack, I really mean they were unable to live having their heart removed before we could give them a synthetic one. We will be more successful next time.

>Test Subject 2: We were in fact more successful. The next subject survived having their heart replaced. They unfortunately however, died moments after from kidney failure. Honestly, these ponies need to get stronger immune systems.

>Test Subject 3: They survive the process. Unfortunately for them, they did not survive the mental trauma caused by having their skin peeled from their face. The damn fool leapt off the roof an hour later. Furthermore, apparently Applejack is catching wind of pony volunteers going missing. I’ll have to make a note to only test on ponies that I plucked off the street. No pony will notice if a whore or two disappears. Right?

>Test Subject 5: No change in behaviour.

>Test Subject 6: No change in behaviour.

>Test Subject 7: Success! I simply had to wipe their memory afterwards. It was so obvious! Subject seven has shown no signs of attempting to commit suicide afterwards. Of course, they haven’t exactly shown signs of anything afterwards, but I kind of like them that way. They don’t complain when I give them orders. I’m pretty sure Pureblood wants them that way too.

I grimaced as I read over the logs. If these log entries belonged to the same Doctor Pestilence that Pyre had talked about, and I’m pretty damn sure that they were, I could easily understand Pyre’s disdain for the buck. He sounded absolutely despicable.

I turned my gaze to the second option on the terminal and clicked it.

>DOCTOR PESTILENCE’S TERMINAL OMEGA-5>

>Augmentation Program - Begin Process

>Procedure primed and ready

[Choose Augmentations]

[Activate]

I looked up at the pony skeleton hooked up to the machine. They had been in the middle of a procedure when the bombs had fallen. Unable to move, the pony hooked to the machine had been unable to even flee, trapped to the augmentation device forever. It was a terrible fate.

“I think I found it,” I heard Heartbeat say from behind me.

I turned to see him standing over a table in the far corner, looking over some sort of clunky device. Xayah and I walked over, craning our necks to see what he was looking at.

It was some sort of brown, cube shaped device that looked like it could theoretically plug into a pipbuck, though I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how. A small gemstone was embedded in the top of the device, looking strikingly similar to the gem on the clasp of Xayah’s stealth cloak. It rested in a small box labeled, ‘Anti-cloaking device’.

“That would be it,” I said flatly as I read over the label on the box it sat in. I plucked it up and rolled it around in my hooves. It wasn’t very large, making it fairly easy to conceal. I quickly tucked it into my saddlebags. One down, one to go.

My eyes landed on a small case resting on the desk beside where the anti-cloaking device had been resting. The box was a dark black and had the symbol of a set of gears surrounded by an apple and bisecting by a sword imprinted on the top. Pulling open the lid, I found a single glowing memory orb looking up at me.

I picked the orb up in my hooves and turned to face Xayah and Heartbeat. “Do you mind if I look at this?”

Heartbeat waved his hoof encouragingly for me to view it. “We should be safe from the ghouls in this room. We’ll keep watch while you’re inside it.”

I gave him a grateful look before returning my attention to the orb. I wrapped it in my magic and felt the world shift and swirl away.

I was in the body of a mare. Whomever I was inhabiting had clearly had a few to many sugary treats, because I felt like I was bouncing off the walls with energy. Wisps of pink mane kept bobbing in and out of my vision as my host bounced along the long hallway.

Beside me walked an oddly familiar orange mare with a yellow mane and light brown stetson. It took me a second to recognise her as Applejack, the mare of the Ministry of Wartime Technology. I remembered her from the story of the Mare in the moon.

Walking beside Applejack on either side were two snooty looking canterlot nobility ponies. The first one I recognised immediately as Pureblood. His golden coat seemed to dazzle to a near intolerable degree, making me question if he had bathed himself in glitter. I assumed that he was trying to emulate the sparkling manes of Princess Celestia and Luna.

The other nobility pony was strikingly similar in posture and frame, though notably younger. He had a light grey, almost white coat and light amber mane. I could only get a small glance at his cutie mark, but from what I could gather, it was some sort of compass.

“...And you have interest in this project now, why?” Applejack said. I had been too focused on taking in my surroundings and trying to identify all the ponies present that I had missed the first half of what Applejack was saying.

The nobility pony I didn’t recognise raised his muzzle into the air even more than it already was with a huff. “We do not need to explain ourselves to you. We can choose what we think is a good investment with our...”

Pureblood cut the younger pony off with a near violent wave of his hoof. “Excuse Blueblood, he lacks tact,” Pureblood soothed, his voice sounding equally as tactless.

So this was the Blueblood Rarity and Rainbow Dash had been talking about. I wracked my brain as I tried to remember what they had said about him. Something about being Pureblood’s son and wanting to marry Rarity.

Applejack raised an eyebrow. “Well, what is it then?”

Pureblood glanced around, making sure there was nopony else in the hallway save for those present. He looked over to Blueblood and narrowed his eyes. “Would you leave us for a moment?”

Blueblood gawked at his father. “Excuse me? I will not be removed from the room like some common pony!”

Pureblood just continued to glare, looking down at Blueblood with a snooty snarl. “Leave us Blueblood.” Blueblood looked between the three ponies for a few seconds in disbelief before huffing and marching away down the hallway. As soon as he was gone, Pureblood gestured for Applejack and my host to move into a side room.

Applejack opened up the room with a key card and ushered everypony in. “Now I reckon I know what this is all about, since ye were sendin’ yer kin away and all. This room should be free of any security, so we can talk openly here.”

My host seemed to bounce up and down excitedly. “Oooh! I love secrets! All kinds of secrets! Tell me tell me tell me!” I had already figured out who I was in before hearing the voice, but the voice only finalised it. I was in the body of Pinkie Pie.

Pureblood grinned. “It has to do with the Institute. Rarity has insisted we create a way to hide our signals from EFS. A secret facility under Manehattan isn’t much use if everypony with a pipbuck can simply spot a bunch of life tags under their hooves.”

Applejack though on that for a second. “Well I reckon that ain’t all that different from what our StealthBucks been doin’. Invisibility hides ponies from EFS as well, Incorporating half the spell into the Institute might be able to conceal us a little better.”

Pureblood nodded. “We’re shifting funding to ensuring that this concealment project is achieved. I want your top ponies working on this immediately.”

The whole world seemed to shift as Pinkie tilted her head at a near impossible angle. “But won't ponies get suspicion that all those bits are going towards something like that? I mean if it was all going towards making cupcakes then maybe no pony would complain. I mean cupcakes are delicious and super super tasty, but I don’t think we’re making cupcakes so I think ponies might start to notice.”

Both Applejack and Pureblood just blinked a couple of times as they tried to take the important parts of what Pinkie had said out of the jumble of words about cupcakes.

Finally Applejack gave a thoughtful nod. “Well the zebras just came out with their own version of the pipbuck ‘bout a month ago. Ain’t as good as Stable-Tecs, but it does the job. I reckon we can convince ponies that it's designed fer hidin’ soldiers in battle,” Applejack thought on that for a few more seconds. “Might not be such a bad idea to use it fer that as well anyhow.”

Pureblood growled. “No. This project is to go to the Institute and the Institute alone. Say what you must to cover our tracks, but I will not allow such a device to fall into the hooves of Zebras or common ponies.”

Applejack’s eyebrows furrowed. “Now you listen here Pureblood. The Institute is ‘bout protectin’ ponies, not the other way ‘round. Keepin’ the Institute secret don’t do no pony no good if we don’t go ‘round helpin’ ponies. That is always our first priority.”

Purebloods face twisted into a snarl. “You speak like that to me again Applejack and I will cut your fundings! We’ll see how well you help ponies without government backings!”

Applejack scowled. “Yer fancy bits are a nice bonus Pureblood, but unlike Rainbow Dash and Twilight, most of my fundin’ comes from hard workin’ ponies and other businesses ‘round Equestria.”

Pureblood took a step forward, clearly trying to intimidate the farm pony. Applejack stood headstrong before him, not giving him the satisfaction of her backing away, despite him standing practically muzzle to muzzle with her.

“Oh really?” Pureblood soothed, his voice lowering to a tone that dripped with malice. “And how have all those business ponies been doing? Are they really interested in helping all those common folk you seem so adamant in serving?”

Applejack winced at that and finally took a step away from him. “Well not exactly, but I’m doin’ my best ta turn them around.”

Purebloods scowl only thickened. “We’ll see about that, Applejack… You had best watch your step around here. I’d hate for there to be some sort of accident…”

Pinkie Pie jumped in front of Pureblood, an angry look across her face. “Now don’t you go being a mean meany-mean pants,” She said flatly, poking the canterlot elite in the chest with an accusing hoof. Pureblood opened his mouth to respond, but before he could, Pinkie shot straight up, her mane and tail standing on end as if she had been electrocuted. “Twitchy knee, scratchy nose…”

Pureblood exchanged a look with Applejack. “What are you talking abou-”

Pinkie’s face adopted a similar snarl to that which Pureblood and Applejack had worn only a few moments prior. But unlike them, her face held a devilish gleam to it. “Twitchy knee, scratchy nose,” Pinkie said again, though this time as if she were explaining herself. “That's my pinkie sense. It means somepony is listening in on us.”

The second those words left her mouth, there was a clatter from outside the door, as if somepony outside had had their ear pressed against the surface, and was now bolting away down the hallway. Purebloods face drained of colour, making him look more yellowy-orange than gold.

“Stop the spy!” Pureblood shouted, twirling around to face the door.

Pinkie was way ahead of him. The world around me spun and Pinkie Pie darted forwards at a speed that shouldn’t have been possible without pegasus wings. She bounded into the now empty hallway and looked around. I felt a strange itch in her left ear, followed by Pinkie darting to her left.

“Shaky tail, fluttery eye,” Pinkie breathed. She turned and shot down a side hallway before coming to the base of a set of stairs. She didn’t slow as she began racing up them. “Scratchy fetlock, numb hoof.”

Pinkie darted around the building at nauseating speeds, the strange itches and tingles in her body seeming to lead her in certain directions. They just felt like weird itches to me.

Finally pinkie broke into a large room, a few floors above where she had been talking to Pureblood and Applejack. The large room was filled with ponies, all them moving around the room with stacks of papers or sitting having small meetings in their cubicles tucked against one wall.

Pinkie’s eyes narrowed as she scanned the room. Whomever the spy had been, had clearly come here to blend in.

Letting her lips twist into a smile, Pinkie turned and closed the door behind her. Her mane stretched forwards, seemingly having a mind of its own and poked itself into the doors lock. There was a click, as Pinkie locked the room from the outside.

She smiled deviously as her mane withdrew. She slowly bounced her way into the room, weaving through the different ponies going about their business. A few ponies gave her a respectful, or even fearful nod as she passed them.

“Shaky leg, scratch neck,” Pinkie whispered to herself as she slowly went further and further into the room. “Fluttery ears, twitchy tail. Tingly pelves, scratchy hoof,” Suddenly Pinkies right ear burned as if it had been caught on fire. She whipped her head around to spot a green pony with a blue mane across the room that was doing everything he could to not look at her. “Gotcha!”

The world swirled back in around me as I came out of the memory orb. I could practically feel the buzz of Pinkie Pie’s seemingly endless energy leave me as my mind returned to my own body. It felt weird to be back in my own body, I forgot how much my body hurt and ached.

I was kissing somepony. Why the heck was I kissing somepony?

I slowly moved my mouth away and groaned. “Xayah, this probably isn’t a great time,” I could feel the mouth move away from me.

My eyes opened. A pair of dazzling blue eyes stared back. Those weren’t Xayah’s eyes.

Surprised, I pushed myself away from the unicorn mare in front of me, only to find my hooves tied and my back pressed against the wall.

I gulped, taking in the mare in front of me. Cream coat, pink and blue mane, blood coated hide and hellhound claws strapped to her hooves. I felt a sickening horror growing inside me as I realised who I was in the presence of.

“Nope, not Xayah! Guess again!” Viscera chirped cheerfully, taking a small step closer to me. She raised a hoof and pressed it against my stomach, pushing me against the ground and pinning me down. Her face drew up close to mine again, her hot breath breathing down onto me. “I have a bit of a score to settle with one of your friends. Now that I’m here, we are going to be getting very closely acquainted, you and I.”

I instinctively reached out with my magic, wrapping my telekinesis around Viscera’s throat. The raider chuckled, her free forehoof lashed out and bashed against the base of my horn. The blunt side of the Hellhound claws slammed into me, causing a large crack to go shooting up my horn, smaller cracks spider webbing along the base.

My magic imploded as the searing pain shot through me. My head jerked back and slammed against the solid wall, agony bursting through my skull as I felt the crack shoot up my horn. Blood drizzled from my horn and dripped into my eye, mingling with the tears that were already beginning to roll down my cheeks.

My horn wasn’t broken, but I doubted I would be able to cast magic for the next few days. I doubted I would ever even be able to use magic again without feeling some sort of pain.

My blurry vision began to travel up to take in the rest of the room. We were no longer in the robotics lab. We had been tied up and moved back to the large room somewhere else in the building. Viscera had made quick work of decorating the room to her liking. Blood coated the floors and walls and she had gone around posing the broken and mutilated bodies of ghouls in vile, if not straight up sexual positions. The mutilated ghouls eyes all seemed to face inwards, staring at us with glazed and empty eyes. An undead audience for the atrocities Viscera no doubt had planned.

Xayah and Heartbeat lay a few feet away from me, their hooves tied in a similar style to mine. Three hellhound guards stood over them, each dressed in raider barding made of pony flesh.

We were not the only ponies held in captivity in the room either. Five ponies lay around us, their hooves tied tightly together with barbed wire. They lay battered and bruised, clearly having been victims of the raiders torment for days.

I tried to pull myself away again, only for Viscera’s Hellhound claws to dig deeper into my front. I could feel myself rapidly going into a panic attack. Viscera was here! Her Hellhounds were here!

Damn it, Pyre had told me Viscera and her hellhounds were following us. I had seen the signs myself. Why hadn’t I been more careful? How could I have just let my guard down like that when I knew they weren’t far behind. She had been waiting for us to be divided and unprepared, I had known this too. How could I have been such a fool?

I had underestimated Viscera. I knew she was dangerous, but I had never realised to what extent. Pyre feared her, that should have been enough warning for me.

My eyes continued darting around the room, searching for a way out. I saw nothing. A catwalk raced around the top of the room, but I could see no logical way of getting up to it. There was only one entrance to the room, a large set of metal double doors. But even that was seemingly impossible to get to as a particularly large hellhound stood in front of it, making sure no pony could get out.

Viscera saw my eyes linger on the door and laughed. “Oh, what’s this? Are you trying to figure out a way to escape?” She grinned down at me, showing off her wicked sharpened fangs. “There is no escaping. There is no running. It doesn’t matter how far away you get. We will find you.”

I tried to push her hoof off of me, but her strength far exceeded my own. “Wh-what do you want?”

Viscera looked at me almost pitifully. She stared down at me for a few seconds, contemplating the question. “It’s not often that a pony asks a raider what they want,” She finally replied, her malicious grin widening. “Usually we just want to have some fun,” Her hoof loosened its grip a little and she slid her hoof down the length of my body, finally bringing it to rest between my hind legs. I squirmed, trying to pull myself away from her unwelcome touch.

“Usually,” I pushed, picking out that particular word. I could feel my mind quickly spiralling into more and more panic and my thoughts became difficult from Visceras invasive touch. “So what particularly do you want right now?”

Viscera looked almost pleased with the question. “I’m here for Pyre. I’m here to make her pay for betraying me… but you…” She leaned in close, her mouth brushing up against my ear. “You and your friends are just entertainment.”

I shiver of fear shot through me at those words. There was no talking our way out of this. Our suffering was the only thing these psychopaths wanted.

Her tongue lolled from her mouth and she dragged its slimy surface across my face. I scrunched up my muzzle and shut my eyes as her tongue rolled over my face. She finally pulled herself away from me, walking towards one of the Hellhounds that stood guard over my friends.

Xayah looked over at me, her eyes both pleading and sorrowful. Her muzzle was broken and her left eye had swollen up. “Sorry Amber, we tried to hold them off, but they overpowered us.

The Hellhound above her abruptly kicked her, sending Xayah thumping against the wall. She rolled to a stop, blood drizzling from her mouth. “Silence! Save your talking for when the fun begins!” the hellhound snarled, his voice a low, unmistakable gargle.

Heartbeat pulled himself over to Xayah, wrapping his magic around her as he began to cast a healing spell. Another hellhound grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and tossed him across the room where he landed next to me with a loud thwack. His head lurched back, cracking against the wall and beginning to drizzle blood.

Heartbeat’s head shakily shifted to look at me, his eyes distant as he tried to shake the dizziness from his head. “Amber, w-what’s the plan?” His voice came out as little more than a frail croak. From the bruises and scars that covered his body, I could tell the raiders had been far from kind to him.

I just stared at him, unable to hide the growing terror in my eyes. “I-I dont’ have one… I don’t know…” I started to shake as the inevitability of the situation began to take hold of me. These weren’t just raiders, these were hellhounds. Heavily armed, well trained hellhounds. We were tied up, battered, broken and I had lost the use of my magic for the next few hours at least. And who knows what had happened to our weapons. I let my gaze land on the five other ponies the raiders had tied up. All of that and we had prisoners we needed to free. I couldn’t stand by and let Viscera and her hellhounds torture and kill these ponies.

“I grow tired of waiting,” I heard one of the hellhounds growl in it’s gravelly sounding voice. He reached down and plucked Xayah’s body from the ground. Xayah twisted, trying to get free of the hellhound's powerful grip, only to find herself trapped. “Let me fuck this cunt now while we wait for the others.”

There were more! Of course there were more. Pyre had told me that Viscera liked to travel in groups of ten, but there were only four here. I could feel my already dying hopes of escape fade away completely.

Xayah’s eyes widened at the hellhound's words. She began struggling harder to free herself, only for the hellhound to smush her face first against the wall. “Pony struggles against me. Pony needs to be taught a lesson!” The Hellhound spat. One of his large claws pinned Xayah to the ground by the neck as his other pushed her hind legs apart.

I screamed, pushing myself up and trying to rush at the Hellhound. My tied legs caught and I fell to the ground, my face crashing against the floor.

Another hellhound bounded forwards, its claws lashing at my hooves and pinning me to the ground as well.

“Wait,” Viscera sang out in a singsong voice. Both of the hellhounds froze at her words. “Pyre’s friends are to be kept alive until Pyre arrives. Believe me, that will be much more entertaining,” She glanced over at one of the tied up captives. “I’m sure we could do less with one of them though.”

The Hellhound holding Xayah down moved away from her, looming over the captive I didn’t know the name of. Xayah let her body relax with relief as the tight grip on her neck loosened.

The hellhounds screamed incoherent cheers as they moved in on the frightened captive. They didn’t kill the pony. That would have been far too kind. They raped them. They taunted them. They slowly carved off chunks of the bound ponies flesh and fed it to them.

The captive screamed. I tried to move my hooves to cover my ears, but they were tied too tightly. I turned my head away, burying it in Heartbeats side as the ponies wails continued. Heartbeat nuzzled me, unable to do any more with his bound hooves.

The screaming lasted for what felt like hours, but I knew it couldn’t have been any longer than five minutes. At last the screaming dulled to a pained whimper, the tormented pony no longer able to find the strength to scream.

I saw Viscera raise a hoof into the air, signalling for the Hellhounds to stop. The raider hellhounds pulled themself away from the bloody mass of flesh that had at once been a pony, blood and gore dripping and hanging from their jagged teeth and claws.

My eyes widened with horror as I took in the blob of squirming flesh where the pony had been. Their skin had been flayed, their limbs had been chewed. Both of the ponies eyes had been gored out, leaving its battered and bleeding face with two hollow black sockets looking out at nothing. But the worst part was, they were still alive. They squirmed back and forth, like a worm that had been impaled on the end of a fishing hook.

Viscera poked at the bloody body with a claw, tearing open a small gash in the ponies side. She leered down at the pony, her smile sick and twisted. “Still alive? Now who should I give the honour of finally killing you to?” She asked, her gaze drifting over her Hellhounds. She tapped her hoof to her chin thoughtfully. “Lets see. Who deserves to give the final blow?”

Each Hellhound whooped manically as she trotted back and forth before them. Viscera raised a hoof into the air, slowly pointing to each Hellhound in turn, as if ordering them to take the ponies life before shaking her head and moving to the next hellhound.

With each and every time her hoof passed over one of the Hellhounds, they began to get more crazy, slowly working themselves up into a bloody frenzy. They leaped into the air, howling and screaming as if they themselves were in pain. Their huge claws fidgeted at their sides and lashed at the air as they impatiently waited for Viscera to decide.

Finally Viscera let her playfully sern face lighten and split into a vile grin. He body spun, her hoof moving away from the Hellhounds to point at me. “You!”

My eyes widened, my shivering body beginning to tremble even more. I shuffled back, pushing myself back up against the wall. “M-m-me?” My voice caught in my throat.

Viscera’s grin was unbearable. She hooked one of her hellhound claws into the shivering ponies side and tossed them at me. Their broken body landed in front of me, bumping into the air for a second from the heavy impact before skidding to a stop in front of me.

Up close I was able to see each and every gory detail in crystal clarity. They had been brutally skinned alive and the bones in their legs had been shattered. They had at one point been a unicorn, but now their horn was little more than a jagged stump of shattered bone. I couldn’t tell if they were a mare of a stallion. If they had been a stallion, the Hellhounds had gelded him.

Viscera closed in on me, baring her jagged teeth as she leered. “Well, kill them.”

I tried to scoot back again, but I was already as pressed up against the wall as I could get. The pony before me raised its head shakily and looked towards me with its eyeless sockets. Its mouth silently mouthed the words “Please…” Whether they were asking me to save them or for me to kill them I didn’t know.

Heartbeat tried to move in front of me protectively, only for Viscera to toss him aside with a swipe of her hoof. Heartbeat hit the ground hard, a large, bloody gash across the side of his face.

I looked back up at Viscera, my eyes wet from tears. “Wh-why have me… why have me k-kill them?”

Viscera’s grin simply continued to grow. “You’re the perfect pony to do the job. I’ve been watching you and your friends for days. You don’t want to see this poor pony suffer… so put them out of their misery,” she pushed the dying pony a little closer to me with a hoof.

It was cruel and unfair, but she was right. If I didn’t kill them, they would slowly die of blood loss, assuming they didn’t first die from the shock. It would be a slow death, a painful death. But I was being given the option to kill them now. Save them from the endless pain they were enduring. End their life quicker.

Shakily, I pulled myself forwards and limped towards the shivering blob of flesh. As I reached forwards I began to realise the second part of Viscera’s plan. I didn’t have any weapons and my hooves had been tied. I couldn’t kill them quickly. They would die slowly and painfully anyway.

I propped the dying ponies head up against my chest and began to wrap my hooves around them, the barbed wire holding my hooves together pressing tightly up against their neck. The pony gagged, they’re hooves failing frantically around them out of instinct as they felt the sharp wire dig into their flesh and begin to choke them.

I held my hooves steady as the pony squirmed. I let my head reach down so that my mouth was inches from their ear. “I’m sorry.”

The pony calmed a little at the words, but they didn’t stop struggling. Finally there was a ragged sounding choke, and the pony went still.

Breathing heavily, I pulled myself away from the body. My hooves were soaked in the ponies blood, both metaphorically and literally. I could hear the hellhounds around me cheering and screaming for more. I tried to ignore them.

I let my gaze lift up to look at Viscera. How I hated her. My hateful gaze was simply met with twisted amusement.

“Eat them,” Viscera soothed, her expression unchanging.

I felt my body go cold. She wasn’t asking me to… Goddesses… I couldn’t…

One of the hellhounds placed their sharp claws against Xayah’s neck. Xayah tried to pull back, only for the hellhound to dig its claws in deeper, drawing a trickle of blood. Xayah looked at me pleadingly, fear sprawled across her face.

Viscera leaned in closer, her eyes dazzling with glee. “I said eat them.”

I lay there, unmoving for the longest time as I sat and stared at the lifeless corpse of the pony I had just killed. It wasn’t fair! I couldn’t just… just eat them! They deserved better than that.

I saw the hellhounds claws dig even deeper into Xayah’s flesh.

I sighed and pulled myself forwards, trying my best to not give Viscera the satisfaction of seeing me cringing away. I opened my mouth, the lips trembling as I stared down at the body. I shut my eyes, and took a bite.

My mouth filled with bile and I vomited on myself, coating my hide in bile and the remains of the stew I had eaten this morning. The taste of flesh and blood filled my mouth and I forced myself to swallow. The pony flesh oozed down my throat in chunky globs, feeling more like a slime than meat.

My body trembled and I toppled over, retching, my body trying to expel the vile substance I had just forced myself to consume.

The Hellhounds had gone into a manic frenzy now, leaping and cheering as they watched me gagging on the floor in a pool of my own filth and blood.

I could feel Viscera petting the top of my head as if I were a dog. I wanted to spin around and attack her, but I couldn’t find the strength. I knew she would just beat me if I did anyway.

The door clicked open and four more hellhounds marched into the room. One of them shoved a battered looking Brisk forwards, making him collapse to the ground in the center of the room. The other three pulled Pyre forwards, large chains wrapped tightly around her power armour as they dragged her in. Like the rest of us, both Brisk and Pyre had been removed of their weapons.

Outside the door I could see two more hellhounds standing guard. There would be no escaping out that way.

Viscera’s face lit up as she saw Pyre being dragged towards her. She stood upright and clapped her forehooves together happily. “Pyre! It's so good to see you!” Viscera cooed, waltzing across the room and giving Pyre a playful hug.

Pyre glared back at her from behind her helmet. “I can’t say the feeling is mutual I’m afraid,” She growled back, her voice filled with loothing. She turned her head to face the rest of us. “Everypony alright?”

I was going to nod back, but before I could Viscera had slapped Pyre across the face, sending the raider sprawling to the floor.

“You will only address me right now you fucking cunt!” Viscera raged, her hoof slamming down on Pyre’s head and pinning her to the ground like she had done to me when I had first come to my senses. She leaned down, her voice cold and merciless. “You will only address me right now… understand?”

Pyre was silent for a long moment before finally grunting out. “Yes… I understand.”

Viscera straightened herself up and put on a happy expression. “Wonderful. This is going to be so fun, I have some great games planned!”

I pulled myself over to Brisk and let myself collapse next to him. “Bro, are you alright?”

Brisk looked back at me, his expression pained. “I’ve had better days.”

I glanced around the room, noticing that someone was missing. “Where is Mirra?” I whispered, keeping my voice low, as to make sure the Hellhounds didn’t hear.

Brisk shook his head. “I-I don’t know. Pyre told her to run. I haven’t seen her.”

Mirra was still free, she might still be able to save us. I felt guilty just by thinking those thoughts. I hoped she ran and never looked back. She was too young to need to see things as horrible as what was happening in this room.

The sound of Viscera’s Hellhound claws clattering against the ground alerted me of her approach. I looked up just in time to see her hoof reach down and lift my head up. “Tell me Amber, how much about Pyre do you really know?”

I squirmed in her grip, trying to shake myself free. Finally I just gave up and went limp in her grip. “What are you talking about?”

Viscera sneered and pointed over at Pyre. “That lovely raider over there. How much do you know about her?”

I bit my lip, not knowing what to say. “I… I know… I don’t know, I know lots of different things…”

Viscera’s grin momentarily switched to annoyance. “The details! Did you know about all the things her father did to her? The things we did together in the Manehattan Scourge? Her cutie mark story?”

I opened and closed my mouth, trying to figure out what to say. It suddenly struck me that I didn’t even know what Pyre’s cutie mark was.

Viscera’s grin returned, the expression on my face clearly saying everything. “Not even her cutie mark story?” She glanced over at Pyre playfully. “We have a lot of work to do!”

“Viscera, stop this!” Pyre growled, pulling herself back up and taking a step towards Viscera. The hellhounds moved to stop her, but Viscera waved them off.

“Beg then,” Viscera said flatly. She advanced towards Pyre, making my large raider friend take a step back. “Beg for me not to.”

Pyre looked around for a second, clearly looking for a way out. “Please stop this…” Pyre’s voice was so quiet that I could hardly even hear it.

Viscera snarled again. “Do it on your knees!” She screeched, her hellhound claws lashed at the ground, digging large groves into the metal surface.

Pyre stood a second longer, weighing her options. Finally, she bent her knees and knelt. “Please stop this Viscera. Let them go…”

Viscera reached out and placed a hoof on Pyres head gently. “Now say sorry.”

Pyre gritted her teeth. “I’m sorry.”

Viscera’s hoof pressed down harder on Pyre’s head, the sharp hellhound claws strapped to her hoof beginning to dig into her metal helmet. “I don’t believe you! Try harder!”

“I’m sorry for betraying you!” Pyre screamed out. I couldn’t see her face through her helmet, but from her voice I could tell she was crying. “I’m sorry for betraying you and leaving you behind! Just please don't do this again!”

Again… this had happened before. Pyre had told me she had been forced to kill her friends back when she was a slave, but had Viscera killed her friends on other occasions I didn’t know about?

The thought sent a shock of fear through me as I suddenly realised what Viscera was doing.

Viscera had a flare for the dramatic. She wanted to kill Pyre in a climactic duel. But she wanted more than that. She wanted it to be poetic. She wanted history to repeat.

She wanted Pyre to kill us herself…

Viscera’s head leaned down to Pyre. “No…”

Pyre’s head bolted up, fear making her whole body go rigid. “No! Stop! Viscera damn it! Don’t do this!”

Viscera took a few steps back, her grin the widest it had been since she had captured us. “Well, let's start off easy. Why don’t you tell everypony your cutie mark story?” Viscera soothed, her voice leaving no room for argument. She lay down beside me, as if a child awaiting story time.

Pyre was staring at her in horror, her eyes darting back and forth behind her helmet. She took a shaky step back, only for the hellhound guarding the door to push her forwards. “I-I… I ca… I can’t…” Pyre stammered, her whole body visibly quivering.

Viscera scowled. “Perhaps you need the proper motivation…” her horn glowed blue and suddenly I felt something tight clamp around my throat.

I reeled back, looking down to see a magical collar around my neck. I glanced around. All of my friends had similar glowing blue collars around their necks as well. The collars began to tighten, strangling me and making me choke out as my breath began to catch in my throat.

“Tell the fucking story slut or your friends choke to death!” Viscera scowled, her hellhound claws scratching at the ground violently.

Pyre seemed to shrink under the pressure of the situation. She hung her head and wailed.

I froze my struggling against the ever tightening collar as the wail reached my ears. Pyre was wailing like a foal. It didn’t even feel like I was looking at Pyre anymore, but a scared filly trapped in the dark. I… it was heartbreaking.

Viscera bared her teeth again. “Tell the story!”

“It’s bones!” Pyre screamed out, no longer able to take Viscera’s screams. “My cutie mark is charred, blackened bones…”

Pyre collapsed to the ground, sobbing. Viscera only scowled more. “Why!”

“Because that’s all that was left!” Pyre wailed, burying her head in her hooves as if trying to hide herself from the rest of us.

I felt the collar around my neck shift. At first I thought it was releasing, but it wasn’t. It was rising. Slowly, the collars started floating up into the air, pulling me and my friends upwards. I choked more, the collar suddenly becoming a magical noose.

“All that was left of who!” Viscera scowled. She pulled herself up from the ground and loomed over Pyre, her face demanding violent retribution.

Pyre stilled, her sobbing slowly dying down as a single moan escaped her lips. “Mom….”

I felt my blood run cold. Pyre had gotten her cutie mark by… burning her mother alive… the idea was too horrible to think about.

“And what happened to your cutie mark?” Viscera pushed, still not accepting Pyre’s answer as complete. When Pyre was unresponsive, Viscera bashed her across the head. “I asked what happened to your cutie mark!”

“I-I…” Pyre’s voice caught, her words nearly obscured by tears. “I burned it off…”

This had gone on for too long. We needed to get out of here. I could tell Pyre wouldn’t be able to stand any more mental torture. I didn’t think I could stand it much longer myself.

“Why?” Viscera snarled again, her face only inches from Pyres own. “Why did you burn your cutie mark off!”

Pyre whimpered. “Because you told me too.”

At last, the collars around my neck release. I fell to the ground with a thud, panting for breath. I could see Heartbeat, Brisk and Xayah not far away, each of them clutching at their throat where their coat and flesh had been stripped and rubbed dry by the tight collar.

“Exactly,” Viscera smirked, finally stalking away from Pyre. “And now you’re going to do what I tell you again,” She gestured to all the ponies around the room. “Choose two ponies Pyre. The ponies you choose die.”

Shakily, Pyre glanced around the room. Her gaze landed on the four remaining pony captives we didn’t know. Silently, Her hoof raised and pointed towards them. Viscera grinned and nodded to her hellhounds.

At once, the hellhound lunged forwards and began ripping into the two ponies. The ponies screamed, only for their cries to be obscured by the gurgling of blood. Something rolled towards me and bumped against my hoof. A severed pony head, its eyes wide and empty.

The hellhounds moved away, leaving the mangled bodies of the ponies laying dead on the floor.

Viscera turned back to Pyre. “Predictable, but that is why we brought those ponies along. We figured we’d start off easy before we start to have the real fun. Now choose two more. These ones will get a different fate.”

Again, Pyre’s hoof raised and pointed to the two remaining ponies we didn’t know. The ponies stared back at her hoof, their faces filled with fear.

I screamed, trying to push myself between the Hellhounds and the captive ponies. “Damn it, let them go!” I screamed, swinging my bound hooves at the hellhounds. The hellhound quickly knocked me aside with a single swipe.

Viscera whirled and sprang at me, her hellhound claws digging deep into the flesh of my forehooves. “This is about Pyre!” Viscera shrieked, her voice manic and angry. “You will not interfere! You’ll get your turn!”

She lashed at me again, sending me tumbling across the floor. Viscera stood there seething at me for a moment before pulling on a warm and almost caring smile. She gestured towards the hellhounds again.

The hellhounds were grinning as they moved in towards the two ponies Pyre had pointed towards. I could tell from their expressions that they were excited for this part. Their claws lashed forwards, but instead of slicing into the ponies as I expected, their claws cut through their bonds.

The two ponies looked at their freed hooves in surprise for a moment. They looked up at Viscera as if expecting this to be some sort of cruel joke. Viscera just gave them a kind grin back. “You are free to go now.”

The hellhound guarding the door stepped aside, letting the two surprised ponies walk past and out into the building.

Pyre watched the ponies leave for a moment in surprise before turning back to Viscera. “You.. let them go?”

Viscera gave her a warm smile. “Of course. You should have picked your friends. They could be walking free right now. Now pick two more…”

I felt my stomach drop. Viscera had planned that. She had known Pyre was going to pick the two that weren’t her friends first. This next round of whatever sick twisted game this was wasn't going to be as forgiving, and we all knew it.

Pyre’s eyes darted across the room, moving back and forth between all of us. Whomever she picked next she would be signing up for a death sentence, and she knew it. So Pyre just stood there, refusing to choose.

Viscera scowled at her. “Pick or I pick for you!”

Pyre shook her head. “No… I… I can’t do… I can’t do it…”

Brisk stood up before anypony could stop him. “I’ll do it. Let the rest of them go,” he wobbled on his hooves as he stood, his balance kept off by the barbed wire around his hooves and the beating he had received before getting thrown into this room with us.

Viscera swung around and slashed him across the chest, ripping three holes in his barding and flesh beneath. Brisk stumbled backward, blood oozing from his front. “Pyre will choose!” Viscera howled at him, once again seething as she had when I had tried to interject. She paused, thinking for a second. “Actually, I think I will let you in on this one... you might be just the pony we need for this specific part of the game,” She turned back and glared at me. “You and your sister here.”

I felt my whole body lock up with fear. How did she know that? Had she heard me when I called him Bro? I had been whispering that though, there was no way that...

She is more hellhound than pony, Pyre had told me. Of course she had enhanced hearing. She had augmented all of her senses.

I took an involuntary step back. “What are you…”

Viscera leered and sliced Brisk and I’s bonds open with her hellhound claws. “Fight… fight to the death.”

No… I wouldn’t do that! I couldn’t do that. I stared over at Brisk who was looking at me with worried eyes.

The Hellhounds around began cheering more, riling themselves up as they awaited a big fight they had no doubt been expecting since the beginning.

Pyre pushed herself forwards. “No, stop this Viscera! Just kill me, I’m who you want! I even have my armor! We can end the legend of the great Manehattan scourge here and now!”

Viscera tapped her chin thoughtfully. “Hmmmm. Tempting, but no… We’ll get to that afterwards,” She returned her gaze to Brisk and I. “Now fight!”

I never saw Xayah get up. At some point she had crawled forwards and positioned herself behind Viscera. I only saw her once she lurched forwards and wrapped her barbed wire bonds around Viscera’s neck.

“Xayah! Don’t!” I heard Pyre shout, worry and surprise flaring through her voice.

Viscera stumbled back, shocked by the sudden attack. Her shock was quickly replaced with rage. Her forehooves lashed behind her, the hellhound claws cutting deep into Xayah’s flesh. Xayah staggered back, bleeding from three deep gashes in her leg.

But Viscera wasn’t done. Now free of Xayah’s grasp, she spun around and lashed out again. Her claws tore through the fronts of Xayah’s legs, ripping apart flesh and shattering bone.

Xayah screamed, falling back and collapsing to the ground in a heap. I stared in horror as I realised her forehooves didn’t fall with her. Viscera had ripped Xayah’s hooves from her body.

Viscera growled, pressing her hoof down on Xayah’s head as a display of power.

I screamed. I doubt my screams made coherent words. I dashed forwards, swinging my hooves at Viscera in a frantic attempt to get her away from Xayah. Viscera didn’t even flinch as two of the hellhounds grabbed onto me and tossed me back to the ground.

Heartbeat pulled himself over, his horn once again flaring to life as he attempted to cast a healing spell on the heavily bleeding zebra.

Viscera chuckled, her hoof lashing out and slashing Heartbeat across the throat. Blood spurted from his neck as he fell back, a large gash racing from one side of his throat to the other, just stopping short before his jugular. Heartbeat eyes were wide with shock, his mouth opened and closed aimlessly as he tried to get breath, only for blood to start spilling from his mouth.

I felt something inside of me snap. Heartbeat wasn’t dead, no yet, but there was no surviving a wound like that. He would slowly bleed out, drowning in his own blood. There was no way for me to save him. Even if Viscera and her hellhounds weren’t present, there was nothing I could have done to stop him from slowly choking to death.

Viscera lowered her hoof and looked down at the slowly dying nurse Heartbeat. “Such a shame, really. I kinda wanted to fuck him…” She turned to look at Pyre lazily. “Well? Are you going to put him out of his misery or not?” Pyre just continued to stare at her in horror. When Pyre didn’t move, Viscera elaborated. “This here is my favorite type of wound. I like to give it to all of my prey,” I could see Viscera’s wicked smile growing as she began to circle around Pyre. “I didn’t slice his jugular. He won't die of his wound. The good nurse will die of blood loss, but he’s going to die feeling like he’s drowning in his own blood. It should take a full ten minutes before he is fully dead.”

I saw Brisk drop to his haunches beside me, his gaze locked on our dying friend. I could feel my fear and terror slowly being replaced with a burning anger.

Something caught my attention. My eyes drifted up to the catwalks above us. There, shivering in fear was Mirra. She had her pistol drawn and was aiming it down at Viscera. But how had she…

My eyes landed on a small vent set into the roof. It had been popped open. Mirra had come in through the ventilation system. I didn’t know if I should fear for her or be proud of the little filly.

I forced myself to look away from her, not wanting to give away her position to the raiders.

Pyre took a step forward, then another, and another, until she came to loom over the Heartbeat. She knelt down, her gaze unable to meet his. Heartbeat was looking up at her, his eyes pleading. Pyre’s hooves wrapped around Heartbeats bleeding throat.

My eyes darted back up to Mirra. If ever there was a time for her to do something, it was now. But when I saw her, the little hope I had had of her saving us began to once again die. She was cowering, her aim faltering slightly.

Finally meeting his gaze, Pyre leaned down and put her mouth against Heartbeat’s ear. “I’m sorry you had to die because of me… you were a good pony…”

Pyre’s hooves twisted. Heartbeat’s head snapped to the side with a sickening crack. His twitching stilled. Nurse Heartbeat died.

My legs finally gave out from under me completely and I collapsed to the ground sobbing. I stared at the lifeless body of my friend, more and more tremors racing through my body.

Heartbeat lay still on the floor in a pool of his own blood, his throat lashed open and twisted at an impossible angle. His lifeless eyes stared back at me, pale and emotionless.

Slowly, Pyre pulled herself back to her hooves. Her expression was unreadable through her enclosed helmet.

I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the bleeding corpse on the floor. We had just lost one of our own. We had failed him. I had failed him

My eyes shifted to Xayah, she was nudging her severed forehooves desperately, as if unable to believe that they had truly been cut off. Her eyes looked distant, the blood loss clearly getting to her as well. She fell over, limp, her chest slowly rising and falling as she slipped into unconsciousness.

We were going to lose even more of us if we stayed around here any longer. My eyes once again began darting around the room, looking for a way out. Nothing. The door was blocked and guarded and there was still no way up to the catwalks where Mirra was hiding.

Viscera turned back to face me, her voice returning to a low hum. “Now, where were we?” Her eyes landed on Brisk and I. “Ah, that’s right. You two were going to fight to the death for us...” Her hoof reached out, one of her claws cutting into Xayah’s side. “Or I will make her death far worse than just blood loss.”

Blam!

A single shot rang out from the catwalks. Viscera dodged, the bullet whizzing past her and grazing her side. The raider winced, her gaze shifting upwards and landing on a whimpering Mirra. She scowled, but her mouth couldn’t stop twisting into a wide grin all the same.

“Ah, the changeling,” Viscera cooed, seeming to soak up the small changelings' fear. “I was wondering where you had gotten off to. Boys!”

Two of the hellhounds rushed forwards, their large claws digging into the metal walls and they began to climb up towards Mirra. Mirra squeaked in fear, darting back towards the vents. The Hellhounds got there first.

This was probably going to be our only chance. I had to act now. I swung around to buck at Viscera, only for two more hellhounds to rush at me and once more pin me to the ground.

I saw another do the same to Brisk and another jump at Pyre.

This wasn’t a rescue. This wasn’t an escape. This was simply Viscera proving that there was no hope.

The two hellhounds climbed back down from the catwalks, Mirra tight in their grip. Before Mirra could even try to squirm away, they had bound her in barbed wire and roughly tossed her into the corner, shivering.

Viscera returned her attention to us. “Now that we’re all here, let’s raise the stakes. One of you dies in the next minute, or the changeling filly suffers the same fate at your nurse.”

I wanted to scream. It wasn’t fair! None of this! I couldn’t just kill Brisk, but if I did nothing both Xayah and Mirra would die. I turned to look at him, seeing that his face was filled with confliction as well. He was clearly thinking the same thoughts.

“Just kill me,” I whispered to him quietly. “Maybe if you do that she’ll let you all go.”

Brisk just stared back at me with disbelief. “I-I can’t do that Amber. The wasteland needs ponies like you… no, the wasteland needs you! It doesn’t need another selfish pony like me who’s only looking out for themself.”

I let my mouth drop open a little. “How… How can you say that! Of course it needs you! I need you! I never would have made it this far if not for what you’ve done!”

The Hellhounds had formed a circle around us now, their mouths twisted into foul grins as they closed in. They were chanting, urging us to fight. I wanted to buck them all in the face.

It felt so wrong, that I could have traveled so far, faced so much, only to fail and die here. But as I looked around the room I saw nothing. No way to escape, no sudden last minute surprise that would swoop in and save the day. It was just us and the raiders… and the raiders had won.

One of the Hellhounds snarled, pushing me forwards with a claw. It howled with laughter as I staggered towards the center of the group. “Fight already bitch! Kill the pony!”

I scowled back at the hellhound and returned my attention to Brisk. “Just kill me Brisk. Then you, Xayah and Mirra can walk away. I… I don’t think I would be able to live with myself if I had to kill you…”

“Neither could I…” Brisk said back, his tone uneven and shaky. “You’re my sister Amber, I can’t hurt you… not again…”

“Get on with it!” A hellhound growled, gnashing its teeth at us violently. “Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill!”

Quickly, the rest of the hellhounds began to join in on his chant, here manic howls turning to psychotic laughter. “Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill!”

I heard Viscera groan from somewhere behind me. “Tick-tock ponies! I want to see blood soon or I cut off the tiny little changeling's head!”

“Just let them go!” I heard Pyre pleading, her voice soaked with fear. “You don’t need them, just me!”

I could feel Viscera’s hungry eyes burning into the back of my head. “You’re right Pyre… I don’t need them… Kill the changeling!”

Pyre flew at Viscera, her armoured hooves lashing at her frantically, only for the chains holding her down to pull taught before she could reach her. “NO! Don’t touch her!”

No! Damn it! Not another one!

One of the hellhounds broke off from the circle and moved towards Mirra, its claws reaching out to tear into her. Mirra screamed, her hooves struggling to free themselves as she reached for something in her saddlebags with her mouth. Her thin wings had been tied above her, restricting her access to whatever she was trying to reach.

“Wait!” I yelled out, tears once again streaming down my face. The hellhound froze, its claws only inches from Mirra’s face. I glanced over at Brisk, my heart sinking.

Brisk was staring back at me bravely, beckoning me onward. There was no way Viscera was going to let Pyre leave this room alive, and one of the two of us had to die, but the rest might be able to survive. Mirra didn’t deserve this, and there was still a chance to save Xayah, though from the blood spilling from her body, I was guessing those chances were slim.

I took a deep breath. “I…” My voice refused to say the next few words. I gulped, biting back tears and pushed onwards. I took a timid step towards Brisk. “I’ll kill him…”

I could feel my heart start pounding and a sense of dread wash over me. I could see Brisk’s whole body tense up in anxiety as I took another step towards him. I could tell he tried to keep up his brave expression, but it was clear that he was scared. He didn’t want to die. Not here. Not now.

Viscera moved around the outside of the circle of hellhounds, slowly moving into my field of view. She grinned at me, once more showing off her sharpened teeth. “Wonderful! How do you wish to kill him?”

My legs started shaking and threatened to give out from under me. How did I want to kill Brisk!? That question wasn’t fair! I couldn’t decide that sort of thing!

I glanced over to Brisk for suggestions. He just looked back at me grimly, his face slowly filling with resignation. “Just make it quick please,” He said flatly, his breath coming out in pained pants.

I grimaced and gave a small nod. “J-just a gun…”

Viscera tensed. For some reason she hadn’t seemed to expect that response. I suppose she had been expecting something more sinister and primal. She held up Mirra’s revolver which the hellhounds had confiscated and dumped all but one of the bullets onto the floor. She glared at me dangerously before placing the weapon on the ground.

“If it looks like you are even beginning to point this at us, all of your friends die,” Viscera hissed, her voice destroying any hope that might have come from getting possession of a firearm. The hellhounds looming over Mirra, Xayah and Pyre tightened their grips on my friends, digging their claws into their flesh. She placed a hoof against the revolver and slid it across the floor to me.

The gun skidded to a stop at my hooves. I stared at the weapon, my mind unable to fully register what I was about to do. I went to pick it up with my magic, only for the large crack Viscera had put in my horn to flare with pain.

My hooves flew to my horn, grasping at it in a futile attempt to stop the pain. The hellhound cackled at my pain as I almost doubled over in agony, my vision spinning.

Shaking off the pain, I took the revolver up in my hooves. I had the sudden urge to spin around and shoot Viscera, despite her warning. But what would that accomplish? All my friends would die and there’s a good chance Viscera would be able to get out of the way of the shot anyway.

Fuck me! Now I had a weapon and I couldn’t even use it on anypony but Brisk.

Moving forwards with shaky legs, I pulled myself up to Brisk and sat down beside him. I took a deep breath, my gaze fixed on the revolver and unable to meet his eyes.

I heard Brisk take a worried breath of his own. I felt his hoof gently wrap around my shoulder and pull me closer. “It’s okay Amber. Everything is going to be okay.”

It was a lie. A hollow, empty lie. And we both knew it. Even if by some miracle we both managed to walk out alive, things would never be okay after this. Heartbeat was dead, Xayah was without her forehooves, and the rest of us would be emotionally scarred for the rest of our lives.

Stealing myself, I tilted my gaze up to look at him. I found myself looking up into his eyes. They were nice eyes, a light blue. Similar to Viscera’s, though lacking the malic and the hate. I felt hot tears pooling in my eyes.

“But it’s not going to be okay Brisk… I…” I had to stop as my words were obscured by a painful sob. “I don’t know what I’m going to do without you! I can’t do this alone! I can't!”

Brisk just smiled back. “Yes you can. I know things were hard for you back in Stable 25. I know you left that place feeling like you were worthless at everything. But it’s not true. You are an amazing pony Amber Aura. Not just anypony can do what you have done.”

I sniffled, amazed that Brisk was somehow managing to hold back his tears. “But… Without you I… I don’t think that…”

Brisk put a hoof to my lips. “We do what we can to save the ponies of the wasteland Amber. Save the ponies that we care about. We are not raiders. That’s what you taught me,” he couldn’t hold back anymore. A single tear rolled down Brisk’s face. “When I left the Stable, I didn’t expect to last the night. You saved me and showed me a way to survive. DJ Pon3 might always be talking about that other Stable Dweller, but you’re my bringer of light Amber. You saved me when I thought I would die. Now let me save you.”

My body felt like lead. I was sinking. Farther and farther down into an abyss. I couldn’t do this! It was all too much!

Brisk wrapped me in a tight hug, holding me close as I blubbered against him.

Damn me… I had to do this.

I pulled back and looked back up at him, forcing myself to give him a smile. I wasn’t going to let him die without seeing one last smile. “Tell me a joke Brisk,” I said, raising the gun upwards a little. My hoof shook, my whole body screaming in protest and telling me to put the gun back down. “Just one more…”

Brisk gave me a warm smile and closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. “Yeah… one more joke would be nice,” He thought for a second, his eyes still closed. “What did the hungry Appaloosa say when he finished his haynet?”

I placed the barrel of the gun against Brisk’s head. I could feel a tremor run though his body as he felt the cold metal of the gun press against his temple. I sighed, my stomach clenching up on itself. “I don’t know Brisk, what?”

Brisk allowed a small laugh to escape his lips. “That hits the spots.”

A tight knot formed in my throat. I could feel myself stop breathing for a moment. It was time. “I… I love you bro…”

A genuine smile forced its way onto Brisk’s lips. “I love you too sis...”

A tremor shot through my body. I shut my eyes, not daring to look. My grip tightened on the trigger of the Revolver.

Bang!

I flinched back, blood and gore splashing onto my face and mixing with the tears that streamed down my cheeks. Brisk dropped to the floor, his own body now drenched in hot blood, gleaming black in the dim lighting.

The hellhound beside us had exploded a mere second before I had pulled the trigger. I clutched the revolver to my chest, feeling the weight of the single bullet that still resided inside, fearful tears spilling down my face.

“What the fuck was…” Viscera screamed out, taking a step back from where the hellhound that had exploded. She was cut short as she saw a bunch of metal apples rolling across the floor towards her. Her eyes widened. “Apple grenades!”

Viscera and her hellhounds scattered, moving away from the explosives as quickly as possible. Brisk leaped to his hooves, pulling me up and throwing me away as well. The grenades exploded, showering the room in shrapnel.

Mirra fluttered past me, her hooves still bound in barbed wire, but her small insectoid wings free. And with her wings free, she was able to reach back grab at things in her saddlebags. She pulled another apple grenade from her saddlebags with her mouth and tossed it towards the raiders. “You should have taken all my stuff!” Mirra spat, what would have normally been welcome snark, marred by the atrocities that had transpired.

I rushed to Xayah’s side and tossed her over my back, not daring to check to see if she still had a pulse. I could see Brisk quickly releasing Pyre from her chains, his bobby pins making quick work of the raiders crude lock. He must have hidden some bobby pins in his mane or tail before we were captured.

The door slid open and the two hellhounds waiting outside stepped in, their faces twisted into a snarl. “What the fuck is happening in…”

I fired the single shot of the revolver into one of the hellhounds face. The beast staggered back, blood oozing from his missing eye.

I darted past him, my movement slowed by the weight of Xayah’s limp form on my back. Her body kept sliding off my side, her two missing hooves making it hard to find any secure way to carry her.

My surviving friends rushed out behind me, all diving out of the way as the second hellhound in the doorway swung at them with its claws.

“Noooo! Fuck! No! Get them!” I heard Viscera shrieking behind me. “Bring Pyre back! Kiiiiiillll!”

We darted down the hallway, looking for a way out. It didn’t take long to find one. We burst into the main lobby of the tower, the doorway leading out of the MWT Hub only a few feet away.

“Go! Now!” Pyre urged, darting towards the door as fast as she could. I could hear the hellhounds behind us charging down the hallway, their long claws scratching at the walls in a desperate attempt to recapture us.

I began to move forwards, then stopped. I could feel Xayahs’ blood dripping down my side. She wasn’t going to make it, not while losing this much blood. She had already been bleeding out for a few minutes already, who knew how much longer she had.

I stood frozen, my hoof only a few inches from the door. My mind was racing a hundred miles an hour. There was a way that I could save her… but I didn’t like it.

Brisk turned back, his eye catching with mine. “Sis, what are you doing!?”

I gulped, my mind already made. “Get to the Friendship Express, I’ll meet up with you there!” I called back, taking a step away from the door.

Pyre whirled around, looking back at me with horror as she realised I planned to head back inside. “Amber, are you crazy! Viscera will kill you!”

Mirra stuck her muzzle into her saddlebags and pulled out what looked like two small talismans. “We got the Talismans we were looking for before they captured us, we can come back later for the rest!”

We had all the components we needed to make one of the two teleportation devices, but this wasn’t just about making those devices any more. I looked back at Xayah on my back. She looked so small and weak, her white coat was beginning to look sickly. I had to save her. I had to...

I turned back to face them, my expression a mix of determination and fear. “I’ll see you guys again, I promise!”

With that, I turned tail and darted back into the building, rushing up the stairs just as the small army of hellhounds poured into the lobby. I heard my friends give a startled yelp before darting off down the road.

The hellhounds burst out of the building and onto the street, not paying me any heed. One glanced up at me, before growling and darting out the door. Their orders were to get Pyre, not me.

I took a deep breath to steady myself. I could do this.

Click. Clack.

A sharp ringing sound echoed throughout the building. I shivered at the noise. It was the scratching of hellhound claws against metal.

“Oh, Amber!” Viscera’s voice singsonged out in a playful voice from the gloom of the building. Her voice echoed off the walls, making it sound like she was in every direction at once. “I know you’re still in here! I can smell your fear!”

My heart thudded in my chest. I turned and bolted down the hallway, turning a corner that led to the intersection I had seen when we first arrived. I didn’t bother to look up at the signs hanging above the hallway, I just banked and rushed down the appropriate hall.

I heard the sound of claws scratching against metal behind me. The sound of cackling was slowly getting closer. I didn’t dare look back, fearing that if I did, Viscera would be upon me.

The scratching didn’t sound like she was moving fast. She was trying to scare me, playing with her prey as she hunted. It was working.

Sweating profusely, I turned and rushed towards the robotics lab. The large metal door was still open, thank the goddesses. I leaped forwards, pulling Xayah and I into the room and reached for the terminal that rested just inside the door. My hoof slammed down on the emergency lock.

I turned to face the door. Viscera was standing just beyond, her hooves outsreched and reaching to rip me apart. With a hiss, the door abruptly began to slam shut. Viscera scowled, lunging forwards, claws extended.

She was too slow. Viscera rammed herself against the metal door as it slammed shut, screaming and howling like a wounded animal. “You think you can hide from me! You think you can escape!”

I jumped back as Viscera slammed herself against the other side of the door again, the thick metal denting inwards. I heard her claws begin slashing at the metal, filling the air with ear piercing shrieks of metal on metal.

I stumbled towards the augmentation machine in the center of the room, pushing the skeletal pony off of the platform. I hauled Xayah’s limp body off of my back and began fastening her to the machine.

Goddesses, I really hope this thing still worked after two hundred years in the apocalypse.

I felt the first few drops of rain land on my head as the sky above began to open up and pour down on us through the open roof above. I pulled myself away from Xayah, praying to Celestia that I had strapped her in properly.

Viscera rammed herself against the door again, another large dent forming in the metal door. “When I get my hooves on you, I’m going to fuck you sensless!” Viscera screamed, her claws once again slashing at the door. To my horror, I saw a small sliver metal get torn away from the door. “When I’m done with you, you’re going to beg me for death!”

I pulled myself over to the terminal at the base of the augmentation device and clicked it on.

>DOCTOR PESTILENCE’S TERMINAL OMEGA-5>

>Augmentation Program - Begin Process

>Procedure primed and ready

[Choose Augmentations]

[Activate]

I gulped and began looking over the augmentation options. The opportunities were nearly endless. I quickly realised that it wouldn’t be hard to transform Xayah into something not all that different from Crank and the other cyber ponies.

Crank had told me that he was a mix between MWT technology and various MAS projects. Were these augmentations the base for the cyber pony design Crank had been transformed into? It seemed very likely.

Crank had been powerful, next to unkillable. I could save Xayah! I could make sure she never got hurt like this again!

Guilt passed through me just by thinking those thoughts. No. Xayah wouldn’t want that. She wouldn’t want her body to be twisted and changed into something so sinister and vile.

Taking a deep breath, I selected the minimal possible augmentations and reached for the activation button.

Viscera slammed against the door again. Bits of metal flew away, leaving a small hole in the door for her to peer through. I saw one of her dazzling blue eyes peer through the hole and stare at me. “Hello Amber!”

Her claws began to poke through the hole, stripping away pieces of metal from the door. The hole began to grow.

I returned my attention to the terminal and clicked activate.

>DOCTOR PESTILENCE’S TERMINAL OMEGA-5>

>Augmentation Program - Activate

>Procedure primed and ready

>No Med-X detected

>No Morphine detected

>No Buck detected

>Do you still wish to begin the procedure?

[Yes]

[No]

I stared in horror at the words scrolling across the flickering green screen. The machine was out of painkillers!

I remembered my experience in Inferno’s body when he had been transformed into a cyber pony. The experience had been unbearable. And while I knew this procedure was less extensive and would probably hurt a little less, I couldn’t put Xayah through something like that without the proper pain medication…

A larger chunk of metal flew from the door, skidding across the room and landing in a large puddle that had been formed by the rain pouring in above us. One of Viscera’s hooves pushed its way through the door, reaching for me. “I’m going to get ya! I’m going to get ya!” The psychotic raider sang out, her claws now scratching at the inside of the door.

There was no other way. It was put Xayah through this, or let her die…

I clicked yes.

Immediately, metal, claw-like appendages descended from the remains of the roof, pulling Xayah’s body up into the air. I watched helpless as violent looking saw blades moved towards her, slowly shearing off the excess flesh and muscle around the stumps of her legs.

Xayah’s eyes popped open as the blades cut into her, her mouth twisting into a silent scream. She tried to thrash around, but the clamps and claws held her tight.

Four more claws moved in, carrying a pair of dark metallic forehooves. They began to attach them to Xayah’s stumps, small blow torches welding the metal to her flesh.

Xayah stared down at me, her face a mix of agony and terror. Her gaze locked with mine, her expression pleading for me to stop the machine. I did nothing but stare back in guilt and watch.

Large metal appendages ending in needle-like points dropped from the crumbling remains of the ceiling above and began probing into her body. I began to realise, even with the minimal augmentations I was giving her, how extensive and body altering they had to be. The legs had to be connected to her brain, spine and muscles still, otherwise the mechanical legs would be little more than heavy chunks of metal.

Scalpels began to cut into her flesh, peeling away bits of flesh around her shoulders and upper half of her cervix. Wires were sewn into and around her spine, racing up her neck and attaching into her brain.

Xayah finally began to scream. Her once silently twisting lips curling back and unleashing a blood curdling howl that shouldn’t have been able to be made by any pony or zebra. My whole body was trembling. I had done this to her...

I jumped as another part of the door fell away. The hole was almost large enough for Viscera to squeeze through. The raider began to cackle, it was a manic laugh that echoed around the chamber and rattled inside of my head.

The metal appendages began to stitch Xayah’s flesh back together, leaving throbbing red scars where they had cut into her.

At last they lowered her back to the ground and released, dropping her twitching body unceremoniously to the floor.

I rushed to her side, picking her up and throwing her over my back. She was unconscious again, pushed back into oblivion by the terrible pain of what had just happened to her.

I didn’t have time to see if she was alright. I pushed myself upwards and headed for the large catwalk that stretched along the top of the room. I grappled onto it, trying to pull both myself and Xayah’s now fairly heavy body up the steep incline.

The large metal door behind me burst open. I dared a glance behind me to see Viscera glaring at me with a murderous intent, her hoof claws digging deep into the metal flooring.

It was time to run.

I forced myself to push past my pain and rush for the end of the catwalk. I could hear Viscera howling and whooping behind me as she gave chase, her hellhound claws sticking into the catwalk, giving her traction and making her move much faster than I could.

I reached the end of the catwalk and bucked at it with my hooves. I’m not a strong pony, but the catwalk was only a small buck away from collapsing as it was.

The catwalk broke away, crashing back to the ground of the robotics lab. Viscera snarled, leaping from the catwalk seconds before it collapsed and digging into the side of the wall with her claws.

The raider glared up at me, her expression practically screaming all the different things she would do to me if she caught me. To my horror, she began to slowly climb up the side of the vertical wall face.

I spun on my hooves and rushed across the top of the collapsed skyscraper, making my way to the building across the street. The heavy rain slicked the already crumbling and uneven surface, making me need to put more effort into not slipping than moving forwards.

I reached the end of the makeshift bridge and dropped into the Ironshod Firearms building.

My hooves hadn’t even touched the ground when a ghoul leapt from the shadows of the collapsing room and lashed at me.

I rolled aside, narrowly avoiding the ghoul. Xayah fell from my back, toppling to the floor like a sack of rocks.

I stood over her defensively, staring down the feral ghoul. I thought to reach for my weapon, only to remember we had lost everything except Mirra’s revolver, and that was out of bullets.

The ghoul lunged, its hooves swiping at my head. I ducked and bucked at it as it sailed past me. I heard a crunch as one of the ghouls ribs snapped. It fell to the floor, screaming.

Not bothering to see if it was still able to fight, I scooped Xayah up and tossed her back over my back before rushing towards a set of stairs that lead down the building.

As I ran forwards, something caught my eye. A sign hung over one of the doors to my right. It read, ‘Weapons Development’.

I recalled the terminal entry I had read in the MWT hub about the Anti-cloaking devices. They had given two of them to a pony named Braeburn for weapons development. I might still have a chance to get everything I needed.

Changing direction, I turned and rushed towards the door. I pushed it open, moving into the room and searching for the Anti-cloaking device.

My eyes landed on a flickering terminal resting on a small desk. The screen had cracked and it was coated in a thick layer of dust, but it still seemed operational.

Quickly checking my EFS to make sure Viscera wasn’t nearby, I moved over to the terminal and clicked it on. Multiple logs popped up on the screen, but a particular one caught my eye.

>Log #32 - Braeburn’s Liberator shotgun and Anti-Cloaking Device

>The MWT was generous enough to lend me two of their Anti-cloaking devices yesterday. The first one of course is being used to make duplicates, we’ll probably start production on those next week, but the second went right into my personal beauty.

>I call it Braeburn’s Liberator. Named after the pony I intend to give it to of course. The thing is an absolute masterpiece of wartime weaponry. A quad barrel shotgun! Power of a shotgun with the speed of a combat shotgun, not to mention the four shots as opposed to the usual one or two that the average shotgun holds.

>But the beauty of the weapon doesn’t end there, oh no! I’ve enhanced the weapon with all the state of the art tech. Fire talismans, targeting talismans, regeneration talismans and you guessed it, that lovely Anti-cloaking device. This baby can find and locate any target, regardless of invisibility or EFS blockers!

>I’ll give it as a gift to Braeburn next time I see the old guy. He deserves it after all the heartache he and his family have been going through. I heard the death of Granny Smith hit him pretty hard. Don’t think he ever really got over that…

>Till then though, I’m keeping this magnificent weapon nice and safe here with me. I’ll find something more protective than a glass case for it tomorrow.

I looked up from the terminal and spotted the long, glass case that rested on the desk beside it. Inside was perhaps the single most beautiful weapon I had ever seen. As the terminal had suggested, it was a shotgun, equipped with four barrels. What the terminal failed to mention was that the shotgun had been engraved with gorgeous swirling, golden patterns along the barrels and stock. Along the side of one of the barrels read, ‘Braeburn's Liberator’ in elegant golden font.

Beside the glass case was exactly what I was looking for. The second Anti-cloaking device. I quickly picked it up and tossed it into my saddlebag with the other one.

I returned my attention to the glass case that held Braeburn’s liberator. The creator of the gun had been right, it was a work of beauty. And I wanted it.

I shifted my gaze down to the clasp on the case. It was locked.

I wanted to scream. The most beautiful, perfect weapon in the world was only inches away and I couldn’t reach it because of a dumb lock! I didn’t even have any bobby pins, not that I would have been able to pick it even if I did.

A small scratching sound drew my attention back to the door. My body locked up as I saw the source of the sound.

Viscera stood in the doorway, blocking our only way out of the room. She was grinning, knowing full well that she had caught us. She took a step forward, her large hellhound claws scratching deep grooves into the floor. “Amber, Amber, Amber. Tisk tisk. You can’t run from me.”

I took a step back, trying to keep my body between the raider and Xayah. I glanced at the door behind Viscera. There was no way I would be able to run past her, she was too fast.

I let my eyes land on the glass case holding Braeburn’s Liberator, a plan slowly forming in my mind.

Viscera took another step forward, seeming to savour the moment of having caught her prey. “Now what should I do with you Amber? Killing you is too quick. I’ll rape you, obviously, but there should probably be more...” her eyes lingered over Xayah’s limp body, her lips twisting into a sneer. “Perhaps I’ll make you eat your little zebra friend too. I’ll chop her up and feed you her heart piece by piece.”

The plan I was forming in my mind kept crumbling every time Viscera spoke. My plan wasn’t complicated, but her words were keeping me in a heightened state of panic. After everything I had been through, I knew Viscera wasn’t bluffing.

I narrowed my eyes at her. “I won’t let you hurt her,” I scowled, forcing myself not to simply charge the raider in sheer anger. “You will not touch her again!”

Viscera’s hellhound claws clicked against the ground as she took another step forward. She was getting closer, I could almost feel her warm breath breathing onto my face. “And how do you hope to stop me?” She leered, strutting forwards even closer with her lascivious walk. “Perhaps I’ll make you skin her alive first. I’m sure with the right motivation I could convince you to…”

I spun, bucking her in the face. Viscera leapt back, startled by my sudden attack. She clearly hadn’t been expecting something so rash. She staggered, managing to stay on her hooves.

Shutting my eyes tight, I slammed my head against the lid of the glass case holding the quad barrel shotgun. The glass shattered, the broken shards cutting deep into my hide. Blood spilled from my nose, I could tell it was broken.

With my head already half buried inside the case, I locked my mouth around the grip of the shotgun and swung it up to face Viscera, who was still trying to steady herself after the sudden buck to the face.

“This is for Heartbeat,” I scowled, my words surprisingly audible around the grip of the gun.

Braeburn’s Liberator fired. I staggered slightly as the powerful blast of the gun whiplashed me backwards. The explosive buckshot shot forwards and ripped into Viscera’s forehoof, the shot magically guided by the guns built in targeting talisman.

Viscera’s leg exploded, blasting her across the room and showering the hallway in her blood. Fire burst around the stump of her leg, sizzling and charrig her cream coat black. She landed in a heap, her remaining forehoof clutching at where the powerful shotgun ahd blasted into her and batting out the fire.

She glared up at me, her eyes brimmed with tears and fury. “I’m going to skin you alive and turn you into a coat!” She howled, staggering back to her hooves and lunging forwards, her remaining hoof claw slicing at the air in front of her.

I backstepped and fired at her again. Viscera was fast. Even with only three legs, she could move at speeds that could only be matched by a pegasus. She was not however, faster than a bullet.

Viscera dove to the side, the second blast from my shotgun tearing into her side and ripping apart her flesh. She fell back again, her already blood matted coat now almost completely black with blood in the dim lighting.

The raider shrieked like a wounded animal, rolling back to her hooves and glaring at me a burning anger.

I steadied Braeburn’s Liberator and aimed it at her, trying to calm the spinning in my head that had been caused by the extensive knockback of the gun.

Viscera slashed a hoof at the ground in defiance, sizing me up. “You’ve made a very grave mistake, Amber Aura! I’m going to destroy you! I’m going to fuck you and mount your flayed head on my wall! I’m going to use your severed head as a personal toilet you cunt fucking peice of…”

I didn’t let her finish her sentence. I fired again, this time at her head. Viscera rolled away, only narrowly avoiding the shot in her slowed state. The buckshot scratch at her cheek, drawing blood and burning the flesh around the wound. She spun and took off, racing away down the hallway.

I was about to put Xayah down and give chase when a realisation struck me. She was leading me into a trap. Viscera wasn’t stupid, and she was a skilled hunter. If I gave chase, she would manage to corner me again, and this time there would be no catching her by surprise.

Screaming at the injustice of it all, I turned and started rushing the opposite direction. I sent a prayer up to the goddesses that Viscera bled out and died of her wounds or that one of the buildings many ghouls would take her out while she was weakened.

It felt unfair and cruel that Viscera had done all that she had to us, and would still get to walk away with her life. But she wasn’t my main priority right now. I had to get Xayah to safety and rejoin with my friends. We had everything we had come for, now it was time to take on the Institute.

I rushed out onto the street. The rain was still spilling down from the clouds heavily, turning the barren and cracked street into one giant puddle. My hooves splashed in the water as I bolted away from the MTW and Ironshods buildings. My heart pounded in my chest and I could feel my breath beginning to come out in short ragged bursts.

There was no sign of my friends or the Hellhounds. Hopefully that had managed to get the hellhounds of their tail and gotten to the Friendship Express safely.

My instincts told me to rush straight to the Friendship Express, but the still composed part of my mind ordered me not to. Viscera was weakened, yes, but she was still hunting me, and her hellhounds could be anywhere. The last thing I needed were those psychopaths finding the Friendship Express.

Letting a shaky sigh escape my lips I began taking longer, roundabout side routes, making sure to keep my trail as vague and misleading as possible. My eyes continuously glanced down at my EFS, making sure that nopony was following me. I saw red bars flicker on the sides of my compass a couple times, but they seemed to be moving in the opposite direction.

When I was finally convinced that I wasn’t being followed, I began to make my way back to the metro station that housed the Friendship Express.

Exhaustion finally caught up with me and I collapsed to the ground in the middle of the empty street, water splashing up around me as I landed. Xayah moaned from atop my back as I hit the ground, still unconscious from the tortures of the day.

“I’m going to get you to safety,” I assured the sleeping zebra, pushing myself back to my hooves. I staggered, one of my knees deciding to give out as I put my weight on it. “I’m going to make this okay… I swear…”

One step at a time, I pulled us forwards through the pissing rain. Every few steps I would stubbled slightly, a few times I fell, only to pull myself back up and continue trudging on.

The heavy rain and thick, looming clouds cast the ruined city of Manehattan into a desaturated grey light, making the streets and buildings look completely foreign and strange. If not for the map on my pipbuck, I would have been completely lost.

I slowly pulled myself around a corner in the road, taking in the last stretch to the metro station. My eye caught on two shapes moving towards me, one green, one black.

“Amber!” Brisk called out, spreading up his already quick pace to reach me. Mirra rushed beside him, limping from a wound I never saw get inflicted. Pyre wasn’t with them.

I collapsed with relief as my friends moved up beside me. I felt Brisk lift Xayah off my back and onto his while Mirra pushed up against me to give me support. At once we began moving towards the metro station.

Our manes and coats were soaked and drenched by the rain and my muzzle had begun to run. I feared that I was catching some cold from the harsh weather, but my mind hardly had time to linger on that. I was too preoccupied reliving the events of the day in my head.

I feared for Xayah, and the effects that being turned into a cyber pony would have on her. I felt confliction and terror towards Pyre and the grim secrets about her that had been unveiled. But most of all, I mourned for Heartbeat. He had been a good pony, one of the few ponies in fact that I could genuinely say that about without a doubt in my mind.

Heartbeat had been the kind of pony to put the lives of others before his own, to heal even his enemies. He had become like family to me in the short time I had known him. He had planned to travel with us, to help us protect ponies. And now he was gone, ripped away from us in the blink of an eye.

I wanted to stop. I wanted to lie down right there in the rain and do nothing until I woke up from this horrible nightmare. But it wasn't a nightmare; it was all real.

I looked over at Brisk, his face forming a perpetual grunt as he struggled to haul Xayah the last little bit on is tired and battered limbs.

“I’m sorry,” I muttered to him, my eyes wet from both tears and rain. “I would never try and kill you, I promise… I would never… Goddesses, I’m so sorry…”

Brisk forced a glance over at me, his expression softening. “Amber, you had no choice. I understand. I told you too…” his tone was soft and caring, but there was a flicker of something else in it as well. Hurt.

No matter how dire the situation had been, no matter how much he had told me to kill him, no matter what he said then or now, the fact I had placed the gun to his head was a terrible blow in our relationship that would never truly go away.

We piled into the metro station, only slowing once to open up the secret door that led into the Friendship Express headquarters.

Pyre was waiting for us inside. She stared at us as we slowly dragged ourselves into safety, silently watching us with sad and tired eyes. I dared myself to look over to her and give her a reassuring smile, but she only frowned and turned away from me.

We simply collapsed without a word onto the floor once we had all made it inside. Friendship Express operatives were at our sides in moments with healing potions and bandages, clearly already informed by Pyre of our brutalized state.

I felt a healing potion get pushed against my lips. I drank it thankfully, feeling the potions magic slowly patch together the small cuts and gashes that covered my body.

Somepony was leading me further into the Friendship Express’ base, but my mind was too foggy and my eyes were too tired to see who it was. I felt myself get laid down on a mattress. Somepony above me was telling me to rest.

Yes, sleep sounded good. We could all use some sleep.

But I couldn’t. Every time my eyes started to close, Heartbeats broken and bleeding body would flash through my mind, jolting me back to the waking world. I curled up against myself, sobbing as the horrors Viscera had done continuously forced their way back into my mind.

Finally, I looked up from my mattress. Xayah lay not far from me, resting on her own mattress. She was twitching and squirming in her sleep, clearly trapped in a nightmare.

I slowly dragged myself over to her, wrapping my forehooves around her shivering body. I felt the icy touch of her new metal legs, sending a shock of cold through my whole body. I curled up around her and sobbed.

Finally safe and in Xayah’s embrace, my body let my mind drift away into oblivion. The horrors of my night terrors just as terrible as the horrors of the waking world.

Footnote: Half way to next level.

Author's Note

RIP Heartbeat. You were the first to fall...

Hope you all had a good day.

Fallout: Equestrian belongs to Kkat.

Chapter XXII: A Molecular level

“Friendship is like a violin. Even if the music stops, you’ll still have the strings.”

Loss.

Throughout my time in the wastelands I had endured hardships. I had lost things, my home, my friends, my sense of self. But through it all, I had stayed strong. I had fought against the wasteland, and I had won. The death of Stable 25 had been a failure, a terrible blow that would never heal fully, but still I had fought on. I had hunted down its killers and avenged them. I had done all I could to right the grievous wrong that had occurred and in the end saved the wasteland from a second apocalypse.

But Viscera had broken us. She had shown us that we were not invulnerable, that we could fail.

Heartbeat was dead, there was no fixing that. And with his death came the tidal wave of emotions and sorrows that threatened to consume us and rip us apart. He had only been with us a few days, but his loss had hit me and my friends hard.

Xayah would forever be changed. She had been yet to wake fully from her fevered and nightmarish sleep, and I feared what the mental damage of no longer being fully zebra would do to her. Would she still be herself, or would the physical transformation come with terrible side effects. Pestilence's terminal had stated that all the patients that had undergone cybernetic augmentation without having their memory erased afterwards had committed suicided only moments after, unable to bear the horrific changes to their body. Would Xayah be the same?

The relationship between Brisk and myself had been wounded. Our situation had been dire and Brisk had told me to kill him, but the very act of me putting that gun to his forehead and preparing to fire would forever sit between us. I am, and always would be, the pony that tried to kill him. And I could never forgive myself for that.

But perhaps the most damaged of us was Pyre. She was hurting, that was nothing new, but I could see her hurt now. The horrors of her past wouldn’t leave her, physically hunting her down and threatening to drag her back into the blood and violence that had once been her life. She was breaking, the thin line she walked between who she was and who she is, was becoming harder and harder to see.

Even the loss of our weapons had left a devastating blow that would take time to heal. Losing my combat shotgun was no real loss, I had just replaced it with a better one in Braeburn's Liberator, but the loss of my shock baton was hitting hard. In a strange way, it had become a small part of Stable 25 to me, one last memento of a bygone age, now stripped away like the rest of it.

Viscera had beaten us, and now we were broken. Physically, and mentally.

Inferno stood over me, his metal hooves pressing my body down against the cold floor of Stable 25. His jagged and twisted muzzle oozed black slime, the vile liquid dripping down on me and mingling with my tears.

The insane cyber pony leaned his head down, his fang filled mouth only inches from my face. I could feel his hot and vile breath breathing down onto me in ragged bursts.

I pushed at him, trying to move the powerful cyber pony off of me, but he was too strong. I reached out with my magic to grab hold of my weapons, only to find they were gone.

Inferno’s eyes flickered up, taking in the room around us. “How did I get here,” He snarled, his leering face suddenly confused. He glared back down at me, his glowing eyes narrowing. “What is this place!?”

I gulped, once again trying to push him off of me. “I don’t know… Stable 25 I think…”

Inferno’s eyes continued to stare down at me accusingly, doubt flickering across his metallic features. “Stable 25 is dead,” He sneered, another glob of black ooze dripping from his maw. Small flames flickered to life on the end of Inferno’s flamers. “I killed the ponies there, myself!”

That was only partially true, but I supposed Inferno wouldn’t know about Azar’s role in the Stable’s final destruction. He had died before the strange zebra had filled the Stable with the that strange pink cloud.

I heard the loud clopping of heavy footsteps behind us. I tilted my head to see Crank slowly moving towards us from the gloom, his eyes narrowed at the cyber pony above me. “Get off of her Inferno,” Crank growled, his face as stoic as ever.

Inferno scowled at the large cyber alicorn and slowly took a step away from me, letting me scramble back to my hooves. “Crank? What is going on here?”

Crank didn’t answer him. Instead, he moved up to me and wrapped a wing around me protectively. “Are you alright?” he asked, his face only filled with mild concern.

I gave a timid nod. “I-I think so…”

Inferno stomped his hooves down on the ground, a large burst of steam billowing from his muzzle as he snorted. “Crank! Answer me damn it! What is going on here!” He glared at the metal wing that Crank had wrapped around me. His confusion shifted to disgust. “You’re growing soft!”

Crank spun, his bladed tail lashing out and throwing Inferno across the room. “Do not call me soft Inferno!” His eyes began to glow a darker crimson as he advanced towards the smaller cyber pony. “I am stronger than you will ever be!”

Inferno growled, pulling himself back up to his hooves. He shoved his muzzle into Crank’s face, staring the cyber alicorn down in an attempt to intimidate him. “You were always weak and soft! Always caring about your precious little Scarlet! You may have wings and a horn, but I will always be stronger than you are!”

Crank’s tail lashed out again, once more slamming Inferno against the wall. Inferno tried to rise, only for Crank’s hoof to press against his chest and pin him down. “Do not speak her name,” Crank monotone, his eyes blazing into Inferno. “You are nothing to me Inferno. You are a scared child, a foal! Lashing out at the world that hurt you to try and hide your own pain. You were the pony who failed. The pony who burned himself in an attempt to forget.”

Inferno’s jagged lip quivered. He knocked Crank’s hoof aside and took a few steps away from him. The fires on the end of his flamers grew. I could tell he was questioning if he should attack or retreat.

Finally, Inferno let his eyes drift back to me. Once more, his eyes narrowed. “Where are we?” He scowled. He took a step towards me, only to take a step back as Crank blocked his path.

I chewed at my lip for a second, trying to figure everything out in my head myself. “I… I think we’re in my head… or rather… your memories…”

Both Crank and Inferno looked at me, their own faces shocked and confused. After a few seconds, Inferno took a frightened step back. "No… nonononono!” His gaze focused in on me, his eyes wide. “Am I… did I... die…?”

I gulped. That wasn’t a question I had ever expected to need to answer for somepony. I gave a timid nod. “You… you killed yourself when I made you remember your past…”

There was a second of silence as both cyber ponies stared at me, awestruck. At last, Inferno reared up and roared. He slammed his metal hooves down against the Stable floor and charged me, his flamers spewing fire. “You Bitch! You killed me!”

He was knocked aside before he could land a blow on me, Crank’s wing shooting out and lashing him across the side. Inferno once more fell into a bloody heap on the floor, sobbing and oozing black sludge from the large mending hole in his side.

Crank moved back to me, once more standing protectively in front of me. “You will not touch her,” the large cyber alicorn stated flatly, his voice leaving no room for debate. He glowered at Inferno, his eyes threatening and imposing.

Inferno took an invasive step towards us, his face twisting into a threatening scowl. Crank flared his wings, making Inferno once more back away. “You can’t protect that cunt forever!” Inferno growled, his hooves scraping at the floor. “You’ll let your guard down eventually! And I’ll be waiting!”

Inferno turned, and stalked away down one of the many hallways, limping slightly as his body patched the wounds Crank had inflicted back together. One of my ears perked up as I listened to his heavy hoof steps slowly grow farther and farther away.

Crank turned back to me, his face as stoic as it had been since he entered the room. “Did he hurt you?” Crank asked, his voice coming out in a low rumble.

I shook my head. “Just pinned me down… That's becoming a common occurrence to me these days.”

Crank looked down at me for a moment, his eyes flickering over my body. When he finally spoke, his voice was strained and uncertain. “What did you mean that we are in your head… in our memories?” He sounded genuinely interested.

I furrowed my brows, trying to figure out the best way of explaining what was going on. “Well, I talked with Reverie,” I started, thinking that was good common ground to begin with. Crank tensed at the mention of his old therapist, but otherwise stayed silent. “And… well, we think that part of you and Inferno’s consciousness were copied into my mind when I went into your heads. Doing that left some sort of imprint of you… Like a memory orb or something.”

Crank nodded, clearly not sure how to take that. “So… I’m still alive?”

I had to think about that for a second. “I suppose so… just not in the normal sense. I don’t know. This is just as confusing to me...” Crank remained silent at that. I suppose learning that what was left of your mind had been copied into the head of a pony who had once been your enemy wasn’t the easiest thing to take in. A question crossed my mind. “Hey Crank… why do you keep protecting me? Even now that you know this is just in my head?”

Crank glanced down at me, his face softening. “I spent my life killing ponies. It is about time I tried to save them,” his face twisted and I could tell he was forcing himself to say what he was about to say next. “...And you remind me of her… you have her eyes…”

“Of Scarlet, you mean?” I asked, my own features softening at the mention of Crank’s past lover.

Crank nodded, his eyes reflecting his sadness despite being made of glass. He wrapped his wings around me again, shielding me from the evils that would try and hurt me. Inferno would be back, but when he returned, Crank would be ready for him.

I slowly drifted awake, the memories of the strange dream already beginning to fade in my mind.

Inferno had been there. That was new. If my theories had been correct, he had been in my mind for days. Why had he only decided to show up now?

I was an emotional wreck, my mind spiralling into a state of depression from the vile atrocities Viscera had committed. The taste of pony flesh still lingered on my tongue and Heartbeat's final moments kept replaying in my mind. Had that been what let him in? Had the anger and pain that made up what was left of Inferno been awakened by my own? I doubted I would ever know for sure.

I became acutely aware of something hard and cold being pushed up against my chest. I glanced down to see Xayah’s metal hooves curled up against me as the zebra slept.

She was twitching and squirming in her sleep, still stuck in an endless nightmare. She had awoken a few times throughout the night, bolting upright and looking around. Once awake she would repeat the same thing over and over again. “Where’s Heartbeat? Where’s Heartbeat? Where’s Heartbeat?” she would stare down at her new mechanical legs in terror, tears welling in her eyes as she continued to sob and mutter. “Where’s Heartbeat? Where’s Heartbeat? Where’s Heartbeat?”

I didn’t have it in me to tell her he was gone forever. That he legs were gone and she was no longer fully zebra. Instead I just stoked her mane until she fell back asleep, once more twitching and turning as she once more became trapped within the horrors of her own mind.

Sighing, I pulled my gaze away from Xayah and looked around the dark room. The Friendship Express had set us up in their hospital. If you could call it that. It wasn’t the greatest hospital I had been in, even by wasteland standard, but it served its purpose well enough.

Brisk slept a few feet away from us on his own bed. He was mumbling something in his sleep, no doubt in a nightmare of his own. On the bed beside him sat Mirra. She was awake, her eyes staring down at her gnarled black hooves. Her bug-like ears had folded flat against her head and I could see her body shaking slightly as she silently sobbed in the darkness of the hospital.

Doing my best not to wake Xayah, I pulled myself up and trotted over to the small changeling. She cast me a quick glance as I approached, before quickly looking back down at her hooves in what appeared to be shame.

I sat down next to her. “Hey, how are you holding in there, kid?” I asked, knowing full well that that question was just as stupid as ever other time I had asked it.

Mirra dared herself to look up at me. “I’m… I’m sorry. I could have saved him and I didn’t…”

Her words rang hollow in my ears. I wrapped a hoof around the small Changelings shoulder and pulled her in tight. “Viscera killed Heartbeat, Mirra. There was nothing you could have done,” I said, trying my best to reassure her despite feeling guilty about his death myself.

I could feel Mirra trembling as she cuddled up against me. “But I was just sitting in the catwalks watching! I should have done something sooner! I should have thought to use my grenades right away instead of cowering like a filly…” She buried her face in my matted coat and sobbed. “Heartbeat and Xayah’s legs are all my fault…”

I just shook my head and held her tighter. “Don’t be silly. You saved us. If it wasn’t for you, I doubt any of us would have made it out of there alive.”

“B-but… I was so scared… If I had been brave like you then maybe I could have saved him…” Mirra moaned, her voice muffled by her mouth being pressed up against my side. “I could have… should have done better…”

A small laugh escaped my lips. It was not a happy laugh, but one soaked with pain and heartache. “I’m not brave Mirra. I’m scared. All the time. Sometimes I wonder how I’ve even made it this far. I’m no pony special.”

Mirra pulled herself away and looked up at me with her wide blue eyes. “But… you are somepony special? You defeated Kamari and walked away! You traveled all the way across Manehattan with nothing but your smarts to confront dangerous cyber ponies!” Her expression faltered. “All I’ve done is hide…”

“The only reason I walked away after defeating Kamari was because of you and you know it,” I said pointedly. “Well… you and whoever that friend of yours was. You shouldn’t sell yourself short on what you can do.”

Mirra gave me a grateful smile before nuzzling back up against me. A second later, I felt her body tense up again. “Amber… can I ask you something?”

“Of course…”

I could feel Mirra gulp. “Did… Did Pyre really murder her own mother?”

I froze. I hadn’t realised Mirra had been present for that part of our torture. She must have seen more than I thought she had. I suddenly felt even more sorry for the small changeling.

Of course if she had heard that, the fact would have been nagging at her. Mirra was lost, trying to find the mother she never knew. Since she had joined our group, Pyre had unofficially taken up the role off looking out for the small changeling. The idea that Pyre had destroyed from her life the very thing Mirra was hoping to bring into hers must have been eating away at her.

I gave a tentative nod. “I… I think so, but I’m not sure. Pyre hasn’t said anything about what she told us back in the MWT hub,” I glanced up and across the room. Pyre lay with her back to us on the far side of the hospital. She was out of her armor, giving me a clear view of where her cutie mark should have been. Only a burned patch of flesh remained there now. “But we don’t know the context. There might be more to that story than we know.”

I saw one of Pyre’s ears twitch. She wasn’t asleep. She was listening.

“Do… do you think th-that m-my mom is still alive?” Mirra croaked out, her voice almost inaudible. “O-or do y-you think she died too? Like your mom and Pyre’s mom?”

I grew quiet at the question. I had no idea if her mom was still alive or not. My gut told me she wasn’t, that the wasteland never allowed for nice things like that to happen. But I couldn’t just crush Mirra’s hopes like that. We had all been damaged enough over the past few hours, and there was still a chance that she was out there.

“I don’t know,” I finally said, deciding that it was both the kindest and most truthful answer I could give. “I simply have no way of knowing.”

I sat with Mirra for a few more minutes in silence until she finally drifted off to sleep. I was glad she could get some rest. We all had a big day ahead of us.

Once she was asleep and tucked under the stained grey blankets of her hospital bed, I pushed myself up to my hooves and quietly trotted over to where Pyre still lay on her side. One of Pyre’s ears lifted at my approach, signalling that she was in fact still awake. I sat down beside her and stared off at the shadow covered walls of the hospital, not knowing what to say.

After what felt like an eternity of sitting in silence, Pyre spoke. “What do you want Amber?”

I continued to look forwards, my eyes transfixed on the brick wall. I opened my mouth and let a heavy sigh escape my lips. “I want to know what you’ve been hiding from me, Pyre,” I said, my voice low enough that I didn’t wake the others. “We’re all friends, and friends don’t hide things from each other.”

“Like how you just lied to Mirra about her mom being alive,” Pyre shot back, her voice never raising. “Or do you genuinely believe the wasteland is kind enough to give that back to her?”

I winced, her words cutting through me like a knife. “We don’t know what happened to Mirra’s mom,” I said defensively. “And that is what I said. Maybe she’s alive, and maybe she isn’t. Time will tell.”

Pyre was silent at that for a long moment. Finally she rolled onto her back and looked up at me. “Why am I still with you, Amber?”

I was momentarily taken aback by the question. “Uh… because we're friends?”

Pyre let a hollow chuckle escape her mouth. “Is that what we are? Could have fooled me,” She looked over at where Brisk, Xayah and Mirra were sleeping. “Those are your friends, Amber. I’m here because I need you and you need me… or at least… that’s what I thought…”

Her voice trailed off, her face deep with thought. I cleared my throat, drawing Pyre’s attention back to me. “What do you mean by that Pyre?” I didn’t think I liked where this conversation was headed.

“I joined your little group because I needed protection from the Las pegasus raiders. You let me tag along so that I could help protect you from ponies hunting you down,” Pyre started, rolling her eyes at me a little. “Yesterday proved that you ponies can’t protect me from Viscera and that you are all in more danger being around me. Me being in this group doesn't benefit you, it damages you. We no longer have a mutual benefit. So I ask again, why am I still with you?”

I didn’t even need to think about that answer. “Because it was never about mutual benefit. Not to me at least. You are with us because we’re friends, practically family. We try our best to protect each other, and when things get bad, we do our damnedest to try and lighten each eachothers burdens.”

“I’m going to get all of you killed,” Pyre snarled, pulling herself up to her hooves and towering over me. “Viscera might be gone for right now, but for how long? How long until one of the gang leaders sends somepony else to take us out? Somepony worse…”

The idea that Las pegasus had raiders worse than Viscera was frightening. I quickly pushed the idea from my mind. “Then we’ll fight against them together. But I won’t let you go against these ponies alone. You deserve better than that.”

“Do I though?” Pyre scolded. Her legs wobbled slightly and she slowly lowered herself back down to the bed. “You heard my cutie mark story… I don’t deserve anything…”

I bit my lower lip. “What… what exactly is your cutie mark story,” I asked, knowing full well I was going to dread the answer. “I mean, I heard what you said back with Viscera and all, but…”

Pyre stared at me worriedly. “You heard what I said, and still want to know?”

I nodded grimly. “We’re friends. Friends listen, even when they know they don’t want to.”

Pyre stared at me for a long second, weighing her options. At long last, she gave a low sigh. “You really are something, Amber. You really are something,” Pyre looked away, contemplating something in her mind for a moment. “I’ve told you about my father… he was a terrible pony. Beat me, raped me… he did other things too, I don’t really remember all of it. Mom just sat back and watched. I don’t blame her now, she would have just been beaten too, but it hurt as a filly. She was supposed to be strong and protect me, but all she did was watch.”

I grew cold as she spoke. Pyre had told me this much before, but the thought was still awful. I had had plenty of issues with my own father, but they all seemed small and insignificant compared to what Pyre had gone through.

Pyre rolled back onto her back and stared up at the ceiling. “One day I just got tired of it all. So… So I burned her. I don’t know what I expected to have happen... Hurt her like I had been hurt I suppose. I got carried away…” She looked back at her rump, where a burn mark was still very visible through her coat. “I got my cutie mark after that… It was the first thing I ever did that dad was proud of me for…”

“That’s awful,” I said, my voice soft and uncertain.

Pyre just scoffed. “Yeah. It was… a part of me was always thankful the Viscera made me burn it off myself. I don’t want to be reminded of what I did every time I look back or in the mirror.”

I sat there beside her, not sure what to do with myself. Finally I scooted a little closer to her. “Pyre, I know you aren’t much for sappy stuff, but…” I paused, not sure how to proceed. “Can I give you a hug? I think you need one.”

Pyre looked up from her hooves in surprise. her face flickered with confusion, then conflicting. Finally, she just sighed. “Just one. And if anyone asks, it never happened.”

I let the faintest of smiles touch my lips as I moved forwards and wrapped my hooves around Pyre as tightly as I could. The two of us sat their for a moment, unmoving. Then, to my surprise, Pyre started trembling in my embrace. I felt a few tears drip onto my shoulder as Pyre began to cry.

"Why are you still letting me be a part of this group?" She asked, her hushed voice bordering a moan. "Why do you put up with me? I'm just a raider... I'm a fucking raider that always gets it wrong..."

"Because getting it wrong at least means you're trying," I said, my own voice cracking slightly. "Raiders don't try to make better ponies out of themselves, but you do. You'll get it right Pyre, and when you do, I'll be right here with you."

Pyre's body shook as she let out a loud sob, breaking the near silence of the room. "Th- thank you, Amber. You're the best friend I could ask for..."

I took a deep breath, hugging the larger pony tighter. “For what it's worth Pyre, I’ll always be your friend, no matter how much of a psychotic bitch you can be sometimes.”

Pyre actually laughed at that, but her tears didn’t subside. “For what it’s worth, you’re still the most adorable badass in the wasteland,” I didn’t bother arguing with her on that.

When we finally pulled away, Pyre glanced down at her hooves, looking almost ashamed that she had cried in front of me like that. Glanced back up, she said, “I know I have no right to ask this of you after all that has happened, and I know we’re busy with the Institute and the A.A.S.S. and Red Eye and all, but I wanted to know if I could make a request?”

“Of course you can,” I said, lightening up a bit. “We don’t just go where I want. If you ever need us to do something, just ask.”

Pyre glanced away, trying to word her thoughts. “I was hoping we could make a stop at the Manehattan gardens at some point in our journeys. Last time I checked, which admittedly was a long time ago, that’s where my father still lives. I think I’ve been putting off that reunion for far too long.”

I furrowed my brow slightly. Pyre had just told me what and aweful pony her father had been, and now she wanted to see him? That probably wasn’t good, but who was I to stand in the way of what Pyre needed.

“If you think you need to confront him, then of course. We’ll go there the first opportunity we get.”

Pyre gave me a gratuitous smile, the scars that raced down her face twisting into hideous patterns as her lips curled upwards. “Thank you, Amber. For being there for me, even when I don’t deserve it,” She glanced back at where Xayah was sleeping. “Now go and get some sleep. We’re off to find the Institute soon as the sun is up. We need our rest.”

I nodded in agreement and pulled myself over to where Xayah was still muttering to herself in her sleep. I curled up around her and let my eyes drift closed. We had been broken, yes… but we could also heal.

“I’m sorry, that thing does what?!” Brisk blurted, his mouth dropping open.

We had all gathered around Sprocket’s desk as the small, yellow mare explained to us how exactly the teleportation devices she had made worked. She had worked throughout the whole night and well into the morning to create them.

“They disassemble your body at a molecular level and transport you across the wasteland via radio signals to a designated location,” Sprocket said again, rolling her eyes in exasperation. “What part of that didn't you get? It’s really not that complicated.”

Brisk leaned over a little and whispered to Freedom who was standing beside him with a stern look on her face. “Is she always like this?” Freedom gave a stifled laugh in response that seemed to come more out of politeness than actual humour.

“To activate them is easy,” Sprocket continued, holding up the two small devices. “You just wrap them in your magic and activate a teleportation spell. Just make sure you are absolutely sure you're ready when you cast the spell. These things only have two charges, once you use them up, that’s that. And if what you told me you learned back in the MWT hub is true, making more of these is not going to be an option.”

“And we can just activate them here and be in the Institute just like that?” Pyre said, her eyes looking over the devices suspiciously through her helmet. “Seems awfully easy.”

Sprocket gave her an annoyed stare. “No dummy, have you been listening to nothing? First you need to have them lock onto a synths tag and wait for them to teleport back to the Institute. Then you can use them. Activating them before that just uses up one of your two uses.”

I glanced over at Xayah beside me. It was clear she was trying to do her best to stay focused on the conversation, but her eyes kept glancing down at her new metal legs, as if checking to see if her old legs had returned. Every time she checked, she was disappointed.

“And how are we going to find a synth to get the tag of? They aren’t exactly the easiest thing in the wasteland to find,” I asked as I turned back to face Sprocket, reminding all of them on the scarcity of synths, or even traces of the Institute in general.

“With this,” Flask said, taking a step forward and offering me a small plugin device for my Pipbuck. Up until this moment, Flask had been so quiet that I hadn’t even noticed he had been present for the conversation.

I took the device and clicked it into my pipbuck. “And what exactly is this thing?” I asked, looking the new installation to my pipbuck over.

“We have been trying to get into the Institute for years,” Flask said. “But more than that, we have been trying to protect and shelter synths from the Institute's vile grasp. A lot of our work has been going towards efficiently finding synths locations so we can retrieve them and bring them to safety.”

I glanced back down at the device. “And this will help us do that? How?”

“The Institute tends to use a very specific radio frequency to communicate with its synths. We’ve been unable to locate the origin of this signal, but we have been able to intercept and study it,” Freedom said, gesturing to my pipbuck. “That device should give you the ability to see Synth frequencies in your radio. Following them should lead you to any deployed synths in Manehattan.”

I nodded, slightly awestruck by the genius of the contraption.

“Y'all really have this whole getting into the Institute thing planned out, huh,” Brisk said with a smirk. Picking up one of the teleportation devices and rolling it around in his hooves.

“We have been trying to get there for several years,” Freedom said, a hint of pride in her voice. She gave us all an accusing look. “We are trusting you ponies a lot here. Normally we would be sending our own operatives on this mission, but you ponies have proven yourselves to us. The fact you are going in to try and rescue a synth is reason enough for us to trust you...”

I felt a ‘but’ coming on. “But what?” I asked, one of my eyebrows arching slightly.

“...But, we have demands of you once you are inside,” Freedom declared, her statement surprising no pony. “The Institute is known for its surveillance, that’s how they manage to stay so far ahead of everypony all the time. There should be a terminal inside that has a comprehensive list of all the names and locations off every synth they have sent into the wasteland. We want that list.”

“Sounds easy enough, what’s the catch?” I asked, knowing full well that there would be one.

“The catch is that is all we have to tell you,” Flask pitched in, catching me by surprise. “We know next to nothing about what you’ll find inside the Institute. We don’t know where these records are or how you can access them.”

“It should be as easy as downloading it to you pipbuck,” Sprocket chimed, passing the second device over to us. “But let's be honest, we both know it’s not going to be that easy.”

“There is one more thing,” Freedom said, holding up one of her dusty brown hooves. “You ponies have honestly done more for the Friendship Express in the past two days than most ponies have done in a month. While we have been trying to get into the Institute for years, you all managed to find a way in a matter of hours. Soooo,” She glanced over at Flask who gave her a reassuring nod. Freedom returned her attention to us. “So, normal procedure aside, I’d like to offer you all the official titles of Friendship Express operatives.”

I let my mouth open and close a couple of times as I tried to process that.

“Does this mean that I get a secret layer?” Brisk asked with a grin, clearly less surprised by the proposition. “Because I really want a secret layer!”

Freedom gave a small smile, the first real signs of happiness I had seen on her. “This um… secret layer… is ours, and as one of us, it would also be yours.”

Brisk bounced up and down slightly and pumped his hoof in the air with excitement. “Yes! I love secret layers!”

Mirra fluttered her wings happily beside him. I noticed she wasn’t on Pyre’s back like normal, but as far from the power armor clad raider as she could get. “Would it also be mine? I want a layer too?”

Freedom jumped a little at the small changeling's voice, still clearly off put by a changeling being present. “Um… of course.”

Flask pointed to Emissary’s Friendship Talisman that still hung around my neck. I was thankful that Viscera hadn’t taken that from me like the rest of my supplies. “And feel free to keep Emissary’s Friendship Talisman. You’ve earned it. Besides, I’m pretty sure Emissary would have wanted you to have it anyway.”

Freedom glanced down at our sides, taking in our lack of weapons. “Though perhaps we should re-equip you all with something to fight with. This is our only chance of getting into the Institute, we can’t risk the success of that.”

Only Mirra and I had any weapons, the rest of them having been confiscated by Viscera and her hellhounds. And between Mirra and myself, I was the only one with ammo. That ammo of course only consisted of a single shotgun shell for Braeburn’s Liberator.

I could almost feel Pyre smirking under her helmet. “You don’t happen to have flamers by any chance, no?”

Freedom frowned. “Not usually the Friendship Expresses style of fighting, but I believe we have a twin set for you.”

Flask gestured for us to follow him. “Come on, our armoury is just down here.”

My friends started following after him as he started leading us towards a side hall. Xayah took a slow step after him, only for her legs to lock up and send her tumbling to the ground.

I was at her side in a second, quickly helping her back to her hooves. “You alright?” I asked, glancing worriedly at her new legs.

Xayah gave me a flat look. “What do you think, Amber?”

Point taken. I continued to help her steady herself as she planted her metal forehooves back onto the ground. I felt a pang of guilt shoot through me as I thought about how to say what I had to say next. “Xayah, I’ve been thinking, and I think that maybe you should sit this adventure out for a bit.”

Xayah’s head shot up, quickly looking from her hooves to me in alarm. “Wh-what do you mean?” Xayah asked, her eyes wide. “You cannot think to leave me behind here?”

I grimaced. That wasn’t how I had hoped she would take that. “Xayah, you’ve been through a lot. I think it would just be best if you took a bit of time to recover from your injuries,” I gestured to the metal legs that shook slightly as she tried to hold herself up. “Take a day or two to get used to your new legs. You’ll be safe here. Practice walking and all that. We won’t be gone long. I’ll come right back here for you, I promise.”

Xayah looked at me sceptically for a moment. She took a step forward, stumbled on her forehooves and almost collapsed back to the ground before I caught her. She was noticeably heavier now that the front half of her body was half made of metal.

Xayah sighed, once again trying to straighten herself. “You are correct, Amber. I’m sorry,” She glanced up at me nervously, her eyes darting around my features. She leaned in and planted a quick kiss on the tip of my muzzle. “Just make sure to come back to me quickly, understand.”

I nodded, feeling a lump form in my throat. Despite knowing she would be safer here, I hated the idea of being without her for a few days.

“I promise. It’ll only be a day if everything goes well. And we’ll come right back afterwards.”

Xayah nuzzled my cheek quickly before pulling away. “And Amber… Thank you for saving my life back at the MWT hub. Knowing the foolish pony you are, I know you are beating yourself up over all this. I do not blame you for what you had to do.”

I grimaced. I didn’t know if I deserved thanks for turning her into a cyber pony. I gave her a sollom nod. “I wish I could have done more…” Feeling guilty, and not knowing what else to say, I leaned in myself and gave her a quick kiss of my own. “I’ll see you soon. Love you…”

“I love you too…”

The radio device that Flask had given me didn’t seem to be taking us far. Shortly after leaving the metro tunnel that housed the Friendship Express, my pipbuck had notified me of one of the Synths radio frequencies. My pipbuck map told me it was coming from a structure called the Manehattan Public Library.

The idea that Manehattan had a library was beyond exciting. No doubt they had more books there than either Stable 25 and Stable 44 combined.

“We aren’t going there to nerd out to books,” Brisk reminded me as I giddily hopped down the street, knowing what I was thinking even without me saying it. “We’re going there to find some synths and get into the Institute. We can look for books later.”

I scowled at him. Sure, he was always in a happy and bouncy mood, but when something good was happening to me, he had to get all sour.

Brisk had strapped another machete across his back, once again completing his ragged wastelander look. A new 10mm pistol had been holstered to his right fore hoof.

Flask had hastily restocked our supply of ammunition and healing potions, giving thirty shots to us each and a healthy supply of ten healing potions. I was still without a melee weapon, but I’m sure I would be able to find one eventually.

“I guess I should ask this question now and before we get there...” Pyre started, adjusting the two flamers that had been attached to the sides of her armour. “But which ones of us are going to be going into the Institute? We only have two teleportation thingies and I can’t cast a teleportation spell, so I guess it’s down to two of you three.”

Brisk tapped the tip of his horn grumpily. “Nope, it’s down to Amber and Mirra this time. I can’t do magic at all, so I’m about as useless as you are in this situation Pyre.”

Mirra froze and looked up at us. “Wait… you want me to go into the Institute?” Clearly the fact that she was the only one of us aside from me that could use the teleportation device hadn’t crossed her mind yet.

I gave her a quick nod. “Only if you want to. We aren’t going to force you to do anything.”

Mirra gave me a smug grin. “No no, I’ll do it. I just thought Brisk would be going with you is all,” She glanced at Brisk, her expression devious. “Can you really not do magic at all?”

Brisk scowled. “No, I can't. Thank you for rubbing it in.”

Up ahead, the large structure of the Manehattan library came into view. It was a large, cube-like building surrounded by large spiral pillars that supported an overhanging roof. The large, wood ornate doors had begun to rot and sag, giving the once beautiful entranceway a decrepit and unwelcoming look.

As we drew near, red bars popped up on my EFS compass. Lots of them. I crouched down, pulling out Braebrun’s Liberator. Pyre and Brisk quickly did the same, spotting the red bars on their own EFS.

“Synths?” Brisk asked, glancing over at me. I shrugged, having no way of telling myself.

Pyre shook her head. “Nope, I’m getting them on my EFS too, and I don’t have an anti-cloaking device. Those red bars are something else,” Pyre glanced over at Mirra. “Your nose telling you anything kid?”

Mirra sniffed the air, scrunching her muzzle up as the radioactive air wafted into her nostrils. Her eyes widened. “Wait, that smells like…”

An alicorn burst from the building, steaming from a shot from some magic energy weapon. The alicorn pulled itself back up to its hooves, its horn flaring as it dove back into the building.

“Great, only one of the most deadly things in the wasteland,” I groaned. “Why couldn’t it just be synths?”

We crept over to the large, broken doorway into the Manehattan library and peeked inside. The first thing I saw was books. Lots and lots of books. Huge shelves towered up around the inside of the library, each one filled with hundreds of books. Smaller shelves lined the floors in a large circular pattern. I wanted to cry just by looking at it; all of the books were burned beyond repair.

In the center of the room was a large forcefield like bubble, kept up by four alicorns that stood around it stoically, their expressions blank in concentration. six other alicorns circled around the room, blasting lasers in multiple directions at a bunch of fleeing targets.

Within the bubble stood what we had come for. Three synths stood within the magical bubble, their magical energy weapons drawn and ready to fire the moment the alicorn’s dropped their shields. The shield seemed to have been erected with the purpose of keeping the synths from teleporting away in mind. Not that that was much of a concern, they seemed to have no desire to flee. Around the shield, five other synths were darting about, trying their best to take out the alicorns that were pursuing them. The synths were badly losing.

Pyre glanced over at me. “We shouldn’t be here,” she warned me flatly. “I’ve seen alicorns use this tactic before. They’re keeping them in the shield until reinforcements can arrive.”

I glanced out at the battle raging within the library. From how things were looking, it didn’t look like the alicorns would need reinforcements. The synths were impressive machines and they were well equipped, but they didn’t stand a chance against a group of alicorns.

I shook my head. “Running into synths is rare. We’re lucky we found these ones so easily. We can’t risk losing this opportunity and not being able to find more synths in time.”

“In time for what?” Brisk asked, bringing up the question I had hoped he wouldn’t ask.

I shrugged. “No idea. Whatever that Utopia thing is I suppose,” I glanced back to Pyre and Mirra. “And idea how to handle this?”

“Yes, don’t die,” Pyre snarked back, the end of her flamer flickering to life. “Do we need a better plan than that?”

“Go for the Alicorns not casting the shield spell, as their the biggest threat,” Mirra said flatly, giving Pyre a playful nudge. “The other ones won’t be able to attack us until after their concentration is lost.”

I saw Brisk give a nod from beside me. “Alright, that's only six alicorns. We can deal with that.”

After waiting a few more seconds, the four of us sprung out from our cover behind the door. I raised my new quad barrel shotgun into the air with my magic, wincing a little as the crack Viscera had put down the center of my horn flared with pain. Braeburn's Liberator fired a shot of explosive buckshot at the nearest alicorn, catching it off guard. The alicorn spun to face me in surprise, its attention drawn from the synth it was chasing.

The alicorn’s eyes narrowed as it spotted me. “You!” Oh that’s right, I had almost forgotten about the whole creepy hive mind thing the alicorns had.

I jumped to the side as the alicorn blasted down at me with a bolt of magical energy. I landed behind a crooked bookshelf, the alicorn’s magical blast disintegrating one of the few books in the building that still looked somewhat intact.

I saw Brisk dart across the room and engage into combat with a dark green alicorn while Pyre and Mirra took on another alicorn off to my right.

I scampered back as the alicorn I had attacked blasted through the bookshelf, sending burned and tattered books flying across the room and raining down on me. The alicorn swooped forwards, her horn blazing with light as she created a shield around herself.

Two of the still free synths fired up at the alicorn as it swooped at me, their blue lasers bouncing harmlessly off of the alicorn's shield.

I swung Braeburn’s Liberator up, this time slamming the stock of the gun against the alicorn’s shield near its head. The shield didn’t even flicker as the impressive gun slammed against it.

One of the synths dropped to the ground, its head a smoldering pile of ash as one of the alicorns blasted at it. The alicorns were killing the synths too fast. We needed to keep at least one of the synths alive.

Brisk rolled past me, his machete in his mouth as he swung it at a hovering alicorn. The alicorn stayed in the air, just out of his reach. The magical force field around her would flare to life if Brisk’s swings managed to get too close, but otherwise she kept the shield down and focused on using her destructive magics to stay on the offensive.

The alicorn pursuing me dropped her shield for a second and dove at me, her horn blasting a volley of smaller blasts in my direction. I jumped backwards, the blasts searing off the front layer of hair on my fore hooves.

Thinking fast, I wrapped as many of the ruined books around me as I could in my magic. Screaming from pain that shot through my horn, I lifted them all up into the air and flung them at the approaching alicorn.

The alicorn's eyes widened as she was swept up in a miniature tornado of flying pages and covers. Her shield burst back to life, protecting her from the volley of slashing pages. That was fine. I hadn’t expected the papers to hurt her.

With the alicorn temporarily blinded by the whirlwind of books, I scampered away and ducked behind another book shelf. I let more horn drop the spell, panting for breath as the pain in my forehead dulled to a small hum.

The alicorn glanced around, trying to spot where I had darted off to in her confusion. A few more synths fired up at her, diverging her attention from me even more.

The alicorn dropped her shield and sent a bolt of energy lashing towards the synths who promptly scattered. Perfect.

With the alicorn not knowing where I was and with her shield temporarily down, I pushed myself out from hiding behind her and swung Braeburn’s Liberator up towards her head. The alicorn's eyes shot wide as she felt all four barrels press against the back of her head. Her horn burst with light and a shield began to form around her.

Blam!

An explosive shot from Braeburn’s Liberator ripped through the alicorn’s skull. The still forming shield and the magic around her horn exploded with a quick pop as her head burst open. Fire burst from the wound as the fire talismans in Braeburn’s Liberator took effect. The alicorn dropped to the ground, blood oozing from the stump that had once been her neck.

I took a step back as the alicorn collapsed in front of me, looking over the bleeding corpse. Braeburn’s Liberator had some powerful kick to it. I had been so surprised by the damage of my gun that I had missed the other alicorn flying in and slashing at me with her horn. The long bone slashed through my side, opening up a gaping wound that poured hot blood.

I skidded across the ground, my hooves flying to my side in an attempt to stop the bleeding. My magical grip on Braeburn’s Liberator was lost as the pain flaring through my side mingled with the already agonizing throb of my horn.

The alicorn reared up, her horn blazing with light as she prepared to blast me apart.

Blam!

A bullet lodged itself between her eyes, the shot aimed with impossible accuracy. I looked behind me to see a tall beige stallion with a long brown coat and wide brimmed fedora atop his head. The mysterious stranger had a revolver in his mouth that wafted smoke from its long barrel.

“You again!” I gasped, blinking at him in surprise. I shouldn’t have blinked, he had disappeared.

Not far away, Pyre slammed against one of the alicorn’s shields, her powerful force sending the alicorn stumbling backwards. The shield flickered, but didn’t relent under her attack. The alicorn scowled, her horn glowing as she dropped the shield and blasted at Pyre with a beam of purple energy.

Pyre dodged, her hooves skidding slightly on the floor as she narrowly avoided being turned to ash.

A bullet lodged itself in the alicorns forehoof. The alicorn yelped, spinning around to face Mirra who was trying her best to stay away from the deadly lasers that were blasting around the room. “Sorry,” Mirra squeaked, as the alicorn turned to face her, the purple alicorn’s expression twisting into a sneer.

Pyre’s flamers burst to life before the alicorn could even dare lay a hoof on the small changeling. The alicorn’s body went up in a burst of flame. The alicorn screamed, stumbling backwards. It's shield flared up around it, but that only seemed to speed up her painful death as the smoke of the flames filled the inside of the shield and suffocated her.

I moved over to help Brisk, who was currently being cornered by the green alicorn he had been assailing. The alicorn had managed to fight him into a corner, her horn glowing as she blasted beam after beam of light at him. He was managing to dodge, but he could only last for so long.

The synths not trapped by the alicorn’s shield had turned their fire from the attacking alicorns, to the alicorns holding up the shield in the middle of the room, no doubt trying to free their imprisoned comrades.

Not wanting to risk the synths escaping before we could get our teleporting devices to lock onto them, I pointed the devices towards them with my magic and began targeting them. To my surprise, all of their tags popped up on my EFS a few seconds later.

Satisfied, I turned back to where the green alicorn had cornered Brisk. The alicorn had managed to land a shot on him in the few seconds I had taken to lock onto the synths. I felt a pang of culpability for not helping Brisk first and foremost.

I lunged forwards, my hooves lashing at the back of the alicorn’s head as they charged up for a final strike against Brisk. The alicorn staggered, having not expected somepony to lunge into her from behind.

She swung around, her magic reaching out and wrapping around my throat. She leered in my face, her expression not even remotely befitting a goddess in the slightest. “The Goddess is unpleased with you! She will enjoy flaying off your skin!”

A scary statement, sure, but it felt almost laughable after some of Viscera's threats of turning my severed head into a toilet.

Brisk’s machete slashed forwards, slicing into the back of the alicorn's leg before thudding to an abrupt halt halfway through her fetlock. The alicorn screamed, reeling up and bucking backwards. Her hooves crashed into Brisk’s chest, sending him stumbling back and crashing into a bookshelf. Ruined books rained down on him, one slamming down heavily upon his head and getting impaled on his horn.

I wiggled around so that the grip of Baeburn’s Liberator was tight in my mouth and raised it to aim directly between the alicorn’s eyes. Seeing the gun raise, the alicorn tossed me away, ducking down as the explosive round of buckshot tore through the air where her head had been moments before.

One of the alicorns holding up the shield in the centre of the room fell to the ground, slowly dissolving into glowing blue ash as the synth powerful magical energy weapons tore through them. They broke concentration on the spell just long enough to scream in pain before fizzling away.

Two more synths fell, the only attacking alicorn that my friends and I weren’t attacking swooping in and blasting at them with powerful shots of their horn. Both synths collapsed, their metallic, skeletal bodies warped and twisted from the intense heat of the blast.

I pulled myself up as the alicorn lunged at me again. I barely managed to raise Baeburn’s Liberator in time as the alicorns horn shot a beam of light towards me. The shot slashed against the side of the weapon, deflecting outwards and blasting through a window. Almost instantly, the warped metal where the blast had struck my gun began to pop back into place.

The terminal back in the Ironshod Firearms building had said that Braeburn’s Liberator was equipped with a regeneration talisman, but I had been so focused on other things over the past few hours that I had never stopped to think about what that might entail. Apparently it could fix itself if damaged. I wondered exactly how far that could go. How much could be destroyed until it couldn’t repair itself anymore?

My thoughts were interrupted as the alicorn lashed at me again with a glowing beam of light. I rolled to the side, ducking under one of the bookshelves to escape the attack. The alicorn followed, her eyes murderous as she lunged towards me.

Blam!

A shot from Brisk’s pistol dropped the alicorn to the ground, the 10mm bullet tearing through her right wing. Howling, the alicorn spun around to face him, only to find Pyre suddenly on her right, barreling into her and smothering her in a wave of fire.

I glanced over to where Pyre and Mirra had been fighting, only to see the charred remains of an alicorn curled up in a pile of burning books, their hooves now twitching and sticking out at awkward angles.

The final alicorn holding up the shield in the middle of the room fell, torn asunder by the synths weaponry. The shield exploded, bursting like a glass dome that had just had a large rock thrown through it.

The synths inside quickly burst out, their guns swiveling to face me and my friends. “Target acquired. Eliminate threat, Amber Aura,” One of the newly freed synths monotoned, turning its icy glare to face us. “Damaged units consider tactical retreat.”

Seriously! We just saved them and now they were going to attack us?!

The synths that had been fighting the alicorns gave a quick nod. I noticed that they were all significantly worse for wear than the synths that had been safely tucked away from the fighting from within the alicorn’s shield.

Blue beams of light shot out of seemingly nowhere around the remaining synths that hadn’t been within the forcefield. A blink of the eye later, and they were gone as they teleported away. I let my eyes quickly dart down to the teleportation devices. They were still successfully locked onto their targets.

The three synths turned to face us proper, the ends of their magical energy weapons beginning to glow a dangerous blue. It reminded me a little of tiny versions of Crank’s massive tesla cannons.

“Amber Aura, you are Institute threat level high. You will be eliminated,” One of the synths said, taking a step forward.

I slapped my face with a forehoof. “Of course the Institute wants me dead. Can I catch a break just once please?”

The synths didn’t reply with words. Instead, their magical energy weapons opened fire. We scattered, ducking behind the bookshelves as the area we had just stood was blasted apart with a hail of blue lasers.

“Do we need to take them out without killing them so we can follow them back to the Institute?” Mirra asked, scooting up beside me as one of the synths lasers blasted at her tail.

I shook my head. “Nope, I already locked onto the ones that teleported away, we can just kill these ones.”

“Well we had better do that quickly!” Pyre shouted over the gunfire, ducking down herself as a laser blasted out a bunch of books above her head. “You remember when I said these alicorns had been waiting for reinforcements?”

A knot formed in my throat at her words. “Yeah…”

Pyre pointed towards the doorway, leading my attention towards it. Far off in the distance, I could see a large swarm of black dots flying towards us. Alicorns. Lots and lots of alicorns. I gulped. There was no fighting that many. We needed to be out of here before they arrived.

I spun around, looking to Brisk who was taking shelter off to my left. “Brisk, sneak around behind them, take them out from behind…” Brisk gave me a quick salute. I turned back to Pyre. “Pyre, you think you can charge them and pull their attention away from us?”

“Ha! I thought you’d never ask.”

I turned to look at Mirra, who was holding her revolver shakily in her magic. “You ready kid?”

Mirra glanced up at me worriedly. “What? What do I need to be ready for?” her eyes widened as she understood what I was saying. “Wait… are we going in now!?”

I glanced back up and exchanged a look with Brisk and Pyre. “Will you two be safe without us?”

Brisk waved me off with a hoof. “You two go. We’ll deal with these synths and get out of here before the Alicorns show up. We’ll meet back up with you at the Friendship Express.”

I opened my mouth to say something else, but Pyre cut me off. “And yes, we’ll make sure Xayah’s safe. Now go!” She snapped at me quickly before jumping out of hiding and spewing flames towards the synths. Flames were effective against most creatures in the wasteland, but robots weren’t among them.

I glanced down to Mirra and handed her one of the teleportation devices. “Whenever you're ready, kid.”

Mirra pulled out the chunk of white metal with the altered Stable-Tec logo on it. She looked back up to me, worry crossing her face. “Do you think we’re going to find my mom inside there?” She asked, her voice trembling a little bit.

I shrugged. “There’s only one way to find out.”

One of the synths moved around the side of the bookshelf, its magical energy weapon aimed at us. Before it could fire, Pyre came crashing back towards us, her hooves pummeling the synth into the ground. She glared over at the two of us. “Well, what are you waiting for, get out of here!”

I nodded and wrapped the teleportation device in my magic. I could see Mirra doing the same beside me. It was time to face the puppet masters.

Channeling as much magic as I could into my horn, I cast a teleportation spell. My horn flared with pain as magic shot up the large crack. The world around me spun and I suddenly felt significantly lighter. Blue light flashed around me, then tore me apart.

As it turns out, having your body disassembled at a molecular level and teleported across the wasteland to a designated location via radio waves before getting put back together was not very fun. Who would have thought.

My whole body split apart in ways I never thought was possible. One minute I was whole, the next I was scattered amongst the wasteland in tiny little fragments. The terrifying thought that a single gust of wind might blow into me and scatter my particles across the planet suddenly flashed through my mind.

I would have flailed my hooves around in fear, had I been able to.

Despite being ripped apart, the whole experience felt more like being shoved through a hole the size of a nail. I was suddenly beginning to feel very claustrophobic.

How long was this supposed to take? Teleportation was instantaneous, right? Shouldn’t I be in the Institute by now? Did the device even work?

I was suddenly reminded that these had never been tested before. There was a good chance I had just disassembled my molecules permanently.

Just when I was about to panic… okay, I was already panicking… My body rematerialized and I dropped panting to the floor.

My vision spinning, I lifted my head up to look around. Mirra lay a few feet away from me, rubbing the side of her head with a gnarled hoof as she tried to remove some of the dizziness.

The room we were in was small, probably some sort of storage closet. The walls were made out of a smooth, grey metal that seemed to shine despite there being no bright lights in the room. The room was filled with metal crates that didn’t seem to have a lid, I had no clue how to open them, and a sliding metal door sat on the far side of the room leading out into the structure beyond. Despite being the most boring room ever, it was the cleanest looking room I had ever seen both in the Wasteland and in the Stable.

I took a deep breath, trying to steady myself for what was to come. What lay before us wasn't that hard. All we had to do was rescue Rubber Band from captivity, learn what the Utopia Program was, steal back the A.A.S.S. and download a bunch of files onto my pipbuck despite having no idea where they are or how to find them.

Never mind... this was going to be hell to pull off.

“Th-this is the Institute?” Mirra asked, her voice hazy from the teleportation. She scratched the back of her head, flopping over from dizziness. “Whoa… let's never do that again…”

I gave her a sly smile. “We’ll need to do that at least one more time to get out of this place, I think,” I said, tucking the device back into my saddlebags. “And yes… I think this is the Institute. Or at least a room in it anyway.”

I glanced down at my pipbuck map, hoping it would give me some idea of where we were. I took a sharp breath as I saw where our tags were.

We were in Tenpony Tower, or at least below it.

The Institute of Arcane Sciences. The Institute was an extension of the MAS, a secret branch of scientists working alongside the other ministries under the control of Twilight Sparkle and Silver Ace. Where else would they build a secret base of operations where no pony would get suspicious beside directly below their own ministry.

Mirra pulled herself up and fluttered up onto one of the boxes. "You think our friends will be alright?"

I felt a touch of warmth at the question. even after being teleported half way across the city and dumped into what very well might be one of the most dangerous places we've ever been in, Mirra's first thoughts were of our friends.

"I'm sure they'll be fine," I said, doing my best to put on a reassuring face. "Brisk is a survivor, and Pyre is near unkillable. If there were ever two ponies that can get out of their safely, it's them."

Mirra glanced nervously at the door. “What do you expect we'll find out there?” She asked, one of her hooves tapping on the metal surface of the box.

I shrugged. “No idea. Synths I guess. That’s really all I know about the Institute. Hopefully answers,” Goddesses, wouldn’t it be nice to finally get some answers.

Mirra gave me a nervous smile. “Well, like you said. Only one way to find out.”

I slowly moved towards the door. We didn’t need to do anything upon approaching it, it simply slid open on its own accord once we had gotten close enough. Mirra yelped and jumped behind my leg quickly, shaking like a leaf. I was feeling a little startled myself. We were in the lion's den, and honestly, we had no idea what we were supposed to do or what to expect.

Creeping out of the small room, I found myself faced with the large expanse that was the Institute. The second I saw it, my mouth dropped open.

The Institute was huge, far bigger than my mind was letting me comprehend. It appeared to be a gigantic dome-like structure comprised out of nearly blinding white metal. Despite finding myself on a balcony half way up the inside of the huge structure, the towering ceiling lay so far above me that I wouldn’t have been surprised if I could fit a few Tenpony towers within the walls. The walls of the Institute were covered in ramp-like pathways that twisted up to reach higher levels and numerous tunnel-like structures led to what I could only imagine was even more rooms.

The floor of the Institute was crawling with life. Ponies in white lab coats rushed about or stood talking. But it wasn’t just ponies. To my surprise I spotted quite a few changelings rushing about, many of them dressed in similar looking lab coats.

The floor of the Institute had more than just pony and changeling life however. Much of the floor had been transformed into a massive inside botanical garden. For the first time in my life I saw greenery with my very own eyes. Trees, grass and flowers of many colours were growing up from the Institute floor in beautiful patterns. Even small birds and butterflies seemed to have sprung to life, fluttering around the trees and giving the otherwise clinical looking expanse feel alive and friendly.

The center of the Institute held what I could only assume was the massive Crusader mainframe Scootaloo had mentioned in one of Twilights memories that I had seen in the MAS tower. It was a massive spire of white metal that rose high into the air, nearly touching the top of the dome structures ceiling. Parts of the mainframe had been made from glass, giving me a look at the advanced machinery that worked within. Even with my rather extensive knowledge of machines, I could tell it might take me years to properly understand the workings of that device.

I heard Mirra give a loud gasp. I followed her gaze up to the huge maneframe. Imprinted onto the side of the Crusader mainframe in a bold black was a symbol. A horseshoe with three lines protruding from each side and surrounding a circle bearing the image of the mare in the moon. An altered version of the Stable-Tec logo. The very same symbol that resided on Mirra’s only memento of her mother.

“We’ll meet again… mom,” Mirra whispered under her breath, resighting the rather short note on the back of the jagged metal slab she was holding tightly in her hoof. “We’ll meet again…”

My eyes caught on something moving down below. A speck of black amongst the nearly blinding white of the Institute. My eyes widened when I realized what I was looking at.

I ducked down lower, pulling Mirra down with me. “We’ve got a problem,” I said urgently, my voice reflecting the fear that I felt. “We have a really, really big problem.”

Mirra shuddered, my words quickly working the small filly up into a panic. “W-what? What is it?”

I peered over the edge of the balcony again, looking down at the Institute below. There, talking to one of the scientists, was someone I had never expected to see again.

Azar. The only thing in the entire wasteland that could have stood up against Crank. The zebra that had been hit point blank with a balefire bomb and apparently walked out unscathed. I supposed he had the right to claim he had done that twice now. And he was here, in the Institute.

The dark grey and violet zebra glanced around, as if sensing that something was off, before turning back to the scientist pony he was talking to.

I shouldn’t have been surprised to see him. I had seen him teleport out of the MAS tower right before it had exploded. I should have figured it was all connected.

Mirra peeked over the edge with me, her eyes landing on the dark zebra. She raised an eyebrow at me. “Is that the zebra that killed everypony in your Stable and was helping Kamari?”

I gave her a grim nod. “Yup, that’s the one.”

Mirra wrinkled her muzzle and took a small sniff of the air in his general direction. “Huh… he doesn’t smell like a zebra… but he is pretty far away and there are a lot of changelings between me and…” She trailed off, her eyes widening. She took another sniff, then another. “Wait… I smell… I…”

I tightened my grip on Braeburn’s Liberator. “What? What is it?!”

Mirra’s eyes were wide with excitement. “Amber, I smell her! She’s here!”

“What? Who’s here?!” Mirra didn’t answer me. Instead, she spun on her hooves and started rushing down the ramp towards the lower sections of the Institute. I reached a hoof out, trying to stop her. “Mirra, wait! It could be dangerous!”

My warning was met with deaf ears.

I pulled myself up and started rushing after her. Mirra was small, and a lot faster than I was. I was needing to use all my strength just to keep up.

Ahead, Mirra rounded one of the corners that lead away from the main room and into one of the side structures. I pushed myself forwards, rounding the corner and skidding into the room beyond. Mirra was already halfway across the room and heading down a set of stairs on the far side.

She was not alone in the room. A pony and a changeling, both dressed in lab coats and holding clipboards, were looking at both of us in surprise as we rounded the corner and rushed past them. I heard yells of alarm ring out across the room and quickly into the rest of the Institute.

This infiltration mission was going swimmingly. It hadn’t even been five minutes, and the entire Institute was probably already aware we were here.

The blue lights that lined the tops of the walls began to flash red and a siren rang out. “Intruders detected in the west quadrant!”

Well fuck.

I heard more yells from behind me as I chased after Mirra. Though these yells didn’t sound pony, by rather synthesised and metallic. I dared myself to glance behind me as I spotted what was chasing us.

I had expected synths. I was only half right. Besides a large squadron of synths, a group of several black coated ponies in dark trench coats were racing towards us, dangerous looking magical energy weapons aimed and ready to fire.

We were being chased by Coursers! Because of fucking course we were!

I gulped. That was bad. Very, very bad. I turned looking back at Mirra who was still running a few paces ahead of me. “Ignore my first request!” I yelled to her, forcing myself to pick up speed. “Keep running! Run really really fast!”

Mirra turned one of the corners ahead of me, once again ducking out of sight. A good thing took, because less than a second later, the Courser’s behind us started shooting. A few of the shots flew past me, blasting at the spot Mirra had stood only seconds prior.

One of the shots blasted through one of my hind hooves. I screamed in pain, stumbling as I felt the wound get ripped open, only to cauterize immediately afterwards from the scorching heat of the blast.

I fell to the ground with a thud, my hind leg giving out from under me. I pushed myself back up as quickly as possible, doing my best to ignore the pain, and kept running. The synths were gaining on me, the distance between us growing shorter at an alarming rate. A few more of the Coursers blue lasers shot past me, but by then, it was too late.

I swung around the corner Mirra had rushed around and skidded to a stop.

Mirra stood frozen in front of me, her blue eyes transfixed on a pony standing a few meters away from us. Mirra’s eyes were wide and her mouth was slack.

I stood there, staring at Mirra for a few seconds, panting and out of breath. Slowly, I lifted my gaze to look at the mare before us. The moment my eyes landed on her, I felt my knees go week and give out from under me. I dropped to the floor, my mouth hanging open as I stared at a mare that should have been dead a long time ago.

It was her! It had to be! Even after all this time, I knew that face…

Her coat was a light pink and her mane a light pastel blue, both colours almost identical to mine if not a little darker. She had a pair of reading glasses over her eyes as she peered down at a clipboard she held aloft in her magic. But my eyes were drawn to her cutie mark.

It was the Stable-Tec logo. The same one as my father, and his father before him. the cutie mark I had failed to inherit. Our families famous, hereditary cutie mark.

I felt my mouth go dry as I uttered the only four words that I could possibly say. “M-mom? Is that you?”

Footnote: Three quarters of the way to next level

Author's Note

When I first started this story, I was trying to figure out how to turn Coursers into a horse pun. As it turns out, a Courser is a type of horse. Bethesda is making my job too easy.

Also, four chapters in one month. This is the gift of quarantine folks.

Chapter XXIII: Ponykind - Redefined

“Just think what this place will look like a hundred years from now. I hope I’m there to see it.”

Family.

My experiences with family were complicated. I had had a difficult relationship with my father, that much was no secret. He hadn’t been the best father in the world, and one could argue he had hardly been a good leader either. He hadn’t given me enough attention and love growing up like a normal father should, which led me to be both underachieving and self deprecating with only the smallest shreds of self worth. It didn’t take a brainiac to figure that out.

And my father had done things too that were simply inexcusable. He had authorized tests on Stable dwellers, used mental conditioning to keep ponies from uprising, turned a blind eye to the cruel actions of security and worst of all, he had failed Brisk when he had needed his help most.

But despite it all, he could have been so much worse. He was a pony, one that had gotten many things wrong, but a pony all the same. He had been afraid, afraid of what security might do, afraid of losing more ponies he loved, and afraid of failing his Stable. He had hurt ponies, but he had also saved them, protected them. He had led one of the only Stables in the wasteland that still could maintain life and had managed to make up for some of what he had done wrong before the end, even if it had only been a fraction of what needed to be fixed.

He had tried, and that was all that could really be asked of him I suppose.

But even after all the wrongs, I still loved him in a way that a daughter loves their parents. Pyre had had it much worse, even Mirra had had it worse than me. At least I had had a father to look up to.

But my mother… that was another story.

I had hardly known her. She had fled the Stable only a few short years after my birth, hoping that she could help the outside world. My memory of her was fuzzy and only a few fragments of the time we had spent together had managed to cling to my mind over the years.

My father had told me my mother was dead. That she had run off into the wastes, only to be torn open by monsters and left to bleed out in the outside worlds filth.

And yet… here she was. Standing before me even after all this time. She was older than she was in my memory of course, but it was still very clearly her. Same mane, same coat, same cutie mark and eyes.

How… how could this even be possible.

I tried to take a step towards her, only to remember I had fallen to the ground. I opened my mouth again to speak, my words seeming so very far away. “M-mom… how can you… how is this…”

The mare in front of us turned to face me, her blue eyes landing on my collapsed form. There was a moment of confusion in her eyes, then recognition, then fear. She took a step back. “A-Amber? Is that you?”

That voice… It… it was her!

I didn’t know what to feel. Shouldn’t I be happy right now? She was alive and well, we could be a family again. But it felt off. Something about this wasn’t right.

Mirra took a shaky step forward, her huge eyes seemingly pleading. “Mom? Is… is it really you?”

My right ear twitched and I cast a glance over at Mirra. She thought this was her mom? But that didn’t make sense, she was a…

My scattered thoughts began clicking into place. This thing before me, was not my mom. It never had been… but why did it look like her? It had known who I was... ? What was happening?

The mare that looked like my mom turned her head and looked at Mirra, her confused and worried expression only becoming more and more confused. “I’m sorry… do- do I know you?”

We didn’t have time to figure out what was going on. The synths and Coursers that had been chasing us finally caught up, rushing around the corner behind us and quickly forming a tight circle around Mirra and myself. In unison, their magical energy weapons rose and pointed towards us.

Mirra and I shrank back, our sides pressing together as we were confronted by the ridiculous amount of firepower. I could feel Mirra’s small form shaking like a leaf against me in fear.

I spun in a slow circle, trying to gage exactly how many synths and coursers we were up against. There had to be a way to get out of this. A weak point in their tactical positions.

My eyes landed on a pair of violet eyes amongst the sea of glowing blue ones. I felt my hope of escape get crushed under Azar’s intense glare. The gaze of the zebra who had killed my Stable.

Azar took a step forwards, his lips twisting into a sickening grin and the violet stripes on his face warping in disturbing ways. “Ah, Amber. You can imagine my surprise when I found out you had survived the MAS tower explosion,” Azar chuckled, taking another bold step towards us. His eyes momentarily darted down to look over Mirra, before returning his attention to me. “But to make it all the way to the Institute. You continue to impress me.”

“AZAR!” A voice rang out, loud and demanding. My mother pushed past the rows of Synths and glowered at the strange zebra. “You are going to explain what is going on, right now!”

For the first time since I had first seen him, Azar took a slightly startled and worried step back. “I… this is Amber Aura. The individual that has been causing all of our troubles on the surface,” He said, his voice filled with grim confusion.

My mother's eyes narrowed. “You had failed to mention that this individual also happens to be my daughter,” her voice was low and seething. “Does Glasswing know of this?”

Forcing myself not to tremble in fear at our current situation, I took a brave step towards Azar and my mother. “Um… Could somepony please tell me what’s going on? Because I’m really confused right now.”

Azar and my mother exchanged a quick glance. “Glasswing is going to want to talk to them, if only to find out how they got here,” Azar growled, his lips refusing to do anything but continue to twist upwards in his vile grin.

My mother sighed. “I know…” She turned back and looked at me, her face sad and distant. “You shouldn’t have come here Amber. I’m sorry.”

I took a step back. I didn’t like that tone. She sounded regretful.

Azar made a motion in the air with his hoof. Immediately, the coursers surged forwards. I reeled back too late as magically charged hoof cuffs were clamped tightly around my hooves and a magic restriction ring was placed over my horn. Beside me, Mirra was placed in a similar situation, her hooves bound together and her horn rendered useless.

Mirra continued to stare at my mother… er… her mother? This was confusing. She stared at Mother, not even bothering to look down at the shackles that clamped down tightly around her.

As a single unit, the coursers began herding us forwards, down one of the ramps and towards the main area of the Institute. Azar led the group, his head occasionally turning to peer back at us with one of his violet eyes. Mother walked behind them, her expression grim.

As we passed, the many scientists of the Institute stopped and stared at us as if we were wild animals caged in a zoo. I was beginning to feel very uncomfortable and exposed. I was surprised to see that there was a higher ratio of changelings in the Institute than there were Ponies.

Mirra pressed up against me, her body still shaking. “Amber, I don’t like how they’re all looking at us,” She squeaked, her discomfort clear in her voice. “I want to change shape…”

I tried my best to wrap a hoof around her while being pushed forward at gunpoint and having my forehooves bound. “It’ll be okay. Got it?” I said, my voice sounding more certain than I felt. “I’ll keep you safe.”

My gaze shifted upwards to a large black, metal door inset into the far wall. I hadn’t seen it before as it had been behind the large Crusader Maneframe, but now it stood out like a sore hoof. The door was surrounded by multiple courser guards and seemed to be locked with an incredibly extensive security system.

“What’s behind that?” I asked, leaning in towards one of the Coursers. “Looks important.”

The Courser didn’t even shift it’s gaze to look at me, but rather continued to march forward, it's expression stoic and cold. “You are not designated for that information,” it monotoned, its organic sounding voice clashing terribly with its pre programmed thoughts.

Azar stepped aside as we neared one of the large tunnels leading out of the main area. The Coursers pushed Mirra and I in before directing us to a large side room. A glowing, neon sign that hung above the door read, ‘Synth Retention Center’.

They could call the room we found ourselves in whatever they wanted, but it was a prison. Rows of empty cells lined the sides of the long room and a desk with a synth sitting at it sat at the entrance. Each cell was small, only consisting of a small white bench and a toilet. Like the rest of the Institute, the whole place was sparkling clean and a clinical white.

Mirra and I were quickly shoved into an open cell. I turned around just in time to see one of the Coursers slam the cell door shut and move away. Azar sneered at us through the bars before turning and stalking away.

Once the door had closed, the hoof cuffs around my fore hooves made a loud click and popped open, dropping heavily to the floor. The magical restriction ring that Mirra and I had on our horn’s remained.

I glanced back up from my hooves at the sound of hoofsteps. My mother was slowly approaching us, her mouth pulled back into a tight frown. She stopped a few paces from our cell and took a quick breath. “I’m sorry we couldn’t give you a friendlier welcome,” She said slowly, her eyes refusing to look at us directly.

“This has been a rather shitty reunion,” I agreed grimly, glaring at her through the bars. “Do you want to explain what’s going on? Cause the last time I checked, you had been brutally chopped open and left to bleed to death in some back alley.”

I couldn’t keep the anger and frustration out of my voice. I didn’t even know why I was angry, she hadn’t done anything wrong yet.

Wait, that was a lie. She had done something wrong. A lot of things, actually. She was alive and well, living in the Institute. Furthermore, she was working with Azar, the psychopath responsible for murdering everypony in Stable 25. Then, as if that wasn’t enough, she had allowed us to be locked up in a cage.

Mother winced at my hostility. “I will do my best to explain in a moment,” She said coolly. “Glasswing will be here shortly. I’m afraid you will just have to wait until then.”

Slowly she turned and walked out. I wanted to scream, the frustration and confusion inside me threatening to burst.

When my anger started to cool, I began to make out the soft sound of sobbing. I turned and found Mirra huddled in the corner of the cell, her eyes puffy and her face streaked with tears. I mentally slapped myself for focusing more on my own frustration than the plight of my friend.

I sat down next to the small changeling and placed a hoof on her shoulder. “Hey… you, uh… you okay?”

Mirra sniffed and tried to wipe some of the tears away with a hoof. “W-why doesn’t she remember me…” She looked up at me with frightened eyes. Her hooves clutched desperately at the shard of white metal that had represented the existence of her mother her whole life. “Why… Why isn’t my mom my mom? Why is she yours?”

I shook my head. “What makes you think she’s your mother?” I asked skeptically. “Because right now I have no idea what’s going on and honestly, I’m starting to freak out a little myself.”

Mirra tapped the end of her muzzle with a gnarled hoof. “Ch-changelings differentiate each other by smell, it's how we functioned as a society when we all looked exactly the same,” Mirra explained, trying her best to keep her voice even, despite the tears. “She… she smelled like my mom… she was my mom… she…” Mirra broke down again, her words shifting into a wet burble as more tears raced from her eyes.

I took a deep breath, trying to steady my heartbeat and get a hold on my thoughts. The idea that it had been a changeling only pretending to be my mother made more sense than my mother resurrected from the dead, but something still wasn’t right. She had recognised me, referred to me as her daughter. Furthermore, she hadn’t recognized Mirra.

Something was going on, and I was missing the pieces. It was like trying to fit together a jigsaw puzzle that consisted of multiple different puzzles.

“We’ll… we’ll let her explain what is going on before we jump to any conclusions,” I said quickly, trying to steal myself. “Clearly there is a lot more going on here than we realise. Let's try and solve all this rationally, okay?”

Mirra gave another sniff and a quick nod of her head. “O-okay... Thanks Amber,” she slowly crawled forwards and wrapped her hooves around me in a tight hug. I held her, no longer overly concerned about her sucking the love from my body. That fear of mine had long since passed.

A few minutes later, the door to the prison area slid open and a changeling walked in. He didn’t look much different from most other changelings, with a dark insectoid body and a pair of blue glass-like wings with matching blue eyes. He was dressed in a white lab coat which he wore above a green sweater.

Behind him trod Azar. The dark grey and Violet zebra sneered at us as he marched into the room. His dark stealth cloak billowed around him slightly as he moved, making his entrance seem both grand and sinister.

Behind them both came Mother, her expression unreliable. She cast me a quick glance through the bars before returning her gaze to the changeling that led them in.

Mirra made a small squeak and pushed herself farther away from the approaching group and closer to the wall. Puffing out my chest, I put on my best brave face and took a step towards them.

“You must be Glasswing,” I said in my best casual voice as I addressed the changeling. “Are you the leader of the Institute?”

The changeling chuckled. “Leader? No, but for our purposes today, you might as well consider me that,” he nodded towards the synth standing by the door, indicating for him to shut it. He returned his gaze to me. “But yes, my name is Glasswing. It is a pleasure to finally meet you Amber Aura. you have been causing quite a lot of unease around here over the past few days.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “If you aren’t in charge, then who is?” I asked, hoping to talk directly to whomever was behind all of this. I wanted answers, and they were the most likely person to give them to me.

“The director, of course,” Glasswing said in an even tone. “I doubt you will be meeting them. No one has. Perhaps you saw the large black door on your way in? That is the director's office. No one has been inside in years.”

I raised an eyebrow at that. “Then… wait… how do you know there even is a director?”

Glasswing gave me another smile. “They communicate with us via synthesized messages ever once and awhile. Mostly, the Institute acts independently under my orders,” He flashed Mirra a small smile as well before returning his icy gaze to me. “But I think that is enough about the inner workings of the Institute, no? The two of us have a lot to talk about, starting with how you managed to get in here? It’s not very often that ponies manage to get into the Institute.”

I shook my head firmly. “I’m not answering any of your questions until you’ve answered mine,” I said with a huff. “And I have a lot of questions.”

Glasswing held up a gnarled hoof. “I don’t doubt it. I would be surprised if you came all the way here just for fun, but I’m afraid that isn’t how this is going to work. Perhaps we can come to an acord, hmm? You answer one of mine, I’ll answer one of yours?”

Azar snarled. “We shouldn’t tell her anything. This pony is dangerous. She is the reason our mission with Kamari failed.”

“Our mission with Kamari was successful, you saw to that,” Glasswing cooed, holding up a hoof to silence the zebra. “Amber put a wrinkle in our plans, certainly, but it has been amended and Kamari is no longer a threat to us. If anything, her involvement was an improvement in the long term,” He once again shifted his gaze to me. “Now tell me how you two found yourself in the Institute, if you don’t mind.”

I thought about that for a second. What harm could come from telling him that? So long as I didn’t give too much information away. Finally, I grunted. “We created teleportation devices. We teleported in.”

“No doubt with assistance from the Friendship Express,” Azar hissed, his eyes narrowing slightly.

Glasswing nodded thoughtfully. “Without a doubt.”

I pointed a hoof at all of them accusingly. “Now you are going to answer me,” My hoof shifted to point at Mother. “Why is my mother here and not dead, how is she here, and why does she apparently smell like changeling?”

“That was three questions,” Azar drawled. “Not part of the deal.”

Mother gave him a small slap across the back of the head, giving him a small growl. “Oh shut it, just tell her. She got this far, she deserves to know.”

Glasswing cast a glance towards Mother for a moment, raising one eyebrow before looking back at me. “I must confess, I was unaware of your relation to Shining Aura, though I suppose that with your resemblance and emergence from Stable 25, I should have put it together sooner,” He clicked his forked tongue against the bottom of his mouth as he tried to explain. “Eighteen years ago, your mother left her Stable hoping to find a way to save the wasteland. When she found the Institute, she saw it for what it was, ponykinds last hope of ever becoming whole again. She was so determined to help us and our cause, and we accepted her with open hooves.”

He glanced over at Mother to see if she had any desire to jump in and explain herself, but she just stood behind him silently.

“Okay, so that explains why she’s here…” I said slowly, rolling the information around in my head. “But everything I asked is still in question. How is she alive exactly?”

“I’m not,” Mother finally said, breaking her silence in the story. “I wanted to help the Institute as much as I could, but I was no scientist. At this point in the Institute, the creation of Synths was well under way and both first and second generation synths were in production, but generation three synths still needed work.”

“As I am sure you have observed, generation three synths are designed to look and act like ponies. Despite what you may see here, and the clear technological improvements we have over the rest of the wasteland, the Institute cannot risk sending our own changelings to the surface nor do we have enough to spar even if we could. So instead we had to make our spies, and the best spies are ones that don’t even realise they are one,” Glasswing injected, his face stoic. “We needed to create a synthetic brain that could take on the mind and consciousness of any pony we place in it. The end result involved heavily augmented memory orbs, but the original versions needed to be tested on pony brains to get a true and flawless result.”

“Specifically,” Mother added, her voice raising slightly to be heard. “A pony and a changeling mind combined.”

I was quickly starting to get a picture of what was happening. “So, you took the mind of my mother and put it into the body of a changeling to… to what? Perfect the synth making process?”

Glasswing nodded. “Not just any changeling would have done either. I take no pride in saying this as a changeling myself, but changeling minds tend to be fairly susceptible, as we were once a part of a hive mind species. No, we needed a changeling queen to make the fusion. And Queen Insecta was willing to make the sacrifice.”

“Changeling reproduction had become completely bioengineered at this point to keep from over or under population, so Insecta’s purpose and continuation as the queen of the changelings had become very illogical, especially considering she was ranked below both the Director and Glasswing within the Institute and was neither Scientist or engineer,” Mother explained. “The Experimentation on the two of our minds properly created the layout of the brains for the third generation synth. I... er… your mother is gone on a technical level, but I’m still here. I’m still your mother.”

“But you aren’t mine!” A voice snarled from behind me. I turned to see Mirra standing on the small bench, her face dripping with tears and twisted into a growl. “I… I searched the entire wasteland for you! And now you’re… you’re telling me she’s just gone!” The small changeling hopped off the bench and stalked towards the bars of the cage, her eyes glaring daggers at all of them.

Azar poked at one of the bars of the cage in front of Mirra with a hoof, inciting Mirra to snap at him. He quickly pulled his hoof away, chuckling. “Ah, I had almost forgotten about the little changeling. I had noticed you in the MAS tower. I considered killing you, but I was more preoccupied by your companion at the time.”

Glasswing let his muzzle twitch as he quickly sniffed the air. “Ah, you must be the missing Changeling. An infant changeling went missing from the Institute shortly before Insecta underwent her transformation into Shining Aura,” His face grew sad. “I am sorry to inform you that your search for your mother was in vain. Your mother, despite being alive physically, has not been among us for quite some time now.”

Mirra took a shaky step back. She had already known her mother was gone, but Glasswing’s words made the truth suddenly all too real. She turned her back to the bars of the cage and slumped down against the back wall, her head hanging between her hooves.

I turned and snarled at Glasswing. Did he not realise what he had done!? Finding her mother had been everything to Mirra. To have that suddenly ripped away from her like that…

“I think that about answers all your questions, now if you don’t mind…” Glasswing started, but I cut him off with a low growl.

“You ignored a part of my question,” I snarled, arching my back as if I were preparing to attack him. “I understand why my mother is here, and why she is inhabiting the body of a changeling, but you never told me why my mother was found sliced open and bleeding out in some back alley in the wasteland!”

Glasswing took a nervous step back. His eyes flickered around, as if searching for an appropriate answer to the question. “Well… I…”

“It was my idea,” Mother finally said, taking a step forward. For this first time since putting me in the cage, she let herself look me in the eye. “I knew your father would send ponies from the Stable to find me. I knew he’d keep sending ponies until he did. I couldn’t let him do that… not until the Institute had made the world a safe place for you to grow up in. I instructed the Institute to have my body placed close to the entrance of Stable 25. I told them to make it look like raiders…”

My stomach dropped and a lump formed in my throat. “You… told them to kill you…”

Mother nodded. “To kill my body at least. My mind was kept and preserved within Queen Insecta. What makes us ponies is who we are, not the body we inhabit.”

Glasswing cleared his throat. “Uh, yes. Thank you for summing that up Aura,” he let his eyes look me over nervously before putting back on his fake looking smile. “Now that that is out of the way, I wish to speak with you in private Amber Aura.”

I shook my head. “You’ll have to wait in line. I want to talk to her in private first,” I jabbed a hoof at Mother. She winced as the hoof levelled at her eyes, but didn’t say anything.

Glasswing took a deep breath, trying to keep his composure despite clearly growing frustrated with my constant inability to cooperate with him. He leaned over to Mother and whispered into her ear. His words were quiet, but he seemed to be speaking softly more out of an attempt to comfort her, than to hide his words from us. “Talk with them, perhaps she will be more cooperative with what I need of them if you do.”

Mother raised an eyebrow at him. “I don’t want Amber or the small changeling hurt, Glasswing. Understand?”

Glasswing nodded. “Perish the thought. I have something else in mind,” He turned back to face the cage. “You have ten minutes together. Then I expect you to listen,” Quickly, he turned on his hooves and marched out, Azar following closely behind. The zebra cast me one more glance before darting out the door.

I shifted my gaze from the door to Mother. I stared at her for a long moment, not knowing what to say. Finally I sighed. “Surely you must understand that you have put me in a particularly emotionally confusing spot right now.”

Mother grimaced. “I’m sorry Amber. I never thought you would have been able to find me here… how is your father?”

I stared at her, working my jaw as I tried to figure out what to say. “I’m guessing you haven’t heard about Stable 25 then?”

Mother shook her head. “The Institute had nothing to do with the attacks on Stable 25. They considered it, many times, but I always convinced them against it,” Mother said, her head bobbing slightly as she spoke. “We intercepted a teleportation frequency from Fillydelphia about seventeen days ago preceding the first attack on the Stable. Somehow it would seem Red Eye got his hooves on Institute technology. The second attack was reported by Azar as a strike set up by Kamari. When the zebra’s Kamari sent failed, Azar snuck into the Stable and stole the A.A.S.S.”

I had a bad feeling in my gut at her words. “And he never told you what happened afterwards?” I asked in a blunt tone. “About what he did to the Stable and the state Kamari’s zebras left it in?”

Mother shook her head. She was beginning to look nervous, seeming to realise that I was building up to something big. “I have tried to stay detached from it. My personal thoughts on the matter would only be a distraction.”

I gritted my teeth. “Father is dead. He died in the second attack on the Stable,” I said, my hard gaze forcing her to not look away. “Azar effectively killed off the rest shortly after.”

Mother slumped, her whole body going slack for a few moments. “He’s… dead?” she took a deep breath, pulling herself back together. She climbed back into a headstrong position, her face doing its best to look passive and not show the hurt behind it. “I suppose I should have known. I’m sorry, Amber. I wish I could have been there,” her eyes flicked to my cutie mark. A warm smile formed on her lips. “I see you got your cutie mark… not an Overmare one either, good job.”

I snorted. “I’m twenty mom, I’m pretty sure I would’ve gotten my Cutie mark by now. Lot of good it did me… All I wanted was to live up to dad's expectations… this cutie mark just made that impossible.”

Mother shook her head sadly. “Our family's Cutie marks are a curse. A spell created by Stable-Tec as an experiment to see if leadership like Celestia and Luna could continue if their death ever were to come to pass. Your father for instance never wanted to lead the Stable, he always wanted to become a painter. I’m not sure what I wanted, doesn’t really matter anymore I suppose. I’m glad you got the chance to be who you wanted to be, and not the slave of some spell.”

My eyebrows knitted together. “Our hereditary cutie mark… was a spell?” I felt confused just thinking about that. The fact that I had failed to inherit generations worth of the same cutie mark had always confused me, but now knowing there was a magical component to it made it all the more baffling. “Then… why didn’t I get it as well?”

Mother gave a small shrug. “Stable-Tec grossly underestimated how long it would take for the radiation on the surface to clear. Most Stables were only designed to house ponies for twenty or thirty years. It's entirely possible the spell was only designed to last so long, or that its effects slowly diminished over time. It has been two hundred years. That is a rather long time for a spell cast by a dead unicorn to stay in effect.”

My tail dropped. “Why did you even leave the Stable in the first place! I know you wanted to protect the wasteland but…” I felt my anger waver and my voice catch in my throat. “I missed you… I asked dad every day where you had gone for almost a year… I just wanted you to come back.”

Mother gave me a small smile that looked as though she was attempting to be comforting. “We are both here now. Perhaps we can start making up for lost time now that we are together again?”

I shook my head, finally dropping my gaze to look away from her. The idea was nice, but I knew that wasn’t going to happen. “No. You set out to help the wasteland, and so did I. but I think we have very different ideas of what helping it means…”

Mother hesitated for a moment, then turned to walk away. ‘Well, I think I will go get Glasswing. See what he wants from you two.”

I stomped my hoof on the ground of the cell hard enough to send a small shockwave shooting up my body. “Not yet! You’ve only talked to one of us! I think you need to say something to Mirra here.”

Mother glanced nervously at the small changeling who was sulking in the corner of the cell. She signed and lay down, bringing her head to Mirra’s height. “Mirra… that is your name, right? You were Queen Insecta’s daughter?”

Mirra gave her a small glance before limping over and resting across from her on the other side of the bars. “You don’t need to do this just because Amber says you do… I know you aren’t my mom anymore.”

I felt a pang of pain for my changeling companion. She was young, but she wasn’t stupid. She understood all too well what was going on, and I could tell it was tearing her apart.

Mother winced at Mirra’s rather blunt proclamation. “I suppose that is true. All the same, I am sorry I had to take your mother away. I would give her back to you in a heartbeat if I could.”

Mirra glanced away from her, before standing back up and sulking back to the corner. “Yeah… whatever.”

I exchanged a worried look with Mother before shaking my head glumbly. “Go get Glasswing. I think we’re done talking here.”

Mother gave a timid nod before turning tail and sprinting out of the room, clearly thankful to be away from the awkward conversation. I felt my whole body go limp as I let out a breath I didn’t realise I had been holding. I sagged against the wall as the emotional strain of the conversation flooded through me.

I looked over at Mirra, worried for her mental state. The small changeling lay with her back to me, her body curled up tightly against itself as she faced the wall.

I heard a small click as the door to the prison slid open for Glasswing. The changeling moved towards us and slowly came to a stop before the cage once more.

“I can only imagine what you have heard about the Institute on the surface,” Glasswing started, straightening the collar of his shirt with a black hoof. “Most of the wasteland doesn't fully understand the extent of what the Institute is trying to achieve. And what they do not understand, they fear. The rumours I am sure you have heard are as far from the truth as it gets…”

“Are you really about to try and convince me the Institute isn’t evil?” I scoffed, pushing myself back up to face him. “Really? What about all the body snatching? The slavery? You're telling me those are good too?”

Glasswings eyes widened slightly in confusion. “Slavery? What on Equis are you talking about?”

I just gave him a blank stare. “You enslave synths! You force them to work against their will, despite them being completely sentient!”

The confusion on Glasswings face melted to grim understanding. “I had forgotten that you had been in communication with the misguided terrorists that call themselves the Friendship Express. It is to my understanding that they have a pretty good way of twisting words to make us out as the bad guys,” The changeling said coldly. “But the Friendship Express is misguided. They meddle with things they do not properly understand. Synths, for all their lifelike abilities, are no more sentient than a toaster.”

I blinked at him. “But… I’ve met generation three synths. They have thoughts and feelings and…”

“Programming,” Glasswing interjected, cutting me off. “It is simply advanced programming, nothing more. Synths are not born from the womb of a mother. They are created in labs. Manufactured for the simple purpose of accomplishing the Institutes needs. These so-called personalities that the Friendship Express foolishly believes to be sentients are little more than glitches and can be shut off with the right combination of vocally spoken words. Something like that is not alive. Something like that doesn't have free will.”

That… sort of made sense. But at the same time, I felt like Glasswings take on synths was somewhat biased and blind to certain elements of what the Institute had created. Rubber Band had been more than just a malfunctioning synth. He had felt fear. Fear for his life, and fear of the Institute. I found it unlikely that the Institute had programmed that part of who he was.

Whether synths truly were sentient or not was arguable, but one couldn’t deny they could, at the very least, learn and adapt on their own.

I leveled my gaze with Glasswing again, my jaw clenching as I tired to think of what to say. “And the body snatching? Stealing ponies in the night and replacing them with doppelgangers? Are you trying to tell me that isn’t evil? Or are you just ignoring the facts?”

Glasswing sighed. “I do not ignore the facts, Amber Aura. I am well aware of what goes on here at the Institute. Replacing ponies on the surface, I’m afraid, is a regrettable, but necessary thing we must do to ensure the success of the Institute. But these so called evils that you accuse us off, are nothing compared to the other horrors that the ponies of the wasteland commit. I have seen raiders, Steel Rangers and Slavers. These ponies do not try to help the wasteland, they greedily take for themselves, rape and torture ponies for their own twisted enjoyment. You will not find this within the Institute.”

I gestured to the pristine walls around me. “If the Institute is so good, then why don’t you just help the surface instead of hiding down here? Clearly you could do some good if you tried!”

“Because the wasteland isn’t ready yet,” Glasswing cooed, silencing me with a hoof. “If we were to try to help the surface world now, then we would only be giving up all we have been trying so hard to achieve here. The ponies of the wasteland would destroy our gifts, ruin our creations. Over the past hundred years we have been able to create advancements beyond your wildest dreams. Imagine what we could do if we had just a few hundred more. Perhaps we can’t see the wasteland returned to the beautiful world of Equestria, but our great grandchildren might be able to see it brought back in its full glory, no strings attached.”

“This whole thing sounds awfully familiar,” I drawled sardonically, tapping my chin with a hoof. “Oh, that’s right. You’re just the Enclave in miniature.”

“Miniature?” Glasswing hissed, his voice rising at the end of the word. “Compared to those flying savages? The Institute is well aware of the movements of the Grand Pegasus Enclave. They would sit up in their clouds forever, with no real intention of swooping down to save the day. But the Institute does. The Institute has full plans to return to the surface. But only when we’re ready.”

“Just get to the point Glasswing,” I snarled. I was getting tired of the conversation. Glasswing clearly wanted something from us, and I’d be damned if I was going to let him convince me to work for him because of his dumb mind games.

“Ah, yes. Very well,” Glasswing huffed, his insectoid wings shifting slightly atop his carapace. He took a moment to regain his composure again before speaking. He held up his hoof, revealing both of our teleportation devices held aloft upon it. “You are unable to escape the Institute without these. In normal situations, I would never allow either of you to leave, our secrets are very important to us. However, this is not a normal situation...”

My ears perked. “You are offering some sort of trade for our teleportation devices?”

Glasswing hesitated. “I suppose that is a way of putting it. I need something done, and I’m afraid it isn’t something I can trust anyone in the Institute with.”

My interest had been officially caught, if only out of harmless curiosity. What in Equestria could Glasswing need that he needed us for? I leaned back a little, taking in his full person. “Alright? Go on?”

“Someone has been meddling with our Crusader Maneframe,” Glasswing started. He began pacing back and forth in front of us, his face filled with concern and thought. “The Maneframe houses one of the Institutes most valuable assets. An asset that will greatly speed up our work down here. Whomever was meddling with the Maneframe attempted to use this asset. I am unsure why or to what purpose, but I need to find out.”

My eyebrows furrowed. “So why ask us to figure this out? Surely there are enough ponies, changelings and synths down here to do that for you?”

Glasswing shook his head. “Only the heads of the Institute have access to the Crusader Maneframe, and even then, their access is limited. Whoever did this is either of incredibly high rank, or is smart enough to bypass hundreds of years worth of the highest level security ponies and changelings have been able to create. In either case, I doubt they were working alone. There is no one here that I can trust with this task. I needed someone who I know doesn’t have exterior motives from my own.”

“We are literally here on exterior motives,” I quipped back. “Aren’t we like… the worst possible candidates for this job?”

Again, Glasswing shook his head. “Aside from myself, you two are the only things in this facility that I am positive could not have accessed the Maneframe. Unless you two have been hiding around here longer than I thought. Though considering your last sighting outside was only half an hour ago, I feel I can rule you both out,” He thought for a second, then added. “Furthermore, all our studies of your travels across the wasteland show that you have a high success rate despite near impossible odds. All of our statistics suggested you had a four hundred in seven billion percent chance of escaping the MAS tower alive.”

I felt my jaw drop open at the numbers. I didn’t know how accurate their estimations were, nor how they got them, but those odds were incredibly low. I forced myself to close my mouth and reassert myself. “Okay, so what do you want us to do about this?”

I could see Glasswing’s smile widen. “I will give you permission to freely roam the Institute, under extensive supervision of course. In exchange, I request you talk to the heads of the Institute, see what you can figure out, and report back to me any findings regarding the tampering of the Crusader Maneframe”

Mirra’s head lifted from the ground so she could look over at us. “You are letting us walk out? As in, outside this cage and anywhere we want in the Institute?” She asked in surprise, breaking her silence.

Glasswing nodded. “As I said, with extensive supervision. You will be monitored closely by our surveillance cameras and I will have a minimum of three synths watching your movements at any given time.”

“And you don’t think the rest of the Institute would be suspicious?” I asked sceptically. “I mean, wouldn’t they have questions about the two of us simply walking around freely?”

“Not at all,” Glasswing replied with an even tone. “The Institute is massive. Most of the scientists here don’t know everyone and for all they know, you two might be a new pair of synths. I’ll give you both a lab coat and very few should question your presence here,” he looked us over for a second before holding up two plastic looking cards with the Institute insignia on it. “If anyone does ask, you can show them these. They are indisputable proof that I have given you permission to be present in the Institute… So, what do you say?”

He held his gnarled, black hoof out through the bars for me to shake. I gave the hoof a quick glare before taking a step back. “Not really much of a choice, is it. Help you or rot in a cell.”

Glasswings irritating smile only grew at that. “I’m afraid there is simply nothing else I could give you in return, not even answers. We like to keep our secrets close to our chest, you must understand.”

I hesitated for a second, glancing back and forth between his outstretched hoof and the curled up form of Mirra on the ground. “Let us think about it,” I finally said, taking one more step away from him. “This is a lot for both of us to take in.”

The changeling's smile faltered for a second, but he quickly put it back on and lowered his hoof. “Of course. I understand that this has all been a bit much. I shall return in a few moments to hear your final decision,” He took a few steps towards the door before casting a quick look back in our direction. “Do make the right decision. Your future, and indeed the rest of Equestria depends on it.”

Then he stalked out of the room, his pleasant mannerisms fading slightly as he ducked out of sight.

Grumbling, I pushed myself away from the bars and sat down next to Mirra. The small changeling didn’t do so much as respond to my presence. I looked down at her. “Well, what do you think we should do?” I asked, knowing we really didn’t have much of a choice in the matter. Mostly I just wanted to see if she was alright.

Mirra’s shoulder shifted slightly in a motion that looked mostly like a shrug. “I don’t know… I...I just want to get out of here,” She glanced up at me. Her face was still streaked with tears, but I could tell she was doing her best to put the thoughts causing them out of her mind. “B-but we can’t… not yet. We have things we need to accomplish first.”

I rest a hoof on her trembling shoulder, wishing I could appropriately applaud her bravery. “We still need to rescue Rubber Band, learn about the Utopia Program and find that terminal with all the data on synth deployment,” I said factually. “And I don’t think we’ll be able to do any of that behind bars. Glasswing is giving us a shot at doing all of those, so long as we try to do them while he’s watching.”

“Literally the first rule of Infiltration is to not do it while the pony you're infiltrating is watching you directly,” Mirra informed me with a small roll of her eyes. “And now you want to do all that while under the watch of a changeling with the perhaps the single most extensive security and surveillance systems ever?”

I gave a quick nod. “Yup. So how about it? Think you’re up for the challenge?”

Mirra stared at me blankly for a second before a smug smile crossed her face. “It sounds impossible, and that means it’ll probably be hard enough to keep my mind distracted from thinking about other shitty things that happened today. I’m in.”

I wrapped my hooves around her and gave the filly a tight hug. “That’s the spirit. Any plans for how we actually want to go about executing this insane heist?”

Mirra just gave me a crooked look. “I’m twelve… Why would I have a plan for that?”

I shrugged. “I’m an idiot that thought detonating hundreds of balefire bombs around me was a good idea.”

Mirra giggled a little. It was good to hear her laugh considering our situation. “Yup, we’re doomed.”

The door slid open a few minutes later, signalling Glasswing’s approach. I pulled myself away from Mirra and stood to face him. He was not alone. Azar stood beside Glasswing once again, his twisted grin leering at us through the bars.

“Your final decision?” Glasswing asked with fake sweetness.

I puffed my chest out a little and tried to look as imposing as a small, pink filly trapped in a cage could look. “We’ll help you, on the condition that we both walk free after all is done.”

Glasswing smiled. “Wonderful. Perhaps this experience will enlighten you on how valuable what we are trying to do here really is.”

“Don’t get preachy on me,” Azar scowled at the changeling, swiping his hoof over the lock on the door to our cage. The door made a loud clanking sound before sliding open. Azar turned his gaze back to me, his smile growing ever wider. “Are you ready to start working, partner?”

I staggered back slightly. “Wh-what do you mean by…” My voice caught as I realised what he was implying. I glared at Glasswing and pointed a hoof at Azar accusingly. “I refuse to work with this monster.”

“I want to ensure you do not go back on our deal,” Glasswing said simply. “Azar will make sure that you do not harm the Institute or our cause.”

I shook my head. “Then deal off. I will not work alongside this murderer!” I could feel my temper growing. This was the monster that murdered the ponies in Stable 25! He had worked with Kamari to destroy the wasteland! I wasn’t going to let him work with me!

Glasswing sighed and took a step towards me, moving past the bars and into the cage. “Perhaps I need to remind you of exactly what will happen if you refuse.”

I crouched into a battle stance, preparing to lunge myself at the changelings. “I already know. I’d rather rot in here than work with him!”

The grin on Glasswings face didn’t falter. A magic aura glowed brightly around his horn and he raised a small screen up for me to look at. My legs wobbled form beneath me and I stumbled to the floor when I saw what I was looking at.

The image on the screen seemed to be being broadcasted through the eyes of somepony. Whomever this pony was, they were inside the Friendship Express. The brick walls of the hidden bunker rose up around them and a few Friendship Express operatives darted around them quickly, going about their routines.

The pony was staring at Xayah. The zebra was slowly stumbling around the room, clearly trying to get her bearings on her new mechanical legs. She would take a couple steps before stumbling slightly and collapsing to the ground. She would quickly pull herself back up and continue walking. She seemed to be doing better than she had been since the last time I saw her, but she still couldn’t walk perfect yet.

I let my eyes stare in awe and horror at the image. “H-how did… what is…”

“We have many spies,” Glasswing smirked, his magic putting the small screen away. “The Friendship Express has taken us quite a while to locate, but thanks to some of their more recent activity, we have been able to successfully put spies in there as well,” His terrible smirk seemed to grow as the words continued coming from his mouth. “Failure to comply with my demands will result in the deaths of everypony there. Including the zebra and your other friends.”

That settled that, I would help with what Glasswing wanted. But it settled one other thing as well. Until now, my stance on where I stood with the Institute had been up in the air. They had flaws and had done cruel things, but you would have had to be an idiot not to see that they could do and would do a lot of good for the wasteland in the long run as well. But they had crossed a line. They had threatened to kill those that I cared about. Glasswing had officially made himself an enemy in me.

“How do you know you can even trust Azar?” I said, not bothering to stand up from my spot on the floor. “I thought we were the only ones in this facility you could trust?”

Glasswing gave me an understanding look. “Azar is an exception. He is loyal to me completely and fully.”

I narrowed my eyes. “How can you be sure though?”

“Because-”

Glasswing was cut off as Mirra decided to inject her own thoughts into the conversation. “Because he is a changeling general. I smelled him when we first entered the Institute. They have a specific scent, like rotting flesh and sulphur.”

I glanced back at Mirra, trying to remember what she had briefly told me about the different types of changelings. What was it she had said about Changeling generals? They were immensely powerful, designed for combat instead of infiltration, something about being restricted to a specific colour palette…

I let my eyes flicker over to Azar and looked over his dark violet stripes. The creature I had once thought to have been a zebra grinned at us. “Ah, it has been a long while since a wastelander has seen through my disguise. One would think the stripes would give me away, but ponies are so uneducated these days.”

Glasswing nodded. “He is loyal to the leader of the hive, which is me.”

Forcing myself to not look too terrified, I pulled myself up before Azar and glared down the Changeling General. I spotted a bit of twisted amusement in his eye as he looked me over. “Fine. I’ll work with him. But don't think I won’t try and kill you if you try anything.”

Azar’s cruel leer only grew. “You are welcome to try to kill me Amber Aura. You will fail like all those who tried before you, but you may try.”

I turned back to Mirra who was looking just as worried as I felt. Things had gone from nearly impossible levels of bad to straight up impossible levels of bad in a matter of seconds, and we hadn’t even started.

“You ready kid?” I asked, gesturing for her to follow me. Mirra fluttered her wings and landed atop my back, giving both Azar and Glasswing angry stares. My knees buckled slightly under her weight, but I managed to keep from falling with her on my back. How Pyre always carried her around was still a mystery to me.

Glasswing chuckled. “I will be in my office if you need me. Azar will know where that is. Though I will be monitoring you closely over the security systems, so I will most likely know what is happening before you inform me,” He turned and started heading towards the door, leaving us alone with the vile zebra...er… changeling. “I look forward to your contribution to our great cause. The wasteland is in all of our hooves.”

With that, he left. I felt like the whole world was slowly shrinking around me. There was no escape, and our failure ment the death of all of my friends. I dared myself to cast a glance at Azar, who had not yet looked away from me. His eyes locked with mine and his sneer grew to almost reach his ears.

“Well, Amber Aura? Shall we begin?”

I scratched at the lab coat that had been thrown over my body. I had refused to take my Stable barding off out of pure stubbornness, making the extra bit of fabric that now rests atop it feel heavier than I was used to. Mirra trotted beside me, a lab coat of her own pulled tightly around her. Despite the lab coat being a little too big, it seemed to suit her well.

Azar, surprisingly, had been nice enough to remove the magic reduction rings on our horns, not that my horn was capable of any particularly powerful magic at the moment anyway. I supposed if we were attempting to be somewhat discrete about what we were doing, then walking around with the telltale signs of being prisoners probably wouldn't be the best of ideas.

Glasswing had been right. No one questioned us as we walked through the large expanse of the Institute. A few changelings cast a glance in our direction, occasionally sniffing at the air, but they stopped almost immediately upon seeing the grey and violet zebra that walked along beside us.

It felt strange to be walking so freely through a place filled with my enemies. I had been almost certain that this mission would consist of a lot of sneaking. Granted, I would much rather have been sneaking through the institute than be stuck in this confusing situation.

“Well?” Azar drawled as he walked along beside us. “What are you going to do first, partner?”

I grimaced. “Don’t call me that. I’m not your partner,” I paused and thought for a moment. “How exactly does Glasswing know somepony tried to interfere with the Crusader Maneframe? That would probably be a good starting place.”

Azar’s eyes seemed to twinkle with excitement at the question for reasons I couldn’t seem to understand. “Maneframe maintenance,” he said simply, the excitement quickly leaving his eyes. “That terminals there overlook all the activity in and around the Maneframe.”

I glanced over at him sceptically. “Maneframe maintenance? Does the Institute have a whole area dedicated to maintaining the Crusader Maneframe?”

“The Institute has a whole wing dedicated to maintaining and running it, yes,” The Changeling general snipped quickly. “It does contain our most valuable asset.”

“So Glasswing said,” I rolled my eyes and turned my gaze towards the huge white spire of the Crusader Maneframe. Scootaloo had said that this specific maneframe was five hundred times the power of the other three, and I could believe it. I didn’t know much about the other three Crusader Maneframes, but something told me they weren’t nearly as wide as half a hoofball field. “What exactly is this valuable asset?”

Azar’s expression darkened. “That is classified.”

I rolled my eyes. “Of course it is. It’s going to be hard to help you ponies… er… changelings, if I don’t even know what I’m dealing with.”

“Oh? You intend to help us?” Azar scoffed, his voice seeming to drip with sarcasm. “Shall we pretend you do not intend to back out of your side of the deal the first chance you get?”

I stopped and looked over at him, my eyes narrowing. Mirra froze beside me at his words. “What is that supposed to mean?”

Azar rolled his eyes. “Please. Do not try to insult my intelligence, Amber. You two came to the Institute with a purpose. You would be a fool otherwise,” He replied mirthlessly. “I patiently await your sudden betrayal.”

I gritted my teeth. It felt like what we had to accomplish was getting harder with every passing second. How were we supposed to sneak behind some ponies back when they were literally waiting for us to do it?

“We should probably check the Maneframe first and foremost,” Mirra said, looking away from us and toward the large, white spire. “It’s obviously the centre of what is going on.”

Azar raised a single eyebrow into the air at the statement. “You do not wish to go to Maneframe maintenance first?”

I shook my head quickly. “I agree with Mirra, if we are going to learn anything, it's at the maneframe itself. Hopefully,” Azar seemed slightly frustrated by the choice, but he quickly nodded his head. “Does the Maneframe have a terminal attached to it?”

“All the terminals and logs will be found in Maneframe Maintenance,” Azar deadpanned, clearly suggesting we go there first. “But there is a terminal attached that will give you a basic rundown of the Maneframes functions.”

I gave Azar the slyest grin I could. “Alright then, take us there.”

Azar’s eyes narrowed for a second, clearly not enjoying me giving him orders. He grumbled and started marching towards the maneframe, his tail flicking at the air slightly in irritation. Mirra leaned in towards me the second he was out of earshot. “I don’t trust him.”

I nodded grimly, my eyes fixed on Azar’s back as he walked forwards. “You’d have to be an idiot to trust him. I doubt he is going to try and attack us out in the open here, not with Glasswing watching, but be on your guard at all times.”

Azar cast us an annoyed glance, noticing we had failed to follow behind him. Mirra gave me a quick nod before scampering up onto my back as I trotted after the Changeling general.

He led us forwards for a few moments as we moved across the large expanse towards the Maneframe. We wove between the beautiful botanical gardens the Institute had created, moving around trees and hopping over the occasional stream. A bright blue butterfly fluttered over and landed atop Mirra’s muzzle. The small changeling went cross eyed for a second as she looked at the butterfly before the beautiful creature flapped its wings and fluttered back into the trees.

I hated to admit it, but Glasswing was right about one thing. If the Institute had the power to bring a world like this back to the surface, all of this would have been worth it.

As we neared the edge of the garden area, my eyes landed on the large, black door leading to the directors quarters. The large, obsidian-like door loomed overhead, blocked slightly by the majestic foliage.

I gulped. Something told me that I would be going in there sooner rather than later.

Azar came to a stop at the base of the large spire-like Maneframe. He looked up, taking in the large machine before turning to address us directly. “Here it is. Don’t take long,” He grunted, pointing down to a terminal set into one wall of the maneframe. A large door rests beside the terminal, leading within the Crusader Maneframe itself.

Not bothering to thank Azar for his services, I pulled up next to the terminal and turned it on.

>Maneframe Overview

>Power Usage and Data

>Open Door [PASSWORD REQUIRED]

I cast a quick glance at Azar. “I don’t suppose I’m allowed to open up the door and take a look inside?” I asked hopefully. I had spent my whole life working with and maintaining machines in Stable 25. The idea of getting to look at this marvel of technology was getting me a little excited, all things considered.

Azar gave me the smallest of arrogant smirks. “Absolutely not.”

Pouting, I turned and opened up the Maneframe overview. I watched for a few seconds as green text scrolled across the screen before I started to read.

>Maneframe Overview

>The Crusader Maneframe mark II is perhaps the single most advanced piece of technology ever created by pony hooves. Running with five hundred times the power of the initial three Crusader frames, the Crusader Maneframe mark II is capable of using and harnessing a multitude of Institute projects.

>The Maneframe however, is not without its differences from the original models. Unlike the initial three, the mark II does not come equipped with any form of funcional AI system and is not programmed to make decisions and/or act on its own accord. That said, it is still perfectly capable of holding the imprint of a ponies mind or having an AI if one were so built into it.

>Head Director, Scootaloo.

I read it over again quickly, soaking in all the information. It didn’t seem to tell me anything I didn’t already know or that was overly important to what I was trying to achieve, but the fact that the other three Crusader Maneframes held AI systems was an interesting enough piece of info.

I looked down at the second option and clicked it, pulling up the ‘power usage and data’. Once again, a wall of green text swam before my eyes across the screen, though this time, there were significantly more numbers. I skimmed through the numbers until I found something that made some sense in it all.

>Power Usage and Data - All power safely directed

>Institute lighting and day and night system - Active - Stable - 0.26% power usage

>Institute air filters - Active - Stable - 0.31% power usage

>Institute synth creation - Active - Stable - 2% power usage

>Utopia Program - Inactive - Stable - 63.5% power usage - power redirected

I stopped reading further and just continued to reread that last line over and over again. I had known that whatever this Utopia Program was was within the Institute, now I knew for sure.

I glanced up at Azar, who had his eyes fixed on me with a stern expression across his face. I tapped my hoof on the screen, drawing his attention to it. “What Exactly is this, Utopia Program?”

“Classified,” Azar snarled, not bothering to look at exactly what I was pointing at. “It is irrelevant to your purposes here.”

I furrowed my eyebrows and looked back down at the terminal. “It says the power is being redirected to somewhere…” A thought crossed my mind. “I don’t suppose that this Utopia Program is the valuable asset inside of the Maneframe, no?” Azar remained silent, only confirming my beliefs. I sighed. “Alright, take us to Maneframe maintenance. I think we’ve seen about all we’re going to see her if we are restricted from everything.”

Azar let his stoic face twist back into a leering grin. “Of course, Amber Aura. Right this way,” He stepped aside and gestured for Mirra and I to follow.

I gulped and started trotting after him. I could feel Mirra tremble slightly atop my back. “I don’t like how he says your name,” The small changeling grumbled, shifting slightly as she tried to get more comfortable.

“Neither do I. I feel like he’s going to stab me every time he says it,” I agreed, walking back out towards the Institute gardens. “We need to figure out how to escape this guy.”

The Maneframe Maintenance was a lot larger than I had been expecting. I had expected something more akin to the small generator room I had spent most of my life tucked away inside back in Stable 25. Instead, Maneframe maintenance looked more like a giant white dome, filled with pristine terminals and large machines that I could only begin to guess the functions of.

It seemed the area was used for more than just Maneframe maintenance however. To our right stood a massive monitor displaying multiple scenes from across the wasteland. Like the video Glasswing had shown me, these surveillance videos seemed to be being captured through the eyes of ponies all across Manehattan and even beyond.

A small group of scientists rushed past us, almost knocking Mirra and I over as they bolted towards the screens frantically.

“What is going on?” One asked, their voice sounding both confused and fearful.

“Bucklyn Cross just went dark,” Another shouted back, moving over to the controls at the terminal. A bunch of the monitors went dark, each one going out in a small burst of light.

Interested, I trotted over, my gaze fixated on the large screens.

“What is it? Synth malfunction?” A changeling beside me asked, his voice startling me slightly and making me jump.

The scientist that had first spoken shook his head, still trying to get the terminal back on line. “I don’t think so. One second, let me just…”

One of the flickering screens grew, taking up most of the monitor. It showed through the eyes of a pony trying to pull himself up from the ground, both of their forehooves having been violently torn apart. They raised their heads, looking at the bloodshed that was happening around them. Gunfire was filling the air, the thick smoke from weapons fire making the hazy air impossible to see through.

The pony raised a gun in their mouth, I was unable to see what kind of gun, and limped up against the wall, firing off a few shots into the haze. An explosion burst through the thick fog, momentarily silhouetting a group of wastelanders that seemed to be battling against a small group of Steel Ranger scribes.

In the quick moment of the explosion, I was able to make out a small mare in Stable barding at the front of the group. My jaw dropped. Littlepip.

There was another flash, this time a rocket streaking towards the pony from a power armoured pony beside Littlepip I recognised as Steelhooves. Then the screen flared with burning light and went dead.

I sat there, staring up at the screen as the scientist started murmuring with each other. I had just witnessed something big going down, but I wasn’t exactly sure what.

I turned back to Azar, suddenly finding myself facing a few more eyes than I had been expecting. Two Changelings had flown in and landed beside Azar, each one of them giving Mirra and I an equally unsettling expression.

I gulped and tried to move past them. They let me pass, but their eyes never left me.

“Who are your friends?” I asked cautiously, my eyes flickering from the two other changelings to Azar.

Azar shrugged, gesturing for me to once again follow him. “Associate. None of your concern, I assure you.”

I cast Mirra another worried glance. I could feel my gut slowly clenching in on itself. Mirra gave me a nervous shrug before I allowed myself to continue following Azar.

We made our way up a ramp to one of the higher levels of the Institute. To my displeasure, both of the Changelings that had joined up with Azar were following us now. They didn’t follow directly behind us, but rather fluttered a few feet away, keeping us within their sights at all times. If I had had a bad feeling about Azar’s intentions before, I was positive now that he did not have our best intentions in mind.

A few cameras on the walls slowly tracked us as we passed. I had no doubt that Glasswing was up in his office somewhere, keeping close eyes on us.

Finally, we came to a door with a bright blue neon sign above it that read ‘Crusader Maneframe Overview’. Azar trotted over and typed a quick code into a terminal beside the door. There was a large clunking sound as a lock fell away followed shortly by the door sliding open. Azar trotted in, once more gesturing for us to follow.

I glanced up at the two changelings, hovering a few feet away from us. They were still there watching, but they didn’t seem to be planning on joining us inside the room. Grimacing, I turned back to the doorway and trotted in, carrying Mirra in with me. The second we were inside, the door slid closed behind us silently.

The room wasn't overly large. There was a decent amount of space to the back of the room, holding little more than a small sitting area and a terminal. The front of the room however held a large collection of terminals and monitors, most of which displayed images of the Institute. A pony and a changeling with a large scar on his cheek stood in the room, looking over their own terminals.

The scarred changeling looked up as we entered, his eyes lingering on Mirra and I before shifting over to Azar. His brow furrowed slightly. “Azar? What is going on here?”

Azar gave the changeling a quick nod. “Doing some work for Glasswing. We will take the room from here.”

The Changeling gave a quick nod of understanding and quickly fluttered to the entrance. He gestured for the pony to follow him. “Come on Monitor. Let's give them a moment.”

The pony I assumed was Monitor looked up, as if only now noticing our presence in the room. “Hmm? What’s going on?”

“Orders from Glasswing,” Azar said bluntly, his tone dropping slightly.

Monitor glanced over to Mirra and I. “Does this have to do with the security breach to the Maneframe?”

“Do you know anything about it?” I asked, not answering his question directly.

The pony nodded. “Of course, I was the one that found it. If I hadn’t shut it off, the Utopia program would probably have been completely redirected.”

Both Azar and the Changeling froze at Monitor’s words. No doubt he had just let slip something he was not supposed to. Azar growled. “Get out… Now…”

Monitor whimpered and quickly scurried out of the room with the other changeling.

I looked back at Azar. “So this Utopia program is irrelevant, is it?” I snarked, letting the smallest of smiles touch my muzzle. Azar just huffed and continued staring at me, not bothering to acknowledge my snide remark.

Rolling my eyes, I trotted over to the terminal and clicked it on, making sure to keep one eye focused on Azar. Something in his expression was making me uneasy, or at least, more uneasy than normal around him. I didn’t have time to read the terminal.

Mirra tapped my shoulder before shifting her hoof to point up at the ceiling. “A-Amber… There aren’t any security cameras in here,” turning from Azar fully, I let my gaze follow her hoof up to the roof and scanned the ceiling. She was right, there didn’t seem to be any security measures that I could see. Glasswing couldn’t see us in here. We were alone.

A quick burst of air against the back of my neck was all the warning I was given before Azar’s hoof lashed out and struck me in the back of the head. I stumbled, falling face first to the ground. I let out a groan of pain as I hit the smooth surface, the air being knocked completely from my lungs.

Mirra jumped back in surprise, her small, gnarled hooves skidding across the floor as she tried to ready herself into a battle stance. Azar was faster. He bolted across the room with lightning-like speeds, his hoof flashing out and striking Mirra across the neck.

Mirra gagged, her forehooves rushing to her throat as she was sent tumbling backwards. She slumped to the ground, breathing heavily as she tried to regain her breath.

I pulled myself back to my hooves. I let my horn flare with magic, only for the crack in my horn to send a jolt of pain through my body. Azar flashed back towards me, one of his hooves sweeping a memory orb off one of the desks.

He was fast. Too damn fast. Before I could realize what was happening, Azar had slammed the glowing memory orb against my glowing horn, forcing it into my magical aura.

I staggered back, my head spinning and the world fading as I was abruptly forced into a memory orb I hadn’t wanted to enter. I toppled to the ground, landing heavily on my side.

As the world began to swirl away, I saw Azar loom over me, looking down at my limp form with what I could only assume was mock pitty. “I cannot allow you to interfere with what we are planning,” The Changeling general cooed.

Then I was gone, drifting into the memory orb.

I was sitting in a particularly lavish looking office. It was familiar somewhat, despite the fact that I knew I had never seen it before. The walls were a dark oak and were lined with rows upon rows of bookshelves holding a large collection of ancient looking tomes. A few paintings hung on the walls, each one depicting a calming looking scene of Equestria. I spotted one painting of Canterlot, the massive castle looking beyond majestic as it lay atop the snow capped mountain.

Across from my host sat a familiar orange pegasus with small wings and a purple mane. Scootaloo. She fidgeted slightly, her movements reminding me a lot of Rainbow Dash when I had seen her in the meeting with Twilight and Luna. She was dressed in a black suit which in no way suited her messy mane and a pin depicting the Stable-Tec logo rested on her breast. She looked tired.

Scootaloo leaned back in her seat, peering at my host sceptically. I felt my host reach down and tap a talisman that lay on their desk with a silvery hoof.

A golden aura began to glow around a teacup on the table and floated over into the air before Scootaloo. “Tea?” I heard the aged voice of Silver Ace say from my host's mouth. When Scootaloo shook her head, Silver Ace gave a small shrug and placed the teacup back down with the glowing magic before picking up his own cup and taking a small sip. “This is about the Utopia Program, correct?”

Scootaloo nodded. “I think it’s ready. The A.A.S.S. has been properly tested and is ready for full integration into the maneframe. I’m not fully sure if the Maneframe can hold it completely yet, but we’ll have plenty of time to test it. Chrysalis is there now setting in the last few preparations.”

I felt Silver Ace’s lips curl up into a smile. “Perfect,” He said, his voice coming out in a low pur. His hoof swooped down and swiped an old, dogeared book off his desk before flipping it open. Through his eyes I saw him start to read through the first couple of sentences, but he was somehow reading far faster than I could even hope to keep up with. He quickly glanced back up, amazingly having finished the page already. “I truly am happy that you took such an interest in this project Scootaloo. It is unfortunate that your friends were less enthusiastic.”

Scootaloo gave a small shrug. “I have my own reservations, but I think Utopia can be something awesome in the right hooves. I just want this war to be over.”

There was a knock on the door. Silver Ace raised his gaze above Scootaloo and looked towards the noise. With his gaze now focused at the door I was able to make out its large obsidian-like front. The same door that leads to the director's office in the institute. “Come in?”

The door slid open. For a brief moment, I caught a glimpse of the Institute on the other side before the door slid closed again. Twilight Sparkle quickly marched into the room, a determined look across her face.

Silver Ace rose at her approach. “Ah, Ms. Sparkle. To what do I owe the honours of your…”

“You both need to come right now,” Twilight snapped, her voice stern. Silver Ace and Scootaloo exchanged a quick glance at each other. “It’s Chrysalis. She’s doing something with Utopia.”

Twilight couldn’t have said any better words to get the two of them moving. Silver Ace and Scootaloo were on their hooves in an instant. Silver Ace swiped his strange talisman off his desk quickly before rushing towards the door. There was a small pop as Twilight teleported from where she was standing to appear next to Silver Ace as he bolted towards the door.

“When did this happen!?” Silver Ace quipped, activating a terminal by the door and making the large black door lurch open.

“Just now. She’s locked herself within the Maneframe with Pharynx. They seem to have put up some sort of magical shield around it. No pony has been able to get in and the rest of the Changelings seem to be rallying around whatever is going on!” Twilight said, trying her best to keep up with Silver Ace and Scootaloo. Despite how magically talented Twilight seemed to be, she was clearly no athlete.

Across the expanse of the Institute, the looming structure of the Crusader Maneframe stood. A glowing green field of energy rippled around it and a swarm of black dots hoovered above it on all sides. As we drew closer, the swarming dots began to take shape. Changelings, lots and lots of changelings.

A crowd of ponies had formed a large circle around the towering Maneframe, some of them had weapons drawn, but most of them looked to be more scientist than fighter, and fewer had any weapons to bear at all.

Silver Ace and Scootaloo briskly pushed their way to the front of the crowd. “What is happening here?” Silver Ace demanded, striding to a halt before the pulsing green shield.

A beige pony clad in little more than a lab coat stepped forwards. “None of us have been able to get past the shield and all the changelings are ready to attack anypony that tries.”

I could feel Silver Ace gritting his teeth. I saw Scootaloo's worried face in the corner of his vision. “Why would Chrysalis do this? She seemed to be in favour of the alliance?”

Twilight teleported in beside them, slightly out of breath. “I doubt she ever really thought there was an alliance. We should have been more careful.”

Scootaloo’s alarm was continuing to grow. “She was doing something to the Utopia Program… She said she was doing some last minute preparations…”

Twilight glanced over at the orange pegasus in worry. “You mean Utopia is finished?” Her eyes widened as Scootaloo nodded in response. “What! Why wasn’t I informed of this!”

“It only just happened and…”

“That doesn’t matter now,” Silver Ace interjected, cutting Scootaloo off. “What we know is that Chrysalis is doing something in there and she doesn’t want us interfering. Chances are, that means we don't want her to succeed in what she is planning.”

Twilight gave a nod. “I already sent a letter to Princess Luna, but she is all the way in Canterlot. It could be hours before she arrives.”

“We don’t have that kind of time,” Silver Ace agreed. He glanced back up at the glowing shield. “Do you think you would be able to take down that shield?”

Twilight bit her lip for a second as she thought about that. “I… might be able to… It looks similar to the shield that my bbbff used to defend Canterlot when the Changelings first invaded. He taught me a fair bit about those, so I might be able to lower it for just a few moments.”

Silver Ace gave a nod. “A few moments is all we’ll need. Rally the rest of the unicorns and prepare to hit the shield with everything you’ve got,” Twilight nodded and teleported away. Silver Ace quickly turned to face Scootaloo. “Get everyone else ready for an attack. The moment that shield goes down, all those changelings are going to attack.”

“What about you?” Scootaloo asked, her gaze shifting from the Maneframe to Silver Ace.

Silver Ace sighed. “I’ll see if I can end whatever Chrysalis is planning,” Scootaloo gave a quick salute and bolted off. Silvar Ace turned back to face the maneframe, his eyes lingering on one of the many changelings before returning to the towering white spire. He gave another sigh. “Damn it… why cant peace just work for once.”

The ponies in the circle around the Maneframe began diverging, organising themselves into a more organised position under Twilight and Scootaloo’s guidance. A few moments later, Twilight teleported back to Silver Ace’s side. “Alright, everypony is ready.”

Silver Ace visually slumped as he readied himself. He glanced over at Twilight, his eyes weary. “Why did it have to come to this?”

Twilight gave him a sad smile that reflected his tone. “I wish it could have been better as well.”

Silver Ace sighed. “Alright. Drop their shield.”

Twilight's horn glowed. A second later, a powerful beam of magic shot from her horn, lashing against the green shield and sending cracks cobwebbing through the whole surface. A group of unicorns around her ignited their own horns as well, joining Twilight in her attack against the changelings shield. There was a loud pop, and the magical shield exploded.

At once, swarms of changelings descended, their curved horns blazing with green light as they flashed down towards the unicorns below. The earth ponies and pegasi repelled them, their weapons swivelling up and giving the unicorns cover.

Twilight turned to Silver Ace, her horn still glowing and her expression pained as she tried her best to keep the shield down. “Go! Now!”

Silver Ace obayed, darting forwards and rushing for the entrance to the maneframe. A changeling dropped before him, only to be blasted away as an earth pony shot at them. Silver Ace reached the terminal by the door to the maneframe moments before Twilight's spell faltered and the shield popped back into existence around the maneframe. Silver Ace gulped and glanced up at the swarm of changelings. They were averting their attention from the ponies below to the only pony still within the shield. Silver Ace…

Silver Ace spun and began typing into the terminal as fast as he could as the changelings began diving towards him. I focused as I watched Silver Ace type in the password to open the door in the terminal. Had I been in my own body, my heart would have started pounding in my chest.

That password couldn’t be that! Why! How! What did the Maneframe and the Institute have to do with...

I didn’t have time to finish my thoughts as Silver Ace bolted through the large door and slammed it behind him, blocking himself off from the changelings outside.

Now through the door, I was able to take in the massive machine from the inside. Massive pony sized gears lined the sides of the machine and huge wires as thick as my hooves ran up complex looking circuit boards. Rows upon rows of monitors and control panels could be found scattered throughout the Maneframe and a large metal catwalk traveled up the inside of the machine, giving ponies and changelings a way to navigate to the higher parts of the Maneframe.

Silver Ace stood on a small platform, below him lay a large glowing sphere of crackling golden energy. The sphere seemed to be glowing brighter and brighter, pulsing unstably as if it were a massive bomb about to explode.

Silver Ace jumped as the crackling sphere shot a bolt of energy outwards, scorching the catwalk near his hooves. He pushed himself as close to the wall as he could and glanced upwards towards the top of the Maneframe.

There I could see the sinister form of Chrysalis. She had plugged herself into the Maneframe somehow, a large headpiece shockingly similar to the mind control headpieces used by the enclave rested on her head and a bunch of smaller tubes and wires had been attached into her skin.

It was all starting to look scarily familiar. I was beginning to realise that whatever Kamari had been hoping to achieve in the MAS tower had simply been a cruder version of what the Institute had been building here. The large device Kamari had plugged himself into had been his very own makeshift Crusader Maneframe. Though from the size difference, I could assume that his hadn’t been nearly as powerful.

Chrysalis glanced down at Silver Ace from the platform far above him. Her mouth convulsed until it formed a leering sneer. “Ah, one little pony has come to stop me. Honestly Silver Ace, do you really think you can stop what I have put into motion?”

Not bothering to answer her, Silver Ace began racing up the catwalks. Beads of sweat were raced down his brow and I was suddenly made very aware of how boiling hot it was becoming within the Maneframe.

I could hear Chrysalis’ laughter echoing down from above. “Oh, you do?” He laughter continued for a few moments. “Pharynx, kill him.”

Something slammed into Silver Ace hard enough to send the charging earth pony stumbling down the catwalk and land heavily by the door. A bolt of energy once more shot from the glowing sphere below, making Silver Ace wince back.

A changeling dropped from above and landed before him. Since I had entered the Institute, I had seen multiple changelings, all of which looking exactly the same, if not for a few small discrepancies between them. But I had never seen a changeling like this before. Instead of an insidious black shell Pharynx’s shell was a dark grey and what would have normally been glowing blue eyes glowed an evil looking violet.

Silver Ace scuttled back to his hooves and took a step back, his hoof hovering over his talisman in anticipation. He glanced back up at Chrysalis. “You need to stop this! I don’t know what you’re doing, but it doesn’t look like the Maneframe can contain it! You’re going to blow us all up!”

Chrysalis sneered. “Oh? You don’t know what I’m planning? After all that you’ve done? After all that you’ve created?” The Changeling queen gestured at the maneframe around them, her horn glowing brighter with each and every second. “Us Changelings feed on love you know… The war was destroying us, driving us into starvation… and then you came along…”

I could feel Silver Ace’s legs locking up at her words. “M...me? What did I…”

“What did you do?” Chrysalis scoffed, as if the answer was staring him right in the face. “You created the key to our salvation of course!... And the weapon we needed to finally dominate pony kind… You created Utopia!”

Silver Ace took another shaky step back. “You’re going to use it to…”

“Now you catch on,” Chrysalis chuckled. Her horn flared and a blast of powerful energy shot through the maneframe. The shock wave slammed into Silver Ace, knocking him to the floor with a loud thud.

Suddenly the whole machine began to burst with life. Gears turned, sparks shot up the large power cords racing up the sides. Platforms and catwalks began to crumble and break away as the huge machine began to rumble and pulse with power. The huge sphere of glowing energy below seemed to scream with protest as the magic from Chrysalis’ horn mingled with it and made it radiate with uncontrollable magic.

Silver Ace pulled himself back up and once more tried to race towards the crumbling catwalks, only for Pharynx’s horn to glow and slam him backwards. Silver Ace’s head cracked against the metal wall, his vision splintering and a loud ringing filling his ears.

“You have been a valuable asset to me, SIlver Ace,” Chrysalis cooed from above, another powerful blast of magic pulsing from her horn and into the structure. “But I am afraid that you have run out of your usefulness.”

At her words, Pharynx lunged, his razor sharp fangs lashing at the elderly earth ponies throat. Silver Ace Rolled, only narrowly avoiding the Changeling general’s vicious attack. Before Silver Ace could righten himself again, Pharynx’s gnarled hoof lashed out and sent Silver Ace sprawling onto his front.

Silver Ace twisted, trying to reach for his magical talisman, only to find that it had been knocked away from him and now teetered on the edge of the crumbling platform. He dove towards it, his silver hooves reaching for the magical device.

Pharynx was too fast. The changelings forehooves slammed into his side, once more knocking him away. A powerful purple magic wrapped itself around Silver Ace’s throat and began dragging him into the air. Silver Ace squirmed, trying desperately to free himself from the constricting magical grasp.

There was a flash purple magic as Twilight materialized inside the Maneframe beside them. She took one look at what was happening and let her magic flare up, blasting towards Pharynx with a beam of magical energy. Pharynx was sent tumbling to the side, his magic dissipating as his concentration was lost.

Silver Ace dropped back to the ground, one of his hooves rubbing at his neck as he breathed in a large breath of air. He glanced up at Twilight. “How did you get into the…”

Twilight turned from him and glared at Pharynx as the Changeling generals slowly pulled themself back to their hooves. “A managed to drop the shield just long enough to teleport inside. Now go! Stop Chrysalis, I’ll hold Pharynx off!”

Silver Ace nodded and snatched up his talisman before he once again began rushing up the catwalks. Pharynx snarled and lunged at him, only for a blast of Twilight's magic to get in the way. The changeling reared back, evading the unicorns blast by a hair.

A beam of green magic shot down from above lancing towards Silver Ace. The earth pony careened to the side as the blast shot past him, searing off a few hairs on the side of his neck. He snarled and glared up at Chrysalis, who was looking down at him with a smug expression.

“What does one elderly earth pony hope to do against the queen of all changelings?” Chrysalis mocked, her horn once again sending waves of energy surging through the maneframe. Silver Ace grasped onto the catwalks railing as the powerful energy threatened to once more send him sprawling.

Silver Ace looked down as a massive roar echoed up from below. The glowing golden sphere was beginning to vibrate, arcing bolts of energy spewing in every direction. It was getting brighter, almost blindingly so, as if the sun itself was being contained within the Maneframe and was now threatening to burst free.

Trying to keep his resolve, Silver Ace pushed forwards. The catwalks were beginning to grow hot to the touch, the blazing light of the sphere below heating the metal up to a near unbearable degree. One hoof in front of the other, he began to climb.

Up above, Chrysalis raised an eyebrow in surprise as she watched him. Her mouth twisted into a grin and she chuckled softly to herself. “Try not to get yourself killed, old stallion,” The queen mocked, taking a small step forward. “Turn back now and save yourself from this humiliation!”

Silver Ace growled, his hoof tapping his strange talisman. “I cannot let you do this!”

Chrysalis laughed menacingly. “Oh please. Do not think me a fool like the rest of those pathetic ponies. I know of your real plans for Utopia are. You plan to use it as a weapon, just as I do!”

I could feel Silver Ace gritting his teeth, the power from his talisman flowing through his body. “I created utopia so we could finally have peace!” He pushed himself forwards again, fighting against the constant stream of magic that seemed to be pushing him back.

“Peace? Is that what you call it?” Chrysalis mocked, rolling her green eyes. “I think most ponies would have a very different opinion of your work if they knew your real intentions.”

I caught a glimpse of Twilight and Pharynx down below. They had both moved into melee range of each other and were now engaged in a deadly hoof to hoof battle, and Pharynx was winning. The changeling lashed out, knocking Twilight to the ground and sending her skidding across the platform towards the edge.

I didn’t get to see what happened next as Silver Ace finally pulled himself onto the top platform with Chrysalis. The changeling queen gave him an impressed look before letting a beam of green light lash out from her horn towards him. Silver Ace stumbled back, the magical blast burning off the hide on his foreleg.

Silver Ace tapped his talisman again, letting a blast of his own magic shoot towards Chrysalis. The changeling queen only rolled her eyes and tossed up a small green shield to block the blast.

“Please, what hope do you think you have against me?” Chrysalis chidded. The golden light from the sphere below began to glow from Chrysalis’ horn and eyes. “With Utopia, I shall create a world where ponies love us! We will drain the very life from pony and zebra kind! Even the dragons will bow to me! And my rule will continue on for generations!”

I could feel some magical grip grasping at the back of my mind. The world was getting hazy, as if Silver Ace was fighting against the urge to succumb to a memory orb. He rushed forwards, his talisman once again firing a beam of light towards Chrysalis.

Chrysalis sidestepped, easily avoiding the blast, but Silver Ace hadn’t been aiming at her. His magical blast flashed towards the far wall, striking one of the many control panels. There was a spark of blue magic and his shot ricocheted away before sizzling out.

Chrysalis laughed, her eyes following the pitiful blast of magic for a few seconds as it fizzled out. “Seriously? You of all ponies should know you can't destroy the maneframe! There is nothing you can do to stop what is to come!”

Silver Ace’s eyes turned to the glowing sphere below. I could feel his heart rate beating faster and faster inside his chest. The talisman in his hooves began to glow brighter. “You’re wrong… I think… Perhaps…” His talisman began pulsing in time with the flaring orb of light as he wrapped a telekinetic field around it.

Chrysalis took a step back, her eyes narrowing. “What are you doing?” Silver Ace didn’t respond, his focus transfixed on the glowing sphere. Chrysalis’ eyes widened as the glowing magic surging into her began to shine brighter, becoming almost as bright as the orb below. “What is happening!”

Golden light spilled out from below them, blasts of crackling energy slashing into the air and bursting into small explosions of blinding light. The light grew, filling their visions with blazing gold. I heard Chrysalis scream in pain, her cries echoing throughout the massive chamber.

When the light finally died down, Silver Ace opened his eyes and looked over to where the changeling queen had stood. Chrysalis still remanded standing, though much of her body had been burned away. One of her eyes had burst open, oozing yellowish sludge and blood dripped from her mouth. Half of her face had gone slack and her hooves shook as if she were now too weak to stand.

Chrysalis swayed back and forth for a moment, then collapsed to the ground, staring up at Silver Ace in hate with her one remaining eye. Her mouth opened and closed as she tried to say something. “You… Serve…” her neck went limp and her head slumped against the floor of the platform. Her remaining eye began rolling up into the back of her head, her expression glassy. “Serve… the… Cae-” her mouth went limp, a stream of blood flowing past her lips and oozing across the platform.

Chrysalis was dead.

Silver Ace stared at her for a moment, his breathing heavy, before he turned back and looked down at the platform far below. A small glittering purple shield slowly dissolved, allowing him to see Twilight Sparkle step out, looking relatively unharmed. Beside her lay the charred skeleton of what had once been Pharynx. He had defended his queen to the end.

Twilight glanced up at him, her expression grim. “Mind warning me before you do something like that?” Her horn glowed for an instant before she teleported up to where Silver Ace was standing. “Do you mind explaining what all that was about?”

Silver Ace shook his head. “I’m not sure. She seemed to think she could use the Maneframe to feed off the love of other ponies.”

Twilight's eyes narrowed. “Could she have?”

Silver Ace gave a shrug, though his shoulders felt incredibly tense and stiff. “I am unsure, though I doubt that Chrysalis would have acted, if she didn’t have a solid plan.”

The door leading back out of the maneframe slid open with a clang below them. Both ponies cast their gaze down to see Scootaloo strolling in. The orange pegasus looked up at them with confusion. “I’m taking it that since the shield fell and the changelings are currently looking for orders that you succeeded in here?”

Silver Ace gave her a quick nod. “Yes, though I’m afraid there has been a fair amount of damage done to the maneframe. I’m afraid we will have a fair amount of work to do before the Utopia Program will be ready again.”

Twilight raised an eyebrow at him. “Yes, and what exactly did you do?” She gestured to the large glowing sphere below them that was now glowing with only a moderate amount of light.

Silver Ace just gave her a smug smile before turning back to trot down the now ricketty looking catwalks, not giving her any form of answer. “We’ll need to do our best to get the maneframe functioning again as soon as possible. With it down, the Institute will be running on backup energy, but that will only last for a few days.”

Twilight cleared her throat and quickened her pace to catch up with Silver Ace. “While we are on that, I’m going to add a few more security measures to the Utopia Program. I don’t want something like this happening again. We have been too careless with who we trust.”

Silver Ace seemed to find that statement amusing for some reason. “Of course. We will have a meeting on updating the security in a few hours. I concur that we cannot allow for this to repeat itself.”

Twilight shook her head. “No.”

Silver Ace paused and raised an eyebrow at her. “What do you mean, no?”

Twilight trotted past Silver Ace, turning and heading towards the door of the maneframe. “Chrysalis came far too close to achieving something terrible with Utopia. If I am to ensure every ponies safety, I need to cover all my bases. Starting by making sure that no single pony can control Utopia without assistance. Not me, and not you.”

Silver Ace’s eyes narrowed. “This is my project! You can't simply lock me out of it! I’m the damned director of the Institute! You can’t just…”

You are the director of the Institute because Luna and I made you the director of the Institute,” Twilight snapped back. “As head of the Ministry of Arcane Science and co director of the Institute of Arcane Science, I am overriding your decision. I heard what Chrysalis said about your intentions for the Utopia Program. I don’t know how much truth was in her words, but until I know for sure, and maybe even then, everypony, including yourself will remain in the dark about what security measures are going to be put in place.”

She turned again, this time walking out of the room completely. Silver Ace snorted and stomped a hoof on the ground in irritation. Scootaloo glanced from the door Twilight had walked through over to Silver Ace. “What did Chrysalis say?”

Silver Ace gave the pegasus a small shrug. “A bunch of nonsense about weapons,” The elderly earth pony staggered past Scootaloo, his whole body feeling heavy. “Come, we have much work to do…”

I jolted out of the memory with a start, my head spinning. The orb I had been forced into contained a plethora of information that was beginning to form a much larger picture of what this elusive Utopia Program was in my mind. I was beginning to finally put together some concrete idea of what it could be, yet at the same time, I still had no clue of what it actually was.

I raised my head to take in my surroundings. Immediately, my eyes met with the large blue ones of Mirra. The small changeling was staring at me deviously from the other side of a cage. A cage that I seemed to be trapped within.

I squinted, my mind still a little hazy from the orb. “Mirra? What’s going on?”

“I’m over here,” a timid voice piped up from behind me. I turned to see Mirra sitting behind me as well, cowering as if the other version of her was the most terrifying thing in the world.

Confused, I turned back to face the things on the other side of the cage. Three figures stood leering at us through the bars. Mirra, myself and Azar. My eyes lingered on my doppelgänger for a moment as I pierced together what I was seeing.

Changelings. They had to be changelings. But… why?

As if reading my mind, Azar stepped forward. “Ah, Amber. I’m glad you are finally up? I think it’s about time the two of us talked, face to face. Not fighting, no lies.”

I pulled myself up and faced the changeling general. “What is going on here? We are working with Glasswing. Why are you-?”

“Why am I doing this?” Azar smirked, gesturing to the cage and our two doppelgängers. “Believe me, if it was as simple as killing you and having my changelings take your place, I would have done so. But alas, Glasswing is keeping a very close eye on you. And while he cannot see what goes on in this room directly, he is no doubt scanning the room for life.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “What does that have to do with…”

Azar rolled his eyes and cut me off with a wave of his hoof. “Glasswing has seen five living things enter this chamber. The three of us, and two changelings in the disguise of ponies. What he will see if both of you leave shortly thereafter, and two lifesigns still within the room. But worry not, I will ensure that you both meet a quick death once his gaze is properly averted away from you.”

“But why? I thought you worked for Glasswing? Aren’t you like… the only one in the whole Institute he trusts.”

Azar’s leering grin was unbearable. “Glasswing is a fool. He believes that just because he leads the Institute, that he leads the hive. But he is just a drone, just like any other. He has no idea what is really going on in the Institute.”

I looked back at Mirra, trembling in the corner of the cage behind me. “Then why not just kill Glasswing and get him out of the way? You seem to have a fair amount of changelings on your side,” I asked, the whole ordeal still confusing. Azar’s allegiance was becoming more and more convoluted by the second.

The changeling general’s grin faltered for a moment and formed into a snarl. “Because while Glasswing is a fool, and the changelings outnumber the foolish ponies that follow him, he is still in control of the synths and coursers. So long as he has followers and controls the synths, our victory would come at too great a cost,” Azar stamped one of his striped hooves. “But soon he will fall, and the leader of the hive will take their rightful place!”

I boldly stepped towards the edge of the cage, my eyes locking with Azar’s. “Who leads the hive? The director?”

Azar scoffed and turned from me, ignoring my question and addressing a changeling across the room I hadn’t spotted. It was the changeling with the small scar on his cheek. He must have flown back in while I was inside the orb. “Wait twenty minutes, then kill them,” Azar demanded, trotting towards the door out into the Institute. “Then dispose of the bodies. Drop them down the incinerator if you must. Don’t get caught.”

The changeling gave a quick salute. “Of course my general.”

Azar gestured for our doppelgängers to follow before quickly trotting out of the room. The changelings that had taken on our form gave both of us menacing grins before turning and following the Changeling general out, leaving us alone with the scarred changeling.

The scarred changeling trotted closer to the cage, giving us an annoyed look. “Be grateful Azar is so generous. He has ordered for you a quick death.”

I rolled my eyes. “Oh yeah. How thoughtful of him. Remind me to thank him when I see him again.”

The changeling gave me a sly smirk. “I like you. A shame I will need to kill you soon,” I bared my teeth at him, but it only seemed to make the Changeling chuckle. He turned his back and walked back to the terminal, shaking his head in amusement. “You’re adorable.”

I looked back and pulled myself over to Mirra. “Looks like we're trying to break an academy record for the amount of cages one can get stuck in within a day,” I joked, trying to lighten the mood. “Any ideas on how to get out of this one?”

Mirra shook her head. “No more than I did for the first cage we were thrown into.”

I inspected the door to the cage. It seemed to be locked by a terminal. Easy to hack if I could access the keys, but next to useless if I could only reach the back of the terminal through the bars. An idea crossed my mind.

“Alright, I got a plan,” I whispered quickly, making sure the scarred changeling didn’t overhear me. “I’m going to do a trick a pony taught me once, but it might take me a second.”

Mirra nodded in understanding before looking away and pretending that nothing was out of the ordinary.

I slinked up to the terminal and began fiddling with the back. There were three bolts holding the back panel of the terminal in place, but they were large enough that I was able to wiggle them around a bit with my hooves. That said, it would have been really nice to have a screwdriver right about now.

The first two bolts came out quickly. I swiftly placed them on the ground before they could fall and make a noise. The third bolt was stiff. I pulled it out faster than I should have, the small metal bolt falling to the ground with a clang.

The scarred changeling’s ear flicked up at the noise and he quickly turned to face us. His forked tongue darted from his mouth as he hissed at us. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing!”

He took a step forward, his curved horn glowing. I felt a ring of magic envelope around my neck and squeeze.

The door slid open and the pony I remembered as Monitor trotted in. The scientist pony froze as he took in the room. “Tarsus? What’s going on here?”

The scarred changeling I now knew as Tarsus groaned. “Damn it Monitor… I told you not to come back here,” The changeling let his magic drop me before rounding on Monitor. His horn glowed and a beam of energy shot out towards the pony. Monitor leapt to the side, only narrowly avoiding the blast.

Now free, I quickly moved forward and twisted out the last bolt on the terminal, no longer caring about making noise. The back panel of the terminal fell away, revealing the wires and circuits within. I quickly went to work with the method Salt Water had taught me for hacking terminals from the inside.

Tarsus was tossed against the side of the cage. The whole cage rattled as he was slammed into it, knocking me away from the terminal for a moment. Monitor rushed towards him, his hooves flying at the changeling in an attempt to attack him. His movements were rushed and sloppy, clearly a sign of a pony that hadn’t seen very much action.

I pulled myself back to the terminal and began fiddling with it. Tarsus glared at me as I began rewiring the controls. “Oh no you don’t,” I changeling scowled, his horn flaring with light.

Before he could attack, Monitor slammed into him, disrupting his spell and sending him staggering to his right. Tarsus’ horn flared again and a beam of energy lashed out, lancing straight through Monitor’s chest. The pony screamed, his cries muffled by the surging of blood in his throat as he collapsed to the ground.

There was a click from the terminal and the cage door slid open.

Tarsus tried to pull himself up, but before he could, Mirra darted from the cage and spat a large wad of green mucus into his face. The green slime clung to his eyes obscuring his vision. The scarred changeling staggered forwards, trying to swing at Mirra with his hooves blindly, but to no success.

I pulled myself from the cage and swung my own hooves at the changeling. My hooves cracked against the top of Tarsus' head, sending him staggering backwards and crashing into the desk on the far side of the room.

The scarred changeling shook and began to rise to his hooves, only for me to grab onto the back of his head and slam his face against the edge of the desk. There was a crack as the sharp edge bashed against the bug's skull.

But he kept squirming. I reared up and slammed my hooves down on his head hard, ramming his head into the table once more. This time his head didn’t just crack, it split. Blood oozed out from the large gash in his forehead as the changeling slumped to the ground dead.

I sat back panting. I could feel Mirra trot up beside me and cast a gross glance at the dead changeling. “You really scare me sometimes,” She said flatly, daring herself to poke the body with a hoof. She looked up at me curiously. “So, what now?”

I thought about that. We finally had a chance to sneak around the Institute without intensive supervision. I stared at the terminal resting on the desk I had just smashed Tarsus’ head on. “First let's do what we initially came here for,” I said factually, pulling myself over to the terminal and clicking it on. A bunch of files flickered to life before me.

Mirra cocked an eyebrow. “We can probably skip that, Amber. We can just find Rubber Band, the A.A.S.S. and the files the Friendship Express wants and get out of here. We don’t need to do what Glasswing wants anymore.”

I was pulled up short by that for a second. She was right, as my friends usually were. Now that we were somewhat free of Glasswing’s gaze, we had no reason to actively follow his orders. Then why was I feeling the urge to keep investigating?

Actually, I knew exactly why. It was a mix between my curiosity over the Utopia Program and the sinking feeling that something terribly wrong was going on. The memory I had watched wasn’t making sense. Back in the MAS tower, I had watched a memory orb of Twilight having her memory erased of the Institute and the Utopia Program. Chrysalis had been in that memory, or at least I thought it had been Chrysalis. So how could I have watched Chrysalis die before Twilight had been forced to forget?

An encrypted file on the terminal caught my eye. “You’re right,” I finally said to Mirra, my eyes still fixed on the terminal screen. “Just let me look at this one file, then we’ll go see about finding Rubber Band and the rest of those things.”

Mirra nodded. Her body was quickly submerged in a tornado of green fire as she transformed into a small yellow filly. She trotted over to the door and glanced out, keeping an eye out for trouble while I worked.

Returning my attention to the encrypted file, I clicked it open. A wall of near unintelligible text swam before me as I pulled up the data and searched for the password. Unlike most passwords, this one seemed to be less a word, and more a random assortment of letters and numbers. Finally, I found a password that seemed somewhat intentional.

cmc3bff.

The message opened.

>File encoded - Sent.

>This is Scootaloo to Stable 2. Sorry for contacting you through an unknown terminal, but this was the only room in the institute that isn’t heavily monitored. I just wanted to say, Sweetie, you were right. Something is going on here. The Utopia Program was supposed to be used for good. To fix things if they ever got as bad as were all afraid of. But I’m starting to get the impression that things are not as they seem.

>I don't think Chrysalis’ attempt to take over the Crusader Maneframe was a coincidence. Utopia’s purpose lined up far too perfectly with her agenda for that. And ever since I’ve been learning things. Things I thought I already knew. I’m second guessing everything I’ve created over the past few years and I’m starting to realise that all of those things can just as easily be used as a weapon as they could be for good.

>Utopia was a mistake. A very, very dangerous mistake. You and AB were right. I should have listened to you both from the beginning.

>I cant allow what has been put into motion here to continue. I’ve decided to hide away the A.A.S.S. in one of the Manehattan Stables. Stable 25. If anypony suspects anything, or asks you about it, just say it's a test to see if ponies can survive without the need for food or something. I guess that wouldn’t be a lie.

>Hopefully we never need to use Utopia, but if we do- if the war ends as badly as many fear, I want to make sure that Utopia is still a viable option. Sorry-

>Your friend, Scootaloo.

I blinked as I finished the entry. There it was, written out plain and simple. This was the reason for everything that had happened to me over the last few weeks. The catalyst that had led to the death of everypony in my Stable.

I took a deep breath and pulled myself away from the terminal. I looked over at Mirra, who was doing her best to look casual as she peered out the door of the room. “Alright, let's get what we came for and get the fuck out of here.”

We trotted into the synths creation wing, trying out best to look like we belonged. Disguising Mirra was as easy as it always was. She had transformed into a small, blue unicorn filly with a turquoise mane. I didn’t doubt that any changeling that got close enough would be able to smell her disguise, but that was of little concern to them. Changelings shapeshifting was probably as common down here as none shapeshifting changelings.

Disguising me was a little harder. I had pulled my hair back into a tight ponytail and had placed a pair of glasses I found over my eyes. It was far from a good disguise, but hopefully it would be enough to keep away from Glasswings ever watchful eyes while his focus was averted elsewhere.

If I hadn’t realised that the Institute was huge before, I definitely did now. The Synth Creation wing was massive, at least twice the size of the maneframe maintenance wing. Huge claw-like appendages hung from the ceiling, many of them at work as they knitted together synthetic flesh to a multitude of synths suspended in the air above us. The whole mechanism looked like a larger, sleeker version of the augmentation machine I had used to save Xayah’s life the day prior.

Rows upon rows of terminal lined the outer walls, many of them manned by a pony or changeling and a few strange metal chambers that looked like cryopods rest to one side of the room. A set of stairs led up to a large office overlooking the area with a large neon sign above it reading, ‘Overmare’. I got a strange amount of comfort from that fact that even here in the Institute, there was an Overmare or Stallion.

I leaned down to Mirra’s level so I could whisper in her ear. “See if you can find anything about the location of the A.A.S.S. or Rubber Band. I’m going to get into the Overmare’s office and see if I can find the records the Friendship Express is looking for.”

Mirra gave me a quick salute and darted off into the groups of Scientists without a word. I turned my attention back to the stairs and slowly made my way up to the Overmare’s office. The door slid open for me at my approach.

Within the room was a mare, dressed just like any other within the Institute. She had a lab coat over her shoulders and a pair of glasses very similar to the ones I was currently wearing on her muzzle. She looked up as I entered. “Hello? Can I help you?”

I nodded, holding up the card Glasswing had given me. “Yes actually. I’m here on behalf of Glasswing. Do you mind if I take over for a moment?”

The mare looked over the card thoughtfully for a second before giving a surprised nod. “Of… of course. Whatever you need. Do you mind telling me what this is all about?”

I shook my head as I trotted further into the room. “I’m afraid that’s classified. I’m sure you are well aware that we take our secrets very seriously here in the Institute,” I said, trying my best to think of how Glasswing might have phrased it.

The mares eyes went wide as if i had just accused her of murder. “Of course I understand! I’ll take me leave. I’ll be back in twenty.”

I gave her a small smile as she quickly darted out of the room. I might not like Glasswing, but I’d have to thank him for that if I ever saw him again.

I pulled myself up to the terminal and clicked it on. I grinned triumphantly as it let me in without asking for so much as a password. The Overmare had left it on.

I spotted what I was looking for at once. A file labeled as ‘Synth Deployment’ was one of the first things to pop onto the screen. Smiling, I plugged my pipbuck in and began downloading the file. I scrolled through the other Files as I waited for the download to complete. My eye caught on a single file.

>Shining Aura

I stared at the file, reading over my mother's name again and again. Finally I built up the courage to open it. A multitude of different logs popped onto the screen. The first entry however, was not a log, but a video file. Hesitantly, I clicked it open and watched as the screen flickered into that of an overhead image of the Synth Creation wing.

Several ponies walked in, all of which dressed in the classic Institute fashion. A group of five unicorns pulled something forwards with their magic. I narrowed my eyes as I tried to make out what they were dragging.

It was Chrysalis, or at least a changeling queen that looked shockingly similar. Her hooves and wings had been bound and a magic restricting ring had been tightly placed over her horn. She struggled, but her bound hooves and inability to use magic made resistance impossible. The changeling queen staggered and collapsed in the centre of the room, writhing as she tried to free herself from her captors.

Now in the center of the room, I was able to make out her features better. She looked like Chrysalis, yes, but there were differences too. Her mane was a dark algae green as opposed to Chrysalis’ greasy matt of blue and her eyes looked much younger.

Glasswing and Mother strode towards the collapsed changeling queen, a look of sad acceptance on their faces.

“Queen Insecta…” Glasswing started, his voice oozing with false sorrow. “Today, you are making a great sacrifice for the good of all pony and changeling kind.”

Queen Insecta pulled herself from the ground and spat in Glasswing’s general direction. “You can’t do this! I am your queen!” Her voice sounded almost identical to that of Queen Chrysalis, only distinguishable as a different changeling if you know she was one.

Glasswing stepped forwards, careful not to get too close to the raging changeling queen. “I can do this Insecta. You are no longer queen of the hive. Your purpose has long since run its course.”

Insecta scowled. “I have been queen of this hive since long before your time grub! I am Chrysalis’ successor! You cannot take that away from me!”

Glasswing gestured towards a pod resting against the far wall. I had passed it when I had first entered the Synth creation wing, but hadn’t paid it any heed. The unicorns began dragging the changeling queen into the pod and began strapping her in.

“You are going to become the template for the first true synths,” Glasswing declared proudly, thrusting one hoof into the air and giving off a smug looking grin. He turned to Mother who was standing silently beside him. “Are you ready?”

Mother nodded enthusiastically. “I am,” Slowly, she walked towards a pod of her own and began climbing in. A few scientists trotted over to assist her and make sure everything was in order. Mother looked down at Glasswing from the pod. “Once the procedure is done, please do with my body as I instructed. I don’t want my husband or daughter to come looking for me.”

“Of course,” Glasswing replied, his voice for once conveying what seemed to be actual sorrow. He turned to address the rest of the scientists. “Is everything ready?”

“I command you as queen of the changelings to stop this at once!” Insecta roared, thrashing against the confines of the pod. “Azar will have your head when he finds out about this!”

Glasswing gave her a coy smile. “Azar is currently on his way to a little trap I layed out for him. If he somehow survives the Balefire bomb, I shall have you simply inform him that you were complicit in my activities. I’m sure that will satisfy his worries.”

Insecta’s eyes were wide with fear. She thrashed harder against her bonds, trying desperately to free herself. It was no use. “I will have you killed for this traitor!” She shrieked, her screams muffled as the lid of the pod closed in around her.

Glasswing gestured to a scientist standing next to him. “Begin the procedure…”

The video cut out.

I stared at the now blank screen for a few moments, my mind racing a hundred miles and hour.

No… No! They… they couldn’t!

I clicked the file and watched the video again. Once more, the exact same scenario played out. It was horrible.

When Glasswing had told me what happened between my mother and Queen Insecta, I had assumed they had both consented to the mind transfer. No doubt how Glasswing wanted everypony to view the situation. But that’s not what had happened at all.

It was a violation. And evil that left me feeling sick and wrong.

I could feel anger rising up inside of me. How could my mother have done this!? How could she have agreed to something so evil!? I wanted to scream, but I didn’t dare risk drawing attention to myself.

Trying to find something to calm my spinning mind, I opened the first log in the file and began to read.

>Log #1

>Shining Aura has been doing tremendously well since her mind was merged with Insecta’s. Her mental state seems fairly stable, though she does seem to have a fair amount of difficulty sleeping. Falling asleep seems difficult and the little sleep she does get seemed to only make her more tired.

>So far she has been unable to use Insecta’s shapeshifting abilities, those she does show signs of having a changeling's heightened senses. I suppose only time will tell if she will be able to fully take on the abilities of a changeling queen.

>Log #2

>Surprisingly, Aura has been taking on a few of Insecta’s personality traits. She also claims to be experiencing memories that do not belong to her. My best assumption is that a small fragment of Insecta’s consciousness, or at least a small imprint of her existence in the mind, is still playing some role in controlling the body. I look forward to scanning her brain tomorrow for any sign of unnatural activity.

>Log #3

>Her brain seems fine, and I can find no trace of the body's previous inhabitant within. Everything points towards the process being a complete and total success. Most likely, any remaining fragments of Insecta’s mind will be washed away within a few months.

>On a separate note, Shining Aura has taken a particularly large interest in Azar’s recovery. There have been multiple eye witness accounts of her talking with the wounded general, though she denies having spent little more than a few minutes with him. I even bothered myself with giving her a second brain scan to see if she was lying, and she seems to be completely honest.

I was about to read the fourth log when Mirra fluttered into the room. I looked up as she slipped inside. “Any luck?”

She nodded. “Rubber Band is downstairs in the Synth reprogramming centre. Sounds like he’s been there for days. I don't know how much longer we have until they wipe his memories and reprogram him.”

I nodded grimly, glancing down at the terminal. My pipbuck had fully downloaded the file. I quickly unplugged it and looked back to Mirra. “I’ve got the files. Let’s get Rubber Band out of there and then start searching for the A.A.S.S.”

Mirra bit her lip nervously. “Um… I might have found that as well.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Why do I get the feeling you’re about to give me some bad news?’

Mirra’s expression looked nervous. “Azar was in this wing a few moments ago. He has it with him now.”

I groaned and rubbed my forehead with a hoof. “Of course he does… Why can't anything ever just be easy for us?”

“Th-that’s not all…” Mirra grimaced, bracing herself for what came next. “Your… er… my… uh… Mother was with him. They seem to be heading towards the Crusader Maneframe.”

I froze, a really bad feeling sinking in my gut. It was all feeling too similar to the memory Azar had shown me.

I looked down at the terminal, the logs about my mother still flickering on the screen. Glasswing had told me that Queen Insecta’s mind had been replaced with my mothers. I suddenly found that hard to believe. Conscious or not, I had the sudden horrible feeling that Queen Insecta was still lurking within that mind.

“Someone has been meddling with our Crusader Maneframe,” Glasswings voice echoed in my head. “Whoever did this is either of incredibly high rank, or is smart enough to bypass hundreds of years worth of the highest level security ponies and changelings have been able to create.”

“I cannot allow you to interfere with what we are planning,” The voice of Azar seemed to say in my ear. I could almost imagine his vile smile as he spoke the words. “The leader of the hive will take their rightful place!”

‘Aura has been taking on a few of Insecta’s personality traits,’ The terminal had read. ‘She also claims to be experiencing memories that do not belong to her.’

I felt my whole body go cold. My mouth opened and closed as I slowly pierced everything together. “She’s not who she says she is…” I finally said, a tremor racing through my whole body. “I don’t think she even knows…”

Mirra gave me a funny look, my words meaning nothing to her. “Amber? What are you talking about?”

I looked down at her, my face filled with worry. “I don’t think your mother is dead Mirra. I think she’s still inside there somewhere, and my mom doesn’t even realize it…”

Mirra’s eyes widened. “What!? Are you sure!?”

I felt my heart start racing faster and faster. “Two hundred years ago Queen Chrysalis tried to do something with the Crusader Maneframe… she tried to use something inside of it called the Utopia Program to dominate the races of Equestria and make her rule eternal…” My breath caught in my throat. I gulped and forced myself to continue. “I think Queen Insecta is trying to finish what Chrysalis started…”

Mirra took a step back, her own breath heavy. “She… but how? Didn’t her mind get erased?”

I shook my head and pointed to the terminal. “I think it was supposed to be, but these logs seem to suggest that some part of her mind survived the procedure…” I thought about my own head and how Crank and Inferno’s minds had been imprinted into them. Glasswing had told me that synth brains involved heavily augmented memory orbs, just like the cyber ponies had.

Mirra awkwardly shuffled her hooves. “There… um… there’s one more thing, Amber,” She said nervously. I glanced up from my hooves and looked at her. She shifted uncomfortably under my gaze. “There was somepony that wanted to talk to you…”

I stared at her for a second, trying to comprehend what she had just said. “Somepony… sompony in the Institute wants to talk to me? But how… I mean, no pony here even knows that I’m-”

I was cut off as a pony stepped into the doorway. My racing heart stopped dead in its tracks as I took in the pony. I felt some strange feeling in the back of my mind as I looked at them. My heart slowly began to beat again, this time at a slow and uneasy pace.

For the second time since entering the Institute, I stared at somepony who by all accounts should have been long dead.

I took a step forward, the action not done by my own free will, but by the mind of another inhabiting the far reaches of my brain. For just an instant, I felt as if Crank might take over my mind.

The pony before me was a mare that appeared to be only a few years older than me. She had an auburn coat with a beautiful orange mane. Her eyes were Amber.

“You remind me of her… you have her eyes,” I remembered Crank telling me. He was right, they were strikingly similar.

“Hello Amber,” Scarlet Dusk said softly, brushing a strand of her long, orange mane out of her face and looking at me with her sad eyes. “I’m honoured to finally meet you.”

Footnote: Four fifths of the way to next level

Chapter XXIV: The Heart of the Institute

“Whatever caused our fates to intertwine would never let them unravel.”

Joy.

The feeling was quickly spreading throughout my body, and I wasn’t quite sure if I knew why. The pony who was standing before me was not a pony I had ever expected to meet. In fact, I had been almost positive that she had been dead. Torn apart and left to die by the raiders of the wasteland.

Then again, I had thought the same thing had happened to my mother, and she was apparently doing just fine.

I took another involuntary step forward. Everything felt hazy, as if I were slowly sinking into my own mind and letting my body take over.

“How… How are you still alive…” I felt myself whisper. My voice croaked slightly at the end, my tone conveying the painful emotions bubbling right below the surface. “I saw your body…”

A few paces in front of me, I saw Scarlet take a small step back and cock her head to the side. “You… you did?”

Suddenly the haze went away and I stumbled backwards. I blinked the fogginess out of my mind and looked back at her. “I.. um… no, I never…” I had never seen her body. Why had I said that?

I felt a warm hum in the back of my mind. It was a familiar hum, but I wasn’t sure why.

Beside me, Mirra shuffled her hooves together. “I tried to convince her I didn’t know who you were, but she knows who we are somehow,” The small changeling said, her voice almost pleading with me for forgiveness.

I shook my head. “It’s alright… I know her… kind of,” I looked back up at Scarlet. “You’re Scarlet Dusk, right?”

Scarlet nodded slowly, moving into the room and letting the door slide closed behind her. “I am. How did you…”

“I’ve been inside of Crank’s mind. I saw you there,” I said quickly, my eyes looking over the auburn mare to make sure she was actually standing in front of me. “Crank told me he found your body. That raiders killed you…”

Scarlet gave me an understanding nod. “The Institute likes doing that. No pony goes looking for the dead once a body has been found. Make it look like raiders and no pony bats an eye.”

The hum in the back of my mind was growing again, sending warm feelings of joy shooting through my body. “She’s alive!” I seemed to hear Crank cheer from within my consciousness.”

Mirra’s muzzle twitched in the direction of the door. Her muscles locked up as a specific scent hit her nostrils. “Rotting flesh and Sulfur…” She muttered, her eyes widening. “Azar… We’re about to get company!”

I stiffened. “I thought you said he was heading towards the Maneframe?”

Mirra pushed herself farther away from the door as the sound of hoofsteps began echoing towards the room. “He was, but clearly he isn’t heading there now.”

Only taking a quick second to glance out the window onto the floor below, Scarlet swiftly moved across the room to a vent inset into the wall. “Come on, I know a way out of here. I’ll explain everything on the way.”

Wrapping the grate in the glow of her red magic, Scarlet pulled the grate aside and quickly ushered us in. Mirra scampered inside first, her small body fitting into the small tunnel with ease.

I trotted over quickly and looked into the small vent. It wasn’t very large, but all of us had fairly small frames. We would fit, but it would be tight. “You go first, I’ll close it behind you,” I said quickly, wrapping the grate in my own magic. My horn stung at the use of magic, but the pain wasn’t as strong as it had been over the last few hours.

Scarlet nodded and began pulling herself inside. “I’ll lead the way, come on.”

Following after her, I crawled into the tight space and began sliding the grate back into place. The second it clicked back into its spot, the door to the Overmare’s office slid open. Through the thin ventilation slats, I saw the dark grey and violet striped hooves of Azar. The Changeling general strode into the room, his stealth cloak billowing around him slightly.

I hesitated, watching him move into the room. I knew I should run, but some part of me told me to wait a few seconds and see what I could learn.

Two more ponies marched into the room; the two the changeling that were still disguised as Mirra and myself.

“I hate all this hiding,” The Mirra clone groaned, her inflection shockingly similar to my actual companions. “When can we take out Glasswing?”

Azar hissed at them, his forked tongue momentarily poking through his teeth. It was the first real sign I had seen that he was more than just a strangely coloured zebra. “Soon. Insecta is preparing the Maneframe now. And now that that idiot Monitor is out of the way, Glasswing will be blind to our activities inside of there. As soon as we take over the Synths, we will have enough power to ensure victory over the traitors.”

“And the Director?”

Azar snarled at the mear mention of the director. “That hermit has hid in his office for long enough. He cannot ignore me forever. As soon as that door opens, I will personally rip that bastered to shreds!” he seethed, his anger unmatched by anything I had seen from him previously.

“And what about Amber and the grub?” My doppelgänger hissed, their eyes flickering blue for a second. “They could be anywhere in the Institute by now.”

Great, so they were aware of our escape already. Just perfect.

Azar’s burning anger diminished somewhat, but he scowled anyway. “Amber Aura has been getting in my way for far too long. I should have realized the fool Tarsus couldn’t handle her,” He stomped a hoof and let out a low growl. He glared back up at the two disguised changelings. “I want you to send some changelings out to find them. We cannot let them roam the Institute freely. I’ll have a changeling disguised as myself join you shortly to ward off Glasswing's suspicions.”

My doppelgänger gave a quick salute and began darting out of the room, Mirra’s look alike following close behind.

Azar gave another scowl. His eyes flickered over to the terminal resting on the desk. Slowly, he trotted over and tapped the screen with a stripped hoof. Through the thin slats, I saw one of his eyebrows raise. “Shining Aura’s assessments…?” He suddenly whipped around, his eyes flashing with violet light. His muzzle twitched, sniffing at the air. “Ah… clever pony…”

Shit!

I began crawling backwards as quietly as I could, moving farther and farther into the pipe. Through the slats, I saw Azar come to a stop a few steps away from the vent. “I know you’re here, little pony,” Azar clucked, one of his forehooves scraping at the floor. “I can smell you…”

I had to get out of here now. I began moving back even faster. My pipbuck clanked against the side of the vent, sending out a small ringing noise. I froze, hoping Azar hadn’t heard the shrill sound.

My eyes met with a pair of glowing violet eyes peering at me through the slats. “Ah, there you are my little pony.”

Run! Running now!

No longer caring about making noise, I spun as fast as I could in the tight enclosure and started quickly crawling towards the dim red glow of Scarlet's horn in the distance. I heard a small boom behind me as Azar’s magic blasted the grate from the vent and sent the metal chunks scattering across the room in all directions. Some of the shrapnel flew down the tunnel, lodging into my rump and neck.

I yelped, stumbling slightly as I tried my best to keep rushing forwards. I could hear Azar grunting with frustration as I quickly bolted away and around one of the corners in the ventilation system, moving out of his line of sight.

“The Ventilation system! They’re in the vents!” I heard Azar's muffled shout bellow. I kept racing forward, not bothering to check if he or any changeling he might be ordering had given pursuit.

The three of us crawled along in silence for a while, the only light to see by being the dull glow of Scarlet's horn. She led Mirra and I through a maze of connecting vents and tunnels, and before long I was beyond hopelessly lost.

Finally, She came to a stop in front of another grate. I could hear the quiet sound of water behind it. Prying it open with her magic, Scarlet silently slipped out of the vent and into the space beyond. I heard a small splash of water as her hooves hit the ground. Mirra followed after her, stretching her glassy wings and fluttering into the air as she removed herself from the confines of the vent.

Pushing myself forward, I unsteadily pulled myself free and tumbled to the floor with a splash. We were in some sort of sewage area. The smooth walls were made of a metallic, dark metal and the floor had been obscured by water that rose to just below my fetlocks. A few different vents were set into the walls around us, leading off into parts unknown. Like the vents, the sewage tunnel was dark, lit only by the dim glow of Scarlet's horn.

“What is this place?” Mirra asked, hovering a few inches above the water. “A sewer?”

Scarlet nodded. “Yeah, I found this place a week or so ago. It runs under the whole Institute. I use it to get around without getting caught,” she raised one of her hooves above the water and tried to flick off some of the foul fluids. “It’s not the most pleasant place, but no pony comes down here and as far as I can tell, there’s no security.”

“I can deal with sewage water,” I said, pulling myself up and giving my body a small shake. “It wouldn’t be my first time trudging through it.”

Scarlet gave me a sympathetic look. “Sorry, it's been a long time since I was in the wasteland. When you spend so long in the Institute, you can start to forget how hard it is out there sometimes,” Her face brightened a little and she took a small step down the sewage tunnel. “Come on, I have a place we can rest for a bit just down here.”

I stomped my hoof, causing the water to splash around me. I gagged a little as a few drops found their way into my mouth. “Not so fast. I want an explanation on how you’re alive as well as how you knew who we are and how we were here,” I demanded flatly, refusing to take another step until my questions were answered.

Scarlet turned back to look at me, her eyes glancing up and down my body as if making sure I was safe. Finally she sighed. “Yeah… alright. I suppose I needed to explain myself anyway,” She trotted a few steps closer to me and sat down, the water rising up on her slightly as she lowered herself. “You seemed to know who I was as well. How much do you know?”

“Only what I saw in Crank’s head,” I said, sitting down myself. The water rose to only a little higher on me than it did on her. It was strange to be talking to someone whose height discrepancy with me wasn’t all that different. “I know you were Crank’s, um… lover. He rescued you from Fillydelphia in exchange for his own servitude. Past that, all I know is that he found you dead four years later. He said you had been raped and tortured by raiders…”

Scarlet's expression wavered. “Okay… yeah… that’s more than I thought you’d know to be honest,” She took a deep breath. “When Crank gave himself over to Red Eye, neither of us knew what we were getting into. I waited for him to return for two years, but when he never came back, I went out looking for him myself.”

Mirra fluttered down hovered a few inches beside my head, listening curiously as she spoke. Mirra had never actually met Crank face to face, I wondered how much of this she was actually managing to follow.

“I had heard rumours,” Scarlet continued, looking away and into the darkness of the sewage tunnel. “Ponies often talked about a group of cyber ponies, zealots of Red Eye’s army. They said they were led by a cyber alicorn named Crank. I figured that would be as good a place to start as any.”

My eyebrows knitted together as I listened. “Did you find him?” I asked, though I already knew the answer.

Scarlet seemed to smile at the question. “Things probably would have turned out very different if I had,” Her smile melted away. “But no, the Institute found me first.”

Mirra glanced back and forth between the two of us. “What did the Institute want with you? They don’t usually just pick ponies up out of the waste for no reason…” She glanced over at Scarlet worriedly. “Do they?”

Scarlet shook her head. “From what I could gather, they wanted to use me as a weapon against Crank if he ever posed a threat to them. As I’m sure you can imagine, I didn’t take very kindly to that.”

It made sense. Crank had been powerful. Probably powerful enough to make anypony on the receiving end of his wrath uneasy, no matter how strong they were. If Red Eye ever wanted to get rid of the Institute, throwing Crank and the rest of the cyber ponies their way would be a damn good way of taking them out. The Institute would have needed to prepare themselves, come up with a failsafe in case the worst happened. What better than a hostage their enemy would refuse to hurt?

“So they... what? Replaced you with a synth and dumped your body in some back alley when you refused?” I asked, my expression grim.

Scarlet's face was unreadable, but her voice conveyed everything. “They did it in their usual style. Dissected the body and took anything worth keeping, then staged a fake raider attack and made it look like I had been raped and tortured,” Her breath was heavy as she spoke. “I’m thankful that I have no memory of the incident,” She shook her head, trying to lose the griping thoughts of her own death. “I was under their control here for a while after that, a few years I think. I’m not really sure how long it was. A few weeks ago, while I was going about my usual routine in the Institute, I saw a monitor showing Crank having an argument with two cyber ponies I’ve heard referred to as Tripwire and Steelblade.”

I nodded. “Probably shortly after Red Eye sent his cyber ponies to attack Stable 25 and retrieve the A.A.S.S.” I said, my mind forcing myself not to dwell on the images of the now pink cloud saturated Stable laying desiccated below the ruins of Manehattan. “Knowing the Institute, they were probably going into a state of panic over Red Eye taking control of one of their greatest assets.”

“They start to panic whenever something doesn’t go the way they want,” Scarlet agreed. “It’s what makes the Institute so dangerous. They make damn sure then never mess up, and when they do, they throw everything they can into making sure they fix their mistake. Just look at how they react to renegade synths.”

“Like you?” I said, a small grin on the corner of my lips.

Scarlet gave a timid, yet smug smile in return. “Yeah, like me. When I saw Crank on the monitor, something in me broke through the Institute's programming. All those memories they put in my head and suppressed came flooding through… I freed myself, I suppose.”

“But how did you get down here?” Mirra asked, gesturing around at the dark walls. “I mean, you would have been in the middle of the Institute when that happened. Wouldn't somepony have stopped and reset you?”

“I panicked, that’s what,” Scarlet said with a small chuckle. “I freaked out and started running around. They tried to catch me, sure, but the lucky part about being a synth is that we don’t have any distinctive scent. Changelings have a lot harder of a time tracking us.”

“But what about the Coursers?” I said, one eyebrow raising. “Don’t they have a way to locate synths?”

Scarlet raised her forehoof and turned it for us to see. There was a large gash there that looked like it had just begun to heal. “I ripped out my location tag. Hurt like hell, but I got it out. They need to track me down the old fashioned way to get to find me.”

I took a deep breath. “Okay, so I guess all that makes sense. But how did you know who we were? Or that we were in the Institute at all?”

“The Institute has some of the most advanced surveillance systems in Equestria. They’re monitoring everything down here. Radiation levels, politics, wildlife, wastelanders like yourself…” Scarlet paused to let all that sink in. “When I first ‘woke up’ I started checking using their surveillance systems to watch Crank and his activities. When I saw you steal the A.A.S.S. from him at the Fetlock train station, I started following you as well. I’ve been keeping close tabs on you and your friends since.”

I felt my heart grow heavy in my chest. “If you’ve been watching us, I guess that means you saw what happened to Crank…” Saying the words felt gross in my mouth, but they had to be said.

Scarlet's face fell. “The… um… The Institute had a bunch of spies in Kamari’s cult. I saw the explosion. I haven’t been able to find him since. I assumed that…” She stopped herself before she could say anymore on the matter. I saw a small tremor race through her, but nothing more. “I… That’s why I wanted to meet you. I hear some of what you said to Crank before the end… I… I saw that you helped him turn himself around before…” She paused again, this time her voice catching in her throat.

I could feel my own face faltering. “He never stopped looking for you, you know. Even after he found your body,” I started softly, not really knowing what to say. “He loved you, even after everything.”

Scarlet’s chest heaved heavily as she took a long, deep breath. “I know… And I know he did terrible things while we were apart. I probably don’t know the extent of it, but I’m glad that he could find something to help turn him around, even if he never had the chance to make up for what he did,” She gave me a warm smile that made my heart flutter a little bit. “So thank you. I’m glad he met you, even if your experiences with him weren’t that great.”

The soft hum in the back of my mind was slowly becoming more akin to pounding. Emotions were welling up in the back of my head, joy, love, sorrow, fear, But I didn’t think any of them were mine. Crank was back there somewhere, listening to all of this.

I shifted my hooves slightly beneath me, trying to figure out how to say what I had to say. “Um… There’s something I should probably tell you,” I said slowly, trying to put together what I had to say in my head. “When I was in Crank’s mind, I saw more than just his memories…”

Scarlet’s ears perked up a little and she looked at me with a confused tilt of her head. “Oh? What else did you see?”

I bit my lip, still unsure how to proceed. “Well, it wasn’t me seeing things exactly. Crank’s mind had been augmented with some sort of memory orb technology. My exposure to him created some sort of imprint of his consciousness in my mind. A copy or something like that…”

I waited for a response, not really knowing what to expect. For a moment, I thought the room had grown incredibly dark, but I quickly realised I had shut my eyes. Not hearing anything, I peeked one eye open and looked at the unicorn in front of me.

Scarlet sat in the water before me with a look of shock across her face. Her eyes were wide and her mouth lay slightly open. The rising and falling of her chest had slowed to near impossible levels.

Mirra was gaping at me, her expression almost as surprised as Scarlets. It dawned on me that I had never bothered to inform my friends of Crank’s presence in my head. Or Inferno’s for that matter.

Slowly, Scarlet reached a hoof forwards and placed it on my chest, as if checking to make sure I was real. She closed her mouth slightly, but her eyes remained wide. “Can he… is he conscious in there?” She asked slowly, her tone masked by a flurry of different emotions. “Can… can he hear us?”

I pursed my lips as I tried to think of the proper response. “I’m not sure how aware he is of everything. This whole thing is just as confusing to me as it is weird, but I think he’s somewhat able to comprehend what’s happening. I’ve been able to talk to him a few times actually,” I paused as I felt the humming in the back of my head bang harder and harder against my subconscious. “And yeah, I think he can hear us right now…”

Scarlet’s already wide eyes only grew in size. She pulled herself up and took a small step back, before falling back to her rump, the water around us splashing up around her as she fell. I moved to help her, but she waved me off with a hoof, telling me she was okay. She looked up at me with hopeful, yet confused eyes. “Can… can I talk to him?”

I hesitated. Could she? I had no idea. I had done it twice, but I had been dreaming both times. When Scarlet had revealed herself to me in the Institute, I had felt as if Crank was going to take over my body, but he had quickly receded back into the depths of my mind after the initial shock, becoming little more than a soft and warm buzz in my thoughts.

“I… I don’t think so. At least… Well… maybe? I’m not sure,” I finally said, realizing full well that my answer answered nothing. “But he can probably hear you, and if not, I can relay everything to him when I do get the chance to talk to him again.”

Scarlet tried to stand again, only to once more fall back to the water. This time, I pushed myself forwards and helped her steady herself. “I… oh my… I… I never thought… I mean, I never stopped trying to find him… but… I was starting to think… I was stuck here forever... I thought he was dead and…” Her breathing increased and her whole body started heaving. I could tell she was starting to go into some sort of panic attack.

I pulled her in close and gave her a tight hug as the tears started dripping down her face. She trembled against my shoulder, her entire being shuddering as she was suddenly wracked with painful sobs. To my surprise, I found tears rolling down my own cheeks, though I was beginning to question if they were my tears at all.

A sentence formed in my mind, but the words were not my own. To me they meant nothing, but I knew that to the mare currently trembling in my hooves that they meant everything. I hesitated for a second, questioning if letting Crank’s thoughts dictate my actions was a smart decision. The idea of him taking over my mind was a terrifying one, all things considered.

The emotional part of my brain won. “I told you I’d come back to you…” I said softly, letting the words tumble out of my mouth.

I could feel Scarlet stiffen at the words. Slowly, she pulled her head away and looked me in the eye. From the expression on her face, I could tell she saw something in there that was not entirely me. Her lip trembled for a moment before she spoke. “When I saw you last… I never told you that I loved you…”

Another sentence formed in my mind's eye, but this time I didn’t have enough control over them to even consider stopping the words from coming out. “You didn’t need to,” I said, my voice sounding strange and foren to me. “I always knew...”

Then the buzz in the back of my head fizzled away and I was left feeling oddly empty, with a mare I hardly knew shivering and sobbing in my embrace. I gulped, patting her gently on the back as she continued to cry.

There had been a moment there, one terrifying moment, where I had not been myself at all. Crank, for just a brief moment, had taken control of my body and mind completely. I had become little more than a passenger in my own body.

I wondered for a second if that was what Queen insecta felt like. A prisoner within her own flesh, trapped and speechless while my mother walked around in her skin. The idea was a disturbing one that I quickly pushed out of my mind. I would have an emotional crisis about that whole ordeal later. Right now, we had other things to deal with.

The sound of hooves scratching across metal drew our attention to the many vents surrounding us. I saw Mirra’s muzzle twitch as she sniffed at the air. “We have changelings incoming,” She said quietly, her voice coming out as a frightened whimper. “Changeling patrol by the smell. We need to get out of here quickly.”

Scarlet nodded and pushed herself away from me, whipping away one of her tears with a forehoof. “Y-yeah. This way. I have a place we should be safe for the moment.”

Scarlet’s safe place was little more than a small maintenance room that branched off from the sewage tunnel. It was a small room, hardly big though for two ponies, let alone all three of us, though thankfully we were all fairly small. Much of the room had been taken up by large pipes and a generator that rested against the far wall. A terminal was hooked up to the generator, multiple wires trailed from the terminal and into the large machine.

“Welcome to my house,” Scarlet said grandly with a wave of her hoof, her sweeping motions mimicking her sarcastic proclamation. “It’s not much, but no pony seems to be able to find me here.”

I trotted in and looked around. It wasn’t much, but it gave me a strange sense of comforting nostalgia. It was different, sure, but also fairly familiar to the generator room I had spent my life hiding away inside.

“What’s this?” Mirra asked, tapping her gnarled hoof on the terminal that had been hooked up to the generator.

Scarlet gave off the slightest of grins. “That’s what I’ve been using to keep tabs on what’s going on in the wasteland and the rest of the Institute. I managed to steal it from maneframe maintenance back when I first went rogue.”

I looked the terminal over, marveling at the work. “Impressive. Did you used to be a mechanic or something? That's no small feat.”

Scarlet gave me a proud look. “Nope, but Crank was. Back before everything. He taught me a lot of what he knew. I never thought I’d need to know half of it, I just liked to sit and listen to him talk. It was one of the few things he would really open up about,” Her expression flickered and I momentarily saw the pain behind her eyes. “Even back then he was protecting me…”

“How does it work?” Mirra asked curiously. Tapping the top of the terminal once again with her hoof.

“It lets me look through the eyes of the synths and many surveillance cameras the Institute has placed across the wasteland, including those here in the Institute,” Scarlet explained, clicking the terminal on and showing off an image of one of the many, many desolate streets of Manehattan. “Most of the Institute's surveillance is in Manehattan, so I can see most of everything that goes on there, but I can catch bits and pieces of things going on throughout the rest of the wasteland.”

“I haven’t seen any surveillance cameras outside?” I said, tilting my head at the facts. “How did the Institute manage to fill the city with so many of them without anypony noticing?”

“Mannequins,” Scarlet said with a quick shrug, pushing a button on the terminal and shifting to a new view of the Manehattan ruins. “From what I can gather, half of the mannequins in Manehattan are all dormant synths with a disguise spell on them and the other half are security cameras.”

Both Mirra and I frowned at the news. Damn it, I knew there was something fucking weird about all those mannequins. I just never thought it was that weird.

“That’s a lot of synths on the streets simply awaiting orders,” Mirra said, her voice low. “That’s probably a large enough force to take out half of Manehattan without breaking a sweat.”

“Not sure if you noticed, but the Institute is huge. This isn’t even their ownly base. From what I can gather they have another location specifically for synth creation a few miles outside the city.”

I grimaced. Things were just getting worse and worse. I glanced over at the terminal. “I don’t suppose you can look into the Friendship Express, can you?” I asked hopefully. I had to know if Xayah was alright. A gnawing feeling had been slowly chewing away at my stomach ever since Glasswing had threatened Xayah’s life.

Scarlet nodded. “I had never been able to see them before. Then, just two days ago it would seem that the Institute located them somehow. Now their base is swarming with Institute activity,” She clicked a couple buttons as she started trying to bring up footage of the Friendship Express.

I could feel my heart sinking. Two days ago? That would have been around the same time that my friends and I had found the Friendship Express ourselves. I didn’t like how closely the Institute seemed to be monitoring my behaviour.

My heart leapt out of my chest as Scarlet finally pulled up the image. The screen showed Xayah, swaying slightly on her new, metallic fore hooves and looking up directly into whatever camera we were looking through. Whomever the Institute spy was, seemed to be keeping very close track of Xayah.

I took a few steps forward and placed my hoof on the screen, wishing I could reach through and hold onto the zebra on the other side. I desperately needed to see Xayah again. We hadn't even been apart for more than a day and I could already feel myself collapsing without her.

I saw Brisk across the room from Xayah signal her over, drawing her attention away from the screen. She gave the screen an apologetic smile and began trotting away towards Brisk.

“The zebra… You love her, don’t you?” Scarlet said, watching the image of Xayah walking away before turning back to Mirra and I.

I gave her a small roll of my eyes. “What gave it away?”

“You have the same look on your face that Crank did whenever he was worried about me,” She replied softly, ignoring my sarcasm. “You remind me a lot about him, you know. The good parts, I mean.”

“Funny, he said the same thing to me about you,” I chuckled, pulling myself away from the screen. Scarlet clicked another button, taking us away from the image of the Friendship Express.

“Anyway, I think this has all been enough about me,” Scarlet said after a long, pregnant pause. “Now I have questions of my own. What are you doing in the Institute, and how can I help?”

Mirra raised a thin eyebrow at the question. “Why do you want to help us?” The small changeling asked, her voice clearly suspicious.

“A few reasons,” Scarlet said, standing up before us. “First of all, you helped Crank. I want to repay that. Secondly, I get the impression that you don’t like the institute. Neither do I. Thirdly, I’ve been hiding down here for almost three weeks. This seems like a chance for me to escape.”

I nodded. Those were good enough reasons as any. “Alright, where to begin…” I said, trying to figure out how to explain everything that has been going on in a quick and efficient manner. “Essentially, we’re after two things. A synth named Rubber Band and the A.A.S.S.”

“I met Rubber Band briefly,” Scarlet said thoughtfully. “I think he’s still in the synth creation area.”

“They were preparing to wipe his memories and reboot him last time I checked,” Mirra said quickly. “I don’t know how long we have left to rescue him.”

I nodded slowly. “The A.A.S.S. is where things start to get really complicated. I think it’s inside the Crusader Maneframe with Azar and Mother. I think they’re trying to finish something that Chrysalis started two hundred years ago.”

Scarlet’s brow furrowed. “Mother? Are you talking about Shining Aura?” she glanced back and forth between us as Mirra and I exchanged a look. “Why would they be doing something a long since dead changeling queen failed to do?”

“We think Queen Insecta’s mind is still alive somewhere inside her body,” Mirra said slowly, clearly having her own reservations about the whole ordeal.

“Whatever Chrysalis was planning was intended to prolong her rule as queen of the changelings and dominate the other races of Equestria,” I explained, thinking back to the memory orb I had viewed. “Queen Insecta is probably trying to find a way to take back the hive from Glasswing. Retake control of the Changelings,” I thought about the matter for a few more seconds. “She probably thinks she can succeed where Chrysalis failed.”

Scarlet grimaced. “So what do we do? There’s no way into the Crusader Maneframe except through the main entrance, and that's locked with some of the most advanced security the Institute could come up with. And I doubt Azar would leave anything to chance, especially knowing you both are on the loose. There’s probably going to be tons of guards.”

“Not to mention Azar will likely be waiting for us inside as well,” Mirra added. “I don’t think any of us could take him on in a fight.”

She was right, there was no fighting Azar in straight up combat. He had fought against Crank and won, and that was not a feat to be taken lightly.

“And we will need to get passed the entire Institute to get there?” Scarlet added. She pulled up an image of the Institute on her terminal’s monitor. To anypony that wasn’t looking, it might have looked like nothing was out of the ordinary. To those that knew something was up, the issue was as clear as day. Hundreds of changelings had started gathering around the Maneframe. They were doing a good job at making it look like they were just going about their normal business and I’m sure that they all had solid alibis, but all I could see was trouble.

“We’ll take things one step at a time,” I said, realizing I had no idea how we could hope to get past so many changelings. “First we need to get Rubber Band to safety. For all we know, he might only have a few moments left.”

Scarlet nodded and trotted over to the door. She peeked outside for a second, checking to make sure the coast was clear, before gesturing for us to follow her. “Follow me, I know a way that should lead us right up underneath the synth reprogramming centre.”

Scarlet hadn’t been exaggerating when she said she knew a way that led right up under the synth reprogramming centre.

I pulled up below the grate and looked up into the floor above. At first I thought it was being covered by a desk or something, until I realized that what I was actually staring at was a pony standing right above us. I froze up for a second until I realized it wasn’t a changeling and probably couldn’t smell us.

I looked behind me at Mirra and Scarlet who were both doing their best to move up behind me without making any noise. Even the smallest of sounds might ruin our cover. I had learned that the hard way with Azar.

“Is he ready to begin the procedure?” The pony above me asked. I couldn’t see who they were talking to.

There was a small grunt of acknowledgement from somepony above that I couldn’t see. “It took long enough, but yes,” I could hear the clopping of hooves as the pony I couldn’t see took a few steps. “Rubber Band is ready when you are.”

The pony above us started moving, giving me a clear view of the ceiling above. Trying to be as quiet as logically possible, I began unfastening the bolts on the grate. When the last bolt was free, I propped the grate opened and peeked my head out of the vent to get a look at the room.

The room was clearly a sideroom of the much larger synth creation wing I had previously seen. Through the glass door to my right I could make out the huge machine making new synths by the dozens. Large machines covered in blinking red and blue lights lined the walls and two ponies stood at a terminal covered desk to my left, both of their backs turned to me.

A small platform lay beyond the desk. Atop it stood Rubber Band, his hooves clamped tightly to the ground and a strange looking device had been fastened onto his head. He pulled against his bonds as the two ponies in front of him bickered back and forth, his efforts bearing no fruit as his confines refused to budge.

Mirra poked her head up beside me and looked over the room herself. She glanced over at me. “Alright, what’s the plan?”

I shrugged. “If we had our weapons, I’d say shoot them now and get out of here before anypony else arrives, but since we are without those, things are a bit more difficult.”

There was a faint tapping sound below us and Mirra quickly popped back down. A few seconds later, Scarlet pushed her way up to peek out with me. She wasn’t large, but she was still a lot bigger than Mirra, making her need to squeeze herself up close against me to fit in the small vent.

“P-Please… stop!” I heard Rubber Band whimper from across the room. I looked up from Scarlet to the bound synth. He had stopped trying to pull against the metal clamps holding him in place and had taken to looking at the two scientists with pleading eyes. “Please… I-I don’t want to go back…”

The scientist pony that had been standing over the vent only a few moments prior gave a small snort of annoyance. “Get over it synth. Once we’re done you won’t even care anymore,” They tapped a button on the terminal laying in front of them. Instantly, Rubber Band went limp, standing erect only because of the bindings that held him in place.

I shivered as I watched him go limp. He had always seemed so alive. So pony. To see him simply shut off like that was beyond disturbing.

I felt Scarlet trembling beside me. I glanced over at her, noticing the discomfort in her eyes. “You alright?” I asked.

She gave me a sideways glance. “No… I’m not. I don’t ever want to go back to being their slave…” She uttered softly. “I don’t know how I can explain it. It's like they have complete control over you. Your body, your mind. They even control your emotions and thoughts… I never want to experience that again.”

I nodded grimly. “Then let's make sure Rubber Band never has to go through it again either. Come on…”

I quickly pulled myself out of the vent and crawled across the floor to get behind one of the large machines, making sure to be out of the two ponies line of sight if they were to turn around. Scarlet quickly followed after me with Mirra close behind her. Mirra slid the grate back over the vent before scampering across the floor to hide with us.

“This was the synth that was causing all that trouble? Yeah?” I heard one of the scientists say as they began typing on their terminal. “That one they caught in Tenpony with the Friendship Express Agent?”

The other scientist nodded. “Yeah, what of it?”

The first scientist gave a shrug and returned his gaze to the limp form of Rubber Band. “I just wanted to know why the director wanted to see this synth's memories,” they said casually, looking over their screen. “I mean, they haven't said anything in years and suddenly they are interested in some random renegade synths memories? Seemed fishy to me.”

“They were probably curious about that Amber Aura filly that’s been running around the wasteland. This synth was apparently in contact with her shortly before capture.”

I paused as I listened to them talking. The secretive Director of the Institute had been interested in seeing a memory about me? I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised. According to Glasswing, I had been causing a fair amount of uproar in the Institute over the last couple days.

Slowly, the three of us began crawling around the large machine to try and get closer to the two scientists. My stealth could use some work, but Mirra and Scarlet seemed to be experts at it. Mirra turned back and silently shushed me, as if telling me to be quieter would make a difference.

“I heard that Amber Aura is in the Institute right now,” the scientist responded, looking slightly concerned. “Rumour has it that she’s been walking around on a mission from Glasswing himself.”

I saw the other scientist’s mouth drop open. “Where the hell did you hear that?”

“You haven’t? It’s the talk of the fucking Institue right now,” He replied with a small shrug. “Shouldn’t be too much of a concern. Apparently Azar is making sure she doesn’t do anything she isn’t supposed to.”

“Yikes. I almost feel sorry for the filly,” the scientist nickered back. “That purple striped changeling gives me the creeps.”

I felt a tap on my shoulder and looked over to see Scarlet pointing towards a desk across the room. I was too far away to make out much of what lay on the table, but the focus of my gaze was caught on one very specific, thing. A shiny, white magical energy rifle.

I gave a nod and began to slowly creep towards the weapon.

“Stop! Reach for your guns and you’re dead,” I voice hissed. I flinched, thinking I was caught. I turned, expecting myself to be at gunpoint. Instead, I discovered that the demand had not been directed at me at all. Two changelings had marched into the room, both wielding and pointing magical energy weapons at the two scientists heads. “Get on the ground now!”

The two scientists spun around, their eyes wide. “Stinger? What the fuck is going on here?” One of them demanded, taking a bold step forward. They flinched back as the two changelings guns began to charge a brilliant blue.

“You are to relinquish your control over any and all sections of the synth creation wing,” The changeling who hadn’t spoken yet growled, his eyes narrowed into slits.

“On whose orders?”

Both of the changelings seemed to find amusement in the question. “Why general Azar and Queen Insecta of course. The rightful rulers of the hive! Not that traitor Glasswing.”

The two scientists exchanged worried glances. Some unspoken agreement seemed to pass between them as determined looks crossed both of their faces. Fast as they could, the two scientists reached for their weapons.

The changelings fired.

Blasts of magical blue energy lanced from their guns, each one striking a pony in the chest. Both scientists staggered, their eyes wide in shock and pain as the burning beams of light ripped through their lab coats and pierced their hearts. Just as quickly as the fight had started, the two ponies disintegrated into two piles of glowing ash.

I gulped. Word to the wise… don’t get hit.

Outside the doorway, I heard the sound of magical energy weapons firing. I glanced through the doorway and out into the synth creation wing just in time to see a hoof full of corralled scientists get dusted by a circle of hostels around them. To my surprise, it looked as if not all the creatures that had sided with Azar and Insecta were changelings. There were a couple of ponies amongst their ranks as well.

We were running out of time. Whatever Azar and Insecta were planning, they were springing it now. They had needed to take control of the synths before they could make a safe move against Glasswing. Well now they had, and to be completely honest, good riddance. I couldn’t have given a smaller shit about what happened to Glasswing. That asshole had whatever fate Azar had planned for him coming.

Of course, it probably meant bad news for me as well, but I couldn’t worry about that right now.

“To bad…” The changeling I identified as Stinger grumbled, poking at one of the piles of ash with his hoof. “I kinda liked him. I was hoping he'd just join us.”

“We can feel bad once we’re done. Once Insecta has completed her plan, it won't matter anymore.”

“What about the Synth?”

I paused, my hoof slowly reaching for the gun on the desk.

The changeling looked up at the limp form of Rubber Band. “What? The renegade? Just wipe his memory. We’ll need all the help we can get while retaking this place.”

Stinger nodded and began reaching for the terminal. It was now or never.

I jumped the last few inches, no longer bothering to conceal myself. The changelings jumped with surprise as I bolted into view and swung to face me, their magical energy weapons swinging up to aim at my head.

They were too slow. I Grappled onto the gun and sent two beams of blue light blasting their direction. The first beam lashed through Stingers neck. The changeling dropped to the ground, his gnarled hooves clutching at the glowing wound. A second later, his body crumbled away into ash.

The second changeling wasn’t as lucky. The beam of blue light flew through his eye. His remaining eye popped wide as magical blue fire burst through his skull and cooked his brain. He staggered back, his last shreds of consciousness wasted on staying upright. Then he collapsed to the ground, twitching and clawing at his boil covered face before finally stilling.

“Damn it! We got more in here!” I heard a pony shout from outside the room.

Shit.

Scarlet and Mirra had already moved up to Rubber Band’s sides and were quickly unfastening the metal bonds that held him up. I bolted over to the terminal and started scrolling through the options. Finding what I wanted, I quickly turned him back online.

Rubber Band jerked back to life with a start, his eyes wide and fearful as he looked down at me. “A-Amber? How are you… did they… wh-?”

“There they are! Kill th-!” A changeling shouted, rushing into the room. A blast from my magical energy rifle quickly silenced him, but it was too late. Two ponies and a changeling came pouring into the room, each one of them firing beams of crackling blue energy in our direction.

Wincing at the pain that shot through my horn, I ignited my magic and erected a thin magical shield around us as the beams of magical energy lanced forwards. I staggered slightly after each and every blast against the shield, their assault feeling like drums pounding in my brain.

“No time to explain! We need to get back to the vent now!” I yelled back at the synth as Mirra and Scarlet undid the last clamp holding Rubber Band in place. My shield flickered out for a second as two more changelings came charging in, their own magical energy weapons adding to the bombardment against my shield. Gritting my teeth, I flared my horn again and threw the magical shield back up around us, though this time my shield was noticeably weaker.

Scarlet pulled up beside me, her own horn glowing with red magic as she added her own power to my shield. The amber and scarlet light of our magic mingled, the shield slowly expanding as her strength was added to mine.

Grunting in concentration, I kicked the magical energy weapon I had retrieved over to Mirra who was currently cowering behind an already cowering Rubber Band. “Mirra! I need you to try and lessen their fire on us,” I shouted through gritted teeth. The throbbing pain in my horn was growing and the crack down its surface that Viscera had caused was beginning to feel like a burning spike being shoved through my brain.

Giving the gun a nervous glance, Mirra picked it up in her magic and turned it to face the incoming ponies and Changelings. Muttering an apology under her breath, she let the gun fire, sending blasts of magical energy streaking towards our attackers.

Her attacks were wide and poorly aimed, but they were enough. Our assailants scattered, no longer able to simply hold their ground and fire. One changeling was almost turned to ash as one of Mirra’s shots grazed his ear as he dodged.

No longer under quite as much presser as before, I pushed forwards, my shield keeping us protected from the few blasts still flashing towards us. Scarlet struggled beside me, sweat racing down her brow as she struggled to keep her own magic going.

“What are we going to do once we get into the vents?” Mirra squeaked, ducking as a blast of energy slammed into the shield next to her head. “Won’t they just follow us in?”

I scowled. I hadn’t thought that far though our rather unprepared escape plan. Scarlet made a small grunting noise beside me as her horn flickered from the exhaustion of casting the spell. “We’ll have to lose them once we are in the sewers, but we can't stay here!”

The edge of my forcefield moved over the vent. Rubber Band lunged forwards and pried the grate free, allowing us access to the venting system below. Mirra jumped down first, gesturing for Rubber Band to follow.

A changeling charged at my shield, slamming into the magical surface. I staggered, my face contorting as I tried to keep my magic from imploding then and there.

More changelings joined in on ramming into the shield as they lowered their weapons and charged us. The first two that slammed into the shield sent both Scarlet and I stumbling to the ground. We gave out yelps of pain, our magic flickering as it threatened to give out.

The glow on Scarlet's horn shifted from the shield, temporarily dropping her guard as she lashed out at one of the nearby changelings with her magic. The beam of red energy slammed into the changeling and sent them tumbling against one of the changelings beside them. An instant later, her horn flared back around the glowing amber shield and once more began aiding me with my protection spell.

“Go, now!” Scarlet shouted to me, pointing towards the still open vent.

I nodded and began quickly crawling forwards, the exhaustion caused by my spell making it near impossible to stand. I pulled myself into the vent, almost falling in face first.

Scarlet dropped down from above a second later. Her shield popping out of existence mere moments after she left its safety. Mirra’s glowing aura surrounded the grate and swiftly pulled it back into place.

“Run! Run now!” Mirra squeaked, pushing herself away from the grate as a changeling slammed against it from above. The grate shook and bent slightly under the attack, but held. Though I could tell it wasn’t going to hold for long.

Pushing past the pain that throbbed through my horn, I pulled myself up to my hooves. The world spun as I stood, disorientating me and making me fall back to the ground with a thud. Beside me, I saw Scarlet in a similar situation, her energy spent after maintaining the shield spell.

Mirra rushed to my side quickly, propping me up and trying to pull me down the tunnel with her. “Rubber Band! They need help!”

I saw a bit of yellow and rust brown flash across the edges of my vision, followed by the sensation of being lifted up into the air.

“Scarlet, can you walk?” I heard Mirra ask from somewhere behind me, but her voice was beginning to sound muffled.

I didn’t hear Scarlet’s response, but she must have said something, because we quickly began to move. With hazy eyes, I picked my head up and looked around. The spinning walls of the tunnel made my already dizzy mind lurch.

Behind us, I heard the booming sound of the grate being burst open as the changelings and ponies pursuing us began piling into the vent. I tried to raise my magical energy rifle to fire at them, but I found I didn’t have the strength. Instead, I found darkness quickly overtaking me. Black spots swam before my eyes and I felt myself drifting into unconsciousness.

I shook my head, trying to keep myself alert. It was no use. The darkness in my vision grew and consumed me, sending me into a restless sleep.

“...The minute we step outside, they’ll kill us,” Somepony said. I wasn’t able to tell you it was.

“But if we stay in here forever then we’re just as trapped in here as we were out there,” Another voice said, this one sounding significantly younger. Was it Mirra’s voice?

I let my eyes drift open. The small walls of the sewer maintenance room rose up around me. I blinked a few times, trying to get out the gunk that had formed in my eyes as I slept.

“I’m not saying that we stay in here forever, I’m just…” I heard the voice start to say again. This time I could recognise it as Scarlet’s voice. “...I don’t know. I’m still thinking about it.”

“How did you get into the Institute? Can we not get out the way you came in?” The voice of Rubber Band asked.

I turned just in time to make out Mirra give a small shake of her head. “Glasswing confiscated our only teleportation devices. They could be anywhere in the Institute right now, and they’re probably being guarded.”

I pulled myself up and began limping over to the group. “Hey? What’s going on?”

All three of them looked up at me as I approached. Mirra was the first one to respond. “We’re trying to figure out how to get out of here. But we can’t get to our teleportation devices and now that the sewers are being patrolled by more of Azar’s followers, moving around it going to be a lot harder.”

I sat down next to them thoughtfully, mulling the situation around inside my head. “We’re… we’re not done in the Institute yet either. We can’t leave until we have the A.A.S.S. I won’t leave it in Azar and Insecta’s hooves.”

“Well then that only complicates matters,” Scarlet said. “Because that’s inside the Crusader Maneframe with Azar and Insecta, and not only is that going to be heavily guarded right now, but there’s no way inside. Trust me, I’ve tried. The only way in is a near impenetrable door with the highest level of security that has ever been created by ponies or changelings.”

“Actually, I might…” I paused, my brow furrowing slightly. “I think I might know the password to get in.”

Scarlet gave me a blank stare. “You have the… how on Equis did you get something like that?”

I bit my lip slightly. “I saw it in a memory orb… I think... I think I can get us inside if I can get to the door.”

“Well that still leaves the issue of all the guards that are no doubt keeping the Maneframe Protected,” Rubber Band said, rubbing the back of his neck with a hoof. “Azar is going to be playing things carefully now that he’s finally in his endgame.”

“Then we’ll need a distraction of some form. Something to draw his forces away,” I said lamely, not knowing what we could possibly do to deter Azar. From the silence that followed, I could tell none of my friends had any ideas either.

Finally, Mirra spoke up. “What about Glasswing?”

I looked over to her in confusion, trying not to look too angry about just hearing the changelings name. “What about Glasswing?”

Mirra shuffled her hooves awkwardly. “Well… I mean… he’s on our side isn’t he? And there are still a lot of Ponies and Changelings that follow him, right?”

I narrowed my eyes at her. “Glasswing threw us in a cell, forced your mother into a body swap and threatened to murder all our friends if we failed to comply with his demandes. What part of that sounds like him being on our side?”

Mirra let her gaze drop. “Well he doesn’t want Azar or Insecta to win either, right? I mean, They plan to overthrow him. And while he might be a meanie, he does seem to want to help the wasteland. Even if he isn’t doing it the way we’d like. Besides, he has our teleportation devices. If we ever hope to get out of here, we’ll have to get them from him anyway.”

Scarlet nodded. “If we could get him to rally his own followers in an attack against the synth creation wing, it might force Azar to reduce his guards around the Maneframe to keep from losing his control of the synths.”

I scowled at the idea of working with Glasswing, but I couldn’t deny that they had a point. Whoever controlled the Synths had the upper hoof and control over the Institute. It was unlikely that Azar and Insecta would simply leave Glasswing taking back control to chance.

“Alright, so that might deal with the guards, but do you really think that Azar would have all of his guards simply leave the maneframe unprotected?” I asked, trying to keep track of what needed to be done. “Surely he’d leave some to keep anypony from stopping him.”

There was another long silence as we all let that sink in. After a few moments, Rubber Band Glanced over at the doorway out into the sewers. “We… We could open up the door to the director's office…”

Once more we all fell silent.

Scarlet gave a small chuckle. “From what I can tell, that door hasn’t been opened in over two hundred years. Azar definitely wouldn’t see that coming.”

“He’d have to go investigate,” I said, finally catching on to what Rubber Band has suggested. “Glasswing may make the orders, but the Director is the real one in charge of the institute. If Azar truly wants Insecta to retake her place as the ruler of the hive, he wouldn’t be able to ignore any movement pertaining to the Director. He’d be forced to send any troops not currently fighting Glasswing’s rebellion to investigate.”

Mirra glanced back and forth between us as our plan started falling into place. “Is that really a good idea though? I mean, we don’t know who the director even is? He could be anything from somepony working for Azar to a fully grown dragon.”

“What other choice do we have?” Scarlet pointed out. “But this does leave us with two new problems. Getting to Glasswing, and finding a way to open the door to the Director's office.”

“If Azar has taken over the Synths already, chances are that he's already made a move against Glasswing,” Rubber Band informed us. “I doubt he would let Glasswing simply roam the Institute freely.”

“There’s a vent system that leads directly to his office,” Scarlet said, almost smuggly. “I used it to spy on his activity sometimes.”

Mirra gave a small nod. “And what about opening up the door?”

“Glasswing would have a way in,” I said, grumbling as I realised that rescuing Glasswing really would be the only way of pulling this off. “He has to communicate with the Director somehow, through synthesized messages I think. If anyone has a way in, it’s him.”

“Then it’s settled,” Scarlet said, pulling herself up to her hooves. A grim look across her face. “Lets go rescue Glasswing.”

I pushed my face up against the grate to look out into the room beyond.

Glasswing’s office looked much like how I would have expected. Pristine white walls with a clinical looking desk and terminal in the center. A set of stairs led up to a small balcony where I could see what looked to be Glasswing’s bedroom.

Glasswing was in his office, and he wasn’t alone.

Five changelings and an orange pony buck stood in a circle around a bound and battered looking Glasswing, each one aiming a magical energy weapon at his head. Glasswing was glaring up at them in rage, his left eye swelling up from a large bruise that had been inflicted upon his face.

The only pony in the room stepped forward and gave the bound changeling a rough kick. Glasswing grunted, his teeth gritting together as he tried to prevent himself from screaming in pain. The pony leaned down and sneered at Glasswing. “I’ve been waiting for this for a long time now.”

Glasswing glowered. “What are you doing! I demand to know what’s going on!”

The orange pony snickered. “We don’t take orders from you anymore. You’re a thing of the past now,” As the pony spoke, I began to slowly loosen the grate on the vent with my hooves.

Glasswing began to pull himself up, only for one of the changelings to push him back down. “How dare you! I’m the leader of the Institute! You can’t just take that from me!”

The pony chuckled. “Funny, I remember someone else saying something very similar before you and Shining Aura erased her brain.”

Glasswing locked up at the words. “Queen Insecta? What does she have to do with this?”

A round of tittering laughter spread throughout the changelings at the question. The pony simply leered. “Everything Glasswing, absolutely everything.”

The grate popped from the vent and I managed to catch it before it could hit the ground and make a noise. Gesturing behind me, I silently moved out of the vent and ducked behind a large metal shelf that had been pushed up by the wall. Mirra, Scarlet and Rubber Band quickly scurried out after me, each one of them just as silent as I had been.

The pony berating Glasswing took a step back, giving the changelings around them a clear shot Glasswing. “It has been fun Glasswing. It is a shame you dared to betray our true leader,” He waved a hoof at the changelings around him. “Kill him. We’re done here.”

If ever there was a time to act, it was then.

Without giving my friends any sort of warning or instruction, I leapt out from hiding. The magical energy rifle in my telekinetic grip fired multiple rounds towards the changelings. The first shot lanced through a changeling's chest, turning their black, carapace body into glowing ash.

The other changelings reeled back, their attention turning our way as my friends also ducked out from behind their cover. Scarlet’s magic swept up the dusted changelings energy weapon and began firing at the still startled changelings, turning one more into sparking cinders.

Glasswing pushed himself away from the ring of changelings, his magic glowing as he pushed himself behind his desk and began working at his bonds.

I ducked, a blast of blue energy flashing over my head and searing of a few hairs in my mane. The changeling that had fired the blast rounded on me, their eyes narrowing as they moved in for an attack.

Mirra flew at them, her fangs digging into their side and tearing open a chunk of their carapace. The changeling bucked, their hooves lashing Mirra across the chest and sending her staggering across the room. They didn’t get time to attack further as a shot from my weapon blasted through their skull and fried their brain.

Rubber Band leapt back as the pony who had been leading the changelings swung at him with what appeared to be a magically infused sword. The blade cackled with blue energy as it swung through the air, the white metal of its blade glowing white hot.

The pony swung at him again, his sword slashing at a desk. The crackling energy surged through the blade, electrifying the desk and sending both halves flying in opposite directions as it cut the desk neatly in twain.

Jumping forwards, I slammed my gun against a changeling's head as they took aim at the back of Scarlet’s head. The changeling stumbled, their aim thrown off and their shot going wide, the blast scorched the wall beside Scarlet.

The changeling Spun around to face me, green blood oozing from the side of their head where my gun had collided with them. They lashed forwards at me, their two sharp fangs snapping at my neck. I flung myself back to avoid having the front of my neck torn out, skidding slightly on the ground as I tried to maintain my balance.

Scarlet landed next to me. I went to help her up, only for her horn to flare and send a bolt of magic slamming into my body. I staggered back, my hoof clutching at the spot near my chest where the shot had rammed into me, hot blood dripping from the wound and racing down my body.

Scarlet grinned, her eyes flashing blue and her body once more taking on a changeling form. I gritted my teeth. I should have been keeping closer track of who was and was not my actual friend. I wasn’t used to needing to fight creatures that could shape shift.

The changeling that had disguised itself as Scarlet went rigid as a bolt of blue energy lashed through its chest, dropping them to the ground. The real Scarlet hopped over the body, the end of her gun still smoking slightly from the shot.

“You alright?” She asked, helping me back up to my hooves as we turned to face the final changeling and the orange pony who was still swinging his magical blade at Rubber Band.

I nodded as I lifted my hoof and looked down at the burn mark by my chest. Thankfully the blast had mostly cauterized and the bleeding was only minimal.

The finally changeling scowled at us and scrapped its hoof on the ground. His weapon raised and aimed.

Scarlet and I pushed each other out of the way as the changeling sent a barrage of attacks our way. The shots blasted against the wall, marring the pristine white walls with black scorch marks.

Mirra dropped down from above, green mucus spewing from her mouth and plattering against the changelings face. The changeling stumbled, scratching at his eyes as he tried to clear the the gunk from his vision. In his blindness, he collided with a wall, the sticky substance sticking to the surface and holding him in place.

Mirra dropped onto the writhing changelings back, two smaller wads of mucus from her mouth coating both his curved horn and delicate wings.

Rubber Band was tossed across the floor as the orange buck rammed into him. I pushed myself across the room and stood over the synth protectively as the pony advanced on us, his magical sword still fizzling with magical energy as he held it up towards us.

The pony scowled, his eyes locking with mine. “Do you really think you can stop what is to come,” he snarled around the handle of the blade in his mouth. “What hope do you think you have against Azar! Only a fool would oppose him! You will either join him, or die!”

Blam!

A bolt of energy shot out across the room, blasting the ponies head open and sending viscera spraying across the wall behind him. Rubber Band cowered under me as bits of gore splashed next to him.

“You’ll die anyway,” Glasswing grunted, pulling himself up from behind his desk. His hooves had been freed and a smoking magical energy weapon was held aloft in the air by his magic. He turned to face the rest of us, his eyes narrowing. “I want an explanation and I want it now!” He demanded, his gun twisting back and forth between us.

“Queen Insecta is alive, Azar is a traitor and has rallied other traitors to his cause, they have taken over the synths and are planning to use the Utopia program to ensure Insecta retakes her place as leader of the hive somehow,” I quickly spat out. “Does that answer any of your questions?”

Glasswing’s eyes widened. “Insecta is alive? But… that’s impossible. I erased her mind myself.”

I growled. “I noticed. But it turns out that a part of her mind survived and seems to have the ability to retake control of her body.”

“But… what about Shining Aura? Is she…” Glasswing started, but I cut him off with a wave of my hoof.

“She’s alive. I think. From what I can gather, they’ve been inhabiting the same body for quite some time now. I don’t think my mom even knows all this is happening.”

Glasswing lowered his gun somewhat and stepped out from behind the table. He glanced back and forth between all of us as he slowly approached. His eyes darted back and forth for a second as he tried to wrap his mind around everything that was happening. “It is likely that if Insecta survived the procedure, her control over the mind would be drastically weakened. It likely would have taken her years to build up the kind of strength required to take control like this.”

“And she’s had that time. Around twelve years if memory serves,” I said flatly. I gave my head a quick shake and tried to return the conversation back to more pressing matters. “But that isn’t the point… Look, I don’t like you, in fact I was tempted to just run out of here and leave you to your fate, but things aren’t that simple. For what its worth, you may be an insufferable prick, but I’d rather a prick that genuinely wants to help the wasteland were in charge of the Institute than a power-hungry lunatic and her mass murderer general who want to assert dominance and control over all living races and use their love and life force as a source of food.”

Glasswing cocked an eyebrow, but didn’t object or comment on any of the remarks. “You have a plan don’t you?” He asked finally, giving all of us another look. He turned his gaze to a window in his office that overlooked the Institute. Down below I could make out the large spire of the Maneframe and the massing legion of Changelings, ponies and synths that had gathered around it. It looked just like it had two hundred years ago in the memory orb. History was once more repeating itself.

“We need to get into the Maneframe,” Mirra piped up, fluttering over and landing atop Glasswings desk. “We need to cause a diversion that will draw some of Azar’s forces away from us.”

“There are still ponies and changelings that follow you,” I added, realizing that our request was a daunting one. “From what I’ve heard, you have more followers than Azar.”

Glasswing scoffed. “I wouldn’t be surprised, but that will do little if he has control over the synths. With them under his control, we are likely outnumbered ten to one.”

“Which is why your distraction will also be your reclamation over the synths,” I mused, walking up to him slowly and joining him by the window. “You’ll lead all the ponies and changelings that are still loyal to you in a frontal assault against the synth creation wing. Don’t bother trying to hold the rest of the Institute, none of it will matter if you don’t have control of the synths.”

“Do you take Azar for a fool?” Glasswing asked coyly, turning to peer at me with one of his pure blue eyes. “He would not so easily abandon the maneframe. Likely he won't even send any of his changelings or ponies to fight against us and simply attack us with Coursers. I doubt we could even stand a chance against those.”

“That’s why that is only half of our plan,” Scarlet said, budging into the conversation. “Once your attack on the synth's creation wing has begun, we’re going to open up the door to the director's office.”

Glasswing turned and gaped at her. “You can’t be serious! Keeping that door closed is the first rule of the Institute. That door hasn’t even been opened in…”

“In over two hundred years, we know,” I grumbled. “And that’s exactly why it will work. Azar has already gone through a lot of work to overthrow you, he won't be able to allow a second challenger to Insecta’s rule.”

Glasswing tapped his chin for a moment, rolling the idea over in his mind. “I hate to say it, but you make a point. I doubt the director will be happy, but what other options do we have,” He turned back and approached his desk. “I suppose I should return your weapons. You’ll be needing them.”

I felt a sigh of relief go through my body. I hadn’t realised how anxious I had gotten without my gun. Glasswing pulled out a metallic crate and placed it on the table. Popping it open, he quickly levitated both my and Mirra’s stuff over to us. I took it graciously.

Both Scarlet and Rubber Band picked up one of the fallen magical energy weapons. Now that we were armed, I was starting to feel a little more confident about all this.

I riffled through my bag for a moment, making sure everything was there. Ammo? Check. Healing potions? Check. Caps and bobby pins? Check and check. Teleportation device…?

I looked up at Glasswing. “Where are our teleportation devices?”

Glasswing gave me a thin smile. “I will be keeping those until this is over. I’ve lost enough power today, I think I will hold onto what little leverage I have left. Besides, I cannot risk you simply leaving us.”

I snorted and stomped a hoof, but didn’t argue the matter. I didn’t plan on leaving until Insecta and Azar were dealt with anyway. “Before we do this, I think it’s about time you answer some of my questions,” I said sternly, taking a few steps towards Glasswing. “I feel I’ve earned the right to a few of those.”

Glasswing cracked a nervous smile. “I suppose you have. I’ll answer any questions you have that pertain to this specific situation, but nothing more.”

That limited what I was able to ask, but I didn’t care too much. Most of what I had to ask was relevant anyway.

“What can you tell me about Queen Insecta and Shining Aura? Without the lies this time please?” I asked. Mirra fluttered over, interested, while Scarlet and Rubber Band moved up by the door to make sure we didn’t get any unwanted company.

Glasswing sighed and flopped down into his chair. He rubbed his forehead with a hoof, trying ot figure out what to say. “I don’t like giving up secrets, and truthfully, I don’t exactly know what to tell you,” He finally said, taking a deep breath. “There is lots to say about both I suppose. They’ve been in the Institute for a long time and have done much, though I doubt that’s what you are looking for.”

He took a few more seconds to think. “Queen Insecta is old. Her reign lasted almost as long as Chrysalis, if only because she has ruled in the late queens stead since her death close to the end of the great war. Like most of the Institute, she liked to keep a lot of herself secretive, and there is very little of importance that we know of about her,” Glasswing reached forward and started pushing a few buttons on his terminal. “However, there is one audio file that I uncovered from shortly after Chrysalis’ death that I found particularly interesting and does pertain to the Utopia program.”

He finally found what he was looking for on the terminal and clicked it. I heard the faint sound of static as an audio recording started playing.

“It has been done. Twilight has no recollection of the Utopia Program,” It was Insecta’s voice, so strangely similar to that of Chrysalis. “But I wasn’t the first to get to her. It was Kamari the traitor… Yes… he was out in the Hollow shades. I have little doubts that he was looking for Luna Prime… I did… Indeed…” it took me a second to realise that I was only hearing half of a conversation. From what I heard, it sounded like somepony had ordered Insecta to wipe Twilight’s memories of the Utopia program.

It quickly dawned on me that this must have been the aftermath of the memory I had seen back in the MAS tower. It hadn’t been Chrysalis at all, but Insecta. Their voices had been so similar that I had seen a memory of Mirra’s mom before I had even known it.

"Yes... I'll inform you on any other developments..." Insecta's voice continued. "The path should be clear to continue as planned..."

The recording shut off, leaving the room awkwardly silent. “I always kept that file on hoof,” Glasswing confessed, looking at the terminal. “I had hoped to gain some insight from it on the nature of the Utopia Program, but it never did reveal much to me aside from Twilights lack of activity in the Institute in the final days of the war.”

I raised an eyebrow. “You were looking for Insight into the Utopia Program? You do know what it is, right?”

Glasswing chuckled. “Of course I know what it is, but what it’s exact limitations are have always been an unknown. Utopia is powerful, and if used incorrectly, it could have disastrous consequences.”

“And what exactly is the Utopia program?” I pushed, leaning forward on the table in curiosity.

Glasswing just gave me a small smile. “It’s hard to properly explain, and we don’t exactly have the time to go over…”

I slammed my hoof on the desk hard, making the whole thing shake. “No! I want answers now! No more secrets. What is it, and what can it do!?”

Glasswing looked taken aback by my outburst. His false smile faltered for a moment, but he quickly put it back on. “It’s a memory orb.”

I blinked. That was not what I had been expecting. I knew that memory orbs were involved in it, and I had known that the initial idea had stemmed from memory orbs, but to simply just be a memory orb? I was having trouble believing that’s all it was.

“You’re telling me that the Utopia Program that everypony is going crazy about, is just a memory orb?” I said flatly, not sure how to take that. “Why the fuck is everypony making such a big deal out of it if that’s all it is?!”

Glasswing gave me a sly look. “What were you expecting? A weapon? Some sort of death ray or something? Believe it or not, the Institute was never meant to create weapons,” Glasswing pulled himself out of his chair and stood before me. “But don’t underestimate what it's capable of. It is being heavily sought after for a reason. I have my own reasons, and Insecta clearly has hers.”

“And Red Eye,” I said pointedly. “For whatever reason…”

“It is more than a simple memory orb of course. Memory magic is a vast thing, and in truth, if harnessed correctly can be utilized in a near limitless amount of ways,” Glasswing said coldly. “I find it likely that Chrysalis, and in turn Insecta, plan to use it to make every living creature love them unconditionally. Unlimited feeding and power for them as well as complete dominance over all races.”

Mirra’s head shot up at the changelings' words. “Wait! You’re talking about mass mind control!”

My mouth fell open. “Mass mind control? As in, the ability to control the thoughts and emotions of every living creature in Equestria?” The idea of Utopia being simply a memory orb was quickly replaced with a gripping sense of fear and dread.

“That is one function of it I suppose. Though only a fragment of what it is fully capable of,” Glasswing said, furrowing his brow. “But far from its intended purpose, I assure you. As I said, when used a specific way, Utopia can be used to achieve nearly any function. The creator of Utopia, a pony by the name of Silver Ace, had very different intentions. And I can assure you, that those are not my intentions either.”

I took a slow step back. Insecta and Azar’s plans were far worse than anything I had been imagining. I didn’t know what I had expected. Taking control of the Institute or giving Insecta full control over the body maybe, but not this. Mind controlling the entire population of Equestria to use as a food source was… for lack of a better word, evil. It was evil beyond anything I had ever seen. Perhaps even more so than the senseless destruction Kamari had planned. “We need to stop this right now…”

Glasswing gave a grim nod. “I will rally all those that still follow me in an attack on the synth creation wing. You get ready for your part,” I nodded and began to turn back to face Scarlet and Rubber Band when Glasswing coughed, returning my attention to him. “Aren’t you forgetting something?”

I cocked my head for a second, trying to figure out what he was talking about. Suddenly, I slapped my face with a hoof, remembering one of the reasons I had rescued him. “The director… How do we get the door open?” In the shock of Utopia, I had forgotten about that aspect of my plan.

Glasswing gestured to the terminal. “I have the password to get through the door. I am the only one who has access to it,” He hesitated, his hoof hovering over a button on the terminal. “You realize doing this goes against everything that the Institute has followed since the bombs…”

I gave him a smug grin. “You do realize the alternative for you is to be stripped of all power, get murdered and have all your hard work ruined with the rest of the world?”

Glasswing grimaced. “I hate this, but yes. I am well aware,” I held out my pipbuck for Glasswing to download the password in. The password as it would turn out, was less of a word and more of a seemingly random string of twenty-five letters and numbers. Just looking at it made me realize that this terminal would have been one I definitely never would have been able to hack without the code.

Biting back all my frustration for the changelings before me, I gave him a thin smile. “Thank you…”

Glasswing returned my smile, his equally as fake as mine. “Go get into position. I’ll rally everypony who will fight,” He turned from me and approached an intercom resting a few feet away. I saw him pull out a hoof full of miscellaneous gizmos and what appeared to be, to my horror, a balefire egg.

Tearing my gaze away from the glowing balefire egg, I returned my attention to my friends. “Everypony ready?”

Rubber Band was shaking like a leaf in fear, but surprisingly he was the first to boldly step forwards. “Y-Yes, let's do this.”

I gave him a sad smile. “Sorry our rescue mission kinda threw you right back into the fray.”

Rubber Band shrugged. “Th-that’s fine. This is more important some random synths freedom,” That made me sad for some reason, but I couldn’t exactly place why.

We moved to the door and poked our heads out. There didn’t seem to be any hostiles nearby, but even from here I could see the large mass of bodies around the Maneframe. Through the few parts of the Maneframe that showed the mechanisms inside, I was able to see that bits and pieces of it were beginning to glow with a golden light.

Insecta had begun, there was no time to lose.

We began making our way down towards the large obsidian-like door of the director’s office, trying our best to keep as hidden as possible in the large, forested expanse.

As we moved, Glasswing’s voice came crackling over the intercoms, filling the Institute with his voice. “Ponies and changelings of the Institute, this is your leader, Glasswing. By now I am sure you have seen these traitors who have turned against us to fulfil their selfish desires. Perhaps you have already seen you loved ones slaughtered before you or ones you once thought to be your friends and family turn against you. But I am here to tell you that there is still hope…” As he spoke, I saw a few coursers that had gathered around the Maneframe break off from the main group and start heading towards Glasswing’s office at unpony-like spreads. I hoped Glasswing knew what he was doing.

“Azar hopes to destroy everything you hold dear, use you as little more than a food source as he and his vile queen assert their domination upon the races of Equestria,” Glasswing’s voice continued, the volume of his words only increasing with each passing word. “We must fight against this, both for the Institute and the world above. We cannot allow these traitors to unleash what they have planned!”

The coursers reached the entrance to his office, the door sliding open at their approach. Then it exploded, a baleful green fire flaring from the doorway and windows of the room. The coursers were incinerated in seconds, blasted apart by the powerful explosion.

But despite that, Glasswing’s voice kept coming through the intercoms. I now knew why he had grabbed a balefire egg. He had planted a bomb for his pursuers, only to have already moved to a new location to continue his broadcast. I was suddenly oddly impressed with the changeling, despite my hatred for him.

“I will be leading a direct assault upon the Synth creation wing. To all those that still have the strength and will to fight, I urge to to join me, to make true on the oaths you took when you joined the Institute and cast aside these traitors that would see their oaths desiccated like the world they aim to create,” Glasswing’s voice was rising higher and higher as he spoke, each sentence becoming more passionate than the one that came before it. There seemed to be more and more commotion as his speech continued. Those that had sided with Azar were growing ancy, their hooves fidgeting as they listened to the empowering word that foretold their downfall, while those who had stayed loyal and been driven into hiding began to emerge from their hiding spots. “The Institute will be restored to its rightful order, and it shall not be under the rule of these tyrants! Stand with me! Let us take back the Institute!”

There seemed to be an uproar of commotion from all sides as hundreds of ponies and changelings alike rallied at his words. I had been fearing that we were so hopelessly outnumbered. That even if Glasswing could pull a group together to make a full frontal assault, it would still not be enough. As I watched the ponies and changeling emerging from their hiding spots however, I felt my spirits and hopes rising. Azar had managed to take control of the synths and Institute through surprise and swift action, but his forces prior to the inclusion of synths were far from outnumbering us. In fact, we almost outnumbered them.

Not for the first time, I was shown how big and vast the Institute was.

Changelings that had gathered around the maneframe began swooping down from above, curved horns and magical energy weapons firing off shots of magical energy as the swarm of ponies and changelings loyal to Glasswing charged across the Institute, seemingly spilling in from all sides.

Screams and yells of fury and pain rang out across the expanse. Energy weapons fired and the sounds of hooves pounding against both ground and bone fill the air. The institute had become a war zone.

There was a crackle of static over the speakers, and suddenly the Institute was being filled with a new voice. Azar’s voice. “To those who stand against the true queen of the hive, hear me now! There is no future down the path you tread, only death,” The ponies and changelings paused for a second at his words, but did not cease their fighting. “And to the ponies that dare to oppose us, think of what fate awaits you. If you join us you shall serve as sustenance. You shale become the power in which shall be used to dominate the races of Equestria! And you shall be heroes. If you do not comply, the fate shall be the same, but I assure you, I shall make sure that it is far less pleasant.”

Right, like that argument was going to sway anyponies minds. Azar might be intelligent and powerful, but he was also ignorant to all but his own desires.

Like Glasswing had predicted, I saw the flash of sparkling blue light as synths and coursers began teleporting around the entrance to the synth creation wing.

I hopped back as a pony fell limp to the ground by my hooves, their head burst open by a precise shot from a changeling's magical energy rifle.

“We need to get to the Director's office, now!” I said, moving forwards and jumping over the body of the fallen scientist.

“Do you think everypony is going to be okay?” Mirra said mournfully from beside me as we rushed forwards, her eyes looking over the battle zone sadly.

I gave her a sad smile and continued running, my own eyes looking over destruction that was unfolding around us. “I think the best we can hope for right now is a victory and minimal casualties,” I hated myself for taking this so coldly.

It was a sad thing to see, the Institute stricken with bloodshed. Despite its faults, it had been one of the few places that hadn’t given in fully to cruelty. And as much as I hated to admit it, it had been beautiful too.

We galloped towards the large obsidian door leading towards the office of the ever so mysterious director of the Institute. The closer we got, the more I began to wonder just what I might find beyond it’s dark front. A part of me expected to find Silver Ace, but I doubted he had survived over two hundred years.

I was surprised to find that the coursers I had seen previously guarding the doorway had left. I suppose that shouldn’t have come as a shock. I doubted Azar had any interest in protecting a potential opposition to his queen's rise to power.

I pulled myself up to the terminal and began typing in the password. Mirra, Scarlet and Rubber Band pulled up close to my sides, guns extended and making sure that I was uninterrupted. A few times I had to backspace and retry the password as I clicked a wrong button. Despite having the password right in front of me, the long jumble of letters and numbers were near impossible to memorize.

Finally there was a click and the massive door began to swing open. The opening of the door brought a whole lot of trouble with it.

The clinical lights of the Institute began to flash, their harsh white lights suddenly shifting into a crimson red. A siren rang out, loud and clear even among the booming sound of gunfire and madness that had gripped the Institute.

I had wanted to catch Azar’s attention and make a distraction. I succeeded. Perhaps better than I had intended.

Azar’s voice rang out over the intercoms. “To the directors office! Kill them!” The changelings and ponies that had stayed to stand guard around the mainframe suddenly turned and began charging across the Institute towards us. I was suddenly reminded of Azar’s burning hatred for the director.

“Shit, we gotta go!” Scarlet hurried, pulling on my leg slightly to get me moving. “We’ve got less than a minute before they’re onto us!”

Biting my lip I took a step forward. “You guys get to the maneframe. See if you can take out any remaining guards… I need to do something here first.”

“What?! Are you crazy!” Rubber Band exclaimed, taking a step back, his eyes flickering to the incoming swarm of changelings and ponies. “You’ll die if you say here!”

I gave them all a grim look. “I’ll be fine, go!”

Scarlet and Rubber Band looked concerned, but they turned and started running towards the Maneframe, trying their best to keep away from any combat until they had gotten closer. I turned to face Mirra who had lingered by me a little longer.

The small changeling looked up at me for a moment. I gave her the best comforting smile I could, but she just frowned and gave me a small punch on the shoulder. “Don’t die Amber. I’ve already lost my mom to the Institute. I don’t want to lose you too.”

“You’re mom might still be alive,” I said quickly, but the words felt hollow in my mouth. “There might still be a way…”

Mirra shook her head. “Stop trying to give me hope Amber. I know the wasteland takes what you love and twists it into something horrible, now more than anybody,” Her eyes flickered to the bloodshed around us. “I hate death, Amber. I can’t stand it. I don’t care if Queen Insecta is still alive or not. No pony that does something like this is my mom…”

With that she turned away and fluttered after Scarlet and Rubber Band. I took a deep breath and quickly bolted into the directors office. I needed to be quick, even now I could hear the buzzing of wings and stomping of hooves as Azar’s forces drew closer.

At first all I saw within the room was darkness. The obsidian-like door had been a perfect reflection of what lay beyond. Despite the size of the door and the flashing red lights of the Institute beyond seeping in, all light seemed to diminish within a few inches of the room.

Reaching down, I clicked on my pipbuck light and let the eerie green glow illuminate the room. It was a lot like how I remembered it in the memory orb. The walls were still a dark oak and lined with rows upon rows of bookshelves. A few paintings hung on the walls as well, though not as many as I had seen previously. I even spotted the painting of Canterlot, resting atop the snow capped mountain as if nothing had ever happened.

The biggest difference was that much of the furniture in the room had been pushed aside, making room for a strange device that took up most of the room. It consisted of three large metal pillars that rose up on either side, each one flickering with a ring of small red lights. In the centre of the pillars sat an elevated platform, strange wires raced out of the platform into the pillars connecting it all together.

“What the hell is this?” I muttered to myself, the light of my pipbuck reflecting over the shiny and pristine surface of the strange device.

“Hello, Amber Aura. I was wondering when we’d get the chance to talk,” A nasally, male voice echoed from the darkness around me.

I jerked my head up, my pipbuck light landing on a round metallic shape that was slowly bobbing up and down in the air towards me. As it grew closer, I began to make out the shape of a Sprite-bot through gloom.

I raised an eyebrow at it, not quite sure what to make of the Sprite-bot. “W-watcher? Is that you?”

Despite not being able to see the face of whomever I was talking to, I got the distinct impression that they were giving me an incredibly smug grin. “No. You may call me the director,” The sprite-bot said, the voice sounding like a mix between a throat full of gravel, a stuffy nose and a metallic sounding synthesizer.

I looked around the darkness, hoping to spot anything else in the room aside from the machine and the spire-bot. “You aren’t actually here in the Institute, are you?” I said finally, slightly disappointed. The sound of the approaching armies were getting closer, I needed to get this over with quick.

The Sprite-bot was silent for a second, whomever was on the other side clearly not in much of a rush themselves. “No. I’m quite far away from here in fact. I have been well aware of Insecta’s plans to use Utopia and overthrow Glasswing. I have no desire to be present in the Institute when that happens.”

I scowled. “You knew all of this was going to happen and still did nothing!? You do realize Azar plans to overthrow you, right?”

There was a foul sounding noise from the other end of the speaker that I assumed was supposed to be laughter. “Azar is welcome to try. What he does not realize is that his actions here are of little consequence to me.”

This voice was beginning to irk me off, and not simply because of it’s rather cruel and cold outlook on what was going on. “Have… have we met? I… I recognize your voice…” I finally said, quickly remembering I didn’t have much time to stall. Get to the point now! “Who are you?”

There was more laughter from the other end of the intercom. “This is not the first time we’ve spoken, no. You are a lot different now than you were when I first contacted you back in Stable 25.”

My heart froze in my chest. This had been the voice I had heard all those weeks ago… back on the day that had started everything. The voice that had pretended to be Stable-Tec and paved the path for Crank and the rest of the cyber ponies to get into the Stable.

I could feel my mouth fall open. “Y-You! But you… You were working with Red Eye… aren’t you? How are you the leader of the Institute! How is…”

“The Institute likes to think of themselves as the puppet masters. As the ones holding all the cards,” The voice interrupted. “If only they knew who was really pulling all of the strings…” The sprite-bot tilted to the side slightly as if looking past me and out the door into the Institute beyond. “I see you are about to get company. You had better start running, Amber Aura.”

I took another step forward, ignoring their warning. “Who are you!” I demanded again, my breath catching in my throat slightly as I took yet another step towards the Sprite-bot.

The voice chuckled. “This has been a most pleasant meeting. Something tells me we will get the opportunity to meet face to face, very soon,” With that, the Sprite-bot shut off and dropped to the floor with a clang.

Just as the Spritebot hit the floor, the first changeling flew into the room, their magical energy weapon already charged and firing off rounds into the darkness. I flung myself to the side, one of the shots grazing my side and leaving a long black line of soot across my body.

I spun around, Breaburn’s Liberator firing off a round of buckshot into the changelings face. The changelings head burst open from the explosive fire, its body slumping to the ground in a disheveled heap.

Not waiting for the rest to arrive, I darted out the door and began making my way towards the Maneframe. As I ran I saw the large group of ponies and changelings charge into the directors office, guns blazing as they moved to destroy everything that moved.

I questioned how much time I had before they realized there was nothing in there and returned to guard the Maneframe.

A pony fell to the ground in front of me, their hoof twisted in an awkward angle as they tried to regain their stance and charge the changeling they had been attacking. I raised my shotgun, preparing to come to their aid when I paused. I didn’t know which one was on my side and which one was my enemy.

I glanced around the Institute, taking in the violence. I suddenly felt very small and disoriented when I realized I had no idea who I was supposed to be fighting.

Instead of fighting, I ran.

I pulled up next to my friends by the entrance to the maneframe. The two synths that had been guarding the entrance had been dispatched, and now lay in a broken heap to our left.

“Did you find what you were looking for?” Scarlet asked with concern as I approached the terminal.

I gave a small shrug. “I’m not sure. It was all kind of confusing. I’ll explain later.”

“D-Do we have a plan for once we’re inside the Maneframe?” Rubber Band asked, quickly glancing over his shoulder nervously. “For dealing with Azar and Insecta?”

I looked up from the computer and gave him a smile that I in no way felt on the inside. “Do I ever have a plan?”

“I don’t think I want to know the answer to that question.”

A flash of blue light beside me signalled the appearance of a Courser. I had only just enough time to realize he had appeared before his hoof flashed forwards and sent me tumbling away from the terminal.

“You will cease what you are doing, or you will be eliminated,” The courser ordered, his monotone voice clashing with its organic tone. “You have one chance to comply.”

Yeah right, like that was going to happen.

My horn flared and Braeburn’s Liberator swung up into the air in font of me. The gun fired, having already locked onto its target. To my surprise, the courser dodged, dipping out of the way faster than what should have been possible and firing a blast of magical energy towards me.

The Courser’s shot blasted through my hoof, ripping a burning hole through my flesh and sending me falling to the ground. I yelled out, trying to scoot backwards as the courser lunged at me.

Mirra leapt on top of the Courser, sending him careening away from me. The courser staggered, crashing into the wall of the maneframe before spinning and bucking Mirra off, causing her to get thrown a few feet away and land in a heap.

With Mirra out of the way, Scarlet and Rubber Band raised their magical energy weapons and opened fire. The Courser once more demonstrated its shocking speed and dexterity, weaving itself away from the blasts with impossible speeds.

I pulled myself up and fired again. This time my shot landed. The Courser’s speed slowed as a blast of buckshot ripped through its foreleg. It staggered, managing to stay upright despite the burst of shrapnel against its form and the sudden surge of flames across its leg.

The courser rounded on me, its energy weapon aimed and ready to fire. I jumped aside again, but I wasn’t fast enough. The shot lanced through my other hoof. I screamed, watching in horror as the wound began to glow blue. For a second I feared I was about to be turned to ash, only for the glow to dissipate and leave behind a bloody hole in my leg.

Two blasts of energy found their way into the Courser, one from Rubber Band and one from Scarlet. The Courser slumped, blood rushing from his body for only a moment before its form began to glow blue and disintegrate into a pile of ash.

I pulled out a healing potion and quickly chugged the contents. The itching sensation of my flesh pulling itself back together flowed through me as the healing potion did its work. Mirra quickly helped me back to my hooves.

I gave her a thankful smile and once more pulled myself over to the terminal.

>Maneframe Overview

>Power Usage and Data

>Open Door [PASSWORD REQUIRED]

Gulping, I began to type in the password I had seen in the memory orb. I closed my eyes as I typed in the last letter. A part of me hoped that the password didn’t work, because if it did…

The door to the maneframe slid open. I let a long sigh escape my lips. Damn.

The Password had been Luna Prime.

Both Rubber Band and Scarlet took a nervous step away from the door as it opened. They both exchanged a look before turning to me for guidance. I just grimaced and turned to face all of them. “Is everypony ready?”

Scarlet gave a brave nod, but I could tell she was terrified. Rubber Band didn’t even try to look brave. He couldn’t stop the shaking.

I looked to Mirra who had taken to staring up at the huge maneframe. I followed her gaze up to the dark symbol of the Stable-Tec logo surrounding the mare in the moon. After a second she pulled out the metal shard that had always given her hope of finding her mother again. She read over the words a couple times before looking up at me.

“Are we going to have to kill her Amber?” She asked, her inflection was sad, but not nearly as sad as it should have been.

I could feel my heart sinking. “I hope not. For both of our sakes. But if she makes us…”

Mirra looked down at the words written across the slab of metal. What a silly thing, it suddenly seemed to hold onto somepony by. Forcing herself to smile, Mirra tossed the shard of metal aside, letting it slide away from her and come to a halt a few feet across the floor. “Then lets go. Let’s not leave her waiting.”

Giving her a quick hug, the four of us moved towards the door and into the depths of the Crusader Maneframe.

I had seen the inside of the maneframe in Silver Ace’s memory, but my breath was still taken away when I beheld it with my own eyes.

Along the sides of the maneframe were massive pony sized gears and huge, thick wires that ran up complex looking circuit boards. Rows upon rows of monitors and control panels were still scattered throughout the Maneframe and the large metal catwalk traveled up the inside of the machine.

Below the small platform we stood on lay the large glowing sphere of crackling golden energy. Just like in the memory, it had begun to pulse and expand, as if the power flowing though it was unstable and about to explode. Scarlet jumped slightly as a bolt of energy lashed at a spot in front of her.

I stared down at the glowing sphere of light for a moment, squinting my eyes in an attempt to not be blinded by its blazing light. Now knowing what I did about Utopia, it struck me that the sphere did kind of look like a giant memory orb. Not exactly the same, but still shockingly familiar.

“Stay close everypony,” I said, taking a few steps into the maneframe. “Azar and Insecta are in here somewh-”

“Ah, so the ponies are here to stop us,” the honey coated voice of Azar drawled down at us from somewhere above. Startled, I took a step back, my eyes darting up above us as Azar began fluttering down to land on the platform before us.

For the first time since I had seen him, he was not in his zebra form. Instead, he had taken on his true and horrific visage. He was a dark grey changeling, a little larger and more muscular than the rest, with glowing violet eyes and a darker violet carapace shell. Two jagged and sharp fangs raced down from his upper lip and a curved horn rested atop his head.

Azar grinned at me, showing off a mouthful of vicious looking fangs.

“And so once more, history repeats itself,” Azar leered, the powerful muscles in his gnarled legs tensing and twisting as he took an intimidating step towards us. “The weak and foolhardy race to stop the mighty from taking their rightful place as gods amongs the mortal races. It really is true, what they say... Whether it be through the blood and fires of war, or the ashes and desolation of the wastes, war never changes.”

I raised Braeburn's Liberator to face him. I could feel my legs shaking underneath me as I confronted the powerful changeling. “Step aside Azar.”

Azar cocked his head to the side and gave me a confused look. “And what? Let you ruin everything I have worked so hard to create? I do not think so.”

“What you’re doing is insane! Can’t you see that!” I snarled, daring myself to take another step towards him.

Azar just flashed another vile grin. “There is nothing insane about the pursuit of power, it is the natural order of all things. Your fear is the only thing that is irrational, as all things must one day bow to the new order.”

I had heard enough of this. I fired, my shotgun blasting buckshot in the changeling generals direction. Azar twirled out of the way gracefully, one of his hooves lashing forwards faster than I could react to and striking me across the face. I flew back, my head crashing against the wall with a painful thud.

My friends rushed forwards, each one of them firing off shots in Azar’s direction. Azar simply laughed and danced out of the way of their blasts, his horn glowing with violet light as he lashed out with magical blasts of his own.

Scarlet was sent sprawling as one of the magical beams from Azar’s horn slashed her across the chest. She placed a hoof over the wound, trying to hold back the bleeding.

Rubber Band leapt forwards, his magical energy weapon firing off a shot into Azar’s chest. Azar staggered slightly, his horn glowing as he cast a healing spell and immediately regenerated the damage. Before Rubber Band could react, Azar slammed into him, his twisted hooves striking the synth across the chest and sending him toppling to the floor.

Grunting with pain, I pulled myself up and lunged at Azar. Azar took a small step back, my hooves slicing through air as he evaded my attack. I ducked, Azar’s hoof swinging over my head as the changeling went to bash in my skull.

“What hope do you think you have against me?” Azar mocked, reeling up and slamming his hooves down at me. I rolled to the side, narrowly avoiding his hooves crushing my neck. “They do not call me the Unbeatable for no reason.”

Azar flipped backwards as Mirra attempted to slam into him. The changeling general raised his hooves and lashed at Mirra, striking her across the cheek and pushing her to the ground. A trail of blood drizzled from Mirra’s nose and head as she was slammed against the platform floor. Azar glared back up at me with amusement. “You have been a thorn in my side, Amber Aura. I do confess that you have been a larger nuisance than I had previously anticipated, but I have faced far worse than you.”

Growling, I lunged at him, swinging my hooves in an attempt to pummel him into the ground. His hooves lashed forwards, countering my strikes with blows of his own. I felt him grab onto my hoof and give it a twist. For a sickening moment, I was airborne, only to come crashing back down onto the platform, my head dangling over the side and looking down into the pulsing sphere of light down below.

Azar’s hoof slammed down on my back as he loomed over me, making me cry out in pain. I turned my head slightly, just able to make out his glowing violet eyes as he leaned down and leered at me. “Queen Insecta will once more take her rightful place as queen of the hive,” He sneered, the pressure of his hoof on my back increasing and threatening to snap my spine. “You will bow to her before the end.”

A scream of anger signaled Rubber Band charging towards us. I caught a glimpse of him charging forwards out of the corner of my eye, his weapon drawn and firing towards Azar.

Grunting in annoyance, Azar spun, his hoof lashing out and slashing Rubber Band across the throat. The jagged edges of his twisted hooves acted as knives and the skin on Rubber Band’s neck split, spilling blood down his front.

Rubber Band staggered back, clutching at his throat as he collapsed to the ground. His eyes were wide as the colour slowly drained from them.

Damn it! No!

I pulled myself up and lunged. Azar turn around just in time to see me slam into him. We rolled across the floor, each one of us exchanging blows to the other. I felt one of his hooves slam into my chest and snap a few of my ribs.

I screamed, pounding my hooves against his head. His head snapped slightly to the side, but the bruises on his body were already beginning to heal. I couldn’t beat him. He was too fast, too strong.

One of Azar’s hind hooves kicked up at me, slamming into my hind leg. I felt my bones snap. I spasmed in pain, my whole body filling with agony as the impact of the strike raced through my body.

Using my pain to his advantage, Azar pried me off of him with his magic. I was levitated up into the air for a second, suspended in his magic’s violet glow. Then he tossed me aside, sending me flying through the air and over the edge of the platform. My hooves reached out, grasping onto the edge of the platform for dear life.

Azar growled and began stalking towards me. One of his hooves flashed out, striking Mirra and sending her back to the ground as she tried to pull herself up. He stood over me, his forked tongue flicking from his mouth and his jagged teeth bearing as he glared down at me. The last few bruises my hooves had caused him dissipated as his magic flowed through him.

He gently placed one of his hooves atop mine, his snarl twisting into a sinister grin. “Once more I find myself in a place where one of Red Eye’s cyber ponies once stood. I find their failure to deal with you laughable.”

His hoof rose and fell. I screamed, the bones in my right forehoof shattering under the powerful strike. My right hoof swung free, no longer able to grip to the edge of the platform.

I caught movement from behind Azar seconds before Scarlet slammed into him. Azar stumbled, the force of Scarlet’s attack catching him off guard. He fell forwards, his wings bursting to life as he began to soar upwards.

Fighting against the pain, I launched myself from the edge of the platform, grappling onto him in the open air above the glowing sphere below us. Bolts of electricity flew from the orb below us. A few stray bolts of energy slashed against the walls, sending ripples of power shooting up the structure.

Azar dropped slightly in the air as my weight was added to his. My hooves slammed against his sides as I tried to batter at his wings and knock him right out of the air and into the sphere below.

Growling, Azar slammed his head forwards, his curved horn stabbing at my chest. I felt his sharp horn slice through me, even through the ballistic weave that had been lined into my Stable barding.

I roared with pain, my horn glowing and pulling Braeburn’s Liberator off the platform and into the air with us.

Blam!

The explosive buckshot ripped through the air and into Azar’s side. There was a bellow of rage and pain as the explosive fire tore one of the changelings' wings right from his side. We began to spiral downwards into the pit, our suspension in the air made unstable as Azar tried to keep himself aloft with only one wing and my presence pulling him down.

Scowling, I felt Azar teter to the side, sending us ramming against the wall. I lost my grip, my broken hooves already struggling to do little more than lay limp by my side. My only good hoof reached out, grasping for anything that might save me from falling into the blazing ball of light below.

I was lucky.

My hoof found one of the thick wires that raced up the sides of the Maneframe. I wrapped all of my hooves around it, my body only inches from the pulsing orb below me. The area around me was beginning to grow painfully hot, I could feel my hide starting to burn and my flesh begging to boil.

Just above me, I saw Azar land heavily on a small outcropping just above the pulsating sphere. He glared down at me, his eyes filled with rage and his tattered wing slowly pulling itself back together.

Up on the platform, I saw Mirra spread her glassy wings as she prepared to fly down and help me. I quickly waved her off. “No! Go stop Insecta! I’ll hold off Azar!”

Mirra’s eyes went wide at my words. “Amber, I can’t!” her whole body was trembling as she looked down at me. “Not by myself… I’m not a fighter… I’m not like you…”

I attempted to pull myself up higher on the large wire, only for the whole thing to lurch and send me dropping another inch closer to the glowing ball. “There’s no other way Mirra! You have to stop this!” I felt my broken hooves start slipping and had to try to regain my grip with all my strength. “You traveled all the way across the wasteland to find something that had been lost to you. I’ve seen you overcome things fillies twice your age would shy away from. Things I would shy away from. I believe in you Mirra. You always say you aren’t like me. That’s good. I’m broken and bloody. I’m just another thing the wasteland has taken and twisted into something horrible. Just like the Institute, just like our mothers. I’m the one that wishes I was more like you Mirra.”

I saw a look of determination cross over Mirra’s face. She puffed out her chest slightly, an action that reminded me an awful lot of myself back before all of this. She gave me a quick salute and darted away, making her way towards the catwalks leading higher and higher into the maneframe.

I saw Azar take to the air, his wing now fully healed. He screamed incoherently, his eyes blazing with anger as he dove towards Mirra.

I raised my shotgun and took aim. The targeting talismans built into the gun locked onto Azar at once and fired. The shot ripped through his side again, once more sending him off course and crashing into the wall of the maneframe. His hooves scratched at the sides of the walls as he tried to find purchase in the wires and circuit boards that lined the walls. One of his hooves caught on on the very same wire I hung from.

He glared down at me, his mouth twisting into an animalistic snarl. “You will pay for your treason against the great queen!”

Grimacing, I pulled myself a little higher on the wire and raised Breaburn’s Liberator to face the Changeling dangling a few feet above me. “I don’t remember voting for her?” I mocked sardonically. It wasn’t until after I fired that I remembered you don’t vote for queens.

Azar let go of the wire, dropping down to avoid the shot. His ruined wings flared out, catching the air and gliding down towards me with horrifying speed. Grimacing from the pain, I pulled myself up and tucked my hind legs up to avoid them being sliced off by Azar’s attack.

The changeling general once more latched onto the wire, this time directly below me. He lunged upwards, his fanged mouth snapping at my tail as I pulled myself higher. I kicked backwards, only for Azar to grasp onto my limb and pull himself up higher.

I slid down the wire, his weight pulling me down further towards the glowing sphere of light. Arches of energy flared up around us. Every time the sphere sent a bolt of light flashing up past me, my ears popped and my vision was temporarily filled with a blinding golden light.

I heard the sound of a magical energy weapon fire up above. I glanced up to see Scarlet firing down at Azar, trying to land a shot on the fast moving changeling. Azar was managing to dodge the attacks with ease, often using my body as a shield between himself and the energy weapon.

Once again, Azar’s wing mended itself back to normal. He flared his wings out and dove upwards at me, knocking my shotgun aside before I could get the chance to ground him again. His hooves crashed into my side, slamming me into the wall of the maneframe hard. I almost lost my grip as my head thumped against the metal surface. I could feel blood spilling down my face from where my skull had been fractured.

Azar twisted in the air, once more evading a shot from Scarlet’s gun. He did a quick loop before coming down hard on my back, knocking the air out of me and making my grip slip.

I fell, my hooves flailing as I tried to grasp onto anything that might stop my fall. My head lunged forwards and I felt my teeth bite into Azar’s leathery tail. I heard Azar scowl above me as my teeth sunk into him.

The swelling heat of the sphere below was only increasing, burning hotter and hotter as the two of us struggled. With each passing second it became harder and harder to breath and the boiling temperature was beginning to fog up my mind.

Azar twisted, his tail flicking as he tried to shake me off and send me falling into pulsing lights below us. “Why won’t you just die!” He shrieked, one of his hind hooves lashing out and striking me in the face.

My mouth lost its grip, but my hooves had already reached up and wrapped around his midsection. Pulled myself up on him, biting into one of his ears to keep my grip on him.

My gaze flickered back up to Scarlet, who was doing her best to line up a shot on Azar without shooting me in the crossfire while the two of us struggled and flipped around in the air. Sweat was dripping down her face as she put all her concentration into keeping calm and aiming.

Struggling around my mouthful of Azar’s ear, I screamed up at her. “Take the shot! Take it now!”

Scarlet’s face contorted, her own breathing becoming heavy. “I don’t want to shoot you!”

We didn’t have time for this and I couldn’t stay on Azar like this for long. “Just take the damn shot!” Scarlet shut her eyes for a second before opening them and focusing on Azar once again.

Blam!

Scarlet’s magical energy rifle fired. The shot ripped through Azar’s chest, sending blood bursting from his body and spraying across the walls of the maneframe. But the shot didn’t stop. It carried through, blasting through Azar and into my stomach.

My scream of pain was muffled by the blood surging into my throat.

Azar lurched in the air, trying to stay airborne despite the gaping hole in his chest. Already, I could feel his magic beginning to pull his broken body back together.

Igniting my horn, I raised my shotgun and placed it against Azar’s neck. “You messed with the wrong fucking Stable,” I growled, my words clearly legible despite the blood drizzling from my mouth. My magic pulled the trigger.

Blam!

The explosive buckshot ripped through Azar’s neck. The changeling spasmed, their hooves lashing out in all directions as the slugs tore through their throat. I fired again, the second shot blasting through his head and sending his brains bursting through his eyes.

Azar sagged, his whole body twisting in the air in his final death throes. One of his hooves lashed forwards, the jagged edge of his gnarled hoof catching on my cheek and ripping a large gash across my face.

I kicked out with my back hooves, ramming them into his chest and sending Azar’s still twitching body flailing into the pulsing golden sphere. The second his body hit the ball of light, there was a flash of dazzling sparks. Arches of lighting shot up from the pit at me and a massive shockwave blasted into me mid air. I saw sent flying upwards, the last little bit of air in my lungs being pushed out of me as I was launched halfway up the maneframe’s interior.

I lay suspended in the air for a moment, my eyes locked on the blazing ball of light below me. Then, I began to fall. I shut my eyes, the air whizzing past me feeling like a hundred daggers against my broken body. Even through my closed eyelids, the ball of light blazed in my vision, throwing my whole world into a burning gold.

Then my fall stopped. I cracked open an eye to see what happened and immediately shut it as the glowing sphere only an inch away from my face nearly blinded me. Slowly, I felt my body begin to rise up out of the pit.

I twisted myself in the air and looked up at the platform. Scarlet stood there, her eyes held tightly shut and beads of sweat racing down her face as she concentrated on the telekinesis spell she was using to lift me back to the platform.

She slowly placed me down on the platform, her whole body giving out from under her as she ended her spell. I attempted to move to help her up, only to find my own body in far worse shape than hers.

Scarlet dragged herself over to me and quickly rummaged through my saddlebags. She quickly pulled out two healing potions and pushed it up against my lips. I drank it thankfully, feeling its magic patch my body back together. I had hardly even finished drinking it when she pushed the second up to my mouth as well, urging me to drink.

With a little bit of my strength back, I took the potion in my own hooves and drank. Only once I had done that, did Scarlet grab one of the healing potions for herself. The wound on her chest pulled itself back together, but it was clear the scar would stay with her forever.

Putting the healing potion aside, I turned to look at Rubber Band. The synth was lying on his side, a trail of blood oozing from his slashed open neck. I felt my heart fall as I saw he wasn’t breathing. Azar had managed to take on more with him before the end.

On trembling legs, I pulled myself up to my hooves. I took a step forward, trying to make my way to the catwalks that led higher up into the maneframe. My legs instantly gave out on me, sending me crashing back to the ground.

Scarlet quickly pulled herself up beside me. I looked over at her, tears in my eyes from the pain that was still consuming my body. The fight with Azar had left me broken beyond what any other fight had. “Mirra…” I groaned softly, my eyes glancing up at a platform far above us. If the memory I had seen was anything like what was happening, that’s where Insecta and Mirra would be.

Scarlet nodded, seeming to understand my request. She grunted in concentration as she wrapped me in a field of magic and lifted me up onto her back. Slowly, she began to climb up the steep catwalks, making her way to the top of the maneframe.

Each and every step was a struggle for Scarlet. A few times she fell, but she never stopped struggling to reach the top. I had expected nothing less of her. If there was one thing I knew about Scarlet, or rather, Crank knew about Scarlet, was that she never gave up. She never would.

After a few moments, we began to near the top of the Maneframe. Over the booming crackle of the glowing sphere below, I could hear the faintest of voices echoing out in the din.

“...You need to! I can’t let you do this!” It was Mirra’s voice, strong and brave, yet not without fear.

“Daughter of mine, you have come so far to find me. Allow me to finally reward you for your loyalty to me,” The new voice sent shivers down my spine. I knew that voice. I had heard it many times before. But it was not the voice of my mother. It was strong and powerful and seemed to echoing slightly around the room. It was the voice of Queen Insecta. “I told you we’d meet again. Now we have.”

Scarlet hauled herself up onto the final platform. She dropped to the ground, out of breath. I crawled off of her and stood on shaky legs to face Mirra and Insecta. Insecta still looked like my mother, though now she had plugged herself into the maneframe like I had seen Chrysalis do to herself two hundred years ago. She had attached tubes and wires to her body and a metal helmet had been placed atop her head. Behind her I could see a black case in the wall that many of the tubes attached to. I had seen a container similar to this before back in Stable 25. It was the container that held the A.A.S.S.

Mother smiled as she saw Scarlet and I stagger up onto the platform with them. “Ah, I see we have company,” Her smile faltered. “I suppose that means Azar is…”

“He’s dead,” I grunted, trying my best to keep from collapsing. I took a step forward and growled at Mother. “You need to stop all of this!”

Mother looked like she was about to be sad for a moment before a stern expression crossed her face. “Oh well. He served his purpose to me well,” Mother took a step forward and glared at the three of us. “But it doesn’t matter. You cannot stop what has been put into motion here.”

Wobbling slightly, I took another step forward. “I can’t let you do th…”

I was cut off as a field of green magic wrapped around my neck and lifted me up into the air. A similar field of magic wrapped around Scarlet’s, strangling her and pulling her up with me. A second later, I was flung backwards, my saddlebags flying from my back and spilling their contents across the floor as my body was slamming against the wall. I grasped at my throat, trying desperately to free myself, my hooves have minimal effect against her magic.

Mirra scowled and stomped towards Mother. “Put them down, Insecta! Now!”

Mother gave her a sad little pout. “What? Not calling me mom anymore? Dear child, I had hoped we could be more civil than that.”

Mirra stomped her hoof again, once more rounding on Mother. “I said put them down!”

Mother’s eyes narrowed at the small changeling. A magical, green glow wrapped around Mirra and yanked her towards Mother. Mirra squeaked as her hooves slipped out from under her and she found herself suspended in the air before Mother’s scowling face. “Do not order me around, grub! I am a queen!” Her face momentarily softened, but there was still a hardness behind it. “You have traversed the wasteland to find me. You have proven your loyalty. I am giving you a chance to take a place beside me, rule over all other races by my side. As a family once more.”

I could feel the magic tightening around my neck. I gasped out, trying desperately to breath. I was having trouble getting air into my lungs. Dark spots were dancing across my vision and my chest felt like it was about to explode.

I could see Mirra’s eyes going wide at Insecta’s words. For a terrifying moment, I thought she might actually accept Insecta’s proposition. Then, as if breaking from a trance, she pushed herself away and out of the magical grip, dropping back to the floor.

“No! You are not my mother!” Mirra scowled, her face filling with a mix of fury and resignation. “You’re just a monster. Another victim of the wasteland.”

Mother growled, her eyes turning into slits. “Then you will suffer the same fate as the rest of the wasteland. To be food for my reign eternal!”

My hooves slipped away from my neck as my body began to go limp. My vision had gone almost completely dark, the lack of oxygen going to my brain making thinking impossible.

Then the world flared back to life. Golden light flared through the maneframe, the blazing sphere down below burning brighter and brighter until it shone with the radiance of the sun itself. Bolts of energy were flaring up around us, each one bursting into a shower of sparks that temporarily blinded me.

Through it all I saw Insecta, her horn pulsing nearly as bright as the ball of energy below with dazzling green magic. Her magic was mingling with the glowing power of the sphere, powerful magic following through her body and making her mane crackle with energy. A powerful shockwave blasted out from her horn, slamming into me and slamming my head back against the wall.

I saw Mirra get knocked down as the shockwave blasted into her, only for her to pull herself back up and push forwards towards Insecta. She took a step, staggering as another wave of energy blasted from Insecta’s horn and rammed into her.

Mirra’s magic reached out and wrapped her hoof around something that had fallen from my saddlebags, though I was unable to tell what it was through the blinding lights.

I felt something buzzing in the back of my mind. It started as a low hum, but began to grow and throb until it became legible words. “You will love me,” Insecta’s voice echoed in my mind, her voice dripping with pleasure and uncontrollable power. “You will serve me…”

I fought against it, but it was hopeless. I felt my mind slipping away, sinking deeper and deeper into my subconscious. I could feel Insecta taking control, sapping the love and life from my body and feeding it into her own form.

The telekinetic grip around my neck released, dropping me back down to the ground, no longer having any need to hold onto me. I was under her control now, there was no reason to contain me. I saw Scarlet in a similar position beside me, her pupils dilated as she lay unmoving and hypnotized.

Mirra came to a stop before Insecta, the small changeling silhouetted by the blinding lights streaming off of Insecta. “Please... You need to stop,” I heard Mirra mutter, but her voice was little more than a sad whimper before Insecta's might.

Insecta gave her a smug grin, her eyes burning with golden light. “My daughter… there is no stopping this…”

Mirra’s shoulders seemed to grow heavy at Insecta’s words. “Then I’m sorry…”

Mirra raised something up into the air with her magic. I squinted, trying to make out what it was. The dark object against the glowing lights slowly began to take shape in my vision. My memory recollector. The recollector hovered in the air for a moment before Mirra slammed it down upon Insecta’s head, her horn flaring. There was a sudden moment of stillness, and then everything burst into a blinding white light.

A wave of energy lashed out across the platform. I was sent hurtling backwards, crashing once again into the wall. My head slammed against the metal surface, this time hard enough to send my already battered mind into unconsciousness.

The last thing I heard as the world swirled into darkness were Insecta’s screams.

“Amber?! Amber, wake up!” I heard Scarlet’s voice shout frantically. I could feel her shaking me, trying to get me to move.

I let my eyes drift open, fighting through the urge to fall back asleep. “Scarlet? What happened?” I sat up slowly, only to almost fall back over from dizziness as my blood rushed up to my head. “Did we win?”

The look of relief that crossed Scarlet’s face was contagious. I felt myself smiling to match her relieved expression. “Yeah. Yeah, we won,” Scarlet breathed, the muscles in her neck relaxing as I pulled myself up to my hooves. I flinched as I applied pressure to my hooves. I had already forgotten how painful it was to walk on broken legs.

I glanced over the edge of the platform and down at the glowing sphere down below. It had reduced to a slow and methodical pulsing, no longer looking like it was about to explode. I looked back up as Scarlet, suddenly worried. “Wait? Where’s Mirra?”

Scarlet’s face dropped somewhat. She turned and pointed towards the spot Mirra and Insecta had been standing. Mirra lay in a small heep, her body rising and falling as she loudly sobbed against herself. Beside her lay the limp form of Mother, her horn still steaming slightly from the magic that had been flowing through her and whatever it was Mirra had done.

I limped over and collapsed down beside the small changeling. I reached my only good hoof out and wrapped it around her, holding onto her tight as she continued to sob. “It’s okay Mirra. Everything is going to be okay now.”

Mirra sniffled and nuzzled against my side. “I… I killed her Amber… I’m just like Pyre now… I killed her…”

I bit the inside of my lip, not knowing quite how to respond. “She didn’t give you any choice Mirra. What you did was brave. I’m proud of you…” I remembered Pyre telling me how her father had been proud when she had murdered her own mother. I instantly felt bad about my statement, but there was no taking it back now. I glanced over at the limp form of Mother and furrowed my brow. “What exactly did you do?”

Trying to wipe some of the tears out of her eyes, Mirra pulled out the remains of my old memory recollector. The surge of power that had shot through it had melted it somewhat, rendering it unusable. “Well… the Utopia Program is just a big memory orb, right? I figured that with a memory recollector I could use Utopia to finally erase Insecta’s mind forever…” She glanced down at the ruined memory recollector. “Sorry about your recollector. I’ll get you a new one, I promise.”

I shook my head, still a little stunned. “Don’t worry about it. I never really used it anyway,” I glanced over at Mother’s crumpled form. “So… you just erased her mind from her body then? She’s still technically alive?”

Mirra gave a timid nod. “I know she's survived that happening to her before, but this time Glasswing will know to look for her and remove her completely if he finds any traces of her still lingering in Shining Aura’s mind.”

A small lump formed in my throat as I looked Mother over. “So my mom will be fine then… she survived too…”

Mirra bit her lip and nodded. “I think so. I didn’t try to erase her from her brain... Just Insecta.”

Sighing, I pulled myself up and surveyed the damage to the maneframe. It was surprisingly minimal, with only a handful of wires looking like they need replacing. Mirra’s solution was a lot less destructive than what Silver Ace had done.

Turning, my gaze came to a stop on the small box hooked onto the wall that housed the A.A.S.S. The blast had knocked the door to the box open, allowing me to see the oblong device resting inside. It had seen better days. It had been coated in a thick mud from our time in the wasteland and the spider web of cracks Brisk had caused to it still raced across its surface.

I was suddenly very tempted to smash it then and there. The damn thing had caused me so much strife, and had been the instrument of too many ponies pursuit of destruction. The world had been broken, and the last thing it needed was a way to destroy itself even more.

I limped forwards and pulled the small device out of the box. I held it in my hoof for a second before placing it on the ground and planting my hoof firmly atop it. I braced myself, preparing to crush it for good.

I hesitated. Why the fuck was I hesitating. Sure there was still the possibility it could be used for good, but I had been shown time and time again that so long as it was still around, ponies would try to harness it for selfish and villainous intentions.

My frustration growing, I prepared myself to smash it apart again. Once more, my hoof failed to shatter it. Did I really think I could use it for good? Insecta had tried to finish what Chrysalis had started. Could I finish what Silver Ace had started?

The A.A.S.S. wasn’t even something big and important. It wasn’t a weapon, or the key to some big secret. It was just a device. A device designed to feed ponies without the use of food. Was that so bad? How could something so innocent become the centre of things so sinister.

Or maybe… or maybe Brisk had been right all along. Maybe my hesitation came from Stable 25. Maybe I refused to destroy it simply because it was all I had left, the last bit of Stable 25 yet to be destroyed by the wasteland. Had I become so desperate to maintain my past that a small device was all I had left to cling to?

I tried to think of what else from Stable 25 had survived. The list was shockingly low. A set of Stable barding that had been patched together so many times it was practically a completely new suit and a pipbuck with a crack across the screen.

I finally sighed and lifted my hoof off the device. I picked it up again and gently placed it into my saddlebag. I’d figure out what to do with it later.

Turning back to my friends, I saw Scarlet and Mirra trying to help each other stand. Both of their legs were wobbling slightly and I could tell that fatigue was overtaking both of them.

To my surprise, Mother raised her head and looked around at us in confusion, her eyes distant and hazy. Her gaze turned and looked towards me. “A-amber? What is going on here? Why are we in the maneframe?”

I gave her a grim look, before turning my back and looking down at the door out of the maneframe far below us. “It’s a long story. You’ll need to ask Glasswing to explain.”

As if he had been waiting for his que, the door to the maneframe slid open and Glasswing marched in, flanked by five Coursers. I waved down at him as he entered.

Glasswing looked up at me and gave me a sly smile. “I see you were successful here.”

I gave a small nod and gestured to the coursers that were flanking him. “We were. I see you reclaimed the Institute.”

There were a few flashes of light, and suddenly Glasswing and his Coursers teleported up beside us. Glasswing looked us all over before his gaze landed on the still very confused Mother. “And Shining Aura? What happened to her?”

“She should be fine,” Mirra said, limping over with Scarlet to stand next to me. “I erased Insecta from her mind. She should be gone for good, but I recommend you keep a close eye on her incase she comes back.”

Mother furrowed her brows at Mirra’s words. “Insecta? What are you talking about?”

Glasswing arched one of his thin eyebrows. “She doesn’t remember anything?”

I shook my head. “I don’t think she ever did. According to some records I found of Shining Aura’s behaviour after the body swap with Insecta, she had been having trouble sleeping. I think Insecta had been taking control of her body while she slept.”

Mother’s eyes went huge as we spoke. Glasswing turned to her and looked her over curiously. He rubbed the bridge of his muzzle with a hoof and shook his head before giving Mother one of his false looking smiles. “I’ll explain everything to you in a moment.”

My legs shuddered underneath me as I took a step towards Glasswing. “We’ve done everything you wanted. I think we’ve earned our teleportation devices back now.”

Glasswing’s eyes flickered to the wall behind me and landed on the empty case for the A.A.S.S. “Of course. Though I’m afraid that I am going to need to be keeping the Atmospheric Administering Sustenance System.”

I stomped my hoof, which was far from a good idea as a pang of pain shot up through my whole body from the action. “No. You aren’t!” Glasswing opened his mouth to argue, but I quickly cut him off. “You saw how many ponies and changelings had sided with Azar. Now that Insecta is dead, a lot of them are going to back off, but not all of them. Leaving the A.A.S.S. here is only asking for one of them to try to once more finish their queens work. So long as it’s here, it’s a threat to your position as leader of the Institute.”

Glasswing glowered for a second, before straightening himself out and giving me a forced smile. “I see your point…” He paused for a second, as if trying to find a solution to the conundrum. “Alright, fine. You will take the A.A.S.S. with you. However, as soon as I am sure that it is within my best interests to have it again, I will be coming for it. Do you understand?”

I gave him a glassy smirk as he floated out our two teleportation devices and passed them to Mirra and myself. “Crystal clear,” I glanced over at Scarlet who was still leaning against Mirra for support. “We’re going to need to use one of your teleporters to get Scarlet out as well. We don’t have enough charges on our devices to…”

“Taking that synth with you was never part of the deal,” Glasswing cooed before I could finish my request, his lips twisting into a smug grin. “I am afraid she will need to stay here in the Institute.”

My mouth dropped open. I snarled and took a step forward. “NO! We’re taking her with us! We’re taking her with us right now!”

Glasswing’s grin didn’t so much as falter. “I never agreed to allow you to take Institute property out of the Institute. This synth has been sneaking around the Institute for weeks. I cannot risk letting any of the information she's gathered leave here.”

I could feel a burning rage growing inside of me. A loud hum started pounding in the back of my brain. I knew Crank was listening in. Growling again, I took another step towards Glasswing. “You will let her come with us or I swear I will kill you.”

The Courser’s raised their guns at my threat, but Glasswing just waved them off. “And who am I talking to right now? Amber, or the cyber alicorn?” At my surprised expression, he elaborated. “I knew who you were the moment I saw you in the Institute. Do not think that I was anything but careful. One of the first things I did was a scan of your brain. Imagine my surprise when I discovered you had two cyber ponies running around in your head.”

Scarlet stepped up beside me and put a hoof on my shoulder. “Amber, maybe it would be best if…”

My magic levitated out my shotgun and leveled it at Glasswing. “You’re talking to both of us right now. And we are not leaving here without Scarlet!”

More flashes of light signalled the appearance of five more Coursers. The Courser’s raised their weapons at me, waiting for me to attack. Mirra was trembling beside me, trying her best to look brave despite the ridiculous firepower being pointed at us.

“Need I remind you of what will happen to your friends at the Friendship Express if you fail to comply with me?” Glasswing soothed, not bothering to even look at the gun aimed at his head.

I was trembling with rage. I could feel the fiery emotion surging through me. My lips curled away, bearing my teeth. I felt my magic beginning to pull down on the trigger.

“I’ll stay,” Scarlet’s voice cut through my anger like a knife. In an instant all the rage washed out of me and I was left feeling hollow and empty. “I’ll stay here…”

I turned to her, my eyes wide. “Y-you can’t… I… I’ve only just found you…” Those weren’t my thoughts coming from my mouth this time. Those were Crank’s.

Scarlet gave me a sad smile. “You risked everything you ever had to save me… Now let me save you this time,” She turned back to face Glasswing. “I’ll stay here.”

I let my own gaze flicker back to Glasswing. “I think we’ve already established that this won’t be the last time we meet,” I growled, lowering my shotgun. “I’ll be back for her. And if I find out that you've hurt her or messed with her mind in any way, you’ll regret it.”

Glasswing’s smile was unbearable. “Perish the thought. She will be in safe hooves here, I assure you.”

I turned back to face Scarlet. “You come back to me you hear. Please goddesses come back to me.”

Scarlet nodded and gave me a warm smile. “I will... I love you,” She hesitated for a second, before taking a nervios step forward and giving me a kiss. The banging hum in my mind diminished to a low purr. It was a nice kiss, but I knew it wasn’t intended for me. I was okay with that, I still had Xayah after all.

We parted from the kiss and I turned to face Mirra, who was looking up at me expectantly. “You ready kid?”

Mirra levitated up her teleportation device and looked at it distanfully. “I don’t think I’m ever ready to disassemble my molecules, but I guess I’m as close as I can get to ready.”

I gave her a nod and began locking onto Brisk’s pipbuck tag. Just before I flared my horn and cast the spell, I looked up at Mother, who still had a perplexed look across her face. “I wish things between us could have been better. I really do wish we could have been a family again.”

Mother gave me a sad smile. “So do I.”

I cast the teleportation spell, then everything disappeared.

I hit the pavement with a thud. We had appeared outside the metro station that housed the secret entrance to the Friendship Express. I lifted my head up and tried to get my bearings. I would never get used to teleporting like that.

Mirra lay next to me, her eyes spinning in opposite directions as she rolled across the ground in an attempt to stand up.

“I was wondering when you two would be back,” A familiar voice chuckled. I turned around to see Brisk leaning against the wall of a broken skyscraper, giving the two of us an amused smirk. “You both look like hell. What happened?”

I stumbled around as I tried to regain my balance. “It’s a long story, I’ll explain everything once I don't feel like I had a train car dropped on me.”

Brisk pushed himself up off the wall and quickly trotted over to us. I didn’t have time to warn him that every part of me hurt before he wrapped me in a tight hug. “It’s good to see you again sis.”

I gave him a smile, despite it feeling like he was squeezing the life out of me. “Yeah. Good to see you too bro.”

He pulled away and lifted Mirra up onto his back. “Come on, I’ll help you two inside. I’m sure everypony will be just as happy to see you as I am,” He offered himself for me to lean on and I graciously accepted.

As we began limping back to the station, Mirra looked down at me from atop Brisk’s back. “So… How do you want to go about telling everypony what happened?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ll figure it out once I’ve eaten and get a good night's rest. It's all a lot to think about.”

Mirra gave a small nicker. “I’m going to tell Xayah you kissed Scarlet.”

I blushed deeply, my face turning a bright red colour. “W-what! N-no no. I think we can just skip over that part. I mean, that kiss wasn’t even for me anyway so…”

Brisk sniggered. “Fuck that, I think I’m going to tell her that bit of news myself. And I wasn’t even there or know the context.”

I suddenly wanted to be back in the Institute. Why do my friends hate me so much…

We had only just pulled ourselves into the Friendship Express’ secret hideout when a white and black striped form plowed into me and wrapped me in a tight hug. I felt myself grinning from ear to ear, despite being in near unbearable pain.

“Hey Xayah. I’m back. Did you miss me…?”

To my right, I saw Mirra leap of Brisk’s back and clamp tightly around Pyre’s neck as the large raider came barreling towards us as well. Pyre was grinning like an idiot, clearly just as thankful that we were back as we were to be back.

I gave Xayah a quick kiss before finally wincing. “Too tight! Too tight!” Xayah’s grip on me dramatically loosened. Holy shit, those mechanical legs were strong.

“Sorry…”

I saw Freedom and Flask slowly approaching us, wary of not getting too close and ruining the reunion. As I looked up at them, my face fell. “I got the files you were looking for, but we have a problem,” I took a deep breath, trying to steady myself. “The Institute has spies amongst you.”

I curled up next to Xayah in the hospital bed. I had known I was tired, but it wasn’t until I had been put into bed that the fatigue truly started washing over me. My whole body felt heavy and I had fallen into the bed as soon as it was put in front of me.

And yet, despite how tired I felt, sleep wouldn’t come. I kept reliving everything in the Institute and all the secrets that had been unveiled. Rubber Band’s death kept flashing before my eyes. I had failed him, simple as that. Just like I had failed Heartbeat. I was losing too many ponies these days.

I heard the soft sound of fluttering and felt something land next to me on the bed. I twisted my head up to see Mirra sitting on the edge of the bed looking at me.

“What’s up kid? Are you doing alright?”

Mirra gave me a funny look. “I just killed my mom, what do you think?”

I reached out a hoof and offered for her to join Xayah and I. She scrambled closer and curled up against my chest. “What’s on your mind?”

The small changeling was quiet for a second, rolling all her thoughts around inside her head. “I wanted to ask about the Utopia program,” She finally said, her blue eyes looking up at me through the darkness of the room. “Something about it has been bothering me?”

I scrunched up my muzzle as I tried to think of what I could possibly tell her about it that she didn’t already know. We knew more about it now, certainly, but I still wasn’t exactly sure what its intended purpose was or what the extent of its abilities were. “What did you want to know?”

“Well… It’s a giant memory orb, right?” Mirra started, glancing down at her hooves. “But… what exactly is it a memory of?”

I looked her over for a moment before giving a small shrug. “I don’t know. I just don’t know,” I wrapped my hooves around her and Xayah tighter, and finally let myself drift off to sleep.

Footnote: level up.
New perk: Computer Whiz -- You get another attempt to hack any computer you were previously locked out of

Chapter XXV: Of Raiders and Rangers

“The precautions are necessary. In our business, if we underestimate our enemy’s capabilities it’s game over.”

Melancholy.

The very air around me had a dripping sense of melancholy. I felt like I was sinking, deeper and deeper into the endless sea of swirling sorrow. But through pensive sorrow I felt something else bubbling up as well. Hope.

It had been a very long time since I had felt any sort of hope. The last true memory of it I could remember was while I was rushing towards the open door of Stable 25, thinking my long and tedious journey had finally come to an end. How very wrong I had been.

I was sitting atop a hill, overlooking a field of ash. This wasn’t Manehattan, but I was able to see its looming silhouette at the edge of the skyline. There was little between me and the decrepit city, just miles of barren wastes and a couple of collapsed houses so coated in dust and ash that they had begun to blend into the landscape.

I felt his presence beside me before I saw him. That hope I felt amongst the darkness was radiating from him, slowly pushing back the endless bombardment of dread. I tilted my head to look at him.

Crank sat beside me, his eyes staring up at the glimmering stars far above us. The large cyber alicorn’s eyes were cold and unreadable as usual, but his face held a smile.

Tentatively, I pulled myself up to my hooves and moved a few paces closer to him. “Hey? You seem happy.”

Crank turned to look at me with his glowing red eyes. His edges of mouth twisted upwards more, giving me one of the first true smiles I had seen from him, lacking any pain or bottled up anger. “She’s alive,” He said gleefully, his normally monotone voice cracking slightly with emotion.

I felt my heart Sinking. “You’re talking about Scarlet, right?” Crank gave me a small nod and grin in response. “I had to leave her in the Institute Crank… I couldn’t save her…”

Crank held my gaze for a long moment before chuckling to himself and turning to face the sky once more. “I don’t think you understand Amber. If she is alive, there is still a chance to save her. I thought I had failed. That she was dead and all hope was lost. You have once again given me a second chance.”

I sat back down and looked up at the sky with him, trying to fully understand what he was saying. “But she’s still trapped. Who knows what the Institute is doing to her right now. Shouldn’t you be more… I don’t know… Angry?”

Crank gave a small grunt, his gaze still transfixed on the distant stars. “Let me put it this way Amber. If you had found out that the ponies of Stable 25 were still alive, but imprisoned, what would you feel?”

I thought about that for a second. “Hopeful I suppose. Scared for them, of course, but hopeful,” I looked up at him. “Do you really think we can get her out of the Institute?”

The cyber alicorn snarled beside me. “We will. The Institute will pay for what they did to her in time. However, for now, I can finally embrace that hope that I might still save her. I’ve been pushing that hope away for too long.”

“You do know that that’s not what she wants, right?” I said, thinking of all the things Scarlet had told me in the Institute. “It’s important to her that you are saved as well.”

Crank refused to look at me, his glass eyes suddenly conveying a sense of sorrow. “It is far too late for me, Amber. I cannot be saved. I am not the pony that she remembers. Every part of me has been destroyed. All that remains is a fragment of my old mind, trapped within the consciousness of another.”

I pushed myself up and moved in front of him, forcing him to look down at me. I reached a hoof out and placed it firmly atop his chest. “No. I don’t know how, and honestly, I don’t care, but I will not stop until you two are brought back together.”

Crank gave me a sad shake of his head. “You already did that Amber. You gave me the chance to finally say goodbye.”

“But you didn’t say goodbye, did you?” I shot back. Crank looked startled at the comment for a second, but quickly covered it with his usual stoic demeanor. “In the Institute you never said goodbye, because it wasn’t a goodbye, and you know it! We’re going to save her, and when we do, I’m not going to let you simply wither away in the back of my mind. You deserve better than that!”

I was on my back before I even saw Crank move. He had lunged forwards, his powerful hooves, flipping me over and pinning me to the ash coated ground. I suddenly found his jagged muzzle only inches away from my own.

“I do not deserve better! And I defiantly do not deserve her!” He snarled, bits of black ooze dripping from his muzzle. “What I have done has been to save her. You may have shown me how to be a pony again, but that does not make up for all the things I have done.”

I pushed at his hooves with my own, trying to pry him off of me. My efforts were of little success, but Crank got the message and quickly helped me back up.

“Scarlet deserves better, not me,” Crank finally said, turning his back to me and looking away into the distance. Far off I thought I saw the ominous red glow of Fillydelphia. It seemed to be calling out to us, trying to draw us in and ensnare our very minds.

I let a sigh escape my lips. “If we don’t save you both, then what would have been the point?” Crank shifted slightly next to me, but didn’t turn around. “Scarlet wants to be with you. You already gave her her freedom back when you rescued her from Fillydelphia, and she gave it up to come looking for you, just like you would have for her. It’s an endless cycle, and with each pass you’re both just going to keep destroying yourselves more and more until there really is nothing left to save or one of you gives up.”

“I will never give up,”Crank growled. I could feel a wave of anger wash off of him by the mere suggestion of it.

“I know, and neither will she,” I said solemnly, knowing full well that neither of them will ever stop trying to be together, even after death. “So you’re just going to have to save yourself as well, because if you don’t then you’re both damned.”

Crank was silent for a long while, simply staring off into space. Finally he spoke, his voice coming out in a low rumble. “I think it’s time for you to wake up. I need a while to think things through.”

Nodding, pushed myself away from him and started trotting off into the wastes towards the Manehattan ruins. With each step, I felt my body grow heavier and heavier and the world around me started growing dark. In the corner of my vision, I saw the cyber pony Inferno glowering at me, his glowing red eyes piercing through the gloom that was slowly creeping into my sights.

“I’m still waiting,” he seemed to growl at me, though I never did see his mouth move. Then he turned from me and sulked off into the desolation, his shrinking silhouette being swallowed up completely as I drifted into darkness.

“...We’re going to need to move to a new base,” Freedom said, looking over a map of Manehattan with Flask. “Now that the Institute has found us we’re going to need to be extra careful.”

I trotted over to them, all my friends trailing closely behind me. I had spent the good half of the morning recounting what had happened in the Institute to them with minimal help from Mirra, leaving my throat and mouth feeling oddly dry.

Xayah was walking around better as well. She wasn’t nearly as stealthy as she had once been, the heavy hoofsteps of her metallic legs making loud clunks as she moved, but she was at least walking straight. If anything, she seemed to be able to move faster, the mechanical limbs not being limited by strength or fatigue.

Freedom and Flask looked up as we drew close, their eyes flickering over us as we came to a stop.

“What’s going on?” I asked, my own eyes scanning over the map they had laid out on the table. It seemed to be an old map of the metro tunnels, the many lines now faded with age.

Flask exchanged a look with Freedom before returning his attention to me. “Thanks to the files you managed to pull from the Institute, we’ve begun to identify some of the synths within our own operations. We’re still going through the files, there are a lot, but now that we know the Institute is onto our location, it’s about time we found a new base of operations.”

“You’re leaving?” Pyre said, one of her eyebrows raising from behind her visor. “Just packing up and moving somewhere new just like that?”

“We have no intention of leaving Manehattan, but this base here definitely,” Freedom replied factually, her eyes returning to the map. “Once we have made sure the Institute no longer has spies amongst us, we will be off.”

“Of course that still leaves us with other issues,” Flask grunted, his own gaze returning to the map. He quickly took a swig from his flask and looked back up at Freedom. “We could always send Daisy?”

Freedom shook her head. Not until we’re sure she’s not a spy…”

I cocked an eyebrow. “Wait, what other issues?”

Freedom and Flask exchanged another glance. They seemed to have a silent debate amongst each other before finally looking back at me.

“We got a distress signal from a synth a few hours ago. By the sounds of it, they’re in serious trouble,” Freedom explained, finally pulling herself away from the map completely to address us. “Normally we would respond immediately, rescuing synths is the entire point of our faction after all. However, we finally have a chance to blindside the Institute, and if we don’t act quickly that chance will disappear. And with the institute having spies among us, we simply don’t have the ponies to spare to go help them.”

“Not to mention they’re located right outside the Manehattan gardens,” Flask interjected. “We don’t have the kind of resources at the moment to go near that place.”

Pyre and I’s ears perked up simultaneously at the mention of the Manehattan gardens. “We could always go help them,” I blurted, remembering the conversation I had had with Pyre the night before I went into the Institute. “We were planning on heading out that direction anyway.”

Brisk, Xayah and Mirra looked over at me in confusion. “We were?”

Freedom and Flask exchanged a glance. “You were?”

I scuffed the tip of my hoof across the floor. “Sure. I mean, we don’t have anything better to do, right?”

All my friends save Pyre exchanged looks. Brisk turned back to face me. “You mean aside from saving Scarlet, dealing with Red Eye and figuring out who this strange director dude is or whatever?”

I nodded. “Yes, aside from that, we don’t have anything better to do. Besides, none of those are urgent, this is. We can afford to hold off on confronting Red Eye.”

Flask gave us an approving smile. “Alright then, I’ll send the distress signals radio frequency to your pipbuck. Meet the runaway synth and keep them safe until I can get there myself,” Freedom gave a quick nod at his words.

Mirra’s wings buzzed at her side in agitation. “Wait just a second. Why exactly do you not have resources to go to the Manehattan gardens? What’s so urgent about the synth? What exactly are we getting into? I have so many questions?”

Freedom pushed forwards a radio that was resting on the table beside her and fiddled with the dial for a second before it crackled to life.

There was a loud pop of static as a message burst through the speakers. In the distance, I could hear the constant fire of guns. “...Goddesses! They just killed Raspberry! Help! We’re being attacked by Steel Rangers!” There was another burst of static, this time mixed with the loud boom of a grenade going off. “I know you probably don’t have any reason to trust synths, but we need help! This message repeats!”

Freedom turned the radio off as the recording began to play again. “We got that only a few minutes ago. We haven’t been able to dispatch anypony to help them.”

Brisk grimaced. “Sounds like there's a good chance they're already dead.”

Xayah roughly nudged him in the side with one of her metal fore hooves. “Of course we will check it out,” She gave Brisk a quick glare. “Because helping ponies is what we do. Remember?”

Brisk rolled his eyes and gave her a sheepish smile. “I never said I wasn’t going to help. Besides, I’m always down to play hero or whatever.”

I caught Pyre’s eye through her visor for a quick second. She looked like she was silently trying to thank me. I gave her the best smile I could. It felt like smiling was becoming harder these days.

“I’m sorry, that’s a what?” Brisk said, staring up at the bird that was flying in quick circles above us. I followed the bird with my eyes as well, fascinated by the magnificent sight.

“Balefire phoenix,” Pyre said again, not bothering to look up at the glowing green bird herself. “We’re going to start seeing more and more of them the closer we get to the Manehattan gardens.”

“I have never seen a balefire phoenix,” Xayah said thoughtfully from beside me as she watched the bird do one more loop before swooping out of sight and behind one of the ruined skyscrapers. “It really is as beautiful as I was always told.”

Pyre just shrugged and continued to walk along the road towards our destination. “We’re going to be seeing a lot more soon. Try not to get sidetracked every time we see one in the garden.”

“And why exactly are we heading to the Manehattan gardens again?” Brisk asked flatly, glancing over at me. “You never did explain that to us.”

I exchanged a look with Pyre, not sure whether I should answer his question or not. Pyre gave a small shake of her head. “I have unfinished business there that I need to attend to.”

Brisk cast me a confused and accusing look, but something in my expression made him quickly drop the topic.

My pipbuck gave a small beeping noise as we neared an intersection in the road. I checked my map quickly, making sure we were still headed in the right direction. It looked like we were getting close to the source of the distress signal.

“We should be arriving in a few minutes,” I said, my eyes still transfixed to my pipbuck screen. “Keep your eyes open. The last thing we need is an altercation with the Steel Rangers.”

With a nod, everypony turned to face the area around them, wary of any approaching life signs.

I returned my attention to my pipbuck and opened up the Institute files I had stolen from my time in the Institute. I had spent a decent amount of time that morning perusing through the files. Most of it was of little interest to me, will almost every name on the long list of ponies replaced by synths being somepony I didn’t know. I had been surprised to learn that Salt Water had been a synth, before he had died in the caves below the Hollow Shades.

It was quickly coming to my attention that the Institute’s spies were far more integrated into the wasteland than I had previously realised. According to the files, it seemed like almost every settlement of note had a fair collection of synths. Many of the Institute's spies also happened to be figures of power, settlement leaders and the such.

I did notice that not a single synth had been deployed into Fillydelphia. Whether that was the work of Red Eye or the design of the mysterious director, I couldn’t be sure.

Slowly, I scrolled down through the files. There were hundreds of names, it was clear the Railroad was going to have a lot of work on their hooves. I doubted I would be able to go through the whole thing if I spent a full day doing nothing but reading it.

I was so focused on the files that I didn’t notice the lone green bar pop up onto my EFS until Brisk stopped and pointed it out to me.

I stopped and looked up from my pipbuck, my eyes catching on something large slowly rolling towards us from down the street. At the distance we were, it was hard to make out exactly what it was, but it seemed to be some sort of boxy robot that rolled along on a single wheel.

“What is that?” I asked, my eyes lingering on the single wheel before moving up to look at the rest of the robot's body.

“Securitron,” Pyre replied hastily, stepping up beside me. “There are tons of them out in Las Pegasus. Haven’t seen one out this far though.”

Mirra stood on her hind legs atop Pyre’s back to get a better look of the approaching robot. “What do you think it’s doing all the way out here?”

I narrowed my eyes, trying to get a better look at the thing. It seemed to be coming straight towards us, but according to my EFS, it was not hostile in any way. “I guess we’re about to find out,” I said glumly, quickening my pace slightly. “Because I think it’s here for us.”

I had been right. I hate being right.

The Securitron came to stop in front of us as we neared. Now up close, I was able to make out the rest of its body in fuller detail. It’s boxy body sported a central screen that currently played little more than static and a set of large pauldron-like missile launchers sat on each side. It had long, accordion-like arms, each one ending with a sharp metal claw.

We stood there silently, staring up at the large robot. After a few seconds of silence, I took a step forward. “Hello? Anypony home?”

“Amber Aura,” A voice suddenly said from the bot. I hopped back slightly with surprise. The voice was not what I had been expecting. I had expected some sort of synthesized tone, similar to Watcher or the many robots of the wasteland. This robot however spoke with a very organic feminine sounding voice. It had a posh, elegant tone to it, though noticeably raspy, as if the speaker's throat was slowly constricting.

Casting a glance back at my friends, I once more turned to face the securiton. “Who am I talking to right now?”

The screen in the center of the robot flickered and cut out. Then, it flashed back to life, this time showing off the image of a ghoul. The ghoul had a light grey, almost white coat. Her mane, though once clearly a light magenta with white streaks, had become a patchy mess. It was clear that despite her decrepit and rotting look, the ghoul had been attempting to make herself look appealing. A strange pink mist wafted around her, oozing from her orifices and spilling from her mouth. Had she not been little more than a rotting corpse, she looked like she had at one point been quite beautiful.

This must have been one of the ever so deadly Canterlot ghouls I had heard so much about.

In the background of the image I could make out what appeared to be fairly lavish looking walls and a beautiful crystal chandelier. A large window sat against the far wall, overlooking the ruins of Manehattan.

“Amber Aura,” The ghoul said again, speaking to us through the speaker of the Securitron. “It is a pleasure to finally meet you. I was beginning to think this meeting would never come to pass.”

I cocked my head to the side slightly as I looked up at the image. “I’m sorry. Who are you?”

The ghoul looked offended for a moment, before letting a stoic expression wash over her. “My sincere apologies. How very rude of me not to introduce myself. My name is Fleur De Lis. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

I exchanged another round of confused glances with my friends. This felt weird.

Fleur cleared her throat, which was far from a pleasant sound, and shifted slightly to look at all of us through the monitor. “This dance between us has of course been going on for long enough, so I shall pass most of the formalities and jump to what is important,” she raised her chin snootily and peered down at us. “All attempts to retrieve the A.A.S.S. from you have been met with failure. I wish to request that you deliver the A.A.S.S. to the Ponypalooza Hotel near Fetlock.”

My mouth dropped open. She wanted me to what?

I heard a small laugh escape Brisk’s mouth behind me. “Why in the name of Celestia would we do something stupid like that?”

Fleur scowled at him through the monitor. “You will of course be rewarded for your actions. Twenty thousand bits and place amongst the heigh society of the new world.”

I blinked. “Bits? You realize nopony has used bits in over two hundred years, right?” realizing that Fleur was very much serious, I shook my head. “I’m taking it you are with the Canterlot ghouls that have been gathering around Fetlock as well as the pony Crank was supposed to meet and deliver the A.A.S.S. to for Red Eye?”

A thin, sliver of a smile reached the edges of Fleur’s lips. “Of course. I am pleased to hear that my reputation precedes me?”

I snarled. “That’s not a reputation you want preceding you, I assure you,” I stomped a hoof and glared up at the image of the Canterlot ghoul. “I have been through hell and back to keep the A.A.S.S. out of Red Eye’s hooves, and you simply expect me to give it over to you like that?”

The thin smile faltered on the ghouls face, but did not recede completely. “We expected you to be unwilling to corporate, however trying to take the A.A.S.S. from you by force has proven to be less than successful,” Her smile returned in full. “So we figured we would ask you nicely before playing our next move.”

I exchanged a worried look with Xayah. The zebra took a step forward and looked up at the Securitron. “And what would that be?”

Fleur just gave a secretive grin that looked more like a grimace than anything else. “You have twenty four hours to deliver the A.A.S.S. to the Ponypalooza Hotel in Fetlock, or there will be consequences.”

Without so much as another word, the screen on the Securitron shut off and the robot began rolling back down the street and into the desolation.

Gulping, I looked around at all my friends who were looking just as confused as I felt.

Pyre cocked her head and looked over at the Securitron as it turned a corner and disappeared from sight. “We’re not actually going to do anything that old ghoul asks, are we?”

I shook my head. “If I gave up the A.A.S.S. every time somepony threatened to take it from me, I’d have hoofed it over three weeks ago. Let her do what she will, we can cross that bridge when we get there,” I glanced back down at my pipbuck. “Besides, we have other things to deal with right now.”

Trying our best to put Fleur’s threats out of mind, we once more began moving down the street towards our destination. According to the radio frequency on my pipbuck, we were getting awfully close.

“If they were being attacked by Steel Rangers, shouldn’t we be hearing something by now? Steel Rangers aren’t exactly the stealthiest bunch after all,” Brisk questioned, glancing around the quiet street. It was oddly silent… far to silent.

“Maybe it's a trap?” Pyre suggested, glancing around at the shattered windows that lined the streets. “Wouldn’t be the first time somepony used a distress signal to lure ponies into a trap.”

“Why would they admit to being a synth then?” Xayah pointed out. “If one wanted to play as bait, would they not claim to be something more trustworthy?”

“Maybe they’re dead then,” Brisk suggested. “It sounded like they were already engaged with the Rangers when we got the distress signal, and that was over an hour ago.”

I hesitated for a second. “Maybe… We’ll have to look around to know for…”

Blam!

I was cut off as a bullet slammed into the ground in front of me, sending a puff of dust, ash and loose asphalt up into my face. I jumped by, my magic pulling out Braeburn’s Liberator. The rest of my friends dropped into a battle stance, reaching for and pulling out their own weapons.

Mirra yelped. Instinctively, she morphed into a tiny me as she cowered behind Pyre. I gave her a small nudge to remind her of our travel agreement. The small changeling gave me a sheepish smile before transforming into a small yellow filly.

“Don’t come another step closer Steel Ranger scum! That was a warning shot!” A raspy female voice shouted at us from behind the broken window directly in front of us that appeared to belong to what had at one point been an old bank. “I’m armed and I won’t hesitate to kill you!”

That voice… exactly the same as the one from the distress signal. I turned to my friends quickly. “Not a trap then,” Turning back to the building, I shouted. “We aren’t rangers. We got your distress frequency and are here to help!”

There was a long pregnant pause. “Yeah right! Do you think I’m stupid?” They shouted back, their tone just as distrusting as it had been before. “Maybe if you weren’t heavily armed and walking around with a suit of fuckin’ power armour! Fuck you ranger!”

Before I could respond, I heard another voice pipe up. “Dude, they’re not fuckin’ raiders. That’s fucking Pyre Blaze!”

There was another long pause. “Last known location of Pyre was out in the Hollow Shades. No fucking way she’s out here.”

“I’m telling ya, that’s her. I’d recognize that armour anywhere.”

I turned and gave Pyre a confused look, but from her stance I could tell she was just as confused as me. Slowly, she took a step forward. “I am Pyre Blaze. We aren’t rangers. We are here to help.”

I could hear the sound of shuffling and muttering from inside the building. After a few long seconds, the mare’s voice spoke up again. “Well what are you waiting for! Get in here before they shoot you!”

Exchanging nervous glances with my friends, we quickly moved forwards and darted into the broken down bank.

The interior of the bank was a mess and had clearly seen battle recently. The windows had blown inwards, a clear sign of heavy explosives, and the walls were marred with bullet holes and scorch marks. Five pony corpses lay in mangled heaps on the floor. Four of them resemble raiders, ripped apart by what looked to be the Steel Ranger’s heavy weaponry. The final body was that of a Steel Ranger knight, its steaming power armour now rendered completely unusable from a grenade explosion.

There were three ponies still alive inside the building, all of which in different states of injury. One stallion laying in the corner had had both of his fore hooves blown off and was currently doing everything he could to stop the bleeding.

But it was how the ponies were dressed that gave me pause. Jagged chunks of metal and leather had been strapped over their body to make crude and intimidating pieces of armour. Their coats were stained with blood and muck and each one of them bore a twisted looking cutie mark of rusted knives or gory imagery.

They were raiders… we had been sent out to rescue raiders!

Almost instinctively, I reached for my shotgun to put one of them down. The wasteland was a twisted place, and sometimes it was hard to figure out exactly what the right course of action was to take, but I knew what to do with raiders. They were bad. Simple as that.

Pyre saw my reaction and quickly put a hoof up to silently tell me to stop. I glanced at her, confused. It wasn’t like Pyre to choose a nonviolent approach to a situation.

“How do you know who I am?” Pyre asked, her voice more monotone than I had ever heard from her as she turned back to the raiders.

One of the raiders, the mare that had sent the distress signal stepped forwards. “You’re fucking kidding right? Every raider between the Crystal Empire and fucking Canterlot knows who you are! You’re the raider that left the Las Pegasus gang. You’re the pony that said the big fuck you to Jinx and Razor Blade and just went out on your own.”

Pyre winced. “I didn’t say anything of the sort to those two… I just left.”

The raider missing his forehooves gave a small chuckle. “And you think they didn’t take that as a personal insult? I think you underestimate just how much those raiders hate you. Jinx is furious. Got every raider in the wasteland out for your head. You defying her like that is startin’ to make raider’s talk. They’re starting to say Jinx is going soft. That she ain’t as tough as she used to be.”

Pyre snorted. “Right, like anypony stands a chance against that force of nature.”

I raised an eyebrow. “I’ve heard you mention their name before. Who exactly is this Jinx?”

Pyre cast me a quick glance. “Leader of the Las Pegasus raiders and someone you better pray you never meet. It takes a lot to be the overboss of a group of raiders that large, especially for how long Jinx has been running the joint,” She glanced back at the raiders. “But you didn’t quite answer my question. You said you’d recognize my armour anywhere. Have we met?”

Again, the raider missing his forehooves spoke up. “Names Caltrops,” he grunted, nodding his head slightly. “Proud member of the Manehattan Scourge. I don’t blame you for not remembering. It’s been a long time.”

Pyre went stiff. “No… No, I remember you. You were that little runt that murdered that little filly with a landmine…” Pyre was quiet for a few more moments, seemingly deep in thought. “I thought Viscera ate your heart…”

Caltrops grimace. “Don’t remind me. Somepony needs to tell that cunt to kill her prey before she does shit like that…” He shook the memory out of his head. “Ain’t none of us here are ponies. We all remember dying, then just waking up in some trash heap a second later.”

The raider mare spoke up next. “Took us a long while, but we started to hear rumours about ponies like us. Ponies that died only to come back from the dead…”

“Synths,” I grunted, recognizing the Institutes style of throwing out their failed experiments all too well.

The mare gave a grim nod. “Exactly. Before long we found more of us. Raiders that had witnessed death and were given another chance. Formed a small gang of our own. We weren’t doing half bad...” she glanced grimly at the Steel Ranger’s corpse lying in the middle of the room. “Well… until we had a run in with the Steel Rangers that is.”

Brisk looked back and forth a few times between all of us before giving me a small nudge. “So… Are we going to kill the raider’s or what?”

I cast him a small scowl, though I was unsure what the proper answer to that question was myself. Excluding Pyre, I wasn’t used to Raiders playing nice and not just shooting at us on sight.

The raider mare whom I was beginning to assume was the leader of the group took a step back and Brisk’s words and waved her hooves in the air. “Hold up just a sec. All of us here aren’t like that shit anymore. Experiencing death ourselves kinda took the novelty out of the whole thing. We’re trying to do better. I swear we are.”

Pyre turned to look at me, her eyes hard through her tinted visor. “We came here to help them right? Well, that’s what we’re doing.”

I gave her a confused look. “It’s not like you to search for the peaceful alternative before we do.”

Pyre simply shrugged. “I’m taking that talk we had to heart. I’m trying to get it right Amber. Fuck me, I really am going to try. I’ll start here,” She glanced back at the group of raiders as they tended to each other's wounds. “And maybe I might be able to help them to do better as well. Besides, it’s not often I get the chance to save one of Viscera’s victims,” There was a sense of sorrow to her voice. She was thinking about Heartbeat, I knew she was. Heartbeat and probably so many others that I didn’t even know about.

I gave an affirmative nod. “Alright. We’ll help them out,” I turned to face Xayah and Mirra who were looking over the group of raiders sceptically. “Can you two keep a lookout for any Steel Ranger. We need to get these ponies healed up before we move.”

The skepticism on both of their faces washed away at my words and they quickly darted out to do a sweep of the area. The raider that hadn’t spoken yet looked up as they darted out. “The Steel Rangers are likely still close by. Last time we checked was just a few moments before you guys showed up. It isn’t like them to simply give up. I think there’s around three or four of them.”

“You guys managed to hold off a whole squadron of Steel Rangers by yourselves?” Brisk asked, pulling out a healing potion and offering it to Caltrops.

Caltrops quickly drank the potion before giving Brisk a smug look. “As I said, I was once a member of the Manehattan Scourge. Toughest damn raider gang on this side of the wastes. I can put up a pretty damn good fight. Steel Ranger’s ain’t nothin’ but cowards in fancy armour,” He glanced over at Pyre who was still standing beside me. “You’re traveling with Pyre Blaze, surely she’s told you stories about us.”

Pyre shook her head. “I try not to talk about my past with these ponies,” She grunted, gesturing to Brisk and I. “They're a bunch of do-gooders. Talkin’ about some of the shit I did will probably just upset them more than anything. I do my best to forget about it… I’m trying to start new. Like you are.”

I gave Pyre a worried look. “I thought we were done holding stuff back from each other?”

Pyre scoffed. “We are. If you want to hear a detailed list of all the fucked up things I did as a raider, we can sit down and talk about them over a round of booze at some point. But unless you really want to hear it, I’ll keep those locked up tight and out of mind for now.”

I furrowed my brow as I tried to figure out just how to proceed with that. The truth of the matter was that I didn’t really want to hear everything she had done, and talking about it might not even be very healthy for Pyre’s emotional state. And at the same time, she was right. The list was probably too long to go over on a normal day and would probably just cause me more emotional turmoil than it would help her.

Caltrops shook his head. “I don’t think you can just forget about those kinds of things, Pyre. I’ve been trying for months. The more I try to pretend my past never happened, the more it keeps me up at night. The music must be faced, or it will only fester.”

It looked like Pyre was about to respond when a gunshot rang out throughout the building. Everypony flinched, ducking down and making sure to get out of view of the windows.

I scooted up against the wall and peeked out, taking in the street outside. Xayah and Mirra stood in the center of the street, their guns drawn and pointed at three Steel Rangers. The two Steel Ranger’s on the sides looked just as intimidating as Steel Rangers tended to look, both of them sporting a heavy set of power armour. The one to the right had what looked to be a grenade launcher attached to their battlesaddle, while the one on the left had two twin miniguns on each side. A red dot of light on Xayah’s side alerted me of a fourth ranger somewhere out of sight, keeping an eye on us with a sniper.

The Ranger that stood between them however was a sight to behold. His large suit of fully enclosed power armor was a dark purple, encrusted with dark, intricate patterns. His massive battle saddle held an impressive arsonal of firepower as well. On his right side was a bulky box filled with missiles and on his right was a huge cannon like weapon that was so comically large I could compare it only by that of a Balefire Egg Launcher. A small hatch had opened up on his back and some sort of magical energy turret had popped out and was currently shifting back and forth between Mirra and Xayah.

“You are in the presence of the True Steels!” The central Ranger boomed in a deep, resonating voice. “Drop your weapons or face our fury!”

Pyre gave me a confused look. “True Steels? The fuck is going on?”

I didn’t answer her. Instead, I exchanged a worried look with Brisk before looking back out at the Ranger clad in purple power armour. It had been a long time since I had heard his voice, but it was not the kind of voice one forgets. Strong and commanding and oozing with his zealot mindset.

“Iron Hock,” Brisk whispered at me, as he slowly crawled over and peeked out the window at the large Ranger.

I nodded. “This must be that splinter group Crossroads warned us about.”

Iron Hock took another step forward. There was a loud clunking sound as the rockets in his rocket launcher reloaded themselves. He glanced back and forth between Mirra and Xayah for a second, before finally focusing on Xayah and narrowing his eyes. “You… I never forget a face. You were that zebra bitch that was traveling with the two Stable dwellers.”

I saw Xayah take a worried step back at his approach. Iron Hock’s gaze flickered up to the window. I ducked down, but I’m sure that he saw me.

Brisk glanced up at me. “You got a plan?”

I shrugged. “We can try diplomacy I guess, but that didn’t work well for us the last time we crossed this guy.”

I could see the raiders readying themselves for what they knew was going to be a rather rough fight. I gulped. Four Steel Rangers would be tough at the best of times. But these zealots… these True Steels seemed to be packing a much larger arsonal than the normal Steel Ranger group.

Xayah and Mirra took another step back as the three members of the True Steels approached them.

“I would like the Stable Dwellers to know…” Iron Hock started, raising his voice so that we could hear him clearly. “...That I found their little Stable. It was tricky work, dealing with the pink cloud inside, but I made it work,” He paused, taking another step forward. His hooves thumped heavily against the ground as he walked. “...I stripped it of parts. Ripped apart the walls and tore out the generators. Scavenged everything of value. Your home is being put to good use, I assure you. No scrap left untouched.”

I scowled. I didn’t like the idea of ponies defiling the remains of my old home. I wasn’t sure if Iron Hock was trying to comfort me or get under my skin, but the whole thing just left a gross taste in my mouth.

A rather cruel sounding chuckled escaped the ranger as he continued to draw closer to the building. I suddenly knew that he was definitely not trying to comfort me. “The bodies inside of course had to be dealt with as well… I put those to good use too.”

Unable to contain myself anymore, I hoped out of my cover and scowled at the large ranger. “What did you do to them!” I bellowed, feeling a hot anger rising up inside of me. Mirra and Xayah jumped a little in surprise at my sudden outburst and quickly moved up beside me.

Even through his helmet, I could feel Iron Hock’s grin. “The Steel Rangers were always weak. Zombies such as Steelhooves and mindless lackeys like Crossroads were allowed to make decisions. They could have been something great… Now they’re nothing but history. The True Steels are what the Steel Rangers should have been. We will control the wasteland and create a new order. For two hundred years, pony kind has been stagnant. Magic and technology came to all but a standstill. Under the new order of the True Steels, progress can once more commence,” He raised his hoof up into the air dramatically. I didn’t doubt this speech had been rehearsed many times. He looked back down at me. When he spoke again, his voice was low and dripping with honey. “But for that to happen, we will need fuel.”

I felt my legs grow weak. He wasn’t implying that he… he couldn’t…

My mouth dropped open as I stared at him. “Y-you turned them into…” I clamped my mouth shut, unable to finish the sentence.

Iron Hock had no issue finishing it for me. “The corpses of Stable 25 will be melted down and used to fuel the new order. They should be enough for our purposes for the next few years until we can find a more sustainable source of energy.”

My legs gave out from under me and I collapsed to the ground. Xayah stepped in front of me protectively and growled at Iron Hock. “You need to leave… Now!” Xayah snarled, her lips curling back and baring her teeth.

Iron Hock simply sniggered. “That won’t be possible,” He gestured to the building behind us with an armoured hoof. “I am aware there are a group of raiders in there. They need to die. The world's new order has no room for anarchists like them.”

I pushed myself up and stomped my hooves on the ground. “These ponies are currently under our protection! You will leave now or we will retaliate.”

Iron Hock gave me an amused look. “You would protect raiders? These ponies are rapists. Murderers. I would have thought that even you would hate ponies like them.”

Brisk pulled himself out of the bank and stood next to me. “You’re the only raider I see here,” He scowled around the handle of his pistol.

All three of the True Steels took an angry step forward at that remark. Iron Hock snarled. “We are trying to save the wasteland. Bring it peace and governance. How dare you compare us to those filth!”

“You’re raiders in fancy armour,” I said flatly, giving him an angry glare. “Now fuck off!”

Iron Hock gave an agitated snort and scraped his hoof across the ground, leaving a large gouge in the road. “If you will not give the raiders over, then you are their accomplices,” the turret on the top of his back swiveled to aim at me. “...And you will be judged by the new order accordingly.”

I suddenly regretted making him quite so angry.

“Get back, now!” I shouted, pushing both Xayah and Mirra back into the building. A second later, the street where we had been standing was blasted apart by the sudden burst of the True Steels weaponry.

I was sent flying backwards, ash and debris obscuring my vision as the ground burst open in front of me. Fire flared before me, seering the front of my face and burning away some of my coat. I slammed against the side of the building and staggered, my ears ringing and my hooves shielding my eyes in an attempt to not go blind.

Brisk stumbled into me, the right side of his face oozing blood from the shrapnel from the explosive fire. I grabbed onto him and pulled him to the ground second before the turret atop Iron Hock’s back opened fire. Blasts of magical energy whizzed over our heads, bursting against the building stone walls and blasting out hoof sized chunks of the wall in a shower of sparks.

I felt a pair of strong hooves wrap around me as Pyre moved out from cover and started dragging the two of us back into the building.

There was an angry scream, followed by a loud explosion as one of the raiders tossed a grenade from the building. The True Steels scattered, jumping out of the way and getting clear as the grenade burst the street apart, sending shrapnel and debris flying in every direction.

A bullet slammed into Pyre’s armour, the unseen ranger finally taking a shot at us. The bullet ripped through the plating over Pyre’s chest and buried itself deep in her flesh. She screamed out, stumbling as she conitnued trying to pull us into cover. A lesser pony might have simply dropped dead from the shot, but Pyre was anything but a lesser pony.

I fell forwards, collapsing inside the structure. My head was spinning and my vision still seemed to be flashing with bright lights, but I was beginning to make the fuzzy shapes of ponies out again. I stood up, trying to get my bearings.

“The fuck are you doing!? Get down!” I heard one of the raiders shout at me. I only had just enough time to throw myself to the ground before a rocket came whizzing over my head and blasting against the far wall.

The shockwave from the blast sent me sprawling, my head slamming against the side of the wall. I groaned, rubbing the side of my head with a hoof. I could already feel a large bump forming.

Xayah pulled herself over to me and propped me up, looking me over for wounds. “Amber!? Amber, are you alright!?”

I blinked up at her, my head in a daze. “Y-yeah… I’ll be fine…” I leaned up and tried to give her a reassuring nuzzle, but with my spinning vision, I missed her completely. I felt anything but fine.

Two more rockets slammed into the side of the building, making the whole structure shudder. A large chunk of roof collapsed, nearly crushing Mirra who yelped and quickly hopped out of the way.

A blast of flame shot over me as Pyre began launching her own attacks at the True Steels. I heard one of them cry out in pain for just a second, but I doubted that her flamers managed to cook the pony inside the power armour that quickly.

Brisk threw himself to the ground beside Xayah and I as another round of Iron Hock’s turret sent magical lasers flashing into the room. Brisk raised his pistol and fired two shots blindly at the rangers before ducking back behind cover.

The raiders had begun firing back as well. The two raiders who still had all their limbs intact would jump out from hiding and send a round of bullets flying towards the rangers before jumping back behind cover. Caltrops had pulled himself up to the door and was quick at work setting up some sort of trap.

I rolled up to my hooves, swaying slightly as blood rushed up to my already spinning head, and fired a shot from Braeburn’s Liberator. The magically guided shot locked onto one of the closer rangers and blasted into their forehoof. The ranger howled with pain as the explosive buckshot ripped apart their armour and the fire talismans set their hoof ablaze. The ranger retreated slightly, moving out of range to tend to their wound, but they weren’t out of the fight yet.

The only warning I got was a small flash of red as the laser pointer on the end of the concealed rangers sniper leveled with my head. I ducked below cover, the shot from the sniper ringing out and blasting into the wall behind me.

“Those rangers are going to tear us apart with those explosives if we don't take them out soon, but we aren’t going to be able to land a good shot on them with that sniper always pinning us down!” I shouted over the din as yet another explosion rocked the structure. I turned to Xayah, who was currently doing her best to evade falling debri as the structure around us quickly started crumbling in on itself. “Xayah, do you think you can find and take out the sniper?”

Xayah ducked as another round of fire from Iron Hock’s turret lashed out at us and looked up at me. “I’m not as sneaky as I used to be, Amber,” She grunted, flicking at one of her new metal hooves in disdain.

I gave a slow nod. “I know, but you’re still the best sniper we have. Are you up for it?”

Xayah took less than a second to come to a conclusion. “Consider it done,” She pulled backwards and darted up a set of stairs that lead to a higher level of the bank.

I twirled around to face Pyre. “Pyre! You’re our distraction. The second that sniper goes down, I need you to draw their attention away from us. We need to divide their firepower or this fight is going to be over quick.”

Pyre gave a quick salute. “You couldn’t have asked a better pony for the job.”

I turned to Brisk and Mirra, ducking slightly as another missile bombarded the structure. “You two are with me. Once Pyre draws them away, we need to start picking off the rangers.”

“And what do you want us to do?” The raider mare asked, her horn glowing as she fired off a barrage of shots from her assault carbine.

“We aren’t going to be able to do much hiding behind here. The second those rangers manage to destroy this wall we’re all going to be a nice easy target for one of their missiles,” I explained, quickly glancing out the window. The three rangers had regrouped and were beginning to move closer. “I need you to try and flank them. There's eight of us and only three of them. If we can get behind them we might stand a chance.”

Caltrops rolled onto his back and looked up at me and wiggled his stump legs, some sort of explosive held tightly in his mouth. “Well I can do fuck all,” He grumbled loudly around his mouthful of explosives. “I’ll... hold down fort... I suppose. Don’t come in through the main door.”

The mare dropped her weapon as one of the True Steels sent a volley of grenades flying towards us. She lashed out with her magic and wrapped the grenades in her telekinesis before tossing them back out the window at the rangers. There was a boom as the grenades exploded half way out of the building, the explosion and shrapnel sending all of us staggering backwards against the far wall.

“They have EFS, they’ll see us trying to flank them,” The mare retorted, once again scooping up her weapons and firing blindly into the kicked up ash and smoke that was beginning to obscure the street.

I fired another shot out into the street, this time missing by miles as the minimal range on my weapon caused the buckshot to fall short. “You’ll have to split up. Head separate directions if you can. Confuse their EFS if possible,” I paused so I could jump backwards and avoid a particularly well aimed shot from the rangers sniper. “Wait for my signal and then get moving!”

“What’s the signal?”

There was a small popping sound of a silenced sniper firing, followed by a pony clad in combat armour bearing the Steel Ranger insignia falling from a rooftop and crashing to the ground with a thud.

“That would be the signal,” I grunted. “Go! Now!”

At once, the raiders began moving to the sides, creeping from the building and in a large arch around the street. At the same moment, Pyre burst from the already ruined window, the last bits of glass flying outwards as she barrelled towards the three Rangers.

The rangers yelled and reeled back, their attention suddenly pulled towards the large power armoured raider that was charging towards them. They stumbled back, trying their best to avoid the wave of fire that rushed towards them.

I waved my hoof towards Brisk and Mirra. “Now or never guys!” not waiting for them to respond, I leapt out the window and began moving around the edge of the street in an attempt to get a good shot on one of the rangers. Brisk and Mirra moved out after me, each one with their pistols out and ready.

I saw Iron Hock glance in my direction as he danced out of the way of one of Pyre Blaze’s blasts. He snarled and began darting towards me, only for Pyre to leap into his path and send him stumbling backwards with a strong buck. The Ranger growled and rounded on Pyre, the box of rockets on his side popping open and sending a plethora of missiles streaking towards Pyre.

Pyre rolled, using the weight of her power armour to pull her down as quickly as possible. The missiles sailed over her head. I was about to cheer at her successful dodge when I realized the missiles were now heading towards me. I pushed myself forwards, grabbing onto Mirra and Brisk and tossing them out of the path of the lethal projectiles.

The rockets slammed into the side of an already collapsing structure. The building's front was ripped apart, glass and brick was sent flying across the street and the whole structure started rocking dangerously.

Far to my left, I saw the raider mare slowly creeping around the edges of the street, trying to get behind the Rangers. Where the other raider was, I couldn’t tell.

I pushed myself forwards, Braeburn’s liberator raising and firing at the closest ranger. The buckshot tore through the armour plating over their shoulder, ripping into their flesh and sending dented clunks of metal plating shooting from their side like shrapnel.

The ranger stumbled, their eyes wide through their helmet as they felt the explosive round slam into them. They spun to face me, the twin miniguns on their side whirred to life and sent a hail of bullets towards me.

I leapt aside, searching for cover as the street around me was ripped up by the rapidfire. I tossed myself behind an old sky wagon, seeking shelter from the barrage. The miniguns fire sprayed the side of the wagon with led, a few of the bullets bursting through the wagons plating and shot past me. One shot grazed my side making me wince away.

Brisk fired off a shot at the ranger assaulting me. The bullet pinged harmlessly off the ranger’s armoured side, but drew their attention away from me long enough to move out from cover and fire off a shot myself.

The Ranger dropped to one knee, the explosive shot from my shotgun ripping into one of their legs. The ranger scowled at me as they slowly pulled themself back up and aimed their guns in my direction once more. I took a step back, getting ready to throw myself out of the way of their deadly fire.

Blam!

A well aimed shot from Xayah punctured through their visor and sunk into their brain. The inside of the rangers helmet was coated with red as the head inside popped like a balloon. The ranger swayed for a second, their power armour keeping them upright even after death. Then they collapsed to the ground in a mangled heap of flesh and metal.

I turned to the other two rangers, who were both doing their best to hold off Pyre's vicious attacks. The ranger with the grenade launcher pushed themself out of the way of Pyre’s fire as she closed in on him, his weapon firing and sending a grenade shooting towards Pyre’s face. The explosive burst well before it reached her, the searing heat of her flamers detonating it early.

Iron Hock lashed at Pyre from behind, his large, metal clad hooves slamming into her back and sending her toppling forwards. Pyre hit the ground with a thud, her fore hooves sprawled out in front of her.

I raced forwards, my shotgun aimed towards Iron Hock’s head. He snarled at my approach, his rocket launchers once more popping open and streaking their projectiles towards me. My shotgun exploded the first before it could reach me, blasting appart the rocket mid air and causing a large cloud of fire and smoke to obscure the street between us. I dove out of the way of the others, pushing myself to my right as the missiles launched past me.

I heard a roar of triumph as the raiders finally got into position behind the rangers and began bombarding them with a hail of bullets from behind. The grenade launcher ranger fell, his armour torn open by the brutal assault of the raider mare’s assault carbine.

Iron Hock was thrown backwards as Pyre pulled herself up and bucked at him with her strong back hooves. The ranger staggered, trying to keep himself upright after the devastating buck to the face. He glanced around at all of us as we slowly closed in around him, realizing he was very much outnumbered. He growled at me as I approached and raised my shotgun to face him.

“You have made yourselves enemies of the True Steels!” Iron Hock roared, as if attempting to intimidate his way out of the situation.

I rolled my eyes. “You’re telling me we weren’t already?”

Mirra hopped up on top of Pyre’s head, no longer in disguise, and hissed at Iron Hock, showing off her forked tongue and fangs. I thought it was a little adorable actually, but Iron Hock didn’t seem to think so. He took a nervous step back from us, only to find himself bumping into the two raiders that had flanked him.

I heard the loud, metal hoofsteps of Xayah walking up behind me. I turned my head slightly, to see her slowly approaching, adding her own weapon to the arsenal of firepower currently aimed towards Iron Hock.

“Well Amber? What is the plan?” Xayah asked as she pulled up next to me.

I glared at Iron Hock for a second, my eyes narrowing. This bastard had desecrated Stable 25. Melted down the corpses of my friends and family to use as fuel. He’d probably done the same thing to my father as well. I growled. “I don’t care... Just kill him.”

Thump.

We all looked up, our focus suddenly drawn to a noise that was slowly approaching from across the street.

Thump.

A red bar popped onto my EFS. Then another. Then another. Soon my EFS was swarming with so much red that I couldn’t tell where one bar ended and the other began.

Thump.

A small chuckle escaped Iron Hock’s lips. “What do you think the True Steel’s are stable dweller? A small group? A well armed gang of raiders?” he stopped to look back at where the loud noise was coming from. “I assure you, we are much greater.”

Thump.

A power armoured pony turned the street corner and began marching towards us, their battlesaddle equipped with just as much firepower as the rangers we had just put down. They were followed shortly by three more rangers, each with an equally deadly arsenal.

I crouched into a battle stance, readying myself for their approach. We had just taken on four True Steels without casualty, we could take on four more.

Then five more rounded the corner, their power armour glinting in the diffused light of the cloud covered sun. I felt my jaw go slack as I realized how completely screwed we really were.

Iron Hock turned his head to face me, the edges of his grin just visible through his visor. “I’d start running if I were you.”

The turret atop Iron Hock’s back flared to life, spinning in a fast circle and sending blasts of magical energy lashing towards all of us. We scattered, leaping out of the way of the fire as Iron Hock quickly bolted away from us and towards the approaching rangers.

I raised Braeburn’s Liberator, hoping to fire off a shot at the fleeing Ranger before he could escape me completely. I didn’t have time to fire as the incoming group of rangers let loose their own fire upon us.

I was thrown back, a rocket exploding against the ground only a few inches away from my hooves. The road was torn up, sending bits of asphalt into the air and raining down around me.

“Get back to the bank!” I heard Pyre scream over the booming fire and ringing in my ears. I saw my raider friend rush past me, carrying a heavily bleeding Brisk on her back. “Get back now!”

I stumbled to my hooves, trying to keep my balance as I scrambled away from the fire and back towards the crumbling remains of the bank.

One of the True Steels rushed at me, a minigun on their battle saddle spewing a wall of bullets towards me. I dropped and rolled across the ground, a few shots from the minigun whizzing through my tail as I threw myself down to the street.

I rolled onto my back and bucked upwards, my hooves colliding with the rangers chin as they reared up above me. The ranger stumbled slightly, but was hardly slowed by my rather measly strength.

Xayah rushed past them, one of her hooves flashing out and sending the ranger tumbling to the side. Xayah reached down and pulled my back up before pushing me back towards the bank. “Move! Go!”

The two raiders joined us as we began darting towards the bank. The ground around us burst apart as the oncoming rangers fired upon us. I was thankful that none of their weapons seemed to be very accurate… not that you needed to be very accurate with explosives.

Remembering Caltrops’ suggestion, I ignored the door to the bank and simply threw myself through the window, landing hard on the cracked, glass covered floor inside. Xayah landed next to me a second later, followed shortly by the two raiders.

Brisk glanced up at me as I landed and gave me a thin smile. One of his forelegs looked broken and the coat on his left side had been ripped apart by shrapnel. “Looks like we’re back to square one sis,” He grimaced, spitting out a small wad of blood.

The raider mare gave a fake laugh as she glanced out the window at the approaching rangers. “This is well below square one. We’re fucked.”

Caltrops pulled himself over. The stumps that had once been his legs were still bleeding profusely and the colouration of his coat was beginning to look pale. He nodded towards the back of the bank. “There’s one of those old safes back there. Open from years of looting. We could barricade ourselves in there.”

Pyre shook her head, crouching low as one of the rangers sent a rocket launching through the window at us. “What would that accomplish? We’d just be trapping ourselves.”

I grimaced. “It might give us a little time,” I glanced in the direction Caltrops had insinuated. Just through a door that led to the back room I could see the cracked open iron door of a giant vault. I couldn’t see much of what was inside, but the door looked incredibly sturdy. Like a miniature Stable door.

Mirra hoped to her hooves. “I think getting trapped in there is going to be better than being trapped in here in a second,” As if to prove her point, a grenade landed against the far wall and detonated, blasting apart the wall we were cowering behind and giving the rangers clear shots at all of us.

“No time to talk, get in the vault now!” I yelled, hauling Brisk up to his hooves and pushing him towards the safe. “Go go go!”

Everypony quickly clambered to their hooves and started charging towards the far room. Beside me, Caltrops, propped himself up against the remains of the crumbling wall, gun in mouth and firing at the oncoming rangers.

“What are you doing, come on!” I yelled, slowing myself to a halt as I saw him failing to follow us. “They’re going to tear this place apart in a few seconds.

Caltrops waved me off, wiggling one of his stumpy hooves. “I’m dead anyway. Maybe I can take one of these bastards with me,” He grunted and turned back to the street, his gun firing and piercing through the visor of one of the rangers. “Get the rest to safety.”

I heard Pyre’s heavy hoovesteps as she quickly trotted back over to us. “You sure about this? You were never one for self sacrifice back when you were in the scourge.”

Caltrops grunted again. “When the Institute gave me a second chance at life, I decided then and there I was going to be better. I faced my music, came to terms with the fact that I will never atone fully for what I’ve done as a raider. If I’m ta die, I’m not going to go down for myself,” He glanced back at Pyre and gave her a small wink. “If you really are trying to be better too, then I think it’s about time you faced your own music as well.”

Pyre gave a grim nod, taking a small step away from the bleeding raider. Silently, she turned her back and rushed back towards the vault. I hesitated for a second, questioning if I should drag Caltrops to safety myself. A pleading look from him told me not to.

The True Steels were getting closer. A few of them had started running towards the bank now, their massive weapons firing a consistent barrage of explosives towards us. One of them was foolish enough to burst through the door.

The explosion of the bomb Caltrops had rigged to the door sent me stumbling backwards towards the vault. I spun around and sprinted the rest of the way to safety, bullets slashing through the air around me as I ran.

One blast from Iron Hock’s rocket launcher sent me sprawling across the room. I tumbled head first into the large vault, my head slamming hard against the ground as I landed. The second I was in, Pyre and the two other raiders rushed up to the door and began to push. The huge vault door creaked and began to swing closed, slowly plunging the room into darkness.

I looked up just in time to see Iron Hock leap through the window of the bank, his ironclad hooves pulping Caltrops’ skull as he slammed the dying raider into the ground. Then the massive iron door slammed shut, sealing us off from the outside world.

The second the door was closed, everything went dark. I fumbled with my pipbuck until I found the flashlight feature and flicked it on, casting the room into a sickly green glow. Beside me, Brisk did the same.

We could still hear the rangers outside, but the sounds of their yells and the booms of their weaponry had been muffled immensely.

The safe was far from small. It consisted of a large room that was big enough to house at least ten ponies as well as a smaller room that branched off in the back. It was lined with rows upon rows of shelves that I assumed must have held bits back before the war. It had been looted clean by now, and only a couple of bits seemed to remain strewn across the floor.

“Who in the wasteland needs to loot bits?” I grumbled to myself, inspecting one of the empty shelves. “It’s not like they’ve been worth anything for hundreds of years,” I thought of the offer Fluer had given me. How she had offered bits in exchange for the A.A.S.S. I shook my head. Mysteries for another day.

There was a loud bang on the large safe door, making us all jump. Through the thick layer of metal, I heard Iron Hock speak. “So you have chosen to hide like cowards before our superior might!”

I rolled my eyes. This guy was way too dramatic about everything.

“How long do you think you will survive in there without food? A few days?” Iron Hock continued, once again slamming something against the door. “And what do you plan to do about us once you are forced to open the door?”

I scowled. “What? Are you ponies just going to wait outside with your hooves up your ass for the next few days? Do you really have nothing better to do than pester a bunch of wastelanders?”

There was silence from the other side of the door for a second. For just a moment, I thought I might have convinced him we weren’t worth his time.

“You have killed faithful members of the True Steels, insulted me personally and protected raiders,” Iron Hock snarled through the door. “Furthermore, you are in possession of two functioning Pipbucks and a set of fully operational T-60 Power Armour. I assure you, you are very much worth our time.”

Pyre grimace. “Whoops… yeah they probably don’t like the fact I’m running around with a set of stolen Steel Ranger armour.”

Brisk groaned. “Of course you stole it… why am I not surprised?”

Pyre shrugged. “Hey, I used to be a raider. What did you expect.”

Another thump against the large door once more drew our attention to Iron Hock. “I am giving you one chance to surrender yourselves.”

I rolled my eyes and scoffed. “Right, we’re totally going to do that,” I drawled, taking a small step back from the door.

There was a small sigh that sounded uncomfortably like a chuckle from the other side of the door. Then, there was silence. I waited a few seconds, but it seems that the rangers had gone completely quiet.

Great, now we were screwed and I was anxious.

I turned back to face the rest of the ponies in the room. “Get comfortable. It looks like we might be stuck in here for a little bit.”

The raider mare took a step towards me, her eyes glancing around the room. “Where is Caltrops?”

Pyre and I exchanged a glance. Finally Pyre stepped forwards. “He didn’t make it in. He died doing what was right.”

The mare's face faltered somewhat, but she remained fairly stoic. Raiders are just used to having their friends dying I guess. “His death is all that any of us can hope for at this point I suppose.”

I heard Xayah trot up beside me and wrap one of her metal hooves around my neck. “We’ll find a way out of this, don’t worry,” She whispered to me softly.

I nodded, though I was beginning to have doubts of our success. “We’ve all faced much worse in the past. We can deal with these Steel Ranger zealots.”

Not knowing what else to say, I reached into my saddlebag and started passing out healing potions to those that needed it most.

I had hoped we would have figured a way out within the hour. We didn’t.

We spent most of the time in silence, pacing across the room or simply laying on the ground waiting for something to happen. The rangers outside had remained completely silent as well. A part of me hoped they had simply left, but I knew that was unlikely.

Xayah had curled up beside me at some point, her head resting on my back as I sat on the cold ground next to the doorway to the adjoining room. A few paces away I could see Brisk exchanging a few words with the two raiders, their voices hushed to the point that the only way I knew they were talking was the opening and closing of their mouths.

I glanced back at Xayah, the boredom of being stuck in the same room washing over me. I was trying to keep track of how long we had been in here. An hour probably. Maybe two. It was hard to say.

“How do you keep going?” A timid voice suddenly piped up. My ears perked up at the voice. It was quiet, but amongst the near silence of the chamber, it caught my attention immediately.

I tilted my head slightly to look into the room beside me. Pyre and Mirra had wandered inside shortly after the rangers had gone silent and were now taking up the center of the room. Pyre lay on her front, her face and expression obscured by her helmet, while Mirra curled up atop her back, looking up at the ceiling with large, sad eyes.

“What do you mean?” Pyre grunted back, not bothering to raise her head to look at the changeling filly. Her voice was quieter than Mirra’s had been, but I could still hear it fairly well.

Mirra was quiet for a moment before responding. “About what you did to your mom? How do you live with yourself?”

Pyre remained silent for a long time. For a moment, I thought she wasn’t going to respond. “You’re still thinking about what you did inside the Institute, huh?” Mirra nodded her head. Pyre sighed, “For a long time I just pushed all the thoughts about it to the back of my mind. Tried to forget…”

Mirra’s lip quivered. “But… But I can’t forget. I keep thinking about it…” Mirra looked down at her hooves, her eyes sad. “I’m finding it hard to smile, Pyre… I keep putting on a fake smile for everypony else, but it’s getting really hard. I don’t want them to worry about me.”

My heart went out for the little filly. I couldn’t even imagine what she was going through. I had lost my parents, sure… but to need to kill them myself? It was a terrible thought.

Pyre chuckled slightly, but it was a joyless chuckle. “If you’re worried about Amber, don’t. She’s understanding. Hell, she puts up with me. Being honest with her might help.”

Mirra shook her head and curled up into a tighter ball. “She already worked so hard to reunite me with my mom… I don’t want her to think that she failed me or made it worse or anything…”

I saw one of Pyre’s eyebrows raise through her visor. “Do you feel like she failed you or made it worse?”

I held my breath. Mirra’s silence told me everything. “I- I don’t know… maybe… If she hadn’t taken me to the Institute to see my mom, I would never have met her and I wouldn’t have had to do what I did… But that's not exactly fair of me to be angry at her for.”

“Ignorance is bliss as they say,” Pyre grumbled. “Anger isn’t usually fair. I was angry at the world for what I did to my mother, lashed out at it. I hurt a lot of ponies, but that wasn't fair of me either. That blame lands one only two ponies and two ponies alone.”

Mirra tilted her head and looked down at Pyre. “Can… can I ask who?”

Pyre snorted. “Me and…” Her voice choked in her throat. “And… never mind... It’s not important.”

Mirra seemed to get the message that Pyre didn’t want to talk about that anymore. “What should I do Pyre? I don’t know what I should do…”

For the first time, Pyre tilted her head to look up at the changeling. “Face the music... Come to terms with what you’ve done, and do everything you can to make up for it.”

“Have you faced the music?”

“No…” Pyre’s voice dropped to a low octave and she turned to look up at the ceiling. “But I will. Very soon…” he voice grew even lower, and for some reason, I got the impression she didn’t want Mirra to hear the next part. “...I’m coming back…”

Mirra sighed and shuffled up Pyre’s back to curl up between her large shoulders. “We could always try to face this together…” She offered, trying her best to give the large raider a hug. Her hooves didn't even wrap half way around Pyre’s neck.

Pyre gave a small huff like chuckle. “Yeah… sure kid. I’ll help you out any way I can.”

Mirra shifted uncomfortably atop Pyre’s back. I could tell she was about to ask something she was nervous about. “Um… Pyre? Do... do you mind if I ask something?”

Pyre grunted. “Of course. Anytime.”

Mirra shuffled her hooves together for a second. “Um… Well. I was wondering if I could call you mom?”

Silence. I could see Pyre’s body lock up from across the room. Clearly Mirra felt the shift in Pyre’s body language too as she stammered to explain herself. “I mean… Like, Amber and Brisk call each other brother and sister and stuff, and like… we both lost our moms, so I was thinking that… um… well, that is to say…”

Pyre shifted, gently letting Mirra flutter off her back. The large power armoured raider rose to her full height, her gaze fixated on the far wall and away from Mirra. She stood rigid for a moment, simply staring off into space. Finally she turned and faced the doorway. I ducked my head back before she could spot me eavesdropping on them.

“I think I need a bit to think things through,” Pyre grunted, her emotions masked by her helmet and stoic tone. She quickly trotted out of the room, not bothering to even look at the small changeling that whimpered sadly as she left.

I glanced up at Pyre as she trotted out of the room past me. My raider friend paused and looked down at me, our eyes meeting through her visor. “How much did you hear?” She grunted, her voice quiet enough that only I could hear her.

I grimaced, but didn’t have it in me to lie to her. “Most of it I think.”

Pyre gave me a small nod. “When we reach my father in the Manehattan gardens… I want you to make sure Mirra isn’t there… Understand.”

I furrowed my brow. “Pyre, I don’t think you should just push her away like th-”

“It's for her own protection Amber, not mine…” With that, she stomped the rest of the way across the room and curled up into a ball of her own in the far corner.

I glanced back into the room, making out the shape of Mirra in the dim light. She had her back turned to me and was staring down at her hooves. She didn’t seem to be crying, but that didn’t mean anything in the wasteland. We were all crying, even when the tears wouldn’t come. The wasteland was just like that.

A loud bang awoke me from my sleep. I bolted up, startling Xayah who had still been sleeping next to me.

Pyre and Brisk had leapt to their hooves faster than it had taken me to wake up and were slowly backing away from the large iron door with their weapons drawn. The two raiders pulled up beside them, adding their own weapons to the mix.

There was another loud bang on the door, this time shaking the whole chamber and forcing me to instinctively reach for my shotgun with my magic.

Mirra poked her head out from the room beside me and looked up at me. “What’s going on?”

I shook my head, my shotgun focused on the door. “Not sure. Sounds like those rangers are finally doing something.”

“Start the drill,” I heard a muffled voice call out. It wasn’t Iron Hock, but they definitely sounded like they had some authority.

The drill?

I didn’t have time to think about that as my ears were suddenly assaulted with a loud whirring sound mixed with the ear piercing squeal of metal on metal. We all took a step away from the door, my rump colliding with the far wall as I stepped back.

The centre of the large iron door dented then broke, the tip of a large spiralling drill pushing its way through the door with a large shower of sparks.

“A drill! Where the fuck did they get a drill!?” I heard one of the raiders shout out. I was too surprised to figure out which one had spoken.

I remembered the discovery we had found in the Fluttershy Medical Center about the True Steels. “They’ve been scavenging tech from all over the city and repurposing it,” A gross thought washed through me. They had plenty of fuel to power their machines too. The terrifying idea that this drill was using the corpses of my family and friends was suddenly all too real.

Brisk backed up to stand next to me. “You got a plan, Amber?”

I gave him a stupid look. “Why the hell would I have a plan? I think we should all know that none of my plans end up working out well for any of us.”

The drill pushed further through the door, bending the edges of the iron around it as it surged towards us.

“Well somepony better come up with something!” The raider mare shrieked, her assault carbine raised at the huge machine slashing its way through the door. “Cause we’re all going to die the second that thing takes the door down!”

I gave Mirra a sideways glance. “I don’t suppose you can do what you did at the MAS tower and teleport us the fuck out of here, no!?”

Mirra winced back, her eyes fearful. “I don’t have that kind of power by myself! My friend did most of the heavy lifting!”

Perfect. That wasn’t going to help much…

“Everypony! Into the room behind me!” I ordered, gesturing to the small back room. “We’re going to be in for a fight the second that door is down. We can use that doorway as a choke point!”

Everypony nodded and quickly rushed into the room. Pyre turned and stood in the doorway, her legs crouched in a battle stance and the ends of her flamers flickering to life. “Get behind me!” She hollered over the sound of the drill. It was getting harder and harder to hear each other as the massive machine ripped open the door more and more.

Xayah readied her sniper beside me, aiming over Pyre’s shoulder. One of the raiders pulled out an apple grenade and placed the pin in their mouth, readying themselves to toss it the second one of the rangers was in sight.

The drill abruptly spun to a stop and cast the room into complete silence. We waited, the only sound being our ragged breaths and the beating of our own hearts.

Then the drill pulled back, filling the room with a loud and unbearable screech. I winced, one of my hooves clutching at my ears as the noise nearly deafened me. Light spilled into the room as the large hole that had been ripped open by the drill was uncovered.

Then all hell broke loose.

Pyre sent a stream of fire shooting across the room, filling our vision with dancing flames. The raiders grenade was sent flying towards the rangers, its explosion accompanied by a howl of pain. Xayah’s sniper cracked off shots beside me. Through the fire, I saw one of her shots make its mark, dropping a ranger to the ground, dead.

A missile came whizzing towards us. It flashed forwards at lightning speeds, colliding with the ground directly in front of Pyres forehooves and sending her flying back across the room. I heard Mirra scream and rush to her as she was thrown against the far wall and went limp.

A ranger pushed their way through the dying wall of fire and slammed into me, sending me skidding across the floor. I raised Braeburn’s Liberator and fired at them, the buckshot denting their helmet, but doing little more than that.

The ranger reared up, the massive guns on their battle saddle turning to face me. I rolled aside as the first shot blasted past me, ripping apart the ground and showering me with bits of shrapnel.

Brisk rushed forwards and bucked at the ranger, making their second shot go wide as they fired upon me again. The ranger swung around to face him, but they were too slow. Brisk pressed the end of his pistol up against the rangers visor and sent a bullet lancing through his brain, coating the inside of the rangers helmet with gore.

A bullet pierced one of the raiders legs, sending them toppling to the ground. They rolled behind the corner of the door, grasping at their leg to stop the bleeding. The other raider stood over them protectively, their weapon firing off a potshot every few seconds in an attempt to hold off the coming rangers.

Xayah was knocked back as something exploded a few feet away from her, searing the right side of her body black. She staggered, only barely staying upright as she struggled to use her metal hooves.

Things were getting really bad, really fast. I had to find a way out of this now or we were all doing to be dead!

I activated SATS and targeted the head of one of the rangers. I let the spell go and watched as the buckshot flew from my gun towards the armoured pony. I missed, the buckshot slamming against the wall beside them and peppering it with holes.

Blam!

Then the ranger dropped dead, their head oozing blood from an impossibly aimed shot.

Surprised, I turned to spot a pony standing next to me, a smoking .44 revolver clamped tightly in his mouth. He was a tall, beige, earth pony stallion clad in his usual long brown coat and wide brimmed fedora. I felt my mouth drop open again.

“Y-you again!?” I stammered, ducking back as another projectile rocketed past me.

The mysterious pony gave me a small nod before taking a few steps away from the door. “I can get you out of here,” He said, his voice stoic and odd sounding. “...But it will take a lot of power. I will not be able to help you again.”

Xayah jumped with surprise, spotting the stranger for the first time. She ducked behind cover, her sniper swinging to face the mysterious stranger. I put a hoof out to stop her. “Wait, I think he’s on our side…”

An apple grenade rolled through the door, coming to a stop at our hooves. The raider mare picked it up with her magic and tossed it back out, but not fast enough. The grenade exploded, peppering us with fire and shrapnel. I shielded my face protectively with a hoof as the bomb fragments flashed towards me and threatened to blind me.

Pyre limped over, a worried Mirra scuttling around her large hooves. She sent a blast of fire shooting through the doorway before turning to me. “Amber, if we don't find a way to get out of here in the next few seconds, we’re all dead!” her eyes caught on the strange stallion that had appeared beside me. She cocked her head at him slightly. “Wait, who are you?”

Mirra’s eyes lit up as she looked up at the mysterious stranger. “Oh! Hi you! Can you teleport us out of here?”

My eyes widened. “Hold up! This is your…” A blast of magical energy flashed over my head, forcing me to duck low to the ground. I rolled back up to face Mirra. “This is your friend?! The one that pulled me out of the MAS tower!?”

The stallion flickered for a second, his whole body temporarily flashing out of view before reappearing. “I do not have much time,” The stranger said, his stoic expression cracking for only a second as he grimaced in pain. “Are you ready?”

I stepped back, narrowly avoiding a shot from one of the rangers. “Ready? Ready for what?!”

The stallion sent a shot out the door, dropping one of the rangers to the ground. “If I help you now, we may not meet again…”

Mirra jumped up next to me. “Yes, we’re ready! Let's go!”

The mysterious stranger nodded and began crouching into what looked like a battle stance. I glanced back and forth between Mirra and the Stranger. “Wait! What is happe-”

“-ning…”

My breath was knocked out of me as I hit the pavement. Groaning, I pulled myself back up to my hooves and looked at my surroundings.

We hadn’t moved far. In fact, just a few feet away I could see the very spot I had spoken with Fleur De Lis through the securitron. But we had moved far enough away that I doubted the True Steels were going to be able to detect us on their EFS so long as we didn’t stick around.

I did a quick body count to make sure everypony was present and well. Brisk and Xayah lay in an exhausted and disoriented heap to my right, Pyre and the raiders lay to my left and Mirra had somehow managed to land on top of me. Only the mysterious stranger wasn’t present, having once more swooped in, saved me, and disappeared in the blink of an eye.

The raider mare pulled herself up from the ground and glanced over at me, her eyes still spinning slightly from the abrupt teleportation. “What the fuck just happened?”

I gave her a somewhat smug grin, despite feeling a little confused and disoriented myself. “Emergency escape…” I glanced up at Mirra who was sheepishly crawling off my back. “You want to explain what just went down?”

Mirra shrugged as he hooves touched the ground. “My friend teleported us out of there.”

I raised an eyebrow. “How? He was an earth pony?”

Brisk Stumbled to his hooves and limped over to us, wincing every time he put pressure on one of his hooves. “Can anypony explain what just happened?”

I had to hold back the smallest of chuckles. “Apparently not,” I looked back to Mirra. “That stranger… your friend… he said that what he did would use up a lot of power. That he wouldn’t be able to help us again after this. Does that mean anything to you?”

Mirra tapped her chin thoughtfully. “He said something similar after he helped me get you out of the MAS tower. He said teleportation is hard for him and that he can only do it for a few seconds at a time. Teleporting seven ponies like he just did probably used up all the power he had.”

“Explains why he only ever shows up for a second or two,” I grumbled, glancing in the direction of where the True Steels must currently be scratching their heads at our sudden disappearance.

“I hate to end this rather interesting train of thought, but I think we should probably get out of here,” Pyre ordered, pulling herself up and tromping up to us. “Those rangers are going to be pissed when they find out we just disappeared like that. I’d suspect that they’re going to be scouring the surrounding area in a few moments, and their range of sight is limited only by the range of their EFS.

“And where are we supposed to go?” One of the raiders said, taking a step away from the direction of the bank. “That Iron Hock bastard got a good look at us. There’s a good chance every True Steel in Manehattan is going to be looking for us.”

I nodded thoughtfully. “We came here on behalf of a faction called the Friendship Express. They help rouge synths. They could probably help with…”

“We know who they are,” The raider Mare spat, interrupting me. “And we don't want anything to do with them or their idiotic and doomed war against the Institute.”

I opened my mouth to speak, but couldn’t think of the proper response. That had not been the reaction I was expecting. Brisk quickly responded for me. “What do you have against the Friendship Express? They’re trying to help ponies like you?”

The raider scoffed. “I’m sure they are, but at what cost?” At our confused expressions, she elaborated. “The only way to keep a synth fully protected from the Institute is to wipe their minds. Make them forget that they’re synths all together. Lots of the ponies that go through that end up either getting shot by raiders or more often than not, becoming a raider themselves. We just left that life. There’s no way in fucking hell that we’re going to let the Friendship Express drag us back into it.”

“The Institute is using synths as tools to spy on the wasteland though,” Brisk argued. “They’re literally watching your life through your eyes.”

That gave both of the raiders pause. They exchanged a long glance as they tried to figure out how to proceed. Finally the raider mare turned back to us. “Doesn’t matter. I’d rather be spied on than run the risk of going raider again. Least this way, when the Institute comes knocking on my door, I’ll know who they are and why they’ve come for us.”

I saw Pyre take a nervous step back. I glanced down at my EFS. Red bars. Lots of them. Brisk saw them too.

“Those ranger’s are moving again,” I said urgently, turning and beginning to trot quickly down the street. “We can decide later, but right now we need to move.”

“And go where?” Xayah asked, quickly moving up beside me as we started out down the street.

Unsure how to respond, I glanced down at my pipbuck to check where the red bars were coming from. My eyes caught on a radio broadcast that I hadn’t spotted before. Interested, I clicked it on.

“-mber, come in Amber. You there?” It was Sprocket’s voice. She sounded bored, as if she had been trying to contact us for hours.

“I’m here… Sprocket, is that you? How did you get access to my pipbucks radio?” I asked, one eyebrow raising.

I couldn’t see it, but there was no doubt in my mind that the small yellow mare had rolled her large eyes. “I managed to create a device that could teleport you half way across Manehattan and you're going to question this? Doesn’t matter. I’ll show you next time we meet,” She paused to regain her train of thought. “What has been going on? I’ve been trying to contact you for almost an hour!”

I glanced down at my pipbuck to check on the True Steels position. I could still see their red bars, but we seemed to be moving away from then quickly. “We had a nasty run in with some ranger. We suffered casualties, but we managed to get two of the synths out,” I took a breath as I finished the quick recap. “What did you need to contact me for?”

“Flask told me to contact you,” Sprocket voice piped up through the speaker. “Told me to tell you he was ready to meet up and escort the synths to safety. Said he knew you were headed out in the direction of the Manehattan gardens, so he was going to meet up with you there.”

While I couldn’t see it through her armour, I could feel a wave of discomfort wash over Pyre. I gave a grim nod, though I knew she couldn’t see me. “Thank’s Sprocket. How’s everything going with the Friendship express?”

There was a sound from the other end I took as hesitation. “We managed to deal with all the spies and are currently moving to our new safehouse. It’s not as good as the old one, but it will do for now,” There was a little more hesitation. “Freedom told me that she found something in the Institute files that might be of great interest to you. She didn’t say what, but it sounded important. Just thought you might want to know.”

I nodded again, still very much aware she couldn’t see me. “Alright, thank you. I’ll give them a closer look,” With that, Sprocket’s voice was replaced by static as the broadcast went dead. I turned to face the rest of the ponies following me. “Alright, we’re off to the Manehattan Gardens. Pyre, do you know the way?”

Pyre gulped. “Yeah… yeah, I do. Follow me,” She moved past me and quickly started trotting down a side street. Thankfully in the opposite direction of where the True Steels were still searching for us.

I turned to the two raiders. “We’re meeting up with a Friendship Express operative at the entrance to the gardens. It’s up to you if you want to follow us.”

The raiders hesitated for a second before the mare gave a small nod. “We will follow you. We will talk to this Friendship operative about the details in his assistance.”

I gave her a small nod before turning and trotting after Pyre. Xayah glanced over at me as we started to move again. “When are you going to tell us why we’re going to the Manehattan gardens? From what I have heard, only foolish ponies go in there?”

Giving a small shrug, I continued after Pyre. “Pyre has something she needs to do there. If she wants to share it, that’s up to her. Right now we just need to support her the best we can.”

Flask was waiting for us at the entrance to the Manehattan Gardens as we had been told.

The entrance was a large archway that led off from the cracked sidewalk and into the large foliage covered landscape beyond. A long, warped gate stretched out from either side of the archway, creating a broken barrier between the streets of Manehattan and the garden.

I didn’t know what to expect when I had heard about the Gardens. Some sort of large radioactive landscape with only a few remaining withered corpses of trees to suggest that it had once been a massive sprawling park full of greenery perhaps. It was anything but that.

Manehattan had been hit hard by the megaspells, the gardens had not. Instead of leaving it as a crater or as crumbling remains of its former self, the fallout radiation of the megaspells had ended up seeping into the gardens plants, transforming them and mutating them into a massive jungle of twisting trees and vines that towered above even some of the ruined skyscrapers. Strange luminescent flowers and mushrooms grew up from the garden floor, giving the whole area a mysterious and eerie look.

The flowers and mushrooms were not the only things making the forest glow however. Letting my eyes drift up to the gnarled branches of the towering trees, I spotted large clusters of glowing Balefire Phoenixes peached above us, their glowing eyes slowly following us as we approached.

Flask looked up as we drew near, his mouth twisting into a smile as he saw us. “Glad to see you are all alright,” He said, pulling out his silver flask and taking a quick sip. “Sprocket contacted me and told me you ran into a little trouble with the rangers.”

Mirra gave a small scoff. “Yes… little…”

Flask’s eyes drifted to the two raiders. The second his eyes landed on them he froze, his hoof moving to hover over his revolver. I quickly signalled to him that they were safe. “They’re friendly. They’re the synths we were rescuing.”

Flask cast me a suspicious glance. “Rescuing raiders ain’t the craziest thing I’ve ever done with the Friendship Express. Wouldn’t even be the first time I’ve done it either. But they aren’t usually friendly about the whole thing.”

Before I could question him on his history with helping raiders, the raider mare took a step forward to confront Flask. “We aren’t exactly raiders anymore. Just ponies trying to do better.”

“If that’s so, you’re going to want to ditch that armour. Ponies see you dressed like that, they’re going to start shooting,” Flask grimaced. He turned to look at me. “I’ll take them all from here. The Friendship Express owes you five for this. If there is ever anything we can do to help, just…”

“Now hold up just a moment,” One of the raiders interjected, cutting Flask off. “We haven’t agreed to go anywhere with you yet. We know that most ponies you ‘protect’ from the Institute by wiping their memories go raider. We are trying to get away from that kind of life. How do we know that if we go with you, we won’t end up like that?”

Flask glanced back and forth between the two raiders for a moment. “We don’t force you to do anything. It’s true that the only way to gain complete protection from the Institute is a mind wipe, and that many of the ponies that go through that go raider, but we won’t force you to get it if that’s what you want. What we can do is get you to a safe place and prepare you for what the Institute might throw your way.”

The two raiders looked at each other for a moment. Finally the mare took another step forward. “Alright, we’ll go with you. We’ve been trying to figure out where to go next anyway,” She turned to face us and gave us a small salute. “Thanks for your help back there. Hopefully we’ll fight beside each other again someday.”

I turned to address Flask before he could walk off with the synths. “So the Friendship Express has a new headquarters… Where can we contact you if we need to keep in touch?”

Flask gave a sheepish expression. “For right now we’ll keep our exact whereabouts a secret, the last thing we need is the Institute finding our new location while we're still adapting, but if you need to contact me, I’ll be around the place we first met, out in Fetlock. You can meet me there.”

I gave him a small nod. “I’ll keep in touch,” Slowly, we turned from each other and parted ways. I looked over my friends for a second before glancing at Pyre who was staring intently at the large archway that led into the Manehattan Gardens. “Are you ready to head in?”

Brisk stepped forward. “Head in for what, Amber? When are you going to tell us why we’re here? It isn’t like you to keep secrets from us.”

“We’re here because of me,” Pyre said slowly, her voice coming out in a low rumble. We turned to look at her as she continued to stare into the looming foliage. “Caltrops was a raider through and through back when he ran with me, but he managed to dig himself out of that hole. He confronted his sins. Now it’s time for me to do the same. It’s time to face the music…”

Without waiting for us, she took a step forward and crossed the threshold into the Manehattan Gardens.

Footnote: Half way to next level.
Quest Perk Lost: Mysterious stranger -- A mysterious stranger will no longer appear from time to time to help you in combat.

Chapter XXVI: Facing the Music

“I’m talking real trees. Brown bark, green leaves, photosynthesis, all that good stuff.”

Foliage.

I had seen greenery in memory orbs, but that didn’t really count. Those plants and trees had been from a long gone age, now nothing more than withered husks and ash in the breeze. I had seen plants in the Institute as well, and they had been one of the single most beautiful things I had ever seen.

But in the wasteland? Noting. I had seen a single blade of dead grass, and that had been eaten up by Brisk seconds later.

The Manehattan gardens changed all of that. Every direction I looked, I was nothing but towering trees and twisting vines covered in jagged thrones and blossoming, bulbus-like flowers.

The plants in the Manehattan garden were not unaffected by the balefire bombs however. They had mutated. Transformed into twisted versions of their past selves. the farther into the gardens we walked the, the more out of place and alien the whole area seemed to feel.

To distract myself from the eerie atmosphere of the radioactive forest, I had turned my attentions to Mirra as she went about explaining what she knew about our mysterious saviour.

"-That was the first time he showed up. He just appeared out of nowhere and saved me from the Hellhound,"Mirra said, trotting along beside me. I noticed she wasn’t traveling atop Pyre’s back like she normally did. I had no doubt there was still some awkwardness between them over their earlier conversation at the Bank. "I didn't know what to make of it at first, but then he showed up again. Then again. Always saving me and the disappearing before I could ask who he was."

"And this mysterious stranger friend of yours was the one that helped you pull me out of the MAS tower?" I asked sceptically. "Why?"

Mirra gave a small smile. "After a few years, he began to show up even when I didn't need saving. He'd just sit for a few moments, listening to me before he would disappear again. I was always really lonely and... and I think he was lonely too. He never talked much, but when he did, he always seemed sad. I think... I think he always wished he could help me, but just didn't know how," She glanced down at her hooves again. "When I started following you after I saw you kill those... uh... raider fillies..." I winced at that. That was not something I needed or wanted to remember. "He told me that he'd help protect you too. So that you could help me in a way he never could."

"But you don't know who he was? Where he came from?" I pushed. "Its not every day you see and earth pony that can teleport."

Mirra gave a quick shrug. "I asked him a few times, but he never really said anything. Maybe he was scared to tell me... Maybe he didn't even know," Mirra thought for a second. "He told me not to tell you that I knew him, but he didn't tell me why for that either. I think he was shy."

I bit my lip for a second, rolling all of that over in my mind. "Mirra... can I ask you something?"

Mirra gave a small nod. "Yeah? What is it?"

"I wanted to know if..." I hesitated, unsure if I should pursue this train of thought. "Did I help you? I mean like... with your mom and stuff. I know things didn't turn out the way you hoped."

Mirra's face fell. "I... um.. of course... You had no way of knowing what would happen."

"Are you sure... it's just that... I thought you might..." I hesitated again. Something in Mirra's face told me that she really didn't want me asking these questions. Finally I sighed. "Never mind. I just thought you might be angry at me or something."

"Of course not... Amber, you've done more for me than any pony I've ever met," Mirra said, though her words felt weighted, like she was trying to force herself to believe them. "Just... don't worry about it. I'll be fine..."

It's the thought that counts I guess... I guess....

“I feel like I’m always being watched in this place,” Brisk grunted to Xayah from a few paces in front of me, nervously glancing around at the underbrush around us. “I don’t like it…”

“You probably are,” Xayah whispered back, pointing up above us with one of her metallic hooves. pulling my gaze from Mirra, I let my eyes drift up to the branches above me. It almost looked like the tree's leaves were glowing a brilliant green, but the longer you looked, the more you began to make out the shapes of hundreds of Balefire phoenixes perched in the canopy, staring down at us with watchful eyes.

“Think they’re dangerous?” Brisk said, worry creeping into his voice.

I checked my EFS. There was so much life and activity being displayed on my EFS that it was hard to make out anything, but the glowing birds didn’t seem to want to cause us any harm.

“Oh, they’re plenty dangerous,” Pyre cooed back at us as she led the way through the brushes. “But they shouldn’t attack you unless you provoke them...” She paused and thought for a second before continuing to walk forward. “And trust me, those birds ain’t the only things watching you. Just look at the vines… though try not to scream.”

Confused, I glanced over at one of the large vines that we were walking past. At first I didn’t see what Pyre was talking about, but then…

The bulbus-like silver flowers blinked at me. I clamped my hoof over my mouth to keep myself from screaming as I realized the vines were covered in hundreds of blinking eyes that slowly followed us as we moved along.

“What kind of dangers are we expecting to run across in here?” I asked cautiously, my eye catching on a couple of red bars darting amongst the hundreds of greens on my EFS.

“Manticores, hellhounds, the occasional Maulwurf. Pretty much anything you might expect to run into, and definitely everything that you don’t want to run into,” Pyre shot back, not slowing down her pace as she spoke. “It’s safer on the path, so long as you don’t decide to go bushwhacking you should be fine.”

I gulped. “So… um... Why are we not on the path then?”

Pyre gave a rye chuckle. “This is the path. Doesn’t matter how hard ponies try to maintain it, the plants always seem to grow faster than they can cut it down.”

I raised an eyebrow at that. “There are ponies that try to maintain the path out here? Why?”

“If my memory serves, I believe there is a town located in the middle of the garden somewhere,” Xayah spoke up, wrinkling her muzzle as she tried to recall the details of a fact she had been told a long time ago.

Pyre nodded. “Yup. Oasis. Smallest settlement in Manehattan.”

“Why would anypony start a settlement out here if this place is so dangerous?” Brisk asked, cocking his head to the side slightly. “Seems like a dumb idea or whatever.”

Pyre shook her head. “You get a few more Manticores than normal, but it's not enough to consider the place all that much worse than anywhere else in Manehattan. And while the plant life needs constant working to keep under control, most of it is harmless. Ponies just saw a large area that is mostly free of raiders and has a large water source and lots of food. Place is probably the only settlement in all of Equestria that is still vegan,” Pyre sighed and pushed aside a bush with her hoof. “Course they didn’t expect the place to be full of Killing Joke. That's the real killer out here.”

Both Mirra and Xayah winced at the mention of killing Joke. Brisk and I just exchanged a confused look.

“What exactly is Killing Joke?” Brisk asked, stumbling slightly as his hoof caught on a large, gnarled root that stuck out of the ground.

“Mutated version of a plant called Poison Joke,” Mirra explained. “They take something you’ve done or said at one point in your life and twist it against you, usually in a rather lethal way.”

“If you see blue flowers attached to vines, run,” Xayah stated bluntly. “They may have a sense of humour, but you will not find them funny.”

“Hey, maybe they’ll finally make you as dumb as you sound, bro,” I quipped playfully, giving Brisk a childish nudge.

Brisk rolled his eyes. “Maybe they’ll replace your cutie mark with something more adorable. Something fit for the cuteness on the outside”

“Killing Joke killed an old friend of mine,” Pyre blurted bluntly, whacking at some more vines that got in their way. “They made it so that my touch would rip the flesh from his bone.”

Both Brisk and I fell completely silent at that. Clearly Killing Joke was not something to laugh about.

“Good evening! This is DJ Pon3, and have I got news for you!” The voice of DJ Pon3 said as I clicked on my pipbuck to distract myself from the watchful eyes and the awkwardness of making fun of Killing Joke. “Major update on the situation at Arbu and Bucklyn Cross. My associate spent the last few hours talkin’ with a merchant who was at Arbu and saw much of what went down.”

I glanced up at my friends as I listened to the DJ speak. “What happened out at Arbu?” I asked, feeling somewhat out of the loop in regards to what was going on in the wasteland these days. I suppose that’s what I get for not paying close enough attention to the radio.

“Oh, shit. You haven’t heard yet?” Pyre said, finally slowing her march forwards and tuning to look at me. I quickly shook my head. Mirra looked just as confused. “When you two were inside the Institute, the Stable Dweller went berserk and shot up some towns. No pony really knows why.”

Mirra and I exchanged a look. I remembered seeing surveillance footage in the Institute of Littlepip and her friends shooting up some Steel Rangers. But I hadn’t put much thought into that since then. Curious, I returned my attention to the radio.

“-ounds like our Wasteland Savior hasn’t fallen to the darkness after all. Maybe stumbled a bit, but listen t’ this:

“The ponies of Arbu were cannibals, folks. That’s right. They ate ponies! And as if that wasn’t sick enough, they’ve been sellin’ pony meat, claimin’ it was radigator meat. Eaten a radigator kabob lately? You sure about that? Great Goddesses, and I thought I’d seen all the fucked-up shit this wasteland had to serve up.

My gut clenched and my blood ran cold. I suddenly had the irresistible urge to vomit. I could tell that all my friends had a similar reaction as they all froze around me.

“We had radigator meat in Friendship city…” Brisk said softly, his face convulsing somewhat as the truth behind what he had eaten sunk in.

The DJ continued talking on the radio about the details of the situation, but my mind simply zoned it out. The idea that I had been given pony flesh back in Friendship city was gnawing away at me like I hadn’t expected. It really shouldn’t have either. Viscera had forced me to eat pony flesh as well, and that had been a far more traumatic of an experience.

I suppose it was the idea that somepony would trick me into eating it that just felt wrong. What kind of monster would do that…

“Well, least we know that crazy Stable Dweller didn’t go completely bat shit crazy,” Pyre said casually, clearly feeling less disgusted about the whole situation than the rest of us. “Honestly, this broadcast is kind of a relief. Last thing the wasteland needs is a pony like that wiping out towns,” she turned and surveyed the plants for a few seconds. “Oh shit, here we are!”

Pushing past a few plants, Pyre led us towards an area of path that hadn’t been completely obscured by foliage.

“Here we go. Probably aren’t far from Oasis now…” Pyre said, her confident tone quivering with a small flicker of nervousness.

“And that’s where we’re heading? This Oasis town?” I asked, trotting up beside her and getting out of earshot of the rest of our friends. “That’s where your father is?”

Pyre shrugged. “Oasis is where I grew up, so there’s a good chance that's where he’ll be,” she said, glancing around at the bushes. Her eyes seemed to catch on something in the distance for a second before she returned her gaze to me. “We’re about to get some company.”

I opened my mouth to ask what she meant, but just as I was about to do so, I spotted what she had seen. Three ponies were fast approaching us, each one wielding a weapon of their own.

Mirra gave a small yip and transformed into a green unicorn filly before quickly diving behind Brisk’s leg. Pyre pulled herself to a stop as they all drew near.

“You’re in Treeminder territory,” The pony that seemed to be leading the group called out as the group reached shouting distance from us. “Are you raider or trader!?” I could tell that last question was directed mostly at Pyre, but it still applied to the rest of us.

“Neither, we’re just here looking for somepony,” I called back, raising one of my hooves in a peaceful gesture.

The ponies all exchanged glances before turning back to us, all their weapons lowered ever so slightly. “Oh, so you’re slavers?”

I winced. “No no, nothing like that. I promise. We’re just looking for a pony named… uh…” I paused and glanced over to Pyre for assistance.

“Plaga Blaze,” Pyre stated bluntly, her voice only barely loud enough to hear over the distance between us.

The ponies all cast each other another look, this time a little more knowing. One of the ponies that hadn’t spoken yet stepped forwards. “Yeah, we know of Plaga. Not sure exactly where he is though. Haven't seen him in a few months. If you want to know more, you’ll need to talk to Birch.”

“Sorry if we seem offensive,” the lead pony said, lowering his shotgun a little. “We here in Oasis have very strict rules ‘bout raiders. That and we’ve been having raider problems more than usual as of late.”

Cautiously, the ponies moved to the side and gestured for us to follow them, but they didn’t take their guns off of us fully.

I leaned in towards Pyre as the ponies slowly led us towards what I could only assume was Oasis. “Treeminders?”

Pyre shrugged. “That’s what they call themselves. Name came from the town's founder, an old ghoul by the name of Tree Hugger. Or so I’ve been told.”

“What happened to Tree Hugger?”

Pyre cast me a look that I couldn’t read through her helmet. “Same thing that eventually happens to everypony in the wasteland. From what I heard and remember, she lost almost everything after the bombs fell. I suppose all ghouls did. She managed to keep herself sane for over a hundred years through meditation or some bullshit like that.”

“She went feral?”

“Wouldn’t you?”

Brisk walked forwards so that he was in pace with the ponies escorting us. “You said you were having raider troubles? What’s been going on?”

The lead pony shrugged at his question. “We don’t normally have raiders out this far. We get one or two small groups, but most figure the Manehattan Gardens are more trouble than they're worth. They wouldn’t be incorrect,” He sighed. “Couple weeks ago, two gangs decided to move in. Nasty gangs they are too. Probably would have wiped us all out by now, if they weren’t so busy fighting off each other.”

The ponies led us up to a large gate made of vines, branches and rusting metal slabs. A lone guard stood in front of it, his armour a strange mix of scavenged power armour and twisted branches. At our approach, the guard quickly moved to pull the gate open for us and give me my first good look at the town of Oasis.

As Pyre had suggested, it was a small town. It had been built into a large clearing in the middle of the Manehattan Gardens, surrounded on all sides by a moderately high wall of rusting iron and vines. A few wooden shackles had been erected in seemingly random locations around the clearing and a large river of rushing water flowed through the centre of the area.

“Welcome to Oasis,” the guard pony said, ushering us inside. “Don’t you go about causing any funny business.”

“Do you know where we can find a pony named Birch?” I asked the guard, as I moved past the gate and into the town. “I’ve been told that he might know where we can find somepony that we’re looking for.”

The guard thought about that for a second. “Yeah, Mayor Birch can usually be found in the town hall. That large building just over there,” He pointed over to the only building in the whole town that seemed to have more than one room. “But you’ll probably have to wait a bit if you want to talk to him. He’s always busy before the monthly auction, but you can probably get a few words in with him when he comes out.”

“Monthly auction?” Xayah asked, falling in step beside me. “What is that?”

The guard shrugged. “Same as it sounds I suppose. We hold an auction every month. It's the town's biggest source of income. Y'all came at the right time. It should be starting in about a few hours or so out by the gazebo,” He pointed over to a small wood gazebo that lay close to the middle of the clearing.

I gave him a small smile. “Thank you for your help,” Turning, I followed my friends as they made their way over to the gazebo.

As we walked, Pyre glanced down at the near empty canister of flamer fuel attached to her flamers. “Say, I’m going to see if I can get some more fuel. They should have weapons vender around here somewhere.”

“Mind if I join you or whatever?” Brisk asked, checking his own ammo reserves. “I could use some ammo myself.”

Pyre gave him a nonchalant shrug. “The more the merrier, I suppose.”

Mirra perked up. "I can come too if you want?"

Pyre gave a quick shake of her head. "Nah, No need. You got plenty of ammo for that little revolver of yours. Just stick with Amber, we'll be back in a bit."

Brisk gave Pyre a quick tap on her armoured shoulder. "Race you to the weapons vendor?"

I felt myself grinning like an idiot as I watched the two of them quickly speed off in the direction of one of the vendors.

“It’s good to see Brisk finally getting along with Pyre,” I said to Xayah, as we moved over to an old park bench that looked like it had been around since before the war. “I thought she would never grow on him.”

“Pyre is not always easy to deal with,” Xayah agreed, casting a small glance in the direction of our two friends as they walked off together. “But when one goes through as much as we all have together, bonds are bound to be made. And I feel Pyre has proven herself as more than just a raider by this point,” She gave both Mirra and I a gentle smile. “I for one never expected to live amongst ponies or changelings. Not ones that could look past my stripes, I mean.”

“I think your stripes are pretty,” I said, blushing slightly.

Xayah didn’t seem to hear the compliment. Instead, her focus had been pulled to Mirra who seemed to have zoned out our conversation and was staring glumly at two fillies playing catch together with a ball.

“Mirra, are you alright?” Xayah asked, her voice conveying her worry.

Mirra’s head jerked up at the mention of her name. “What? Oh… uh, yeah. I’m okay. Just thinking, that’s all.”

My eyebrows furrowed together. “You sure? You seem a little down. Is something up?”

Mirra sighed. “I think I might have messed things up with Pyre. That’s all…”

“Because of your conversation at the bank?” I asked, one eyebrow raising.

“Yeah, because of…” Mirra abruptly stopped and glared up at me. “Wait a second… were you eavesdropping on us?”

I felt my face flush. “Uuuh… Who can really say who did or did not do what… I know I can’t…” Both Mirra and Xayah gave me an unamused look. I let my head drop. “Okay, maybe I was eavesdropping just a little bit.”

Mirra sighed and shuffled her hooves together. “Well… yeah. Because of that. She won't even look at me anymore. She just stares forwards whenever I get close to her and responds to me with grunts.”

“Perhaps whatever she came to do here in the Manehattan Garden is getting to her,” Xayah suggested in an attempt to comfort the small changeling. “It seems important.”

I nodded. “It is. Pyre’s been through a lot and I think she's going to finally be confronting something she's been running from her whole life here,” I looked over to Mirra. “I can’t speak for Pyre, but she’s had some really bad experiences with parents. Probably worse than any of us. She's probably scared of the idea of becoming one herself.”

“But you and Brisk refer to each other as siblings because of both of your bad experiences with family,” Mirra pointed out. “What went wrong with Pyre and I?”

I gave her a sympathetic look. “It really depends on the pony I suppose. It worked for Brisk and I because we were both comfortable calling each other that. But Pyre isn’t me or Brisk. I think she's hurting on a whole other level. And since she's Pyre, she probably isn’t dealing with a lot of that built up pain in a healthy way.”

“Pyre does care about you,” Xayah added, placing one of her metal hooves gently atop one of Mirra’s. “You would need to be a fool not to see that. But what that relationship is and how you move on from this is something that you and Pyre need to talk about.”

“Knowing Pyre, there’s a very good chance that the only reason she seems distant is because she thinks she’ll hurt you if you get too close to her,” I said, my expression grim. “She’s had bad experiences with those she cares about dying as well. We all saw what happened in the MWT hub.”

We all shivered as we remembered the horrors that Viscera and her hellhound raiders had done to us… and the good ponies that had been lost in the process.

Not knowing what else to say, we all sat in silence after that until we saw Brisk and Pyre walking back towards us. Brisk tossed me five shotgun shells as he drew close. “Saw some ammo for that fancy shotgun of yours. Figured I’d grab it or whatever.”

I tossed the shots into my saddlebag and gave Brisk a quick hug. “Thank you,” Over Brisk’s shoulder, I spotted a pony with a white coat and charcoal brown mane trott out of the town hall and start moving towards the gazebo a few feet away from us. I quickly pointed him out to everypony else. “And it looks like you guys got back at the perfect time. It looks like Mayor Birch just came out.”

Pyre glanced over, her eyes landing on the pony. “Yup, that looks like him. Come on. Sooner we get all this done the better.”

We quickly pulled ourselves away from the park bench and made our way over to the Mayor. Birch had come to a stop next to the gazebo by the time we arrived and cast Pyre a dirty look as we approached. His eyes quickly drifted over the rest of us.

“Hey, do you mind if we talk to you for a second?” I asked as I came to a stop in front of him, my friends pulling up behind me.

Birch continued to look over us for a second before taking a deep breath. “I suppose I can spare a minute, but please try to make it quick. I Have a lot to do.”

Pyre took a quick step forward. “I’m looking for a pony named Plaga Blaze. Do you know where I can find him?”

Birch gave us all a worried look at that. “Now you look here. I don’t know where he is now, or even if that monster is still alive. We don't associate with raiders around here. If you have business with ponies like that, I suggest you go elsewhere.”

I could see Pyres eyes narrow through the visor of her helmet. “I was told you might know where he is… Why would that be?”

Birch sighed. “Look. Plaga was a part of this community for a long time. He was pretty well respected ‘round here too. Ponies liked him… A few months ago, word got out that he was doing terrible things to fillies in his basement,” He explained, taking a few steps back from us. “Now this town has very strict rules about raiders, and those rules would have had us punish him like we would any other raider. But as I said, he's been with us a long time, we simply didn’t have it in us to do that to him.”

Pyre took a step towards the mayor, closing the small gap between them. “Then what happened to him? Where is he now?”

“We told him he couldn’t stay here,” Birch said quickly, trying to back away again, only for Pyre to once more close the gap. “We kicked him out of the town a few months ago. Told him he wasn’t never allowed back here. Haven't seen him since.”

Xayah stepped up beside me, her face stricken with worry. “What happened to the fillies?”

Birch gave her a confused look, before an expression of understanding crossed his face. “You ponies knew one of those fillies, didn’t you… That’s why you’re after him. I’m right, aren’t I?”

Pyre gave a small snort like sound. “You could say that.”

“Most of the fillies are still alive,” Birch said, his voice dropping to a sadder tone. “Plaga didn’t usually kill them. But they’re probably going to be emotionally scared for the rest of their lives… goddesses, the things that monster did to them…”

I could feel a strange anger radiating off of Pyre. She gave a low, almost animalistic snarl. “What. did. he. do…” the ends of her flamers flickered to life, making the mayor once more take a nervous step back. I put a hoof on her shoulder to try and calm her, but she shrugged me off.

“What didn’t he do. Cut them, raped them, branded and burned them. Most of the fillies refuse to talk about what happened, but a few of them said that he forced them to call him their daddy while referring to them as somepony named Pyre.”

Pyre took a big step back, her whole body suddenly going rigid. I could hear her breath catch in her throat. She fell silent, unable to say anymore.

Brisk, Xayah and Mirra all cast Pyre a startled look. Cautiously, Mirra took a step forward. “Pyre?” She asked, her voice quivering slightly. “Plaga was your father, wasn’t he? That’s why we’re here,” Pyre failed to hear Mirra as she continued to stare in horror at the mayor. Mirra glanced up at me for confirmation. I only gave her a small nod in return.

Birch gave Pyre a suddenly more interested look. “Wait… your name is Pyre?” Pyre was unable to respond with anything more than a small bob of her head. Birch let out a long, deep sigh. “Fuck… And I thought you were looking for him ‘cause you knew one of the fillies… but you were one of the fillies, weren’t you?”

Pyre took another step back, her legs trembling as she tried to keep herself from collapsing. “He was pretending they were me…” She uttered, her voice coming out so low that I hardly even heard it. “He hurt them because he wanted to do it to me…”

Birch looked us all over a few more times before giving us a forced smile that looked more sympathetic than anything else. “Well, I suppose I will leave you five to it. I have a lot to do to prepare for the auction. I'm sorry I couldn’t be of more assistance.”

I shook my head. “Don’t worry about it. Thanks for your help,” I turned to face Pyre as he quickly trotted away. “Hey, Pyre? Are you alright?”

Pyre slowly turned her head to face me. “I… Fuck… I never thought he would have missed me… I mean… he sold me to slavers… I never thought he might have actually cared…”

I felt my stomach clench at her words. Pyre sounded almost happy about what she had just learned. In what fucked up world did finding out your father rapped fillies and pretended they were you made somepony feel happy?

“If you ever need to back out of this, you can. Just say the words,” I said, my whole body feeling a sickening sense of unease.

Pyre shook her head. “No. I need to do this. I need to stop running from him,” Turning away from us, Pyre sulked off towards the river in the centre of the area. “You guys enjoy yourselves here. I need a few moments to think…”

Mirra took a step forward to follow after Pyre, but I quickly put my hoof out to hold her back. “I think it’s best if we just leave her for a second. She probably has a lot on her mind.”

Brisk gave me a grim look. “So we’re here to meet Pyre’s dad? That’s what she meant when she said unfinished business?”

I returned his grim expression. “Pyre told me she’s trying to be better. She said this would help her do that.”

Brisk glanced over to where Pyre was glaring at the river in the distance. “I can’t say I blame her. Family is a difficult thing.”

We all looked around at each other. The moment was over in a second, but for just that one moment, we all had a silent connection over the messed up families we had lost. We were all a walking mess of family issues. Brisk and Xayah’s parents had both been Murdered, Mirra's mother had gone insane and tried to mind control the entirety of Manehattan before Mirra had wiped her from her own mind, and my father had failed as a parent and been killed in my hooves and my mother had been dissected and thrown in a trash heap.

Saying family is a difficult thing was the understatement of the century.

“Alright, bring them out!” I heard Birch call out, gesturing over to a group of ponies. The ponies ducked into a small shed beside them to go fetch what I could only assume were the items for the auction.

There were a few angry shouts from within the shed, followed by one particularly angry sounding mare. “Get your hooves off of me you cunts! When the Enclave hears about this, they’re going to tear you a new asshole!”

Brisk, Xayah and I all froze.

“Wait… is that…?” Xayah said, her head turning to look over at the shed as the ponies began to drag a bunch of things out with chains.

Brisk gave her a flat look. “It is… do you know any other pony that swears like that?”

I felt my jaw drop as the ponies finished dragging the goods for the auction out into the open.

They were ponies! They were selling ponies at the auction!

Most of the ponies were battered and covered in a thick layer of muck and blood. Their coats were covered in scars and almost every one had some sort of weapon or graphic image as a cutie mark. I suddenly had a very good idea of how this town punished raiders.

Amongst the chained raiders that were being marched towards the gazebo however was a single pegasus. She was a fairly small mare, only a little larger than me, and had a lavender coat and mint green mane that had been pulled back into a ponytail. Her wrench and a syringe cutie mark had been almost completely covered by a layer of mud and her black lab coat and white turtleneck were practically brown with dirt.

“Let me go this instant or I’ll fuck you so hard that you’ll want to crawl right back up your mothers cunts!” Star Breeze growled, trying to pull against the chains that were dragging her towards the gazebo.

I took a step towards her, my eyes wide. “Star Breeze? What are you doing here?”

The Enclave scientist turned at the sound of my voice and gave me an angry glare. “Oh fucking shit! Just my fucking luck! Here I am, about to get sold into a lifetime of fucking slavery, and in walks to ponies that put me here…” She gave me a small snarl. “Wheres your fuckin’ power armoured freak? I could use a balefire egg to the face right now.”

I blinked at her dumbly. “You’re here because of us?”

The pegasus scowled again. “You think I wasn’t going to be punished for letting you ponies walk away with a hellhound mind control device? I used to be one of the Enclaves top fucking scientist! Now I’ve been reduced to field work. You know what happens in field work?”

I opened my mouth to respond. “Uh… you study stuff outside of…”

“It means I end up running into fucking slaver ponies that dont like the Enclave because they’re butt hurt they cant fly!” Star Breeze stomped the ground and snorted at me. “So thanks a fucking lot you bitch! You ruined my life and got me enslaved. Thanks a fucking lot!”

I winced and turned to face Birch, who was currently looking over the chained raiders that had been tied to the gazebo. “Do you want to explain what the fuck is going on right now?”

Birch gave me a confused look. “Um… We are preparing for the auction?”

I gave him a menacing growl that was probably more adorable than anything else. “By selling ponies?! This is a slaver town?!”

A bunch of ponies glanced up at me as I shouted at the mayor. Birch himself took a small step back. “I beg your pardon, but we do what we must to survive. Friendship City and Tenpony don't trade with us because they don't want to risk the dangers of the Manehattan Gardens. So we made a trade arrangement with the only settlement that would.”

My ears shot up and I felt my anger growing. “Wait! You’re trading with Red Eye! But… He’s evil!”

Birch narrowed his eyes at me. “Red Eye gives us caps and water talismans so long as we supply him with ponies. Especially unicorns. And we never sell him any good folk. All are slaves here are raider ponies. Most ponies would just have them shot anyhow.”

“And what about the pegasus?” Xayah pointed out, pointing towards Star Breeze as a couple of ponies clamped her into a wooden Pillory. “She isn’t a raider.”

Birch scoffed. “Maybe if she were one of them Dashites. But those are rare and even if they weren’t, she aint one of them. Those damn pegasi are the reason we don’t have Celestia’s sun anymore.”

I scowled. “You can't just go around enslaving ponies. That’s just wrong!”

“The alternative is having them shot. I feel that our solution is more forgiving and puts them to good use,” Birch shot back, taking a step to try and move around me.

I pushed myself to the side and got in his way so that he couldn’t pass. I understood where he was coming from. I had learned from my time in the wasteland to simply shoot raiders on sight. But to enslave them still felt gross and wrong. Especially since it helped out Red Eye. Anything involving that pony was bad news.

I could feel myself reaching for my shotgun, my anger growing. I had the sudden urge to shoot up the entire town.

Brisk placed his hoof on my shoulder, cooling my rage. I glanced over at him for a second before once more holstering my shotgun. We had just learned that Littlepip had lost control in Arbu. I wasn’t about to make the same mistake as her, even if I really wanted to give these ponies what they deserved.

I glanced over at Star breeze who was beginning to tremble with fear as a bunch of ponies began looking her body over. Many of them simply stood back and stared at her angrily, while a few tossed foul remarks and berating insults her way. A buck even had the gall to kick her, his hoof cracking heavily against her ribs.

I sighed, my eyes dropping. “How much for the pegasus?”

Birch gave me a surprised look. “You want the Enclave rat?”

“I got her into this mess. A few messes actually. I suppose I owe her enough to get her out of this,” I said, daring myself to glance over at the bound pegasus as the ponies around her continued to hurl insults her way.

Birch thought about that for a second. “Well, I doubt too many ponies are going to want to spend caps on her. Only reason any pony would is to put her in her place, but even she isn’t exempt from our rules here. So no pony is going to be allowed to torture or rape her.”

I looked back to the pegasus and the ponies around her. Was he sure about that? There didn't seem to be much policing to stop them from getting rough.

Birch though for a few more seconds. “Tell you what. Two Hundred caps and you can have her. I doubt I’d be able to get any more than that at the auction.”

I grimaced, both at the idea of selling a pony and at the fact I only had one hundred and twenty three caps total.”

I gave him a sheepish smile. “I don’t suppose you’d be interested in lowering the price? I’m not nearly that rich.”

Birch shook his head. “You can try and buy her in the auction, but if you lose, you lose. No getting her.”

“What if we earned her?” Brisk suggested, his expression lighting up as an idea crossed his mind. Birch gave him a sceptical raise of his eyebrow. “I heard you’ve been having raider problems. What if we dealt with some of those raiders for you?”

Birch tapped his chin for a second thoughtfully. “Those raider gangs have been posing a fair bit of trouble. Havin’ them out of the way would be offley beneficial,” He nodded, coming to a decision. “Tell you what. If you ponies can deal with one of the gangs that have been bothering us, then you can pick any slave you damn well want. Have the pegasus. I’d make more caps off of those raiders being gone than selling that flying rat anyway.”

I gave him a fake smile, despite my stomach doing loops at the injustice of everything. “Thanks, we’ll deal with those raiders for you,” I held up my false smile until Birch finally managed to push past me. The second he couldn’t see me, I let my smile drop and I trotted over to where Star had been bound. “Hey, Star. We’re going to get you out of here. Got it?”

Star just grumbled and rolled her eyes.”I’d sure fucking hope so,” She winced as one of the ponies prodded at her side aggressively. Her face switched to a more pleading expression, her hostility suddenly gone. “Please get me out of here quick…”

“So wait, we’re trying to free that annoying pegasus bitch that tried to kill you guys?” Pyre asked as we walked along the pathway.

One of the town's guards had directed us towards the closest raider camp. It was only a general direction, but the trail of blood and mutilated corpses had made it pretty clear what way we were supposed to be going.

Pyre seemed to be a little less emotional at the moment, but something about the tension that still lingered in her voice told me she was simply pushing all those messed up feelings down. I couldn’t see her face through her helmet, but I got the impression that her eyes were puffy from crying.

I nodded, stopping for a second to inspect a mangled body before moving forwards. “It's kinda our fault she's there in the first place. I figure we owe her.”

Pyre scoffed. “You don’t owe the Grand fucking Pegasus Enclave anything. Besides, she tried to kill you when you first met. Isn’t that enough to make you not want to help her?”

I gave Pyre a flat stare. “I believe we met by you ordering a group of raiders to skin us alive.”

Pyre winced at that. “Oh yeah… right…” she quickly shut up at that.

“And you’re just okay with helping out this town of slavers?” Brisk asked, looking back at the gate to Oasis that was slowly fading into the distance behind us.

I shook my head grumpily. “No, but what other choice do we have? We can’t just leave her there, nor can we just shoot up the town,” I snarled and stomped my hoof. “It’s not fair, but we have to do something, and taking out a nest of raiders is never a bad thing, no matter who it benefits.”

“But… are the ponies of Oasis actually bad ponies?” Xayah asked, her tone distant and reflective.

I cast her a surprised and slightly angry glare. “What? Of course they are! They’re slavers!”

Xayah took a nervous step back. “I… um… I didn’t say what they were doing is right… but... is it really worse than just killing the raiders outright?”

I growled at her, but the truth of the matter was that I didn’t really know the answer myself. My face fell. “Sorry. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have gotten angry like that. I don’t even know. It’s just all so confusing.”

Xayah gave me a small smile and wrapped me in a quick, but tight hug. “It is alright you foolish pony. I understand this is confusing. I myself do not fully know where I stand on the ordeal.”

Mirra ducked out from behind Brisk’s hoof and peeked over a large bush. “You might want to figure out your stance on raiders quickly. I think we’re here.”

Moving away from Xayah, I looked over the top of the bush with Mirra. Only a short distance away, a group of raiders had made a small camp on top of what looked to be a large stone bridge that crossed over the pathway. I tried to count how many were there, but it was hard to tell from this distance. I approximated around twenty.

“Alright, let's get them dealt with before the auction,” I said, starting to pull myself up to move across the distance between us and the raiders.

Before I could move far, Mirras magic wrapped around my hind hoof and yanked me back down beside her. “Hold up just a second,” The small changeling said, giving me an annoyed expression. “Those raiders built their base there for a reason. Look,” She pointed to the area of ground between us and them. following her hoof, my eyes landed on what seemed like a sea of blue petals. I gulped. great, those were probably-

“Let me guess,” Brisk groaned, looking over the vines and blue flowers that lay between us. “That's the Killing Joke plant that y’all were talking about?”

Xayah nodded with a small shiver. “Those are them. I had hoped to never need to cross them.”

I looked over at the path that led around the large patch of Killing Joke and towards the bridge. It seemed to be clear of the deadly plant, but it left us constantly in the open. I quickly pointed to it. “We could always go that way, but we’ll have to worry about the raiders shooting at us.”

Pyre gave me a pitiful look. “Oh you poor naive little thing,” She said, patting my head condescending. “Killing Joke isn’t just a flower. Damn things have a mind of their own. The path looks safe, but Killing Joke is perfectly capable of moving around. Stay in the same place for too long and it’ll come out of the ground and strike you.”

I turned to look at Xayah. “I don’t suppose you’d be able to snipe them from here?”

Xayah raised her sniper and looked down the scope for a few seconds. “I suppose I could, but it wouldn’t be an easy shot, and the second the first raider goes down, they’ll be alerted to our presence.”

Damn. These raiders sure knew how to pick a fucking spot to set up camp.

“If Killing Joke can move, how are the raiders staying safe?” I asked, trying to find another way up to the bridge.

“Killing Joke probably can't get up on top of the bridge,” Pyre replied flatly. “Needs soil to grow. Chances are there's a way up on the far side that's relatively free of Killing Joke, but if we need to get this done before the auction, then we don’t have time to go all the way around.”

I grit my teeth. “Great. I guess that means we're just going to have to charge them from the path and pray they don't get a lucky shot or that the Killing Joke doesn't’ decide to come up from under our hooves.”

Pyres eyes drifted up to the canopy of balefire phoenixes that had perched in the branches above us. “Maybe we could use them as a distraction…”

I cast her a sideways look. “And how are we supposed to do that?”

Ignoring my question, Pyre turned to face Xayah. “Do you think you can shoot one of the branches the birds are perched on above the raiders with your sniper?”

Once again, Xayah looked down the scope of her gun towards the raiders, though this time her sights were focused on the canopy above them. She gave a thoughtful nod. “I believe that would be possible, yes.”

“Then do that. Should keep the raiders off of us for a few seconds,” Pyre said, crouching slightly as if she were preparing to lunge over the bush.

“Wait, we’re just going to charge at them down the path? What about the Killing Joke?” Brisk asked, eyeing the pretty blue flowers nervously. “What if they hit us?”

“Prey they don’t and never stop moving until you reach the bridge,” Pyre replied quickly. “Even if it means jumping in the way of a raiders bullet. A shot to the head is probably better than whatever those plants want to do to you.”

I gave Xayah a nod. “Whenever you’re ready.”

Xayah returned to looking down her scope for a second. Her metal hooves steadied as she aimed at something far above the raiders heads. Then there was a near silent pop as her sniper cracked off a shot, the bullet flashing across the clearing and lashing through one of the branches holding up the balefire phoenixes.

The air was suddenly filled with a cacophony of flapping green wings and ear piercing shrieks. The raiders panicked as they were suddenly thrown into a maelstrom of angry radioactive birds.

“Now! Go!” Pyre shouted, bounding around the bush and heading for the path that led through the field of Killing Joke.

I pushed off with my hooves and bounded after her, Braeburn’s Liberator swinging up into the air with my magic as I readied myself for the approaching attack. The crack on my horn stung at the sudden use of magic, but otherwise didn’t affect me.

On the bridge, the raiders continued to howl and fire aimlessly at the air as the swirling tornado of birds darted through the air around them and lashed at them with their sharp beaks. They didn’t seem to notice us as we quickly charged towards them.

“Watch out! Mines!” I heard Pyre shout from ahead of me. I saw her jump over a mound of dirt that had been dug into the pathway. I quickly relayed her message to my friends behind me as I leapt over the buried mine myself.

Of course the raiders had made the path a minefield. Just our fucking luck.

“We’re about to get trouble!” I heard Brisk shout as he bounded up behind me, his pistol tight in his mouth. I glanced back to see what he was talking about. I instantly regretted it as fear washed over me.

The Killing Joke vines were beginning to writhe and twist. Sharp, flower covered tendrils were beginning to shoot towards us, slithering across the pathway we had previously walked on like snakes darting after a rodent.

I shrieked, jumping to the side as one of the vines lashed at the air beside me. The vine seemed to twist in mid-air and slice at me again, only for me to roll low to the ground and keep running at full speeds.

Mirra was panting beside me, sweat dripping down her brow as she exerted herself and tried to keep up with the rest of us with her short legs. One of the vines lashed at her, forcing her to take to the air and fly above us with her buzzing wings.

As it turned out, the balefire Phoenixes were a perfect distraction to get the raiders off of us, but it meant that we were going to need to start dealing with them as well. The glowing birds began to dive bomb at us, their talons and snapping beaks extended to rip into us.

Mirra let her wings stop and dropped down heavily atop Brisk’s back to evade their vicious onslaught. Brisk gave a low grunt as her weight was added to his, but he did his best to not slow down as we powered forwards.

“Mother fuckers! We got company!” I heard one of the raiders shout. I looked up just in time to see one of the raiders start firing down at us with a poorly maintained hunting rifle.

One of the raiders' shots collided with a landmine behind us, sending an explosion of fire, shrapnel and kicked up earth into the air. I stumbled, my balance thrown off by the sudden explosion and shockwave that slammed into me.

I tripped on my own hooves, falling forwards and slamming face first into the pathway, getting a foul mouthful of dirt and ash.

The slithering Killing Joke vines continued darting forwards. I could see them rapidly approaching me at alarming speeds. I kicked up with my legs, trying to move myself forwards before they could reach me.

Xayah swept past me, her metal hooves reaching down and quickly hauling me up to my hooves. I felt her push me forwards, urging me not to stop moving. I had no intention of not obliging.

“Don’t stop! We’re almost there!” Pyre shouted, ducking down as one of the balefire phoenixes slashed at her with their talons.

Xayah fired a shot from her sniper beside me. The shot blasted out, the large bullet piercing one of the raiders between the eyes and sending them falling from the bridge to the field of vines below.

More of the raiders had started to fire down at us now as well, their attention finally turned to us as the glowing birds assault began to lessen. In front of me, I saw Brisk duck to the side to avoid a shot from one of the raiders assault rifles. His hoof skidded across the loose dirt pathway as he dodged, one of the Killing Joke vines nearly managing to wrap around his hoof before he could push himself away again.

Pyre reached the bridge first. She leapt over the final landmine, her metal clad hooves thumping loudly against the walkway of the bridge as she landed. Her flamers burst to life at once, drowning the bridge in a wave of fire.

The raiders scattered, ducking behind the small, makeshift structures they had erected atop the bridge to shield themselves from Pyre’s wrath. A few sent shots her way, most of their attacks doing little more than ricocheting off of Pyre’s heavy armour.

Brisk and I made our way up next, both of our weapons drawn and aimed as we started assaulting the raiders with fire of our own. Mirra fluttered up after us, her revolver cracking off a few shots in the raider general direction.

I looked back and reached out my hoof, quickly pulling Xayah up atop the structure with us. The Killing Joke vines lashed against the side of the stone bridge, recoiling as they collided with the solid surface. Then, to my dismay, they began to slowly slither up the side.

“Vines are still coming!” I shouted, helping to haul Xayah the last little bit onto the bridge.

One of the raiders fired a shot off inches above my head, making me duck to avoid having my brains splattered across the stone bridge. My shotgun spun around in my magic and fired at the raider, the explosive buckshot ripping through his throat and dropping him to the ground in a twitching mess.

“You’re going to pay for the bitch!” I heard a raider yell. There was a loud whoosh of air, followed by a large rocket flashing past me. The rocket detonated against the ground, knocking Xayah and I onto our front as the large shockwave rammed into us from behind.

“Damn it, they’ve got a fucking rocket launcher!” Brisk shouted, dancing out of the way as another projectile darted towards him.

Pyre pushed forwards, her flamers continuing to spew flame towards the raiders. Her flamers stopped just long enough for her to drop and roll out of the way of another blast from the rocket launcher before she once more pulled herself back up and continued her barrage.

A raider leapt out from cover and rushed at me, a rusting knife clamped tightly in their mouth. I hopped back, the blade slicing through the air a few inches in front of my face.

Xayah swung her hooves at the raider, her metal appendages cracking against the side of his head and sending him stumbling towards the edge of the bridge. I raised Braeburn’s Liberator to finish him off when the raider suddenly burst open, his stomach exploding outwards in a mix of blood, bile and, to my surprise, butterflies.

I blinked, watching as the butterflies poured from the raiders body and fluttering up into the swirling storm of balefire phoenixes. My eyes looked down, making out the shape of the Killing Joke vine that had wrapped itself around his hoof.

I stumbled backwards, quickly pulling Xayah with me. I had a sudden newfound fear for those vile plants.

“Everypony! Get away from the edges!” I yelled, panic rising in my voice as I saw the vines begin to creep across the surface of the bridge.

One of the raiders was struck across the throat by the vines, his whole body suddenly shifting into a chicken that squealed fearfully before darting away.

Pyre wrapped her hooves around Mirra and pulled her away from the approaching vines. The small changeling protested and fluttered her wings, but Pyre had no intention of letting go of her.

Brisk clambered away from the edge, his pistol firing off a shot into the vines. One of the vines recoiled, only for another to quickly take its place.

A raider bolted out from behind their cover, their hooves grappling around Brisk’s throat and making him stumble back towards the vines. Brisk growled, his head twisting and firing a shot from his gun point blank into the raiders head. But the damage had already been done.

I watched in horror as one of the Killing Joke vines slithered forwards and wrapped around Brisks hoof. I lunged forwards, my hoof reaching out to try and pull him away before the plant could enact its horrific sense of humour.

Brisk’s horn exploded, gore and bone fragments shooting from it in all directions as it was spontaneously torn apart atop his head. Brisk’s head was whiplashed back, knocking him over and sending toppling against the floor of the bridge, blood oozing from the large hole where his horn used to be.

I grabbed onto Brisk and pulled him away from the edge of the bridge, dragging him behind one of the raiders ramshackle huts. Brisk’s eyes were closed and he seemed to have been thrown into unconsciousness. Hopefully that meant he wasn’t feeling the pain his body was currently in. He was losing blood fast, the hole in his head showing the bone of his skull beneath.

“Damn it, no…” I growled, pulling out a healing potion and pushing it up against his lips. The magical fluid drizzled down his throat and began to magically patch his wounds back together, but the bleeding didn’t stop.

One of the raiders tossed an apple grande towards us. It bounced across the ground, rolling to a stop a few feet away from us. Knowing I didn’t have the time to throw it back, I let my horn flare to life and conjured up a magical shield between the explosive and us. I threw my own body over Brisk’s, trying to cover him from the impeding shrapnel.

The apple grenade exploded, the blast slamming into my shield and sending both of us slamming against the side of the wooden hut. I felt the shrapnel dig into the back of my coat, ripping open small gashing all along my back.

Xayah ducked down beside us, the raiders fire peppering the side of the wall beside her as she tried to take cover. I turned to her, my expression grim. “Xayah! I need you to get Brisk back to Oasis! He needs medical help!” Xayah just gave me a quick nod before scooping Brisk onto her back and darting off. She struggled under his weight, but managed to keep moving. I looked over to Mirra. “Mirra! Go with her! They need you!”

“But I can help!” The small changeling called back. She squeaked and ducked low as one of the raiders fired at her with a shotgun.

I shook my head. “Pyre and I can handle the raiders. I need you to make sure Brisk stays safe. Please,” Mirra nodded in response, firing off one more shot from her revolver before fluttering after Xayah.

Pyre pulled up next to me, her flamers dying down as she moved into cover. “Where the fuck is everypony going!?” She scowled, her legs bending as she prepared to continue her attack. “Are we retreating?”

I shook my head. “Brisk is hurt. You think we can handle the raiders just the two of us?”

I’m not sure how, but somehow I could tell that Pyre gave me a smug grin from behind her helmet. “Who do you think you’re talking to Amber? Yeah we can deal with them,” A rocket flashed past us and detonated against the roof of the hut, blowing splinters of wood in every direction. Pyre grimaced. “Though that rocket launcher raider is going to be an issue. He’s barricaded himself inside the farthest structure. Good vantage point, lots of cover. Easy place for him to defend.”

I nodded.”Think you can distract him while I try and sneak in and take him out?” I spared a glance over at the Killing Joke vines, but they seemed to only be able to reach so far across the bridge before needing to recoil.

Pyre gave me a rough pat on the back, making me wince as she aggressively hit my shrapnel wounds. “I can always distract ponies!”

A raider charged and rounded the side of the hut, a tire iron waving wildly in their magic as they tried to attack us with it. Pyre slapped the tire iron out of the air with her hoof, the metal tube clanking harmlessly off her armour.

“Go. Kill the raider,” Pyre scowled, her flamers bursting back to life and burning the raider alive. The second the raider stopped squirming, Pyre pushed herself around the edge of the structure and back into the open, her weapons spewing flame towards the raiders.

I crept forwards, my head low as I tried to keep out of sight of the other raiders. On the far side of the bridge, I could see the structure that Pyre was talking about. A fairly large, ramshackle fortress of broken wood and scraps of metal. Two turrets sat on top, keeping a constant stream of fire on Pyre as my power armoured friend did their best to keep the raiders attention off of me.

I spotted the raider inside for only a moment as he popped over his cover and sent a missile streaking towards Pyre. the projectile collided only an inch in front of Pyre’s hooves, throwing her backwards and slamming her into a crushing one of the smaller structures.

Damn it.

I crawled under a ripped tent the raiders had set up and fired a shot from my shotgun into one of the raiders that tried to rush Pyre while she was down. The bukshot blasted into their leg and made them buckle at the knee. A second shot put them out of their misery.

The two turrets swiveled to point at me, allerted by my gunshots. I cursed myself for thinking blowing my cover was even a remotely good idea.

The rapid fire of the turrets ripped through the tent, blasting holes in the canvas and letting the diffused sunlight above streak down at me in thin beams of light. I rolled to my left, a few of the shots grazing my sides and making me scream out in pain.

Pyre hauled herself back up and continued charging, a loud scream of rage escaping her mouth as she did. The turrets swivelled back to her, focusing in on the only clear shot in the area.

With an opening given, I darted out from the collapsing tent and rushed the last few feet to the makeshift structure. A few raiders turned to shoot at me, but they were forced to keep their focus on Pyre as her twin flamers bathed them in flame.

The air made a loud whooshing sound as another rocket was launched from the raiders missile launcher. The rocket sailed through the air towards Pyre, this time hitting her square in the chest. Her power armour took a majority of the hit, but it still sent her flying back, the front of her armour now torn apart and a large part of her breast bleeding profusely.

I wrapped my hooves around the structure and hauled myself into it with the rocket launcher raider. The raider looked over at me in surprise as I pulled up next to him, his eyes huge as Braeburn’s Liberator swivelled in the air to press against the side of his skull.

The raiders head exploded, bits of gore and brain matter splattering against my face as I pulled the trigger. His body dropped to the ground unceremoniously, his rocket launcher clattering next to him at my hooves.

The turrets spun around to face me, both of their barrels aiming at my face. I was faster.

The second the raider had fallen, I had moved up behind one of the turrets and began using the technique of hacking robots that Salt Water had shown me back in the Hollow Shades. The turret I hacked into swung away from me and pointed towards the other, unleashing a round of bullets into the opposing turret.

Both turrets fired upon each other, peppering the other with lead. They simultaneously exploded, bits of fire and metal shooting everywhere as they blasted each other apart.

The pink one is in the bosses hut!” One of the raiders shouted. I poked my head out from behind cover to see the remaining five raiders. Two of them were quickly approaching me, while the other three had begun to stalk towards where Pyre had fallen. “I’ll kill the filly. You kill the power armoured cunt.”

Yeah, that wasn’t going to happen.

Wrapping the rocket launcher in my magic, I lifted it up to aim at the raiders. I squeezed the trigger, feeling the powerful whoosh of air as the rocket shot out. I was thrown back, the powerful kickback of the weapon throwing me off my hooves.

There was an explosion and a few yells of pain as the rocket launcher detonated point blank with one of the raiders.

Crawling back up to the cover, I peaked over to see the damage. One of the raiders approaching me had become little more than a stain of red on the stone floor of the bridge, while the other was still slowly limping towards me, one of their legs broken and a murderous look in their eyes.

“Fuck! The bitch took the rocket launcher!” One of the raiders shouted as they all turned and began charging towards me. A few more bullets were sent in my direction, forcing me to duck back down. “I’m goin’ to make her bleed for that! Come here cunt, I’m going to put you in your fucking place.”

Ignoring their curses, I quickly loaded another rocket into the weapon. Propping the large weapon up against a slab of metal the raider had used for cover, I readied myself for the kickback and fired. Even after having prepared myself, I staggered back slightly as the rocket launcher fired.

The raiders scattered, the wounded one not being fast enough and getting blasted to bits like the raider before him. The remaining three began rushing towards the building, each one making sure to stay spread out to keep me from firing at them all at once again.

Knowing I wasn’t going to have time to reload and fire before they reached me, I dropped the rocket launcher and readied my shotgun. There was a second of strange silence as I waited for them to reach the makeshift structure, the only audible sound being my own heartbeat and the squawking of balefire phoenixes as they soared around the surrounding area.

Then the first raider pushed their way into the structure, their hunting rifle already aimed and ready to fire at me. I ducked down, their shot flying over my head and ripping out a little of my mane before embedding itself in the far wall.

I clambered to my hooves, my shogun raising to take a shot at the raider when the second raider jumped into the structure behind me, their baseball bat slamming me across the back of the head and sending me toppling to the ground.

The third raider never made it into the building. Pyre’s hooves slammed into them as she charged into the structure herself, crushing the raiders spine almost instantly. The last two raiders spun as she entered, only to be met with a burst of fire straight into their face.

The raiders reeled back, their bodies blazing with light as the inferno raced up their bodies and cooked their hides. The structure was filled with smoke and the smell of burning flesh filled my nostrils as the last raiders fell to the ground and went limp.

I felt Pyre grab onto the scruff of my neck and reef me out of the ramshackle structure as the wood comprising it caught fire. The roof crumbled down behind me as I was tossed out and onto the stone bridge.

Rubbing the side of my head where the baseball bat had hit me, I stumbled up to my hooves and looked around. “Did we get them all?”

Pyre swayed on her hooves for a second, looking over the devastation we had wrought on atop the bridge. “Looks like it. Oasis ain’t going to be having trouble with those raiders again,” She glanced down at her chest which was still pouring with blood from the rocket. “Mind if I have a healing potion?”

I quickly passed one over to her, gulping as I noticed I was once more down to my last one. “Shit. I’m going to need to restock on medical supplies when we get back to Oasis,” I looked over the wound on Pyre’s chest as the healing potion slowly patched it back together. “Are you going to be okay? That was a nasty hit you took.”

Pyre shrugged. “I told you, Viscera forced me to augment my body. My bones are practically Stubbornite.”

I blinked at her. “Stubbornite? Don’t tell me thats an actual fucking metal?”

Pyre chuckled slightly at that. “Yeah, believe it or not, it is. It was used mostly by a clipboard company way back in the day. Fuck if I know why they needed to make those damn things out of material so strong.”

I glanced across the field of Killing Joke and in the general direction of Oasis. “We should probably head back. I hope Brisk is alright.”

Pyre gave me a grim nod. “If any pony will be alright, it's that asshole. That buck's one of the most stubborn ponies I know,” she tapped her metal clad hoof against her chin for a second. “Save for maybe you I suppose.”

Brisk was not doing fine.

Oasis’ hospital was as small as one might have expected, looking more like a tiny outlet with a medical bed than an actual hospital. Brisk lay on the table unconscious, his head wrapped in a blood soaked gauze as two doctors frantically worked over him. I had hoped that the effects of Killing Joke were not permanent, but from everyponies else's reactions, I was beginning to realize that they very much were.

“I’m terribly sorry that this happened to your friend,” Birch said, watching as the doctors began to administer what looked to me like hydra. “But I am glad that you dealt with those raiders. They were putting us in a rather unfortunate situation.”

“Yeah, whatever,” I grunted, not being in the mood to talk much to the slaving pony that had sent us out to kill the raiders in the first place. “Just give us the pegasus and we’ll call it even.”

Birch gave me a sad smile and raised his hoof as if to pat me on the back. He quickly thought better of it and quickly spun on his hooves to fetch Star Breeze.

Mirra looked Pyre over from afar as our raider friend stood beside me stoically, staring down at Brisk’s limp form. Her eyes lingered on the bloody wound on Pyres chest. Mirra opened her mouth to say something about it, but like the mayor, thought better of it.

Pyre had removed herself from her power armour to get it fixed, giving us all a view of her scarred and burned body. She had always had tons of scars, but I could tell that the damage being done to her body was getting worse. The burn marks, the slashes and shrapnel wounds, the massive gouges Viscera had inflicted in the Hollow Shades. She wasn’t taking care of her body, not the way that she should be. Pyre had become a walking map of all the horrors she had been through.

“You sure you don’t want to take a bit of a rest first? Heal that chest wound?” I asked, bringing up my previous concerns from the bridge. “Last thing we need is for you to not be at your best when we head back out into the gardens.”

Pyre gave me a scowl. “We don't have time. Every second we wait gives Plaga another opportunity to hurt more fillies,” Pyre stomped her hoof to finalize her statement. “I’ll heal when this is all over. If you want to stay behind, that's up to you. I can do this alone if I need to.”

I shook my head. "Not a chance. I'll go where you go. We do this together."

“And what about the other raider gang?” Xayah asked, budding into the conversation for the first time since we had arrived back. “There were two right? Now that we took out one, the other is probably going to make a move on Oasis.”

I nodded. “We don’t really know where Plaga is, so going out in the direction of those raiders would probably be as good a spot to start as any. We can clear them all out then,” I cast a grumpy glance out towards the gazebo where more ponies had begun to gather for the auction. I had even noticed a few ponies sporting Red Eyes insignia on their armour amongst the crowd. I had very quickly made the decision to stay as far away from the auction as possible. “Assuming we even want to help this fucking slaver town out with their problems.”

A few seconds later, Birch walked back up to us, a chain held tightly in his mouth which he used to drag a bound Star breeze along behind him with. He spat the chain out at my hooves. “Here's the pegasus. Consider your debt to her paid in full,” he tossed down a saddlebag by my hooves that I guessed were Star's belongings. Save for a laser pistol that stuck out of the top of the bag, I couldn’t see what was inside.

“I’ll chose when her fucking debt to me is payed off you son of a hellhound whore,” Star snapped, tugging at the chain around her neck.

I gave her a low growl. “I just freed you from a life of slavery and almost lost one of my friends in the process. My debt is paid,” Star Breeze quickly shut up at that.

Birch looked up from Star and back towards me. “Those raiders you wiped out weren’t the only ones. There were two gangs. This other one is just as nasty. Not quite sure where they are though, they've managed to stay under our radar better than the others. If you ever wanted to hunt down and wipe out some more raiders around here, there might be some caps in it for you.”

I nodded. “We were planning on going after them next anyway. Till we find out where Plaga is of course.”

Birch gave me a grateful look. “I know you don’t fully approved of our trading habits out here, hell, there are nights when I question if its the right thing to do myself, but I’m glad you’re helpin’ us out.”

I sighed. “Do you really need to sell slaves to Red Eye to get by? You ponies really can't think of any other way to survive?”

Birch shook his head. “It’s complicated, but Friendship city and Tenpony won't trade with us and most folk around here view this as a more moral and efficient solution to raiders than just shootin’ ‘em dead. Red Eye may not be the most savory character, but he gives us a real foundation to work off of out here in the wastes. Protection, supplies, cap flow, you name it.”

“What if we could convince friendship city or Tenpony to trade with you?” Mirra chirped up hopefully. “Would that change things around here?”

“Unlikely,” Birch chuckled, though his tone was distant and remorseful. “I doubt there is much of a trading deal that either of those settlements could give us that could top what Red Eye has arranged. Though I’m sure that’s his design. The most Friendship city has to offer us is fish from the harbour, but we got more than enough of that out here in the garden. Besides, the last thing we need is Red Eye as out enemy,” He gave us one last smile before turning away. “Anyhow, I’ll get out of your manes. It sounds like you have a lot of work ahead of you.”

I gave him a grim nod and turned back to the rest of my friends. “So, go kill the other raider gang then?”

“We will still need to figure out where they are,” Xayah pointed out. “They could be anywhere in the garden by now.”

“I think I know where they are actually,” Star Breeze said as she pulled herself up from the ground and back onto her hooves. “And I think I might also know where this Plaga pony you’re looking for is too.”

Pyre spun around to face her and growled. “What? Do you know him?”

Star took a timid step back under Pyre’s intense gaze. “Yeah, I met him when I first arrived in the gardens,” She elaborated quickly. “He’s taking shelter with that other raider gang. Has himself set up in some cabin out in the woods with them. He’s the only reason those raiders didn’t tear me apart. Managed to convince them I was no good dead.”

I cast Pyre a strange look. Protecting ponies from raiders was not the kind of behaviour I had expected from this notorious Plaga I had heard so many evil things about. Then again, the truth of the matter was I really didn't know what kind of pony Plaga was at all. If my time in Inferno and Crank's minds had taught me anything, it was that even the worst of ponies have more to them than one would expect. There are no good ponies... but there aren't exactly bad ponies either...

Pyre ignored my look and continued to stare at Star. “Where are they? Tell me,” She rumbled. There was a strange fiery glint in her eye that I couldn’t quite place. Was it rage? Fear? Both?

Star took a second step back, her ears folding flat against the side of her head nervously. She took a deep breath and puffed out her chest. “No.”

Pyre’s eyes went wide with anger. She lunged forwards, tackling Star to the ground before I had a chance to hold her back. “What do you mean, no!” Pyre snarled, her lips curling back and baring her teeth.

“I-I s-said no…” Star said again, though this time her voice came out as a little more than frightened whimper. “You want something from me, well I want something from you in return.”

Pyre snarled again, the tips of her flamers flickering to life as she leaned down to Stare Star in the eye. “Wrong answer…”

I quickly moved between them and pushed Pyre back. “Hey, let's all calm down,” I turned and gave Star a grumpy glare. “Whatever you want had better be important. We just risked a lot to get you out of a life of Slavery, and despite what you seem to think, we didn’t actually owe you anything.”

Star quickly pushed herself back up and shuffled her hooves together. “Fair… okay, lets try this again…” She took another deep breath. “I need help with something, and if you help me out, I’ll assist you in getting to Plaga. You’ll need all the help you can get taking out those raiders. I don’t know what those raiders you just took out to save me were like, but these raiders are the real deal.”

“And why would you be any help to us fighting them,” Pyre scowled, still clearly angry at the small pegasus.

Star rolled her eyes. “I just told you. These raiders are no joke. They’ve turned the canopy of the garden into a fortress. The whole area around their camp is a giant fucking kill box. You’re going to want a pony with wings to take out some of their snipers.”

I exchanged looks with all my friends. Xayah and Mirra gave quick nods, while Pyre simply rolled her eyes and groaned. I turned back to Star. “Alright, we'll help you out. What do you need done.”

Star Breeze grinned. “As you know, since you assholes got me demoted to field work, the Enclave had me positioned in the Manehattan Gardens. I’m here to study a very specific creature that lives here.”

“Hellhounds, right?” Xayah said, thinking back to our last hoofful of meetings with Star.

Star scowled. “No, I got kicked the fuck off of that project for giving you a Hellhound control device, remember. You’re welcome for that by the fucking way,” She growled for a second before continuing to explain. “No, the Manehattan Gardens are the only place in all of the Equestrian wasteland we know of where there is a confirmed Ursa Major.”

My mouth dropped open. “An Ursa major? We saw one of those in the metro system below the city.”

Pyre shook her head. “We saw a Ursa minor. Big difference. And I mean that in a literal sense. You think the Star Spawn that you saw was big. That thing was nothing compared to what they are when they’re fully grown.”

Xayah gave Star an accusing stare. “What does the Enclave want with a Star Spawn? Those are not to be messed with.”

“That’s Enclave business. The point is, I need help keeping myself from being ripped the fuck apart while I plant a monitoring device in its cave. That's all I need. A quick little distraction. Five minutes tops.”

“You want us to distract a fully grown Star Spawn?” Pyre said, her voice slowly losing the hostility it had previously been consumed by.

Star nodded. “Yes, then I’ll help you with this Plaga and raider business.”

“Seems reasonable enough,” I grumbled, looking back to Brisk. The doctors had slowed down and looked less panicked, but they still clearly had a lot of work to do.

“Let's get going then,” Mirra said, hoping up to me.

I caught Pyre’s eye, sad and pleading. I sighed. “Mirra, can you stay here and look after Brisk? I want somepony we know to keep an eye on him while we’re gone.”

Mirra looked up at me sceptically. “Are you sure? I can help and…”

I put a hoof on her shoulder. “We’ll be fine. Brisk needs somepony to help him right now more than we do. Besides, it sounds like we’re in for a fight, and I can't spare Pyre or Xayah for that.”

One of Mirra’s eyebrows raised. Her eyes darted to look at Pyre. “Pyre told you not to let me come, didn’t she?” It was more of a statement than a question.

I grimaced. I didn’t have it in me to lie to her. “She did, but I really do need you to watch over Brisk,” I removed my hoof from her shoulder and knelt so that I was eye level with her. “Can you do this for me?”

Mirra gave me a suspicious look before nodding and turning her head to Pyre. “I wish you wouldn’t push me away Pyre… I don’t want you to protect me, I want us to protect each other…”

Pyre remained silent until long after we left.

Caves. I hate caves.

Ever since I had seen the horrors that lurked beneath the surface of the Hollow Shades, I had found caves and other subterranean structures to be a rather terrifying concept. My fear had only been increased tenfold when I had been strapped down to a table by an insane alicorn and had rotting wings surgically welded to my sides in the tunnel system below the city.

When Star led us to the mouth of a massive cave, I felt my legs begin trembling slightly in terror. A strange, purple pulsing light seemed to be emanating from the humongous cavern, giving the whole place an eerie and unfriendly look.

“Relax, only I need to go inside,” Star assured me, clearly picking up on my discomfort. “You ponies need to draw the Star Spawn out.”

“So do we just shoot at it?” I asked, daring myself to peek inside of the cave.

“That would definitely get its attention,” Pyre scoffed. “But no, probably not the best idea unless you want it to go on a murderous rampage and tear us and everything else in Manehattan to shreds.”

“Is it really that powerful?” I said, my voice reflecting the fear I was feeling. “Surely somepony would be able to take it out.”

Pyre rolled her eyes. “Maybe. You saw how big they were as babies. When they’re fully grown, they're practically the size of a small skyscraper.”

“Have you run into one before?” Xayah asked, raising one of her eyebrows. “You seem rather knowledgeable on the matter.”

Pyre shrugged. “Never seen one myself, but any respectable wastelander makes sure to keep themselves updated on the dangers of the wasteland, even if it is just to know what to stay clear of.”

“That’s great,” Star drawled, clearly not caring for the conversation. She quickly reverted the conversation back to the matter at hoof. “Look, all I need is for you to lure it out so I can plant a monitoring device without making it go completely berserk. Do you think you can do that?”

Pyre nodded. “We can set off a small explosive out here to lure it out. Then get it to chase us for a few seconds.”

Star nodded. “That would do perfectly,” She took a step back and flapped her wings a little to pick herself up from the ground. She gestured down to us with a hoof. “I’m ready when you’re ready.”

I gulped as Xayah pulled a few apple grenades out of her saddlebags and passed them to Pyre. “You all might want to stand clear,” Pyre said, her voice sounding a little more excited that it probably should for somepony about to be confronted by a fully grown Star Spawn.

We all took a few big steps back as Pyre approached the front of the cave. She quickly pulled the pins one the grenades and tossed them towards the cave's mouth, letting the small explosives roll across the ground and come to a rest in front of the entrance.

BOOM!

The apple grenades exploded, sending fire and shrapnel shooting across the caves front. The cavern shook slightly as the blast slammed into the walls and a few stones from the top of the entrance crashed down towards the ground. But Pyre wasn’t done. Her flamers shot out, filling the mouth with a raging inferno that drowned out the pulsing purple glow of whatever lay beyond.

Even at the distance from the explosion that I was, my ears rang from the loud boom of the blast. But another noise quickly began to overtake my senses, bellowing clearly audible even above the booming explosion.

A roar.

The ground shook as the massive steps of the Star Spawn thundered around us. The pulsing purple light began to shift and quicken as the massive creature within the cave began to stalk its way out of the cave.

Star took to the air immediately, shooting upwards with a strong flap of her wings and getting lost from my sight immediately. Pyre began backpedaling, the ends of her flamers still spitting bits of fire at the entrance to keep the approaching beasts attention.

“Now would probably be a good time to run,” Pyre called back, casting Xayah and I a sideways glance from over her shoulder.

I saw the air shimmer around the front of the caves entrance, the area suddenly seeming to gleam with the small glimmers of hundreds of tiny stars. I felt my mouth drop as I tried to take in just how huge what I was looking at was. It was hard to see on account of it being completely invisible, but the shifting mass of stars looked almost a hundred times bigger than a normal pony.

Then the huge star bear pulled itself even farther from the cave and my heart stopped. I wasn’t looking at a giant star bear. I was only looking at a single leg.

“Run… now!” I heard Xayah shout, her voice filled with fear as another cluster of stars pulled themselves from the huge cave. She didn’t need to tell me twice.

I spun on my hooves and darted off the path, making sure to make as much noise as possible both to draw the creature away from the cave and to help keep it off of my friends. Not far behind me, I saw Pyre and Xayah start rushing away from the cave entrance as well, splitting off into two different directions in an attempt to lure the beast out.

There was another ear piercing roar as the Star Spawn fully pulled itself from the cave. I glanced behind me for only a second, just making out a huge formation of stars that seemed to tower over the garden canopy.

I gulped. That creature was really really fucking big!

Somewhere off to my left I saw a burst of flames somewhere in the foliage. No doubt Pyre attempting to attract the beast towards her. Something massive lumbered past me, moving at frightening speeds as its huge legs propelled it forwards.

Thinking quickly, I raised Braeburn’s Liberator into the air and fired off a shot, making sure that the shot didn’t actually hit the huge bear. There was a loud crack as the buckshot ripped through the branches above me. I saw something shifting overtop of the hole in the canopy I had just burst open. It took me a second to recognize it, but after a moment it began to take shape.

It was an eye. The giant, near invisible eye of a humongous bear.

I gulped. I had blasted off a shot right next to its head.

The stars that made up the huge Star Spawn froze. Slowly, I saw the mass of stars begin to shift as the massive creature turned and faced towards me.

There we go, attention diverted from my friends. Mission accomplished. Time to run.

I spun on my hooves and darted as fast as I could in the other direction. There was a thunderous roar as the giant, unseen beast behind me lunged forwards and gave chase. I was fairly fast, my small frame allowing me to dart quickly between the foliage faster than other ponies could. But I quickly realized that didn’t mean anything against this fully grown Star Spawn.

The Star Spawn was ripping through the trees behind me like they were nothing, most of the trees snapping in half as its huge body barreled into them. The star bears massive steps boomed around me as it thundered forwards, its giant legs carrying it faster than I had any hope to outrun.

My hoof caught on a gnarled root and I fell forwards, my face smashing up against the ground. I rolled onto my back with just enough time to see a cluster of stars hanging above my head. I felt a sharp fear race through me as I realized the Star Spawn was standing right over top of me.

Something raised into the air. Even with the beast being almost entirely invisible, I was still clearly able to make out the glinting light reflecting off of a set of massive, razor sharp claws.

Shit!

I scrambled to my side, only narrowly avoiding the huge claws that raked into the ground where I had been standing. The impact of the bear's paw sent dirt and rock bursting into the air, temporarily blinding me.

I stumbled backwards, my hooves batting as my face as I tried to clear the grime from my eyes. I managed to blink it all away just quick enough to see the sharp claws flashing towards me again. I was not fast enough to evade them.

The back of the Star Spawns paw slammed into my front, sending me flying a few feet back before I crashed into a large tree stump. My head was whiplashed back, cracking roughly against the hard oak.

There was another ear deafening roar, causing a jolt of terror to pass through me. I hopped to my hooves, my head still in a daze from the hit. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw something swinging towards me.

Thinking fast, I ducked low to the ground, my chin slamming against the rough terrain. The invisible bear's paw swung over my head, missing by less than an inch and slicing the huge tree in half. The tree teetered for less than a second before it began toppling downwards towards me.

I yelped, rushing to the side as the massive truck slammed into the ground where I had been laying. I darted forwards, trying to get to a safer spot. My hoof caught on something again, this time a large, jagged rock that ripped a large gash across my fetlock.

I stumbled, my face once more falling towards the ground. I shut my eyes and shielded my face with my fore hooves, expecting to slam into the solid ground.

The Manehattan Gardens had other plans for me.

The ground beneath me gave way, sending me plummeting downwards into a deep cave system below me. I screamed, my forehooves flailing around me as I attempted to stop my fall. I landed on one of my hind legs, a sharp pain shooting up through my whole body. I winced, daring myself to look down at my leg.

It was bent in the wrong direction, clearly broken. Somehow it had gotten stuck under a large rock that now pinned me to the cavern floor.

I looked back up, making out the glowing light of the balefire phoenix filled forest above. The cave was more of a chasm than anything else, with the deep rock walls being close enough together that only two or three ponies would have been able to fit in with me before the space started to feel really cramped.

Far above me I saw the large eye of the Star Spawn once more glaring down at me through the small crack. It growled and began reaching down at me, its large paw scratching at the edges of the chasm as if trying to dig me out.

I gulped as it started to reach farther down. The razor sharp claws came within inches of my face before it stopped. I was too deep, and the chasm was too narrow for the Star Spawn to reach.

I felt myself sigh with relief as the paw slowly pulled itself away from me. There was a loud roar from far above me, followed by the stomping of steps that shook the chasm walls. After a few seconds, everything went dead silent.

Returning my gaze to my hoof, I tried to pry it out from under the rock. I shifted my forehooves above me to try and get a good grip on the rock pinning me down. Getting a strong grip on it, I pulled, only for the action to cause a sharp pain to shoot up my body.

I yelped, letting go of the rock and letting my body go back to a slightly more comfortable position. I scowled at my leg and tried to yank on it again, only for my body to be wracked by pain once more.

I considered using teleportation, but I was exhausted, and teleportation required a lot of effort. Furthermore, I didn’t want to know what would happen if I failed to teleport with my leg currency being crushed by a rock.

Had Star placed the monitoring device yet? She must have, she said it wouldn't take her long. With any luck, the Star Spawn would be heading back to its cave at this very second.

I waited a few seconds, listening for any signs of the huge star bear. I couldn't hear anything to suggest it was still around. in fact, I didn't hear signs of anything moving up there.

Gulping and biting back another scream of pain, I looked back up at the fissure in the ground above me. “Hello! Anypony out there! I need some help down here!”

Nothing. All I heard were a few squawks of some balefire phoenixes far above in the garden’s canopy.

I shifted my position, trying to ignore the pain that burst through my body. “Is there anypony that can hear me!”

This time there was a small rustling sound of bushes somewhere out of sight. A second later I saw Xayah and Pyre poke their heads over the edge of the cliff.

“Amber? What happened?” Xayah asked, her voice sounded more worried than I was comfortable with. I suppose I would have sounded worried too though, had it been me that found her stuck at the bottom of a pit.

I gave her a sheepish grin that I hoped would help settle some of her concerns. “Kinda fell in a hole. My hoof is broken. I don’t think I’ll be able to climb out.”

Xayah and Pyre exchanged a worried look. “I won't fit down there,” Pyre grunted, surveying the size of the pit. “Think you can climb down there?”

Xayah cast me a scared expression. “Probably, but I will not be strong enough to pull both of us back out, the walls are far too steep.”

I winced as I tried to once again pull my hoof out, this time with magic. The rock refused to budge under my weak attempt. “Where’s Star? Maybe she could fly down?” I asked hopefully.

Pyre gave me a snide look. “Where do you think she went? Away from the garden entirely most likely. She got what she wanted. I watched the dumb pegasus fly out of the cave a few moments after the Star Spawn left. Bitch probably saw her chance to get out of the garden while she could.”

“I’m going to pretend not to be offended by that,” I heard Star scowl. I saw the pegasus drop down from somewhere above the trees.

Pyre gave her a small grin. “Oh… heh… Thought you left.”

Star rolled her eyes. “Clearly. It’s good to know you trust me to keep good on my deals,” Star poked her head over the edge of the chasm and looked down at me. “Do I even want to ask how you got stuck down there?”

“Fell,” I said bluntly, not bothering to elaborate any further on the topic.

Star rolled her eyes again. “Yeah yeah, no shit. Gimme a sec. I’ll get you out of there.”

A few seconds later, Star was fluttering down the tight chasm, her small body allowing her to fully extend her wings while descending the pit. She winced as she saw the state of my hind leg. “Yikes. That looks like it fucking hurts,” Star gave my broken leg an aggressive poke with one of her hooves, making me yelp. “Yup, it's broken.”

I gave her an angry scowl. “Yeah, no shit it's broken. Just pass me a healing potion and I’ll be fine,” I grumbled, pulling at the rock again to little success.

Star shook her head. “Only if you want your leg to be like that forever. A healing potion wont fix a broken bone, in fact it’ll only make the damage worse.”

I gave her a confused look. “Really? But I’ve used them to fix breaks before? I’ve done that a lot actually.”

Star Breeze scowled. “Then you’re an idiot and lucky that none of those breaks were overly serious. If you’ve been doing that then there's a good chance your bones are all permanently fucked up.”

I shrugged, wincing as I felt Star lift the large rock off my leg. “I’ll keep that in mind, but I really seem to usually be okay afterwards.”

Star groaned as she looked over my leg. “You’ve probably been working off of the adrenaline healing potions give. I’m honestly surprised you can still function.”

I raised an eyebrow at her. “How do you know so much about this?”

“Because its common fucking knowledge,” Star sighed. “If you must know, I was one of the top scientists for the Grand Pegasus Enclave. We were all trained in the basics of first aid. Something not many ponies down here get to learn,” She pointed to her cutie mark of a wrench and syringe. “I’m no doctor, but I’m knowledgeable enough to deal with broken bones.”

“Think you can fix mine?” I asked hopefully, trying to wiggle my hoof a little. The movement caused more pain than I would have liked and I quickly stopped.

“Fix it? probably not without any medical supplies... I’ll have to set it before I move you. I don’t want to damage it any more,” Star grumbled, resting her hooves on either side of my broken leg. “You ready?”

I blinked. “Wait, like right-”

Stars hooves twisted and popped the leg back into position. I screamed, the sound not in the least bit dignifying. Star gave me a smug look. “Yes, right now,” she looked down at my leg and frowned. “I don’t really have any medical supplies on me, but I could probably make a brace or something out of branches and vines until we get back to Oasis.”

I nodded as she wrapped her fore hooves around my body and started pulling me upwards towards the surface. I wrapped myself in a field of magic to help carry my weight. I wasn’t nearly strong enough with magic to do something crazy like levitate myself, but I could reduce how much I weighed at the very least.

Star struggled to carry me for a second before finally managing to pull us both out of the pit and back onto solid ground. Xayah quickly moved up beside me and wrapped me in a tight hug, careful not to touch my injured leg.

“Okay, give the filly some fucking space,” Star drawled, giving Xayah a slight nudge on the shoulder with one of her hooves. Xayah warrily let me go. “I’m going to go gather a few things to make a brace. Stay right here.”

Without saying another word, Star spun around in the air and darted off into the foliage.

I turned to look at Xayah and Pyre. “What happened with the Star Spawn?”

“Went back into its cave,” Pyre replied flatly. “It figured we were more trouble than we were worth and just headed back. Since we didn’t shoot the thing, it didn’t get angry.”

I tried to stand up, only for my hind leg to send me stumbling back to the ground. Xayah quickly moved up to me again and caught me before I could hurt myself. “Try not to move you foolish pony. Save your energy.”

Pyre gave a nod of agreement and turned to Xayah. “Once Star makes that brace, can you get Amber back to Oasis for medical treatment? I’ll go with Star to take out those raiders.”

Xayah gave a quick nod in return. “I will get Amber to safety.”

I felt my mouth drop open. Were they… sending me away?

“Hold up, I’m going with you,” I objected, once again trying to get to my hooves. I was more successful this time around, but I had to keep my hind hoof lifted off the ground. “I’m not letting you face this alone.”

Pyre gave me an annoyed look. “I won’t be alone. I have Star Breeze with me, remember?” She gestured down to my leg. “Besides, you are in no condition to fight raiders right now. I’m sure that whatever these raiders have planned, I’ll be more than a match for them.”

I scowled. “It’s not the raiders I’m worried about Pyre and you know it. I promised you that I’d be right there next to you when you face your father and I intend to keep that promise.”

Pyre growled. “Maybe I need to face him alone! Did you ever think about that?” She stomped her hoof down on the ground in front of me hard. “These are my demons. I need to be the one to face them!”

“You’re scared Pyre,” I shot back. “You’ve been acting differently ever since we got close to the gardens. You’ve been pushing Mirra away and you keep flipflopping between angry, depressed and normal. Plaga scares you. I won’t let you face that by yourself!”

“But you’re hurt!” Pyre shot back, once more gesturing to my leg.

“So what?” I retorted, taking a shaky step forward. It was difficult while only on three legs. “I get hurt all the time. You should have seen me in the MAS tower. I got hurt way worse than this and still kept going. What makes this any different?”

“The difference is that you got hurt because of me!” Pyre snarled. “How many casualties have we had because of me Amber? Heartbeat is dead because of me. Xayah lost her legs because of me. Brisk lost his horn because of me. You all scream in your sleep about the things Viscera did to you because of me. I’m not going to let any more of you get hurt because of my past.”

I stared at her, stunned. “None of that was your fault Pyre.”

“Wasn’t it?” Pyre snarled. “I killed Heartbeat. Viscera only attacked you to get to me? Brisk was touched by Killing Joke to help find my father,” She pointed down at my broken leg. “Hell, even your damn leg is broken because you’re trying to help me. What's going to be the next big tragedy Amber? Another death like Heartbeat? When is something bad going to happen to Mirra because of me?”

I took a step towards her, one of my hooves wrapping around Xayah to help keep me upright. “It doesn’t matter if we get hurt. This the the goddess damned fucking wasteland. We’re going to get hurt anyway. But we aren’t going to let that get in the way of us helping those that we care about!”

Pyre took a slow, deep breath and took a small step away from me. She glanced down at her hooves, her expression distant. “I’ve lost so many of my friends Amber. Most of them I killed myself… I grew so afraid that I would lose another that I shut everypony out. I refused to care about others, and so no pony cared about me. I became a raider. I lived like that for so long, simply pretending that I was happy and okay. The truth was that I was just a scared little filly that lashed out at the world to hide the fact I had forced myself into loneliness,” She looked up at me. For just a moment, our eyes locked and I felt like I could see straight through her. I saw the real Pyre, not the rough and tough raider she always pretended to be. The moment was over in a flash as she looked away. “You were the one that showed me I could still make friends. Traveling with all of you has made me feel happy for perhaps the first time in my entire life. If another one of you were to die… I don’t think I could take it…”

I let go of Xayah and moved up beside Pyre, wrapping her in a tight hug. “I have no intention of going anywhere, Pyre. None of us do. I cant promise we won't get hurt. I can't even promise we won't die. But I can promise that we will stick with you until the very end. It doesn't matter what happens or what gets in our way. We will face this together.”

I could feel Pyre tremble in my embrace for a moment before quickly pushing me away and putting a stern expression onto her face. “Alright. Fine. You can come along. But you better not die on me and we’re getting you back to Oasis for proper medical treatment immediately afterwards.”

I nodded. “Wouldn’t have it any other way.”

Xayah stepped up beside me and put one of her striped hooves on Pyres shoulder. “We are both here for you. No matter your past or the challenges ahead.”

After a few moments of silence, Star Breeze returned with a large collection of sticks and vines in her hooves. She dropped them down by my hooves and quickly got to work. She was fairly quick, but it still took her a good ten minutes to put the brace all together.

“Alright, so we’ve helped you with your Star Spawn project. Where are these raiders?” I asked as Star pulled tightly on one of the vines that was keeping the brace together.

Star nodded towards our right. “Should be just down that way. I’ll escort you all there,” She looked the brace over for a few seconds before pulling on another vine to tighten it. “They’ve got a camp set up in the middle of a fairly large clearing and built sniper towers in the canopy. It's a nasty set up. Practically nowhere for us to take cover and they can see us from pretty much every angle.”

“And Plaga?” Pyre pushed, her tone dropping somewhat.

Star glanced up nervously at her. “He’s got a small cabin on the far side of the camp against a cliff face. You’ll have to fight your way through the whole camp to get to him. No doubt why he chose to stay there.”

“How many raiders are we talking about?” Xayah asked, pulling out her sniper and loading a few more shots into it.

Star shrugged. “Didn’t count. I was more worried about getting out alive when I was there, and I hadn’t really intended on going back,” She thought for a few seconds. “My best guess is that there's around thirty or so.”

“Large for a small gang, but I’ve seen worse,” Pyre said, her voice somewhat confident. She looked back at Star. “They’ve got snipers. Any other big dangers we should look for?”

Star thought about that for a moment. “Not that I can think of. Pretty standard raider arsonal. Lots of machetes and pipe weapons.”

I looked up at the sky above us. Through the cloudlayer, I could see the last bits of Celestia’s sun fading below the horizon. “We should get moving. We might be able to avoid the snipers better under the cover of night.”

The raiders camp was in no way subtle. I could see it in the distance long before we got there. Unlike the rest of Manehattan, nightfall didn’t send the Gardens into complete darkness. The constant glow of the Balefire Phoenixes cast the whole area into an eerie green glow that made the gardens lighting feel artificial. Like a forest that had been grown inside of a cave.

A long time ago I had heard that Manhattan was called the city that never sleeps. How ironic that it had become the garden that never saw true nighttime.

The raiders camp had been built behind a large wall of junk. Ladders had been built into the sides of the trees on the inside of the wall, leading to rickety looking rope bridges that stretched from one tree to another. I could see raiders walking along the bridges, snipers sweeping across the area for anything that might pose a threat to them. Behind the wall, I could see the flickering glow of firelight, most likely the raiders had built some sort of fire pit in the centre of their camp.

Walking to the raiders camp had been hard. I felt like I needed to collapse after almost every step. The brace Star had made for me kept my hind leg from being damaged more and reduced some of the pain I was feeling, but walking was still far from comfortable. After a few minutes of struggling, Pyre had simply scooped me up and tossed me onto her back. I protested, but she didn’t seem to care as she proceeded to carry me the rest of the way.

Star rummaged through her saddlebag and offered me a med-x, but I quickly turned it down. The last thing I wanted right now was to have my mind fogged up by chems.

Both Star and Xayah pulled out their weapons as we got closer. “I’ll fly up and start taking them out from above,” Star said, flapping her wings and lifting up from the ground. She looked down at Xayah. “Do you think you can take out more of the snipers from here?”

Xayah turned her gaze from Star to look up at the bridges and platforms the raiders had built into the trees. “I can definitely get a few from down here… Once some are out, I might be able to get up there myself and give you cover fire.”

Star nodded. “I’ll let you take the first shot. Soon as you fire, I’ll start giving them hell.”

Pyre turned her head to look at me. “Stay close to me inside. Cover my flank, and I’ll keep you out of harm while you have your injury.”

I gave her a flat look. “I can hold my own in a fight,” I said bluntly, pulling out Braeburn’s liberator and making sure that it was fully loaded.

Pyre snorted and gave a small buck, sending me toppling off her back and hitting the ground hard. I stifled a yelp as I landed roughly on my injured leg. “If you say so Amber. Just try not to get shot,” Pyre soothed, though her voice suggested that she was still sceptical. She pointed to a large junk gate that wasn’t too far away. “We can get into the camp through there. Chances are it will be the most defended area, so we wont start our attack until you both have pulled their attention to the skies.”

Star nodded and moved up a little higher in the air. “Everypony ready?”

“Ready,” I replied, finally managing to successfully pull myself to my hooves. My leg wobbled under me for a second, but I seemed to be able to stand fine on my own.

“Then let's do this,” Star said, flapping her wings again and shooting herself upwards until she disappeared above the canopy.

Xayah turned to me and gave me a quick hug. “Try not to die in there you foolish pony.”

I gave her a smug expression that was quickly interrupted by a grimace as pain shot up my leg. “Haven’t died yet, have I.”

Xayah just gave a small nicker that might have been a laugh before scampering off to our right and getting into position under the cover of some foliage.

“I can carry you in,” Pyre offered, gesturing to her back. “Might help with your leg.”

I shook my head. “I’ll be more useful if I can move around. Don’t worry, I’ll be fine.”

Bang!

The sound of a sniper going off echoed across the area, the sound of the gunshot rebounding off of the trees, making it sound like the shot was coming from every direction. One of the raiders on the treetop bridges gave a quick shout of pain, before toppling over and dropping from the bridge.

Yells of alarm echoed out across the raider camp as they readied themselves for attack. From above, I saw a volley of red lasers blast down at the raider snipers as Star Breeze began her assault.

“Welp, time to move,” Pyre drawled, letting the tips of her flamers burst to life. She let her stern expression falter for a second as she took a deep breath. “I'm coming dad...”

She pushed herself forwards, her muscular legs sending her charging across the distance between us and the junk gate faster than I could have moved, even without a broken leg. I had forgotten how fast she could move when not in her heavy power armour. I stumbled after her, my shotgun raised and ready for any raiders that might try and attack us.

The two raiders guarding the gate spotted us first. They spun to face us, their makeshift weapons aiming to shoot us down. “We got company over here!” One of them shouted out, I was unable to see which one it was through the gloom.

Pyre’s flamers whirred to life before they could get a chance to fire. The flames washed over them, burning straight through their armor and charring their flesh. The two raiders fell, batting at their coats in a futile attempt to put out the flames.

A shot from Braeburn’s Liberator ripped through the skull of one of the burning raiders, making his head burst open in a bloody explosion of viscera and skull fragments. The raiders headless body slumped against the wall, lifeless.

The second raider managed to bat out the flames from Pyre’s weaponry, only for Pyre to crush their neck with a powerful stamp from her hooves. Without losing stride, Pyre rammed herself into the junk gate, slamming it open and powering into the camp beyond.

I staggered, trying my best to keep up with my friends immense speed. Pushing my way through the front gate, I dropped and rolled across the ground, avoiding a few shots as the raiders within whirled around and opened fire on us.

Though these raiders had a more impressive camp than the raiders on the bridge, behind the wall was nothing special. The camp consisted mostly of patched together tents that looked like they were on the verge of collapsing and a small hoofful of ramshackle structures that were more akin to barricades than actual buildings. As I had suspected, the centre of the camp held a large bonfire.

On the far side of the camp, I saw what I assumed was our destination. A small cabin sat against a large clifface that acted as a back wall for the camp. From how it looked, I assumed the cabin had been around since before the war. A warm firelight flickered from within the cabin windows, giving the structure a strangely cozy feeling despite the surrounding area.

“I’m going to make you bleed, bitch!” A raider yelled, rushing towards me with a nail filled baseball bat in their mouth, tearing my gaze away from the small cabin.

I hopped to the side, only narrowly avoiding the swing from the deadly bat as the raider lashed out at me. My magic rammed my shotgun forwards, slamming into the side of the raiders head and sending him stumbling backwards.

The raider snarled, bearing his rotting teeth before charging at me again. I backstepped, the edge of the bat flashing past my face. My shotgun rose, levelling with the raiders eyes and sending a round of buckshot into his face point blank.

The front of the raider’s face was ripped apart by the blast, tearing away the skin and hide and revealing the bone beneath. He slumped over, blood rushing from his body and pooling around my hooves.

Pyre barreled past me, her flamers spilling a stream of fire into one of the tents as a couple of raiders tried to take cover behind it. One of the raiders leapt to safety, landing hard on their rump as they scrambled to avoid being burned alive. The other raiders were less fortunate as the inferno swept over them and burnt them to a crisp.

A shot rang out. I felt a sharp pain shoot through my body as one of the snipers from the bridges above blasted a shot straight into my side. I staggered, trying to keep my balance as I felt the bullet lodge between my ribs.

From somewhere unseen, Xayah’s sniper cracked off a shot, the bullet lashing through the air and piercing the raider who had shot me between the eyes. The raiders eyes went wide before they fell forwards off the bridge and dropped to the ground. There was a sickening crack as the raiders neck hit the ground.

Xayah was getting scary good with her aim.

I stumbled, my back leg giving out from under me as a wave of agony washed over my whole body. I collapsed against the ground, my chest heaving as I tried to take slow pained breaths.

Pyre shot a blast off fire towards an approaching raider before racing over to me and standing over my fallen body protectively. “Amber, you alright?!” I heard her call out, though I was having trouble hearing properly over the ringing in my ears.

I nodded, forcing myself to stand. My vision was spinning and I was starting to see double of everything. “I’m fine,” I said, spitting a wad of blood out of my mouth. Pain flared across my side, forcing me to resist reaching for a healing potion. I quickly reminded myself not to take a healing potion until after my leg was fixed.

Thinking quickly, I ripped a strip of canvas off of one of the raider tents and hastily wrapped it around my side. In the heat of battle, the makeshift bandage was sloppy and did less to stop the flow of blood than I had hoped, but it would do until I could get back to Oasis.

A saw Star duck out from under the canopy above us and fire off a few shots at some of the remaining raiders on the bridge. Another raider fell, their chest smoking from a direct blast from Stars magical energy pistol.

Pyre glanced across the camp to the cabin, her expression determined. “Only a few raiders left, you think you can hold out till then?” Instead of responding, I spun my shotgun around in the air and blasted the leg off an approaching raider. The raider tumbled into the ground screaming, their right foreleg rendered useless. Pyre smirked. “I don’t know why I suspected otherwise.”

A raider with a shotgun stuck their head out from behind one of the makeshift barricades. Their weapon fired, the explosive buckshot blasting towards Pyre and I. We moved to the side, the blast doing little more than rip some hide off of Pyre’s leg.

Pyre scowled and pounced at him, her strong fore hooves slamming into his front and knocking him off his hooves. A second bashing from her hooves cracked the raiders head against the ground hard, breaking open the back of his skull and killing him.

I ducked behind one of the raiders tents, bullets whizzing past me as the remaining raiders fired towards me. A few of the raiders shots ripped through the canvas, forcing me to flinch away to avoid being shot.

There was another bang from Xayah’s sniper, the shot ringing out and slamming into the chest of the last raider sniper. The raider stumbled back, bleeding profusely from the gun wound, before his legs gave out from under him and he fell to the ground below. His corpse landed next to me, spraying me with bits of blood as his hooves snapped on impact.

Star flashed down from the canopy, her magical energy weapon blasting towards the raiders. Two more raiders fell to her attacks, one of them fizzling away into glowing ash as her magical energy weapon made its mark.

One of the raiders spun to face her, their combat rifle firing up towards her. Their shot blasted through her left wing, ripping a huge, bloody hole in its surface and sending Star spiralling out of control towards the ground.

Star screamed, flapping her wings manically as she tried to regain control of her flight, but the constant flapping seemed to do little more than send her spinning towards the ground faster.

Groaning in pain, I pushed off with my hind hooves and charged towards where she was falling. Braeburn’s Liberator swivelled in the air, a blast of its explosive buckshot ripping open the front of the raider that had fired upon Star Breeze.

I leapt forwards, my uninjured hooves wrapping around Star and cushioning her landing as she thudded against the ground. Her weight slammed into me, knocking the air out of my lungs and sending me flopping against the ground.

I groaned, rolling her relatively light body off of me to try and get a clear breath of air. I was surprised to find the air cleaner tasting than the rest of the wasteland. The miracle of trees I suppose.

Star rolled back up to her hooves, wincing as she tried to fold her wounded wing back against her side. She gave me a grateful look. “T-thanks.”

I shrugged, pulling myself back up. “Don’t mention it.”

“You cunts are going to pay for this!” I heard a raider shriek. I looked up to see the five remaining raiders cautiously trotting towards us, their weapons drawn. “You think you can just waltz in here and take whatever you fuckin’ want? Well you’re dead fuckin’ wrong.”

I pulled Braeburn’s Liberator up and aimed it towards them, making all three of them pause. One of the raiders standing to the right growled at me through the shotgun held tightly in their mouth.

The central raider fired first, their hunting rifle sending a bullet spreading towards us. Star and I scattered, jumping out of the way of the shot and taking cover behind the raiders makeshift structures. There was a familiar crack of a shotgun going off, followed by my cover being blasted to splinters by the buckshot.

I reeled back, my own shotgun firing and ripping out the throat of the central raider. The raider fell, their hooves clutching at their throat in a desperate attempt to stop the bleeding. Their attempts were in vain as the life drained from their eyes and they went limp on the uneven terrain.

Pyre thundered towards them from behind, her flamers sending jets of fire blasting into two of the raiders. The raiders screamed, the fire racing across their body and cooking their flesh. They dropped to the ground, now little more than smouldering bones and charred flesh.

“Fuckin’ bitch!” A raider shouted, jumping back as Pyre’s flamers turned to face towards him. He pulled something from his saddlebags and tossed it towards Pyre. At once Pyre’s flamers spew to life, burning him alive.

I watched as the metal object the raider had thrown bounced across the ground and rolled to a stop by Pyre’s hooves. My eyes went wide as I made out the shape of the apple grenade.

“Pyre! Move! Now!” I shouted, trying to wave her away from the explosive.

Pyre glanced up at me, her face slightly confused. I was too late with my warning. The grenade exploded, dirt and rock being kicked up into the air as the small explosive burst apart at Pyre’s hooves. Pyre was sent flying back, the hide on the front of her coat ripped apart by the deadly shrapnel. She skidded across the ground, coming to a stop in a bloody heap next to one of the makeshift structures.

The last raider rounded on us, their assault rifle firing off a stream of bullets in our direction. I ducked back behind cover, the raiders shots blasting at the wooden barricade that I dove behind.

“I’m going to rape your fucking corpse!” I raider howled, slowly moving towards me. One of the shots blasted through the wood, grazing my shoulder and drawing blood.

There was a loud bang, followed by a spurt of blood erupting from the raiders neck as one of Xayah’s shots pierced his throat.

I poked my head up over my cover and glanced around, taking in the field of raider corpses that now littered the area as the final raider dropped dead. I cast a thankful smile towards Xayah as she slowly trotted the rest of the way into the camp.

“Is everypony alright?” Xayah asked, surveying all the damage.

Pyre grumbled and pulled herself up to her hooves. “I’ve had better days, but I’m fine. I miss my power armour though.”

Star attempted to flutter over to Pyre to look over her injuries, only for her damaged wing to cause her to skid in the air and land roughly back on her hooves. Grimacing and awkwardly tucking her wings against her side, she quickly trotted over to Pyre.

“Here, let me look at that,” She offered, gesturing for Pyre to show her her wounds. “Blast like that from an apple grenade probably broke a few bones.”

Pyre shook her head. “I’m fine. Really.”

Star scowled. “What is it with all of you and refusing medical treatment or not knowing when you are and are not fine,” She gave Pyre a grumpy glare. “You are clearly not fine.”

“Just give me a healing potion,” Pyre snarled, clearly done with the small pegasus’ antics. “I’ve gone through worse than a grenade.”

Star rolled her eyes. “I just went through this with that dumb unicorn over there,” She pointed over to me. “You can't take a healing potion while your bones are broken. It might give you an adrenaline boost to keep going, but it’s going to fuck up your bones in the long term.”

"She isn't dumb," Pyre snarled, her expression suddenly looking incredible defensive for me. He scowled twisted into a smug grin. “And I’ve got augmented bones. They’re like titanium. They don’t break. Just pass me a healing potion.”

Looking slightly embarrassed, Star quickly passed her a healing potion and fluttered over to me. Once again, her wings made her sag in the air. She landed back on the ground with an annoyed huff and walked the rest of the distance.

“Does she really have unbreakable bones?” Star whispered as she pulled up next to me and started fussing over the bullet wound on my side.

I nodded. “Pony named Viscera forced her to augment her body. We haven’t talked about it much.”

Star snorted. “You should consider getting that yourself. I’ve hardly met you and I’ve already had to patch you up one to many times for comfort.”

I glanced up from her and towards the cabin at the far side of the camp. I pointed towards it. “That cabin. Plaga is inside of there?”

Star nodded. “He was two days ago. Whether he still is or not I couldn’t tell you. If I were him, I would have started running the second the gunfire started.”

Xayah slowly trotted up to us as Star continued to wrap up my gun wound. I looked over to her as she approached. “You alright?”

She nodded as she finally came to a stop beside me. She tapped her left ear with one of her hooves. “Raider nicked my ear in the fight. Nothing serious.”

I gave her a quick smile and peck on the cheek. Star groaned. “Goddesses, at least save the PDA until after I’m gone. Fucking couples…”

Pyre limped over to us, the flesh on her chest and forehooves still patching itself together from the healing potion. She glanced quickly at the cabin before returning her gaze to us. She looked at Star and Xayah, her face distant and calculating. “Can you two stay out here and keep guard whileI head into the cabin? I don’t want to be interrupted.”

Star gave a quick salute in response. Xayah took a small step forward. “I will stand by you with this if you need it.”

Pyre shook her head. “I can deal with Plaga. He… he shouldn’t be much of a threat. I doubt he has been for a long time...” Pyre turned her gaze to face me. “I already know your answer Amber, but I’m going to ask this of you anyway. Will you…” She glanced down at her hooves, as if embarrassed. “...Will you come with me for this. I don’t want to be completely alone in there.”

I let a soft smile form on my lips. “Of course. I’m with you in this till the end.”

Pyre gave me a grateful smile. “Thank you.”

Slowly, she turned and faced the cabin. Through the windows I could still see the flicker of firelight. The whole structure was beginning to look more and more decrepit the longer I looked at it. A strange sense of loss and sadness seemed to emanate from the cabin. It made me feel sad.

Pyre's father was in there, there was no denying that now.

Wearily, Pyre began to limp towards the cabin. She staggered slightly, the pain inflicted by the grenade clearly effecting her more than she had suggested. I followed after her, my breath heavy as I tried to fight through my own pain.

Pyre placed a hoof on the face of the cabin door. From beside her, I could hear her breath catch. She lowered her hoof and took a step back, her eyes wide and her hooves trembling.

“You alright?” I asked, my eyebrows knitting together.

Pyre shook her head. “No… I’m not. I’m scared Amber. I don’t think I’ve ever been this scared in my life…” I reached out and gently laid a hoof on her side. She stiffened at the touch for a second, before she slowly let her body relax. She returned her gaze to the door, her expression hard. “It's time to face the music….”

Her hoof raised and pushed the door open with a creak, giving us a clear view of the room beyond.

The cabin was only a single room. A fold-out couch lay against one wall, rips and tears in the furniture showing off the stained stuffing beneath. Against the farthest wall was an old, stone fireplace that slowly burned and crackled away, causing dancing firelight to bounce across the wooden walls. In front of the fireplace was a single, lone rocking chair.

The pony that sat on the rocking chair was old and frail. His dark red coat was wrinkled and sagging and was covered in a collection of splotches and scars. His orange and grey mane was a disheveled mess, many strands of hair falling into his face and hiding parts of his face. But it was his eyes that caught my attention the most. They were old and sad and seemed to have sunken deep into his face. He had dark bags under them as well, a clear sign he hadn’t been sleeping well.

I felt Pyre lock up beside me as her eyes landed on the elderly pony. She opened her mouth to speak, but no words seemed to come out.

The elder pony looked me over for a second before letting his gaze trail over to Pyre. His eyes narrowed for a moment, as if he was trying to recognise Pyres face from a dream he had a long time ago. A sudden look of recognition crossed over his features and the old pony seemed to grow even older. He sunk deeper into his chair, his expression unreadable.

“I heard the gunfire and assumed those Treeminders had finally come to kill me. I figure I deserved that after all this time,” Plaga Blaze said softly, his voice distant. He sounded as old and frail as he looked, as if a strong wind could knock him over. “But I’m glad it was you who came. I’ve missed you Pyre…”

Pyre's shock was suddenly melted away by rage. She slammed her hooves down on the cracked wooden floor, making the whole cabin shake. “Don’t lie to me father! You sold me! You tossed me away like I was nothing! You don’t care about me! You never missed me! I was just a nice way to get caps for you. So don't sit there and act like you’ve been missing me all this time!”

Plaga sighed and leaned back in his rocking chair. “What is it they say? You never know what you had till it's gone?” he lowered his head and put his face in his hooves. After a second of quite, he raised his head and looked back up at Pyre. “You know, I always dreamed of this day. The day you would walk back through my door. I never thought it would happen, but I hoped it would. I always tried to figure out what I would say to you if you ever did. Funny thing is, now you’re here and I don’t know what to say…”

Pyre's whole body was trembling, but I couldn’t tell if it was from rage, fear, or hurt. She straightened herself up and glared across the room at Plaga. “I’ve been free for a while. Always kept running away from you though… I felt it was finally the right time.”

“And why did you finally decide to come face me?” his voice dropped to a lower octave. “Are you here to kill me Pyre? I won't try to stop you if you are. Not that I could it would seem.”

Pyre took a step towards him. “I…” her voice caught in her throat. “I don’t know what I hope to do here. I just knew I had to stop running. Get closure or some shit I guess.”

Sighing, Plaga turned and looked back into the flickering flames of the fireplace. “I wouldn’t have blamed you if that was why you came. I did terrible things to you… you and your mother. I see that now… I’ve been trying to get-”

“Bullshit!” Pyre roared, baring her teeth and glaring down at the old pony. “You haven’t learned fucking shit! I’ve been to Oasis! I heard what you did to all those fillies! That you beat them. That you raped them. That you forced them to call you father all while referring to them by my name!” She slammed her hooves down on the ground again and snarled. “You’re still the monster that ruined me! Still the same slaving son of a bitch that sold me! The same fucking pedophile that has hurt countles pony lives. Here you are, living amongst raiders because not even slavers would dare to live with the likes of you!”

Plaga bent his head and stared down at his hooves, unable to meet Pyre’s eye. “You’re right. I am a monster. All those fillies in Oasis… I hurt them trying to be better. I hurt them trying to get it right… But it didn’t matter what I did. I always ended up doing the same damn thing… I always got it wrong...” He looked back up at us, this time his eyes were brimmed with tears. “I don’t know how much you found out in Oasis, but I was never caught. I was too good for that. A lifetime of cruelty will do that I suppose… I let word of what I was doing get out myself. I hoped that the ponies in Oasis would sell me to slavers like they do to most raiders. Hoped they would treat me the way I treated you… I think deep down I wanted them to kill me… As you can see, that’s not what happened.”

Pyre took a shaky step back at his words. “You were trying to get it right…” She scoffed, rolling the words around in her mouth as if they had a bad taste. “A normal pony would get it right the first time around. How many tries does it take to not rape a fucking foal!”

“I know!” Plaga blurted, raising his voice for the first time since we had entered the cabin. Pyre went eerily silent at his outburst. Sighing, Plaga rubbed his forehead with a hoof. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have yelled… I know I’m a fuck up. I just always hoped that one day I could be something other than a monster. Get it right for once in my life.”

“You can't,” Pyre shot back, her voice low and scathing. “You’ll never amount to anything more than what you are.”

Plaga’s head dropped and he returned his gaze to the ground. “I know… Damn me I know,” he stared at the ground for a moment before daring to return Pyre’s gaze. “I think I figured out what I wanted to say to you.”

Pyre stiffened. “And what's that?”

“It’s more of a question, I suppose,” Plaga continued, his voice dropping as if he were embarrassed to utter the next few words. “I suppose that I just wanted to know… what kind of pony you became?”

“I’m a raider dad,” Pyre replied flatly. “It's pretty damn hard to become anything else after the childhood you gave me. But I’m trying to do better. I’m trying to pull myself out of that pit. And I think I’m succeeding. I think I have a genuine shot at being something more for the first time in my life.”

Plaga’s face seemed to sag at her words. He took a deep, ragged breath. “I had hoped that somehow you had found happiness after you left me. I always thought that the only way you could be happy was if you were as far away from me as possible. I should have known my influence was too tainted for that…” he took another breath, this time it was paired with a single tear dripping down one side of his face. “I hope you claw your way through that darkness Pyre. That you overcome what I never could…”

There was a moment of silence between them. Then, to my surprise, I saw a few tears race down Pyre’s cheeks as well. Her forehooves trembled as she tried to hold herself upright. “I will… I have... hell, I’ve spent the last few weeks trying to save ponies.”

Plaga gave a shaky smile. “Good…” he bit his lip as he tried to figure out what he had to say next. “I… I’m proud of you Pyre. I don’t know how much that actually means, all the things I’ve done considered, but for what it's worth, I’m proud that you are my daughter,” His tear filled eyes slowly drifted over to me and once more looked me over, as if he had forgotten I had been standing there the whole time. “And… who are you?”

I took a small step back, not sure how to properly react in this situation. “I’m… uh… a friend of Pyres.”

Plaga nodded, his expression grim. “Take care of my daughter for me. She deserves to have somepony looking out for her. Had I been a better pony, perhaps that would have been me… It should have been me.”

I nodded, still not sure how to react. I was here to support Pyre, not to follow the wishes of an elderly filly rapist. But I suppose that changed nothing in the long run. I had no intention of stopping looking out for Pyre.

Slowly, Plaga turned his head to face Pyre once more. “Well? What now? You didn’t come here to kill me like I thought you would, but it would seem that I’m a dead pony walking now anyway. Are you going to be the one to do me in? I don't think any pony deserves to finally put a bullet in me more than you.”

I furrowed my eyebrows. “What are you talking about? You aren’t dying?”

Plaga gave me an amused look. “Those raiders you just killed might have been monsters, but they were the only thing supplying me food and keeping me protected from the beast of the Manehattan Gardens. Now that they're dead, I reckon I only have a few days left at most,” He said, his voice somber. “I’m old and my body is failing me. I don't have the strength to hunt for food and the ponies of Oasis will never take me back. Not to mention I’d never manage to make it out of the garden alive even if I tried to make it to another settlement. I will either remain in this cabin and slowly starve, or I will dare the dangers of the wastes and get torn apart. Regardless, I’m not making it through the next couple days.”

Pyre shook her head. “I didn’t come here to kill you and I have no intention of doing so now. Not after everything. I already killed one of my parents, and that alone is more guilt than any pony should ever need to bear,” Her eyes trailed up and landed on an old, rusty revolver that rested on the fireplace mantle. The flickering light of the fire seemed to dance across Pyres features with increasing intensity as she looked at the weapon. “Is that my old gun? The one you gave me after I got my cutie mark?”

Plaga glanced up at the old revolver before picking it up off the mantle and looking it over. “Yeah. This damn gun is the only thing I bothered to bring with me from Oasis. Couldn’t bring myself to part with it. Felt like as long as it was with me, I wasn't completely alone.”

“Does it have any shots left?”

Plaga shook his head. “Nah, used the last shots on a ghoul after I got exiled from Oasis.”

Pyre reached into her saddlebags and pulled out a single bullet. She looked it over for a second before tossing it at Plaga’s hooves. Plaga stared at the bullet laying at his hooves for a moment, then his body began to tremble, a pained look of sad recognition and resignation washing over him.

“You’re wrong you know. That I’m the one that deserves to finally put you down…” Pyre started, her eyes fixated on the bullet. “You hurt me dad. You hurt me bad enough that no matter what happens after today, I’ll probably never be completely okay. But all that pain doesn’t even compare to what you’ve done to yourself,” Pyre took a step back, taking in Plaga in all his decrepit and sorrowful glory. “You’re broken dad. Broken on the outside, and broken on the inside. You did this to yourself. No one else is to blame for that.”

Slowly, Pyre turned and began to walk towards the door. I felt my heart thumping heavily in my chest as I stepped away myself and went to follow her out.

“Pyre, wait…” Pyre froze at the sound of Plaga’s sad and weary voice. His voice was so quiet that I hardly even heard it. Pyre turned to look at him, her expression stoic and unreadable. Plaga raised his head from the bullet and locked eyes with her, his face a flurry of sorrow and loneliness. “I have to know… Did I finally get it right? After all this time... Did I get it right with you?”

His eyes were searching for an answer. Despite everything Plaga had done, both to my friend and the countless foals I would never know, I felt bad for him.

Pyre was quiet for a long time, simply staring at him with a hollow expression. Finally she turned her back and looked out into the gardens beyond the door. “No. I did.”

With that, she trotted out of the cabin, leaving Plaga alone in his rocking chair with nothing but his regrets and an old revolver. The last thing I saw of him as I moved back out into the Manehattan gardens was him slumped against his chair, his matted mane slipping into his face as his whole body sagged to one side. It was a terrible fate. To be left forgotten, alone and unforgiven.

As we began walking back towards Oasis, the near silent crack of a gunshot rang out in the night. Not a single one of us bothered to look back.

“You sure you’re fine?” I asked again, looking up from my pipbuck and at Brisk. Ever since I had gotten back to Oasis I had been looking through the Institute files. Freedom had said they had found something on there that was of importance to me, but so far I still had only found a seemingly endless list of names I didn't know.

Xayah had quickly forced me into the hospital to get my leg looked at. Thankfully the doctors in Oasis seemed to be just as good at fixing broken bones as Heartbeat had been, and my leg was back to normal in no time. They had even helped patch Star Breeze's wing back together, thought it took a lot of convincing before they were willing to help her.

Brisk gave me a smug grin. “Hey, which one of us is on the hospital bed right now?” He snarked, prodding me gently in the side. His face faltered for a second and he touched the spot where his horn used to be. “Besides, it’s not like I could do magic anyway. I’ll be okay.”

I gave him a worried look, which probably would have been more effective had I not been strapped to a medical table. “If you say so, but if you need to talk about it, I’m always here.”

Brisk glanced nervously up at our friends that were all standing only a few feet away. Mirra was attempting to make smalltalk with Star to minimal success. Brisk bit his lip nervously. “There… well there is something I want to talk to you about, but I think it can wait till tomorrow. You need some rest.”

“We all need some rest,” I countered. “Today was tough on all of us. I think we’ve all earned a break. Maybe we'll stop by Friendship City after this. We deserve a good long rest where we don't need to worry about getting shot.”

Brisk gave a small nod and smile before trotting away. I watched him walk away for a second before returning my attention to the Institute files. Just like before, there still seemed to be nothing of interest to me on them. Slightly annoyed, I scrolled down on the list of names, hoping something would pop out at me. Still nothing.

“Amber, can I talk to you for a moment?” Pyre said from beside me.

I jumped slightly, having not heard her approach. I looked up from my pipbuck and looked at her. “Course, what is it?”

Pyre shrugged. “I just wanted to thank you… for being there with me today. I don’t know how I ended up with you as a friend, or how I became worthy of your support, but I really appreciate it.”

I gave her a warm smile. “Don’t mention it, that’s what friends are for,” I reached out my hoof and gave her a small pat on the shoulder. As my hoof raised, my eyes caught on something in the Institute files. Something I hadn’t spotted before. But… that couldn’t have been right…

“My past has haunted me for a long time, but it’s over now,” Pyre said, her voice becoming sad and reflective. “I think… I think I can start finally being a good pony. After all this time.”

But I wasn’t paying attention anymore. All of my thoughts were focusing in on the lone line of text that had appeared on my pipbuck screen. That was it… The thing Freedom had wanted me to see. It had to be.

“It’s all been burned away. All that's left of Pyre the raider is the flesh and hide on my bones,” Pyre moved forwards and gave me a quick hug, but I was already too lost in thought to fully grasp the gravity of what she had just done. She released the hug and began to move away from me. “I’ll see you tomorrow Amber. Make sure you get some rest.”

I nodded, though her words didn’t quite reach my ears. “Uh… yeah, yeah. Will do. Sleep well…”

As Pyre trotted out of the hospital booth, I felt a huge breath I didn’t know I had been holding get released. I blinked, hoping that the words being displayed on my pipbuck would go away. Wishing I could dream them away or that I had simply read them wrong.

It didn’t matter how many times I read the line over, it always remained the same.

It read:

Synth #2316 - Current Location: Manehattan - Full Name: Pyre Blaze

Footnote: Two thirds to next level.

Author's Note

Fallout: Equestrian belongs to Kkat

Have a great day.

Chapter XXVII: Spies Among Us

“But that doesn’t change a thing. I’m a synth, which means I need to be destroyed.”

Spies.

The Institute's influence had spread far. Farther than I could ever possibly know. Or perhaps I did know, but refused to accept it as truth.

If the files I had stolen from the Institute were to be believed, then they had multiple spies in almost every settlement and faction of note. Friendship City, Tenpony Tower, Oasis, The Hollow Shades, Las Pegasus, even settlements out in the Hoof and secret organizations like the Friendship Express were not free of the Institutes gaze. It seemed only Fillydelphia was exempt from this rule, for one reason or another.

Even my own band of friends were not safe from the Institutes spies it would seem.

I had seen the signs. How could I not, they had been everywhere. But I had been to blind and ignorant to accept them as facts. I had pushed the truth aside, not even daring myself to consider it as a possibility. Because the truth was too terrible for me to accept. But there was no denying it anymore. Now I knew...

The Institute had always stayed one step ahead of us at every turn. They had known exactly where we were, and when to strike. They had somehow known I would be on the roof of the Fluttershy Medical Centre before they sent a synth to retrieve the A.A.S.S. from me. It hadn’t been until after we had made it into the Friendship Express ourselves that the Institute had been able to dig its claws into their operations.

When I was in the Institute, Glasswing had threatened Xayah’s life if I didn’t cooperate. He had shown me a video of Xayah, through the video feed of a synth located within the Friendship Express. I had assumed the synth spy had been keeping a close eye on Xayah under Glasswings orders. It had never dawned on me until now that perhaps they had been watching Xayah under my orders instead.

The Institute had been watching us closer than I could have ever possibly realized. And the worst part was, I didn’t even know if their spy knew...

“Are you sure you’ll be fine? You could always travel with us if you want?” Brisk asked, his words jolting me from my thoughts. We were standing in the outskirts of the Manehattan Garden, the Manehattan streets once more in our view.

Star Breeze shook her head at Brisk. “Nah. I’ve got to report to the Enclave. But I appreciate the offer,” She shuffled her bandaged wing, at her side wincing slightly. “And I’ll be fine. Pegasi wings are made of tough stuff. It should be fully healed in a day or two. I should be flying without issue in half that time.”

“We do appreciate your assistance, even though we have not always seen eye to eye,” Xayah said stepping forward. “Perhaps we can be less shooty with each other the next time we cross paths?”

Star gave a weak smile. “Yeah, I’d like that…” She bit her lip, clearly hesitating to say something. “And for what it's worth, thanks for helping me out back there. I know I’m not always the easiest pony to deal with.”

Brisk seemed to blush a little. “You aren’t half bad,” Mirra snickered at that. I glanced over at her, but she quickly covered her mouth with a hoof at my stare.

Star rolled her eyes at Brisk and turned to face me. “I do have a word of warning though. About the Enclave,” I raised my eyebrows at that, enticing her to continue. “I’d probably be branded a dashite for telling you this, but I figured I owe you one for getting me out of that whole slavery thing and all, so I figured I might as well tell you. Despite what I’ve said in the past, I’d rather you didn’t die.”

Pyre gave a slight chuckle. I winced at the sound of her voice, not sure quite how to react to her considering what I had just discovered on the Institute files. Still wasn’t quite sure how to bring that topic up with Pyre yet. “No really?” Pyre mocked at the pegasus, sounding oddly in a good mood. “What is this information?”

Star scratched at the ground with a hoof. “Look, I don’t know when it’s going to happen. Probably pretty soon. But the Enclave is going to come down from the cloud layer.”

Pyre scoffed. “Yeah right. I’ve heard they’ve been telling ponies up there that for years. That one day they’d swoop down and save the poor ponies of the wasteland. That’s hardly news Star, that's propaganda.”

Star Breeze scowled at Pyre. “You want this information or not,” She turned back to face me. “I know what the Enclave has been saying. I’m not an idiot. But it’s different this time. Red Eye has been up to something, and it's got all the higher ups in the Enclave shitting themselves over it. They’re planning to come down and do something brash, soon. And not in a little recon squad like I was in. I’m talking a big ass fucking army. There are rumours about them starting something called Operation: Cauterize. I don’t know if they’re actually crazy enough to do something stupid like that, but if they do… I don’t know… just skip town or some shit like that. The Enclave isn’t a fucking joke and I’d recommend not getting in their way when they do decide to show up.”

I felt my eyebrows knit together. “What is Operation: Cauterize?”

Star gave a disgruntled huf. “Some dumb ass military operation the Enclave is planning, or thinking of planning. I don’t know. I’m a scientist, not a soldier or some shit. It’s bad. Apparently it's built on pure paranoia or some shit. at least that's what I've been told. Kill anypony that is a threat, might be a threat or has any correlation or past with somepony that is or might be a threat. That sort of shit,” Star groaned and rubbed her forehead with a hoof. “Basically it means they’re going to kill everypony and say it was self defense even though they shot first. Just don’t stick around when it happens.”

“We’ll do our best to stay safe, thanks,” Brisk said, smiling a little. Mirra snickered again, causing all of us to look at her this time. She slapped her hooves over her mouth and went back to being quiet.

“Well… um… thanks… I guess,” Star Breeze said awkwardly, taking a few steps away from us. She looked back at us. “I wouldn't recommend coming and meeting me again, we're kinda supposed to be enemies or some shit, and I’d be in a lot of fucking trouble if the Enclave found out we’ve worked together... but if you ever do need me, I’ll be in the Four Star building, where we first met,” She hesitated for a second. “Don’t come find me. That will just be bad for all of us. But I do hope I can see you all again...”

She turned and began walking away from us into the ruined streets of Manehattan, not even bothering to try flying away with her damaged wing.

“Yeah… I wouldn't mind that either…” Brisk said, his eyes following the small pegasus as she trotted away.

This time, Mirra failed to control herself and let out a loud snicker. I glanced down at her. “What’s got you laughing?”

Mirra snickered and pointed a gnarled hoof in Brisk’s direction. “Somepony has a crush,” Mirra dragged the words out in a singsong manner, making Brisk blush even harder.

Brisk backpedaled away from us. “Wh-what! I do not!” his blush deepened. “I-I mean… Star’s kinda cute I guess… but like… you know… enclave and kinda a bitch. I-I don’t like her like her!” we all chuckled slightly as he fumbled around for words. Brisk cast Mirra a grumpy stare. “Traitor.”

Mirra stuck her tongue out at him.

Pyre chuckled. “Alright, alright. Let's leave the buck alone,” She cast Brisk a smug look. “Though we will definitely not forget about this…” She turned back to look at me. “To Friendship City?”

I nodded. “We could all use a break. And until we figure out another way to get into the Institute, there isn’t really much else we can do.”

Xayah nodded, stepping back up to me. “It will be good to get some rest. It feels we have not had the proper time to unwind since we left Tenpony.”

Though I couldn’t see her face through her power armour, I could tell Pyre was grinning. “Well, come on then. No point waiting around for a Manticore to come eat us,” She turned and started leading the group away from the gardens. It was good to finally be getting away from that damn place. As much as I wished the wasteland could have more life in it, the eyeball vines and contant watchful gaze of the Balefire Phoenixes had begun to get on my nerves. Not to mention the constant fear of Killing Joke.

Glancing ahead of me at Pyre as she led us forwards, I gulped and slowly trotted up beside her, making sure that I was out of earshot of the rest of our friends. I had to deal with this now before it became a real issue. No more secrets.

“Pyre, I was hoping I could get your opinion on something,” I started, not really knowing how to start the conversation properly. How are you supposed to break this kind of news to somepony?

Pyre cast me a sideways glance. “Sure. What are you thinking about, Amber?”

I gulped again. “I… um… Well I wanted to know what your thoughts on what synths are?” I held my breath as I waited for a response.

Pyre was quiet for a second, continuing to trot forwards without slowing her pace. “Synths? I don’t know. Never really thought about it," She finally answered, not bothering to slow down. "They’re just robots, right?”

I grimaced. “I, um… technically, yeah… But I wanted to know your opinion on them more than that,” Pyre gave me a confused look. I fumbled to try and explain myself. “I mean, like… The Friendship Express thinks they’re alive and sentient. That they’re just like ponies and stuff. But then the Institute just thinks they're machines with no real free will. Do you think that?... or rather which, um... which do you believe in?... I... yeah...”

Pyre thought for a second, clearly off put by my clear discomfort. “Not really sure. I guess if they can think and learn then I suppose that makes them alive. They’re still just machines so… I don’t know. I’ll leave it at that. Why?”

Wasn’t that just the question of the year.

My heart stopped for a second as I tried to figure out how to continue. I took a deep breath. No more secrets… “I was looking over the Institute files I stole last night and… well, um… I might have learned something that, uh… something kind of bad…”

Pyre stopped and glared at me. Through her visor I saw her eyes suddenly filled with understanding. She glanced back at our friends who we slowly trailing behind us, engaged in a conversation of their own. “One of them’s a synth… aren’t they,” Her voice was so quiet I almost didn’t hear her. Pyre scowled before looking back at me. “Don’t worry Amber, we’ll figure this out. If we can get to the Institute then maybe we can find out what happened to the real…”

“It’s not one of them, Pyre,” I said slowly, cutting her off before she could finish that train of thought. I felt my stomach twisting into a knot as I tried to force myself to say the next couple of words. “It… It’s you…”

Silence.

Pyre was staring at me, her face unreadable through her helmet. She stood there for a second, frozen. Then, as if her legs had started growing weak under her she took a shaky step back.

“P-pyre? Are you alright?” I asked, slowly stepping towards her and placing my hoof on her shoulder. She quickly shrugged it off. It was a stupid question. It always was. I don’t know why I kept asking it.

“There… there must be some kind of mistake…” Pyre said, her voice fearful and uncertain. "I can't be a... I would remember something like that... I... You're wrong..."

I shook my head. “I don’t think I am... I... I found this in the Institutes files last night,” I held up my pipbuck for her to look at, the line about Pyre Blaze still displayed across my screen.

Pyre stared at the screen for a second before looking down at her hooves. “For how long?” Her voice was frail and weak. It sounded scarily like her fathers did, before the end.

“Pyre, I don’t know what you…”

“How long have I been a synth?” her voice came out in a violent sounding hiss, making me flinch backwards.

I took a step away from her. How long had she been a synth? Had she been replaced while I was in the Institute? When we were separated in the MAS tower? I suddenly got the horrifying idea stuck in my head that I might never have actually met the real Pyre Blaze at all.

“I-I don’t know. Maybe a couple days. Maybe a year. More,” I took another step back, my own uncertainty making me shake. “I’m sorry…”

“What’s happening?” Brisk asked, the rest of our friends finally moving up beside us. “Why are we stopping?”

Pyre didn’t even look at them as they came to a stop beside us. She just continued to stare at me, shaking. She took yet another step away from us. “They’ve been using me, haven't they?” I opened my mouth to respond, but never got the chance as Pyre continued. “That’s how they found the Friendship Express! How they always know where we are! They've been using me to get to you!”

Brisk and Xayah exchange a worried look. “What is going on? Who’s been using you?”

I cast Pyre a worried look. She gave me a small nod of confirmation in return. Reverting my gaze to my friends, I held out my pipbuck. “I found this on my pipbuck last night…” Brisk and Xayah leaned in, their eyes widening as they read the lone line.

“You’re a synth?” Brisk blurted abruptly, his eyes flicking up from the pipbuck to Pyre. Graceful as always Brisk.

Pyre scowled at him and slammed her hoof down on the ground. “So the file says! Turns out I’ve been spying on all of you since the beginning. You were right all along Brisk. You shouldn’t have trusted me!”

Brisk’s eyes widened at the remark. “Now wait, hold on. I said that a long time ago… I don’t think that about you now. Haven't in a while...”

Pyre gave a mirthless chuckle. “Well you should have.”

Mirra took a timid step forward. “Pyre? You’re scaring me…”

Pyre spun around and stared at the Changeling filly. there was a moment of stillness as Pyre glared down at Mirra. Then her eyes widened with what looked like fear and she pushed herself away with a snarl. She clutched at the side of her head with her hooves and reeled back. “Fuck! I thought I could do good! Fucking hell! Why can’t I just do good!?” she reared up and slammed her hooves down on a dented garbage can that had fallen over on the side of the road, crushing it completely.

I took a step towards her and once more held out my hoof to her, but she batted it aside. “Pyre, you can do good. Just because you’re-”

“Don’t lie to me Amber!” Pyre scowled, whipping around to glare at me. “I never should have listened to you! Fuck! You made me think that I might actually be good for something… that I… I don’t fucking know… that I might be able to do good for once… Just once in my fucking life! Fuck you!”

I winced back. “Pyre, what are you talking about? Of course you can.”

“Can I?!” She retorted, her voice rising. “Heartbeats dead Amber. Maybe you don’t remember, but I snapped his fucking neck! Because I fucking remember that!” She spun and glared at Brisk and Xayah. “Xayah’s missing her fore hooves and Brisk is without a horn because I was selfish and dragged you all into my problems!” She glared at me again. “I thought with Plaga gone I might be able to do better… Become more than I am... but it didn’t change a fucking thing, did it! I’m still a walking fucking bomb that’s going to get all of you killed! Me being here just puts you all in more fucking danger! And I’ve been telling you that from the goddess damned start!”

Mirra scowled and fluttered up into Pyre’s face. “You’re wrong!” The changeling spat. Pyre blinked and took a surprised step back at the changeling's sudden outburst. “We’re all making mistakes. But you help protect us. You always have. Because that’s what you do,” She sniffed and reaserted herself. “You’ve been saying that we’re safer without you, but I can think of a hundred times over the last couple of days where you saved our lives! Doesn’t that mean anything?”

Pyre was silent for a second, simply looking up at Mirra in awe. Finally she lowered her head. “I think I messed up with you the most,” Mirras wings stopped fluttering for a second at the remark and she sagged in the air before she was able to catch herself. “I thought I could protect you… What a fucking idiot I am…”

Mirra dropped down and landed on the ground in front of Pyre. “Wh-what do you mean?”

Pyre scowled at herself. “I care about you Mirra. I don’t know what damaged part of my mind thought that I might be able to protect you… That thought I should be allowed to care about you... but for a while I actually thought it would all work out… I thought that if I watched over you without getting to close then maybe you’d be safe. But nothing’s safe from me... Me watching over you just lets the Institute know more about you... It turns out that I... I should have been farther away…”

Mirra’s eyes widened. “Pyre! W-wait! What are you saying!”

Pyre took a step back and turned from Mirra to address all of us. She took a moment to steady herself before standing up as straight as she could, putting on a brave front. “I’m leaving. Don’t follow me.”

My mouth dropped. “You’re… leaving…”

Pyre gave me a regretful nod. “The Institute’s using me to watch you… that’s how they’ve known so much… The longer I’m with you, the harder it will be for you to achieve anything against the Institute. You can’t beat them as long as they're using me to watch you. So…” She paused, her own voice catching in her throat. “I’m leaving. It’s the only way things will be okay…”

I took a daring step forward. “Pyre, you’ve been with us for almost a month now, and we’ve been fine. We can find a different way to deal with-”

“Do you really think that Amber?” Pyre scowled, stomping towards me. She tapped a metal clad hoof against her helmet as she neared me. “Can you really look me in the eye and honestly tell me that it’s not the Institute looking back,” Pyre snarled, continuing her advance. I couldn’t see her eyes very well through the visor, but I didn’t need to. I knew she was right. If anything, the ambiguity of her visor only furthered her point.

I dropped my head and looked down at my hooves. “Pyre… Are you sure about this? I don’t know how we’ll be able to cope without you. You really are a part of this group. This family...” Pyre hesitated for a moment before giving me a grim nod. I sighed. "Where will you go?"

"I... I don't know... I... I guess I just need some time to figure shit out..." Pyre said slowly. She turned from me and faced the Manehattan skyline. “And yeah… I… I think it would be for the best,” She glanced back at Brisk and Xayah. “You two keep Amber from dying. Got it?”

Xayah took a step forward, her head bent low. “I would never not look after Amber. You be safe, you foolish pony,” Brisk gave a nod of agreement.

Pyre chuckled. “Yeah. Like I’m ever safe,” She turned to look me in the eye. “And that goes for you as well. I expect to come back to everypony here in one piece.”

I smirked at that, though my heart felt like it was screaming at me. She was actually planning on leaving us. Just like that. After everything that had happened. I should have just kept my stupid mouth shut and not said anything.

Pyre finally turned her gaze to look at Mirra. The small changeling was clearly holding back tears, but she was doing a pretty damn good job of hiding them. Pyre sighed. “Mirra… I’m sorry I couldn’t be what you wanted me to be. I really did try… and maybe- maybe once I figure all this shit out, I can be… but for now I think this is goodbye…”

Mirra’s lip quivered. She thrust herself forwards and wrapped her hooves around Pyre’s fore hoof in a tight hug. “Y-you can stay. We don’t need you to go… You really don’t have to-”

She was silenced as Pyre placed a hoof on Mirra’s muzzle. “Yeah. I think I do need to do this,” She looked back up at me, but only briefly. “Not long ago, I said that all that was left of me was the flesh and hide on my bones… turns out I don’t even have that anymore… Now that Plaga is dead… I think I need some time to myself. To figure out who I’m going to be. I’ve spent too long trying to be better, now that I have been given a chance to do just that, I don’t know if I really have a good idea of what that better is going to look like.”

Mirra continued to hug Pyre’s leg until the large pony finally pushed her away. Pyre took a step backwards, taking us all in. She took a deep breath, as if unsure if she was making the right choice, before turning and slowly trotting off into the ruined streets of Manehattan.

Mirra let out a quick sob and moved to follow her, only for me to quickly grab onto her and pull her back. She squirmed in my grip for a moment before finally going limp and simply watching Pyre go.

I took a long, deep breath once Pyre was out of sight. That had not been how I had expected that confrontation to go. It felt weird, knowing Pyre wasn’t with us anymore. Like a hole had been ripped in my chest and refused to heal.

“Such a pity,” A posh voice cooed from behind us. We all jumped, spinning around to face the large Secuirtron that had rolled up silently behind us. Somehow it had gotten within a few feet of us without making a single sound. The securitron’s screen, as it had before, depicted the Image of the Canterlot ghoul, Fleur De Lis.

I scowled at the image of the ghoul. I was not in the mood for this right now. “What do you want Fleur,” I growled, stalking towards the hulking Securitron.

Fleur put a hoof to her chest. “Perhaps you had forgotten about our previous deal, Amber Aura.”

I scowled. “I think I remember telling you to fuck off.”

The snobby ghouls eyes narrowed in response. “You would dare speak that way to one of the Canterlot elite!” She snarled, somehow managing to remain looking posh while she did it. She straightened herself out and fixed up her mane as a strand fell into her face. “If you can remember correctly, I requested the A.A.S.S. to be delivered to the Ponypalooza Hotel within twenty four hours or there would be consequences.”

“And I remember not giving a damn,” I scowled back, whipping out Braeburn’s Liberator and aiming it at the securitrons screen. I was really, really not in the mood for another asshole trying to take the A.A.S.S.

Fleur chuckled darkly at the weapon being aimed at the screen. “As it has been over twenty four hours, it is time to begin those consequences,” I considered firing off a shot into the screen, but something in her voice made me pause. Fleur stepped aside, revealing the area behind her.

Through the screen I could see the towering structure of the Ponypalooza Hotel in the distance. Fleur appeared to be outside, near the Fetlock suburbs. Not far away I could see the abandoned mall where I had confronted Steel Blade. Actually, the longer I looked at the screen, the more I began to realize that I recognized the exact location.

It was the small town we had first encountered Flask when we had first visited Fetlock. Just off to the left, I could make out the shapes of the small tents that constituted the town.

I felt my eyes narrowing. “What are you doing?”

Instead of responding, I heard Fleur’s voice call out. “Bring them out.”

The sound of stomping hooves could be heard, followed by a bunch of ponies and canterlot ghouls clad in dark combat armour and bearing Red Eyes symbol marched into frame, dragging a group of bound ponies behind them. A few of the ponies they had captive I didn’t recognize, but I was able to spot mayor Dusty and his foal Scrapper amongst them. Even the two raiders we had helped rescue from Steel Rangers less than a day ago were tied up.

Fleur moved back onto the screen, giving me a sad look through the Securitron. “I did warn you Amber,” She gestured towards the ponies that had dragged the captives forwards. “Kill them.”

What! No! She couldn’t...

But I couldn’t do anything. I was halfway across the city, helpless to do anything but watch as the slavers slowly raised their guns and took aim. I wanted to look away, but I found myself unable to turn my head from the unfolding scene.

I watched Dusty struggle against his bindings, trying to put his own body between the guns and his son. It was a useless act, and he knew it too. Nothing could stop bullets.

This was my fault. All of this was on me. Fleur had warned me there would be consequences, but I had ignored her. I had never thought the price would be so high.

The slavers guns fired, filling the air with the sound of gunfire and smoke. The gunfire lasted only a few seconds. That was all the time that was needed. The captive settlers all dropped dead, their bodies riddled with holes and seeping blood. I felt a part of me die inside as I watched the body of four different foals, Scrapper included, slump against their parents carcasses, dead.

I took a step back, my head and heart reeling. This wasn’t happening. It couldn’t be. They had just wiped out a whole settlement… because of me… I had hardly even known them, and they had gone and shot them anyway. It wasn’t fair.

I heard Brisk snarl at the Securitron from behind me, his angry growl rising above Xayah and Mirra’s whimpers.

To Fleurs credit, she had the audacity to look genuinely upset. She looked down at me through the screen with sad eyes. “I believe you also know a pony that goes by the name of Flask. A friendship Express operative I believe.”

My heart dropped into my stomach. Not him too. He had told me that he was going to be going to this town. Since I had seen the two raiders we rescued amongst the pile of fresh corpses, I could only assume that he had made it there as well.

Fleur gestured to somepony to her left that I couldn’t see. A few seconds later, two griffins clad in dark combat armour pulled a bound Flask forwards, his head was hung low and his muzzle was bleeding from what appeared to be numerous beatings. He glanced up at the screen for a second, giving me a clear view of his bruised face. “Amber?” His voice sounded frail.

I snarled at the image of Fleur. “Let him go!” This was too much. Xayah stepped up beside me, her tear filled eyes glaring daggers at Fleur through the screen.

“I have been informed that you have been seen by the Town Oasis,” Fleur continued, her expression continuing to look sad. “If the A.A.S.S. is not brought to me in another twenty four hours, we might pay that town a visit,” Her expression turned grim. “That or we will go to one of the other settlements you have been in contact with. The Hollow Shades, Friendship City. We’ll choose one of them.”

I felt tears stinging down my cheeks as I watched one of the combat armoured griffins raise a pistol and place it against the side of Flask’s head.

“Wait! Stop!” I blurted, raising my hoof as if to signal for them to cease what they were doing. “I’ll do it. I’ll meet you.”

Fleur's eyes never stopped looking sad. “Yes… you will,” She signalled to the griffin beside her. The griffin gave a grunt-like nod and fired. The bullet ripped through the side of Flask’s skull, spewing brain matter out the other. Flask’s limp corpse collapsed and fell out of view. Fleur took a shaky sigh, and to my surprise, she blinked away a tear. “I will see you soon, Amber.”

The screen on the Securitron flickered slightly for a second before filling with static. With that, the robot slowly rolled away as if nothing had happened. I stood there staring at the spot the robot had stood for a second before falling over and collapsing on my side. It was simply all too much. Pyre leaving, the deaths of all those ponies that didn’t deserve it.

I couldn’t keep doing this. The tug of war over possession of the A.A.S.S. was taking too many lives. If it had only been me, or even me and my friends, that might have been one thing, but it wasn’t. The death count was rising by the day, and there was no pony to blame but myself.

How many ponies would still be alive if I had just given up? Would the ponies of Stable 25 still be alive? Would many of the ponies of the Hollow Shades have been massacred? How many ponies and changelings had died in the battle for the Institute simply because of the insane power struggle over this dumb oblong device? The number was getting too high to count.

And the worst part was, the more I thought about it, the more I realized every last one of those deaths were on me.

I felt something nudging my cheek. I opened my eyes to see Xayah looking down at me in worry, both Brisk and Mirra peered over her shoulder at me with similar expressions.

“Amber, are you alright?” Xayah asked, her voice sounded pained. What a silly question that was. I will never understand why we keep asking each other that question when the obvious answer is no. When I failed to respond, Xayah nuzzled me again. “Amber, I think we need to get going…”

I nodded, not really knowing what I was supposed to do. Go to the Ponypalooza Hotel I suppose. But then what? Just give Fleur the A.A.S.S. like that? After everything, could I allow Red Eye to get his hooves on it? It felt wrong.

Slowly, I crawled back up to my hooves, letting Xayah and Brisk help me up and steady me as I finally got back into a standing position. I looked over my friends. They looked worried. They should be. Things had gone from bad to worse in a matter of seconds, and we had no logical way of stopping it. That and we were down one pony.

“Amber, do we have a plan?” Brisk asked from beside me. Mirra hopped up onto his back to look at me, making him wince slightly. He didn’t have Pyre’s strength.

After taking a second to process everything, I shook my head. “I… I don’t know. But we have to do something. We can’t let them do something like that again,” All of my friends nodded, but they kept looking at me as if expecting me to suddenly come up with some sort of brilliant plan. But no plan came. Taking a deep breath, I continued. “We’ll confront her and think over her demands… maybe kill her if that’s an option, but I’m not going to let Red Eye get his hooves on the A.A.S.S. We’ve come too far to simply let that happen. And Red Eye with mass mind control? That's not something we can allow,” Assuming that's what Red Eye even wanted with this Utopia Program. I never had managed to find out exactly what his plan was.

Brisk nodded. “Yeah. Sounds like as much of a plan as we’re going to get.”

I glanced down at my pipbuck map. It was a three hour walk back to Fetlock, assuming we walked uninterrupted. More than enough time to make it there before the twenty four hour deadline. Of course, this was Manehattan, so getting interrupted was almost a guarantee.

I sighed, trying to push down the growing guilt that had been rising up inside of me. I could deal with all that guilt another day. Right now I had ponies to save.

“Amber, can we talk?” Mirra’s voice piped up from beside me. Instinctively, I looked up at where she would normally be atop Pyre’s back, only to remember that Pyre was no longer with us. Instead, I glanced down where the small changeling was struggling to keep up with us on her small hooves.

Brisk had carried her for a short distance, him being the strongest of the four of us, but his strength was minimal compared to that of Pyre’s and soon he had to ask her to walk. She had done so without complaint, but from the exhaustion on her face, I could tell trying to keep up with us was getting to her. I had to remind myself how young Mirra actually was. It was easy to forget sometimes, she always acted so much older than her age.

I gave a quick nod, deciding to slow down my trot as much as possible to allow the filly to keep pace with me. “What do you want to talk about?”

Mirra glanced down at her hooves. “A few things… I guess. I wanted to ask if… well…” She looked back up at me with her large blue eyes. “Do you t-think that I made Pyre go away?”

I paused and gave her a surprised look. “What? Why would you think that?”

Mirra cast her gaze back towards the ground. “Well… I think she thought that being around me would hurt me… that's what she always kept saying,” She scuffed at the ground with a hoof as we continued walking. “I thought that would all be over after all that happened in the Manehattan Gardens… Apparently not…”

My gut twisted. I had thought Pyre was going to be over all of that as well once Plaga was dealt with, but none of us could have expected what we had found in the Institutes files. “Pyre’s just confused,” I said, trying to reassure the changeling filly. “She just found out that she isn't exactly who she thought she was, and that ponies have been spying on her. and worse, using her to spy on us. I’d be a little confused as well,” I didn’t bother mentioning that she just found out there was a good chance that the real Pyre Blaze was probably dead and discarded into some trash heap somewhere as well.

Mirra continued to shuffle along beside me, not bothering to look up. “But do you think she left because of me?” She paused just long enough to sniffle. “She seemed angry and stuff, but I don't think she was going to leave until I said something…”

I finally pulled my own gaze away from the changeling. “I don’t know Mirra. Pyre cares about you. Pyre just has trouble figuring out how to deal with that sort of thing.”

“Yeah… that’s just another thing I messed up with her,” Mirra grumbled in a self deprecating tone, staring loath fully at her own hooves as we continued to walk forward.

I winced at her self pity. This conversation isn't turning out well. I had to turn this around somehow. “You said you wanted to talk to me about something else?” I asked, hoping the second topic was a happier one. "What was that?" I was wrong. It wasn't happier at all.

Mirra seemed to shrink at the mention of the other topic. “Oh... Um, y-yeah… I, um… I wanted to talk to you about my mom…”

Great. This was going to turn out just peachy, I could already tell. Sighing, I gave a small nod. “What about that do you want to talk about?” I asked in as gentle of a voice as I could muster.

Mirra let out a shaky breath. “Back in the Manehattan Gardens you asked me if I was angry at you… for what happened between my mother and I…” I gulped. I remembered that awkward conversation all too well. Mirra looked back up at me, though she never looked me in the eye. “Well… Pyre told me I shouldn’t worry about what you’d think… that you’d understand… so, um… I think I need to get something off my chest.”

I gave her a small nod. I already had a good idea of what that might be. I gave her a thin smile that probably looked as forced as it felt. “Rant away.”

“I… well I…” Mirra sighed and finally dared to look me in the eye. “I think I lied to you in the garden… I know I shouldn’t be angry at you. It’s not fair of me, and you had no idea what would happen when we found my mom, but I can’t help it… I keep thinking that things would have been better and I would have been happier if I just never found out... I you had just stayed out of it...” She took a shaky step away from me. “I’m sorry. I know you don’t deserve for me to feel that way.”

I shook my head. “I-its fine. I understand. I’m no stranger to anger. It’s a confusing thing,” I pulled my gaze away and looked up at the jagged rooftops of Manehattan’s skyscrapers. “I’m sorry that I couldn’t have helped you more, and that things turned out the way it did. You deserved better.”

Mirra gave a small sigh. “No I don’t… Your help was more than anypony deserved. And yet here I am being angry at you for something you had no control over,” She glared down at her hooves glumly. “You all deserve better than me. I’m just a handicap to this group.”

I gave her a reassuring nudge. “Hey, don’t say that. You’ve saved our butts a couple of times. Besides, without you, who would stop Xayah and I from annoying Brisk and Pyre with our constant PDA?” I winced. “Well… I guess just Brisk now, but you get what I mean.”

Mirra gave me a genuine smile, though the grin didn’t seem to be reflected much in her eyes. “Yeah, you guys are pretty gross…” She took a long deep breath, before slowly exhaling. “Thank you Amber. I’m sorry that I got angry at you.”

I waved her apology off with a hoof. “Don’t mention it. It happens to all of us.”

Mirra gave one last sigh. "Do you think Pyre will come back? I miss her already."

"I don't know. I hope so, and I miss her too. It's weird to not have her around," I replied, wishing I had a more concrete answer to give her. "Maybe after all this stuff with the Institute is over... But I hope we see her before then..."

I heard a small beep from ahead of us. I looked up to see Brisk looking down at his pipbuck a few feet in front of us. Xayah was looking over his shoulder as he read whatever had appeared on the screen.

“Amber, I think we found something?” Brisk said, calling back to me. I quickened my pace to join them, only for my pipbuck to make a beeping sound a second later. I glanced down to see a radio broadcast pop up onto the screen.

As I got closer, Brisk clicked the broadcast on. “Hello, this is Blueberry of the Outcasts. We are pinned down outside of Stable 23 by a group of Steel Rangers that call themself the True Steels,” We all exchanged a worried look at that. The True Steels were not something to be taken lightly. “We have a group of Civilians that are caught in the crossfire. We need backup. This Message repeats!”

Brisk shut off the broadcast as it began to start again and looked up at me. “So… Are we off to help them?” I didn't like the idea of going into another Stable. Just the idea of it made me think of the tragedy that had occurred in Stable 25, but I nodded anyway. Whether I wanted to go into a Stable or not didn't matter, there were ponies that needed our help and I wasn't going to pass up an opportunity to get back at the True Steels for what they did to my old home.

“Do we have time?” Xayah piped up, looking up from the pipbuck as well. “We cannot risk Fleur hurting more families.”

I thought about that for a second. “We should still have time. So long as we don’t get sidetracked more, we can help out the Outcasts and still make it too Fetlock in time,” I probably jinxed it by saying that, but there was no taking back the words at that point. “Besides, it sounds like there are ponies that need help there too. We can’t let them get in the crossfire with two ranger factions. We’ve all seen how destructive those groups can be to the area around them.”

That seemed to satisfy Xayah, but she still looked nervous. I realized that watching those slaver ponies kill all those families were probably bringing back some unwanted memories about her own mother and daughter being killed. I’d need to make time to talk to her about that.

Brisk gave an agreeing nod. “Alright then, let's not waste any time,” He looked his pipbuck map over for a second before slightly adjusting the direction he was walking and heading towards the location of the broadcast. Thankfully, it didn’t look like the conflict between the Outcasts and the True Steels were too far of course from our original destination.

As we began walking, I pulled up beside Xayah. “Hey. You want to talk about it?”

Xayah cast me a worried look before dropping her head. “That transparent?”

I gave a small smirk and a nod. “When we first met you, used to be really good at hiding your emotions. Now it's pretty hard not to notice when you're having them.”

Xayah sighed. “It is because I used to force myself not to have them at all. Now that I’m letting them out, I am having difficulty coping,” She gave me a gentle smile, though it felt superficial. “Being with you helps though, and it still feels better than bottling it all up.”

I gave her a quick nuzzle as we followed behind Brisk. I heard Mirra d'aww somewhere behind us. I gave the changeling an unamused look, but it only made her snicker more. I suppose that was better than the moping she had been doing only minutes before, so I couldn't really complain.

“Watching those fillies and their families get… what Fleur had those slavers do… It’s really getting to me,” Xayah confessed, pulling away from the nuzzle somewhat.

“You’d be wrong not to,” I replied, looking back to where Brisk was walking ahead of us. “What she did was evil. I’m going to make sure she pays for that…”

Xayah whimpered. “When I saw those fillies die… I just kept seeing Zira. I still feel like I see her sometimes. Watching me from the wastes… It gets worse around fillies…”

I nodded, but I didn’t really know how to respond. Xayah hardly talked about her past family. I knew she was amazingly managing to cope, but she had never seemed too interested in letting the rest of us help her with it. I supposed she didn’t want her old family to affect her new family, not that I felt that was fair to her. Or even us for that matter.

“Well, if you ever want to talk, I’m always here,” I said after a few seconds of awkward silence.

Xayah gave me a grim, but thankful expression. “Thank you… just… can you promise me something?”

I raised an eyebrow, but nodded. “Yeah, probably.”

“If something like what happens with the raider children happens again…” I felt my heart thump an extra few times in my chest, the mention of my slaughter of the raider children bringing back unwelcome flashbacks. “...If something like that happens again… I know you did what you had too… but can we try and find another way?”

I nodded, my whole body feeling numb. “Yeah… of course. I would have anyway… I just had no other choice last time…” Was I trying to justify myself murdering foals? I shouldn’t be. Something like that didn’t have the right to be justified.

“I know… I know…” Xayah sighed. She leaned in again and gave me a quick kiss before resting her head on my shoulder while we walked. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” I replied softly, even though my whole body felt heavy and my chest felt like my heart was going to explode out of it. The day had only just begun, but it had simply been too much. Something told me things were only going to get worse.

We walked quietly for a few moments, before our moment of calm was interrupted by the sound of explosions and magical energy weapon fire. Brisk ducked behind a building and cast us a backwards glance. “Fifty caps says we found the rangers.”

I pulled up next to him, pulling out Breaburn’s Liberator. “I’m not taking that bet, because you’re probably right,” I peeked around the edge of the building to take a good look at what we were up against.

There was a fairly small metal structure off to one side of the road that looked to be some sort of elevator shaft. The front of the structure held a faded Stable-Tea logo and I could only assume that it led down to the Stable 23 Knight Blueberry had mentioned. A few rangers, and even a couple of what appeared to be innocent wasteland ponies lay in bloody heaps across the street, their bodies riddled with holes and burns from the Steel Rangers weapons.

Four Steel Rangers clad in full suits of power armour stood at attention in front of the entrance to the structure, their large weapons still steaming from being recently fired. Unlike most rangers I had seen, these ones had their power armour painted with golden highlights. It wasn’t hard to figure out that they were members of the True Steels. Golden power armour just seemed like the kind of conceited, power complex like thing and asshole like Iron Hock would do.

On the opposite side of the street, taking shelter behind a blockade of rubble, were six ponies dressed in the Outcasts distinctive red and black power armour. Beside them I even saw a Robobrain, no doubt one of the ones from the Fluttershy Medical Centre. Like the Outcasts, the Robo brain had been painted with their signature black and red paint job.

In the centre of the street were a group of ponies that looked like traders. They were currently cowering behind the blasted carcass of what had once been a Brahmin, before the heavy weaponry of the True Steels had ripped it into little more than shredded meat and flesh on a pile of broken bones.

Though they were more in numbers than the four True Steels, it was clear the fight was not going in the Outcasts favor. The True Steels had significantly bigger weaponry for one thing, as well as the traders were stuck in the middle of the two of them, with the True Steels weapons aimed mostly at them as if they were hostages.

“Fire again and we kill the savages,” One of the True Steels boomed, taking an intimidating step towards the Outcasts. “Lower your weapons and leave. This Stable has been claimed by High Lord Elder Iron Hock!”

High Lord Elder? Seriously? I knew Iron Hock was an arrogant and self centred prick, but making up a title like that for himself just seemed ridiculous. He must have been trying to compensate for something when he came up with that title.

“We cannot allow you to take possession of another Stable,” one of the Outcasts replied, unmoving in their stance. After a few seconds, I recognised his voice. Knight Blueberry. It was hard to see from our distance and through his power armour, but he seemed to be doing a lot better than he had the last time we saw him. He wasn’t stuck in the Fluttershy Medical Centre due to his wounds anymore, so that was an obvious plus. “We will not leave until you surrender.”

The True Steel knight that had spoken took another step forward. “You will leave now, or we will be forced to use force.”

I saw one of the cowering traders pull away from their cover behind the dead Brahmin and begin rushing down the street. “Fuck this!” He screamed, his head ducked low as if trying to dodge gunfire.

One of the True Steels pivoted and fired a shot from their magical energy rifle. The red laser lashed out and struck the stallion on the rump. The Stallion called out in pain, the shot ripping through his flesh and pulverising most of his left side in seconds. Not a moment later, he dropped to the ground in a glowing pile of ash.

“No pony move!” The leading True Steel ordered again, slamming their metal clad hoof on the ground. “No pony will move until the Outcast traitors have stood down!”

I felt Mirra tug at the bottom of my Stable barding. “Amber, we need to do something,” She squealed, hiding behind my leg as she looked out at the True Steels and their impressive weaponry.

I nodded. “Uh… yeah. Follow me,” I slowly pulled myself out from behind cover. “And keep your weapons drawn. Something tells me this isn’t going to be pretty.”

With my friends flanking me, I cautiously trotted towards the scene, Braeburn’s Liberator aimed towards the group of True Steels guarding the entrance to the Stable. One of the True Steels spotted us almost immediately and quickly turned to face their guns towards us.

“Shit, we got more ponies,” The True Steel growled, giving the other three True Steels a warning of our approach. Almost every pony in the area turned their heads to face us, though they all kept their weapons up and aimed at their opponents.

“You!” I heard one of the True Steels snarl at me. I couldn’t tell which one it was through their helmets. “You killed Pistachio!”

I didn’t know who the hell Pistachio was, but apparently I killed him, because suddenly lasers were flying everywhere. I pushed myself backwards, pulling me and my friends behind a ruined wagon as the True Steels abruptly opened fire.

“Well that didn’t go as diplomatically as I had hoped,” I grumbled, ducking down as a beam of magical red energy flashed over my head. They didn't even give us the chance to talk things out. Damn True Steel dicks.

Brisk cast me a strange glance. “Who the fuck is Pistachio?”

I gave him a confused look in return. “No clue. I’ve never even heard the name before,” I grimaced, releasing I didn’t know the names of most of the ponies I killed. Great, just another thing to add to my list of guilts. “My best guess is that they were one of the True Steels back at the Bank.”

Xayah groaned, the top of her mane smoking from where one of the True Steels magical energy weapons had almost blasted into her. “That probably throws out any option for diplomacy with these zealots in the future then.”

I rolled my eyes. “Right, like they ever allowed us that option to begin with.”

“Get Back! Hurry!” I heard the voice of Knight Blueberry call out from across the street. From over the wagon, I could see him ushering the traders to safety as his fellow Outcasts provided cover fire.

There was a loud, resounding whoosh as a rocket was launched forwards from one of the True Steels battlesaddles. The projectile flashed across the street and exploded against the Brahmin Carcass, sending shredded flesh and shrapnel raining across the street. The traders were sent flying, most of them managing to catch themselves and continue rushing towards cover, while two were ripped open by the large rocket.

“We need to give coverfire,” I ordered, ducking down again as one of the rangers fired at our position. “Brisk, you’re with me. Xayah and Mirra, stay here and give us coverfire. Pyre…” I stopped. Pyre wasn’t here anymore. I shook my head to disburse the depressing thought. “Lets go!”

I pulled myself out from behind the wagon, Brisk quick on my hooves as we sped towards our Power armoured opponents. The True Steel approaching us pivoted to face us, their magical energy rifle firing in our direction.

Brisk and I dove apart, the red lasers flashing past us. One of the True Steels shots landed, ripping a burning gash across the side of my flank. I bit my lip to keep from screaming as the searing pain shot up my side.

Brisk spun, his pistol firing off a shot into the rangers head. The shot pinged off the side of his helmet, failing to penetrate, but making the ranger stagger. The True Steel didn’t have time to righten himself as Brisk spun around and gave him a quick buck to the face, knocking him backwards and sprawling onto his back.

One of the Outcast rangers fell, a well aimed shot from a grenade launcher sending their body flying back and ripping their armour to scrap. I saw the Outcast Robobrain rush towards them and begin working over the body in a vain attempt to revive them.

I fired a shot from my shotgun, the buckshot lashing through one of the True Steels legs and ripping appart their armour. The True Steel staggered, blood and fire spilling from the wound. The minigun on their battle saddle roared to life as they stumbled, spraying the area in front of me with a hail of lead. I hoped back, the burning pain in my body only increasing as I pushed myself to move out of the way.

I heard Xayah’s sniper fire off a shot. One of the rangers fell, her shot lancing through one of the weaker spots in the armour.

The surviving traders finally got clear off the fire, pulling themselves behind a makeshift barricade near the Outcasts. One of them fired behind them at the True Steels with what looked like a hoof made pipe gun, but their shots were sloppy and only hit air.

The True Steel that Brisk had knocked to the ground pulled themselves back to their hooves, their energy weapon turning to face me. I ducked down and rolled, the magical lasers whizzing past me and scorching the wall of the building behind me. I rolled back up, Braeburn’s Liberator blasting a slug point blank into their visor. The glass covering their eyes shattered from the shot, sending sharp shards piercing into the True Steels eyes, blinding him.

Another shot from Brisk’s pistol finally put the stumbling True Steel down, the bullet slashing through the weaker spot of armour on his neck.

With a rallying cry, the five remaining Outcasts began charging forwards, their weaponry blasting out at the last couple of True Steels. The True Steel with the rocket launcher fired, the air around him rippling as the powerful projectile flashed forwards. The Outcasts dove apart, only for one of them to get hit square in the chest by the rocket. The Outcast was blown apart, limbs and broken pieces of armour flying in every direction.

Knight Blueberry’s fired off a rocket of his own, the large missile slammed into the remaining True Steels, sending them crashing backwards into the metal, bunker-like walls of the elevator shaft. One of the True Steels managed to pull himself back up, his legs now ruined and bleeding hunks of scrap metal and tattered flesh. Another shot from Blueberry’s rocket launcher quickly put him down for good.

There was a second of silence as everypony waited to see if there was going to be anymore violence. Once it was clear that everypony with the intention of fighting was dead, Blueberry and the rest of the Outcasts turned to face us. “Amber? Brisk? Is that you?”

I nodded. Xayah and Mirra quickly pulled themself out from behind the wagon and joined us on the street. “Yeah. We heard your distress signal. Figured we’d help you out.” I responded, only sparing Xayah and Mirra a quick glance as they approached.

Blueberry nodded. “Well I’m glad you could help… even if you did just provoke the combat early,” He sighed. “It was destined to break out into violence sooner or later anyway. With the Steel Rangers, they at least give the idea of talking it out first. But these True Steels, as they’ve taken to calling themselves, simply have no desire to ask questions any time except later,” He turned to address one of the Outcasts beside him. “Check on the civilians. Try to patch ‘em up as best as possible before we send them on their way.”

“Are you in charge here?” Xayah asked, as Blueberry turned his attention back to us. “Last I heard, only Crusaders and Paladins of the Rangers lead squads? That said, I am no expert on Steel Ranger structure.”

Blueberry gave a bob of his head in agreement. “No, you’re correct, and usually that would be the case. Unfortunately, the Outcasts are spread pretty thin at the moment, even while only defending the small area we have procured. We do our best to protect the ponies of the wasteland, and while I have no regrets or reservations about that, it does put us at a disadvantage with the other ranger factions. Due to my involvement in the liberation of the Fluttershy Medical Centre, I’ve been temporarily promoted to Crusader. Crossroads is looking into putting me into the position permanently… assuming we survive the coming days.”

Brisk raised an eyebrow. “If that’s not an ominous statement, I don’t know what is. What’s happening in the coming days?”

Blueberry was forced to avert his attention from us for a second to talk to another Outcast before returning his gaze to us. “In short, a lot. Red Eye’s forces are growing and we are currently down an Elder as Steelhooves deals with business out in Canterlot. Top that with our constant struggle with the Steel Rangers and these True Steel fanatics. The Outcasts are struggling, and if Iron Hock and his goons keep taking over territory like they have been, we’re going to have a serious problem.”

I gave a quick smirk. “Well at least they don’t have this location. A Stable must be a pretty big tactical advantage and win for the Outcasts.”

Blueberry shook his head. “Wish I could say that was true. But this fight isn’t over. Those True Steels were just guards. Assuming they’re still going by Steel Ranger Protocol, which considering their nature I find very likely, we’ve got twenty more rangers down inside the Stable along with a Paladin.”

I gulped. “Never mind. That sounds like a bad situation to be in.”

“It’s worse than bad,” Blueberry corrected flatly. “Iron Hock chose his Paladins very well. He might be an arrogant jackass, but that pony knows what he’s doing. I’ve heard rumours that Paladin Tesla Coil was sent to procure this Stable. I only met him once, but back before the schism, he was one of the Steel Rangers best strategists and combatants.”

“What’s in the Stable?” Mirra piped up, drawing all our attention down to her. At our confused looks, she elaborated. “I mean, what does the Stable have that’s useful to them?”

Blueberry gave a grunt of acknowledgment. “Stable 23. The Outcasts no longer have access to the records in the Fillydelphia Stable-Tec headquarters as it still remains a Steel Ranger base, but from our memory of it, the Stable was used as an experiment for testing different forms of medication," Though I had no love for the Steel Rangers, it was good to hear Red Eye hadn't managed to take that location from the rangers quite yet. "We are unsure about the current status of the inhabitants, but we are aware that it holds a lot of prewar tech, including advanced medical supplies that would be a huge tactical advantage.”

Mirra seemed to accept that answer and went back to looking over the area. I looked away from the small changeling and back to now Crusader Blueberry. “We can lend assistance if you need it?” The last thing I wanted right then was to go into a Stable. Stables brought back too many memories. Memories that I would rather I didn’t have. But this wasn’t about me, and I’d be damned if I let these True Steel Assholes get a hoofhold in another valuable location, not to mention another Stable.

“What happened to not getting sidetracked?” Brisk mumbled from beside me.

I cast him a warning glance. “We’re already sidetracked. Might as well see this through to the end.”

Blueberry gave an affirmative nod. “We would greatly appreciate the support,” He gestured over to the remaining three ponies in his squad. “When we left for Stable 23, there were eight of us. Now we’re four. Assuming the True Steels inside are as high in numbers as we suspect, we’re going to be very outnumbered.”

“And outgunned by the looks of it,” I grunted, nudging at one of the fallen True Steels weapons. “These True Steels have an impressively large arsenal.”

“The True Steels made a push against Fort Strong a few days ago. Made enemies with the Steel Rangers, but that's not saying much with these ponies,” Blueberry explained. “There was a huge military MWT weapons factory underneath the fort. I don’t know where Iron Hock got the fuel, but he somehow managed to get the factory up and running again. something the rangers have been trying to do for years. They’ve almost got enough guns and ammo coming out of that place to arm a small army.”

I winced. I knew exactly where he got the fuel. He was keeping true to what he said and using the bodies of the ponies of Stable 25 as fuel. I was suddenly even more ready to charge into Stable 23 and wipe out the True Steels inside.

“The only relief is that it doesn’t seem like he’s been able to get the Dragon Lancer gun on the roof of the building to work yet,” Blueberry continued. I shivered as I remembered the massive gun on top of Fort Strong. If Iron Hock ever managed to get that monstrosity up and running… well, I might just take Star’s advice and get out of the city as fast as possible.

“The Traders have been healed and are on their way,” A tinny, female voice said. I was surprised to recognize the voice.

Turning, I saw the Robobrain quickly approaching us. Blueberry gave us and the robobrain a quick nod before moving off to help the rest of his remaining squad. I squinted my eyes at the approaching robot, as if trying to make out a face in the distance. My close inspection didn’t have any use on the robot’s metallic features. “Dazzling Souvenir?” I asked, voicing my suspicions.

Dazzling Souvenir rotated slightly to look at me. “Amber, it is a pleasure to meet you again. I must thank you again for helping to release my friends and I from our programming. We have made a lot of progress in returning all of the scientists at the Fluttershy Medical Centre back into their old selves.”

I gave the robobrain a smile. “It’s good to hear that things are working out.”

Dazzling Souvenir did a strange bob-like motion that I assumed was supposed to be a nod. “Yes, we could not be happier,” The robobrain paused for a second, as if pondering something. “The others and I have been talking about our lost memories, and we think we’ve remembered something about what you wanted to know.”

I raised an eyebrow. Something I wanted to know? It took me a second to remember what I had asked of her. “Oh, about the Utopia Program?”

Dazzling Souvenir bobbed again. “Yes. we believe that the Utopia Program wasn’t just based off of a memory orb. We believe it was in fact a memory orb itself,” I had to try my hardest not to look disappointed. This I had already known. “But it is more than that… The Utopia Program was created inside of the Institute. There were many reasons for this of course, such as anonymity, but the primary reason was because the Institute was the only place where it could have been created.”

“Because of their technological advancements?” Xayah assumed, seeking confirmation on Dazzling Souvenir's statement.

The Robobrain twisted back and forth, simulating the shaking of a head. “No. The Institute was run by the Ministry Mares. It could have easily been a Ministry of Arcane Science project,” She paused and twisted around to face me more directly. “It could only have been created in the Institute because that was the only place that all of the memories the Utopia Program utilizes can be found.”

“I… what, wait?” I asked. I had no idea what that meant, or how it was important.

“Back during the war, Pinkie Pie threw a party. This party was the last time recorded where all six ministry mares were found in the same location. I am fuzzy on the exact events of that party, but I believe that there was a falling out between some of them. And know Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash had a falling out prior to this event,” Dazzling Souvenir explained. “The Institute was the only location after these events, where all mares could be located with relative ease. While none of the Ministry Mares worked together directly on Institute projects, they all contributed to the Institutes caused. Some, like Twilight Sparkle were more hooves on with the projects, but even ponies like Applejack who were somewhat more indirect in their contributions were still actively involved.”

Brisk scratched the top of his head. “So… what? The Utopia thing or whatever is a collection of the Ministry mares' memories?”

Dazzling Souvenir was silent for a few seconds after that. “We are not sure,” She said, finally breaking her silence. “We seem to recall there being more than just their memories involved, and we doubt that is all there was to it… but we believe that was Utopia’s main source.”

I nodded, but I didn’t really know what I would do with that information. This whole Utopia Program thing just felt like it was getting more and more confusing and convoluted every time I learned about it.

Crusader Blueberry, now with his remaining three rangers in tow, approached us. “We are about to head down into the Stable,” Blueberry declared as he came to an abrupt stop a few feet away. “Are you ready?”

I looked at all of my friends to make sure they were ready. They all gave me a brave, affirmative nod. We all had plenty of reasons to hate these True Steel basterds. “We’re ready.”

“Then come along,” Blueberry ordered, turning and approaching the metal structure. “I don’t know what we’re going to find down there, but this is going to be one hell of a shitshow,” He cast a glance at Dazzling Souvenirs Robobrain. “Souvenir, can you wait up here and make sure that all the civilians make it to safety? Then keep an eye out. Radio me if more trouble comes.”

Dazzling Souvenir held up an accordion-like arm and saluted. “Of course. You can count on me.”

We all turned back to the structure and made our way towards the Stable below. I felt myself shiver as Blueberry pushed open the door and revealed the dark elevator shaft. Seeing Stable 44 in the Hollow Shades had been confusing, uncomfortable, and had brought back unwelcome memories of the atrocities that had happened in my own Stable. I could already tell this wasn't going to be fun.

As I stepped forwards and made my way into the small elevator beside the Outcasts, I realized that I was shaking. I was scared, and I knew that whatever lay beyond the metal Stable door below was only going to make that fear grow.

I tried to stop myself from shaking as the elevator began to move downwards with a loud hiss, but to little success. Xayah wrapped one of her striped hooves around my neck to try and comfort me, no doubt she could see my discomfort.

The ride to the bottom of the elevator was spent in near silence. The lights that had once illuminated the elevator back before the war had long since gone out, leaving us in almost complete darkness. If not for the light of Brisk and I’s pipbucks and the lamps on the Outcasts helmets, we wouldn’t have been able to see.

Finally, the elevator came to an abrupt stop. There was a moment of complete stillness as we waited for the door to open.

I suddenly really missed Pyre. She probably would have said something really stupid right about then that would have distracted me from what was happening around me. But of course, Pyre wasn't here. She was off in the wasteland alone, doing who knows what.

Funny, Brisk used to be the one who made jokes to lighten the mood all the time, but it felt like it had been a long time since he had acted like his old self. Probably not since before the tragedy of Stable 25. I looked over at him in the gloom. He looked sad. he often looked sad when he thought no pony was looking. that and his missing horn only made him look all the sadder. When had he changed so much? Why was I only noticing this now?

I didn’t have time to think about that, as just then the elevator doors slid open with a loud clang. I squinted a little as I was temporarily blinded by the bright light that flashed towards us through the doorway.

I blinked, trying to help my vision adjust to the sudden burst of light. I heard Mirra make a frightened yelp from beside me as we all stepped out into the cavern-like room that held the entrance to the Stable door.

The Stable door was open, but that wasn’t what drew our attention. The rock foor was slick and sticky, coated in a thick layer of crimson blood. I felt myself take an involuntary step back and my heart started beating faster and faster in my chest. I could feel myself break out into cold sweats.

No… not again. Please not this again… I had seen this before. It’s Stable 25 all over again...

The entrance to the Stable was surrounded by corpses.

Footnote: Three quarters to next level.

Chapter XXIX: Cathedral of the Ascendent

“Behold! He is coming with the clouds. And every eye should be blind with his glory. Every ear should be stricken deaf to hear the thunder of his voice!”

Defeat.

There’s a point where every hero breaks. Where they can no longer go on and they get consumed by the rest of the wasteland, either being eaten alive by the wastes cruelty or twisted into the very monsters that they sought to destroy. It doesn't matter what you do or how hard you try, sooner or later that breaking point will catch up with you. And when it does, when the evil consumes you, you’ll beg for death. Because even that would be better than what the wasteland has in store for you.

Die the hero or live long enough to become the villain.

Those thoughts rang through my mind as I slammed my head against the cold metal wall that served as the door to my prison cell in despair, feeling the cold sense of dread and frustration washing over me. It was over. I had lost. I had tried so fucking hard, but in the end it didn’t matter. Just like how everything else I did didn’t matter.

I had failed to save Stable 25. Failed to save Heartbeat from Viscera. Failed to protect innocent ponies from being slaughtered by Red Eye. And finally, failed to keep the A.A.S.S. out of the hooves of the ponies that would use it for ill.

My chest still burned from the bullet that had pierced my chest. The medical care and healing potions that had been given to me had made the wound practically null, but the pain still lingered. Both the physical pain and emotional pain. I couldn’t tell which was worse.

Over the past few days, ever since Mirra had dragged my sorry ass out of the MAS tower, Xayah had been one of my closest friends. I had loved her, and she had loved me. I thought that we might have shared a bond that was even more powerful than friendship, that nothing, not even the wasteland, could tear us apart and that we could be happy so long as we were together.

I was so tired of being wrong all the fucking time.

I didn’t even know what Xayah and I were anymore. Were we still marefriends? Were we even friends at all anymore after betraying each other like that? Xayah had quite literally shot me in the heart and it was pulling me apart from the inside out.

I groaned, sliding down the metal surface and falling into a disheveled heap on the cold floor. I had been in bad situations before, but this took the fucking cake. The A.A.S.S. was gone, taken by Fluer and on its way to the Director, whomever that was. My friends were being held captive in the nightmare that was Fillydelphia, probably being whipped and forced to work away in the mines and factories. And I was…

What was happening with me? I had been taken to Red Eyes Cathedral and was awaiting whatever this mysterious Director wanted from me, I knew that much. But as to what that entailed or where that was, I couldn’t be sure. From the trees outside, and the vague memory of one of DJ Pon3’s broadcasts I had heard a long time ago, I figured I was somewhere in the Everfree forest. But that was a long way from Manehattan or Fillydelphia.

I glanced across the room, my eyes taking in a box of memory orbs that had been shoved into the far corner. Aside from the box, the room was completely empty. Just a large metal cell of nothing.

Upon arrival, Fleur had had me quickly escorted through Red Eye’s Cathedral. It hadn’t necessarily been a tour, but it had given me a good grasp of what the place was like. It was huge, and surprisingly elegant with tall pillars, high arches and looming stained glass windows that looked like they could have come from Canterlot itself.

I had been led to the bottom floor of the Cathedral, which to my surprise had been the remains of an old Stable. Stable 101. The Stable looked as if much of it had been stripped for parts, being only a skeleton of its former self. Even many of the walls had their metal stripped from them to be repurposed for Red Eyes plans.

After quickly tossing me into my metal cell, Fleur had pointed to the box of memory orbs and demanded. “View these. He wants you to see...” Then, without another word, the Canterlot ghoul spun around and stalked out of the cell, the metal door slamming shut behind her.

I had ignored the box of orbs, having no interest in doing anything that these ponies wanted. So instead I simply lay there on the ground, wallowing in my own failures.

I could feel time passing, but I wasn’t sure how long. Without windows and no view of the cloud covered sky, I was unable to watch the day's progression. I checked my pipbuck watch a few times, but I had made the mistake of not checking it as soon as I was thrown in, making it next to useless. What I could gather was that this mysterious Director was taking their sweet time with meeting with me.

Grumbling, I pulled myself up to my hooves and trotted over to the corner of the room, adjacent to the box of memory orbs. I slumped back down and curled up, trying to find some warmth in the metal box of a prison.

Sleep didn’t come easy. I lay there, my mind replaying the events of the Ponypalooza Hotel. My decision to let innocent foals die for what I believed to be the greater good. Xayah firing a bullet through my chest. Blood spilling from me and washing across the floor. Brisk and Mirra being dragged away in chains, bomb collars tight around their necks...

It had been one of my greatest defeats. And the worst part was… For once, there was no pony for me to thrust the blame upon. No Kamari to focus my rage at. I had no pony to blame but myself...

“Weak…”

I shut my eyes, trying to block out the words that lashed out from the darkness and sliced at me like a knife.

“Helpless…”

I cringed by, trying to pull myself completely behind Crank’s large, metal leg. It was useless, my pursuer just kept moving, forcing me to edge away again.

“Pathetic…”

My whole body shook, tears creeping into my eyes. It wasn’t fair! None of it! I hadn’t asked for any of this. Why did it have to be me!?

“Afraid…”

Inferno slowly circled me, his glowing, glassy red eyes cutting through the surrounding darkness and sinking into my very soul. His jagged maw scowled, black ichor dripping from between his sharp, metal teeth.

“That’s enough, Inferno,” Crank snarled, finally interrupting the stream of insults that seemed to ooze from Inferno’s mouth. The cyber alicorn's voice had a strange tremor to it, as if he was trying to hide an agonizing pain behind his stoic demeanor. “Now back off.”

Inferno didn’t continue circling, his jaw working as he glared daggers at me. After a few seconds he let his vile gaze drift up to Crank and gave the large cyber alicorn a vicious grin. “Do you really think you can protect her… now that he has her?” His grin widened, more and more black ooze drizzling from his mouth and pooled in the darkness around his hooves. “Steel Blade might have been a fool, but he was right about one thing… You don’t cross the Director. We were fools to ignore that. Perhaps we would still be alive if we had stayed in line…”

Crank stomped a hoof and snorted, puffs of steam wafting from his metallic nostrils. He flared his wings out and tried to shield me from Inferno’s eternal glare. “Perhaps…” Crank finally admitted, a soft, rumble-like sigh escaping his lips. “But what has happened has happened. There's no undoing what has been done.”

“W-who…” I gulped and took a small step out from behind Crank, daring myself to stand before the two powerful cyber ponies. Both of their eyes turned to focus on me. “Who is the Director?”

Both Crank and Inferno exchanged a worried look. They both looked afraid. I didn’t even think Crank could look afraid. Finally Crank turned to me, his expression filled with concern. “He is the pony that created us. He sees everything.”

“But who is he?” I pushed. I had been tormented by this Director for so long, even long before I knew of his existence. He had ordered the cyber ponies to invade my stable, he controlled the Institute, and I had no doubt that he had played a large role in orchestrating the attack on the Hollow Shades and Azar and Insecta’s attempt to control the illusive Utopia program.

“We do not speak his name,” Inferno scowled, casting Crank and angry look before turning his attention back to me. “It has long since been lost to the history books. Only the Director himself and a few of his most elite Canterlot Ghouls know it. Steel Blade knew him only as a god. As our creator and a force never to be trifled with. Perhaps he was right…”

I furrowed my eyebrows, my chest filling with a sense of unease. Neither Crank or Inferno had ever been ones to fear or be weary of anything. If they were this afraid of the Director, I could only imagine what he was capable of.

“What does he want?” I asked, dreading what the answers might hold.

Both of the cyber ponies gave each other confused looks. I realized that neither of them actually knew. “To… Undo what has been done,” Crank finally monotone, his voice low and slightly uncertain. “To silence the races of Equestria and begin again. To rebuild. To annihilate the world and let it be born from the ashes like a phoenix...” He took a deep breath. “He wishes to create his Utopia.

His Utopia… That one word created a very clear and distinct schism between this mysterious Director's desires and plans with that of my own and the wasteland at large.

Memories of the wasteland flooded the darkness. I saw glimpses of desolate landscapes, raider’s cackling as they raped and murdered, slavers whipping slaves in the foul pits of Fillydelphia. But I saw more than that as well. I saw Ponies helping each other to survive. I saw settlements rising up from the ashes of Equestria’s corpse. I saw glimmers of hope and happiness breaking through the evils and atrocities.

Then it faded. Then it was gone.

I blinked, looking around as if a few of the images still lingered. But they had all disappeared, returning my world to nothing more than an ever enclosing blackness.

Rebuilding the world sounded good. Trying to fix the evils and stop the bloodshed sounded noble. But to tear it down… It sounded twisted and wrong, though until I knew exactly what that meant, I couldn’t be sure.

“Enough…! I think it’s time we stop stalling and get back to business…” Inferno voice pulled us out of the sullen silence we had fallen into. He took a step towards me, his slug like tongue lolling from his mouth and licking the sides of his mouth where I imagined his lips had once been. His Red eyes looked over my body for a moment, his gaze lingering momentarily on my back end as his flamers flickered to life. He pulled his gaze back to Crank. “Step aside Crank. I think it’s time for me to get what I deserve. My retribution.”

Crank growled, taking an imposing step towards Inferno. For once, the flamer wielding cyber pony didn’t cringe away at the mighty cyber alicorns approach. “Back off Inferno. You will not touch her!” His voice boomed around the darkness, echoing off of unseen walls.

Inferno simply cackled, his metal jaw twisting into an even wider grin. “I don’t fear you anymore lover boy. You’re weak. You aren’t as strong as you once were…”

Now that he mentioned it, Crank did seem to be more unsteady than usual. His legs were shaking slightly and his glass eyes seemed hazy. My eyes dropped down to his chest, spotting a torrent of blood that spilled down his front from a bullet wound to his chest.

I felt my heart rate quicken. That didn’t make any sense. Crank couldn’t bleed out like that! He’d just regenerate from his wounds. That's what had always happened.

I felt my gaze narrow in on the bullet wound. It was familiar. I had seen it before. In fact, It had been on my own chest not all that long ago.

I reached out and placed my hoof against his chest, the thick, black blood washing over my hoof and staining my coat. “Xayah shot me…” I whispered, unable to fully comprehend what was happening. “Why is that hurting you.”

I recalled the conversation I had had with Reverie back at the Fluttershy Medical Centre. Crank and Inferno had managed to survive their own deaths, a version of their mind copied into my own. But it technically still wasn’t them, only a perfect replica of their emotions.

Inferno had been a mix of his anger, hatred and sorrows. The raging Inferno within him. A terrible combination of all the memories I had forced him to revisit back in Stable 25. For weeks his mind had been silently trapped within my own, slumbering and unaware that it had managed to endure after his body had burned away.

But then Viscera had forced Pyre to murder Heartbeat, Xayah’s fore hooves had been ripped from her body and I had been traumatized by the horrors I had been forced to watch and commit. Anger, hatred and sorrow had flowed through me. Inferno had woken up.

Crank was different. While I hadn’t been in his mind for as long, I had gotten much more intimate within it. I had walked through his sins, and I had merged with his memories of Scarlet. He had awoken much sooner. I suspected my love for Xayah had quickly let his consciousness into my mind.

I had seen how certain things like meeting Scarlet in the flesh had strengthened Cranks presence in my mind, allowing him to interact with the world outside of my dreams. My emotions were catalysts for the remnants of their brains. I had never realized that my emotions could also weaken them as well.

Inferno took another advancing step, then another, his eyes fixated on the cyber alicorn standing before me. “Well?” he cooed, once more letting his sludge coated tongue lick at his mechanical maw. “I think it is time.”

I flinched back as Inferno lunged at the cyber alicorn, his flamers spewing jets of fire. I fell into the darkness, the dim light around me surging away as Crank powered into Inferno’s attack and sent the cyber pony sprawling back.

But the flames didn’t subside. They raced across Crank’s body, charring the remains of his orange coat black and searing his metal implants until they burned a brilliant red. Crank staggered, steam and smoke billowing from his scorched form. I smelled seared flesh and burning hair.

He wasn’t regenerating anymore.

Inferno hauled himself back up, the large hole Crank had ripped in his chest sewing itself back together. He gave Crank a vile sneer, eyeing the cyber alicorns new burns. “I told you. I do not fear you any longer.”

Crank snarled and shook off the pain, turning to glare Inferno down head on. He stomped his hoof against the ground in rage before lunging forwards, his wings lashing forwards and slicing into Inferno’s neck.

The bladed appendages sliced through Infernos throat, black sludge like blood spurted from the wound. But Inferno simply laughed, his voice filled with a sickening gargle as blood filled his throat. He spun around, his back hooves shooting out and bucking Crank in the face. Fire shot from the ends of his hooves, blasting out one of Crank’s glass eyes and sending shards of red glass and viscera shooting across the black void.

Crank fell, crashing against the shaded floor and lying prone on his back. Inferno slowly loomed over him, the slashes in his throat slowly mending.

I pushed myself forwards, tossing my own body between the raging cyber ponies. “Wait! Stop! You don’t have to…”

I was cut off as Crank stumbled back to his hooves and pushed me aside with his bladed tail, once more pulling me behind him. “Stay out of this Amber. I can handle Inferno.”

The sound of Inferno’s sickening cackle echoed around us as the flamer wielding cyber pony advanced. Inferno cast me a smug look, his scowl twisting into a grin. “You can’t protect that cunt forever. You can’t always win…”

Inferno lunged again, his tail lashing forwards to skewer Crank through the chest. Crank was ready. He dove to the side, his own tail lashing out and severing Infernos' forehooves from his body. Inferno wailed, scuttling back into the darkness as his veins, wires and muscle tissue began stretching out from the stumps of his severed legs and pulling his broken legs back into his body.

Crank charged forwards, his tesla cannons charging up to blast Inferno into dust while he was down. His curved horn began to glow a brilliant blue as he prepared to fire.

Inferno pushed himself back, his forelegs still slowly reattaching themselves. His flamers burst a jet of fire towards Crank, forcing Crank to pull himself away, his shot going wide and blasting out into the darkness.

Inferno’s legs made a loud clunking noise as they finally pulled back into place. He hauled himself up, his tail lashing out and slicing Crank across the face as the cyber alicorn attempted to get another shot. Black blood began to spill down Cranks front as he reefed his head back.

I tried to push forwards again, only for Crank to knock me back with a slash from his tail. He glowered at me, blood dripping down his chin. “I said stay back!”

Inferno’s tail flashed out, the large blade on the end lancing through Crank’s chest. Blood spilled down his front and he dropped down to his knees, a painful moan escaping his lips. Inferno yanked his tail back, making more blood shoot from Crank’s body.

“I have waited so fucking long to do that,” Inferno chuckled, waltzing forwards and patting Crank lazily on the head as the cyber alicorn fought to maintain consciousness. He lowered his head and stared Crank in the eye. “You were always weak. You're pathetic feelings for Scarlet were always going to lead you to this.”

“Don’t say her name,” Crank scowled, sludge like blood dripping from his mouth. “You aren’t worthy of saying her name…”

Inferno sneered and slammed Crank’s head into the ground, small flames flickering to life at the tip of his flamers. “My biggest regret is that I never got to rape Scarlets pathetic cunt. Oh how I would have made her scream…”

Crank’s tesla cannons fired. The blue energy flashed out from his cannons and horn, blasting through Inferno’s chest and sending the cyber pony flying across the dark expanse. Blood burst from Inferno's chest, coating Crank in his enemies viscera.

I took a deep breath, my mind reeling from what had just happened. Crank’s broken body slumped, still steaming from Inferno’s flamers and blood still spilling across the darkness around us. He was still breathing, but barely. You couldn’t kill a memory. Not fully.

I took a step to help him, but paused as he rolled over to face me, black ooze drizzling from his pulped eye. “Amber. You need to get out of here… I can't… I failed you... Just like Scarlet…”

I shook my head, taking another step closer. “No. You saved me. I’m not strong enough to take on Inferno. Not here. Not again…”

Crank shook his head. “No… H-he… I didn’t stop him…”

I suddenly became increasingly aware of a dark shape pulling itself back to its hooves. I stumbled back, fear gripping me as I watched the silhouette of Inferno slowly begin trotting towards me through the gloom. The dim light around us seemed to slowly grow darker with each step.

I shook my head, wishing away the nightmare that was approaching me. But Inferno didn’t stop. His retribution had come.

Inferno stepped into the fading light, giving me a view of the rapidly closing wound on his chest. Already he was almost back to his full strength. He looked down pitifully at Crank, watching in amusement as the light in Crank’s remaining eye flickered once, then went dead.

“It really is a shame that I can’t actually kill him,” Inferno chuckled, Placing a hoof fimly atop Crank’s chest and pinning down his ravaged body. Slowly, he returned his gaze to me. “Just like how you will never be able to be rid of me. I’m here to stay, Amber Aura.”

I took another step back, my whole body shaking. “No… I… I need to get out of here… you’re just in my head… y-you can’t h-hurt me…”

Inferno’s grin widened. “But why not? You hurt me from within my own mind? It seemed only fitting that I can destroy you from within yours,” his hoof pressed down, crushing Crank’s chest. I heard bones snap under the pressure. “Crank thought he could protect you… from the wasteland... From me... But now I’m going to prove that you’re never safe from either. The wasteland tore me apart. It skinned me alive and fucked me over in ways you could never imagine. Let me share that with you…”

With those words, hope was lost. The darkness closed in fully, the last remnants of light flickering out. I had hoped that would be it. That my nightmare would end and I would awaken. But the nightmare was only just beginning.

Firelight burst through the darkness as Inferno’s flamers spewed with life. The fire consumed me, burning away my coat and flesh. I screamed, falling to the ground and trying to bat out the flames. Nothing worked. I burned.

Inferno stood over me, laughing maniacally as more and more flames washed over me, the firelight dancing across his glass eyes and metal form. He leaned down, his metal muzzle only inches away from my own. “We are going to have a lot of fun, the two of us. Every night, this is what you have to look forward to.”

I screamed, trying to pull myself away. I made it less than an inch before his hooves lashed out and pinned me to the ground. Another wave of fire flashed out, once more smothering me in flame. I thrashed, trying to break free. But there was nowhere to go. I was forever damned to burn.

My eyes flashed open and I jumped to my hooves, the pain of my body being consumed by the Inferno still lingered and the taste of ash still filled my mouth. I hunched over and vomited, foul bile splattering against the floor and walls. I staggered back, scuttling away from the pool of my own filth.

My body was caked in sweat and I was beginning to tremble. I shut my eyes and took long, deep breaths, trying to calm myself. The memory of Inferno’s flames washing over me and burning away my hide over and over again flashed through my mind. My breathing quickened as I began to hyperventilate. I curled up in a ball on the cold floor, trying to push the memories away. They wouldn’t leave. They kept coming back, sending new waves of panic flaring through me.

I looked around me, trying to ground myself in reality. I was greeted by the steel walls of my cell. I wasn’t in my dream anymore. I wasn’t safe, far from it, but at least Inferno couldn’t get to me here. Of course that didn’t mean anything. The next time I fell asleep Inferno would be there waiting for me, ready for round two.

I had been somewhat lucky this time around. Being burned alive was a terrible fate. I had never felt something so painful. It was agonizing and it was long. But at least that’s all Inferno had done. I knew what he did to fillies, and something told me that my next session with him would involve acts much more vile that simple fire. Crank had kept me safe for a few moments, but next time would be nothing but torture.

I took a slow breath, trying to steady myself. I had to stay awake. As long as I was awake he couldn’t reach me. I had to keep telling myself that.

“Oh really?”

I shuddered, my mind once more going into a state of panic as Inferno’s vile words whispered in my ears. I shoved my hooves over my ears and tried to block out the noise. “No… You can’t get me here… You’re just in my head.”

A sickening chuckle rasped in the back of my mind, unaffected by the hooves clamped tightly over my ears. “Exactly…”

I could see something shifting in the foggy reflection of the metal wall across from me. The image was twisted and warped, but I could easily make out the two glassy, red eyes that stared at me. I shuddered, closing my eyes and shoving my head against the wall.

“Go away. Please. I can’t take this…” I whispered, my voice trembling. They weren’t supposed to be able to affect me outside of my dreams. It wasn’t supposed to be like this.

But I knew that was a lie. Crank had spoken through me when I met Scarlet, and I remembered Reverie saying that if worst came to worst, they might start affecting my thoughts and memories. Well things had definitely taken a turn for the worst. If only I had known how bad it could get.

I let my eyes crack open, taking in the room. Inferno’s red eyes still glared out at me though the reflection of the wall, his vile sneer only growing as he watched me tremble.

The cyber ponies reflection took a step forward, and to my horror, he walked straight out of the reflection and into the room. I scampered back, pushing my back up against the far wall, my rump bumping the box of memory orbs and making the orbs inside rattle.

“It’s funny how much power memories have,” Inferno cackled, trotting across the room and glaring down at me. I tried to push myself even farther away, but I was already as pushed up against the wall as I could get. The cyber pony leered and reached forward, swiping at me with his hooves, only for his hoof to pass straight through me. He looked at his metal hoof for a second before shrugging. “I don’t need to touch you to hurt you… though I will enjoy touching you once your mind succumbs to sleep and you’re body is mine once again.”

I pushed off from the wall and rushed through him, his ethereal body wavering slightly as I passed through his form. “You’re dead. You can’t hurt me anymore!” I yelled back, trying to remind myself that more than I was trying to tell him off.

I heard Inferno give a mocking scoff. “Oh really? I think I’m doing a very good job of hurting you,” He moved back into my vision, his maw dripping with black ooze. “I made a promise to you once. A promise that I’d fuck you until you’re broken. I have no intention of going back on that promise now,” His overbearing grin was insidious.

I turned away again. He couldn’t touch me here. I had to ignore him. Shut him out somehow.

“You can’t shut me out anymore,” His voice cooed. I once more found myself face to face with the vile cyber pony. “Now that that pathetic excuse for a cyber pony is out of the way, nothing is stopping me from giving you what you deserve after what you did to me,” His leer quickly morphed into a vengeful snarl. “I still remember what you did to me, you know. The memories you forced me to rewatch. I can still hear my mother's screams as those raiders raped her and burned her alive in front of me…”

I gave him a low growl. “I didn’t kill you. You killed yourself!” I spat back, feeling my own rage growing inside of me. Inferno only grinned at my anger. His ethereal body seemed to glow as my hatred brewed inside of me.

He raised his hoof once again, and for a second, I thought I could feel it pressing down on me. The sensation was fleeting. “And now I’m going to make you kill yourself,” Inferno snickered, the edges of his mouth curving upwards every higher. “I’m going to make you hurt. I’m going to make you remember. You’re going to suffer just as you made me suffer. What is it you regret, Amber Aura?”

My eyes widened in terror, my pupils dilating as I saw the broken and bleeding forms of foals seeping into my vision. I could almost feel the blood under my hooves as I began to make out the shattered skulls and twisted corpses of the raider foals I had slaughtered.

I took a step back, my hind hoof bumping up against one of the mangled bodies. I shut my eyes tight, but it didn’t matter. I saw their bodies no matter what I did.

“I-I… I never wanted to hurt t-them…” I muttered, my breath shaky and a painful sob threatening to escape my throat. “I had n-no choice.”

“You sit there, calling me a monster,” Inferno scowled, his glowing eyes narrowing. “And yet all of this blood is on your hooves?” more corpses were added to the mangled pile of foals. I saw raiders and slavers. The charred forms of zebras that had burned in balefire hundreds of miles below the glowing sea. “Your kill count is staggering. You’re just as much a monster as me.”

“I… I don’t rape them!” I retorted. I could feel tears starting to form in my eyes. “I did what I had to do! I’m not a monster!”

“Oh? But what about the foals in the Ponypalooza Hotel?” Inferno questioned, his eyes practically burning holes into my flesh. “You were going to let them burn so that you could hold onto the silly little idea that you were a hero. Not just let them die. Burn. You’ve felt that pain now. You know how much it hurts. How long it lasts. You were going to do it to foals.”

“Th-they were Red Eyes foals… they weren’t even in real danger! They… they weren’t more important than the rest of the wasteland!” I screamed back, but I could feel my already broken resolve crumbling.

“And would that have mattered? Did you even know at the time? Face it Amber, the wasteland has burned you away,” Inferno began to slowly trot around me, looking my body over with hungry and greedy eyes. “I met Amber Aura once. Back at the beginning. A scared, lowly little filly that was afraid of failing her father. Afraid of being the disappointment that she was. Friendless. Hopeless. Worthless at everything but fixing her stupid little machines that she thought could replace companionship. But look at you know. Know you’re drowning in blood. Face it, the wasteland beat you. It won. It always wins given time.”

No! I wouldn't let the wasteland beat me. I had fought too hard for that.

I fell back onto my rump, tears dripping down my face and leaving streaks in the dust that coated my hide. I couldn’t take much more of this. Already the memories of my old shotgun raising and pressing against my head began filling my thoats. I had tried to kill myself once before. I knew I was perfectly capable of following through given the right motivation.

Inferno had all the motivation that he needed. And he wasn’t going anywhere. Even if I wasn’t stuck in this cell, I couldn’t run from him. He was in my own mind, and he was taking over.

My eyes landed on the box of memory orbs that had been shoved into the corner. Perhaps I couldn’t escape him while in my mind, but if I went into another…

Then he would still be there. Waiting for me to return from the memory and ready to inflict new psychological tortures upon me. But at least it would give me a moment of peace. I needed to get away.

I crawled over to the metal box and looked down at the memory orbs inside, staring intently at the swirling colours of the memories. I didn’t know what awaited me inside of them, but anything was better than this.

I had to get away.

I gave Inferno one last glare, before letting my horn’s amber glow envelope the first memory orb. As the world swirled away, I could hear Inferno chuckle. “Enjoy your trip. I’ll be waiting for you when you get back.”

I was sitting at the head of a table. Before me sat twelve other ponies, each one dressed in expensive and exquisite looking garb. Beside my host, I recognized the familiar white coat and golden mane of Prince Blueblood.

My host raised a golden hoof and coughed into it, drawing everyponies attention to me. “Unless there are any other last second guests that I am unaware of, I believe it is time for us to begin,” The voice was aged and nasally. I recognized it at once.

This was Pureblood's Memory.

One of the stallions in the back, a grey buck with a greying, combed back mane and large hat, thrust his muzzle into the air, glaring down at Pureblood from across the room. “Yeeesss, and why did you gather us? It has been such a long time since the council has had much of any affiliation with each other since the Ministries were founded,” The ponies voice oozed with honey and was so posh and uptight it was almost comical.

Blueblood gave a low snort and flicked his mane. “You will be silent and listen to my father,” Blueblood snapped, his own voice just as posh, if not more so than the stallion that had spoken before him.

The grey stallion gave a snort of disdain. “Well I nev-”

Pureblood raised a hoof, silencing everypony. “Please. You all hurt my ears,” Pureblood groaned, once more resting his hoof on the table. “We need to discuss the relocation of our funds.”

The grey buck raised an eyebrow at that. “What is there to discuss? Our funds are split between the ministries and keeping the peasant ponies alive and working. I see no need for us to-”

“Silence,” Pureblood hissed, cutting the stallion off once again. “It has come to my attention that the Ministry of Arcane Science is in need of more bits. I suggest that we refocus a majority of our funding towards their hub out in Manehattan,” he tapped his hoof on the table, making a butler pony dressed in a black suit come trotting expediently over with a stack of papers. Purebloods horn shimmered and he floated the pages out towards each of the ponies around the table. “The paperwork has already been completed. We simply need you to sign.”

Most of the ponies around the table quickly placed their right hoof on an ink pad before placing their hoof on the topmost page, leaving a dark black hoof print. Not a single pony did little more than scan the first line before stamping their approval, most just rolled their eyes in boredom.

“Wonderful,” Pureblood wheezed, his magic sweeping up the pages and returning them to him. “Now that that is out of the way, we can dism-”

“I do say, these refocused funds are rather irregular. Are you certain this is the best course of action?” a bold, posh sounding voice declared from somewhere to the right. Pureblood looked over, making out the white stallion with a blue mane and mustache that was still clutching his copy of the document and was currently reading over its contents. I was surprised to spot a non ghoulified Fleur De Lis posing beside him.

Pureblood groaned. “Ah yes, Fancy Pants. I had forgotten how thorough you can be sometimes,” the elderly Canterlot Elite grumbled with an annoyed sigh. “I can assure you that everything has been thought through thoroughly and is in all of our best interests.”

The stallion I now knew as Fancy Pants adjusted the monocle over his eye and read another line of the document. “Well yes, I’m sure it is in all of our best interests, but I can’t help but wonder about the interests of the ponies down in Ponyville and Appleoosa,” Fancy Pants said, his eyes never looking up from the page. His hoof reached out and tapped a line on the document. “It said here you intend to cut a lot of the funding from the Ministry of Peace and almost all of your funding from municipal issues outside of Canterlot,” He finally looked up from the page, fixing Pureblood with a stern glare. "I'm afraid that this does not sound like it is in their best interest at all."

The rest of the Canterlot nobles around the table all cast each other glances, but none of them seemed overly worried with Fancy Pants’ claims. I doubted any of them actually cared.

“The Ministry of peace of little consequence in the war effort. Soldiers are sent out to die. A ministry dedicated to keeping them alive is a wait of time and resources,” Pureblood explained, his voice dropping to a sinister sounding purr. “My associate Silver Ace seems to have a lot of interest in them, though I believe that his efforts would be much better used elsewhere.”

Fancy Pants raised an eyebrow. “And the ponies in Ponyville and Appleoosa?”

Pureblood scoffed. “Who cares if a few peasants have to work a little harder. Work will do them good. Besides, The Ministry of Wartime Technology will be ample support for local businesses out in those backwater hovels.”

Fancy Pants let his eyebrow drop as he fixed Pureblood with another glare. “That is what I thought,” He released his grip on the document and let Purebloods magic return the piece of paper to the stack before him unsigned. “I am afraid I must refuse to sign. I feel our funds are currently being directed properly and have no need to be reassigned to the Manehattan MAS hub.”

The ponies around the room broke out into outroar. Clearly somepony defying Pureblood was unheard of. Purebloods scowl cut through the room's hubbub like a knife. “You would dare defy the council?”

Fancy Pants put his muzzle in the air with a huf and straightened his purple bowtie with his magic. Fleur struck another seductive pose beside him. “I am not defying anypony. The point of the counsel is to discuss and refine the economic systems and happenings in Equestria. Not a gathering of ponies to work as mob mentality for your dystopian ideals.”

More outrage. A few ponies stared at Fancy Pants in shock, their mouths agape in a mix of horror and astonishment while others began shouting louder and louder. Even Fleur De Lis stopped her posing to give Fancy Pants a shocked stare.

“How dare you!” Blueblood was shrieking, stomping his hooves on the table like a toddler having a tantrum. “We are the heads of Canterlot High Council! And we shall be addressed as such!”

Purebloods horn flared and the unsigned document floated back across the table to lay before Fancy Pants. His mouth twisted into a snarl as he stared down the white and blue stallion. “I highly recommend that you sign. I’d hate for you to lose your position on the counsel.”

Fancy Pants eyed the document for a second more, thinking over Purebloods words before looking back up at the gathering of ponies around him. “Well perhaps we can talk more about this, no? That is the point of the council, is it not?”

Pureblood gave a low growl, before straightening himself out and giving Fancy pants a glassy smile. “Of course… What are your suggestions on the matter?”

“Well, I’d recommend less of a cut from the municipal fundings for one,” Fancy Pants started, once more adjusting his monocle. “Such a drop in bits would be devastating to their communities. Perhaps we can make this a temporary direction shift in funding for, say… a month. That should be plenty of time for the MAS to complete whatever it is they need, no? Then we can return to the proper funding arrangements.”

I felt Purebloods lip twitch, but otherwise his face remained stoic. “Your option is… understandable… Though I find your interest in continuing our support of the lower class ponies to be… rather unsettling,” He coughed into his hoof. “I agree to your terms… until a later date when we can switch to my initial plan, that is… All in agreement?”

Twelve hooves rose.

Fancy Pants clapped his hooves together. “Splendid. Now I believe that you were about to call this meeting to a close?”

Pureblood gave the stallion a death glare. “Yes… you're all dismissed,” He grumbled, his hatred for Fancy Pants evident in his voice. Fancy Pants gave a respectful nod before trotting out the door, Fleur De Lis quickly following behind him. Scowling, Pureblood leaned close to Blueblood so that nopony else but them could hear what he was saying. “I want him off the council. Do you understand me?” his voice came out in a low hiss, reminiscent of a snake.

Bluebloods eyes widened. “But father. Fancy Pants is one of the most respected ponies in all of Canterlot,” His eyes darted around the room, making sure no pony else could hear them. “We can’t just kick him out. Ponies will talk.”

Pureblood scowled. “I don’t care what you need to do. I need him out!”

Blueblood nodded. “I-I’ll see what I can do.”

Then the world was swirling away again, taking me back to the horrors of the wasteland.

“Back so soon?” Inferno whispered in my ear as I returned to my own body. I pushed myself away from him, my mind still in somewhat of a daze from the memory orb. “You can't escape me. You can't hide in orbs forever…”

I scowled at him. “Watch me.”

Inferno put a hoof to his chest in mock offense. “You wouldn’t want to miss what I have planned for you though? Now would you?” His smile twisted wickedly. “Don’t you want to see your friends?”

Nope. No. If there was anything I didn’t want to see, it was what Inferno might do to my friends.

I turned back to the box of orbs, determined to escape him. I felt fear eating away at the back of my mind. I couldn’t keep doing this. Eventually I’d run out of memory orbs to view. How many times could I watch orbs over again before I started to go crazy? And what do I do once I leave the cell? I doubted that Fleur and the Director intended to keep me in here forever. Eventually I’d get out. Be it release or escape. What then?

“Come on. Look at them,” Inferno giggled, waving a metal hoof before my face. Curiosity peaked. Against my better judgement, I turned around to look at the horrors Inferno had created for me.

Brisk was in the centre of the room, his body suspended by rusting, bloody meat hooks. He thrashed about, trying to break free, but each and every thrash only made the rusted hooks dig deeper, causing more blood to drain from his body. His remaining eye had been gouged out, blood and yellow fluid drizzling down his face. He turned to face me, his mouth opening and closing in a silent and desperate plea for help.

Below him lay Mirra, her hooves broken and twisted at awkward angles. Her delicate wings had been snagged in a net of barbwire, the thin membrane being twisted and ripped as she tried to pull herself free. She screamed out, tears streaming down her face as the filly was wracked with agonizing pains.

Across the room, Pyre tried to crawl to her, to help the filly that she had come to care for, her body bruised, burned and broken. Her lower half had been violently torn off, her back half trailing blood and entrails as she agonizingly pulled herself across the metal floor. She would get an inch away from Mirra before an invisible force would drag her away, forcing her to once more fight through her pain as she fought to comfort the dying filly.

“Want to see Xayah? I have something special for her,” Inferno hissed, leered down at me as I forced myself to look away.

It’s not real. That will never happen to them. I told myself, reaching out and picking up another orb.

“Oh, very well,” Inferno sighed, his voice filled with sick amusement. “I can show you Xayah when you're done with that one. We have the rest of your life together after all.”

I wrapped my magic around the orb and let the world swirl into oblivion.

I was in a large, lavish looking room.

Or… wait… not in. I saw floating in a large, lavish looking room, s if my body was nothing more than air. The edges of my vision blurred and swirled in strange pulsing patterns, as if I was looking at an image at the end of a reflective tunnel, or trying to stay connected with a rapidly fading dream.

Fancy Pants sat behind an ornate desk in the centre of the room, sipping what I could only assume was some kind of wine. Having not had wine myself, I had no way to comprehend how it might have tasted, but he seemed to be enjoying it.

He straightened his bowtie and looked up at a large grandstallion clock that rested against the far wall. He let out a deep sigh and slumped in his chair slightly. It was strange to see such a posh looking pony, sitting in such a casual and almost lazy looking manner.

There was a knock at the door, and his casual demeanour instantly disappeared, replaced by his initial uptight appearance.

“I say, do come in,” Fancy Pants called out, taking yet another sip from his wine.

The doors to the room burst open and Fleur De Lis burst in, a worried expression on her face. “Fancy! Are you crazy!” she demanded, thrusting her fore hooves into the air dramatically. “Pureblood is going to kill you!”

Fancy Pants sighed again and pulled himself out of his chair. “Pureblood is not going to kill me. Don't go worrying about me my dear. I know what I am doing,” he straightened up and gave the slightest of cocky expressions. “I’m not the most respected pony in all of Canterlot for no reason after all.”

Fleur gave him a sceptical look. “Of course… but… Pureblood has a lot of bits. He’ll find a way to get you off the council.”

Fancy Pants smile dwindled, but didn’t diminish. “Of that I am certain. However, I simply will not stand by while that brute robs earth ponies of their tax money,” He looked away for a second at what appeared to be a painting of an older looking unicorn with a very similar blue moustache. His father Perhaps? “It is almost inevitable that I will be removed from the council one day my dear, but until then I will do my best to make sure that the Canterlot Council remains as loyal and just as it can to its causes.”

There was a moment of silence between the two of them as Fancy Pants let the words sink in and Fleur mulled them around in her head. Finally, Fleur looked back up at him. “I just don’t want you to get hurt. I’ve seen Pureblood ruin ponies.”

It was strange, seeing Fleur De Lis before the bombs. Before she was ruined and tainted by two hundred years of radiation and wasteland horrors. She almost seemed like she might have been a good pony. I still hated her, but I doubted that when the time came for me to finally put a bullet in her head, that I would have a very easy time pulling the trigger.

Once you know a ponies name, killing them becomes a lot harder. Pyre had told me that once, a long time ago when I was still full of hope. I was only just beginning to realize how right she was.

A small chuckle escaped Fancy Pants’ lips, drawing my attention back to the scene before me. It was not a happy chuckle. “Civilization needs balance. Pureblood doesn’t understand that. There must be aristocracy, and there must be ponies that plow the fields. Without governance there is no structure and ponies break into anarchy, but if governance turns to tyranny, society becomes stagnant, selfish and rampant with a never ending struggle for power. The elite must have power, but that power should never be used for the benefit of ourselves. Pureblood wishes to undo that balance. Beneficial for him and those in his circle of aristocracy, catastrophic for those he considered below him,” his face fell. “Perhaps the war would not be as bad if ponies understood that better.”

Fleur gave a weary nod, though his words seemed to mollify her somewhat. She cast a nervous glance at the door. “But do you need to attend his party? You know he will do something to try and discredit and ruin you.”

Fancy Pants’ smile returned. “I must say that that would be most disagreeable of him. However, I would love to see him try,” He levitated a tophat onto his head with his magic and trotted out the door. “Now come along my dear. We must not leave him waiting…”

As the two moved out the door, the world began to swirl away. For a moment I thought that the memory was ending, but that wasn’t quite right. Something felt off, as if what I was viewing was still a part of the memory.

Suddenly, my vision was flashing across Canterlot, zooming between ponies dancing in an elegant hall and into a window that seemed to be located atop the highest tower in Canterlot. The haze around the edges of my vision faded and I found myself staring at the reflection of Pureblood, a magical glow around his horn slowly fading away into oblivion.

Pureblood sighed and pulled himself away from the window overlooking the city and turned to face a large, elegant mirror that was set into the wall beside him, giving me a clearer look at his person. He looked exhausted. Dark bags had formed under his eyes and his usually styled mane was more bedraggled than usual.

He sighed again and slowly slipped into his normal navy blue, gold buttoned suit. “I bet you would love to see me try, wouldn’t you…” Pureblood scowled, brushing back his mane with his magic to try and straighten it out. “You’ll see what happens when you cross me, Fancy Pants. You’ll see…”

The door on the far side of the room creaked open slightly and a grey pony in a dark suit stepped in, giving Pureblood a little bow. “Sir. Your son and nephew are awaiting you in the ballroom.”

Pureblood gave the butler an annoyed look. “Tell them I’ll be there in a moment,” He grumbled, lifting a glass of wine off the table with his magic and giving it a small swirl before sipping from it. “You’re dismissed.”

The butler gave a small cough. “Well… um… there is one more pony that is here to see you right now sir.”

Pureblood scowled. “I told you earlier that I wanted no pony coming up here until after the gala!”

The pony winced under Purebloods intense glare. His eyes darted around as he looked for an excuse. “I… I know sir, but I’m afraid that they insisted.”

Another scowl like sigh escaped Purebloods mouth. “Very well. Send them in…”

The butler nodded and stepped back out, looking grateful to finally be away from Pureblood angry glare. A few moments later, the door swung open fully as Silver Ace trotted into the room, his strange magical talisman glowing from its spot around his neck as he levitated an old looking book in front of his face. Pureblood straightened immediately at the sight of the old, silver stallion.

“Silver Ace. For what do I owe the honour of this visit,” Pureblood asked, one eyebrow arching as he watched the stallion trot into the room. When he did not get a response, Pureblood cleared his throat and tried again. “Silver Ace! What do you want?”

Silver Ace looked up from his book with a little bit of surprise, as if he had not noticed he had walked into the room yet. “Wah… oh, yes. I needed to talk to you about the Utopia program.”

Pureblood winced and glanced around. “Keep your voice down,” The Canterlot elite hissed. “You don’t know who might be listening in.”

Silver Ace cracked a smile as his magic talisman floated his book back into his saddlebag. “Don’t worry, I’ve already cast a soundproofing spell on the room and scanned for any surveillance systems. We’re alone.”

Purebloods shoulders relaxed slightly and he took a breath. “Fine. What do you wish to converse on?”

Silver Ace’s eyes narrowed. “We're having a little bit of issues with Scootaloo. I think she’s starting to have second thoughts.”

“Those other two fools at Stable-Tec probably convinced her out of it,” Pureblood growled. “They always were opposed to this project.”

Silver Ace shook his head. “Chrysalis’ attempt to take over the Crusader Maneframe and Utopia program has been causing ponies to have quite a few revelations as of late. Scootaloo among them,” he tapped his hoof on his talisman. A second later a beam of light shot out of the talisman, the light forming a map of Manehattan in the air between the two ponies. I noticed a few areas on the map that were marked with what appeared to be the location of Stables. “Knowing Scootaloo, if she backs out, she will likely hide the A.A.S.S. inside one of the Stables. We need to figure out which one that is and prepare for it.”

“We could always take Scootaloo out of the picture,” Pureblood suggested flatly. “We don’t need her anymore.”

Silver Ace looked appalled at the idea. “No no. That won’t be necessary, I assure you. We just need to find the Stable and make sure that it is all connected to our programs in the Institute so that we can teleport in when the time is right to retrieve it.”

Pureblood nodded. “My nephew is downstairs. He has been itching to get a place as one of the Overstallions for one of these Stables. I’m sure he will be interested in the proposition.”

Silver Ace nodded. “I’ll get to work figuring out what the most likely Stable is. We can talk about it after the party. I’m sure you’re busy at the moment.”

“Ah yes, the Gala. You are attending, yes?” Pureblood asked, using his magic to tie up a bowtie around his neck.

Silver Ace shook his head. “The Grand Galloping Gala? No. Never was one for parties. That and Pinkie Pie would probably start going off about how I'm a 'big baddie'. I'll never understand why she hates me so much...” His magic talisman glowed again and his book floated back out into the air. “Besides, I’d love to finish this read. It really is a fascinating one..."

Pureblood rolled his eyes. “I’ll never see what you find so interesting in those musty things,” He turned and trotted towards the door. “If you change your mind, I’ll be downstairs. Though perhaps it would be best if ponies don’t see us talking.”

With that, Pureblood left the room, letting his butler outside lead him down a flight of stairs to what sounded like a very loud and rambunctious party. After a few steps, two royal guards quickly moved in to flank Pureblood on both sides.

As Pureblood reached the bottom step, the room opened up into a gigantic ballroom. The party was already in full swing. He clearly had missed the first two or so minutes. On the far side of the room I could see Pinkie sitting in a large chair while she glared at the partiers, ominously stroking what looked to be an adolescent alligator devilishly. Pureblood grumbled something under his breath as he trotted into the large ballroom that I could hardly hear, even while listening through his ears. Something about how Pinkie was ruining the gala or something like that.

“Father,” A familiar, snobby voice spoke up. Pureblood turned and I saw Blueblood and another, almost identical stallion, only with a red mane instead of gold trotting up. “I am glad you were able to-”

“Quit with the pleasantries,” Pureblood scowled at Blueblood, giving his son a deep frown. “Has what we arranged been put together?”

Blueblood fidgeted for a second under his father's intense glare. “It, um… It has, of course. They are waiting for you on the balcony. But are you sure this is a good idea? It won’t go unnoticed.”

“I’ll decide what is and is not a good idea Blueblood,” Pureblood snapped, turning to face the red maned stallion beside him. “And nephew. Trueblood. I have a proposition for you after I have dealt with some… business. Meet me by the Discord statue in four hours.”

So this was Trueblood. The first overstallion of Stable 25. My Great, great something or rather grandfather. Still wasn’t quite sure how I should feel about that.

Trueblood opened his mouth to say something in response, but Pureblood never gave him time as he pushed past the two and started making his way to a staircase on the other side of the room. He spent a few moments lingering around the room before finally ducking up the stairs and out of sight of the partying ponies.

He quickly trotted up the stairs, head held high and giving the few ponies that past him disdainful glances. After a few moments of walking there wasn’t a single pony in sight. He made his way up a few more flights before trotting through a door that led onto a large balcony that overlooked the vast land of Equestria that lay below the mountain Canterlot rested atop. I was surprised that I could see all the way to Manehattan from this height, though it was little more than a small, glowing dot on the horizon.

“Are you ready?” Pureblood whispered to seemingly no pony in particular. There was a small shimmer in the air in front of him, giving me a quick flash of what appeared to be two ponies hidden under stealth cloaks. A sickening grin spread across Pureblood's features.

A few moments later, the doors to the balcony opened up again and I heard the sounds of hoofsteps as somepony walked out to join Pureblood on the roof. Pureblood didn’t turn to look at them, but the ponies' voice gave away their identity in an instant.

“Blueblood told me you wanted to talk with me?” The very distinct voice of Fancy Pants spoke up. “I suppose this is about our disagreement on the council?”

Pureblood’s grin turned into a grimace. “I am giving you one chance to change your attitude and sign the contract,” he said flatly, turning to face Fancy Pants.

Fancy Pants shook his head. “I’m afraid that is not going to happen. I find the details of your plans to be, frankly speaking, simply appalling. Though I’m sure we can talk over the details like civilized ponies, no?”

I could feel Purebloods face twitch in agitation. “I’m afraid I don’t have the patience for such action.”

The air on either side of Fancy Pants shimmered as the stealth bucks deactivated. Standing on either side of Fancy Pants was not two ponies as I had predicted, but two dark insectoid looking creatures with glassy wings and curved fangs.

Changelings.

Fancy Pants jumped back, surprised by their sudden intuition. “What in the…” He was pulled up short as the two changelings wrapped him in their magic and began dragging him towards the edge of the balcony. “Pureblood! What is the meaning of this!”

Pureblood took a step back, making way for the changelings as they pulled Fancy Pants closer and closer to the edge. Fancy Pants struggled, trying to break free of the magical grip, but to no avail. The changeling's magic was too strong.

Fancy Pant’s back hooves swung out over the edge of the balcony. The changeling's magic released and dropped him, sending him flying off over the edge. Fancy Pants reached out, grabbing onto the balconies rail to keep from falling hundreds of miles to the ground below.

“Pureblood! What are you doing! This is madness!” Fancy yelled out, his voice rising with panic. “You can’t do this! Ponies will notice I’m missing!”

There was a flash of light as one of the changelings morphed into a perfect doppelgänger of Fancy Pants. I could see Fancy Pants’ eyes go wide as he stared in horror at the disguised changeling.

Pureblood leaned in, his wrinkled muzzle only inches from Fancy Pants’ own. “On the contrary. No pony will suspect a thing. I won’t let you interfere with my plans of Utopia any longer.”

The blaring sound and frenzy like energy of the Grand Galloping Gala filled the night, obscuring the lone scream as a pony fell from one of the highest towers in Canterlot. A few moments later, Fancy Pants and Pureblood walked into the dance floor, shaking hooves and laughing as they finally came to an agreement on how the kingdom should be run.

I reached for the next memory orb the moment my eyes opened. So long as I stayed out of my own body, Inferno couldn’t hurt me.

“Do you think that I’ll get control of your body once you die?” Inferno’s voice hissed in my ear, the question drawing me up short. “That my mind will take over and once again I will walk the wastes?”

I glanced over at the far wall. My reflection in the dirty metal wall had become that of Inferno’s. “What do you-”

“Once your body loses its mind. When you become little more than a lifeless corpse. Will my mind take the reins?” Inferno pushed, his eyes boring into me.

“What about Crank,” I said back, a small chill passing through me as I remembered Inferno's fight with the cyber alicorn within my mind. “Why wouldn’t he take over?”

Inferno’s face twisted into a sneer. “Oh, the all mighty cyber alicorn won’t be much of a concern for me anymore. I have him locked up nice and tight in here. Sooner or later I’ll figure out a way to kill him off for good.”

I picked up the final memory orb in the box and looked down at it. Once this one was viewed, I’d have nothing left to hide away from Inferno’s torment in. I glanced back over at the reflection of Inferno in the glass. “Why do you want to torture me so much. I’ve seen into your mind. You aren’t a monster… at least… you didn’t used to be...”

Inferno glared daggers at me. “Not a monster?” Inferno almost looked surprised at my sentiment for a moment. His surprise was quickly washed away by rage. “You killed me! That's why I want this! And I’m going to make you hurt like you hurt me!”

“You killed yourself!” I snapped back at him, my brow furrowing. I stomped my hoof, my whole body shaking with anger and resentment for his denial. “You saw what you had become and killed your own damn self! Because you couldn’t face it! You couldn’t face what you had become. What you had to atone for!” I felt my voice rising higher and higher. “You failed to face your music. You were the pony that failed! The pony that lost to the wasteland! Your death is on you!”

Inferno’s face was suddenly very close to mine, his jagged maw oozing black sludge around my hooves. To my discomfort, I could feel his hot, ragged breath rasping across my face. “Liesss…” He hissed, his voice echoing distantly in the back of my mind. “You will feel the pain I felt before the end, Amber Aura. I’m going to bring you hell like the hell that was brought upon me. And when you die. When you can no longer bear the torment that I will bring down on you and blow your own brains out, I’m going to take your body and bring the very same torment upon those that you care about. I’m going to break each one of your friends over and over again with your body while they beg for forgiveness. I’ve been in your mind. I saw what happened to that zebra bitch in New Appleoosa. How do you think she’ll feel when you do that to her? I’ll make sure she begs for death before the end!”

I had had enough of this. I turned away from him and focused back on the memory orb in my hoof. The last memory orb. I let my magic wrap around it and sent my world swirling away.

This orb was different.

It was dark and cold. I tried to make sense of my surroundings, but all I could see was blackness. I wanted to move, but I was broken and immobile. Even the air seemed to be gone, like I was holding my breath and was refusing to release. Somewhere in the back of my brain was the never ending clicking of machinery.

I didn’t even feel like I was in a body anymore. Just a consciousness in a cold hunk of metal that was forever doomed to endure within infinity.

I waited in that darkness, waiting for something to happen. It never did. I was simply stuck in the blackness, waiting for some sort of release that would never come.

I suddenly wanted to be out of this memory orb. I wanted to be anywhere but here. Even back with Inferno would be better than this endless nothing that surrounded me. How long was I here? A few moments? A day? A year? I couldn’t tell. I couldn’t tell anything anymore.

And all the while, I felt rage. Hatred, anger and pain were flowing through me like my lifeblood. I could feel my host's thoughts. Not in specific sentences or any sort of coherent form, but in strange, mangled feelings. Like the feeling of being cold by looking at pictures of ice, or feeling imaginary pains at others expense.

“How dare they!” The thoughts seemed to scream. “Don’t they know who I am! Don’t they know what I’ve done!”

More thoughts were screamed out at the darkness, but I tried my best to ignore them and shut them out. Those feelings were unbearable. So angry and alien to the thoughts and feelings any normal pony should have.

I wanted something to happen. A sudden flash of light in the darkness. A sound, a smell. Even to have the darkness close in more would have been a relief. At least then something would have happened opposed to this eternal stagnant nothingness.

It continued. The nothingness. I grew restless, tired, bored. Nothing changed. I tried to call out to the nothingness myself, to join in with the choir of rage that emoted from my host. But I was more stuck than they were. Limited only to the actions of one who could not move or breath.

The darkness endured.

And then it ended.

My world was filled with light. The darkness was swept away and I was left nearly blinded as the dim lights of what appeared to be a holding cell in a Stable flooded my vision.

My host looked around, suddenly able to move for the first time in over two hundred years. The movement was not met with the relief that they had hoped. It was stiff and robotic.

My host turned and focused on the pony that stood before them, peering down at them with what appeared to be mechanical eyes.

Well hello there…

The colt that stood before my host was a young earth pony with a red coat and dark black mane. He was dressed in a blue stable suit and had a pipbuck around his hoof. I wasn’t able to make out what his cutie mark was through my hazy and static filled vision.

What caught my attention the most though, was the colt's wide, wonder filled eyes. They were blue, or rather, one of them was. The other was mechanical and glowed an ominous red.

“You used to be a unicorn, right?” The young Red Eye asked, looking up at my host with wonder. There was a strange, calculating intelligence behind those eyes that no normal foal his age should have possessed. It reminded me of Littlepip in a way, when I had talked to her all those days ago. “Can you tell me about them?”

“What do you wish to know?” My host said, their voice nasally and filled with a metallic sound. The voice of the Director, I quickly noted.

The young Red Eye smiled. “Everything…”

I came out of the memory orb and pushed it away from me. The orb rolled across the floor and clanked against the far wall before coming to a stop. I never wanted to experience that again.

“Welcome back,” Inferno rasped, looking down at me. “There is nowhere left for you to run.”

I pushed myself away from him and looked over at the box of memory orbs. I could keep watching the first orb over and over again to stay away from Inferno. But how long could I endure watching the same memory over and over again before I cracked? How long before I needed to sleep? Needed to eat?

I returned my gaze to Inferno and pulled myself to my hooves. He gave me a vile smile in return.

“Done running?” He asked, his jagged maw twisting into an even larger grin.

I took a deep breath. “I guess so…” I took a step towards him. “Do your worst. I won’t let you get to me any longer!”

The door to my cell slid open. Both Inferno and I turned to look at the pony that had walked in. “The Director will see you now,” Fluer said from the doorway, looking past Inferno and at me. Clearly she couldn’t see the cyber pony standing in the room. Without another word, she turned and trotted out of the room again, beckoning for me to follow.

I saw Inferno sneer. “Well well. Go on. I’m fascinated as to what is going to happen to you…” I gave him a worried look that only seemed to make him more excited. “You told me to do my worst. Well nothing I can do can compare to whatever the Director has planned, I assure you. Go on now. I’ll be watching.”

I turned back to the door and gulped before stepping out after Fleur, the image of Inferno slowly fading away in my mind. The Canterlot ghoul awaited me outside, flanked by four griffon talon mercs. “Follow,” Was all she said before she turned and began trotting down the hallway.

I picked up my speed to keep pace with her. I looked over at the old ghoul, remembering what I had seen of her in those memory orbs. After a few moments of awkward staring, I voiced my thoughts. “Why are you doing this?”

Fleur cast me a sideways, yet curious glance. “Doesn’t matter. I do what I think is right for the wasteland. We all do.”

I shook my head. Ponies doing what they think is right for the wasteland don't kill hundreds of ponies and foals. “I think there’s more to it than that. I saw you in some of those memory orbs. I think there's more to you than you're tell me.”

“And what, pray tell, do you think there is to me?” Fleur asked sceptically, though there was a hint of genuine interest in her voice.

I bit my lip as I tried to think of an answer to that. What was I thinking? She had been in the memory orbs, but not all that much, and I don’t think they really taught me much outside of what she looked like before she became a ghoul. After a few seconds of thought, a name came to mind. “Fancy Pants.”

Fleur came to an abrupt stop and looked over at me, her expression distant. “I suppose you learned that name from the orbs?” I gave a small nod in response. Fleur sighed. “It has been a long time since I have heard that name out loud. It is good to hear again,” She once more began walking forwards.

“What were you two? Lovers?” I asked, trying my best to keep pace with her.

The ghoul gave a raspy chuckle. “No, never. Though I always wished we could have been,” She took a deep breath that sounded more akin to a wheeze. “The last thing he told me before he died was that for Equestria to prosper, there must be a balance between the lower classes and aristocracy of Equestria. I’m going to make sure that that balance is maintained.”

I felt my eyebrows knit together. “By what? Re-establishing the upper class?” The idea seemed almost ludicrous in the wasteland, but it fit Fleurs MO.

Fleur nodded. “Since the bombs, savages have taken control of Equestria. Our once great cities have been thrown into anarchy and violence. Just as Fancy always predicted would happen were the higher class ever to be removed from the balance. You cannot imagine how it feels to see the cities that were once gleaming beacons of hope and pony ingenuity in your youth reduced to little more than buckets of rust and homes for perverse raiders and slavers.”

“But what about the ponies of Tenpony tower? They’re kind of like an upper class, right?” I asked, recalling the snooty ponies that had inhabited the tower during my visit.

Fleur simply snorted. “Those ponies pretend to be like the high society of old, but they are simply pretenders. High society in Canterlot was not about fancy clothes and expensive tastes. It was about governance and maintaining order in the land. Many of the aristocracy forgot this fact. Fancy never did. He paid for that dearly…”

It almost sounded like she would fit right in with the True Steels. Though I doubted that was the kind of society she was looking for.

“And you think this Director will help you achieve that?” I asked, looking forwards as we began to near a doorway at the end of the metal hallway.

“Of course,” Fleur said simply, pulling up next to the doorway. “Re-establishing the ways of old is what he is after as well of course. Him and Red Eye.”

So that was where this alliance with the Director and Red Eye came from. They were both after rebuilding the world from the ashes. A new world built upon the backs of slaves and the ingenuity of the Institute.

The door slid open, revealing nothing but darkness beyond. “He is waiting for you inside,” Fleur said, gesturing for me to enter through the door. “Go on. It is best to not leave him waiting.”

I took a deep breath and stepped into the darkness. A few seconds later, Fleur followed me in, the door sliding shut behind us and throwing us into pure darkness.

It was dark, and as such was hard to make out anything beyond the gripping blackness, but I could tell I had seen this place before. Not through my own eyes maybe, but through the gaze of another.

Through Inferno when I had watched him be transformed into a cyber pony. Through Crank when I watched him beg the Director for a few days to find Scarlet.

This was the Directors layer. The place he had always been from the day I stepped out of Stable 25. And now I was here.

I practically already knew my way around the place.

I moved across the dark room to the doorway that I knew would be waiting for me and stepped out onto the shadow shrouded platform in the vast room beyond. The platform felt cold under my hooves as I walked across it. I came to a stop and let my hoof trace the spot below me. Crank had stood here once, many years ago.

I looked up into the vast darkness above me, squinting as I tried to make out anything in the gloom. I could feel Fleur come to a stop a few paces behind me, her gaze too lifting up to the unseen ceiling.

“Amber Aura…” A nasally voice called down from above, strangely booming and powerful. Two lights burst to life from far above me, shining a bright spotlight down upon my form. The blazing lights looked to be the large eyes of a giant beast, glaring down at me through the darkness. “You have no idea how long I have waited to meet you in the flesh.”

“I’m taking it you’re the Director,” I said flatly, refusing to look impressed by his impressive light show. I thought for a second, trying to put a name to the title. I had been trying to figure out who the mysterious Director was for a long while now. Fleur's involvement had given me a sinking suspicion, but it hadn’t been until I viewed those memory orbs that I was made certain. “...Or should I just call you Pureblood?”

The darkness was blasted away as the large rooms lights flickered on. I was in a large metal chamber, the tall, circular walls lined with rows upon rows of terminals and other devices that were beyond even my comprehension. The platform I was standing on had a small staircase that led down to the main section of the room and hundreds of robotic, clawed appendages hung from the ceiling.

Far above me floated some sort of machine that was levitating with some kind of propulsion system. It consisted of three blue tinted screens, two of which displaying the images of a ponies eye, wide and bloodshot, clearly the source of the lights that had been shining down on me. The third screen, which hadn’t flickered on until the rest of the lights, showed a ponies mouth, cracked and wrinkled with age. The three screens branched off of a large metal, gold painted chassis that was topped with a large, hardened glass dome that held what appeared to be a living pony brain. The brain jar was filled with some sort of bubbling, yellow tinted fluid, probably some sort of advanced bio med gel.

The brain bot floated down towards me, eyeing me with its large monitors. “Yesss. It has been a long time since any pony has referred to me by my real name,” Pureblood pulled away again, hovering a few feet in front of me. “You have been quite the pain in my rump, Amber Aura. But you have been interesting to watch, I must confess.”

“So you’re the Director of the Institute and the pony that sent those cyber ponies into Stable 25?” I said flatly. It was more of a statement than a question.

“It took you that long to realize?” Inferno rasped form beside me. I hadn’t seen him materialize. I didn’t care. I ignored him and kept my gaze focused on the large brain bot before me.

Pureblood’s metal form bobbed in the air, signifying a nod. “Indeed. Years were spent planning to procure the contents of Stable 25. I even had Silver Ace create a spell to ensure that my bloodline remained as Overstallions of that Stable through a hereditary cutie mark. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that a small maintenance mare… one of my very own descendants no less, had managed to thwart over two hundred years of planning and my constant attempts to retrieve the A.A.S.S,” Multiple of the hanging clawed appendages dropped from the ceiling at his words and snapped at me with their metal pinchers. I yelped and hopped back in surprise at the sudden assault, only to be pulled into the air as the claws grasped onto me and yanked me upwards. I struggled in the air, suspended by the metal claws. Purebloods brain bot once more drew closer, staring down at me with disdain. “But all of that is in the past now. You are here. With me. I have a great many plans for you.”

“Plans? What are you planning?! What is all of this about?!” I shouted, still struggling to free myself from the metal claws to no avail. “And what do you want with the Utopia Program?”

A terrible sounding laugh escaped Purebloods brain bot that sounded more like a bunch of rocks in a blender than an actual laugh. “What am I planning for the A.A.S.S. and the Utopia Program? What it was always intended to do. For you? Something very special.”

I kicked at one of the clawed appendages, but they just tightened their grip on me more. “The Utopia Program? What is it? It’s a memory orb, right? Memory magic? What do you want with it?”

Pureblood went silent at the question. Clearly I had asked something he was unsure if he should answer. A few seconds later, he floated away, the metal claws pulling me with him so that I could look at a large monitor screen against the far wall.

“You have been in the wasteland,” Pureblood scowled, a few images of the ruins of Manehattan flashed across the screen. “You have seen what pony and zebra kind has done to our once great land. They have turned it into a lawless cesspool. They have destroyed Equestria and now wear its corpse as a mask. But it wasn’t always like this.”

The images on the screen switched to older footage. Clearly pictures taken from before the war. One picture showed a small, quaint looking town. In the distance lay the beautiful city of Canterlot, sitting high atop its mountain.

“My Equestria was great. My Equestria was beautiful… Then the war came,” Pureblood continued, his screen eyes glaring at the pictures on the screen. “Princess Celestia stepped down from the throne and her sister took up the mantle. She created the ministries. She gave power to six ponies peasants that had no place in the world of politics and power!” Pureblood was seething, his voice coming out of the brain bot in angry growls. “I was the head of the Canterlot Elite! I should have been put in charge of Equestria! Not mocked with those ministry mare wannabe bitches!”

I winced as his voice rose to higher volumes. Clearly somepony was pissed off about Luna putting the elements of harmony in charge and not him.

“Okay…” I said slowly, still wishing the metal claws would put me down. “So what does that have to do with U-”

“Everything,” Pureblood scowled, once more turning to face me. I could see the eyes on the screen narrow at me. “My Equestria was taken away when Princess Celestia gave up the throne. I made plans to bring that Equestria back, only for it to be destroyed once more, this time in the form of balefire… Utopia is the Solution…”

I groaned. “Okay… so then tell me. What. Does. Utopia. Do!?”

Pureblood was once again silent for a moment. When he finally spoke, his voice was hushed. “Whatever I want.”

I blinked. Not what I had been expecting him to say.

“You have been following small traces of the Utopia Program all across the wasteland over the last month, no? Surely you have come to at least begin to grasp the extent of what memory magic is capable of?”

I was about to shake my head that I didn’t know, but stopped. I looked to my left where the visage of Inferno still stared up at me with a vile grin.

I did know how powerful memory magic could be when harnessed properly. “You can do anything that affects a ponies mind… on any scale…”

Purebloods brain bot gave a bob like nod in response. “Mass mind control, shared dreams, visions, flashes of the past,” Pureblood listed. “I can make anypony feel things they aren’t feeling. Remember things that never happened.”

“And which one of those things do you want?” I pushed, glaring up at him.

“All of them... and more,” Pureblood cooed smugly. “I wish to rebuild Equestria.... Imagine a world completely under my control, everypony working as a synchronized unit to rebuild the old world from the ashes. Red Eye understands that there is no other way for Equestria to return to the ways of old.”

“You’re going to use the Utopia program to enslave the entire world?” I uttered, my body going limp with disbelief. “That’s… That’s insane!”

Pureblood made an amused humming sound. “Insane? No. necessary.”

I bit back a growl. Then a thought crossed me. “Wait, isn’t this just like Unity? The thing with the freaky alicorns and goddess and shit?”

The image of Purebloods mouth grinned even wider. “In a way. But the Goddess is limited to her alicorns and does not possess the vision to rebuild Equestria that I possess. Besides, Red Eye will be dealing with the Goddess shortly. Soon we won’t need to worry about her. Think of it as taking out two birds with one stone,” He chucked at that, though I didn’t understand the joke. “Of course, it does not simply end with mind control,” Pureblood continued as his chuckle finally came to a stop. “For all of these things are not even Utopia’s main purpose.”

I flinched. There was more? Enslaving the entire population's minds wasn’t enough? “What else?” I asked, almost afraid of what the answer would be. “What is the Utopia Programs primary function?”

The image of Pureblood's mouth on the bottom most monitor twisted into a grin. “Even with everypony working together under my complete and total control, it will still take hundreds of years before Equestria is fully restored to its complete and former glory. I will need to have a place to stay in the meantime. And I will need servants to serve me.”

I felt my heartbeat quicken. “What are you talking about?”

“Utopia,” Pureblood replied simply. “Did you ever question why the program was called that? A true Utopia is impossible to achieve in the real world. A place where everything is completely perfect is impossible. It's an idea. An imagined place. The Utopia Program is the cure.”

My whole body was going cold as I listened to him speak. I didn’t think I liked where this was going.

“The Utopia Program is a collection of memory orbs,” Pureblood continued, the screen in front of us changing to show the massive glowing orb within the Crusader Maneframe in the Institute. “Specifically, a collection of six mares memories. The ministry mares, from before the war. Back when all Equestria had to deal with was dresses and tea parties. Housed within the Utopia Program is a massive world simulation capable of housing thousands of ponies' minds. A simulation of what Equestria should be. I would be a god within it, able to control the very world with Utopia. The weather, matter, time, ponies' very thoughts would be subject to my control. While ponies' bodies are forced to rebuild the world, their minds will exist to serve me within Utopia, as they should have done hundreds of years ago.

“Of course, none of that would be possible without the A.A.S.S. which you have done a wonderful job of keeping safe for me. Without it, the ponies within Utopia would slowly starve and fade away, stuck within an imaginary dream world. Our original test subjects on the project only managed to survive for four days within the program before succumbing to hunger. Eventually we had to rely on Gen 2 synths for testing, though that was…" Pureblood searched for the right words. "...less than effective as well.”

“That's madness!” I blurted as my mind finally caught up with the horrors of what Pureblood was saying.

A clawed appendage snapped out from above me and clamped tightly around my neck. I choked, my throat constricting under the mechanical grasp and preventing air from reaching my lungs. Purebloods eyes bore down on me with a seething anger. “You would best watch your tone around me peasant! Who do you think you are to speak to me in such a manner?! You are nothing compared to me! You should worship me as a god you ungrateful cunt!”

“I’m… Your… descendant…” I gasped out, the words sounding gross and heavy in my mouth.

Pureblood paused as he mauled that fact over in his mind. At last, the claw released my neck and allowed me to gasp for breath. “Fair enough. But even those of my pure and divine bloodline should know their place. I would have beaten Blueblood had he spoken to me in such a way,” He paused again and looked me over a little closer. “Of course, this does conveniently bring us to our next order of business…”

I gave him a crooked look, not knowing what he meant. Before he could elaborate further, Fleur De Lis spoke up. “Director, the Balefire bomb is about to go off,” she had been so quiet so far that I had forgotten Fleur was even in the room.

I felt my eyes go wide at that. Balefire bomb! What the hell was she talking about?!

Pureblood's mouth twisted into a sneer. “Wonderful. Pull up a visual.”

To my surprise, another brain bot floated it, this one not painted gold, but still its original silver in colour. It floated over to one of the many terminals and clicked a few buttons. A second later, the large screen Pureblood and I had been looking at changed to an aerial view of a large ministry building somewhere in the wasteland. It was hard to read, but I was just able to make out the words, ‘Maripony’ on the front of the structure.

“Behold,” Pureblood began, slowly turning to face the screen. “The death of the goddess and the Stable Dweller! The beginning of our great victory!” He turned to finally face the screen fully and froze. “What the fuck is- No! No no no no!”

I spotted what had put Pureblood into hysterics immediately. It wasn’t hard to spot as they weren’t exactly being subtle. The Maripony building was surrounded by hundreds of airships. I could see what appeared to be whole legions of pegasi flying around the building, each one armed with a suit of enclave power armour and plasma weapon. A massive ship was still slowly descending from the thick cloud layer above, so large that at first I had assumed it was a flying mountain surrounded by clouds.

Star Breeze had been right. The Enclave wasn’t just coming. The Enclave had already arrived. And they were a force to be reckoned with.

“What the hell is the Enclave doing out of the fucking sky!” Pureblood screamed, the pitch of his voice forcing me to cover my ears with my hooves. “When did this happen.”

“About half an hour ago,” The other brain bot replied. I locked up as I heard the brain bots voice. I knew that voice, but… no… it couldn’t be…

My thoughts were interrupted as the screen lit up with a near blinding flash of baleful green. I turned my gaze to the screen, staring in awe as the huge Maripony building went up in a massive mushroom cloud of green smoke and fire. The huge shockwave of kicked up ash and billowing green flame washed out across the landscape, tearing Enclave raptors straight down from the sky. The teams of flying pegasi spun around, desperately trying to fly away from the explosion, but they weren’t fast enough. They were consumed in the ever expanding green inferno, their bodies turned to ash and their armour rendered to slag. I could almost hear their screams through the screen.

And despite the terrible gravity of what I was seeing, I felt myself smile. “She took my advice and snuck a balefire bomb in…” I grinned with amazement, realizing exactly what I was watching. “Littlepip actually did it.”

Pureblood gave a low, metallic, gargle sounding growl. “It doesn't matter. We can deal with the Enclave. At least the Goddess and that stupid ‘Light Bringer’ are out of our way and the path is clear for Red Eyes ascension.”

My eyebrows shot up. Red Eyes ascension? The fuck was that supposed to mean? “How does Red Eye fit into all of this?” I asked, drawing Purebloods attention back to me. “All this scheming between you and Red Eye. How did that start? What does he have to do with Utopia?”

I remembered the last memory orb I had seen. Red Eye had been a Stable dweller, and his cathedral was built atop the remains of a long since destroyed Stable. A Stable built beneath a castle. Suddenly all the pieces started fitting together.

“We need to get to the castle, or this will have all been for nothing,” Silver Ace had told Pureblood on the day the bombs had fallen. The memory of that audio recording was still somewhat fresh in my mind, despite having listened to it quite a few days ago now.

Castles, Stables, the Institute. Everything had been connected from the beginning. I cast a glance back up at Pureblood. “You were a Stable Dweller. In Red Eyes Stable. The same Stable we’re in right now.”

The crazed look in Purebloods eyes faded and was replaced with a much colder, more calculating expression. “Silver Ace and I had planned well in advance for the end of the world. Utopia itself was intended to be a cure if the end we feared came to pass…” He paused, his voice hitching with rage. “But the bitch Scootaloo from Stable-Tec had other plans for us after she realized my real intentions for the program. She knew there were only two possible Stables I would flee to in the end. Stable 1 and Stable 101. Stable 1 was intended to never reopen. An eternal prison for me and the rest of the nobility she had grown to hate. Stable 101 was what she believed would be a little more ironic.”

“What happened in Stable 101?” I asked, trying to twist in the air to face Pureblood's brain bot more fully.

“Earth Pony supremacy,” Pureblood scowled. “Scootaloo arranged for the Stable to be filled with Earth pony bigots. I was already a dying pony when the bombs fell. When I realized it would be many years before I got the chance to reclaim Utopia, I decided to put my mind within this machine so that I would live forever and one day get to see the fruit of my labor. The ponies of Stable 101 instead shut me down, trapping my conscious mind within an immobile metal form for an eternity, locked away where I would never see the light of day…”

I guess that explained what he had been doing for the last two hundred years. Nothing, in the purest sense of the word.

“Until Red Eye came along that is,” I guess, recalling the memory of the young Red Eye waking up what I now assumed to be Pureblood from a two hundred year hell. No wonder Pureblood seemed a little unhinged. A fate like that would have driven anypony mad. “So what? You made a deal with Red Eye to get out of the Stable?”

“At first I thought I might be able to manipulate Red Eye into doing my will. I soon learned that that was far from necessary,” Pureblood grinned, bobbing up and down in the air in front of me. “Red Eye was a true visionary. Even as a child. He had plans far larger than even my own long before he found me in the depths of Stable 101. And his plan to wipe out his own Stable was simply inspiring! As you can imagine, he was beyond ecstatic to hear about the Utopia program and my plans for it.”

“So… wait… who works for who? And what the hell is Red Eyes ascension?” I continued to ask, still foggy on some of the details around what was going on.

Pureblood gave me a mirthless laugh. “I do not intend to rebuild Equestria into a shadow of its former self. The wastelands transformation will be total and complete. A new government and high society shall once more reign over the ponies of Equestria, and a great god will once again take their rightful place at the head of the matriarchy.”

I felt my jaw drop. “Wait… Red Eye is planning to become a god? As in like… Celestia and Luna style god?” If so, this rabbit hole of crazy went a whole lot deeper than I had realized.

“Of course,” Pureblood practically purred. “Why did you think it was so important that the Goddess was taken out of the picture? Now that they are gone, the path is clear for Red Eye to ascend into divinity and for me to finally create my Utopia!”

Something niggled at the back of my mind. “But you can’t yet. You would still need access to Crusader Maneframe inside of the Institute, right?” I glanced over at the second brain bot for confirmation but it continued to simply float there silently. I returned my gaze to Pureblood. “Glasswing would never allow that. You’d have to fight your way through the entire Institute to get there. I’ve been to the Institute. There’s no fighting an army of that caliber. Even with Red Eyes forces.”

Purebloods silence was deafening, but something in his expression told me he was well aware of this. “Perhaps you have forgotten who I am,” Pureblood soothed, his voice filled with a smug arrogance. “I am Pureblood, current director of the Institute. I have complete control over all of their systems, including their synths and ventilation systems.”

Ventilation systems? What did that have to do with anything?

“But the Institute can wait another day,” Pureblood continued. “There is something I need to do with you first.”

I blinked. “With… me?”

“Oh yes. You play a very important role in my plans for the great Utopia, Amber Aura,” The snobby brain bot declared, inching closer to me menacingly. “This metal form that I inhabit has served its purpose. But I crave to be flesh and blood once more. I crave for my blood to be pure and divine. You will be providing me with just that.”

I tried to squirm away, but the claws keeping me suspended in the air held me tight. “You… You want my body?!” I gasped, the idea too horrible to fully comprehend.

Pureblood cackled to himself. “Your body? No. Your body is tainted and impure, and while my genes do flow through your veins, you are too far removed from the purity of my bloodline. No, what I need is a surrogate.”

My heart skipped a beat. “You… you want me to carry your child?” The idea made me feel sick. Below me, I could see Inferno grinning gleefully at Pureblood's statement.

“My child? In a sense,” Pureblood scoffed. “What I want is for you to carry my future vessel. The Institute created the technology to clone changelings years ago. I could create a vessel easily with such technology, I might not even need a carrier, but I crave a more…” He made a tsking sound that sounded strange having come from a pony with no tongue. “...Pure form of reproduction. And who better to be my surrogate than a pony already of my bloodline.”

I could feel my body trembling as I took in his words. He wanted to impregnate me? The idea of having a fetus surgically implanted into me was a terrifying one. This couldn’t be happening. I must be trapped in some sort of nightmare. Inferno had been right. Pureblood was preparing to do things to me far worse than anything he could have thrown my way.

“I… Why me… why use my body as the surrogate?” I stuttered through trembling lips. “Why not somepony else? Clearly you waited for me specifically to do this? Why?”

“Why?" Pureblood scoffed at the question. "Because I wanted my future body to be divine of course. And not just any gene pool would do. No. I need to ensure that it all stays in the family… And you are a descendant of Trueblood, my nephew. You are the perfect candidate, you’ve been bred all your life for this exact purpose,” the claws suspending me in the air pulled me away from him and began to lower me onto a metal, medical bed. I struggled against them, but I was not nearly strong enough. Within moments, the claws had secured me to the bed. Pureblood turned his gaze to the second brain bot. “Bring Doc. Slaughter in would you.”

My eyes widened in horror as a new pony whirred into the room. The pony had long since become more machine than pony. His body had been replaced with a cybernetic chassis that moved on a set of treads and he was covered in an array of spider-like robotic appendages, holding numerous tools and dissection implements. Only his head remained flesh and blood, and that was covered in hundreds of criss-crossing scars.

“Ahhh… another pony for me to work on,” Doc Slaughter grinned, rolling over to me and looking down at my immobilized form. His smirk widened as one of his metal appendages carrying what looked to be a jagged buzzsaw swiveled up to hover over my eye. “I could make you so much better than you are…”

I twisted in my bonds, trying to pull myself away from the imposing blade. I could feel my pupils constricting in fear as I stared up at the looming monstrosity of metal and flesh above me. It didn’t matter how much I squirmed, the metal clamps around my hooves held me tight.

Pureblood floated down to look over Doc Slaughter's shoulder at me. “You are only to alter her as instructed,” The brain bot ordered, making Doc Slaughter give a frown of disappointment. “I want her body preserved.”

“W-wait!” I called out, my fear finally breaking just enough to let me make coherent words. “C-can we talk this over. Find another way to do this?” Goddesses, please don’t let them do this to me.

Purebloods mouth twisted into a vile smile. “I have waited too long for this. There is no other option. Not one that I will accept,” He returned his gaze to Doc Slaughter. “Cut her open and implant the fetus.”

Doc Slaughters smile would have been contagious had I not been strapped to a table and about to be cut me open. The cyborg looked down at me with excitement and raised a metal appendage bearing a needle on the end. “Say goodnight. We’ll see you after the surgery.”

Goodnight?

My eyes flicked over to where the hallucination of Inferno still stood. He was staring at me smuggly, his face filled with excitement. My eyes grew even wider as I realized what was about to happen

“NO! Stop! Do the surgery while I’m awake! Don’t put me under! No!” I screamed out, thrashing against my bonds. If I was put to sleep, I would be stuck within my mind with Inferno, and he could touch me in there. I don’t think I could handle that. I stared up at the cyborg pleadingly. “Please. Don’t put me under…”

Doc Slaughter paused and looked back up at Pureblood for confirmation. Pureblood only gave a roll of his eyes. “Do what you think is best,” Was all the brain bot had to say.

Doc Slaughters confusion turned to glee. “Ohhhh… I like this one,” The needle retracted and the saw blade once more swung out over my exposed stomach. “This is going to be very fun.”

The vision of Inferno glared down at me for a moment, his face still filled with smug animosity. “You cannot stay awake forever,” The cyber pony cackled as he slowly faded from my vision. “Sooner or later, you’ll be back with me. I look forward to breaking you…”

I shut my eyes as the saw blade began to whir to life. I could feel the air being ripped apart as it slowly began to lower.

“You must be curious about the fetus I intend to fill you with,” Pureblood said coldly, watching as the saw descended at a slow and steady rate. “It is going to be your burden after all.”

I scowled and forced back the urge to cry. “Fuck you,” I bit back.

Pureblood gave a coy smile. “The fetus will be the product of DNA taken from all across my bloodline, all the way up to Celestia herself,” That caught me off guard a little. I peeked an eye open to see Purebloods beaming expression. “As such, you shall be giving birth to a being that is first of its kind. An alicorn. Specifically engineered with Institute technology to be my perfect vessel. You should be honoured to receive such a treatment.”

Then the blade cut into me and nothing could hold back my screams.

I felt wrong and violated. My stomach bulged somewhat, though the alicorn fetus was not far enough along yet to be too apparent.

The surgery had gone on for hours. Hours of pain the likes of which I had never experienced before. I had watched as my front had been cut open and my womb surgically split by hundreds of prying claws. Dozens of surgical tubes had been pushed into my flesh and by the time Doc Slaughter had implanted the fetus within me, I was in so much pain that I hardly even felt it or cared.

Fleur had quickly carried me back to my cell as soon as Doc Slaughter had finished restitching my front. The ghouls whole body was trembling slightly and I could tell that what she had seen them do to me was even affecting her. How could it not? It was a violation like no other.

I had curled up in the corner of the cell the second the door closed and sobbed, my tears sticking to my sweaty coat as I rubbed my belly over and over again. I vomited too. I felt sick.

It wasn’t fair. None of this.

I had worked so damn fucking hard. I had tried to save ponies. Do the right thing. I didn’t deserve this torture. No pony did. Why did it have to be me?

I looked up and stared around the room. There was no escape. Pureblood had beaten me. I was at my lowest, my friends stripped away from me and thrown into slavery. I couldn’t even sleep. Inferno would just be waiting for me.

And so the waiting began. I simply lay against the cold floor, weeping as my mind filled with images of my own body getting sliced open again and again as tubes probed into my body.

“You look tired, Amber. Maybe you should take a rest,” Inferno’s voice suggested within my head. He had been nagging at me to sleep for hours. I shook my head, trying to push his voice out of my mind. I could already feel my eyelids drooping from the exertion of the surgery and the constant strain of trying to stay awake.

I wasn’t going to be able to keep going like this. Everything was piling against me. Both my mind and body had been violated. I couldn’t sleep without facing Inferno's vengeance and I couldn't stay in the waking world without feeling my stomach and remembering the horror that Pureblood had placed within me.

“Just leave me alone…” I grumbled, rolling back to face the corner of the room. Another sob escaped my lips and a tear raced down my already damp cheeks. “You already beat me. You win. I’m broken…”

“Not enough,” Inferno sneered. I could see his red gaze staring at me through the reflection on the wall in front of me. I shut my eyes tight to get away from his glare, but that only made it harder to stay awake.

How long had I been stuck in this cell? A day? A week?

Probably not a week. My pipbuck told me it had been only a little under twenty four hours. But it didn’t matter. It felt like a lifetime. I don’t think a pony is supposed to be able to cry for this long.

I could slowly feel the fight and drive to escape leaving me. Everything felt so daunting and hopeless. Even if I could escape, what would that change? The wasteland was getting geared up to rip itself apart. Fleets of Enclave ships were descending from the sky and Red Eye was in position to enact his plans. Even Littlepip, the Stable Dweller, the only real hero the wasteland seemed to have, was dead and gone. Blow to ash by a balefire bomb and buried under miles of rubble. There was no pony left to stop the bloodshed that was fast approaching.

After what felt like an eternity, the door to my cell slid open once again, making way for Fleur as she trotted back into the room. She looked down at me, a look of pity across her face. She looked away for a second, stealing herself and forcing on a more stoic look across her face before returning her gaze to me. “They are ready for you again.”

I scowled at her. “Tell them to go fuck themselves,” My words were obscured by another painful sob.

Fleur gave me a sad look before trotting in further and sitting down next to me. I noticed she sat a few inches away so that the pink cloud wafting from her decaying flesh wouldn’t harm me. “You will soon understand that what we are doing is for the good of all Equestria,” Fleur tried to insist, her voice low. “We do what we do because it is the only way.”

“Fuck you,” I growled back. If she thought that any of this was for the betterment of Equestria than she was just as delusional as Pureblood. There was nothing right about this.

The Canterlot ghoul sighed. “Very well. Ignore the truth. But it doesn’t matter. You’re needed. Please. Come with me before the Director does something worse to you.”

I gave her a piercing glare before pulling myself up and wiping a few stray tears from my face with the back of my hoof. “Fine, just… don’t talk to me.”

Fleur gave a small nod before pulling herself up and trotting out of the room, urging me to follow. I cast one final glance at the reflection of Inferno beside me before following after her. Fleur's four griffon guards quickly moved to flank us as we stepped out of the room.

I felt sluggish when I moved. Something about the weight of my body threw me off. Shaking my head, I tried to push past the sensation and kept moving forwards.

I had expected Fleur to lead me back to Pureblood's chamber, but after a few moments of walking through the halls of Stable 101, I began to realize that we were going in the opposite direction all together.

“Where are you taking me?” I asked, trotting a little faster to stay in line with the ghoul.

Fleur cast me a sideways glance as we continued down the dull hallway. “The time has finally come to begin the Utopia Program. We’re going to the Institute.”

I paused as her words slammed into me. We were going to the Institute? Right now? I felt my heart hammer in my chest. I didn’t think I was prepared to run into my mom again. Not while in this state.

Fleur and the griffons came to a sudden and abrupt stop in the middle of the hallway. I glanced around, trying to figure out the reason for their sudden stillness. “What’s happening?” I asked again, looking past Fleur to the end of the hallway which appeared to be some sort of intersection.

One of the griffons shushed me with an angry glare. “It’s him... He comes.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Who? Wait… who comes?”

My question was answered as a group of five ponies, robed in dark red cloaks crossed in front of us through the intersection. I felt my breath catch as I saw the pony that walked between them.

It was him. I had never thought I would ever actually see him in person, but there he was, walking before me with an air of power and control around him. His ripped Stable barding was been worn across his shoulders like a cape and his robotic eye glowed a sinister red.

“Red Eye…” I whispered, my voice catching in my throat. He was here! In the cathedral! The mastermind behind all of my hardships. I could feel my little amounts of remaining courage melting away as I looked upon him. He seemed so normal. Just another pony of the wasteland. And yet, he seemed so powerful and untouchable.

Red Eye paused for a moment, turning to look down the hallway at us. His eyes met mine, and for a terrifying moment, I questioned if his robotic eye could melt me with a single look. His muzzle cracked into a genuinely comforting smile before he turned and continued on his way.

And just like that he was gone. I felt like I was suddenly able to breathe again, as if I had been trapped underwater for far too long.

Fleur gave a quick step forward. “Come. We mustn't leave the Director waiting.”

They continued to lead me through the halls until at last we came to a sliding stable door that looked no different than any of the other doors throughout the stable. Suspended on the wall above the door was a small neon sign that read, ‘Overmare Office’.

The door slid away to reveal the lavish office beyond. It looked a lot like my father's office back in Stable 25, with dark, wood walls and a round window overlooking the remains of Stable 101’s atrium. Though the atrium had long since been repurposed and was now filled with large vats of what I could only imagine was I.M.P.

The Overstallion desk had been pushed aside as well, making room for another of those strange Institute style teleportation platforms. Like the others, the elevated platform was ringed with wire connected pillars that blinked with lights.

Pureblood’s brain bot floated in the centre of the platform, joined by the second brain bot and two Canterlot ghouls clad in dark power armour bearing the symbol of Red Eye. I was pleased to see that one of the ghouls was carrying my saddlebags. At least these ponies weren’t trying to rob me.

“Ahhhh, Fleur. It took you long enough,” Pureblood scolded, turning to glare at us as we trotted into the room. “Are you ready?”

Fleur gave a nod before turning to me and giving me some sort of gas mask. I had seen the ponies outside the Cathedral wearing similar masks as they burned down the surrounding trees. “You will need this.”

I looked down at the mask before giving a grim nod and pulling it over my head. It was stuffy and despite filtering the air around me, didn’t do much for the amount of air intake it prevented. The tinted goggles on the mask coloured my vision with red.

Fleur stepped up onto the platform, moving to stand next to Pureblood. I hesitated for a moment before following her up. There was no point fighting them. They had already beaten me.

A few unicorns clad in the same Red Eye robes as I had seen earlier wrapped the teleportation machine in their magic. I could feel the platform vibrating under me as the magic began to flow through the machine and the lights that ringed that pillars began flashing faster. One of the griffons pulled a lever against the far wall.

My vision burst with blue light, and I was sent hurtling through the nothingness.

It didn’t seem to matter how many times I used this non magical form of teleportation, I never got used to it. At least I was somewhat expecting it somewhat, so I managed to come out of it without throwing up.

Didn’t stop myself from falling flat on my face as soon as we materialized though.

I opened my eyes and looked around. I was met with darkness. Only the light emitting from the monitors on the two brain bots illuminated the room. A few moments later, the two power armoured ghouls flicked the lights on their helmets on, lighting up the rest of the room.

I had been here before. It was the Director's office in the Institute. The same one I had opened to try and divert Azar’s attention the first time I had been in the Institute. Hanging on the wall was the picture of Canterlot atop its mountain.

Pureblood turned to the second brain bot, watching as it floated over to a control panel against the far wall. “Is everything ready?”

The second brain bot bobbed in the air, clicking on a few buttons. “As soon as you give the command,” That voice again... It had to be them… It just had to be.

“Wonderful… turn on the speaker system and give me a visual,” Pureblood cooed. The wall behind me burst to life as a massive monitor I hadn’t seen in the darkness flashed to life. The screen showed a live feed of the Institutes main room. A lot had calmed down since I had last seen it, clearly Glasswing had done a good job of reattaining order.

There was a small crackle of static as the speaker system burst to life.

“Ponies and changelings of the Institute,” Pureblood began, his voice nasally and filled with smug glee. I could see the ponies and changelings on the monitor freeze and looked around, startled by the unexpected voice. There was a commotion by Glasswings office. Clearly he was scrambling to try and figure out what was going on. “For over two hundred years the Institute has worked beneath the surface. Creating marvels of which Equestria has never seen. But today… today we shall return the Institute to its original purpose.”

There was another crackle as a second voice began broadcasting. “This is Glasswing, second in command of the Institute. Who are you and how are you doing this!?” Glasswings stern voice demanded. His normal false sounding pleasant tone blanketed his words, but I could clearly make out the surprise and worry behind his voice.

“Oh Glasswing, surely you recognize my voice?” Pureblood purred, reveling in the interaction. “After all, I am the Director.”

“The… Director…” Glasswings voice lost all of its pleasantness as it faded away to sheer shock. “But… But you’re…”

“It is true that I have been absent in the running of the Institute as of late,” Pureblood continued, his voice returning to its full volume. “But I assure you that I have returned, and this time, I think I’ll be sticking around for a little while… Silver Ace, if you would.”

I knew it. It was him. The second I had heard that voice I had known. So old and weary, but filled with so much intelligence.

Silver Ace’s brain bot swiveled to once more face the terminal in front of him. A metal claw like appendage detached itself from his metal form and pushed a few buttons in quick succession.

On the monitor, I watched in awe as the Institutes clinical lighting began to dim and flash an ominous red. A siren rang out, blaring over the hubbub of the scientist as they all began to panic. I saw Glasswing emerge from his office with my mother scampering out quickly behind him, both of them looking up at the flashing lights in horror.

“Synth’s overridden,” The prerecorded voice of Twilight Sparkle called out across the Institute. I saw waves of fear shooting through the ranks of the Institute scientists at those words.

The ponies and changelings began backing up in terror as the synths all around them turned on them, weapons raising and opening fire. I saw flashes of light as Institute Coursers materialized around the scrambling scientists. The thumping of hooves echoed across the Institute as hundreds of synths rallied and began to storm out of the synth production wing, magical energy weapons aimed and blasting beams of blue into the scientists.

I watched as the synths washed across the span of the Institute, their weapons rending anything that got in their way into a glowing pile of ash.

The scientists took a moment, their reaction time slowed from their surprise. Slowly they too took up arms and fought back, desperate not to be blasted apart by their own machines. I saw Glasswing and Mother pull out their own weapons as squads of Coursers began descending upon them.

“You have served my great cause well,” Pureblood continued over the speaker system, callously watching the massacre continue to unfold with digital, unblinking eyes. “But you all no longer of any use.”

Another alarm began to sound over the already blaring siren. As I continued to watch, I saw green clouds of mist begin getting pumped into the Institute. Even from within the safety of the Directors office and with a gas mask over my head, my pipbuck began to tick dangerously.

So that was what the ventilation systems had to do with everything… well shit...

The scientists began grasping at their necks as the radioactive fog reached them, depriving them of air. The synths continued to push forwards, unaffected by the radiation. their weapons bringing quick death upon those that had once been their masters.

This was a losing battle, and the Institute knew it. There was no winning against this. Their only hope was retreat. One by one, beams of blue light flashed around the remaining Institute scientist as they fled the Institute to parts unknown. I saw Mother trying to fight the synths off more, before beginning to cough as the radiation pumping into the Institute filled her lungs. She fell over, gasping for air, before disappearing in a flash of light.

Glasswing sprang back, a laser blast lashing at his hooves. He reached into his pocket and pulled out what looked like an advanced syringe of Rad-X before shoving it into his shoulder. He wasn’t retreating. That idiot was going to keep fighting!

More and more synths began to turn towards Glasswing, their weapons rising to turn him to dust. They moved in on him, surrounding the cornered changeling from all sides. He stared back at them, his gnarled legs shaking as the full force of the Institute put itself against him.

Glasswing growled. He looked up, his eyes staring into one of the Institutes many cameras. For a single moment, I could have sworn he stared right at me. “This isn’t over Director,” He snarled, all of his normal friendly demeanour gone and replaced with rage.

“It will be soon,” Pureblood responded to him over the speaker, chuckling to himself. “It will be very very soon.”

With a flash of blue light, Glasswing teleported away, abandoning the Institute and moving out into the wasteland for what I assumed would be his first time. I doubted the sheltered scientists would be able to survive long out in the radioactive desolation.

It had only taken minutes, but Pureblood had already taken complete control over the Institute.

“The Institute was unstoppable...” Inferno whispered in my ear. I couldn’t see him, but I could tell he was there, watching through my eyes. “And now it has fallen. Just like that. What hope do you think you have now, Amber Aura? Do you really think you can stand up against the might of the Director? Even after this?”

“Shut up!” I snapped back, a little louder than I would have liked. Fleur cast me a confused look, and I covered my embarrassment by giving her a grumpy snarl before staring down at my hooves. “Just… shut up…”

Inferno chuckled softly, his voice slowly fading away once again.

“Open the doors,” Pureblood ordered, floating over to the large doorway that led from the office and into the Institute. There was a loud hiss as the huge, black doors slid open. The radioactive fog slowly trickled into the office, making my pipbuck click faster, but I could tell the radiation was already beginning to get sucked back out of the Institute through the ventilation system.

The two power armoured ghouls raised their weapons and pushed me forwards, forcing me to step out of the office and into the main atrium of the Institute. Pureblood and Silver Ace’s brain bots floated out next to me, already heading towards the Large, white, spire-like maneframe in the centre of the Institute.

“Come, I want you to bear witness,” Pureblood demanded, not bothering to look at me as we reached the entrance to the Maneframe. Silver Ace’s brain bot moved over to the terminal by the door before quickly typing the door password in. ‘Luna Prime’ if my memory served correct on the password.

A second later, the door slid open.

We began to move into the maneframe, my vision brightening even through the red tint of my gas mask as the light of the massive glowing sphere below flooded my vision. I stepped out onto the catwalk, looking up at steep steps that lead to the main control centre at the top of the white spire.

Without a word, Silver Ace began floating up to the top of the maneframe. I noticed for the first time that the A.A.S.S. was tight in his mechanical grasp.

I looked over at the power armoured ghoul carrying my saddlebags. What were my chances of getting a hold of my gun and killing all these fuckers. Probably not very high. I’d have to wrestle with power armour to get my weapons first, and I was many things, but strong wasn’t one of them. Canterlot ghouls didn’t go down easy either and I had no idea how tough killing Pureblood would be. Not to mention there was no way I was fighting my way through an entire army of synths and Coursers.

Maybe I could just get myself killed? It wouldn’t put much of a dent in Pureblood's plan, but getting his precious fetus killed might be all I could really do against him at this point.

Inferno’s laugh in my ear gave me pause. No. That wasn’t going to be an option. I had tried to kill myself before. I wasn’t going to try again. I wouldn't let the wasteland win... not yet... I had to keep fighting... for something...

I felt a wave of guilt as the realization of what I was thinking washed over me. Fuck me, had I really fallen so far that I would kill an unborn colt as a form of petty revenge. Besides, even if it was Purebloods child... or vessel or whatever… in a weird way, it was my own child now too. Something told me I didn’t have it in me to let it get hurt.

Damn me. There really was no way out.

Trying to shake the thoughts from my head, I took a step forward. “So… what does Luna Prime have to do with all of this?” I questioned.

Pureblood turned to face me, his expression confused. “Excuse me?”

I gave him a flat look, trying not to look as broken and defeated as I felt. “You know Luna Prime. The megaspell under the MAS tower in the glowing sea?” He continued to give me a confused look. I gave an exasperated breath. “It’s the password for the maneframe door. I discovered that the first time I visited the Institute. What does it have to do with everything. It must be connected somehow.”

Pureblood continued to give me a blank expression. Not that it was easy to read the expression of a pony whose face consisted of computer screens. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

I raised an eyebrow. “Wait, you don’t kn-”

There was a click from above me as Silver Ace secured the A.A.S.S. into position, drawing Purebloods attention away from me. The lights around me began to blink and I once more heard the prerecorded voice of Twilight Sparkle speak out. “The Utopia Program has been primed and activated. To ensure minimal damage to the mainframe, please stand by while the program boots up...”

A timer flickered to life on a monitor above me.

“And so the countdown commences,” Pureblood chuckled. “At last it begins. I am like the coming of a storm. Unmovable. Unstoppable.”

Fucking hell, this guy was almost as arrogent and full of himself as Iron Hock. But at least I stood a chance against Iron Hock...

Five days. Five days before the end of the world. I could stop this in five days. Right? I just had to escape, get my friends out of Fillydelphia, fight my way back into the Institute and find a way to destroy a massive ball of energy all while not sleeping and having my mind tormented by Inferno. Easy enough...

Goddesses I was so fucked right now. We were all so fucked right now…

Pureblood turned to face me. “There is, of course, one last order of business to attend to,” He moved closer to me so that I was staring directly into his massive monitor eyes. “I can't simply have you running around with my future vessel. I’d hate for you to accidentally damage it after all the pain you must have undergone to have it implanted.”

Oh yeah, fuck you asshole. Thanks for the reminder. “What is that?”

“Follow,” Was all he said. He pushed past me and moved back out of the maneframe and into the Institute. I obediently trotted after him. There really was no point fighting this anymore.

With the power armoured ghouls quickly moving to flank me, I followed Pureblood to the synth creation wing. I had been here before too, back when I had first come to the Institute.

I noticed that while we had been in the Crusader maneframe, more Canterlot ghouls from Red Eyes Cathedral had teleported into the Institute as well. A few of them wore suits of power armour like the two flanking me, but a few simply trotted about in their normal old world clothing. I suppose that as ghouls, they were unaffected by the ambient radiation that still hung in the air over the facility.

I was led towards a set of cryopod-like chambers that rest against the far wall. The same pods that Glasswing had used to place my mother's mind within Queen Insecta’s body, I noted.

“Enter,” Pureblood instructed, gesturing to the closest chamber. “I want to ensure that my vessel is not harmed.”

I hesitated, looking up at the pod. The idea of trying to fight my way out of here again came to mind, but I had long since realized that was impossible. I took a deep breath, and entered the pod.

Silver Ace’s brain bot bobbed into the room, floating over to a control area next to the pod.

Slowly, the glass panel on the front of the pod began to close in around me. There was a loud hissing noise as the glass panel clicked into place, muffling the sound of the outside world. I felt a sharp prick as the machine violently inserted some sort of wiring into the back of my neck.

Inferno reflection stared at me through the glass of the pod, his eyes filled with terrible glee. I tried to swipe my hooves at him, but clamps slapped down around my hooves and immobilized me.

“How far can a hero fall?” Inferno asked, his mouth once more oozing its vile black slime. “How broken does one need to become until they admit defeat. Until the wasteland corrupts you and turns you into the very thing you seek to destroy? It broke me a long time ago. Eroded me away until I was nothing but a monster. I wonder... What will you become?”

I saw Silver Ace's brain bot push a few more buttons on the terminal. Through the slowly fogging glass of the pod, I saw a machine in the centre of the room begin to whir to life. The plug in the back of my neck gave a small jolt, sending a strange electric feeling shooting down my spine.

“There comes a point where there is nothing left worth fighting for. Or you simply have nothing left to fight with. You can hold onto something all you want, fight against the wastelands corruption, but sooner or later it will take everything from you. Your body, your mind, your friends. At what point do you just decide to curl up and die?” Inferno continued, his eyes seeming to glow brighter and darker simultaneously with each word. “The wasteland has broken you Amber Aura. Just as it did to me. It’s time to burn… But there is still one last question to be asked before the end...”

Pureblood stared at me through the glass, his expression unreadable. I saw Fleur look away from me, unable to watch what was about to happen.

The glass began to fog up even more, the air around me going cold as my breath began to come out in painful pants. Mist swirled from my muzzle with each and every breath, only speeding up the rapidly fogging glass.

“Will you die the hero...? Or will you live long enough to become the villain...?” Inferno’s face disappeared as the glass was covered over by tiny ice crystals, his sinister laugh still echoing in the back of my mind.

The plug in the back of my head gave another abrupt jolt, and suddenly I was spiralling away, my mind swirling deeper and deeper into the darkness.

I was broken, both physically and emotionally. I had nothing left. No friends, no hope. I wouldn’t die as either the hero or the villain. I’d die as nothing. Just another casualty of the wasteland. With that thought, I finally and truly accepted the simple truth. The wasteland had finally beaten me. It was over.

My vision blurred away, and I was sent hurtling into nothingness. And with that, I died...

Footnote: Game Over - Do you wish to start a new game?

Author's Note

The End...?

I'm joking of course. There's still plenty more to go, so don't go running away just yet. What goes down must come back up, right...? No wait, that's not how the saying goes...

I'm back in school now, which means I won't be getting as much writing time as I've had these past few months. That said, my University has decided to do all the classes online due to covid, so that will give me a little more free time that I would have normally gotten, but I'll still be pretty busy. Silver linings I suppose, I guess we'll see what happens.

This chapter was a big landmark for this story, it honestly feels weird to know I have finally written it. Slowly but surely we are getting too that final stretch of chapters my friends. Hold onto your hats, things are going to start getting real crazy real soon.

Fallout: Equestria belongs to the fabulous Kkat

I hope you all enjoyed and have a great day!

Chapter XXX: Rebirth and Exodus

“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

Chapter XXXI: The Shackles of Fillydelphia

“It’s… Well… Let's be honest… The place is a nightmare… Radiation, mutation, disease. But the worst part is: my people, some of the only survivors, are slaves. No big deal, you’re thinking? It’s a rough world. But I have the chance to free them. All I need is an outsider’s help before that chance is gone...”

Slavery.

Since the balefire bombs fell and the land of Equestria was plunged into ruin and desolation, pony kind had regressed. Raiders, cruelty, endless and senseless violence. The world that had once been beautiful had devolved into a vile, festering hellhole of uncountable, unimaginable evils.

Every pony knew this, and many fought to fight against this growing corruption, but many's attempts at creating salvation had become twisted themselves, their noble actions being rendered too little more than the atrocities they had hoped to stop. The number of ponies who had been twisted by the notion of making a better tomorrow was staggering, I had even met a few. Red Eye, Pureblood, Silver Ace, even Kamari in his own weird way, all thought that what they were doing was just. That they were the only hope for the future.

If they were the only hope pony kind had, pony kind was doomed to be forever damned.

But there was one evil that rose above all the others. It had grown and spread across the wasteland, thriving in the cruel land Equestria had become. An evil that like many others, had its roots firmly planted in the belief it was justified by the means.

Slavery.

Even the thought of it made me feel sick. How could ponies sleep at night, knowing the atrocities that they had wrought upon their fellow ponies. Was the wasteland not already bad enough? Was the radiation and bloodshed and mutated beasts not bad enough? Were we not bad enough?

No. We had to betray our very virtues and give way to greed and selfishness. We had let the wasteland corrupt us to a point where we had completely lost sight of our morals. We had let the wasteland consume the very thing that made us ponies.

I didn’t know what waited for me beyond the towering steel walls of Fillydelphia or what atrocities I would see in the fire pits and industrial factories, but I knew it had to be stopped. Because if this continued, what real hope was there for pony kind to ever be what it once was?

Golden Chestnut collapsed to the ground, the two slavers above her grinning down at her menacingly as they moved to pin her to the rough terrain. She reached forwards for her fallen shotgun, only for a third slaver to kick it aside, sending it rolling across the ground and sliding underneath the nearby carriage holding all of the slaves.

Chestnut had been trying to get into Fillydelphia to rescue her son for the past week, but too little success. The walls were too well defended, the rough landscape around the city swarming with slavers and Talon mercs. Even a few alicorns had stood between her and the vile city of slavery, though there were notably less of those since the Enclave descended from the sky. She had only managed to make it so close before the slavers were upon her. She had escaped from them a few times now, but her luck had finally run its course.

One of the slavers pinning her down looked her over for a second, a look of recognition crossing his face. “Oh shit, look who it is! Bomb Collars old bitch! Decided to come crawling back to Filly did you? Wasteland not what you had hoped it was?”

Chestnut scowled and tried to kick at him, but the other slaver knocked her back down before she could get a hit in. “Give me back my son you slaving bastard!” She scowled.

“Heh, she’s a strong bitch too,” The slaver chuckled, ignoring her demand and drawing out a revolver that had been strapped to his leg with his magic. “And a Unicorn. Stern’s going to be very happy to have you back in chains, cunt.”

Then the slaver's head exploded, bits of brain matter and skull fragments bursting outwards and coating Chestnut and other slaver holding her down in gore. The slaver's body dropped to the ground, his revolver hitting the ground as his field of magic dissipated.

The slaver that was a few feet back whirled around in surprise, their own weapon raising to aim at the new intruder that had just entered the fray. Before he could fire off a shot, his own head burst open, another well aimed shot from a shotgun ripping through his skull.

“The fuck is g-” The final slaver didn’t have time to finish his sentence when a blast from a magical energy rifle slashed through his neck. His body went rigid for a second, a small drizzle of blood spilling from where the burning beam of magical light had failed to cauterize his wound. Then he stumbled, his body glowing a bright blue as it slowly dissolved into ash.

Chestnut pulled back, trying to get behind cover before the lethal new attacker had a chance to fire off a shot at her. She managed to pull herself behind a large rock and push up behind it, bracing her legs for the incoming attack.

Something flew over her head and rolled to a stop by her hooves. Chestnut flinched back, expecting a grenade to rip her apart with shrapnel and fire.

Nothing exploded.

She cautiously peeked open an eye, making out the shape of her combat shotgun sitting in the ash in front of her. Quickly retrieving it in her magic, she pulled herself a little higher and peeked over the top of the rock”

“Amber?”

I gave her a half smile as I raised Braeburn’s Liberator in my magic and slammed the back end against the rusted lock on the slavers cage. There was a loud clunk as the near indestructible gun rammed against the flimsy lock, shattering it and letting the cage door swing open with a creak. I took a step back, taking in all the now freed slaves shocked faces.

“Scarlet, can you help them get moving quickly? We probably don’t have long before more slavers show up,” I asked, looking over to where Scarlet was digging around through the fallen slavers belongings. She nodded and quickly moved to help out the freed slaves.

I turned to the rock Chestnut was still bunkered behind and trotted towards her. “Hey, you okay?”

Chestnut gave me a shocked nod. “I am now. Thanks for the help there,” she looked Scarlet and I over for a second before letting her gaze settle on my face. “It’s good to see you, but.. What the fuck are you doing out here?”

I turned and looked at the towering walls of Fillydelphia, only a few minutes walk away. We were standing in the middle of the ruined outskirts of Filly, our surroundings consisting of little more than dunes of ash, rock and a few broken down houses. “My friends are inside. I’m here to get them out.”

“That’s going to be difficult,” Chestnut asserted, standing up and trotting towards me. “I’ve been trying to get in since we last parted out by Fetlock. Red Eye doesn’t take chances with his slaves.”

“You're still trying to get your son out of there?” I asked, looking away from her and towards the looming steel walls in the distance. I could see large smokestacks pumping black fog and crimson flame into the air beyond the walls, filling the air with a thick smog.

Chestnut gave me a stern look. “Yes. I am. And I’m not giving up until he's free of that awful place.”

I gave her as soft of a smile as I could. “Sounds like we both want to break some ponies out of there. Are you interested in helping us out? Break our friends out together?”

Chestnut looked me over for a few more seconds before returning my smile. “Yeah. Yeah, that would be nice,” She lifted up her shotgun and cast Fillydelphia a scowl. “It would be my pleasure to kill those bastards with you again.”

Scarlet trotted over to us, passing me over ten shotgun shells she had scavenged off of one of the fallen Slavers bodies. “All the slaves are on their way. I hope they can make it. They've still got a few hour walk to get back to Manehattan.”

I thankfully took the shells and loaded three of them into my shotgun. “So do I… How is your horn doing?”

“Still horn burnout,” Scarlet grumbled, giving her horn a grumpy glare. “I doubt I’ll have my magic back until we’re out of Filly,” She turned to look at Chestnut. “You must be Golden Chestnut. Amber told me about you on the way here.”

Chestnut nodded, extending her hoof for a hoof bump. Scarlet quickly moved to fill the gap with her own hoof. “I am. And you are?”

“Scarlet Dusk,” Scarlet replied simply.

“You planning to break somepony out of Filly as well?”

Scarlet grimaced. “Just Amber's friends at the moment. But let's just say that I have a personal vendetta against Red Eyes operations here.”

“You were a slave here once too?” Scarlet nodded a response, making Chestnut’s expression soften. “I’m sorry to hear that. Filly likes to break you. I’m glad you made it out.”

“You’ve escaped Fillydelphia before, right?” I asked, taking a step towards Chestnut. “Maybe we could get in now the way you got out then?”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to do for the last couple of days. There’s a large storm grate in the side of the wall. Leads right into Filly, so long as you don’t mind getting a few rads,” Chestnut explained. “But it’s guarded by a squad of Talon mercs and to get there we’d have to get passed a few miles of slaver territory.”

“Is there any other way In?” Scarlet asked nervously. “I’m guessing we can’t just get through the front gate, and something tells me trying to disguise ourselves as a slave to get in would be a bad idea.”

Yikes. Pretending to be a slave to get into Fillydelphia sound like it was just asking for trouble. I wanted to avoid a plan that dangerous if I could help it.

“Don’t know, how’d you escape?” Chestnut turned and gave Scarlet a suspicious glare. “You must have found a way out somehow?”

Scarlet dropped her gaze and drew a small circle in the ash with the tip of her hoof. “I, um… They let me go…”

Chestnut raised an eyebrow sceptically. “They let you go? How the fuck did they let you go?”

Scarlet took a small step back. “Crank got them to release me. He-”

“Wait, are you talking about that cybernetic freak Amber here was traveling with?” Chestnut’s eyes widened a little in surprise.

Scarlet’s eyes narrowed in turn. “He wasn’t a freak!”

I quickly pushed myself between the two of them. “Both of you, calm down. We can talk about all this later. Right now we need to figure out a way into and out of Fillydelphia and I’m on a bit of a time crunch at the moment, so if we can do it without arguing, that would be great,” I turned my attention more directly towards Chestnut. “Do you think you and Scarlet would be able to get through the storm grate if I caused a distraction?”

Chestnut mulled that around in her head for a second. “It’ll be difficult, but possible. How are you going to get in?”

“We could ambush them from behind once we get inside the grate?” Scarlet suggested, her hostile expression fading away. “Would that work?”

“It would, but we’d have to wait for a few moments inside of the grate, and it’s filled with Radiation. So unless you two are carrying around a large stash of Rad-X or Radaway, we’re going to need to think of something else.”

I glanced over at Scarlet. “How much Radaway do we have left from the Institute?”

Scarlet smirked. “Lots. We grabbed half their supply. We aren’t going to be running out any time soon.”

Chestnut looked back and forth between us in confusion. “Wait… the Institute? I thought that place was just a myth? First the Enclave decides to come down from their comfy little lives in the clouds and now you're talking about the fucking Institute? What the fuck have you two been up to these last couple days?”

“It’s a long story,” I said flatly. “Suffice to say it's not a myth and if we don’t get my friends out of Filly quickly, the Institute is going to become a big problem for everypony in the wasteland.”

Chestnut looked at me for a long moment before nodding. “Yeah. If you make a distraction, Scarlet and I can sneak in. We’ll ambush the guards when they come back.”

I nodded and gave her a smile. “Alright then. Seems simple enough.”

Getting into Fillydelphia was many things, but being simply was not one of them. It seemed that every minute or so we would have to duck behind a pile of rubble or inside of a broken house to avoid detection from the hundreds of slaver patrols and caravans that maneuvered through the outskirts of Fillydelphia. The closer we got, the more abundant the slavers seemed to get.

After what felt like a few hours, I began to make out the large gateway into Fillydelphia that I had briefly been taken to on my first visit off to our right. There seemed to be more guards there than normal, probably due to the sudden appearance of the Enclave out by Maripony. Not that guarding a gate was going to stop an army of flying Pegasi.

“That’s the storm grate,” I heard Chestnut whisper, pulling up beside me as the three of us hid behind a large pile of broken concrete and junk.

I followed her hoof to a large hole in the wall not all that far away from us. It was a few feet above the ground, but not high enough that climbing into it would be any difficulty. A steady stream of foul, irradiated water spilled from it, sloshing down into a makeshift moat of radiation that circled the hellish cities perimeter.

Just as Chestnut had suggested, five hardened looking griffins in dark combat armour stood at attention just before the grate. Each one was armed with what appeared to be an assault rifle. I could only pray to Celestia that there weren’t more on the other side.

I gave a nod and looked over my shoulder at Scarlet and Chestnut. “Alright, as soon as they are out of sight, make a run for the grate.”

They both nodded. Scarlet took a step forward and gave me a quick hug. “Try not to die before we even get into the city.”

I gave her a smirk. “I’ve faced worse than some angry chickens,” For someone that was feeling broken and defeated only a few hours ago, I was in an oddly cocky mood. I suppose escaping the Institute can do that to you. How bad could Fillydelphia be by comparison?

I need to stop jinxing myself...

I slowly pulled myself out from behind the rubble and started trotting towards the grate in full view of the griffins. Probably not my most thought out plan, but it was sure to catch their attention.

Sure enough, they all swivelled their heads to face me as soon as I got within shouting distance. A few seconds later, I was being confronted with the barrels of five fully loaded assault rifles.

“How the Fuck did you get here!?” A large griffin with tattered looking wings growled at me, taking an intimidating step towards me. “You have five seconds to explain yourself before we fill your pink ass with lead!”

Despite my shaking legs, I puffed out my chest and did my best not to look intimidated by the array of weapons aimed at my head. “I was hoping you could point me in the direction of Stern? I have a very specific and not so appropriate hoof gesture I would like to share with her.”

All the griffins gave off a menacing scowl in unison. “That’s it bitch! You’re fucking dead! No pony insults a Talon!”

I gave a yelp as the griffins surged forwards and lunged at me, their assault rifles firing off shot after shot in my direction as I scrambled to find some cover. One of the shots whizzed past my face, only barely grazing my cheek.

I leaped behind a broken down house, landing hard on my side as I dove to avoid being turned into paste by the hail of bullets that were suddenly being sent my way. I pulled myself up and peeked around the side of the ruined building, making out the shapes of the griffins that were pursuing me. I groaned as I saw that they had left two of them to stand guard at the grate. Clearly these Talon mercs were smarter than I gave them credit for.

Fuck! Why can’t all guards be stupid like they were in my books back in the Stable?

On the bright side, I was pretty sure that Scarlet and Chestnut could take out two griffin guards. I had seen Chestnut take out far worse in the Hollow Shades and Scarlet wasn’t one to go down easily.

The griffin with the tattered wings saw me poking my head around the side of the wall and took aim at me. I yanked my head back, the stream of bullets ripping through the corner of the wall and showering me with bits of dust and shattered cement.

Yikes, time for me to move.

I reeled back, spinning around and making a beeline for another large structure a few feet away from me. I doubted I would be able to outrun griffins, but I could probably out maneuver them if I got in close quarters.

I made it to the door when the first Griffin came charging around the side of the structure I had just been hiding behind. Gunfire filled the air as their assault rifle ripped into the spot I had been standing not moments before. The griffin looked around, clearly surprised that I was no longer there.

Grinning, I stuck my tongue out at him and chucked a hunk of rubble at him with my magic. The small rock collided with his head, making him stagger to the side and let loose a less than flattering squawk. The griffin spun around and glared at me, their eagle eyes narrowing into thin slits.

I didn’t waste any time charged into the broken building as I saw the other two griffins charge around the corner. The entry room inside as it would turn out was in more disarray than I had expected. Most of the hallways had caved in and only a large staircase that led to the floors above remained intact.

Groaning that I wasn’t going to be able to lose them inside, I started rushing up the steps. The stairs had begun to crumble over the years, making the whole staircase slope at a dangerous angle. I had to put most of my effort into not slipping as one of the steps broke away as I stepped on it.

Two of the griffins barged into the building, both of their rifles already aimed at me and ready to fire. “There she is!” I opened my mouth to respond with something witty, but both of the griffins opened fire before I got the option. I dove up the last couple steps, bullet ripping into the walls behind me as the griffins attempted to fill me with holes.

“Damn it! Don’t let her escape!” I heard one of the griffins screeching. I heard the sound of flapping wings as both griffins took to the air and began speeding after me.

Funny, shouldn’t the third griffin have joined them by now?

I turned a corner and darted down a side hall, jumping over a collapsed wall that blockaded the bottom half of the hallway. I heard yells of anger bellowing after me as the griffins gave chase. As soon as the griffins turned into the hallway as well, their guns opened fire, spraying down the hallway after me.

I rolled to the ground, the griffins fire spewing over my head and missing me by mere inches. Braeburn’s Liberator floated up behind me in a field of my magic and fired off a shot of my own down the hallway at them. I heard a griffin give a shout of pain as the explosive buckshot tore through their wing.

Pushing off with my hind legs, I shot the rest of the way down the hallway and lunged for the staircase leading to the next floor. My legs ached as I began racing up the steps for all I was worth.

It was moments like these that I wished I had worked out more back in Stable 25. I was not built for running… or any physical activity for that matter. Celestia only knows how I’ve survived this long.

Behind me I heard one of the griffins growl. “You keep going! I’ll cut her off!” There was the sound of hooves and claws pounding against the ground as one of the griffins continued to give pursuit followed shortly by the loud shattering of glass.

Not bothering to look behind me, I reached the next floor and moved to ascend the next flight of steps. I quickly realized I was rapidly running out of floors. What was I supposed to do once I reached the top?

A bullet slammed into the wall next to me, making me jump. I glanced back, making out the shape of the griffin whose wing I had shredded, rushing up after me and very quickly gaining on me. I should have known I wouldn’t be able to outrun something that was half lion and had wings. Damn my short sightedness.

The griffin lunged forwards, their sharp talons reaching to slice at my hind legs. I jumped to the side, dodging the attack and bucking backwards for all I was worth. My hind legs collided with the griffin's face. I heard a loud snap and a scream as something in their beak broke.

Shrieking, the griffin stumbled back, giving me time to rush forwards and get out of melee range. I hauled myself up to a landing on the stairs and moved to rush up the next set when there was a loud smash and the second griffin that had chased me into the building burst through the window on the floor above, blocking my path.

I skidded to a halt, looking back and forth as the two griffins closed in on me, one coming down the stairs and one charging up the way I had just come. I scowled and turned to the wall next to me. It was standing, but only barely. Two hundred years in the wasteland had not been kind to it.

I spun and bucked at the wall. I felt a bit of it crumble and a large crack shot up its front. Grunting, I reeled back and bucked again, this time feeling just a little bit more of the wall give way.

“You’re not getting out of this bitch!” One of the griffins shouted. “We’ll show you what happens when you mess with Talons!”

The griffin rushing down the stairs at me fired off their assault rifle. I moved to the side, trying to get out of the way of the shots that flashed by my face. One of the shots made home in my forehoof, dropping me to the ground. I screamed, clutching at the bloody hole that had been ripped into my leg.

Gritting my teeth, I grabbed onto the wall with my magic and gave as hard of a yank as I could. There was a loud crack, followed by the wall crumbling away and giving me a view of the wasteland beyond.

Almost immediately, the third and final griffin that had not entered the structure after me shot through the hole I had just created, barreling into me and sending me tumbling to the ground. I wheezed, dust from the collapsing wall filling my lungs as I tried to take deep breaths of air. I felt a talon wrap around my neck as the large griffin lunged on top of me and pinned me down.

“Did you really think you could just waltz up to the Fillydelphia wall and not have any repercussions?” The griffin mocked, twisting their head to the side slightly and staring down at me with one of their eagle eyes.

My eyes darted out the large hole in the wall I had made, making out the shape of the storm grate down below. Both Griffin guards that had remained now lay broken and bloody, most likely Chestnuts work.

“Wait a second. Ain’t that the bitch that Red Eye put a hit out for a few weeks back?” One of the griffins asked, trotting over and looking me over closer. There was a moment of silence as the three griffins recognized me. Slowly a wide smile spread across all of their beaks. “It is! Throw her in chains! Sterns going to love this.”

“Thought the bitch would be smarter,” One of the griffins drawled, pulling out a pair of shackles and moving towards me. “With the kind of reward Red Eye put on her, I thought she’d be some sort of challenge.”

The griffin that was pinning me down narrowed his eyes at me. “She is smarter…” He cocked his head again in confusion. “Why the fuck would you be so…” Their eyes widened as a realization passed over them. “Fucking shit! She’s distracting us!”

Welp, that was my que to go.

“Gotcha,” I smirked. I craned my neck back to look at the storm grate down below, letting my amber magic flare around my horn.

“Oh no you don’t!” The griffin above me screamed. Their free talon raised, preparing to slash out my throat. The second his talon came within inches of my neck, I dissipated in a flash of amber light.

I popped back into existence a few feet away from the storm grate, my head reeling from the exhausting act of teleportation. Though my ability to teleport was getting better, I had still missed my mark, but I was close enough. I heard the griffins screaming in anger as they took to the air and began swooping down towards me.

I scrambled forwards, stumbling towards the storm grate in the wall. My wounded leg gave out from under me, sending me stumbling into the radioactive stream that ran along the base of the wall. I flailed my legs, trying my best to stay above the surging rapids as the murky water surged around me.

The sloshing water from the storm grate above poured down atop me, sucking me under the water. I thrashed frantically, trying to reach the surface, only for my efforts to seem to drag me down deeper and deeper into the murk. Radioactive fluids pushed their way past my lips, depriving me of what little air I had managed to store in my lungs before I went under.

Had I still had my pipbuck, I’m sure my geiger counter would have been click click clicking up a storm.

I felt a field of magic wrap around me and start lifting me out of the water. A second later, my head broke the surface, water bursting from my muzzle and I felt the wonderful feeling of air once more surging into my lungs.

I glanced up, making out Chestnut standing in the storm grate above, her horn glowing as she pulled me up into the grate with her. Scarlet crawled up next to her, reaching out and helping to pull me the rest of the way into the storm grate.

They hauled me up into the sewage tunnel, radioactive water rushing from my lips as I heaved and tried to dispel as much of the foul fluid from my system as I could.

“What’s going on? I thought we were going to surprise attack them when they came back?” Chestnut asked, trying to help me back to my hooves.

“No time. Turns out griffins are smarter than I gave them credit for, now run!” I sputtered between each of my coughing gags.

A few shots slammed into the edge of the storm grate as the three approaching griffins came within firing range. Scarlet and Chestnut stumbled back, trying to move away from the edge and avoid being shot.

“We need to go, now!” Scarlet stated, turning and beginning to move down the small tunnel. It wasn’t very long, only stretching from one side of the large wall to the other.

I moved to follow after her, using Chestnut as a crutch to keep from falling as pain shot up my wounded leg.

“They’re in the tunnel!” One of the griffins shouted, soaring down and landing behind us. They raised their gun to fire, only for a shot from Chestnut’s combat shotgun to rip through their neck, dropping them to the ground dead.

I ducked as the last two griffins swooped into the tunnel, their assault rifles blazing as they fired off a steam of shots towards us. I lost my grip on Chestnut, stumbling to the ground and splashing into the rushing water along the bottom of the tunnel.

One of the griffins rushed forwards, lunging at me with outstretched talons. I crawled back, their attack missing my throat by inches and their talons raking across the curved walls of the tunnel. I twisted, trying to buck back at them, but they quickly flapped their wings and moved out of my reach.

A blast from Scarlet's energy rifle lanced through the griffin's wing a second later, making them stagger in the air and drop back to the tunnel floor. It growled, snapping its beak at us, only for a blast from Chestnut’s shotgun to rip through its leg and send them toppling to the ground.

“Fuck!” The griffin shouted, clutching at their bleeding leg with a talon in an attempt to stop the blood flow. Their head snapped to the side to look at the other griffin. “Tell Stern we got us a problem!”

The griffin was silenced as a blast from Scarlet's magical energy rifle lashed through their throat, their body slumping to the ground and their blood flowing from their body and mingling with the rushing water on the tunnel floor. But it was too late, his order had already gone out.

The final griffin took a step back with a snarl, spreading their wings and darting out of the tunnel. Chestnut growled and fired off a shot towards them, the buckshot missing by inches and ricocheting off the metal walls as the agile griffin quickly dodged to the side. A second later, the griffin was gone and out of sight, flying off to alert the rest of the city of our arrival.

Mere moments later, we burst out of the far side of the tunnel, finally moving into Red Eyes industrial nightmare of Fillydelphia itself. Almost immediately I was hit with a wave of boiling heat and my already heaving lungs filled with the thick smoke. The clanking of chains, cracking of whips and agonized screams of slaves that I had heard muffled and distant from the far side of the wall suddenly hit me in full force, ringing loudly in my ears and drawing out my other senses.

The massive industrial skyscraper-like factories that comprised much of Fillydelphia were intermixed with what appeared to be a huge roller coaster and a giant ferris wheel loomed far in the distance. Far above me, I could see Fillydelphia’s trademark Pinkie Pie balloons slowly circling in the sky.

Scarlet and Chestnut paused, both of them looking up at the towering industrial factories and smokestacks that loomed before us in the thick red haze of Fillydelphia. Both of their eyes were wide, their pupils pinpricks as they took in the ghastly slaver city they had once hoped to have been long behind them.

“I had hoped never to come back here…” Chestnut muttered under her breath as she slowly took in the hellish landscape around her. Scarlet gave a stunned, silent nod of agreement.

“Come on, we need to go,” I said, trying to struggle forward despite the throbbing bullet wound in my leg and the heaving of my lungs. “We’re going to have tons of slavers on us in any second.”

Chestnut nodded and moved to lift me onto her back. I attempted to protest, claiming I could walk on my own, but she simply shushed me. “We need to get somewhere safe where we can patch you up. You aren’t saving anypony like that,” She turned to Scarlet and gave her a questioning look. “Any idea on where we might find some place like that?”

Scarlet shook her head. “I don’t think a place like that exists in this city,” She glanced around, trying to find anything of use. “We can probably take shelter in an abandoned building somewhere. I doubt Red Eye has managed to repurpose them all. Even he only has so much power.”

Chestnut nodded. “There is an abandoned section of the city that has too much radiation to stay in for long periods of time. I hid there when my husband and I tried to escape Filly a few years back. Since we have all that Radaway, that shouldn’t be much of an issue for us. We can hide there for now,” She glanced up at the sky, a worried look on her face. “And we probably don’t have long until that griffin tells somepony that we’re here. Given time, we’ll have half the city looking for us.”

“They recognized me,” I added as Scarlet and Chestnut began trotting forwards, keeping to the shadows best they could. “And last time I checked, Stern doesn’t like me very much.”

“Then we’re going to have all the city looking for us,” Chestnut grumped. She turned and gave me a small glare. “Do you ever get yourself into situations that aren’t simply the worst?”

I gave her a sheepish smile. “Nope.”

“Save them for my friends. Just wrap it up and I'll be fine,” I repeated, pushing the healing potion that Scarlet was offering me away. “My friends are going to need it more than I do. I’ve dealt with worse than a bullet wound.”

“Of course you have. Everypony in the wasteland has had worse at some point or another. Doesn’t change the fact a bullet in your leg is a fucking bullet in your leg,” Scarlet retorted, giving off an oddly uncharacteristic huff. “I don’t care if your friends are missing a limb. It won’t matter if you die of blood loss or we're forced to amputate do to gangrene before you reach them.”

“Crank fought his whole way through Fillydelphia alone and on four broken legs to rescue you. I think I can handle a single bullet. Save it for my friends, we only have three healing potions left,” I pushed again, my voice sounding slightly angry this time.

Scarlet's eyes narrowed at me. “Don’t you go trying to pull the Crank card on me. You aren’t physically as strong as he was and you know it.”

“Amber, just take the stupid potion,” Chestnut growled, moving away from the shattered window and turning back to face us. “Chances are Mirra is unhurt. Red Eye doesn’t hurt children. He locks them up in his schools and brainwashes them, but he doesn’t hurt them. His filly mines are just a myth. That still leaves two potions for Brisk and Xayah. Now take the damn potion.”

I let a frown settle on my face for a moment before groaning and drinking the healing potion. A few seconds later, I felt the itching of skin and muscle tissue regrowing over the hole the griffins shot had punctured in my leg.

I let out a small sigh of relief as the pain dissipated and I felt the strength to stand properly once again return. After a few seconds of stretching to make sure that all my parts were in working order, I turned to face my two friends. “Alright, we need a plan of attack. We have four ponies that we need to save and a whole city that wants us dead or in chains. Any ideas?”

“It’s not going to be easy,” Scarlet stated, finally pulling away from my leg and passing a Radaway to each of us. “I mean, they could be anywhere in the city for all we know.”

“Not anywhere. Tinker is most likely in Red Eyes school,” Chestnut elaborated, taking the Radaway for herself. “Mirra too, most likely.

“Assuming Red Eye didn’t want to dissect a changeling for science purposes,” Scarlet pitched in.

Chestnut gave us another surprised look. “Wait wait? A changeling? I met Mirra briefly on the train, but I had no idea she was a…” She turned and gave me a glare. “I will ask again. What the fuck have you been up to these last few weeks? Are there any other big surprises you plan on springin’ on me before the night is through?”

“In five days an aristocratic brain in a jar is going to mind rape the whole wasteland with a giant memory orb, Red Eye controls the Institute and Scarlet and I here are actually synths,” I stated flatly. “That should about sum it all up. Any questions?”

Chestnut continued to stare at me with a slack jaw. After a few seconds, she shut her mouth and took a deep breath. “Alright. Um. Yeah. Cool. Okay… So Tinker and Mirra are most likely in Red Eye’s school assuming Mirra isn’t or hasn’t already been dissected…”

I really didn’t want to think about Mirra being dissected as an option. Instead I chose to bring up a different topic. “Tinker. Is that your son?”

Chestnut nodded solemnly. “I had promised him that I would never let him get taken away from his family like I was taken away from mine… I guess I failed that promise.”

“We’ll get him back. Don’t worry,” I stated flatly, patting her softly on the shoulder. "I promised something to somepony once too. Now I'm here to break them out after I broke that promise. I'm going to make sure I make all this right... Somehow..."

“Well that means there's a good chance half of the ponies we’re looking for are going to be in the same place,” Scarlet thought aloud. “Seems like a good place to start.”

“Mirra has an incredible sense of smell too,” I added, thinking of my small changeling friend. “Once she’s with us, we can probably use that ability to help locate Brisk and Xayah.

Scarlet gave me a worried look. “And you’re ready to face Xayah again? After what happened between you?”

I found it suddenly very difficult to meet Scarlet's gaze. “Doesn’t matter what happens between the two of us after this, or even if we remain friends. I won't let her or any of my friends rot in this awful place.”

A sad look crossed over Scarlet's face. “Of course…”

“Well, as great as that is, that still leaves one rather large problem,” Chestnut grunted, drawing both of our focuses back to her. “Red Eyes school just so happens to be one of the most secure buildings in Filly. Not to mention on the opposite side of the fucking city. We still need to figure out how to get there without being detected as well as how to get in and out.”

I grimaced. The more I tried to piece a plan together, the more impossible this whole breakout attempt seemed to be. “Filly was a city before it was a slaver empire. It probably has a sewer system we can use, right? Could we sneak through those?”

A concerned look crossed Chestnut's face. “It’s possible. I heard rumors of the metro tunnels under Filly being the stuff of nightmares once. Something about creatures that smell like rot and mint? I can’t really remember, but I know that even Red Eye didn’t want to go down there. I've never heard a pony mention a sewer system, but I suppose it would be strange if there wasn’t one.”

The idea that something scared even Red Eye was a terrible one.

“Is it possible Red Eye had all the sewers blocked to prevent slaves from using them to escape?” Scarlet posed. “It wouldn’t be unlike him to make escape as impossible as he can.”

Chestnut shook her head in response. “Red Eye is always babbling on about returning the city to its former glory. Unity and all that shit. I doubt he’d destroy the sewer tunnels. I do find it more likely he's positioned guards down there though if they exist.”

“Guards that are probably going to be on the lookout for defenceless slaves, not armed wastelanders,” I annotated. “Even if there are guards down there, there’s a good chance we can take them out long before they have any chance of sounding an alarm, and by the time their bodies are found, we’ll be long gone.”

There was a moment of silence as we all let the plan sink in. I think we were all hoping somepony would come up with a better one.

No pony did.

Sewers it was.

There was a small splash as I dropped down onto the floor of the sewer tunnel. I glanced up, watching as Chestnut pulled the sewage grate above us back into position, sending us into near darkness.

I splashed around for a second in the water with my hoof. The water rose up to my fetlock, coating my hide in a thick brown slime. It reminded me a lot of the sewers I was in on my first night out of the Stable, only this one was grosser and much, much bigger.

Why is it I always end up traveling to the most disgusting places. I wish I hadn’t made such a habit out of this.

“Unless my sense of direction is more off than I think… which granted is very possible, we should need to be heading that way,” Chestnut said, illuminating the dark sewage tunnel with her horn and looking down a dark looking tunnel to our right. I nodded and began following after her as she moved to head down the passage, Scarlet following closely behind me.

We were silent for a long time as we walked, the only sound being the quiet sloshing of sewage water as we waded through the murk and the occasional cough. The sounds of distant echoes seemed to ruminate above us as the far off sounds of Fillydelphia’s horrors raged on in the streets above us.

After a few long moments of silence, I picked up my pace a little and moved in step beside Chestnut. “So your son, Tinker… tell me about him?”

Chestnut cast me a sideways glance before returning her gaze to the dark tunnel ahead of us. “He’s a good kid. Likes fixing and reprogramming robots and the like. Not something I could ever do. Got his cutie mark a year ago when Salt Water was teaching him how to fix a broken terminal. You’d like him.”

I cast my eyes down at my submerged hooves as we walked. “I didn’t know Salt Water tutored your son. You must have known him really well. I’m sorry he didn’t make it out of the caves below the Hollow Shades.”

Chestnut shrugged. “My husband and I knew him pretty well, Bolder too. Tinker knew him better. Salt Water was far from the only friend I lost in the Hollow Shades Massacre. Only one of many… I miss all of them.”

I nodded, not really knowing how to properly respond. I hadn’t known Salt Water or Bolder very well, but I had lost ponies that I cared about. I knew how much it hurt to lose friends. I could only imagine how many good ponies had died when Red Eye took over the Hollow Shades.

“Do you two hear that?” Scarlet piped up from behind us. We all paused, our ears perked as we listened to the distant echoes that reverberated through the tunnel. Then I heard what Scarlet was talking about.

Hoof steps. They were muffled by the sloshing of water, but they were still clearly there. And they were getting closer.

“Chestnut, cut the lights,” I hissed, instinctively taking a step back.

Chestnut’s horn went dead, sending us into complete darkness. A second later I heard a stallion grunt. “Fuckin’ shit. Next time I get stuck in fucking sewer duty, I want to be stationed with a fucking unicorn. Or at the very least, get a flashlight. This is fucking ridiculous.”

“Just be glad you ain't on crater duty. A little darkness is nothing compared to that shit. Even the slavers don’t like being a part of that. One rip in your suit and your fuckin’ done for,” I heard a second slaver growl back. Their voices seemed to be fast approaching as the trotted down the filthy tunnel.

“The slaves seem to survive fine without suits,” The other slaver quipped back.

There was a cruel laugh from the second slaver. “Is that supposed to be some kinda joke? Most slaves don't last three days in the crater. Not to mention the terrible blistering. They all look like a walking fucking scab after a while.”

The voices and sloshing of hoof steps grew louder, so loud I figured they must be right in front of us by this point. I quickly stepped to the side, careful not to make any noise and pulling Scarlet and Chestnut with me. The sound of ponies wading through the sewage grew, then slowly began to taper off as the two slavers passed us.

I was about to let out a loud breath of relief when the hoof steps stopped. My breath caught in my throat as I heard the two slavers come to a complete halt and turn around.

“Did you hear that?” I heard one of them grunt, this time in a much more hushed tone.

I hadn’t heard anything, but clearly they had because a few seconds later, the other responded with. “Yeah… you think somepony is down here?” another pause. “You don’t think it’s those three wastelanders that griffin reported do you?”

I heard the sloshing hoof steps begging to grow closer again. Beside me, I felt Chestnut slowly raise her combat shotgun up with her mouth to face toward the supposed location of the slavers.

“Might be some slaves trying to escape?” I heard the two slavers once more come to a stop, this time only a few inches away from me. I could feel their vile, hot breath rasping across my face as I waited in silence in the darkness.

Slowly, they began to step back. “Must have been the wind or some shit. Nothin’ seems to be there now.”

“The damn Enclave comin’ down has us all fuckin’ on edge. We’re all jumpin’ at our own shadows at this point,” The other grunted in agreement as they began to move farther and farther away. “Now lets hurry up and get this fuckin’ shift over. I heard there's a new batch of slaves and I’ve been itching for a new bitch to rut.”

The second slaver began to laugh, only for a blast of magical energy to lance through the tunnel and slash him across the throat. The slaver staggered, blood gurgling in their mouth before they stumbled and fell into the murky water, dead.

The second slaver spun around, eyes wide as he turned to face us. A second beam of energy lanced through his eye, burning off the hide from his face and causing a burst of viscera and brain matter to shoot from the back of his head. Like the first Slaver, they managed to stay standing for less than a second before they collapsed to the tunnel floor with a splash.

Chestnut and I turned in surprise, making out the grim expression on Scarlet's face as the end of her magical energy rifle slowly died down. “They should have kept their mouth shut,” She grunted, turning from us and continuing down the tunnel.

The next few minutes were spent in complete silence. None of us had anything to say and I was still ruminating on whether or not Scarlet should have killed those slavers. One one hoof, they were slavers and had just admitted to being rapists as well, on the other, that whole interaction could have gone completely violence free. No pony had needed to die.

I rubbed my head with a hoof as I tried to sort out all my thoughts. Once upon a time Xayah had referred to my virtue as morality. I hadn’t understood what she meant at the time, my lack of knowledge of what I had done to all those raider children grossly throwing me out of context. But the more I traversed the wasteland and the more I began to understand myself, the more that statement had begun to make sense.

I always knew what was right. Or at least, I used to. I had let my naive, Stable dweller mind think that all acts could fit into either good or evil, and that so long as you could justify it, it was okay.

But my time in the wasteland had made me realize something else as well. I learned that sometimes there simply isn’t a good option. Sometimes the good option is to do evil.

What a fucked up world this is...

I wondered if that virtue of morality that Xayah had casually bestowed upon me all those weeks ago still held any truth. A lot had changed since then, both in the wasteland and to me. I didn't feel like the same Amber Aura that left the Stable. I defiantly didn't act like her still. Hell, I didn't even really look like her anymore, not through all the scars and muck.

“This should be it… I think...” Chestnut grunted, stopping beside a ladder that led up to a closed storm grate. “Are you all ready?”

I glanced up at the storm grate above us. “What should we expect to face up there?”

Chestnut gave me a grumpy looking shrug. “How the fuck am I supposed to know. I might have escaped Filly once before, but I’ve never been in the sewer systems. Let alone tried to break into Red Eyes very own fucking residence. I was trying to escape in the opposite direction thanks.”

My eyes widened. “Wait! Red Eye’s schools are in the same place he lives?” Something told me this place was going to be even more heavily defended than I had initially thought.

“When he's actually in Fillydelphia, yeah,” Chestnut commented. “Last I heard though, he was out in the Everfree forest somewhere. There will probably still be tons of security, but hopefully that means there will be a little bit less.”

Slowly, we crawled up the creaking ladder and pushed open the grate above us, once more emerging into the red tinted nightmare of Fillydelphia. I spotted our destination at once, a massive black spire of metal that rose from the centre of the industrial city. A large metal wall topped with barbed wire had been built around it, blocking us off from storming the front gates. The only entrance through, a large iron gate, was protected by four rotating turrets and a squad of at least ten slavers.

The three of us bunkered down behind a crumbling wall and looked out at the metal wall between us and the massive structure we were heading towards. I had to duck down as a few slavers looked in our direction. Seeing how no pony started shouting or shooting at us, I can only assume they hadn’t spotted us yet.

“We’re going to need to find another way in,” Scarlet mumbled, peeking back over the pile of debris that had once been a house. “There’s no way we’re fighting our way through all of that.”

I scanned the wall for anything we could use to help us get past the wall's defences. Nothing seemed to stand out.

Eventually, I let my gaze wander to a broken down factory beside our target destination. The factory, as broken down as it was, seemed to have been restored to working order, a fiery red glow emanating from many of the windows and the sound of grinding machinery and jangling chains could be heard even from this distance. A few slavers trotted in and out of the structure, dragging slaves on leashes or herding them forwards with violent cracks of their whips.

I let my eyes travel up the side of the building until they came to a rest on a thick looking power line that stretched from the top floor of the factory to the side of the large tower we had hoped to enter. I quickly pointed it out.

“Would that help us any?” I asked, gesturing to the wire. When Scarlet and Chestnut gave me a confused look, I elaborated. “We could zipline down the wire into the other building. Go over top of the wall.”

Both of my friends cast each other worried looks. Eventually Chestnut sighed. “Better plan than anything I can think up. Lets go.”

We began creeping our way over to the large factory, making sure to stay out of sight as groups of slavers moved back and forth, patrolling the area. We quickly slipped behind a large metal crate and peeked around, watching as a group of slavers pulled up to the entrance of the factory with a slave pulled cart of supplies. A long line of other slave pulled wagons had lined up behind them, waiting for their turn to enter the building.

“More shipment of scrap,” One of the slavers who was wearing a dark black, full body suit and gas mask grunted to the guard, gesturing to the wagon behind him. The guard just rolled their eyes and stepped aside, making way for the wagon to move into the factory beyond.

“I think I found us a way in,” I whispered, gesturing to the wagon that was quickly disappearing from our view.

“Hind inside an incoming shipment?” Scarlet asked, sorting out my plan in her own head. I gave her a quick nod of confirmation.

Moving as silently as we could, we began moving our way towards the line of waiting wagons. I spotted the slaver guarding one of the wagons trot away to go take a piss against the wall of the factory, giving us a few seconds to slink up against the wagon and start pulling ourselves inside the barrels carried atop it. I was about half way into my barrel when the slaver began turning around again, muttering something under his breath.

I gave a small yelp of fright as I magically slammed the lid of the barrel down atop my head, forcing myself the rest of the way into the barrel. My nostrils were assaulted by the vile stench of rot as I found myself huddling inside of a nearly full barrel of what appeared to be rotting, mutated fish carcasses. I had to cover my mouth with a hoof to keep from vomiting.

It was moments like these that made me very thankful I was a rather small pony. Even at my size the fit was tight. I didn’t even want to imagine how bad of a cramp Chestnut had at this moment.

After a few moments of waiting in silence, I felt the wagon begin to shift under me. I heard one of the slaves groan about it feeling heavier, but no pony seemed to notice anything else out of the ordinary other than that.

I felt bad for adding to the slaves workload. If I could, I would have liked to free all the slaves, but there were just some things I had no hope of doing. I was going to have enough trouble breaking just four ponies out of this awful place as it was.

The wagon eventually came to a stop again, this time I was able to see the large doorway into the factory through a small hole in the barrel. I saw the slaver leading the wagon step towards the guard.

“Shipment of fish from Oasis,” The slaver grunted, gesturing behind him. I heard the guard give a halfhearted huff and move aside for the wagon. There was the sound of a whip cracking followed by a sudden jolt of the wagon, and we were once again moving forwards, this time into the factory itself.

I had thought the air of Fillydelphia had been hot. Inside of the factory was a hundred times worse. The second we were through the large entrance way, I was hit by a wall of boiling steam. I had to bite my lip to avoid screaming in discomfort. I saw the slaves pulling the wagon squirm as the burning air hit their flesh.

I was suddenly made very aware of why a lot of the slavers were wearing full body suits and gas masks.

“Unload them over there,” I heard a gruff, new voice call out over the loud banging of industrial machinery. The wagon came to a halt a few seconds later and I heard the noise of slaves scrambling to offload the barrels.

There was a loud heave and suddenly my whole world started shifting as one of the slaves lifted the heavy barrel up onto their back and began rolling it across the factory floor. One of the tails of the rotting fish slapped me across the face as the barrel continued to roll, making me flinch slightly.

At last, the rolling came to a stop and the barrel I was in was propped back up into a standing position. Unfortunately for me, I was thrown upside down, my face mushed up against the floor while my hind hooves squished up against the barrels lid.

I groaned, trying to reposition myself into a more comfortable position. Much to my dismay, no amount of squirming seemed to help me flip around in the confined space.

I waited a few moments, listening to the sound of cracking whips and labouring slaves as the slaves did their best to quickly unload the wagon. When I was sure they were gone, I shifted a little and tried pushing at the top of the barrel with my hooves. I pang of fear jolted through me with the barrels lid refusing to move.

Shit! They must have put another barrel on top of mine!

I began squirming a little more, trying to get into a better position to buck at the lid, when I heard Scarlet's voice whisper something at me through the side of the barrel. “Amber? You in this one?”

I gave a furious nod, only to remember that she couldn’t see me. “Yup. Um… A little help please?” I hushed back, blushing a little and still squirming around inside the barrel full of fish.

I heard the sound of something heavy being pulled off the top of my barrel, followed by the lid being pulled off the top. Chestnut and Scarlet poked their heads over the edge of the barrel to look down at me, only to reel away almost instantly, clutching at their muzzles with their hooves.

“Sweet Celestia, you had to hide in… in that…?” Chestnut gasped, waving her hoof before her face in a futile attempt to disperse the foul stench.

I gagged a little as I tossed a few fish aside and pulled myself out of the barrel. “Y-yeah… did you not?”

Scarlet and Chestnut exchanged a look that appeared to be a cross between disgust and amusement. Scarlet turned back to me and helped me the rest of the way out of the barrel. “There were three empty barrels. We thought you got in one of those like we did.”

I felt my blush growing and slapped my forehoof across my face. “You’re telling me I didn’t need to cover myself in dead fish…” I groaned and turned to face the rest of the factory. “Let's just get this over with. We’ve been her less than an hour and I’m already done with this fucking city.”

Moving away from the barrels, we began moving our way through the factory. The inside of the building, as it turned out, had a large main room that towered far above our heads. Railless catwalks that looked like they violated over a hundred safety laws traveled along the exterior of the room, gradually leading upwards to the floors above. The centre of the room held large vats of what I could only assume was gasoline that was connected to a large array of pipes which fed into smaller machines that slaves worked at. The slaves seemed to be filling up fuel canisters, no doubt to be shipped off to the Everfree forest to aid in Red Eyes continuing battle to burn the place down.

As I watched, a pipe burst open, spraying a scrawny looking slave with gasoline. I never saw what started the flame, but the next thing I knew, the slaver was rolling across the floor screaming, their coat blazing with dancing flames. No pony moved to help them. It wasn’t until they had finally fallen limp, the last few embers burning out under their now charred corpse, that a few slaves were forced to drag the body away, dumping it into the corner of the room where a pile of dead slaves seemed to be growing by the hour.

“I want to get out of here,” Chestnut whimpered, wincing as she watched a slaver’s whip crack across a slave's back, drawing blood. She shut her eyes, forcing herself to look away. “Please…”

The factory was large, but with the exception of a few crates of supplies pushed against the walls and the large machines that took up the main floor, there was little to hide behind, making our progress painfully slow. The farther up the catwalks we went, the less there was for us to take shelter behind as groups of patrolling masked slavers trotted past us. A few times we had to act like slaves as well as we caught the attention of a few of the slave masters. Thankfully, we were so coated in muck and scars that looking like a slave wasn’t hard.

By the time we reached the second floor, my coat was soaked with sweat, both from the boiling heat of the factory and the stress of sneaking around. We stumbled into a side room that looked as if it had once been a bathroom, trying to get out of the main area as yet another group of slavers trotted past us.

“How many floors do you think this place has?” I asked, resting against the far wall of the grimy bathroom. Most of the toilets had long since been destroyed, the only remaining fixture in the room being a cracked sink that dripped what appeared to be some sort of radioactive slime.

“My best guess, five,” Chestnut said, resting down across from me. “We’ll probably have more places to hide the farther up we get, but I think we’re out of the slave area, so we aren’t going to be able to pass as slaves anymore.”

I grumbled, giving a nod to show I understood. Just being in Fillydelphia was exhausting. I had no idea how the slaves survived in this place doing all that work. I remembered their blister coated hides as the growing pile of corpses in the corner of the room and realized they probably didn’t.

“I think we have more ponies coming,” Scarlet hushed, glancing out of the room for a second before ducking her head back. She quickly began searching around the room for somewhere to hide. “Five slavers coming this way.”

I furrowed my eyebrows in concern. “Wait, like… coming into here?”

Scarlet nodded quickly, glancing up at a large hole in the ceiling that led to a crawl space between the floors. “Yes, now hurry up and hide before we’re spotted.”

Chestnut and I moved to help hoist Scarlet up into the large hole in the ceiling, both our magics working overtime to lift her up the rest of the distance. Scarlet scrambled up, turning around quickly and reaching down to help pull Chestnut up with her.

As soon as Chestnut was up they both extended their hooves to help me. I could hear the approaching hoof steps of Slavers now as they speedily approached the bathroom. I tried to jump up to reach their outstretched hooves, only to meet air as I failed to jump the distance. I tried again, this time my hoof only lightly bumping against Chestnut’s as I failed to find purchase in their grasp.

Damn. Curse my tininess.

“Get in there you fucking shit,” I heard one of the slavers growl at his companion. The context to the statement was lost on me, but I knew I was running short on time. I wasn’t going to make it up before they came barging in.

I waved my companions off, telling them to hide while my eyes darted around the room for anything to hide behind. I found nothing. Just a sink and a few piles of rubble where toilets had once been that were far too small to conceal my bright, pastel pink form. I considered trying to teleport up into the hole with my friends, but the sound and flash of light would alert the slavers and my magic was still not quite strong enough to preform such an exhausting spell from when I needed to teleport away from the griffins.

I took a step away from the door as I heard the slavers getting closer. There had to be something I could hide behind… anything?

My memory clicked to the alicorn that had attacked me below the Manehattan metro. It had turned invisible. Maybe if I tried to do that…

The door creaked open. I panicked, igniting my horn and trying my best to emulate what I had seen the alicorn do. I stifled a yelp as pain flared across the crack in my horn, making me take a staggering step back, my rump bumping up against the farthest wall of the bathroom.

Two slavers stormed into the room, both with angry looking expressions on their faces. I shut my eyes, expecting them to charge and attack me.

“What the fuck!” A slaver shouted, their voice flaring with rage. I winced. Looks like our cover was blown. So much for… “What do you mean you fucking lost him?”

Wait… what?

I peeked an eye open, making out the shapes of the two slavers in the bathroom with me. One of them was snarling, practically foaming at the mouth with rage as they pinned the other to the slimy wall with their fore hooves. Neither of them were looking at me.

I glanced down at my body, looking straight through me and into the floor beneath. I… I did it!?

The invisibility spell wasn’t perfect, a far cry from what the alicorn's spell had managed to achieve in the Manhattan Metro. I could still see a faint outline of my form if I looked close enough. I could feel my energy quickly getting sapped away with each passing second as I tried to maintain the spell. It wasn’t like teleportation where a whole bunch of my strength disappeared in a flash as a result, but rather I felt it slowly disappearing with each passing second, at first hardly any effort at all, but with each and every moment thereafter feeling harder and harder to maintain the spell than the last. A stealth cloak would have been much more effective, but I’d take what I could get.

Thankfully, these two slavers seemed too focused on whatever argument they were having to notice the thin, shimmering outline of a little pony huddling in the corner of the bathroom.

“Do you have any idea how much shit we’re going to be in if Stern finds out!” The slaver continued to rage, a low growl escaping his lips as he stared the other slaver down. “That slave was fucking high priority! Red Eye him fucking self wanted that Green asshole in chains!”

Wait. Green asshole? They weren’t talking about…

“Brisk knocked me the fuck out, Okay! Get off my back!” The other slaver retorted, trying to push back. I felt myself grinning. They were talking about Brisk Spark! He had somehow managed to escape! Perhaps not Fillydelphia itself, but he was away from his guards at the least. I was shaken from my thoughts as the slaver continued in his gruff voice. “The damn shit stole my gun too, but don’t worry. We’ll find him. He won't be getting far. I mean, how is a single pony going to escape Fillydelphia?”

I grimaced. I hadn’t even started trying to figure out a plan of getting out of Fillydelphia. Something told me that was going to be even harder than getting in.

The first slaver growled again, finally releasing his grip and letting the other slaver drop to the floor. “Then pick yourself up. We need to find him before Stern does. If that griffin finds out we’re as good as dead as he is,” He pulled away, gesturing for the slaver to follow. The two quickly trotted out of the room, both of their weapons drawn.

The moment they were out of sight, I let my spell diminish, popping me back into view. I collapsed to the ground, breathing heavily as I tried to regain my energy. I could feel a headache coming on and there was a painful throbbing in my horn. I was lucky I hadn’t pushed myself into horn burnout.

I heard Scarlet and Chestnut drop down next to me, giving me a worried look. “I didn’t know you could do that?” Scarlet asked, helping me back up to my hooves. “Are you alright?”

I groaned, my legs wobbling a little as I tried to stand. “Never been better,” I grumbled, rubbing my forehead in an attempt to numb the pain. The pain refused to dissipate.

“Sounds like one of your friends is already free,” Chestnut commented, glancing at the door the slavers had gone through. “But they’re right. I doubt Brisk will make it far in Fillydelphia. No ponies does.”

“Give Brisk a little bit of credit. For somepony that can’t shut his mouth, he can be quite sneaky when he needs to be,” I said, feeling a little proud for some reason.

Chestnut gave me a halfhearted glare. “Ponies much sneakier than him have tried to escape Filly and failed. One doesn’t simply escape Fillydelphia.”

I gulped. “Uh, right… How are we planning on escaping Fillydelphia by the way?” My question was met with silence. I gulped again, an unsettling feeling forming in my gut. I glanced at the door leading back into a factory and took a deep breath. “Well then, should we get going?”

The rest of the floors were rather uneventful. Twice we had to duck to the side as a group of slavers trotted past us, but the higher we went, the less ponies seemed to be around.

After only a few minutes of searching the top floor, I found the window above the electrical wire I had seen. The wire was a few feet below the window ledge, making me need to climb through the window and shimmy myself down to rest on the wire below.

My legs trembled as I looked down at the street below me. One slip and I knew I’d be falling to my death. There was no teleporting to safety this time around, not after using up most of my energy to stay invisible. Despite having grown accustomed to the sky outside the Stable, I still wasn’t the biggest fan of heights. I doubted any Stable dweller was.

Well, maybe any Stable dweller except Brisk. That crazy pony could have been a pegasus in another life I swear.

I looked up at Chestnut and Scarlet who were watching me from the window curiously. I gave them a comforting smile that I in no way felt. “I’ll go first, make sure it’s safe. I’ll wave to you when you’re clear to cross over,” I said, trying to keep the tremor out of my voice.

Scarlet gave me a nod, trying her best to match my smile. “Good luck.”

Turning my attending back to the wire, I wrapped my fore hooves around it and let myself dangle beneath it. The wire was sloped downwards at a rather steep angle, meaning I should be able to zip line all the way across, assuming I didn't fuck this up some how.

I really hoped I would be able to do that anyway. I really wasn’t in the mood to splat against the ground and become a pancake at the moment.

Taking a deep breath, I pushed off from the wall with my back legs and began speeding down the wire. I bit my lip as the wire cut into my hooves, giving me rope burn. I felt blood dripping down my hoof and staining my coat as I struggled to maintain my grip on the wire.

It felt like it took longer to cross than it did, the wire constantly slicing away at my hooves the whole way across. I let a sigh of relief out of my muzzle as my hooves finally made their way onto the wall of the building across from us.

Lapping up the blood that tickled down my hooves, I pulled myself up to the adjacent window and bashed it open with the handle of Braeburn's Liberator. The glass shattered, making way for me as I pulled myself forward and rolled into the building. A few of the shards cut into my flesh, forcing me to grit my teeth.

Two slavers, one earth pony, one unicorn, lay in the middle of the room rutting, locked tightly in each other's embrace. They gave a shout of surprise and spun around to face me as I came crashing through the window, their faces a mix of shock and horror. My quad barrel shotgun was up and firing before either of them had a chance to move. The first shot ripped through a slavers face, sending them reeling back and slamming into a wall, the flesh on the front of their face ripped apart and showing the now broken bone beneath.

The second slaver dropped to the ground, a round of burning buckshot blowing out his forehoof. He crawled back, trying to evade a second shot and reach for his revolver, only for my shotgun to ram across his face, knocking him back down and shattering his top row of teeth.

I trotted forwards, my gun aimed at the slavers head as he once again tried to stagger to his hooves. My magic wrapped around his head and slammed him into the wall, knocking him completely unconscious.

I took a second to steady myself, rubbing at the deep cuts the wire had dug in my hooves. They hurt, but the bleeding seemed to be minimal. When I was sure no more ponies were going to attack or had heard the gunshots, I stalked over to the window I had shattered and waved at Scarlet and Chestnut on the far side, signalling them to come over.

Scarlet came first, followed quickly by Chestnut, both of them rubbing at their hooves in a similar manner to me to stop the bleeding caused by the wire.

“Alright, we’re in. What’s next,” I asked, addressing the two of them.

“We find my son,” Chestnut said flatly, giving the room around her a dirty glare as if the walls would simply part for her and lead her to Tinker. “We should be on the right floor. The bottom floors security, the top belongs to Red Eye.”

Scarlet trotted over to the door and pressed her ear against it. “I don’t hear anypony. We should be free to exit.”

I nodded, moving up beside her and pushing the door open with my head. I cautiously stuck my head out, scanning the hallway beyond with my eyes. Almost immediately, I yanked my head back, my gaze having landed on two power armoured griffins standing guard at the end of the hallway.

“We have to power armoured griffin guards at the end of the hall,” I whispered to my friends as they gave me concerned looks. I thought crossed my mind, making me raise my voice a little. “Wait… how did they not hear my gunshots?”

Chestnut let her magic aura surround the walls around us for a second. “This room was magically soundproofed, and recently too,” She looked down at the two slavers I had taken out upon first entering the room. “Looks like they were up to something that didn’t want the guards to overhear.”

I blushed, remembering exactly what I had interrupted when I had initially burst into the room. Awkward as that was, I’ll take what luck I could get. Something told me I was only going to have so much of it here.

Chestnut drew out her shotgun, moving closer to the door. “Good chance those griffins are guarding the school area. Red Eye doesn’t want any slaves being able to break in and reclaim their foals,” her face twisted into a snarl at that and I could see the muscles in her neck and legs tensing as she readied herself.

“We’ll still need to get past the guards,” Scarlet pointed out. “If our time getting into Filly taught us anything, it's that griffins don’t go down easy. Especially if they’re in power armour. And as soon as we start firing shots outside this room, we’re going to be in trouble.”

“I don’t suppose either of you have any shock grenades?” I suggested. “Worked well back in the Institute,” Both Scarlet and Chestnut shook their heads sadly. I sighed. “Alright, what else do we have?”

“We could leur them over here?” Scarlet suggested, sounding uncertain of her own plan.

Chestnut gave a shake of her head. “That's a risky move. And even if we did successfully get them to investigate this room without calling for backup or simply attacking, it’s unlikely they would both leave guard duty. If he second one were to realize something was wrong, we’d have a whole lot more slavers than just those two to deal with.”

I looked down at the two slaver bodies lying on the floor next to us. “Alright then, who’s interested in doing a little bit of infiltration?”

I stepped out into the hallway, Scarlet slowly moving out behind me. The slavers armour was a little too big for me, sagging around my barrel and dangling limply around my hooves, but it was good enough that no pony would notice if they didn’t look close enough. I had covered a bit of grim on my face, hoping to hide how vibrant pink my coat was.

The last thing I needed was one of the two griffins recognizing me.

The slaver armour fit Scarlet a bit better. It was still too big for her, but even up close I had trouble telling. Like me, she had rubbed some muck into her hide. Not that it was necessary, we were all filthy from our time in the sewers.

The closer to the end of the hall I got, the more I realized Chestnut was right about what the griffins were guarding. Above the door hung a steel sign reading, ‘Red Eyes School for gifted ponies’ and a few toys scattered the hallway. I wondered if the rooms we were passing were the foals dorm rooms. If they were, then Red Eye was honestly treating these foals better than most places in the wasteland would. Those rooms made the room I had stayed in at Tenpony tower look like a hovel.

Both griffin guards drew their assault carbines at our approach, their eagle eyes glaring daggers at us through their visors. “Fuck off. This area is off limits!” One of the griffins barked, snapping their enclosed metal beak at us.

I put on as confident and gravelly of a voice as I could muster. “We’re here on behalf of Stern. She wants to see two of the foals being kept here.”

Neither of the griffins removed their unblinking gaze from me. “I didn’t hear anything about that,” One of them snarled, one of their armoured talons scratching violently at the ground. “What foals does she want?”

“Uh… Tinker and Mirra,” Scarlet said, her voice trembling slightly with nerves. “She wants them…”

One of the griffins took an advancing step towards us. “Do you have proof?” there was a click as their assault carbine readied to fire. “We’ll need written documentation to prove Stern has ordered this.”

I gave a nervous chuckle. This was not going the way I hoped. Trying to muster up more confidence, I puffed out my chest and took a step towards the griffin, coming almost muzzle to beak with them. “Are you really going to get in the way of a direct order from Stern?”

The griffin to my right dropped into a battle stance and snarled. “Our contract belongs to lord Red Eye, and Stern respects the contract. Now unless you have documentation, I’d recommend you back off before we tear you to shreds.”

Welp, that was my que to enact plan B. My horn glowed and disconnected the ammo magazines from both of their carbines. The magazines dropped to the ground with a clatter, the griffins guns clicking as they both attempted to open fire on us.

“What the fu-” One of the griffins scowled, their gaze dropping down to their now empty gun. They looked back up just in time to see Braeburn’s Liberator slam into their visor, shattering the glass and causing the shards to rip apart their eyes beyond.

The griffin staggered back, talons clutching at their face as they screeched in pain. The second one lurched forwards, their talons extended to slash out Scarlet's throat.

Scarlet dropped to the ground, the swipe missing her by inches as the griffin soured over her head and crashed into the wall behind her. She spun around, her magical energy weapon raising in her mouth and blasting a nearly silent beam of blue energy through the exposed wing of the griffin. The griffin squawked, blood oozing down their side and dripping to the floor.

The griffin I had blinded made a lunge at me, slashing at my face in an attempt to gouge out my eyes. I stepped back, the sharp talons nicking my cheek and splitting the skin. I spun around and bucked them in the face. I wasn’t strong, but a buck by a pony was a buck by a pony. The griffins head lurched back, their body slamming into the wall and slumping to the ground.

The second griffin pulled themselves back up and whirled around to face us, their beak twisted into an enraged growl. Their talon raised, reaching for the intercom on their helmet to call for help.

Before the griffin could alert the rest of the building of our presence, Chestnut jumped out of the door from behind her, dragging the griffin backwards and into the magically soundproofed room. I never heard it, but there was a flash of light as Chestnut's combat shotgun fired off three shots directly into the griffin's head, silencing them forever.

The griffin I had knocked down staggered back up, glaring daggers at us. I glanced down, my eyes landing on their now fully loaded assault carbine.

Shit! Things were about to get loud.

I rolled to the side, the griffins assault carbine spraying the hallway with a steady stream of bullets. I saw Scarlet and Chestnut do the same. Two shots found a home in Chestnut’s leg, dropping her to the ground with a scream.

In the distance, I heard yells of surprise as the slavers on the floor below heard the gunfire rip through the hallway.

I quickly rolled to my hooves and shoved Braeburn’s Liberator against the side of the griffins helmet. The griffin gave a squawk of alarm, only to be silenced as a round of buckshot burst from my powerful shotgun, tearing through the griffin's helmet and embedding itself in its brain.

The griffin dropped to the ground dead, blood oozing from the holes that had been ripped in its helmet. But it was too late. I could already hear the pounding of hooves as groups of slavers charged up the stairs to investigate the sudden gunfire from above them.

“Shit, we need to get them out of here now!” I shouted, rushing over to the door and pulling. The door was locked! Because fuck me apparently. “We’re going to be getting company in a few seconds! Any pony want to try their hoof at lock picking?”

Chestnut stumbled towards me, her leg still bleeding from where the griffin's shots had pierced her. She spun around, not wasting any time and bucked the door right off its hinges. I winced, splinters of wood flying everywhere as Chestnut's powerful buck made way for our approach.

Behind the door, I heard a few foals give screams of terror, moving to cower behind anything they could. A mare that looked to be taking care of the kids stepped in front of the foals protectively, trying to get between us and them.

Chestnut stormed forwards, her shotgun raising to point at the mare. Scarlet and I quickly followed after her, our stride not nearly as confident.

“Where is my son!” Chestnut growled, her eyes blazing with rage as she towered over the cowering mare. “Tell me where he is now or I will blow your fucking brains out!”

“Mom?” A small colt's voice piped up from the crowd of cowering foals.

Chestnut turned, spotting a beige unicorn colt with a white patch on his muzzle looked up at her with a wide grin. Her eyes lit up as she saw him and a few tears raced down her cheeks. “Tinker!?” all of a sudden, she dropped her shotgun and rushed to Tinker, wrapping the small colt in a tight hug. “Oh goddesses, I was so scared I wouldn’t see you again!”

A warm smile crossed Tinkers face and a few tears of his own seeped from his eyes as he embraced his mother. I could see his body shivering as he wrapped his hooves around Chestnut as tightly as possible, not wanting to let go. “I knew you’d come get me!”

I saw the trembling mare moving to grab Chestnut's dropped shotgun. I quickly swept the weapon up in my own magic, re-aiming it at the mare. I glanced around, trying to spot Mirra in the crowd of foals. I couldn’t see her anywhere.

Turning to address the mare more directly, I scowled. “Where is Mirra?”

The mare cowered, ducking her head between her fore hooves. “Wh-who are you ponies!?” her eyes widened as a thought hit her. “Oh goddesses… You’re those ponies I was told to look out for! The ones Stern said would be coming after the changeling filly! Goddesses, please don’t kill me! I didn't do anything, I swear!”

I lowered my head so that I was level with her and growled. “I won’t if you tell me where that changeling filly is.”

The mare looked up at me, her eyes wide and fearful. There was a loud shout from somewhere behind us, drawing her attention away from me for a second. The slavers were getting closer. A few more moments and they would be upon us.

Stealing herself, the mare pulled herself up to her hooves and snarled. “I… I won’t tell you anything. I made a promise to Red Eye that I was going to protect these foals, and he’s a lot scarier than you are!”

I tapped both Chestnut’s combat shotgun and Breaburn’s Liberator against either side of her head. “I’m going to ask this one more time. Where. Is. Mirra.”

The mare huffed, a small tear rolling down her face. “Red Eye can do a lot worse to me than death. How bad can you do.”

I bared my teeth. “Is that a fucking challenge?”

“Wait!” Tinker’s voice called out, drawing my attention to the small colt who was still tight in his mothers embrace. “You’re looking for Mirra? You mean the weird changeling filly?”

I nodded. “Yeah. Do you know where she is?” I paused as his words fully sunk in. "Hey! She's not weird!"

“The smart ponies took her upstairs an hour ago,” Tinker responded, giving me a grimace. “I think they were going to do something to her…”

I felt my heart skip a beat. I exchanged a terrified glance with Scarlet. “We need to get up there now,” Scarlet said with a stern expression, taking a step back towards the door.

I nodded, pulling the two guns away from the mare and following after Scarlet. The mare collapsed to the ground fully, finally no longer frozen with fear. “Come on Chestnut, we need to get out of here.”

Chestnut looked up from Tinker for the first time since finding him, suddenly realizing every eye was on her. “We… We can’t just leave the rest of the foals here. We need to get them out too.”

I shook my head. “There’s nothing we can do for them. There’s no way we can sneak through all of Fillydelphia while harbouring over fifty foals,” as much as that broke my heart, I knew it was true. There was no way we could get all of them out. Some things were simply beyond what we were capable of doing.

Chestnut looked at me for a moment, confliction strewn across her face. Finally she nodded solemnly and pulled herself up, lifting Tinker up onto her back. She gave the still cowering mare a death glare as she retrieved her shotgun from my magic. “Don’t you dare let these foals get hurt.”

The mare nodded, giving a terrified gulp.

Limping on her injured leg, Chestnut followed after us, Tinker still atop her back. I watched her leg warily, before glancing around for a healing potion. I spotted one on a desk against the far wall and floated it over, passing it to her.

I didn’t like taking healing potions from foals, but by the looks of it, Red Eye had no intention of letting them get hurt anyway.

“I think they’re up this way!” I heard a slaver shouting. Across the hall, I saw the shadows of numerous slavers rushing up the stairs to find us. We needed to hurry.

“Tinker, do you know the way?” I asked, quickly sprinting out into the hallway. We only had a few seconds to get out of here or we were dead.

Tinker gave me a fearful wide eyed shake of their head. “I-I don’t know. They just said upstairs… that's where they take the ponies that get sick.”

“They must be taking her to the medical wing, assuming this building has one,” Scarlet surmised, rushing to the stairway leading up to the next floor. “Come on, we gotta go!”

I nodded, bounding forwards and up the steps after her, Chestnut and Tinker followed quickly behind me. As I sprinted up the steps, I saw the first slaver reach the top of the stairs behind us, their gun already raised and their hoof pointing us out.

“There they are!”

Bullets whizzed past me as the slaver opened fire on us. Chestnut’s shotgun raised, blasting out their leg and sending them tumbling to the floor screaming. More slavers were beginning to reach the top of the stairs now, their own guns firing as we ducked away and continued rushing up to the next floor.

“Shit! Don’t let them get away!” I slaver yelled, their screams almost entirely drowned out by the stomping of hooves as the slavers stormed after us.

We burst onto the next floor, finding ourselves in another long hallway, this one filled with numerous branching off rooms. At the far end of the hall was the room we were looking for, a large set of double doors with the words ‘Clinic’ printed neatly on a sign above it.

“Go go! Now!” I shouted, bounding forwards towards the end of the hall. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Scarlet and Chestnut quickly do the same.

The slavers came charging up the stairs after us less than a moment later, their guns blazing as they sent round after round after us. I zigzagged, dodging side to side in an attempt to avoid being gunned down.

I rammed head first into the doorway, slamming the doors open and charging into the room. Scarlet dove through with me, spinning around to slam the door shut behind us the second Chestnut made it through. I telekinetically grabbed a chair resting beside me and shoved it under the door handle, blocking off the door.

The chair was knocked aside almost immediately as the slavers on the far side slammed against the door with their full weight. I grabbed the chair again with my magic, holding it in place as I tried to keep the slavers from bashing through the door.

“Chestnut! Help!” I yelled, sweat dripping down my brow as I tried to hold up my spell. I had overexerted my magic enough today, my spells were starting to fail me and the last thing I needed was to go into horn burnout.

Chestnut’s horn blazed as she wrapped the whole door in a field of magic, holding it still. The banging on the far side continued, but the door shuddered less. Clear the door wasn’t going to give due to brute force, the banging lessened and the gunshots began. Round after round of bullets pierced through the door, slashing past us as the slavers tried to blindly fire upon us. Chestnut grit her teeth as she tried to concentrate on keeping up her spell while getting out of the line of fire.

“What the fuck is the meaning of this!” I turned to see two unicorn ponies dressed in lab coats glaring at us from the other side of the room. Between them lay a medical table with, to my surprise, a filly Rainbow Dash sitting atop it. The pony that first spoke took another step forward, reverting my attention from the tiny Rainbow Dash. “I’m going to ask you again, what is going on here!?”

The filly Rainbow Dash’s mouth twisted into a wide smile as she looked at me. “Amber!?”

I squinted, suddenly feeling very confused. “Wait… Mirra?”

The filly Rainbow Dash glanced down at her body for a second before rolling her eyes and letting a swirl of magical green fire flare around her, a few seconds later, Mirra sat in her place. She jumped off the medical bed and rushed over to me, wrapping me in a big hug. She looked over at Scarlet and grinned. “Hiya miss Scarlet. How did you get here?”

A bullet lanced through the door, missing my face by inches. “Let’s just say a lot has happened these past two days. I’ll explain everything once we’re somewhere a little safer,” I elaborated, letting go of Mirra and taking a step away from the door. “Why were you Rainbow Dash?”

Mirra groaned. “These ponies are stupid and have stupider ideas. I’ll tell you later.”

The two unicorns were staring at us still, now looking more confused than they had previously. “Can somepony stop ignoring us and explain what the fuck is happening!?”

“Just blow the damn thing off its hinges!” I heard a slaver on the far side of the door shout. That sounded bad.

Chestnut flinched, another bullet blasting through the door making her stagger slightly and threatening to make her lose her concentration. “Amber! We need to get out of here now!”

“Mirra, is there a way out of here!” I asked, raising my voice to be heard over the booming gunfire.

Mirra looked around, trying to spot a way out. “I-I don’t know!”

Scarlet turned to the two perplexed unicorns who were beginning to look progressively more terrified as the gunfire continued to rip through the door. She raised her energy rifle at them, making them both flinch. “We need a way out of here!”

“Th-there’s a back door,” One of the unicorns said, cowering back and trying to get out of the sights of Scarlet’s gun. They pointed to a side room to our left, their hoof trembling. clearly they were not as well trained and cool under pressure as the last mare had been. “It leads to the top floor.”

“That’ll have to do! Let’s go!” I spun around, racing towards the side room.

I was knocked over by a massive shockwave as the double doors to the clinic burst open, blasted apart as an armoured slaver with a rocket launcher barrelled through the opening. Chestnut’s magic imploded under the force of the blast, sending her staggering backwards, her horn steaming.

“You’re going to die bitch!” The rocket launcher welding slaver screamed, rounding on me and letting another rocket flash towards me. I reached out with my magic, grabbing onto the rocket and sending it careening into the wall. It detonated, blasting apart the wall and giving me a view of the hellish city beyond.

More slavers began charging in, their weapons already firing. We darted forwards, rushing into the side room. As advertised, a large staircase lay to our right, leading higher up into the building.

“Go go go!” I screamed, rushing for the stairs as fast as I could. Another rocket flashed past me, tearing apart a medical bed and sending bits of debris flying.

Scarlet rushed up the steps first, Mirra close behind her, the changelings delicate wings buzzing furiously as she tried to avoid the incoming hail of bullets. Chestnut rushed up next, scooping Tinker up onto her back to keep him close as she charged up the steps.

The rocket launcher slaver rushed ahead of the group, their massive weapon firing towards me as my first hoof reached the steps. The rocket exploded only a few inches away from me, sending my flying forwards and landing on my front. Shrapnel slashed at the side of my body and I could feel a large patch of fur sizzle under the explosive heat.

Braeburn’s Liberator swivelled up in my magic, sending a round of buckshot into the slaver's shoulder. The slaver staged, blood spilling down their side and pooling around their hooves.

I staggered up the steps as another slaver with an assault rifle fired upon my position. I heard the rapid cracking of the weapon as it tore apart the steps behind me. I spun around a turn at a landing on the stairs, bolting out of the slavers firing range momentarily as their assault rifle blasted holes in the wall behind where I had been standing.

“Amber! Hurry!” I heard Scarlet shout from up ahead of me.

I raised my head to see Scarlet, Chestnut, Mirra and Tinker already at the top of the stairs, Scarlet quickly pushing a box to the top step. My eyes widened as I saw that it was a box of grenades.

I jumped forwards, bounding up the last few steps and reaching the next floor of the building. Not a second later, Scarlet pushed the box of grenades down the steps, letting it tumble into the approaching slavers. Her magical energy rifle was out in a flash, firing off beams of deadly light into the box.

Boom!

The walls shook as the stairway exploded in shrapnel. The slavers reeled back, screaming as the box of explosives detonated, many of them having their front halves ripped apart in the blast. The ceiling caved, cracks streaking across its surface before it collapsed downwards, blocking off the stairway entirely. I heard a few shrieks of pain as the avalanche of debris crashed down atop a few slavers heads, crushing them.

I took a deep breath, letting myself collapse to my rump. That had been way too close.

Chestnut walked up to me, nudging me with her hoof. “We can’t stay here. I don’t know how long that will hold them and I highly doubt that that stairway was the only way up to this level. Given a few minutes, they’ll be on us again.”

I groaned, pulling myself up to my hooves and looking around at my friends. “Everypony alright?” I asked. None of them seemed to be hurt, only out of breath and a little bruised. I turned to face the new hallway, finding yet another long corridor full of side rooms. How big was this building?

I felt Mirra tapping on my shoulder with her twisted hoof. I smiled at the contact. It was good to be back with one of my friends again. I looked down to see what she was trying to get my attention for. “Amber, what do you think that room is?”

I turned, following the direction of her pointed hoof until I saw it. A large door painted black with the dark red symbol of an eye engraved into it. I had seen this door before, in a memory back in the Hollow Shades.

Clearly Tinker recognized it too, uttering it before I had the chance to speak. “That’s where master Red Eye stays…” I could see Chestnut wince at Tinkers use of the word ‘Master’, but she didn’t comment on it.

I knew it was probably in my best interest to search for a way out, but my curiosity would not allow me to do anything other than slowly move towards the door. I was surprised the room wasn’t guarded, but I suppose it didn’t need to be seeing how Red Eye was currently away at his cathedral in the Everfree forest.

My hoof raised and pushed on the door. Nothing. It was locked, and by the look of the lock, it was locked well. I scowled, glaring daggers at the door. It would be a really nice time to have Brisk with me right now.

The door behind us burst open with a loud bang, causing us to jump and spin around. I spun, finding myself staring down the multiple barrels of a large mini gun. I gulped, my eyes focusing in on the weapon as it began to whir to life.

“Where’s Mirra you slaving bastard! You have five seconds before I fill you full of holes!”

Wait… What? I knew that voice.

I blinked, staring back at Brisk in awe as he glared at me from the other side of the mini gun. After a rather long feeling second, he blinked his own lone eye in shock as well as he suddenly realized who he was pointing his gun at. “Amber...? How did you- I thought you were-” Brisk glanced around, lowering his gun and taking in the five of us for the first time. His gaze finally settled on Mirra, who was currently in the middle of grinning up at him like an idiot. “I’m guessing I’m a little late to the whole rescuing you thing, huh…”

Mirra gave him a playful nod, her smirk widening. "Mmhmm"

Grinning, I rushed forwards and wrapped the green buck in a tight hug. “You’re just in time, bro!” I pulled away after a few seconds, looking Brisk over. “I heard some slavers say you escaped.”

Brisk nodded, still looking a little confused. “I, um… Yeah. Of course I did. No cage is going to keep me away from my freedom,” He gave us all a smug smirk. “I can’t say this was how I imagined my rescue attempt to go though. Seems like you already did most of the rescuing.”

"Not quite. we still have an entire building of slavers currently on their way up to come kill us. probably a whole city of slavers too soon if we don't hurry," Scarlet said, taking a step forward and glancing behind her for a few seconds before looking back towards us. “We can all catch up later, but right now we need to find a way out of here.”

Brisk turned to look at her, his brows knitting together in confusion as if trying to recognize her face from a distant memory. “I’m sorry, have we met? You look strangely familiar…”

“Brisk, Scarlet, Scarlet, Brisk,” Chestnut said, her hoof swinging back and forth between the two of them as she made the quick introductions. “Now as Scarlet said, we need to get out of here, and fast. Waiting around is just asking to get caught.”

Brisk nodded thoughtfully, turning to the door he had just burst through. “Yeah, I know a way out of here.”

I bounced slightly on the tips of my hooves, feeling slightly anxious. “Before we go escape and stuff, you think we can… I don’t know… check out what's in there?” I pointed at the big door that led to Red Eye’s room. My curiosity was going through the roof. And in my defence, there might be some useful stuff in there.

Everypony turned and gave me a flat glare. Mirra slapped her face with her gnarled forehoof. “Amber, this probably isn’t the best time to go exploring. Slavers are hunting us down, remember?”

“Just a quick in and out,” I insisted pleadingly, giving them all a rather sheepish smile. “We need to know the kind of things Red Eye is up too.”

Brisk sighed and quickly moved to the door, sliding a few bobby pins out and sticking them into the lock. Less than a second passed before the door clicked open, letting us into the room beyond.

The room was much like how I remembered it from Crank’s memory. It was fairly large, with a big window at the back overlooking the whole of Fillydelphia. Not all that far away I saw what appeared to be a massive crater, most likely where the city had been hit by the balefire bomb. From this height I could see all the way to the huge wall towering over the city. Beyond the walls, I caught sight of Enclave raptors slowly heading in the direction of Manehattan, who knew what they were doing.

The centre of the room held Red Eye’s large desk, a single terminal resting atop it, a green glow illuminating the room around it, making the whole area feel strangely ominous.

I trotted over to the terminal, clicking it on. It was locked, as expected. “Give me a second, I need to hack the terminal,” I said to my companions, turning my gaze to the screen and beginning to search through the computer's data for the right password.

“You have one minute,” Chestnut said, placing Tinker down and standing guard at the door. Scarlet moved to stand guard next to her while Mirra and Brisk went to look at the terminal screen over my shoulder.

“You really think he has anything of value on there?” Brisk asked, his eyes scanning over the lines of coding that I had pulled up on the screen. From his expression, I could tell he didn’t understand any of it.

I shrugged. “No idea, but Red Eye seems like the kind of pony that not only holds all the cards, but makes sure to know what everypony else's cards are too. We can’t pass up that kind of information…” I paused as I found the right password. “Haha! Got it!”

The password had been ‘Littlepip’. Creepy that he would use her name as a password, but it made hacking the terminal fairly easy. No way that combination of letters would have just coincidentally been in the coding.

As soon as I successfully logged into the terminal, I was assaulted by a plethora of different files. Far too many to read in the short amount of time I had. I let my eyes roll across the long list of files, looking for one that might prove useful to me. Most of them just seemed to be files regarding the inner workings of Fillydelphia or progress out in the Everfree forest. There were a couple that involved different factions and events out in Manehattan, but little that mattered to me much in the here and now.

Then my eyes landed on a very specific file. I don’t know what drove me to choose that one specifically, but the second I saw it, I knew it was important.

>ASCENSION - SINGLE PEGASUS PROJECT

>Equestria must be rebuilt. It was a beautiful place once, a land much better than this one I live in now. The evils that are committed here in my city are monstrous, unforgivable, and yet I see no other way to rebuild the magical world that once was.

>But simple infrastructure is not what made Equestria great. It was Celestia. It was the sun. It was Luna. It was the moon. Under these, Equestria could once more become the land I know it can become. Agriculture, and yes, even peace and unity with the Pegasi must be returned to the ways of old. Silver Ace is certain of this. His thoughts on the matter I did find to be rather insightful.

>It is for these reasons that my most important objective must be on reclamation of the Single Pegasus Project. The Enclave has held onto the S.P.P. Control tower and dominion over the sky for too long. It is time to retake control of the weather, and once more return Celestia's sun to the wasteland.

I furrowed my eyebrows as I read through the file. The Single Pegasus Project? Something that could control the weather itself?! It seemed almost impossible.

Another thought hit me. Pureblood hadn’t been lying about Red Eyes plans to ascend to godhood. He was literally planning to take control of the weather and the element themselves. I didn’t even want to think about what Red Eye would be capable of if that plan ever became a reality.

Who would be able to stand up against something of that magnitude? Maybe Littlepip could have, had she not been killed in a mega spell explosion out in Maripony.

I quickly read over Red Eye’s brief mention of Silver Ace again. I wondered if he had any more on his terminal about the strange pony. If anypony did, it was Red Eye.

“Amber, are you almost done?” Chestnut asked, glancing back over her shoulder at me. “I don’t know how much longer we have.”

“One more second, I want to see something,” I snapped back quickly, scrolling through Red Eyes files until I found what I was looking for.

One of the last files on the terminal had simply been labeled as ‘Silver Ace’. I pulled the file open, trying my best to read through it as fast as possible.

>SILVER ACE

>The pony is, for lack of a more tactful turn, quite the anomaly to me. I remember meeting him as a very young colt. Even then, I was uncertain of his exact intentions. I am not a fool like Pureblood. I am well aware that Silver Ace has intentions that do not line up entirely with that of my own, but I have so far been unable to pinpoint his exact endgame.

>One does not live for over two centuries without leaving a large trail of breadcrumbs, especially one as integral to the war effort as Silver Ace. And yet, I find a shocking lack of information on his movements and actions. He has done a startlingly good job of covering, destroying or otherwise erasing all traces of his involvements to the point where creating a clear picture of his intentions is more akin to reassembling a shattered glass in a raging sea than a puzzle.

>In my visit to Canterlot to reclaim many of its secrets and treasures, it was brought to my attention in a terminal belonging to Princess Luna, that Silver Ace was incredibly interested in multiple forms of magic, but most notably in the creation of Soul jars. Luna denied him any information on the subject, though a terminal entry I discovered in the Ministry of Image suggests he may have found alternative means to learn the creation of such things.

>It is also paramount that I mention his involvement in the Utopia program, both in his large role in its creation, but also in his endless obsession with it. He hides it well, but no pony plots for over two hundred years about something without losing passion without intense obsession. It is obsession and devotion that leads to completion. Over my years I have learned that if something is not completed to its entirety, it is not completed at all. This Silver Ace knows.

>Whatever Silver Ace’s end goal is, it is of the utmost importance that his activity is monitored. When the time comes for him to enact what he has long since envisioned, I need to ensure that his actions are a benefit to me and the rest of Unity.

That was less than helpful. Practically all he said was that he knew next to nothing about Silver Ace! I could have told him that.

The only thing that was news to me was Silver Ace’s interest in whatever these Soul Jars were, but I didn’t have any clue what that was and as far as I could tell, he was interested in a lot more kinds of magic than just that.

“Okay, snooping done. We really should get out of here,” Brisk said, trying to pull me away from the terminal. “As much as I love snooping, we really shouldn’t be wasting this much time.”

I nodded, forcing myself away from the terminal. I cast one last look around the room. My eyes landed on a large gun resting on a side table. I quickly trotted over to it, looking it over.

It was an Anti-material rifle, a really nice one too. It had a dark red coat of paint, with a few areas of black to make even the dark red pop. The scope was enormous, clearly one of the most advanced ones I had ever seen, and a sturdy looking forward bipod mount. A large pile of .50 BMG rounds sat next to it.

It reminded me a lot of the rifle Stern carried around, only much, much nicer. I picked it up, finding a note that had been pinned underneath.

A parting gift for when I ascend to Godhood. Take care of Fillydelphia in my stead, Stern. -Red Eye

That would explain the similarities to Stern’s style of weaponry. Red Eye had intended to give it to the griffin as a gift. Not the kind of gun I would usually fight with, but I didn’t really feel like letting Stern take it simply out of spite and I knew Xayah would be ecstatic for a sniper upgrade.

I snatched it up and quickly exited out the door, joining up with my friends. Chestnut whistled as she saw the large gun slung across my back, looking almost envious.

There was a bang from somewhere down the hall, signifying the slavers had managed to find a new way up to us and were getting closer.

“Alrightly, sounds like a good time to run,” Brisk said, turning to the door he had first come through and beginning to lead us through.

“What is this exit?” Mirra asked, fluttering above him as we raced forwards. “I’ve been trying to find a way out since I got here. Nothing has worked.”

Brisk looked up at her and gave off a smug, yet slightly nervous smirk. “You are not going to like it.”

We rounded a corner, leading to, surprise surprise, another hallway. At the far end I could see a window that had been smashed open, presumably by Brisk when he had snuck into the building.

“Wait! We’re going out the window!? We’re five or six stories up!” I screamed. Brisk didn’t slow stride, charging faster and faster towards the opening in the wall.

“We gotta jump!” He shouted back, his hooves pounding against the ground as he picked up speed.

Tinker’s eyes went wide from atop Chestnuts' back. “What! Are you crazy!”

“There they are! Give ‘em hell!” A slaver shouted from behind us as he and about fifty other slavers rounded the corner and began stampeding towards us. Bullets whizzed past my face, forcing me to charge ahead even faster out of instinct to avoid being blasted apart.

Three more slavers turned into the hallway, each one carrying a massive rocket launcher strapped to their battle saddle.

Fuck, how many rocket launchers did they have in Fillydelphia!?

Three rockets flashed down the hallway at us all at once. I could feel the air behind me being ripped apart as the massive missiles tore down the hallway towards us.

“Out the window! Now!” Brisk shouted, leaping forwards and diving through the shattered window, dropping out of sight.

No time to argue. I rushed forwards, blindly flinging myself out into the open air of Fillydelphia, my friends lunging out with me as we began to descend. Less than a second passed after we leapt when the three rockets flashed out above us, soaring out into open air.

I slammed into the nearby rooftop of the building adjacent to us, the air being knocked from my lungs and making my whole body shudder. Scarlet and Chestnut landed next to me, Chestnut using her body to cushion Tinker’s fall.

“Get up! Hurry!” I heard Brisk shouting. I looked up, seeing him already back on his hooves and urging us to keep running.

I glanced back skyward, seeing the slavers now reaching the window we had just leapt from. A few began jumping as well, whips and knives raised as they prepared to cut into us. The slavers with rocket launchers skidded to a stop, their massive weapons aiming down at us and firing.

“Shit!” I pushed myself back to my hooves, rolling to my side quickly as one of the slavers fired, a rocket soaring and detonating in the spot I had just been lying. The shockwave knocked into me, sending me rolling head over hoof across the rooftop before coming to a stop at the edge of the roof, my head hanging over the side and giving me a clear view of the city below.

I gulped, fear gripping me. We were really high up!

I pulled myself back up and began rushing after my friends as they scurried across the rooftop. The slavers wielding melee weapons were fast approaching us, having landed on the roof and beginning to charge.

Scarlet spun around, running backwards as fast as she could while firing shot after shot from her magical energy rifle. Only one slaver fell to her assault, their body turning to ash as the deadly energy weapon lanced through them.

Up ahead, I saw Brisk jump from the top of the building, his hooves outstretched as he tried to land on yet another adjacent roof. He barely made it, his hind hooves swinging freely over the edge before he managed to pull himself the rest of the way.

“This is crazy… you ponies are all crazy!” I heard Chestnut saying to herself as she wrapped her hooves as tightly as she could around Tinker and leapt across the gap between roofs.

The gunfire was beginning to attract other slavers as well. I saw a squad of griffins swoop down and begin keeping pace with us as we rushed along, their weapons out and trying to get a shot on us.

To my displeasure, I spotted two Pinkie Pie shaped hot air balloons slowly moving in to cut us off, slavers manning massive looking turrets sitting inside.

I jumped, my hooves flailing in the air a second before Landed heavily on the second rooftop. Mirra quickly fluttered down beside me, her mouth wide and heaving as she tried to get air into her overexerted lungs.

Two more rockets flashed past me, one detonating only a foot away from my location. I was knocked backwards, bits of debris from the blown apart roof slashing into my hide and making hot blood spill down my side.

I had to tuck my legs against my body and roll to my right as one of the overhead flying griffins fired at me with their sniper. The shot pierced the ground in front of my face, sending a small burst of dust and plaster shooting up into my eyes.

Scarlet wrapped a hoof around my neck, hauling me back up to my hooves. I was surprised she found the strength to lift me up, though I suppose I didn’t weigh very much.

The slavers behind us were gaining. Every few moments I heard the loud crack of a whip as one of the slavers lashed forwards. A few took aim with their guns, filling the air with smoke and the sound of booming gunfire as they tried to gun us down.

One slaver managed to catch up with us, tackling into Scarlet from behind and sending her stumbling to the ground. Scarlet fell, her hooves giving out from under her and her head slamming hard into the concrete factory roof. The slaver reared up above her, a machete held in his mouth as he readied to plunge it into Scarlet’s chest.

Mirra buzzed past, her mouth spewing a vile stream of green mucus. The slaver was knocked down their head cocooned and stuck to the rooftop.

“Brisk! What’s the plan!” I shouted, wobbling slightly as the blood loss from the lashes in my side started to make me dizzy. “You do have a plan, right?”

Brisk gave a forced laugh, sprinting forward and jumping to the next roof. “Of course I have a plan…” He looked up at the griffins circling above us and the hot air balloons that were quickly starting to close in. “Maybe it's not a very well thought out plan, but I still have one…”

One of the slavers in a hot air balloon fired down at us with their large turret as they moved into range. I jumped backwards, the area in front of me being ripped apart by a line of fire. I quickly jumped to the next rooftop after Brisk, trying my best to stay ahead of the barrage of bullets.

“Into the Ferris Wheel! Go!” I heard Brisk shouting.

I glanced up, making out the sight of an old crooked Ferris Wheel within jumping distance of the roof's edge. I had seen it dotting the Fillydelphia skyline earlier, but it hadn’t been until I got this close that I began to realize how large it actually was.

“That’s going to get us trapped!” Chestnut shouted back, dancing to the side as one of the slavers fired at her with a sawn-off-shotgun.

Brisk growled and jumped into a cart of the ferris wheel, his hind legs kicking as he tried to pull himself all the way in. “Would you all stop questioning me and just do it!? We’re kinda short on time here!”

I braced myself and jumped forwards, my fore hooves wrapping around the lip of the ferris wheel cart. Brisk rushed forward and pulled me the rest of the way in, before turning and helping the rest of our friends into the cart with us.

“Okay, we’re in a cart in a broken ferris wheel. What next brainiac?” Chestnut scowled, firing a shot from her shotgun and taking the wing off a griffin that swooped in to attack us.

Brisk smirked. “You kidding? I’m the opposite of a brainiac. That’s Amber's thing. I’m here to make a mass,” he spun around, aiming his new mini gun at the ferris wheels supports. His gun flared to life, forcing all of us to cover our ears as the rapid fire banging berating us.

There was a crack as Brisk’s shots tore through the already rusted and flimsy supports holding up the ferris wheel. I felt the whole structure teetered, the cart rocking violently as the whole ferris wheel threatened to collapse.

Brisk turned to us, a playful smirk across his face that I hadn’t seen in a long time. It was almost good to see him smile. I wish I could have seen him smile like that in a less emotionally traumatic and stressful situation. “I’d recommend you hold onto something.”

My eyes shot open as I finally caught on with what was about to happen. “Wait, Brisk! Don’t-”

His hind leg bucked backwards, slamming into the side of the cart. There was a snap, and suddenly the whole ferris wheel lurched forwards, breaking free from its supports and bounding across the Fillydelphia streets.

“No! Don’t let them-” I couldn’t hear the rest of what the slaver said as we rolled farther away, faster and faster, their voice being drowned out by both our screams and the booming sounds of the ferris wheel crashing away.

I screamed, grabbing onto the side of the cart for dear life. Beside me I could see Mirra wrap all four of her legs around a pole of the ferris wheel, her wings pressed tightly against her side and her eyes wide with fear.

Brisk gave out a wild whoop of joy, his mane flying hectically in the wind as we spun end over end.

The ferris wheel hit a large bump in the road, sending it shooting upwards for just a second. I felt my stomach lurch and bile fill my throat as we temporarily lay suspended in the air. Then we crashed black down, the whole thing thudding heavily and sending a shock shooting through my whole body. Scarlet lost her lunch beside me, vomiting over the side of the cart.

We were going far too fast for the Pinkie balloons to keep up with us, but the griffins were having no problem. One of them darted past us, trying to get ahead of the rampaging ferris wheel. I saw glimpses of their sniper raising as I was thrashed about.

“Sniper! Down!” I shouted, Pressing myself as flat against the floor of the cart as I could. The definition of down to us was relative as we were constantly spun around and around, but my friends seemed to get the idea.

The griffins snipers began to fire. Bullets ripped through the side of the cart, a few grazing the sides of our bodies or ripping out a few hairs in our tails.

“Do you have a plan to stop this thing?” Scarlet asked, ducking a little lower as one of the snipers blasted a hole in the cart just above her head.

Brisk gave her a sheepish grin. “I did say being smart was Ambers thing, right?”

The ferris wheel crashed into the side of a structure. The concrete wall crumbled, breaking away as the massive ferris wheel bore into it. Slaves and slavers screamed and moved to get out of the way as the huge wheel smashed its way into their work area.

I was slammed into the side of the cart as the broken amusement ride skidded to a halt, half lodged in the side of a building. The cart rocked, the wheel tipping slightly until we rested gently down on the ground.

Brisk hopped out on slightly wobbly legs, turning to face us with a shit eating grin. “Ha! Perfect landing.”

“Right perfect…” Mirra fluttered her way off the cart, sagging in the air as he dizziness impaired her flying.

A bullet slashed down from above us, missing Brisk’s head my inches. He flinched back, moving under some cover and readying her mini gun. “Right… Griffins. Any of you know a place we can hide?”

“Not one close to here? Do you?” I asked, stumbling out of the cart and bunkering down beside him, my shotgun drawn.

Brisk gave me an amused glance. “You think I thought that far into this plan? I’m flattered, really.”

Another griffin swooped down, this one firing at us with a rifle. I saw Chestnut, Scarlet and Tinker quickly duck behind a broken section of rubbled caused by our crash for cover. In the distance I saw the Pinkie balloons getting closer. We had managed to get a good distance away from them, but pinned down, they were beginning to make back the distance.

“Do you think we can make a break for the sewers again?” Scarlet called over to me, ducking back as a griffins fired upon her position.

I glanced over the pile of rubble I was behind, spotting the sewage grate resting in the middle of the road a few feet away. There was no getting to it without being gunned down by the griffins… unless.

“Give me a second, I think I have an Idea,” I shouted back, letting my horn glow with amber light. My magic wrapped around the sewage grate cover and began working.

Brisk popped out from behind cover beside me and fired up at the griffins with his mini gun. The griffins swerve and scattered, maneuvering away from his shots with surprising accuracy. One of the griffins did a quick flip, spinning out of the way of his shots and firing down at him.

The shot ripped through Brisk’s leg, dropping him to the ground with a yell of pain. Blood spilled down his leg where the griffins shot had punched into him.

Damn, it. I was out of time.

I ripped the sewage grate from the ground with a mighty heave of my magic, sending the metal disk skyrocketing. It crashed into the griffin that had just shot Brisk, snapping their wing and sending them plummeting from the sky.

A second layer of magical over glow burst around my horn as the rubble around us was pulled from the ground and sent flying at the griffins. The griffins swerve, trying to stay airborne as they were pelted with chunks of cement.

I pushed forwards with my hind hooves, charging toward the now open sewage grate. “Go! Into the sewers! Now!” My friends charged after me, a few of them shooting up at the griffins as they continued to try and evade the flying rubble.

I dropped down into the sewers, the murky water splashing around my hooves as I hit the tunnel floor. Brisk tumbled down after me next, blood seeping from his leg and colouring the already foggy water a dark red.

Scarlet came next, Mirra quickly fluttering down after her. Chestnut came scampering down less than a moment later, her hind hooves keeping her on the ladder while her fore hooves reached out to help Tinker down. Her hoof had only just made contact with Tinker when a griffin swooped down and snatched the colt up in her claws.

Tinker screamed as he was yanked upwards, the barrel of the griffin's gun pushing up against the side of the young colt's head. The griffin leared down at us, their face bloody from a gash caused by my flying debris. “Don’t move or the runt gets his fucking brains blown out!”

Chestnut growled, pulling herself back out of the sewer to stand before the griffin. “You let my son go you bitch!”

The Griffin snapped their beak at her, their talon tightening on the trigger. “Oh yeah? And what are you going to do cunt?” The rest of the griffins were shaking off the last bits of flying rubble and began to turn to face us, refocusing their own weapons to gun Chestnut down.

“Chestnut, you’re going to get us killed! We’ll find a new way to save him!” I shouted, rushing for the ladder out of the sewage tunnel. “We won’t leave him here!”

“You leave and the boy dies,” The griffin clucked, baring her teeth. “Now give yourselves up!”

Chestnut's horn had begun glowing dangerously with magic. She took an advancing step forward, her combat shotgun held steady at her side. “I said let my son go. I'm not giving you another warning!”

The hot air balloons were almost within shooting range again. A few more moments and they would be upon us.

The rest of the griffins had aimed their guns at Chestnut now. I could see a dozen different red dots hovering over her form from the laser pointers strapped the the ends of the griffins guns. The griffin holding Tinker gave a small chuckle. “You have until the count of three... One!”

Chestnut braced herself, her horn growing brighter and brighter. I could see the muscles in her neck tensing as the griffin’s talon tightened around the trigger.

“Two!”

I rushed forward, trying to get to them before it was too late. I heard Chestnut scowl, her eyes burning with rage as she stared down the griffin.

“Three!”

The final shout hadn’t come from the griffin. It had come from Chestnut.

There was a mighty boom as Chestnut’s magic ripped all the griffins straight from the sky. The air was filled with shrieks of pain as Chestnut’s magic wrapped around the griffins wings and reefed them clean from their body. Blood splattered against the cracked pavement and I was knocked back to the wet ground of the tunnel as the shockwave caused by Chestnut’s magic slammed into me. Bolts of deadly energy lanced through the air, stringing the few griffins that had failed to fall from the sky down. I heard Chestnut’s shotgun firing, each shot bringing down another griffin as they one by one crashed to the ground in a broken heap.

Tinker slowly drifted to the ground, another one of Chestnut’s magical fields surrounding him and holding him aloft. He clung tightly to his mothers neck as she set him down atop her back, shivering and soaked in the dark blood of the now dead griffin.

Chestnut quickly spun around, lunging into the hole after us and landing in the gunk filled water beside us. She stood there, her horn glowing, her expression determined, her posture heroic. Then her body quivered and she collapsed, falling to the water with a splash.

Tinker gave a yelp of surprise, pulling on her head to keep her mouth above the foul water. He looked up at me, his eyes wide. “Is… is she going to be alright.”

I took a deep breath, trying to steady myself. I moved up to him and hauled Chestnut’s unconscious body up onto my back. Scarlet quickly moved to help me carry here. “She’s going to be fine Tinker. We’ll make sure she’s fine.”

“We need to get going,” I heard Brisk say from beside me. I looked up to see him slumped against the far wall, wrapping his shot leg with a few dirty bandages. “Those griffins might be gone, but those balloons and the rest of those slavers are going to be on us any second. Last thing we need is to be in these tunnels when they get flooded by slavers.”

I nodded, looking to Mirra who was currently fluttering a few inches above the sewage water. “Mirra, do you think you can find us a place that's slaver free with your nose? We need somewhere where we can heal up and plan out what to do next.”

Mirra gave me a quick salute before taking a big sniff. She cringed as her nostrils were flooded with the foul stench of the sewers before she finally asserted herself and started down a tunnel to our right. “This way. I think I can find us somewhere safe.”

“So let me just try and summarize all of that incase I missed something,” Brisk said, sipping from the healing potion and letting the wound on his leg heal over. “These two pre war ponies named Pureblood and Silver Ace, who happen to work with Red Eye, are secretly the directors of the Institute, which they took over, and they plan to use this Utopia thing we were talking about to mind control all of Equestria and trap us all in some kind of virtual reality in less than five days?” He glanced over at Mirra who gave him a casual shrug. “Did I miss anything?”

“He replaced me with a synth to keep his fetus safe,” I added.

“The mysterious Stranger that helped you guys out is in the Institute as well,” Scarlet chimed in.

Brisk sat back a little and looked up at the broken ceiling of the abandoned factory we had taken shelter in. “Well fuck me. Things just got a lot more difficult,” He opened up his lone eye and looked back at us. “So you both are synths? You don’t seem like robots.”

“Neither did Pyre,” I pointed out. I saw Mirra’s head drop at the mention of our power armoured friend.

“That’s the nasty thing about synths. Can’t tell them apart from ponies,” Scarlet agreed, straightening her back a little. “We can’t even tell ourselves apart half the time. Not unless the Institute wants us too.”

I took a deep breath and looked my friends over more closely. “I really missed you guys. What happened to you when they took you into Fillydelphia?”

Brisk grimace. “My worst nightmare but worse,” He said flatly, casting an angry glare out at the slaver city outside. “Assholes threw me in chains. Nasty bitch named Wicked Slit tried to get me to work pulling steel scrap. I managed to whittle down a piece of scrap until it was small enough to use as a lock pick.”

“And the mini gun?” I asked, gesturing to his rather impressive gun that was now firmly attached to his battle saddle.

Brisk smirked at that. “Took it off a Slaver that tried to bring me back in. Since it’s mounted on this battle saddle, I can use it easily even with my lack of magical ability,” He glanced up at his hornless forehead. “And lack of horn… I still forget that's not there anymore sometimes.”

I let my gaze drift over to Mirra who simply rolled her eyes. “They wanted to see if I could pass through a specific forcefield or something like that. See if my changeling magic could work as an alternative to a bypass spell.”

Scarlet raised an eyebrow. “Can it?”

Mirra stuck out her tongue. “Of course it can't. Changing shape doesn’t change my DNA. If it did, then I’d never be able to shape shift back.”

“What kind of shield did they even want to get through?” Brisk asked, giving the small changeling a sceptical look.

Mirra shrugged. “No clue. Something about the Ministry of Awesome I think. Only Rainbow Dash could get through it apparently.”

"The Single Pegasus Project," That had to be it. And if so, there was a good chance that meant the Enclave didn’t exactly have access to it either. “With any luck, Red Eye never figures out how to get through a shield like that,” I said, pulling myself back to my hooves. My side hurt as I moved, the cuts that had been ripped open in my side by shrapnel stinging terribly.

Scarlet quickly pushed herself over to me, trying to get me to sit back down. “Amber, you need to take it easy. We only have one healing potion left, and since you’re refusing to not drink it, you’re going to have to let your wounds heal.”

I shook my head. “We don’t have time for that. We have five days till Utopia activates, probably only four now actually, and Xayah is still out there in Fillydelphia somewhere,” The pain in my side grew to a point that I had to sit back down. “Ponies don’t treat zebras well in the wasteland. We need to save her before slavers do something terrible to her.”

“Am sure you know this already, but that’s not going to be a cake walk by any means,” Brisk pointed out. “There are only six of us, two of us are foals, two of us are unicorns with horn burn out, one of which is unconscious, I can’t do magic regardless of horn burnout and you keep refusing to take a healing potion so you’re not going anywhere fast.”

“Plus we don’t know where she is,” Scarlet elaborated, picking up where Brisk left off. Fillydelphia is huge. Mirra and Tinker were easy because we at least knew where to look, and Brisk was crazy good luck, but I wouldn’t know the first place to start looking for Xayah.”

“I heard some slavers talking about how a zebra used to be the champion in their arena called the pit. Maybe we should check there?” Brisk suggested.

I was about to respond when Mirra stood up. “No. I know where she went,” All of us turned to look at her, interested. Mirra gulped and looked away. “Stern had her personally sent to the crater.”

The crater? I had heard the slavers in the sewer tunnels mention it when we were sneaking in. What was it they had said? That it was dangerous?

From Scarlet's face, I could tell the crater was bad news. Clearly Brisk could tell something was up well. “What exactly is the crater?” He asked, glancing back and forth between all of us.

“The Fillydelphia Crater… It’s the place the balefire bomb that hit Filly detonated. It’s got enough rads in it that it might as well be a death sentence to go there. Most ponies don’t last three days in the crater,” Scarlet explained, her face a mix of disgust and fear. “When I was a slave in Filly, they told me that if I worked in the crater for two years, I’d earn my freedom. I almost died after only a few hours.”

“Then we need to go. And fast,” I said, forcing myself to stand up again. This time I ignored the pulling pains in my side. “We can’t let Xayah stay there any longer than we can help.”

“And what about Chestnut?” Mirra asked, looking across the room where Tinker had curled up against the body of his unconscious mother. She was too weak after using her magic like that with the griffins. I doubt she’d be able get back into the action any time soon.

I took a deep breath. “We’ll leave her and Tinker here. I don’t really want to bring Tinker into the crater if I can help it anyway,” I turned to Brisk. “Do you think you can stay here and keep them safe?”

Brisk gave a smug smirk and a quick nod. “You can count on me, chief.”

I turned back to Scarlet. “How are we doing for Radaway?”

Scarlet grimace. “Less than I would like. We had a lot, but we’ve been going through it faster than I had expected. Probably enough to get us into the crater, but we won’t have enough to get all of us out.”

Damn. Things just had to keep getting worse. I took a long, deep breath. “Alright. I’ll go into the crater alone and bring Xayah out. Do you think you and Mirra will be able to find and lead me to the crater?”

Everypony quickly began objecting. “What! You want to go in there by yourself!” Brisk sputtered. “That’s suicide!”

“Amber, that's insane! We won’t be able to help you inside!” Scarlet protested. “The radiation inside the crater is bad, but not that bad. Some slaves go a few days before they die of the rads. We can handle an hour or so.”

I shook my head. “Xayah has been in there for almost two days, and I can’t remember the last time I saw her take a Radaway. When she’s out, she’s going to need as much Radaway as she can get.”

All my friends fell silent at that. They all knew I was right, and they hated it. After a long moment, Mirra took a step forward. “What do you need us to do?”

I smiled. “We’re going to need a way to escape Filly as soon as I get Xayah out. Something tells me that Stern isn’t going to let us escape the way we got in. Once I’m inside the crater, I need you and Scarlet to find another way out, then meet me back here.”

“Do you need me to do anything except look after Chestnut and Tinker?” Brisk asked, glancing out at the industrial city beyond the window.

“If you can, look around for some healing supplies. Anything that can be of use to us. I get the feeling we’re in for a hell of a fight,” I answered honestly. “Plus, we’re going to need to get Chestnut back on her hooves. If we need to make another run away attempt, we won’t make it carrying her on our backs.”

Brisk looked at me for a second, his eyes scanning over me as if expecting to notice some small detail. “And what about you?”

I looked at him, a little confused. “What do you mean?”

He hesitated, as if unsure if he should vocalize what was on his mind. Finally he let a deep sigh escape his muzzle. “Are you ready to see Xayah again…? I know you two didn’t exactly part on good terms.”

I felt my body lock up a little at the question. Was I ready to see Xayah again? After I had betrayed her? After she had shot me? Was I ready to save her after the hell her actions had put me and my friends through?

My hesitation dissipated faster than it arrived.

I planted my hoof and puffed out my chest a little. “It doesn’t matter what happens to us after all this. If we’re still a couple or if we’re even still friends. No pony deserves to be stuck in Fillydelphia, and if we’re going to save the wasteland, then we’re going to need her…” I took another second to collect my thoughts. I could feel my heart pounding a little in my chest as I spoke. “And besides, I don’t care if she’s trapped in the heart of Fillydelphia or on the fucking moon. I’m going to save her because I love her, and that’s all that really matters in the end. You need to fight for what you love. Because in the wasteland, love is hard to find. It's harder to keep. Some ponies might try a lifetime to save their love and never succeed. I'm not going to let that happen to us. If Fillydelphia thinks it can stand in my way, then I'd like to see it just try and stop me.”

I took a step back, my eyes drifting over to Scarlet who gave me an approving nod. I saw a tear glimmering in the corner of her eye, but she quickly blinked it away. I gave her a small smile in return, looking back out the window at the city of Fillydelphia. Far in the distance I could see what appeared to me a large crater. Even from here, I could see it’s baleful glow.

It was calling to me. Egging me on. Daring me to make the first move. I would not be one to disappoint it.

“Hold tight Xayah. I’m coming for you.”

Footnote: Maximum level reached

Author's Note

For those of you that didn't notice yet or didn't get the memo, I updated the old cover art. I felt the old art was rather lacking and in desperate need of improvement.

Fallout: Equestrian belongs to Kkat.

I hope you all have a great day.

Chapter XXXII: The Chains that Bind Us

“The Master doesn’t try to be powerful; he is powerful. An ordinary pony keeps reaching for power and thus never has enough.”

Chains.

Every second spent inside of Fillydelphia felt like the chains were closing in tighter and tighter around me, as if I were an animal trying to escape a doorless cage that was slowly shrinking. If the heavily radioactive air didn’t kill me, the ever growing legions of slavers searching each nook and cranny for me would.

My whole body was about ready to collapse. My sides screamed in protest from the shrapnel that had ripped apart my already battered and cut hide and the radiation poisoning that was rapidly seeping into my pores was beginning to make me feel light headed.

And yet I knew the worst was still to come. Getting into Fillydelphia was near impossible, but getting out was something else all together.

A long time ago, Golden Chestnut had told me that no pony ever truly escapes Fillydelphia. Having finally made it within the hellish border of its massive metal walls, I was beginning to understand just how true that statement had been.

Even as I slowly crept along the side of a crumbling skyscraper after Scarlet and Mirra, I could see mounds of brutalized, burned bodies of slaves that had met untimely fates. Even in death, there was no escaping the industrial nightmare Red Eye had concocted.

“I think we’re almost there,” Mirra whispered, taking a large sniff of the air. She winced as the smog filled air filled her nostrils and made her gag.

I nodded, keeping my gaze forwards. I didn’t need Mirra’s nose to locate the Fillydelphia crater anymore. Just over the crest of a small stretch of rubble, an ominous green glow illuminated the ghastly red, smoke filled air around us.

We made our way towards the crater, briefly ducking into a broken down house to avoid detection as a group of slavers marched past. Scarlet took the opportunity to climb to the top of the structure and get a better view of our surroundings. A few more minutes passed, and she climbed back down to inform us on what was going on.

“We’re only a short walk away from the wall surrounding the crater,” Scarlet explained, drawing a map of the surrounding area in the dust on the ground with her hoof. “There doesn’t seem to be any slavers between us and it, save for four guards standing sentinel at the entrance to the crater. There's probably more inside.”

I nodded, looking over the map she had drawn. “It's probably best to find a way in that doesn’t involve needing to cross the guards. The whole city is on high alert for us right now, and taking out those guards would not go unnoticed,” I studied the map a little harder, then pointed off to a spot she hadn’t yet drawn in. “What would be over here?”

“Not sure,” Scarlet replied, drawing in the area to the best of her knowledge. “I doubt there would be another entrance, but there might be a vent or something we can crawl through.”

“What about an observation area?” Mirra asked, looking up at us. “You know, so slave masters could overlook the slaves working or something.”

Scarlet furrowed her brow and sucked on the end of her hoof for a second. “I don’t know… I can’t remember if…” She paused and thought for a second longer. Suddenly her eyes lit up like a hearth's warming tree. “No, wait a second, I remember there being one of those over here,” She explained, drawing a circle in the dust a little bit off to the side. “I don’t know where the entrance is, but there is an observing platform that slavers used to watch the workflow. It connects to a catwalk of sorts that surrounds the entire perimeter of the Crater. I remember seeing it back in my short time in there.”

“I doubt the slavers would hide the entrance into that,” I remarked, continuing to study the map. “I could probably get into there no problem, so long as I covered up my pink coat,” I looked down at the slaver barding that I had thrown over myself earlier to get past the Griffin guards at Red Eyes school. The barding was too large for me, but with a little finagling, it wasn’t hard to pass it off.

“We can coat your face in some dirt,” Scarlet agreed. “You’re kind of small for a slaver, but we can make it work.”

I nodded, my face contorting as I tried to work out a plan. “Once I have Xayah, I’ll make for the vents if they’re there. I doubt the slavers are going to let me get out the way I got in.”

I saw Mirra stiffen beside me. I glanced down to see her sniffing at the air, her eyes narrowing at the doorway. Instinctively, I pulled out Braeburn’s Liberator. “Mirra? What’s wrong? What do you smell?”

“Somepony is following us,” Mirra hissed, taking another sniff of the air. “I caught their scent a few times, but I didn’t think anything of it then. Now though…” She paused and sniffed the air again. “They’re definitely following us.”

Scarlet pulled out her magical energy rifle and pushed herself up against the wall below a shattered window. “Any idea who it is?”

Mirra hesitated for a second. “It… It doesn’t smell like a normal pony… I think it might be…” Her eyes widened and she crouched behind cover. “It’s an alicorn.”

“Shit. Stern must have sent one out after us,” Scarlet hissed, daring to peek out the window at the landscape beyond.

I moved up beside her and glanced out, my eyes scanning the area. Aside from a lone slaver that seemed to have passed out drunk against a wall a few feet away, I couldn’t see anything alive.

I memory nagged at the back of my mind. A memory of Pureblood telling me Red Eye had been involved in Littlepip taking out the goddess. The thought gave me pause as my gaze swept the area.

“That… that doesn’t make much sense…” I grunted, my magic raising up my shotgun a little more. “I thought Red Eye cut his ties with the alicorns? I mean, the goddess is dead now, right?”

Both Mirra and Scarlet cast me intrigued looks. Clearly that had been knews to both of them. Scarlet shrugged. “Maybe some still work for him… I mean they must be looking for a new leader now if the goddess is really gone.”

“Maybe,” I mumbled, but something about that didn’t sound right. Didn’t Alicorns hunt in groups? Why had Mirra only smelt one? Or were there more that had somehow gone unnoticed.

I switched to my newly acquired anti-machine rifle I had stolen from Red Eye’s office and looked down the large scope, panning the rooftops. My eye caught on something glinting atop a rooftop of the building across from us. I narrowed my eyes, trying to make out what it was.

“Wait… there, on the roof,” I grunted, lowering the rifle and pointing up at the thing that had caught my attention. It was a lone purple alicorn, staring down at us through the lens of what appeared to be a large sniper rifle of her own. We all looked up at her, and for a brief second, I could have sworn I locked eyes with it. Then, as if realizing we were looking at it, the alicorn’s horn flared and she disappeared in a burst of purple light.

“Definitely being followed,” Scarlet agreed, taking a step back from the window. “We’ll need to keep our eyes open for alicorns in case it comes back.”

“Why do you think it didn’t attack us?” Mirra asked, poking her head out to look around. “Do you think it went to alert the rest of the slavers?”

I felt my stomach knot with confusion and worry. “I’m not sure. Something about that flet off. In any case, we should probably get out of here before it comes back.”

Scarlet nodded. “As soon as you head for the crater, Mirra and I will search for a way out of Filly. We’ll meet up with you back with Brisk, Chestnut and Tinker.”

I gave a nod, my stomach seemingly doing jumping jacks inside of me. “You both be careful out there. Got it?”

Mirra gave me a small smirk. “Since when has anything we’ve ever done been careful?” Her smirk flickered for a second. “You get Xayah out safe too… I’m worried about her...”

I felt my chest clench up at the mention of Xayah. “I… I will… I’m worried about her too,” I turned and looked out the door into the ghastly Fillydelphia streets. “Alright Xayah… I’m coming for you…”

I had to resist the urge to scratch all the mud and dirt off of my coat as I quickly trotted towards the large wall surrounding the crater. Before parting with Mirra and Scarlet, they had gathered as much muck as they could and thoroughly covered my exposed coat with it until I just looked like an exceptionally dirty brown mare. It itched like hell, grains of dirt getting caught between my hide and clothes and rubbing my flesh dry.

The mud hadn’t worked quite as well in my mane, but I had been able to cover up most of that with my helmet. It wasn’t a perfect disguise, but hopefully it would be enough.

The looming walls surrounding the Fillydelphia crater were rapidly approaching. They towered almost as high as the wall around the city, and it was topped with bramble like barbed wire, deadly looking spikes and a few turrets that slowly scanned the area below. Beyond it, the baleful green glow of radiation spilled into the thick fog, making it look like an evil green beacon of light in the centre of the red hued city.

I wandered back and forth for a bit until I found what I was looking for. A large vent, just big enough for a small pony to fit through was inset into one side of the massive wall surrounding the crater. Giving an eager nod and making a mental note of where it was, I started heading back around the wall, making sure to take a wide berth around the guards by the door and made for the far side of the wall where I hoped the entrance to the slaver overview area was. To my luck, I found a large set of stairs leading into the wall.

Unfortunately, there were guards there as well.

“State your business,” One of the guards asked with a bored expression, his eyes following me as I slowly made my way over to them, doing my best to look like I belonged there.

“Just checking into work,” I said, trying to make my voice sound as gravelly as possible. I took a step forward to move past them.

The second guard stuck out a hoof and stopped me. “I don’t think I’ve seen you around here before. You new 'round here?”

I hesitated. “Uh… No. I just work over on the other side of Filly. Just got moved to this position now,” I tried to think of a way to make myself sound more believable. “Don’t get me wrong. I ain’t happy to be here either. I’d rather work the slaves somewhere less dangerous than the fucking crater if I had my pick of workspaces.”

The first guard that spoke chuckled at that. “You got that damn right. What the fuck did you even do to get positioned here?”

I cocked my head slightly. “I, um… what do you mean?”

The guard gave me a flat glare. “No pony just gets sent to overlook the crater ‘cause Stern felt like it. So unless you wanted this position, which you just said ya didn’t, you must have messed up pretty fuckin’ bad for her to send you here,” he leaned in, showing off a sickening grin that was missing far to many teeth for my liking. “So? What did ya do?”

“Oh… I uh… Mouthed off Stern. She didn’t like that much…” I stumbled, trying to think of something that would have pissed Stern off enough to send somepony to the crater.

Both of the guards blinked at me in silence, for a second I thought that somehow I had blown my cover. Then, they both reared their heads back and howled with laughter. The larger of the two guards looked back down at me, wiping a tear away from his eye as he tried to hold back his chuckles. “Fuckin’ shit, you mouthed off Stern and didn’t get your throat slashed out right then and there. You got fuckin’ balls of steel lady!” chuckling to himself more, he stepped to the side and ushered me in. “Go on in. Don’t let me stop you, you adorable fuckin’ badass.”

“I’m not adorable…” I grumbled under my breath as I trotted past them. I quickly made my way up the stairs to a large viewing platform that looked down upon the glowing crater below.

From this height, I was able to make out the entire crater. It was huge, maybe the size of two city blocks. The floor of the crater was composed of sloping debris that led down to a massive glowing pool of radioactive sludge at the bottom. Burning fires smouldered through the nooks and crannies of the crater, as if the balefire bomb had lit the landscape ablaze and the fires had never fully stopped burning. The crumbling remains of skyscrapers lined the outside of the crater, many of them tilted inwards at impossible angles while others seemed to slowly slide down the side of the crater as I watched. The air was filled with a vile looking green, and though I was still a somewhat safe distance away, I knew that had I still had my pipbuck, it would be clicking rapidly.

Dozens of slaves stumbled about in the radioactive pit, some hacking at the rubble with pickaxes or buzz saws while others hauled large carts full of radioactive waste up and out of the steep sloping crater. A long, metal catwalk raced around the outer edge of the crater, holding up teams of gas mask wearing slavers that patrolled the outskirts of the labor area. Most of the slavers were armed with what looked like assault rifles, while the whip wielding slavers had descended into the pit themselves to keep the slaves working.

Every few moments, I would see a slavers whip slash down across a slaves back, the loud crack followed shortly by a howl of pain and spurt of blood as the slave got jostled back to work.

“You! What are you doing here?” An overweight looking slaver pony scowled at me, stomping forwards. Their slashed a whip in the air above me with their magic, making me jump and causing the air around us to fill with a loud, ear ringing crack.

I puffed out my chest a little and tried to look casual. “Mouthed off Stern. Got sent to this shit hole.”

The slaver scrunched up their muzzle and gave me a growl. “Fuckin’ hell. Stern needs to warn me before she decides to dump some green recruit filly bitch under my employ,” Scowling again she pulled out a whip and tossed it to me. I caught it quickly in my magic. “Just get out there and make sure those damn slaves do their fuckin’ job. Gas masks are in the back room. You’re going to need one.”

I nodded quickly, moving past her and heading for the back room that she indicated. I had to try my hardest to hide my growing smirk as I went to grab my gas mask. It couldn’t really be this easy. Could it?

I pulled the straps of the gas mask over my head and fastened it tightly to my face. It was stuffy and the rubber against my hide was far from comfortable, but the sudden clean air that filtered into my lungs was one of the most refreshing feelings I’d had in a long while.

“Now hurry up and get them working,” The slaver grunted to me as I re-emerged onto the viewing platform with my new gas mask. They roughly grabbed me by the tail and shoved me towards the staircase leading down to the catwalks below. “And don’t waste my fucking time again, got it?”

I gave a quick, “Mmhmm,” of agreement before stumbling the rest of the way down the stairs to the catwalk on the outer edge of the crater. Almost immediately I could feel my flesh churning as the radioactive air licked at my hide.

Picking myself up, I briskly trotted across the catwalks, my eyes sweeping the rubble and debris for Xayah. Unfortunately, all the slaves were coated in far too much grime to tell one of them apart from the other. I noticed that the slavers in the sewers had been right, all the slaves were covered in massive blisters. Some of the newer slaves only had a few small blisters across their body, while some of the ones that had been there for a few days had begun to lose their coats, large patches of hair falling away and making room for the boiling bubbles of pus that had begun to spring from their shrivelled flesh.

“You knew around here?” A voice spoke up, this one sounding a lot kinder than the overweight slaver on the viewing platform. I looked up to see a relatively short, scrawny looking buck approaching me, a gas mask covering his face and eyes. I gave him a quick nod in response. “Well, it’s always good to see new faces. My name’s Slipknot. What’s yours?” he extended his hoof kindly for a hoof bump.

I hesitated for a second. Shit, I should have come up with a fake name before hoof. Thinking fast, I thought back to the slaver filly I had briefly encountered in Fetlock. “Uh… Names Whip Slash,” I said quickly, returning the hoof bump.

The name gave Slipknot pause, and for the second time since arriving at the crater I thought that I had blown my cover. “Shit, really? I heard that you died out in that skirmish with the Outcasts a few days back.”

I forced a laugh. “You kidding. I’m fine. Been back in Filly for a while.”

Slipknot returned my chuckle. “I guess so. Stern told us that whole caravan of Slavers got wiped out,” He gave a shrug. On the bright side, I supposed that meant that the real Whip Slash had taken my advice and broken her ties with Fillydelphia. that or she was dead. I grimaced beneath my mask. She was probably dead. “Anyhow, I got sent here cause I was caught pickpocketing Slit. How’d you find yourself in this damn crater?”

I opened my mouth to respond with the lie I had told the last two slavers, only for an idea to cross my mind. “Actually, I’m here looking for a specific slave on orders from Stern. She told me to come collect some zebra that’s working here. I don’t know why she wants them.”

I saw Slipknot’s eyebrows raise from behind his gas mask. “Really? Yeah, a zebra just got dumped in here a few days ago. Come on, I’ll take you to her.”

Giving a solemn nod, I followed after the slaver as he turned around and started leading me into the crater. I stumbled slightly as we moved off the catwalk and onto the unsteady ground of the debris covered crater floor. The loose rock seemed to constantly shift and slide under my hooves as I trudged after Slipknot.

My eyes trailed back to the large wall surrounding the crater. After a moment, I spotted the other side of the vent leading out. I smirked underneath my gas mask as I looked at it. Perfect, now I had a way out of here as well.

“So what was it like getting attacked by the Outcasts?” Slipknot asked, glancing back at me as he led me forwards and interrupting my train of thought. “I hear they're a force to be fuckin’ reckoned with.”

I gave an uncertain shrug. “They aren’t that bad…”

“Ha! Says the pony that apparently had her whole slaver caravan slaughtered by ‘em,” He gave me a playful shove. “Don’t worry, I’m messin’ with ya. We all know none of you stood a chance. Not even Big Mino. Not with that Pink lunatic helping them out.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Pink Lunatic?”

Slipknot scoffed. “Yeah, that Amber Aura bitch. I heard she and her murderous gang of raiders were helpin’ the Outcasts out.”

“O-oh! Yeah, she’s a psycho alright. Total manic,” I grumbled, trying not to sound overly offended. “I heard she’s not as evil as we all think though...”

“You’re spending too much time in the wasteland if that’s what you heard. That menace has been causing mayhem all over the wasteland. You hear that that town Oasis got attacked because of her?”

I froze. “W-what are you talking about…?” I could feel my stomach clench up at the idea. “What happened?”

Slipknot nodded thoughtfully. “I heard the Enclave deployed a raptor to kill the ponies that lived there. If the rumours are true, Amber Aura rescued an Enclave scientist they had imprisoned there. That scientist then let slip to her higher ups that the town kidnapped her and the Enclave decided to return the favour with fucking fire from the sky.”

“Star Breeze,” I scowled under my breath, quite enough that Slipknot couldn’t hear me. I had known Star Breeze wasn’t perfect, but I had though she was above causing something like that. I’d have to have stern words with the pegasus if I ever crossed paths with her again.

“Of course, none of that matters anymore. I heard Amber Aura was spotted inside of Filly a few hours ago. There’s no way she’s going to escape,” Slipknot continued, pushing aside a large piece of rubble so that he could keep moving into the crater.

“And why not? She seems to have a good record of escaping things in the past,” I questioned, feeling slightly smug.

Slipknot just gave me a lazy look. “Because no pony simply escapes Fillydelphia. It’s one thing to sneak inside the wall, it’s quite another to get back out,” He sighed and looked back forwards, continuing to lead me deeper and deeper into the crater. “Also, Amber Aura doesn’t stand a chance against Red Eye. If the fuckin’ Light bringer couldn’t do it, what hope does she have.”

“You really think Littlepip is dead?” I asked. My hoof snagged on a jagged rock and I clumsily topped to the ground.

Slipknot chuckled and helped me back to my hooves. “Try not to fall around here. You don’t want any of your exposed hide to touch this stuff. The gas mask might keep you from getting the boils and hair loss like the slaves, but I wouldn’t want to lie in it,” He let a small nicker escape his lips. “And I’m pretty damn sure the Stable Dweller bit the fuckin’ dust. I heard she was in Maripony when the balefire bomb went off. If the goddess or the radiation didn’t somehow kill her, the Enclave did.”

“What do you think the Enclave is even up to?” I asked, carefully stepping around a piece of collapsed rubble that looked like it had once been a foals bed. "Why come down from the sky now after all these years?"

Slipknot shrugged. “Fuck if I know. They seem to be spread pretty thin at the moment, but that don’t mean nothin’ when you have an army as big as they do. Last I heard, they were primarily in Manehattan, but a large fleet is also supposedly heading out to Red Eyes cathedral and another is on its way to Las Pegasus.”

That caught my attention. “Las Pegasus? What are they doing all the way over there?”

“Couldn’t tell ya. That city’s mostly just raiders, not the kind of thing that I’d expect the Enclave to go after. That said, I heard it's got some pretty hefty defences... and it is a sky city, so maybe that has to do with it,” He paused and glanced a little farther down the slope to where a grime covered slave was slowly hauling some radioactive waste out from behind the rubble.

The slave’s stomachs was drawn, showing off their ribcage through the grime and their hind hooves were trembling, threatening to give out from under them. Their fore hooves however remained unmoving. Even through the muck, I could see bits of metal glinting in the light as the slave’s cybernetic fore limbs hauled the deadly material into the open.

“Xayah…” I felt my mouth utter before I had time to hold it in. Thankfully, Slipknot didn’t seem to hear me as he took a few more steps forwards.

“There she is,” Slipknot said, trotting up to and sneering down at Xayah. “Weird that Stern wants this one. All she’s been is a hassle so far. You’d think with those metal legs she might actually be useful.”

He raised his fore hoof and gave Xayah a rough kick. Xayah was pushed backwards, stumbling over the rough terrain and collapsing to the ground with a loud whimper. Slipknot scowled. “Useless bitch! Get back to your hooves,” His hoof wrapped around the whip hanging from his side and quickly pulled it out with a loud crack. He took a step forward, looming over Xayah. I took a step to stop him, only for him to glance back at me. Through his mask, I could see the edges of his mouth break into a smile. “My apologies. Don’t let me take the fun away from you…”

I baulked. “Wh… what do you mean?”

He just stared at me as if I had said the dumbest question in the world. “Well? Are you going to just stand there, or are you going to whip this fuckin’ stripe. She deserves it after all.”

I took a step back, my eyes darting around. “B-but you knocked her over… she was working fine before you showed up…”

“Ha, you think I fuckin’ care?” Slipknot chuckled, his hoof cracking forwards and knocking Xayah upside the head. Xayah cried out, blood bursting from her broken nose. “Now hurry up and whip the cunt before I do it for ya.”

“I, uh… um… I think I’ll just take her back to Stern. Stern said she wants her as, um… as uninjured as possible.”

Slipknot scoffed. “Stern won’t know. It could have been any slaver that did it, look,” He kicked Xayah again, this time rolling her over onto her front, showing off the throbbing criss-crossing lashes that married her back. “The bitch has already been lashed up. Stern won't notice or care about a few more. Come on, work off some steam,” He leaned in close, seeming almost giddy with excitement. “I’m guessing your name ain’t Whip Slash for nothin’ after all.”

I took a shaky breath, my hoof slowly reaching down for the whip at my side. I looked around, trying to find a way out of this. I could attack him, but that would break my cover. The last thing I wanted was to have every slaver in the crater trying to kill me.

I glanced back down at Xayah, my whip uncoiling by my side. Just a few lashes and I’d be free to just waltz on out of here with Xayah. Just a few lashes…

“You’re the kinda pony that likes to savour these moments, huh,” Slipknot chuckled, watching as I slowly raised the whip higher and higher with my magic. “I usually just go at ‘em, but I found savouring it can be fun now and again…”

A loud crack filled the air not all the far away from us. My eyes glanced up, making out the shapes of a slaver a few feet away bringing his whip down hard upon another slave. The slave screamed out, thrashing in agony as the bullwhip ripped open their hide.

I glanced back down at Xayah. Blood was spilling down her face from her broken nose and it looked like one of Slipknot’s kicks had given her a black eye. She slowly looked up at me, a look of resignation crossing over her somber features. Then she looked past me, not recognizing me through my gas mask and the grime.

“Do your worst,” She taunted me, her voice dry and cracked. She sounded so frail and broken, like a strong wind might knock her over. “The wasteland has already taken its penance. There is nothing left you can do to me.”

“Fuckin’ hell, cut the dramatics and shut up you striped cunt,” Slipknot scowled, raising a hoof and stomping down hard on Xayah’s chest. There was a loud crack as one of Xayah’s ribs snapped under the pressure. He turned back to face me, his body language giddy-like. “Well? Hurry up and whip the bitch.”

I glanced back one more time at the catwalks surrounding the crater. A few slavers were watching us, seeming to be waiting in excited anticipation. I wanted to scream at all of them. How dare they stand by and watch such awful things happen without stepping in!

My eyes shifted back down to Xayah, my whip rising a little bit higher into the air. She was trembling on the ground, her cracked lips now drizzling blood. Her breath was coming out in painful wheezes, no doubt a result of her broken rib. She was looking back up at me again, her eyes wide and full of fear.

I took a deep breath. “Oh, fuck this…”

My whip slashed down, coiling around Slipknots throat. He gasped out, his hooves racing to his neck at the thick rope tightened around it. “Wha- what the fuck are you…”

I yanked on the whip, sending him toppling to the ground with a muffled cry of pain. He landed face first, a jagged rock smashing in the glass eyepiece of his gas mask.

Before he had the chance to get back up, Braeburn’s Liberator bobbed up into the air and pressed against the back of his head. His eyes only had just long enough to widen before the powerful shotgun blasted into the back of his skull, sending viscera and brain matter spewing out of the shattered lens of his mask.

Xayah flinched back, her front getting coated in the slavers blood. Her eyes locked on my shotgun still floating above the dead slaver in my amber field of magic, her eyes wide and pupils dilated. “A… Amber?” she looked up at me, her eyes unfocused. “Amber… how are you… I thought…”

“I’m here to get you out of this place. It’ll all be okay. I promise,” I wrapped my hooves around her, pulling her up and slinging her over my back. Her metal fore hooves made her far heavier than I was comfortable carrying, but I managed to steady myself regardless.

Damn it, where was Pyre Blaze when you needed her?

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing!? You got a fuckin' death wish!?” A slaver called down to me, their assault rifle raising and aiming at my head. All the other slavers quickly did the same, their attention abruptly ripped away from the slaves they were whipping and to me.

I took a step back, my legs wobbling under Xayah’s weight. Getting in had been easy enough, now getting out was going to be the trick.

One of the slaves that had been held at gunpoint only a second prior suddenly jumped forwards, their hooves wrapping around the neck of the slaver that had just been berating them. They were suddenly joined as the rest of the slaves in the crater began screaming and charging at their captors, buzz saws flailing as their blades sliced into flesh.

The slavers panicked, their guns whipping around and opening fire as the slaves poured across the crater.

I ducked down, barely avoiding a plethora of shots that slashed through the air above my head. A few feet away, I watched as a slave collapsed to the ground, blood oozing from their neck where a slavers bullets had punched into them.

I gulped, rushing forwards and bunkering down behind some cover, grunting as I did my best to keep Xayah atop my back. My ears pounded as they were consumed by the cacophony of gunfire and screams as the slaves' desperate and sudden revolt echoed across the radioactive hole.

It had not been my intention to start an uprising, but I wasn’t one to look a gift horse in the mouth… why the fuck is that even a saying...

I heard the clinking of metal on metal as the slavers on the catwalk tossed a few apple grenades down into the crater. One of them bounded to a stop a foot away from me.

Gritting my teeth, I pulled myself up and over my cover, the ground beneath me shifting and crumbling as I darted for the edge of the crater.

I was too slow.

The apple grenade exploded, sending a massive cloud of ash and dirt into the air. I was slammed forwards, toppling head over hoof across the radioactive landscape. Xayah was thrown from my back, landing in a crumpled pile a few feet away. A jagged chunk of rubble flashed across my fore hoof as I skidded across the ground, ripping open the slaver barding and slashing a large gash across my leg. Hot blood poured from the wound and I could feel the edges of the cut burn as it touched the heavily radioactive air.

I pulled myself up, my eyes darting around to find Xayah. I saw her a little bit away, trembling legs trying to pull herself back up. She stumbled and fell again, this time going completely limp on the ground.

Cursing, I rushed towards her, ducking down as the slavers assault rifles blasted a second round of bullets towards me. A few shots grazed my flank, but none of them managed to do any more than nick the top layer of my hide.

A slave jumped at me, their hooves wrapping around my neck and pulling me to the ground. I gagged as the grip crushed my throat, kicking as I tried to push the larger pony off of me.

“Get off! I’m trying to help you!” I choked, kicking him in the face with my bleeding fore hoof.

The slave scowled and stomped down hard on my chest, making me yell out in pain. “Likely story you slaving peice of shi-” He was cut off as one of the slavers sent a bullet lashing through his throat. Blood spilled down atop me, coating me in crimson.

With a grunt, I rolled the heavy body off of me, scampering back to my hooves and continuing to haul myself over to Xayah.

In the distance, a loud siren began to blare out, the loud noise assaulting my ears and making me wince.

“Lock down the Crater. Do not let anypony out!” A crackly voice shouted over a speaker. I saw slavers rushing through the exit and starting gathering on the catwalks, their guns aiming and raining lead down on the revolting slaves. Metal doors slammed shut over all the escape roots, locking us all inside the radioactive hellhole.

One by one, the slaves bagan backing up, hooves raised as they surrendered. My distraction was about to run out.

I scooped up Xayah and threw her back over my back and began rushing for the far side of the crater, doing my best not to stumble over the rough terrain. Xayah let a wet sounding rasp escape her lips as she was roughly bounced up and down across my back.

“There’s the bitch that started it!” I heard a slaver shout out, their hoof raising to point at me. “Kill her! Don’t let her escape!”

“Shit,” The words had barely escaped my mouth when bullets began whipping past me, a few bursting against the debris or ricohetting wildly in in every direction. My ears were once more filled with the blaring sound of gunfire as the slavers assault rifles blasted towards me.

I leapt for cover, only for a bullet to slash through my hind leg. I stumbled to the ground, my stomach scraping against the ragged rubble beneath me. I scrambled to pull myself behind cover, the bullet hole in my hind leg practically screaming in protest and sharp pains shot up my body. A few bullets bounced off a large rock as I managed to pull myself behind it.

Several slavers began rushing towards me, their assault rifles firing off streams of gunfire in my direction while the rest of the slavers forced the slaves back to work. I heard one of the slavers actually laughing, as if this whole ordeal was the most fun he'd had in months.

“Xayah, can you fight?” I asked, shaking Xayah’s shoulder gently. A bolt of panic flashed through me as she failed to respond, or even acknowledge that she had heard me. “Xayah!?” I placed my hoof to her throat, praying to find a pulse. I let a deep breath of relief escape my lips when the unsteady beating of her heart assured me she was still alive.

Another round of gunfire caused my cover to explode in a shower of rocks and dust, forcing me to spin around and fire off a shot at the approaching slavers. Braeburn’s Liberator fired, the buckshot slashing through the chest of one of the slavers and sending them tumbling to the ground in a scream of pain.

“You’re going to pay for that!” Another slaver shouted, lunging towards me and drawing their whip.

I scrambled back, pulling Xayah with me as I barely avoided the first crack of the whip as the slaver lashed at me. The slaver reared back, preparing for a second lash. I swung my anti-machine rifle forwards with my magic, knocking the slavers legs out from under him and sending him crashing downwards.

I spun around, rushing for the set of stairs leading back up to the catwalk. With Xayah’s added weight to my back, my hooves sunk deeper and deeper into the radioactive gunk that coated the ground and the rubble seemed to shift and give way beneath me with every step. I could feel the old shrapnel wounds in my side getting ripped open as I overexerted my body and hot blood was begging to pour down my barrel.

“Get back here you bitch!” A slaver shouted as they rushed forwards, their assault rifle firing. I skidded to the side, the shots missing me by inches.

I was almost there, only a few steps away from reaching the steps up the catwalk. Out of the corner of my eye I saw one of the slavers pursuing me give some sort of hoof signal to the slavers above. The slavers on the catwalk sprung into action immediately, rushing across the elevated walkway to cut me off.

I grunted, putting on a burst of speed. My hoof touched the first step of the stairs and I began sprinting up them, each stride taking me up two steps at a time.

The slavers above were moving quickly, far faster than I was while trying to hold up Xayah's weight. In a few seconds I knew that they would block me off from my only means of escape. And I simply wasn’t going fast enough. I constantly had to zigzag to keep from being filled with holes from the slavers fire and my wounded hind leg made each and every step harder and harder.

I wasn’t going to make it!

Thinking fast, I reached out with my magic and wrapped my amber aura around the leading slavers leg, giving it a hard yank. The slaver fell, falling flat on his face with a shout of surprise. The slavers behind him stumbled, two of them falling as well as they tripped over their comrades body. The others managed to move around him and keep running, but it didn’t matter, it had slowed them down just enough.

I reached the top of the stairs and rushed onto the catwalk. Instantly, I began sprinting towards the vent in the wall, my magic flashing out and ripping the grate from its place as I ran. One of the slavers jumped at me, hoping to grapple me before I could escape.

I whirled out of their reach, my magic picking Xayah’s limp body off of my back and tossing her unceremoniously into the now open vent. I heard a grunt of pain as Xayah landed inside. Hopefully the action had pulled her from unconsciousness and she would be able to help pull herself through the vents.

I jumped back as the slaver lunged at me again, this time with his whip cracking through the air at me. I yelled in pain as the bullwhip coiled around my bleeding foreleg, pulling me down towards the ground.

I spun, my hind hooves flashing back and bucking the slaver in the face. His head snapped back, shattered teeth flying from his mouth and blood bursting from his now broken nose. He staggered back, his hoof clutching at his face.

I didn’t bother waiting for the rest of the slavers to arrive as I dove into vents after Xayah. I grabbed the grate with my magic and slammed it back into place. That wouldn’t hold the slavers back for more than a second, but it would give me enough time to move before they began firing at me down the vent.

I spun around, seeing a trail of blood and grime where Xayah had pulled herself forwards. Xayah herself was nowhere to be found.

Breathing heavily, I began crawling through the vents as fast as I could. I could hear the slavers screaming and fumbling with the vent grate behind me. There was a loud bang, and the grate was bashed aside.

“Damn, she’s getting away! Activate the bots!” I heard a slaver shout as I turned a corner in the vent and moved out of their line of sight.

Fuck, that ment there were probably some security systems in here. Hopefully we could get out of this damned place before we ran into any of those.

I pulled myself a few more feet through the vent and crawled around a second corner to find Xayah lying on her back, her hoof clutching weakly at the bleeding gashes in her side. I cautiously pulled myself up to her, lying down across from my zebra companion and resting against the side of the cold vent wall. A gust of wind seemed to carry through the metal tunnel, blowing our ratty manes from our faces and making me shiver.

Xayah tilted her head to look at me, her hazy eyes trying to recognize me through my gas mask. “Amber…” She said, her lips trembling. “Is that you…?”

I slowly pulled the gas mask off and gave her as comforting of a smile as I could. “Yeah… I’m here…”

Xayah stared at me for a second before slowly shaking her head and looking up at the ceiling, her eyes sad and empty. “It cannot be you… I must be dreaming…”

I felt my eyes narrow in confusion. “What do you mean? It's really me Xayah.”

Xayah just shook her head again. “You’re dead. Stern told me you’re dead,” I had to grit my teeth to keep from unleashing a growl at that. If I ever saw that fucking griffin again, I was going to flay her alive. Xayah looked back down and her eyes locked on the bullet wound in my chest. She reached forwards as if to touch it before thinking better of it and lowering her metal hoof. “And you would not come to save me if you were still alive… You would not come for me after I…” her voice choked and a small tear formed in the corner of her eye.

I felt a tremor pass through me. Did Xayah really think that I would just leave her in Fillydelphia, even after what had happened between us?

Biting back a small yelp of pain as I applied pressure to my injured hoof, I moved over to rest at her side, my shrapnel wounds pressing up against her blistered and grimy, striped hide. My hoof reached down and intertwined around hers. Her face didn’t react to the touch, but I could feel her hoof tighten around mine.

“I’m really here, Xayah,” I breathed, not sure what else to say. “It doesn’t matter what becomes of us after this… I’m getting us out of here. Together.”

Xayah was silent for a moment before turning to look at me, another tear creeping down her face. Then, slowly, a smile formed on her lips. It was a small smile, barely a smirk, but my heart felt like it leaped with fucking joy just to see it.

The moment passed and Xayah’s face suddenly went slack. Her body slumped and she collapsed further to the floor of the vent.

My heart thudded and a bolt of fear passed through me. “Xayah? Xayah!” I placed my hoof to her forehead, panic flaring through me. She was burning up, clearly coming down with some sort of intense fever. Severe radiation sickness most likely. I reached into my saddlebag and pulled out a Radaway, quickly pouring its contents down Xayah’s throat.

Xayah gagged slightly as the fluid trickled past her lips, but I managed to get it into her system without her coughing it back out. I could feel the fever diminish slightly, but not enough. Not nearly enough.

Fuck, Fillydelphia was killing her. I had to get her out of this place fast!

Scooping her back up onto my back, I began hauling her down the tunnel. “Come on Xayah. Just hold in there a little longer…”

Up ahead, I saw what looked to be the end of the ventilation shaft. I wrapped the grate up in my magic and ripped it off of the wall, making room for us as I pulled us out of the vent.

We weren’t outside the crater wall like I had hoped we would be, but rather in a long hallway that had been built into the inside of the wall, most likely for housing and office areas for the slavers. Not ideal, but it was at least a step up from being back in the crater itself.

Limping forwards, I trotted down the hallway, my head sweeping from side to side as I searched for a way out. I had seen a vent on the outside of the wall, so chances were that there’d be another grate in the wall somewhere I could sneak through.

Not all that far away, I could hear the muffled shouting of slavers as they scoured the area for me. Clearly they were still looking for me, not that I had expected otherwise. By now I was sure they had put two and two together and figured out I was the one who had snuck into the crater to rescue Xayah. I’d probably have a lot more slavers coming to take me out very shortly.

The hallway came to an abrupt end at a large metal door locked with a security terminal. Sliding Xayah off my back and propping her up against the wall, I turned to the terminal and started searching around for the password.

“Come on, come on…” I grunted, my eyes rolling over the lines of code embedded into the computer. I had hacked terminals five times as hard in a matter of seconds. I could get this. But my trembling, weary hooves and my gripping fear for Xayah’s health seemed to be making it hard to concentrate.

There was a bang from somewhere down the hallway, making me pause and glance behind me. I could hear slavers in the distance and they seemed to be getting closer, but I estimated I still had a few minutes before they arrived.

Pros to the Fillydelphia crater being so large I suppose.

Returning my attention back to the terminal, I clicked through a few more keys and tested out a password at random. The terminal beeped, informing me that I had chosen the wrong one.

I grunted again, running my eyes down the next two possibilities. “Okay, the second letter probably isn’t an A then,” I mumbled, looking at where that left me. My gaze landed on the word ‘Shackles’ that had been coded into the terminal. “That one seems promising…”

The terminal gave a chirp as the password activated. The terminal unlocked, giving me access to the options on it.

>Override Security Door

>Turret Control

>Security options

I glanced over the options available to me. Figuring that the turrets were probably the ‘bots’ that the slaver had mentioned, I quickly opened up their file and deactivated them. The last thing I needed was to have the walls and ceilings open up and start firing at me while I was carrying Xayah.

Returning to the other options, I opened up the Security door override.

>Override Security Door

[Open]

[Close]

I activated the open option and stepped back as the large metal door began to slide open with a loud hiss and the sound of metal grinding against metal.

I smirked, pumping my hoof in the air triumphantly. “Still got it.”

The door slid to a stop, but the sound of metal on metal continued, ringing out through the hallway. Confused, I spun around, making out another metal door at the far side of the hall that had begun to side open as well.

My eyes bulged with fear as I spotted the monstrosity that began rolling through the doorway towards me.

The robot was massive, at least four large ponies tall. It was covered in large metal plates and rolled on three massive tank-like treads that made a loud whirring noise as it moved. It was topped with a small, armoured head equipped with what appeared to be some sort of glowing red eye sensor. Two bulky arm-like appendages protruded from either side of the monstrosity, one wielding a deadly looking gatling laser, while the other had what I could only assume was a large missile launcher.

The Ministry of Wartime Technology logo had been engraved on the robots large breastplate and the almost scratched out words below it read, ‘Sentry bot - SB - 8754 issue’.

I gulped and took a step backwards. “Bots… right…” Clearly the turrets were not the bots the slaver had been talking about.

because fuck me… Apparently…

I only had just enough time to hit the deck before a powerful gust of wind ripped across the room and a missile the size of my torso flashed above my head, slamming into the far wall and blasting it apart. Bits of scrap metal and shrapnel rained across the hallway, fire and smoke flared across the walls, charring the already rusting metal black.

“What the fuck was that!” I heard the muffled sound of a slaver barking in the distance. The slavers shout was quickly followed by the pounding of hooves as slavers began rushing towards the noise.

Shit. That probably only gave me a minute before they arrived.

I pulled myself back to my hooves, stumbling backwards and rearing Braebrun’s Liberator up to bear. My shotgun barked, buckshot flashing from its muzzle and smashing into the massive Sentry bots torso. The slugs sparked against the robot, buckshot scratching up the surface, but were otherwise ineffective as the towering robot’s treads spun and began hauling the machine towards me at an ungodly speed.

I grumbled. “Oh fuck me, this is going to hurt.”

I rolled to the side, the Sentry bot charging past me, its metal arms swinging as if to sucker punch me. There was barely enough room to roll aside as the huge robot’s bulk took up most of the hall. I tucked my head between my forehooves and I dove to the ground, quickly rolling back up to my hooves as fast as I could, my side brushing against the metal wall. My whole body screamed in protest, having been pushed to its limits long ago.

I spun around to face the sentry bot, only to find that it’s body had already rotated around to face me, its gatling laser spinning rapidly as it charged up to fire at me.

“Shit.”

I backpedaled, spinning around and rushing down the hallway as the Sentry bot unleashed a flurry of magical energy blasts in my direction. Burning red lasers lashed at the walls, sparks flaring across my vision as the gatling laser continued its assault.

One of the shots grazed my rump, sending a burning pain searing through my body. I screamed, collapsing to the ground. I could feel the burning laser cauterizing the wound, my flesh around the burn mark blistering.

I rolled over onto my back, staring down the hallway towards the Sentry bot. It was rolling closer to me, its massive treads leaving dark black track marks scuffed into the hallway floor. There was a loud thunk as a missile clicked into place on its missile launcher.

I fired another shot from my quad barrel shotgun, but once again, the explosive rounds did little but scratch up the massive robot's heavy plating.

The missile launcher fired, the projectile flashing through the air towards me with unparalleled speed. I reached out with my magic, a thin shield of amber light appearing between me and the missile.

The explosive detonated against my magical shield, imploding my magic and sending a shockwave smashing into me that sent me stumbling head over hoof down the hallway. I managed to look up just in time to see the Sentry bot once more charging towards me, its metal arms swinging to pound me into the ground.

I scampered back and ducked, the huge machine's arm flying over my head and smashing into the wall, ripping chunks of metal from the wall and sending it crashing to the floor. As it sailed passed, I caught a glimpse of what appeared to be a metal hatch open up on its back, pouring dark black steam. I felt the smallest of smirks touch my lips as I noticed the exposed dual fusion cores resting just within.

Those were explosive.

I pulled myself back to my hooves, my magic quickly loading more slugs into my empty shotgun. I grimaced as I realized I was down to my final three shots. I switched to my dark black and red Anti-machine rifle and raised it up to face the sentry bot, only to find that it had once more spun around with alarming speed.

I tried to jump out of the way too late as its huge arms crashed towards me and rammed into my chest, sending me soaring backwards and slamming head first into the wall. I felt the wall dent as I was rammed into it.

I groaned, staggering away from the wall and raising the anti-machine rifle to bear. My chest was filled with pain and my breath was coming out in pained wheezes. That last hit had clearly broken something.

The sound of metal on metal told me the Sentry bot was charging me even before I saw it. I looked up, only just managing to jump aside as the massive robot once more slammed towards me. Both of its metal arms crashing into the walls, ripping a chunk of metal free from its surface entirely. Before I could react again, the Sentry bot swung around, the large chunk of metal slamming into my chest and sending me toppling to the floor.

I hit the ground with a gasp, all the air being pushed from my lungs in a violent huff of air. I crawled backwards, once more aiming the anti-machine rifle at the Sentry bot. The large gun fired, the .50 BMG round slashing through the glowing red eye on its head. The glass eye shattered, shards flying everywhere across the hallway.

The Sentry bot began making angry sounding beeps, its large metal torso swinging back and forth as if trying to detect where I was. It’s gatling laser whirred to life, its body spinning as it sent blasts of lethal energy flying in every direction.

I dove over top of Xayah’s limp form, blocking her from the blast as the sentry bot fired randomly. I Screamed as two burning lasers found their home in my back, ripping through the weak slaver barding and marring my hide.

The Sentry bot whipped back around to face me, alerted of my presence by my scream of pain. I heard another missile clunking into place. I bit back another yell of pain and wrapped my hooves around Xayah, pulling her aside seconds before the Sentry bot fired.

The missile slammed into the floor beside us, the explosion knocking us both onto our backs. I scrambled back up, trying to aim the anti-machine rifle at the exposed fusion cores on the robot's back. My vision was spinning and I was seeing double of everything.

The large rifle barked out a shot, fire flaring from the muzzle. The shot flashed forwards, the large round piercing the Sentry bots plating with a shower of sparks. But I had missed my mark, the bullet lodging itself into the robot only inches away from the exposed hole in its back.

The instant the rifle fired, the Sentry bot was on me again, it’s treads spinning and its whole body stampeding down the hallway towards me. I quickly threw Xayah’s body out of its path, taking the hit for her as it’s metal torso slammed into my body.

I lost my grip on both of my weapons as I was sent careening to the ground, both my shotgun and rifle spinning through the air before skidding across the floor and coming to a stop on the far side of the hall.

The sound of pounding hooves drew my attention to the hallway I had first come from. The first of the slavers had arrived, charging towards me with their assault rifles drawn.

I needed to get out of here, and fast.

I rolled beneath the lumbering Sentry bot as it slammed down at me with its large arms. I felt the whole hallway tremble as its massive arms ripped holes into the floor. I rolled back up, already sprinting for my dropped weapons.

I heard the sound of the Sentry bots gatling laser whirring as it fired after me, its aim thrown off by its broken sensor and inability to see me.

On the far side of the Sentry bot, I saw five more slavers turn into the hallway, their weapons blaring as they fired down the hallway towards me. I ducked to the side, the rapid fire attacks of the assault rifles peppering the wall beside me with holes.

My magic scooped up both of my weapons and I spun back around to face the Sentry bot, only for one of its lasers to peg me in the chest. I dropped my weapons as burning pains shot up my body, my legs trembling as I collapsed back to the ground.

I looked up, my blurry vision making out the Sentry bot charging towards me. A missile locked into place, the massive launcher readying to fire at the same time as the gatling laser. Behind it, I could see the slavers getting closer, their weapons aimed at my head.

I tried to pull myself back up, but that last shot had sapped my strength. I collapsed back to the ground, my head throbbing and my chest aching.

Everypony had been right. There was no escaping Fillydelphia. I couldn’t fight my way through all of this. No pony could…

A loud bang echoed down the hallway. The Sentry bot sagged, fire and sparks leaping from the exposed hatch in its back where a precise shot from a rifle had struck home and pierced the fusion cores inside.

I managed to look up enough to see Xayah lying against the wall, the large anti-machine rifle held tightly in her metal forehooves. She took a trembling breath, her whole body shaking from the exertion of firing, then her eyes slid closed and she collapsed back to the ground.

Beep! Beep! Beep!

The slavers pulled up shot as they saw the sparks and fire spewing from the back of the Sentry bot, a large red light began flashing from somewhere beneath its metal plating.

“Fuckin’ Shit! Get back, it’s going to blow!”

I felt my eyes widen at the slavers remark. It was going to fucking what!

I scampered forwards and wrapped my hooves around Xayah, dragging her as far away from the beeping Sentry bot as I could. Each and every beep that came from the Sentry bot seemed to make the tight hallway grow hotter and hotter.

The slavers were backing up, their eyes wide with fear as they tried to get away from the self destructing robot.

Boom!

The whole area was suddenly filled with a blinding light as the Sentry bot exploded. Fire flared across my vision, flames surged down the metal walls, flashing towards me and licking at my exposed hide. A blistering heat washed over me, sweat dripping from my pores and eliciting a howl like scream from my muzzle as I fought back against the pain of being consumed by fire. I was sent stumbling backwards, landing on my rump as the massive explosion equalled only by that of a balefire egg slammed into me.

The sudden memory of Inferno torturing me within my own mind flashed through me, sending a wave of panic jolting through my mind. I could feel my breath quicken, a panic attack slowly rising within me.

The walls of the hallway were ripped apart from the blast, metal and debris were sent flying in every direction. I felt hot, smouldering metal slashing at my flesh and not all that far away, I saw a slaver writhing as their body was consumed by burning flames.

A dark smoke filled the air, clogging up my throat and making me cough.

My eyes darted to the massive hole the explosion had ripped open, the hole leading right out from the wall and out into the red tinted streets of Fillydelphia.

“That’ll do it,” I choked, forcing myself back up and slinging Xayah’s body over my back. I took a step forward, stumbling as pain flared through me.

“Still not dead?” I heard a slaver shout, pushing their way through the rubble at the end of the hall and charging towards me. “I’m going to fuckin’ flay you bitch!”

I bit my tongue and fought down the urge to simply lay down and accept my fate. I pushed off with my hooves, rushing as fast as I could towards the gaping hole in the wall. The slaver tried to cut me off, only to be knocked aside as I scooped both Braeburn’s Liberator and The anti-machine rifle up with my magic and slammed them both into his head.

I leapt through the hole, my legs flailing as I seeked purchase on the rough ground below. I was higher up than I expected, a large jolt passing through me as my hooves slammed into the ground.

Immediately, I took off running, rushing for cover as the rest of the slavers managed to pull themselves through the rubble and began pouring through the large hole after me. I scrambled through an intersection in the smoggy Fillydelphia streets and quickly darted into a small side alley behind the ruins of a broken skyscraper, pressing myself up against the side of a rusting dumpster and using my body to shield Xayah as I heard the pounding hooves of the slavers approaching.

I spotted the large group of slavers rushing into the intersection. They paused, glancing around. A large slaver in dark green combat barding that looked to be in charge started pointing slavers in different directions. “Spread out and find them! Stern wants this bitch dead and with her fucking ass served to her on a silver platter, move it!”

The slavers broke apart, scattering and searching down the different streets and alleys. I tucked myself closer to the side of the dumpster as a group of five slavers trotted past me, scouring the area for any traces of us.

I waited a few minutes, letting the slavers pass before slowly crawling out from my hiding spot and limping for the end of the alley. I glanced behind me, making sure that I hadn't been spotted.

Working up some more of my strength, I sprinted a little faster, Xayah’s unconscious form bouncing up and down on my back as I tried to get out of the area as quickly as possible.

I turned into another side alley, running face first into two more slavers. They both looked up at me, their eyes narrowing and their weapons raising. One of them raised a shotgun. The twin barrels pointed directly at my head.

“Well well, looks like it's our lucky day,” The shotgun wielding slaver smirked, taking a step towards me.

I scowled and raised my shotgun, only for the second slaver to quickly knock it aside and ram themself into me. I gasped out, collapsing to the floor, Xayah rolling from my back and landed in a heap on the ground.

I moved to get back up, only for the shotgun wielding slaver to clock me over the head and send me slamming back to the ground. The slavers hoof flashed out, stomping on my chest and pinning me to the ground. I wheezed, blood drizzling from the edges of my muzzle.

Across from me, I saw the second slaver place the barrel of his assault rifle to Xayah’s head. I growled up at the slaver, but he only laughed at me in response. “How does it feel, coming so far only for your friend to get thrown back into the crater,” I tried to think of a witty retort, but nothing came to mind. The slaver smirked again. “Actually, fuck that. I think we’ll just kill the fuckin’ stripe.”

He nodded to the other slaver, signalling for him to send a round of bullets through Xayah’s skull. I screamed, thrashing at the slavers hoof pinning me down, only for him to knock me upside the head again.

The slaver pointing their gun at Xayah snickered, their mouth tightening on the trigger of their assault rifle.

Blam! Blam! Blam! Blam!

A round of bullets tore through the slavers throat before they could bite down fully on the trigger. Blood burst from their neck painting the alley walls in crimson.

The slaver pinning me down looked up in surprise, their eyes wide with shock as they spotted Brisk rushing down the alley towards us, a machete strapped to his side and his new mini gun spinning and sending a wall of bullets in his direction.

The slaver pulled back, their shotgun raising in their mouth to return fire, only for my magic to rip it from their mouth and spin it back around to face them. A shout of surprise escaped their mouth seconds before their own gun fired and pulped their head with a deadly shot of buckshot. Both shots fired point blank into his face, instantly dropping him to the ground.

Brisk rushed to my side, reaching down a hoof to help me up. “You alright sis?”

I nodded, accepting his hoof with a confused frown. “Yeah… but what are you doing here? I thought I told you to protect Chestnut and Tinker?”

Brisk gave me a playful smirk and tossed me a healing potion. “I did. Mirra and Scarlet got back a bit ago with a plan to get out of here. They’re moving into position now. They sent me to come get you. Figured you’d need a hoof anyway.”

I gave him a weak smile and thankfully drank the potion as Brisk moved over and poured a potion down Xayah’s throat. “How’s Chestnut doing?”

Brisk gave me a stern look. “Better. She’s awake at least. But it doesn’t look good.”

I gave a grim nod and moved to help Xayah back up onto my back. Brisk scooted up beside me to help carry the weight. “And the plan for getting out? You think we have a chance?”

Brisk grimace. “It’s a long shot, but it’s the best we can do,” He perked up a little and tried to give me a reassuring face. “We’re all back together now, right? Since when have we ever not gotten through?”

I had to bite back a remark that we were still missing Pyre and that we often failed. Instead I just forced a smile that he could see right through and gave him a nod. “Yeah… right.”

Brisk glanced around, his head picking up at the sound of slaver voices in the distance. “We should move. We’ll explain the plan once we regroup and get somewhere safe.”

Nodded and deciding not to comment on how there was nowhere safe in Fillydelphia, we began limping forwards, descending deeper into Fillydelphia.

I let a wave of relief wash over me as we finally set Xayah down inside the remains of an old office building. I collapsed down onto the ground next to her, all my strength leaving me as I finally let my body rest.

Scarlet and Mirra were at our sides in seconds. Scarlet quickly moved to look over Xayah’s wounds while Mirra scampered over to me.

The changeling filly looked up at me with a big smile on her face. Her large blue eyes looked over the plethora of wounds I had accumulated while inside the crater and the mud that caked my coat. “You look like shit.”

“Watch your language,” I scolded, wincing as I put too much pressure on one of my injured hooves.

Mirra stuck her tongue out at me. “You say worse things all the time.

“I’m an adult.”

“Barely.”

“Still an adult,” I stuck my tongue back out at her, prompting her to roll her eyes and give me another fanged smirk.

Mirra floated over another healing potion which I thankfully took and drank. Clearly Brisk had managed to find more healing supplies while I was gone. The potion Brisk had given me had managed to stop most of the bleeding, but the second potion managed to fully close up most of the wounds. Though I noticed the burn marks from the Sentry bots gatling laser refused to leave completely. Clearly those were going to stick around for a long while still.

Feeling a little bit stronger than before, I stood up and looked over Scarlet's shoulder as she worked on Xayah’s wounds. “Is she going to be alright?” I asked, my voice filling with worry.

Scarlet gave me a nervous glance and nodded. “She’ll be fine as long as we get her out of Filly. Her wounds are somewhat minimal, but the radiation poisoning is slowly killing her,” She took a deep breath and administered our second to last dose of Radaway to Xayah before handing me the last one. “It was the right choice, going out for her alone. I don’t think I would have been able to save her if we had to spread out our rations.”

Nodding, I looked past her and down at Xayah’s limp form. I could see her chest slowly rising and falling as she breathed and her ears occasionally twitched in her fevered sleep. Brisk stepped up beside me and placed a hoof over my withers.

“She’s going to be fine. We’re going to make it out of this,” he said, his calm tone only soothing my racing mind somewhat.

I took a deep breath and turned to face everypony. I cast a glance towards Scarlet and Mirra. “Alight, so you said you found a way out of this place.”

Scarlet nodded, her expression grim. “We did. It’s not going to be easy, but with some luck, I think we can pull it off.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Chestnut slowly limping into the room to join us, leaning on Tinker as the small colt tried his best to help his mother move around. “It’s not going to be easy is the understatement of the year,” Chestnut grunted. She looked tired and all of her limbs seemed to be trembling. “But I know from experience that we can do it.”

I gave Chestnut a concerned look. “How are you holding up?” I asked, taking a small step towards her.

“I’ll be okay. Soon as my baby is safe and out of here,” Chestnut said, ruffling the top of Tinkers mane. Tinker giggled a little, but I could tell that he was nervous, and I could see why. Chestnut might be walking and talking again, but she clearly wasn’t fit to fight or run, and she defiantly wasn't in any shape to be trying to break out of Fillydelphia.

“You’ve probably noticed that Red Eye has slavers patrolling the skies of Filly in Pinkie hot air balloons,” Mirra said, elaborating on the plan. “And we know where to get one.”

I raised an eyebrow. It seemed almost too good to be true. “Oh? Where would that be?”

“Well, there are a few different places to be exact,” Scarlet noted. “The only guaranteed place is a balloon that’s tied to the top of the Ministry Moral Hub in the centre of the city for Red Eye if he ever needs to make an escape. But seeing how we just broke out of there, there's a good chance security there has been doubled if not tripled. We’d probably have better luck making a direct dash for the mane entrance.”

“And the other places?” I asked, my hopes sinking just a little at that. “Where are they?”

“There is a loading dock area not all that far from here where some of the slavers park the balloons to switch over shifts,” Mirra explained. “It’s heavily guarded, but if we can get inside and snag a balloon for ourselves, we’ll be home free.”

“Not quite,” Chestnut interrupted, shaking her head slightly. “The loading dock is still a few miles away from the Fillydelphia wall. We’d still have to fight our way out against griffins, other hot ait balloons and any other big city defences that Red Eye and Stern have been keeping under the radar. The probability of us managing to simply fly out is still slim, and we’re going to be in for one hell of a fight.”

Brisk grimaced. “Those balloons don’t move very fast either. I reckon we’ll need to fend slavers off for a solid few minutes even after we’re in the air. If not longer.”

I gave a determined nod. “Well, what other options do we have.”

Everypony exchanged worried looks. Scarlet turned her head back to look at me, her expression sad. “Mirra and I went and checked the sewage tunnel we got in with. The slavers have completely blocked it off and surrounded it with guards. There’s no leaving the way we came in.”

I gulped. “So what you’re saying is…”

“No. There is no other way out of Fillydelphia. This is the only way…”

We all sat there in silence for a long time, letting that sink in. We all knew that one way or another, whether we escaped or not, not all of us would be making it out of here alive...

Brisk pulled himself up beside me as we crouched behind a large pile of rubble overlooking the loading dock, Xayah’s unconscious body slung over his back. I glanced up at him briefly before returning my gaze to the scope of the anti-machine rifle.

“What do you see?” Brisk whispered, trying to look down at the slavers in the distance.

I shushed him, my eyes focusing on the five guards that stood sentinel at the front door. “A lot of guards, not all that many ways in,” I finally responded, shifting my gaze to check for any possible ways in past the security.

“We could go guns blazing, try to take them by surprise and fight our way through,” Brisk suggested.

I shook my head. “It would probably be best if we tried to go as undetected as we can. With all our activity, the whole city is on high alert and backup couldn’t be all that far away,” I frowned and watched as one of the balloons touched down behind the large wall surrounding the loading dock. “Besides, if we can get into a balloon without getting noticed, we might still be able to fly out of here without anypony realizing somethings up. At least not until it's too late anyway.”

Mirra and Scarlet crawled up next to us as well, peeking over the pile of debris and down at the loading dock. “What about that wall over there?” Scarlet asked, pointing a little off to my right. “Could we climb that and get inside?”

I shifted the scope to look at where she was pointing. One side of the large wall had been built into a large building that looked like it had been an airport, before it had been ravaged by the balefire bombs. The jagged brickwork looked like it might be sturdy enough to be used as a makeshift ladder. I didn’t spot any guards nearby, but one guard that was circling the premises seemed to pass by the spot every few minutes or so.

I nodded. “It’s a start, good eye,” I turned and glanced back at Chestnut who had stopped a few feet behind us to take a short rest. Tinker was at her side, trying to make sure she was cared for. “Chestnut, you think you’re capable of doing some climbing?”

She grimaced but gave a firm nod. “Yeah. Yeah, I can do that.”

Nodded, I glanced down at Tinker beside her. “Are you holding in there kid?”

Tinker gave me a timid nod. “I… I’m going to get my mom out of here,” He looked so afraid, but he was clearly doing his best to put on a brave front. I could feel my heart warm just a little bit more at his words. Chestnut had been right, I did like this kid. The wasteland would probably be a better place if more ponies were like him.

I gave him a small nod. “Alright then. Let's do this. Everypony try to stick to the plan. Once we climb over the wall, we're going to make a dash for one of the hot air balloons. Try not to get spotted. We pull this off and we might just get out of here.”

We began making our way towards the loading dock and conjoining airport. We ducked back a few times as groups of patrolling slavers scoured the area for intruders, but we remained mostly unimpeded.

Bunkering down behind a large cart full of scrap metal, I poked my head over the top and watched as the patrolling guard passed by the brick wall and continued on around the perimeter. I quickly turned and gestured for Mirra and Scarlet to go on ahead.

“You two go. We won’t be fast enough if we all go at once. Brisk will follow after you with Xayah, then I’ll help Chestnut and Tinker over last.”

Scarlet and Mirra gave quick nods, before darting around the wagon of scrap and scampering over to the wall face. Scarlet quickly began scaling it, her hooves moving as one unit as she scrambled from outstretched brick to outstretched brick. Mirra swiftly fluttered up beside her, not bothering to climb the walls as she buzzed her translucent blue elytra. They managed to climb up and over the wall in under a minute, moving over the top and ducking down out of sight.

I turned back to face Brisk. “Soon as the guard passes again, take Xayah and get her over the wall. Think you can do that?”

Brisk gave me a salute and toothy grin that showed off his collection of missing teeth. The wasteland had clearly not been kind to his mouth.

A few seconds later and the guard patrolled past again, assault rifle sweeping the area as he looked for anything out of the ordinary. Brisk bent his legs and hoped out of hiding as soon as the cost was clear, bounding towards the wall and beginning to climb. It took him a fair amount longer to climb that Scarlet did, Xayah’s weight dramatically limiting his movability, but before long he had managed to pull himself up and over, both him and Xayah quickly dropping out of sigh.

I gave Chestnut and Tinker a nod. “You two ready?”

Chestnut gave me a pained smirk. “Born ready,” Tinker just gave a timid smile.

As soon as we were sure it was safe to cross, we crawled out and made our way to the wall. Chestnut stumbled a little as we rushed across the rough terrain, but she managed to keep up with us as we pulled up against the wall.

“You go up first, I’ll be right behind you,” Chestnut urged Tinker, hoisting him up onto her back and helping him up as he began to scale the wall.

He got about half way up before glancing back down. “Mom, you coming?”

Chestnut cast me a worried look. I gave her as reassuring of a smile as I could muster. “Go on. I’ll be right up behind you,” I assured her. “I’ll try and catch you with my magic if you fall.”

Giving me a grateful nod, Chestnut put her shaking fore hooves onto the brick face and began to climb up after her son. Her shaking hooves slipped a few times, but I quickly made sure to catch them with my magic and redirect them back to a spot on the wall.

Tinker reached the top first. He pulled himself up, sitting on the top and glancing down at the two of us. “Come on mom, you can make it!”

“What the fuck was that?” we all froze as the sound of the slavers voice echoed towards us. The quick pattering of hooves on asphalt quickly accompanied the voice as the slaver began approaching us.

Shit, no time. “Sorry Chestnut,” I whispered, wrapping her whole body in my amber magic and tossing her up and over the last bit of wall. She gave a small gasp of surprise, but didn’t protest otherwise. Tinker quickly ducked behind the wall as well, moving out of my line of sight.

I glanced back and forth, looking for a spot to hide. There was nowhere to go but up and there was no way in hell I was going to be able to climb up the wall in time.

I glanced down at my stolen slaver barding. A lot of the muck had run off my hide, leaving my face and mane as a glaring and recognisable pastel pink. I gulped, I’d just have to make do with what I had.

A bright light landed on me and I could tell even without turning around that the approaching slaver guard had shone his flashlight towards me. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing off shift?” The slaver barked, slowly advancing towards me, gun drawn. “Stern will have you sent to the fucking crater if she finds you off duty.”

I gave a low grunt and kept my face facing forwards, knowing that even letting the slaver get a small glance at my face would give me away. “I’m uh… just taking a piss. Think I could get some fuckin’ privacy?” I growled back, doing my best stallion impression. I doubt it was very convincing.

“You can fucking piss when its this shit is over. Haven’t you heard? The whole city is in lockdown. Stern wants this Amber Aura cunt dead or in fucking chains by the end of the night or she’ll have all of our fuckin’ heads,” I could hear the sound of his hoof steps getting closer as he continued to advance.

“I’ll get back to my post in a second, just let me finish up…” I snapped back, trying to sound as believable as possible.

The slaver came to a stop a foot away from me. I heard his assault rifle click as he aimed it at the back of my head. “You know, you don’t look like a fucking stallion…”

Damn it.

I bucked backwards, my hind hooves flashing out and knocking the assault rifle from his grip, sending his skidding across the ground. I spun around, both my weapons swinging out in my magic and aiming towards the guard. He gasped as his gaze landed on my face.

“Oh shit,” He breathed, taking a step back. He lunged for his fallen weapon, only for me to jump in his path and knock it aside once again. He reeled back, spinning on his hind hooves and darting away as fast as he could.

I fired off a shot from my anti-machine rifle, but the buck jumped to the side, the shot only grazing his side and making a shout of pain burst from his mouth.

I groaned. “Shit…” I spun around, rushing for the wall and grabbing onto the jagged brickwork as fast as I could. I hauled myself up, doing as best I could to not collapse back down as I rushed up the vertical front. I reached the top and glanced down at my friends gathered below. “We gotta hurry. We’re about to get a lot of trouble headed our way.”

Dropping down beside them, we began making our way through the loading dock. There weren’t very many slavers within the walls, but there was still more than enough to make things hairy if we got spotted

“Over there,” Chestnut whispered, pointing towards a large Pinkie Pie balloon that had been docked atop a catwalk a few feet away. The balloon looked just like all the others, the large balloon on top looking like a giant smiling Pinkie Pie head and a big basket suspended below it holding a massive mini gun-like turret. Only one guard watched over it, his back currently turned to us.

Crouching lower, I advanced on the guard, both of my weapons out and loaded in case we got attacked. A floorboard on the catwalk creaked under Brisk’s hoof as his and Xayah’s combined weight pushed down on the catwalk, causing the guard to perk up and begging to turn around.

Thinking fast, I swung Braeburn's Liberter forwards and clocked him heavily over the side of the head. He gave a stifled yelp and slumped to the ground, knocked out cold by the abrupt thumping to his head.

Beckoning my friends forwards, I scampered up into the balloon, stepping over the limp body of the slaver guard. My friends climbed in after me, Brisk taking up the reer as he began picking away at the large lock that had been used to secure the tied rope holding the balloon down. There was a click and the lock slid away.

“Next stop, the wasteland,” Brisk grunted, drawing his machete and aiming it towards the ropes holding us down.

“There they are! In the balloon!” A voice rang out. I looked up to see the slaver that had spotted me rushing into the loading dock with a group of twenty or so other slavers, each one wielding a large automatic firearm of some form. “Get them!”

“Shit, time to go,” Brisk grunted around the handle of the machete. The large blade swung down, slicing through the thick ropes with ease. Instantly, the large balloon began to rise, higher and higher up into the red tinted air of Fillydelphia.

Gunfire blared around us as the slavers fired up at the balloon. Some shots went wide while others pierced through the basket, blasting holes into the ground beneath us. I braced my anti-machine rifle against the edge of the balloon’s basket, firing off a shot. The deadly accuracy of the rifle nailed one of the slavers through the eye, viscera spewing out the back of his head as the massive round sliced through him.

“Contact Stern! I want every fucking pony and griffin with the abilty to get their ass off the ground after that hot air balloon!” The leading slaver ordered, their booming voice overpowering even the din of gunfire.

“Can this balloon go any faster?!” Brisk shouted, his mini gun spinning up and sending a volley of bullets down on the slavers below.

Scarlet scowled, her hooves working as she threw sand filled weights over the side of the basket to give us more speed. “I’m trying! I’m trying!”

“Guys, we’re about to get some more company!” Mirra shouted, her wings fluttering as she pointed towards a cloud of something rapidly approaching us through the red Fillydelphia haze.

I squinted my eyes, trying my best to make out the shapes through the fog. I felt my heart drop when I realized that it wasn’t a cloud of anything, but a swarm of Griffins, each one clad in a full suit of combat armour and a large arsenal of weaponry.

“Shit, go go go!” I ordered, raising my rifle towards the flock of approaching talons. They were getting closer, moving far faster than we had the ability to go. I sent a few shots blasting towards them, only for the well trained mercs to dive out of the way, expertly twisting in the air and continuing their advance towards us.

I ducked as a few bullets whizzed past my face, the nearing griffins opening fire as they quickly closed in. Brisk lurched away behind me, a bullet grazing his face and drawing blood.

“Hot air balloons incoming!” Tinker yelled out, his voice filled with terror. I forced myself to look away from the griffins, my gaze locking on a large collection of hot air balloons rapidly moving towards us from all directions.

“Quick, make for the wall!” I shouted, my hooves grabbing around the edge of the basket as I tried to keep myself from falling out as another round of fire from the griffins lashed towards us.

“I… I don’t know how to fly this thing!” Scarlet screamed, her hooves frantically tugging at ropes and at the propane tanks in the hopes to figure out how everything worked.

I racked my brain for anything I knew about hot air balloons. I remembered reading a book about different modes of transportation in the wasteland back in Stable 25, but that had been years ago, and not nearly detailed enough to tell me how to fly one myself.

A griffin swooped in close, a bullwhip held in their talon lashing out and wrapping around Chestnut’s leg. Chestnut scowled, stumbling forwards as the griffin tried to yank her right from the balloon. She snatched her shotgun up in her mouth and fired, the shots buckshot ripping through the griffin's wing and sending them spiralling towards the ground.

The whip however, remained firmly coiled around Chestnuts hoof. With a scream, Chestnut was sent flying overboard. Mirra fluttered forward, her fore hooves wrapping around Chestnuts hoof as she tried to pull her back inside.

Mirra sagged, Chestnut’s weight clearly too much or the small filly to carry. Tinker raced forwards, reaching his hooves out and grabbing tightly to Mirra before the changeling could fall out of the sky entirely.

Brisk rushed up beside them, dodging a shot as another daring griffin swooped in close to take us out. He wrapped his hooves around Tinkers barrel, pulling and helping to haul Mirra and Chestnut back into the balloon.

The loud, repeating crack of a mini gun firing alerted us of the approach of the first Pinkie balloon. The side of the basket was riddled with holes as the hot air balloon approached, the slavers inside firing wildly in the hopes to shoot us out of the sky.

Brisk and Tinker stumbled backwards, hauling Mirra and Chestnut the rest of the way into the balloon. The mini gun fire flashing through the air where they had just been only seconds later.

“Everypony alright?” Brisk asked, his voice coming out heavy and breathless.

“We aren’t going to be if we don’t figure out how to fly this damn thing!” Scarlet yelled back, ducking as another round of mini gun fire slammed into the basket.

“I’m working on it!” I yelled back, looking over the different ropes. “Fuckfuckfuckfuck… what was it the book said again… there is no direct way to steer you just need to… uh…”

Three more griffins swooped in, their assault rifles booming as they sent their flurry of bullets towards us. Mirra screamed, one of the griffins shots slashing through her wing and forcing her to land on the floor of the basket.

“Amber! What do we do!” Scarlet shouted, panic rising in her voice. Another Pinkie balloon joined the one assaulting us, the slavers inside aiming their mini gun towards us as well.

I shut my eyes tight, trying to block out the booming sound of gunfire and focus on that book I had read so long ago. “..no direct way to steer you just need to… to… Use different wind currents at different altitudes!” My eyes snapped up to the swarm of griffins swooping around us. My gaze caught on their wing feathers, pinpointing where the different currents were coming from. “Scarlet! Thow two more weights overboard!” I screamed, rushing to the side of the basket and tossing a large sandbag over the edge.

Scarlet obayed, throwing two sandbags off of her side as well. Instantly the Pinkie balloon began rising a little higher, and with its height came a smaller gust of wind that began pushing us towards our destination.

Scarlet gave a wild whoop as the balloon started moving faster towards the looming steel wall surrounding Fillydelphia.

A Talon merc whipped past us, their talon pulling the pin on a grenade and tossing it into the basket with us. Chestnut snatched it up and tossed it back out seconds before it detonated. The blast knocked into the hot air balloon, sending it spinning through the air. I winced as a burning piece of shrapnel pinged against the propane tank, expecting it to explode. Thankfully the tank seemed to be more resilient than I gave it credit for.

The whole hot air balloon rocked as another round of gunfire from the enclosing Pinkie balloons fired into us. I stumbled, trying to maintain my hoofing as the basket swung wildly. I turned, gripping Mirra by the shoulders to help steady myself.

“Mirra, do you think you can get that mini gun working!? We needed to get some of those hot air balloons off of us!” I yelled, gesturing to the large gun that was mounted to the side of our hot air balloon.

Mirra stared up at me with wide, fearful eyes. She bit down on her lip nervously, her sharp fangs drawing small droplets of blood. “Amber, I-I don’t like killing ponies…”

“Well you’re going to have to or we’re all going to die,” I shot back, spinning back around and firing a shot from Braeburn’s Liberator at a griffin that had dared to get too close. The griffin screamed as the buckshot tore through their chest, dropping from the sky and spiralling down towards the ground below.

Mirra gave a shaky nod and scooted over to the mini gun perched on the baskets rail, her hooves trembling as she began trying to aim it. Tinker pulled up next to her, looking over the massive gun and helping to aim at the incoming balloons.

“More griffins on their way!” Brisk shouted over at me, his mini gun whirring and trailing after a group of griffins that began flying in a wide arch to avoid his fire.

I pulled myself to the edge of the basket and looked out, my eyes catching on another flock of griffins speeding towards us, this one seemingly larger than the last.

“How many fucking griffins do they have!” I shouted, flinching back as a bullet ricocheted off of the baskets rail in front of my face. I raised my rifle and stared down the scope at the new squadron of griffins. I gulped when I spotted the large black griffin leading the charge.

Stern flew at the front of the flock, her large anti-machine rifle aimed in one talon and her thick bullwhip clenched tightly in the other. Her eyes narrowed, as if glaring me down even from this distance.

“Shit! Stern’s on her way!” I shouted, ducking back as a third hot air balloon drifted towards us, its mini gun opening fire and sending a stream of bullets in my direction.

“What!” Chestnut gasped, pulling herself up and staring in horror at the approaching swarm. I heard her curse under her breath as she spun around to face Scarlet. “How fast do you think you can get us to the wall!?”

Scarlet blasted at a griffin with her laser rifle before spitting it into her hooves and turning back to Chestnut. “Not fast enough. I can hardly fly this thing as it is!”

Mirra and Tinker finally got the minigun properly aimed and ready. It unleashed a volley of bullets slashing forward and tearing through the large Pinkie Pie face of the closest balloon. There was a loud explosion as one of the bullets lanced through the propane tank, sending the balloon ablaze. The slavers screamed as they fell from the sky, fire racing up their flailing bodies. They most likely died before they hit the ground.

Mirra flinched away, whimpering, before forcing out a deep breath and returning her focus to the large gun.

A few bullets ripped through the massive Pinkie Pie shaped envelope of our balloon, sending bolts of fire spewing out the top. The hot air balloon began sagging, slowly tilting downwards toward the ground. I had to grip tightly to the side of the basket to keep from sliding out as we began dropping.

“We’re not going to make it!” Brisk screamed, his mini gun running dry and forcing him to seek cover to reload as the griffins took advantage of the lull in fire to attack back. Fire more holes slashed through our balloon, our altitude dropping even more.

I looked over the side. We were nearing the Fillydelphia wall, but Brisk was right, at the speed we were decelerating, we would crash into the ground long before we reached it.

“I’m about to do something really stupid!” I shouted over the gunfire as Mirra and Tinker once again opened fire with the mini gun.

Brisk gave me a flat look. “Isn’t that what we’re already doing!?”

I grimaced. “Stupider!”

I wrapped our whole balloon in my magic and began to lift. I screamed as pain raced through the crack in my horn and I pushed my body beyond what I was normally capable of doing. There was a sudden slight weightlessness and we slowly began to rise.

Another griffin flashed by, this one diving into the basket with us, bullwhip cracking in the air as they tried to lash out our necks. Chestnut kicked at them, her fore hooves pounding into the griffins face and cracking their beak. With a loud squawk of pain, the griffin staggered back, blood dripping from their beak and their assault rifle spewing a few shots as they tried to fire upon us.

I heard Tinker give a scream of pain as one of the shots lashed through his body, blood spewing across the hot air balloons basket floor as the small colt dropped to the ground.

“Tinker!” Chestnut cried, pushing past the griffin and dropping to her son's side, her hooves frantically applying pressure to the wound.

The griffin gathered its bearing and turned to fire at the mother and her child, only to find Brisk slamming into them. The Griffin staggered back, wings flapping as they swooped out of the balloon and rejoined with the rest of the griffins.

I grimaced as another bolt of agony flashed across my forehead, the power surging from my horn almost making me pass out from the mental effort. But it was working. We were slowly rising higher again, once more catching onto the stronger currents and being pushed towards the outer walls of Fillydelphia.

We were going to make it! We were almost there!

“Shit! It’s Stern!” I heard Scarlet yell as she dove to the floor of the basket, the loud cracking of gunfire accompanied the multitude of bullets that lanced over her head.

There was the distinct sound of a anti-machine rifle firing off a shot, followed by a .50 BMG round slashing through one of the ropes connecting our basket to the large Pinkie shaped envelope. The whole basket sloped, dangling precariously from three ropes as the shot snapped the rope in half completely.

I braced myself against the side of the basket as it tilted at a near ninety degree angle. Brisk slammed into me as he slid down the sloping basket nearly knocking both of us out and falling to our deaths.

I glanced up, my eyes locking with Stern's as the large black griffin swooped in for a second attack.

I raised Braebrun’s Liberator, firing off a shot at the large griffin. Stern flipped out of the way, the buckshot missing by miles as the agile griffin continued her assault. Her rifle aimed and for a split second she was practically frozen in the air, not even her wings flapped as she let centrifugal force take control of her movement. Then the muzzle on the end of her rifle flared to life, a single round lashing forwards from the gun and spearing through the propane tank on our hot air balloon.

My vision flared with fire as the massive balloon above my head exploded. Bits of flaming fabric was sent flying everywhere as the basket was sent freefalling towards the ground. I grasped onto the side of the basket for dear life as the entire hot air balloon began plummeting towards the ground.

I heard my friends screaming as I tried to channel all of my power into my horn and keep us airborne. My efforts were next to useless as we spiraled towards the ground. I grit my teeth as my magic imploded, my head jerking backwards and pain searing down my cracked horn.

The basket spun around in the air giving me a quick glance out at the rapidly approaching shape of the Fillydelphia wall looming closer and closer towards. We were so close! I could do this!

Grasping tightly to Xayah’s limp form, I let my horn flare up again. Pain shot through my whole body and a loud scream forced its way past my lips. My amber glow wrapped around one side of the basket, giving it as rough of a shove to the side as I could. I felt the basket jerk beneath me, sending us tumbling towards the wall.

“We’re going to crash!” I heard Brisk shout from beside me, his voice almost being completely drowned out by the rushing sound of wind racing past our ears.

“Yeah, no shit!” Scarlet snapped back, her hooves wrapping tightly around the edge of the basket.

“No! Into the wall!” Brisk retorted, his voice warped by the scream that pushed past his lips a second later.

I wrapped my hooves tighter around Xayah as we plumbited closer and closer towards the wall. Beside me, I saw Chestnut do the same with Tinker. Mirra’s wings fluttered at her side, the large bullet hole in one of them making it impossible for her to pick herself up into the air.

“Everypony, brace yourself!” I shouted, wrapping all of them in my magic and trying to lighten the fall for all of them as much as I could. I felt a magical field surround me and looked over to see Mirra doing the same.

The basket plunged downwards, smashing against the massive steel wall of Fillydelphia. I was lurched forwards, my whole body being tossed into the air with the rest of the flaming debris around me. Then gravity once more took effect and I was spiralling downwards.

the second propane tank on the balloon collided with the steel wall, the canister cracking and bursting apart with fire. Chunks of flaming metal flashed over my head, my vision filling with flames and crimson.

Something else exploded above me, but I was unable to make out what it was as my body summersaulted through the air, my hooves grasping tightly around Xayah's chest. A massive shockwave of force and fire rammed into me, my free fall speeding up as the wind was knocked from my lungs. My head slammed against the metal wall of FIllydelphia and my vision was thrown into darkness.

I jolted back to reality with a scream. Pain rippled across my body and down my forelegs. I looked up, my vision spinning as I tried to make out what was going on. Xayah was lying unconscious atop me, I having clearly cushioned her fall as we crashed back towards the floor of Fillydelphia. My hooves were broken, I could tell that much, if not from the agonizing pain, then from the fact they were both twisted at an odd angle and slowly turning a dark purple in colour.

The area around me was in ruins.

To my left lay the great wall of Fillydelphia. The crash had caused parts of the wall to collapse, creating a large barricade of rubble between me and the outside world. The explosion had sent chunks of slag and flaming pieces of our hot air balloon up into the air where it now rained down around me, making it look like the sky itself was raining fire. Bits of rubble had caught fire as well, the sizzling embers illuminating the area and making the already red haze of Fillydelphia seem to glow an evil crimson.

The sound of smouldering flames filled my ears, every few seconds being punctuation by a loud crack as the flames popped.

“I-is everypony-” I had to stop to cough as blood surged through my throat. I rolled over hacking as my lungs tried to expel the blood, flem and ash that had accumulated inside of them. Xayah rolled from my back, slumping over in the ash coated ground around us. “Is everypony alright?”

I looked up with alarm when I didn’t get an answer. Xayah and I seemed to be alone.

On shaking limbs, I pulled myself up and looked around, my eyes sweeping the wreckage for any of my friends. I spotted a pony curled up in the ash, their coat so covered in dust and ash that they were unrecognizable.

Hoisting Xayah up onto my back, I limped over to them, each step causing a new wave of pain to wash over me. I slumped down next to the pony and shook them, dusting the layer of ash of their coat. Chestnut groaned and looked up at me, blood dripping from a large wound on her head that looked to have been ripped open on a large piece of rebar that she had gotten snagged on in the fall.

With a moan, she rolled over, her hooves shifting to show Tinker curled up in her embrace. The small colt was trembling, bleeding from multiple gashes across his body as well as the large bullet wound in his side, but he was alive.

Grunting, I help them both up to their hooves. Tinker pulled himself up first, only to wobble and collapse back to his side, more blood spilling across his body. Chestnut reached down and lifted him up, placing him gently on her back. She winced as his weight was placed atop her.

“Are you two alright?” I asked, my throat feeling dry and cracked.

Chestnut gave me a grim look. “No. But We’ll keep going. We’ll keep going until we’re out of this place.”

I felt Xayah stir slightly on my back and let out a soft moan of pain. I dared to glance back at her, my expression softening. “Right, yeah… Lets find the others…”

“Amber! Amber!” I heard Brisk’s frantic voice call out. “Sis! Are you out there!?”

Following his voice, I hauled myself over to the large pile of rubble that separated me from the outside world. It was packed down tightly, the heat of the explosion melting some of the debris to slag. Fires burned along its surface, but I managed to find a small hole that looked out into the Fillydelphia outskirts beyond.

I pushed my eye up to it, careful not to burn myself on the red hot metal. “Yes Brisk, I’m here!

A few seconds later, I saw Brisk near the rubble, limping on what looked like a broken fore hoof. He spotted me looking through the hole and stumbled over to me. “Shit, Amber, are you alright?”

I grimaced. “Not even remotely, but I’ll be fine. Is Mirra and Scarlet with you?”

Birsk gave me a quick nod. “Yeah, there out here. We’re outside the wall,” He glanced around, trying to find a way through the wall of rubble. “You just hold tight, I’m going to find a way in to get you out.”

I shook my head. “No! Take Mirra and Scarlet and get out of here. Don't you dare come back in. We’ll find our own way out.”

I saw Brisk’s eyes darting around, his breath coming out in panicked pants as he tried to think up something. “I can’t just leave you here. I’ll find a way in. there’s gotta be a-” He scrapped at the rubble with his hooves, trying to push it aside, he yelped, reeling back as the hot metal burned him.

“Brisk, listen to me. You need to go! Get Mirra and Scarlet out of here and go. We’ll be fine!”

“I can confront Stern. Work out some kind of deal for your release,” Brisk insisted, stepping back from the wall and looking it over for any sort of weakness.

“Damn it Brisk, no!” I shouted, stomping my hoof. Pain shot up my body at the motion and I had to bite back a scream. I glanced up into the still flaming sky above us. The massive swarm of griffins were begging to break out into groups, swooping down and searching for any survivors. “If you give yourself to Stern she’ll never let you escape again! You know that! Just get out of here. I’ll meet back up with you in Friendship City!”

“And if you don't?

His words made my heart pound harder in my chest. If I didn’t get out? That was scarily possible.

I took a deep breath. “If I’m not back in one day, you need to stop Pureblood and the Utopia program without me, got it? Scarlet knows what's going on. Listen to her. Find ponies that can help. Find Pyre if you can. If I don’t come back, I need you to stop all of this, do you understand!”

Brisk blinked back a tear and nodded. “Yeah… yeah I understand…” He took a shaky step back and took a deep breath. “I love you sis…”

I tried to force a smile, but it wouldn’t come. “I love you too, bro.”

Taking another second to steal himself, Brisk turned around and moved away. “Mirra! Scarlet! Come on, we need to get out of here!”

“But where’s Amber!?” I heard Mirra’s weak voice squeak. “We can’t just leave her here!”

There was a quick exchange of muffled words that I couldn’t hear, then a second later both Mirra and Scarlet pulled themselves up to the small hole and looked back at me.

“Amber, hold still, we can get you out of there,” Mirra ordered, her large blue eyes darting around like Brisk’s had only moments before.

I shook my head. “I just went through this with Brisk. You both need to follow him. I’ll meet back up with you at Friendship city, I promise.”

Mirra’s eyes widened with fear. “What! N-no! I refuse to leave you in that awful place! Hold on, I think I might be able to fit into the-” She stuck her hoof forwards to try and shimmy her way into the hole, only for me to block her with my own hoof.

“No you don’t kid. I’ll be fine. I promise,” I assured her, feeling her trembling at my touch. A second later and she pulled away, looking at me with tear filled eyes.

“You better make good on that promise Amber. I really really don’t want to lose you…”

I gave her a smile. “I will…”

With the scampering sound of hooves, Mirra stumbled away after Brisk, glancing back at me quickly before darting away.

Scarlet stared at me through the hole in the rubble for a second before letting a long sigh escape her lips. “I hope you’re right about this Amber,” she said, her voice filled with painful melancholy. “The last pony I cared about promised me they would get out of Filly and come find me too. I never got to see him again.”

I felt a stab of pain shoot through my chest, this time not from my overabundance of physical wounds. “I… I’m going to try my best to get out of here. I swear…” I said, my heart sinking deeper into my gut.

Scarlet just gave me a sad look. “I’m sure Crank tried his hardest too…” Then see too darted away.

I stepped back, Xayah’s weight on my back suddenly feeling a hell of a lot heavier. I turned back to face Chestnut who was crouched behind a burning wagon, Tinker slung across her bleeding back. “Come on. We need to get out of here.”

We began crawling through the debris along the border of the Fillydelphia wall. The wreckage of the crash had caused more damage than I had realized. Large chunks off the wall had sagged inwards, leaving the area around the border of the slaver city a massive maze of crumbling ruins and burning piles of debris.

Even the sky seemed to still be raining fire, not letting up even as we moved farther and farther away. I wondered if the toxic, chemical and radiation filled air of Fillydelphia itself might be flammable, and the propane explosion had quite literally caught the sky ablaze.

And here I had thought Fillydelphia couldn’t look more hellish. Did I ever prove myself wrong or what.

“Amber, over there!” I heard Chestnut exclaim excitedly, gesturing over a mound of rubble. Following her hoof, I spotted what she was looking at. A spot in the Fillydelphia wall had crumbled away, leaving a smouldering hole about two ponies wide that lead out into the wasteland.

I cast Chestnut a thankful glance and began scrambling over the burning rubble. The loose scraps of metal and slag shifted under my weight as I hauled myself over the mound and towards the opening. I paused at the top turning to help pull Chestnut up with me.

Turning back, I looked over the steaming hole in the wall. We were so close, only a few more feet and we would be beyond the wall.

“Come on, we’re almost there,” I said, limping forwards and trying to ignore the screaming pains all over my body. I could see Chestnuts resolve returning as we grew closer to the flaming exit, her strength seemingly returning as hope flooded back into her body.

I slid down the steep slope into a crater like gouge in the ground and began moving towards the exit. Fires raced along the outside of the small crater, making me sweat as I tried to keep from toppling over from the physical and mental hell Fillydelphia had put me through. I took another step closer, my weary legs beginning to tremble not just with exhaustion, but anticipation as well.

Then a figure began to emerge from the smoke and fire of the hole, their silhouetted form waving in the refracted light of the fires boiling heat. Smoke billowed around them, a sturdy breeze whipping their dark black trench coat around them as if it were a cape.

I felt myself take an involuntary step back as the flickering light of the fire illuminated the cruel spectre's face.

He was a tall, broad black stallion with a dark grey mane the colour of ash. He was clad in an equally dark coat and a pair of dark, tinted sunglasses concealed what I knew to be cold, calculating and piercing eyes. A deadly looking Institute variant of a magical energy rifle floated beside him in his icy blue magical aura.

“No… no no no no…” I felt myself utter, the hope suddenly draining from my body. My eyes locked on the dark stallion, my heart beginning to pound faster and faster inside my chest. This couldn't be happening! Not now. Please not now...

Chestnut skidded to a stop beside me as her eyes landed on the looming, flame wreathed figure. She glanced over at me, her expression filled with worry and concern.

“Hello Amber Aura,” The Institute Courser monotoned, smiling a smile that did not reach his eyes. The laser rifle at his side raised and leveled with my head. “Pureblood has instructed me to collect you and return you to your place by his side. You will come willingly, or I will need to take you by force.”

I remembered Scarlet telling me that every Courser had the ability to shut down rouge synths simply by speaking a few letters and numbers. I gulped as a tremor of fear passed through me.

I heard a loud squawk and looked up to see a squadron of Griffins circling far above us. They had spotted us, and with them would be coming a whole lot of trouble. Stern would be coming after me soon no doubt. Her and every other available slaver in Filly. We only had a few minutes before the whole of Fillydelphia closed in around us.

Returning my attention to the Courser, I raised my shotgun and levelled it at its head. If I didn't get past this freak now, we were never getting out of here. I grimaced as I felt the light weight of my gun. Only two shots left before I had to rely solely on my rifle.

The Courser simply looked my gun over lazily for a second before smirking. “Fine. We will take you by force… X23-”

The Courser was cut off as I blasted both rounds of buckshot towards his face. He twirled out of the way, evading both blasts and moving towards us at speeds far too fast for any real living pony.

I spun around, holstering my shotgun and bringing my anti-machine rifle out to bear. “Run! Run!” I yelled out, rushing away from the Courser as fast as I could. Chestnut bolted after me, her face a mask of fear and confusion.

A blast of blue energy lanced past me, striking the ground an inch away from my hoof. I reeled back, just barely avoiding a second blast that lashed past me and nearly took off my ear. Xayah moaned on my back, stirring in her sleep as I jostled about, trying to keep from being turned to glowing ash.

“Amber! To your right!” I heard Chestnut yell. I glanced over, making out Chestnut making a quick dash for a tight hole on the far side of the crater leading out into another opening in Fillydelphia. This hole was only big enough for a single pony to squeeze through, hopefully the Courser wouldn't be able to follow after us due to its large size if we could make it through.

Readjusting my course, I began sprinting towards the hole, each pounding of my broken hooves against the jagged ground feeling like a spike was being shoved up into my hooves. I could see the Courser rapidly approaching from behind me. He was too fast, I couldn’t outrun him!

“Run and your friends will die,” The Courser threatened, his voice as cold and monotone as ever. “There is no escaping Fillydelphia. No escaping it rather, except through me.”

I scampered up to the hole and shoved Xayah’s limp body through. I heard a thud and a restless moan as she landed on the far side.

Knowing I was dead the second the Courser managed to speak my deactivation code, I shoved my head through the hole, sliding through and pulling myself out the other side. It was a tight fit, even for me, but I managed to claw my way through relatively quickly.

The second I was on the other side, Chestnut was passing me Tinker, the colt now wide awake and screaming with fear as the horrific Courser raced towards us.

“Quick! Take Tinker! Keep him safe!” Chestnut pleaded to me as I wrapped my hooves around the colt and helped pull him through. “Get him out of here! Please get my baby to safety!”

I pulled Tinker the rest of the way through, gasping as the aching pains in my ribs flared across my whole body.

Tinker screamed, pushing himself from my hooves and grasping on tightly to Chestnuts fore hoof. “Mom! Come on! You can make it!” He wailed, tugging on his mothers outstretched hoof, tears racing down his face. “Hurry!”

There was a loud zap, followed by a blast of blue light as the Courser fired a beam of energy directly into Chestnuts back. Chestnut went rigid, her eyes wide with pain and her hoof constricting tighter around her son's hoof. Blood drizzled from the side of her mouth as she let out a loud gasp of pain.

“I love you Tinker,” She gasped, her whole body shuddering and suddenly beginning to glow with a brilliant blue light.

“I love you too mom!” Tinker cried out, pressing his face up against his mothers cheek as the glowing light continued to grow. Then, as they embraced, Chestnut began to fade away, her body dissolving into ash and dissipating in her son's grasp. Tinker reared back, eyes wide and streaming with tears. “Mom…? Mom!” his voice cracked, his uncontrollable sobs warping his pleading cries.

Chestnut, the mare who had always fought for freedom from the shackles of her slave masters, was dead, her remains forever confined within the looming, monolithic walls of Fillydelphia.

I rushed forwards, wrapping the colt in a tight hug and pulling him away from the hole as he thrashed and screamed, his hooves reaching and clawing at the smoking pile of ash that had once been his mother.

“The mare is dead,” The Courser mocked, his cold voice cutting through me like a knife. Though I couldn’t see them, their voice seemed to echo all around me. “Who’s next? The zebra or the colt?” A bit of mirth had seemed to creep into the icy monotone of its usual voice. “Or will you surrender yourself to me?”

I scowled, pulling Tinker further away from his mothers remains, stumbling as Xayah’s weight wayed me down. “You fucking monster!” I shouted, rage following through my already exhausted body. We had been so close. Chestnut had been only steps away from freedom. And this monster had ripped it away from her. “I’m going to fucking kill you!”

“Oh, I doubt that,” The Courser purred.

There was a flash of blue light and the Course materialized right next to me. I hardly had time to figure out what had happened before its powerful hoof lashed out and struck me across the neck.

I gagged, dropping Xayah and Tinker to the ground and staggering back. My hooves clutched at my throat and I felt blood trickling over my hooves.

I growled through the pain and lunged at the courser, swinging my hoof at their head with what little strength I had left. The Courser responded with a kick to the gut, my swing faltering mid air as I was slammed backwards.

I twisted, trying to get a punch in, only for the Course to flash past me again and slam me across the side with the back of his hoof. I was thrown to the ground, my lungs burning as if they were on fire as I gasped for breath, only for the air around me to be filled with the burning smoke from the fires.

The Courser loomed over me, their hoof slamming down on my heaving chest and pinning me to the ground. He leered down at me, his form illuminated by the red, flickering firelight behind him. His magical energy rifle pushing up against my forehead. “X237-”

I swung my anti-machine rifle up and rammed it into the side of his head, cutting him off and sending him skidding off of me. I pulled myself up and jumped back, a swing from the Courser’s fore hoof strong enough to take my head clean off whipping past my face.

Scowling, the Course rounded on me again. “X2376-”

Tinker charged him, slamming his hooves against the Courser’s side and forcing him to take a step back to keep his balance. “You killed my mom!” Tinker raged, his eyes red and puffy with tears.

“No! Tinker, get back!” I screamed, raising my hoof to try and move between myself and the colt before the Courser could harm him.

I was too slow.

“Agh!” With a shout of frustration, the Courser whipped around and Bucked at Tinker. The Courser’s hooves collided with the colt's chest, sending him flying back a few feet through the air until he slammed against the wall of a skyscraper with a painful sounding thud.

I darted forwards to help him, only for the Courser to jump at me and shove me back to the ground with a powerful kick. I felt even more bones break as the deadly synth slammed into me.

“That’s enough!” The Courser shouted, his monotone finally cracking slightly and begin to sound more like mild amusement. “Next the Zebra dies.”

His hoof reached down and wrapped around Xayah’s throat, lifting the unconscious zebra from the ground. The Courser stood on its hind legs, one hoof slowly choking the air out of Xayah’s lungs while the other readied its deadly laser rifle.

“NO!” I screamed, panic racing through my mind. I pushed off from the ground, rushing at the Courser as fast as I could. I hadn’t even made it halfway to him when a searing pain shot through my foreleg and I dropped to the ground, a large hole ripped open in my leg from where the Courser’s energy rifle had blasted into me.

The Courser had the audacity to smile at me with his callus smile as he re-aimed his rifle at Xayah’s head. “Now stay down, or the zebra dies.”

I saw Tinker slowly trying to pull himself from the ground, only to collapse back down, blood pooling around his crippled body. Xayah was unconscious and had a gun pressed against her head and I could feel my last bits of strength fading away. Far in the distance I heard the flapping of hundreds of wings as hordes of griffins moved in on our location and the stomping of hooves as an army of slavers began pouring across the burning Fillydelphia landscape towards us.

I dared to look up, my spinning vision still managing to spot the large, black shape of Stern as she lead her group of Talons down towards my location.

I had failed. There was no way out. There was nothing left for me to do. I had played my final card, and it simply hadn't been enough...

At least I managed to save Brisk and Mirra, I thought to myself, my mind growing foggy as my body finally went limp below me.

The Courser’s smirk widened, though none of his glee was reflected in his eyes. “Good… Now, X2376-”

A flash of purple light announced the appearance of a tall purple alicorn as they teleported between me and the Courser. The mighty alicorn’s horn flared with light, their majestic mane blowing wildly in the whipping winds. It reared up, its hooves slamming down on the stunned Courser and knocking them away from Xayah.

Xayah dropped back to the ground, gasping in her fevered sleep and clawing at her throat.

The Course scowled and stumbled away as the alicorn advanced on them. They lashed out with a hoof, only for the alicorn to dart to the side and counter it with a blast of their powerful magic. The Courser twisted out of the way, the deadly blast grazing its side and causing a small trick of blood to spill down the side of its coat.

Forcing myself up, I scampered over to Xayah and clutched her tightly, slowly dragging the both of us to where Tinker lay. I did my best to shield them as the Courser and Alicorn sparred, each one trying to one up the other.

The slavers were getting closer. I could see them charging over the mounds of rubble, drawing their weapons as they readied themselves for combat. There was the sound of booming gunfire from above as the griffins began to open fire, bullets raining down around me and forcing me to pull away.

The alicorn was knocked down as the Course leapt into the air and slammed their rear hoof down hard atop the alicorn’s head. The alicorn’s horn flared as she tried to teleport away, only for the Courser to stomp down on it hard, sending a large crack shooting up the alicorn's horn.

The alicorn screamed, blood spilling down their face and sticking to their beautiful purple hide, colouring it black in the dancing firelight. I winced as I watched the Courser slam down on the horn a second time, causing a small piece of the tip to chip away. I knew all too well how painful that was. If the alicorn managed to survive, magic would forever come at the cost of agonizing pain.

The alicorn tilted their head to look at me, a tear rolling down their blood soaked face. Their eyes locked with mine and a look of sadness crossed over their face. she mouthed something to me, but I was unable to tell what it was. Their cracked horn once more began to flare with light, an expression of pure agony replacing the sadness on their face.

I felt myself get wrapped in a field of the alicorn’s purple aura and for a single second, my aching body felt light as a feather. Then there was a flash of purple light and the world swirled away.

I found myself lying face first on the rocky ground.

I looked up, my head dizzy. I had experienced the feeling of teleportation quite a few times before, but it always left me feeling off kilter.

I looked around, taking in my new surroundings. We were outside the Fillydelphia wall, the massive, looming steel structure now a part of the skyline instead of a constant cage that seemed to be bearing down on us.

We were still in the Fillydelphia outskirts, but we were far enough away from Filly proper that I estimated we could probably get a good head start on the slavers before they even realized what had happened so long as we didn't stick around.

I looked down beside me, making out the unconscious forms of both Xayah and Tinker, both of them battered and marred from their time within Filly’s industrial nightmare.

I felt my whole body go slack with relief. We were out! We were free!

My gaze dropped down to a small pile of glowing blue dust clenched tightly in Tinkers hoof. even as I watched, a few specs drifted away in the wind, swirling up into the air and off into the wasteland. I felt another round of shakes take hold of me as I remembered those that had not managed to make it out with us.

I stared out at the red glow illuminating Fillydelphia for a moment, my thoughts turning to the strange alicorn that had stepped in at the last second. I wondered who she was, and if she had even survived. Chances were the Courser had killed her by now.

Stealing myself, I knelt down and slid both Xayah and Tinkers bodies over my withers and turned to face the Manehattan skyline far off in the distance. My face contorted with pain as their weights beard down on my broken body, but I tried my best to shrug it off with a huff.

My friends were free, but the worst was still yet to come. I still had a wasteland to save...

Footnote: Maximum level reached

Author's Note

Geez, this chapter took forever to write. I tried to hard to get this out by the end of December, but my schedule simply wouldn't allow for it. I guess new years morning will just have to do. Hope you all enjoyed it.

It's crazy to think that I had only planned on this story being around 30k words long, (roughly 35 chapter total). Clearly that didn't happen. Never once did I think I'd actually come close to surpassing the original story's length, but here we are... with quite a few chapters still left to go... gosh darn it.

Chapter XXXIII: What the Future Never Gave

“Who you are comes from the choices you make when life gets tough.”

Exhaustion.

Each and every step seemed to drag me deeper and deeper into my growing state of exhaustion. With each step away from Fillydelphia I took, I could feel my mind taking several mental steps back.

My legs shook and ached, both from the combined weight of Xayah and Tinker’s limp forms atop my back and the shattered bones that comprised my fore hooves. The plethora of wounds I had received within the vile walls of Fillydelphia weren’t healing either, but rather getting worse, continually getting ripped back open as I trudged along.

I glanced behind me, making out the looming visage of Fillydlephia on the horizon. It felt like I was hardly making any progress, my efforts to get away from the damned city before the slavers could find me again seeming next to useless.

I took another step, forcing myself to keep going despite the pressing urge to collapse. I felt a cough building up in my chest and had to do my best to hold it back, knowing that even the smallest thing would set me off kilter and knock me to the ground. I didn’t know if I’d be able to get back up again.

And yet it didn’t seem to matter. Manehattan looked like little more than a pinprick of shapes against the skyline and the Fillydelphia outskirts seemed to stretch on for miles in every direction. There was nowhere to go but forwards and backwards, and I definitely wasn’t about to go back.

My stomach growled, alerting me to just how hungry I was. I glanced down at myself, feeling a stab of unease as I realized I could see my ribcage through my nutrients deprived body. I tried to remember the last time I had eaten. Two days ago? Three? Did synths even need to eat?

Another growl of hunger confirmed for me that I did, in fact, need to get some food.

My hoof snagged on the tip of a large rock. I stumbled, my body weight being thrown off as I tilted to one side. I probably would have collapsed from exhaustion anyway, but Xayah and Tinker atop my back only sealed the deal. My body crashed to the ground with a thud, a moan escaping my lips as my head collided with the ash coated ground. Xayah and Tinker tumbled off of me, their forms rolling across the terrain and coming to a stop, unmoving.

I lifted my head up and looked around with hazy vision, my whole body feeling heavy. I spotted where my two companions had landed. With a grunt, I went to pull myself back up and move to them, only for my body to once again give out from beneath me. I lay still on the ground, wondering if the pain would all go away if I were to simply lay back and die.

My spinning vision landed on the Fillydelphia wall in the distance. From here, I could see squadrons of griffins soaring over the wall and beginning to search the Fillydelphia outskirts for us. If I just lay here, they’d find us. They’d kill Xayah and Tinker... I couldn't let that happen...

I had to keep moving. I had to get us away from here...

I grunted again, once more raising my broken body from the ground with my broken hooves. Pain washed through me as I once more put my weight down on my legs. I stumbled a few steps forward, my body swaying and threatening to collapse.

I felt Xayah’s scarred hide bump up against my hoof and I reached down to once more pull her across my back. I struggled for a moment, trying to balance myself with Xayah atop me, before reaching down again and hoisting up Tinker.

I could do this… I had to do this…

I began moving forwards again, fatigue gripping my mind more with each step.

Again I stumbled and fell, and again I picked myself back up and threw Xayah and Tinker over my back. Tinker twitched slightly in his sleep as I jostled him, but remained otherwise unconscious.

Dark specks began swarming across my vision. I blinked, trying to clear them, only for my vision to go dark completely. I reeled backwards, panic flaring through my mind as the whole world went black. I tried to scream, but my cracked throat refused to make noise.

Then my vision cleared again, the world seeming foggier and more hazy through my tired, swimming eyes.

I spotted what looked like a broken down house only a mile or so away. There wasn’t much left of it now, only a single crumbling wall and the slightest bit of an overhang that had once been a roof. It wasn’t the best shelter in the world, but it would have to do. I wasn’t going to be able to drag us much farther than that.

I continued to move towards the structure, moving one hoof in front of the other. Xayah and Tinker seemed to grow heavier on my back as I walked and a loud ringing began to sound in one of my ears.

My hooves began to drag more and more as I began to stop bothering lifting my hoof off the ground and simply dragging it forwards before placing down a few inches ahead of where it had just been.

When I finally arrived at the broken down house, I simply slumped Xayah and Tinker down against the wall and collapsed to my side, the world around me instantly blinking out as my eyes drifted shut.

My hooves had been tightly wrapped in gauze. I raised my head and glanced around, trying to figure out where I was.

I was still outside, my side pressed up against the same broken down wall I had collapsed against. The stolen slaver clothes I had been wearing had been stripped off of me and cut up to make the makeshift bandages that now covered my body and my new combat armour now lay in a disheveled pile beside me. Night had fallen and the Fillydelphia outskirts had been cast into complete darkness.

Or at least, it would have been complete darkness, if it hadn’t been for the small campfire that had been set up a foot away from me.

I looked at the fire for a long moment, the flickering light dancing across my vision before I looked down at my body. Most of my wounds had been tended to, though not expertly. I couldn’t feel the telltale itch of a healing potion, so I doubted that they had been treated any better than being wrapped.

My eyes drifted up once again, making out the shape of Xayah who was sitting on the other side of the campfire from me. She was awake, her beautiful emerald eyes open and looking up at the twinkling night sky above us. The stars seemed to be oddly bright, or at least bright enough to be see though the thick cloud layer above.

I stared at Xayah for a long moment, my eyes looking over each and every part of her person. Her wounds had been wrapped up as well, most of her body now being covered in bloody rags and gauze. After a long moment, I took a deep breath and raised my body a little higher. Pain flared across my chest and I had to gently lower myself back down with a small squeak.

Xayah’s head snapped down to look at me in surprise, her eyes suddenly piercing into me. I winced as I met her gaze and quickly looking away, handing my face and finding myself unable to meet her stare.

“I see you’re up,” I said at last, not knowing what else to say to her, my voice croaking and my lips parched. Xayah simply nodded silently, still looking me over. I glanced back at my wrapped up hooves. “Did you wrap my wounds?”

Xayah was quiet for a second, her shoulders clenching as she tried to figure out what to say in response. “Yes,” she finally said bluntly, her chapped mouth opening just long enough to utter the intended words.

Well this conversation was off to a good start. “Thank you,” I said lamely, not knowing where to go from there. “I appreciate it…”

“I appreciate you getting me out of Fillydelphia,” Xayah monotone back, her face registering with temporary conflict.

There was another long pause where either of us dared to speak. I forced myself to take another deep, wheezing breath, causing more pain to emanate from within my ribs. “Sooo… Are you alright?”

“No,” I probably should have figured as much. “You?”

I grimaced. “I feel like I got kicked by a fucking horse.”

There was a small chuckle that hardly sounded real. “You were covered in hoof sized bruises. You probably were,” Xayah replied, her expression softening slightly. Her gaze shifted to face the direction of the massive Fillydelphia wall in the distance. “What exactly happened in there?”

“It’s… a long story,” I replied truthfully, not really knowing where exactly to start. “A lot, I guess. I managed to get everypony out and-” I paused, my eyes drifting over to where Tinker’s limp body was laying. Like myself, Xayah had clearly tended to his wounds as well. “-Well, I got most of us out…”

“His mother,” Xayah said sadly, her own gaze shifting to Tinker. “He woke up shortly after I did, crying about his mother. He fell back asleep about an hour ago,” Her gaze resettled on me, her eyes looking distant. “Who was she?”

My eyes locked on a glowing speck of dust that Tinker had miraculously managed to hold onto. “Chestnut. From the Hollow Shades…”

Xayah’s face fell even more. “I remember her… She seemed like a good pony…”

“She was,” I replied, my heart aching. “One of the best. All she wanted was for her and her family to be free of Fillydelphia…” I paused, letting that sink in.

“What killed her?” Xayah asked, her tone telling me that a small part of her didn’t really want to know.

“A Courser,” I growled, my mind flashing back to the dark stallion that had murdered her. I could feel my hooves trembling at the thought, both from fear and anger. “We were so close and he just fucking murdered her. Murdered her for no reason other than to get me.”

Xayah’s eyes widened slightly. “A Courser?” she worked her jaw and bit down gently on her lower lip. “Amber, why was there a Courser after you? I thought the Institute wasn’t trying to kill us?” I felt another tremor pass through me. I opened my mouth to speak, only for my throat to seem to run dry. A sudden wave of panic washed over me as memories from my time within the Institute and Red Eyes Cathedral started coming to the forefront of my mind. Xayah very clearly saw my distress and pushed herself up to her hooves, ignoring the pain that flashed through her body, her face filling with worry. “Amber. What happened to you?”

The emotional barrier that had formed between us suddenly broke as she trotted over and knelt down next to me. I could feel my body shaking as I began working up the nerve to do what I knew I had to do next.

My throat locked up again, this time causing a gag like choking sound to escape my lips. I forced myself to shift my head and look at Xayah, my teary eyes locking with her sparkling green ones. “Something bad happened to me Xayah…” I said slowly, a small tremor accompanying my words. “Something really really bad…”

Xayah shifted closer again, her muzzle nearly touching mine. “Tell me what happened Amber.”

I took another breath, this one coming out as an unsteady and broken torrent. I turned my head away, looking back down at my hooves. Slowly, I began to tell her everything, starting from when they had taken me away from her in Fillydelphia and to Red Eyes Cathedral. I told her about Inferno taking over my mind, how he tortured me and forced me to watch as he tortured metal images of my friends. I told her about Pureblood and Silver Ace and how Pureblood had surgically cut me open while I was still awake, implanting a fetus within me. I spoke about my escape from the Institute, the Utopia program, finding my body in a status pod and realizing that I had become a synth myself.

I felt more tears streaming down my face as I recounted burying Heartbeats body, of breaking into Fillydelphia and joining up with Chestnut. Xayah simply sat there silently as I cried, her head nodding slowly as she digested everything I had told her.

By the time I reached Chestnut's death my mouth had run so dry that I had to stop myself before I completely ruined my throat. I took a second to steady myself, feeling my heart pounding heavily in my chest before daring to look back up at Xayah. She was staring back at me, her eyes a mix of sorrow and regret.

“So, yeah… That’s what happened to me…” I said, trying to force a laugh that wouldn’t come and wiping a tear from my face. “Right now we need to get back to Manehattan and stop all this before Pureblood activates the Utopia program, which-” I glanced up at the night sky. “... Is probably only in about three days from now-”

Xayah silenced me by placing a striped hoof over my mouth. I froze for a second at the touch before closing my mouth and letting her withdraw her hoof. “Dealing with the Utopia Program can wait,” Xayah said softly, her eyes slowly looking me up and down. “Right now we need to worry about you, er- us. Neither of us are going to be much good going up against Pureblood and the Institute like this.”

I nodded, looking away again. I wracked my mind, trying to figure out how properly to respond. Finally, I let my pride go and looked back at Xayah, almost pleadingly. “Xayah… can I have a hug? I really need a hug right now.”

Xayah looked at me for a long moment before letting herself smile. “Of course, you foolish pony,” She scooted forwards, wrapping both of her hooves around me and holding me close. I pressed my head up against the bottom of her chin, letting the warmth of her body wash over me. For the first time in what felt like forever, I felt safe.

“I’m sorry,” Xayah finally whispered, her voice so quiet that I had almost missed it. Her hoof trailed down my front slightly, the tip just brushing up against the large bullet wound in the centre of my chest. “If I hadn’t shot you, none of this would have happened…”

I opened my mouth to object, but closed it when I realized she was right. I shook my head regardless, my breath slowing slightly as I took in her warm embrace. “I broke a promise to you. I’m sorry I couldn’t have been better,” I took a shaky breath, my heart feeling like it was slowly sinking deeper into my chest, never to be seen again. “What are we Xayah?” I asked quietly, my hooves wrapping tighter around the zebra as if she might get taken away from me again if I were to let go. “I want us to be what we used to be, but I don’t know if we can ever go back…”

“I don’t know,” Xayah replied mournfully, her muzzle brushing up against the tips of my mane. “I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to trust you fully again… and I know you will never be able to forgive me. Not after the pain my actions put you through...”

A small shiver passed through me, despite Xayah’s radiating warmth. There was only a moment of hesitation before I spoke again. “I forgive you,” I said softly. The words came out easier than I had expected.

Xayah paused, her hug loosening a little as she looked up and away from me. After what felt like an eternity, she sighed. “You are a fool for doing so. I am not worthy of your forgiveness. Not after what I did.”

I gave her the warmest smile I could. “Well, I’m giving you my forgiveness anyway. You’re just going to have to deal with it.”

Xayah was silent for a long while longer. “The night my family and I arrived in New Appleoosa changed my life.”

I went still, not even daring to breathe as Xayah started talking. Xayah never talked about the emotions going on inside her head, so I knew this meant something, whatever it was she was building up to. And I knew what happened to her in Appleoosa, anything about that place couldn’t be good.

Xayah took another second to console herself before staring down at her hooves. “The pony that raped me changed me forever. I forgot how to feel, and the feelings I did have, I forced down. But he changed more than that. He took away my choice to have foals or not. He forced it upon me…”

“Zira. Your daughter,” I said cautiously, trying to remember what little Xayah had told me about her. I remembered she had a fascination with cutie marks, but that was about it. Xayah rarely talked about her past family, as much as I could tell she wanted to sometimes.

The most revealing thing about Zira I could remember of course was the memory I had witnessed back in the Hollow Shades. How she had been half pony, half zebra. A zony? Was that the proper term? I couldn’t be sure.

Xayah gave me a slow nod. “I loved Zira, but she was always a reminder of what that buck had done to me… It was a hurt that never went away, even after Zira was…” She choked up as what I could only imagine was a memory of her daughter's death flashed through her head. “...I also understand how hard it can be to talk about these sorts of things. Hurts like this never go away, they leave scars, they damage you. I refused to talk to bucks for three years after that happened to me…”

“I- Really?” I asked, not sure if that was exactly something that I should have been pushing. Xayah simply nodded in response.

“What I’m saying is that I understand how hard it is to tell others what you are feeling when something like that happens to you,” Xayah continued after another long pause. “I… I don’t know if I can ever fully trust you after what you did Amber, but I know that deep down you’re a good pony. And the fact you felt I deserved to know what happened to you even when you didn’t want to tell me means a lot to me… You are a good pony Amber Aura. A foolish pony, but a good one.”

I stifled a fake laugh. “I’m not a good pony,” I said, the words feeling stiff in my mouth. “I try to be, but I’m not. I keep messing up. I keep hurting ponies. Sometimes I wonder who has more blood on their hooves. Me or the ponies I kill.”

Xayah didn’t respond for a long while, simply resting her head atop mine. Finally, she sighed. “What makes you a good pony is not what you do. It’s why you do it. I learned that about you a long time ago. You act and judge not based on the blood that coats ones hooves, but on the reason the blood was there to begin with.”

“Morality…” I grimaced. “That’s what you told Brisk you though my virtue was a long time ago. No doubt it’s closer to corrupted morality…”

“Corrupted morality is better to have as a virtue than no morality at all,” Xayah breathed thoughtfully. “I doubt any other pony would have given Pyre a chance like you did. Not me. Certainly not Brisk. Look how that turned out. Even when the wasteland forces you to do bad things, you always do what you believe is best for the ponies around you over yourself.”

“How can you of all ponies say that?” I pushed, pulling away a little and looking up at her. “I’ve probably hurt you more than any other pony,” I glanced down at her two mechanical fore hooves that were still loosely wrapped around me. “I murdered those raider foals while you watched, shortly after you had watched your own daughter die no less. I’m responsible for putting those metal hooves on your body! I betrayed you after I promised to find a better way!” I shut myself up as I realized I had started yelling. Tinker’s unconscious body twitched in his sleep, but he didn’t wake.

Xayah looked down at me with her large eyes. I couldn’t quite tell what emotions were held in them. “You’ve also saved me more than any pony else…” She replied softly, pulling me back into the embrace. “The wasteland tests everypony. It forces them to watch and do terrible things. You’ve perhaps gotten it worse than any of us.”

“But… your legs-” I began, but Xayah quickly cut me off.

“I would have died had you not given me these,” She stated factually. “Do not think for a second that I would rather perish at Viscera’s hooves than remain purely zebra. Does a day go by where I don’t long for my old legs to return? No. I even miss the constant tremor in my left hoof, reminding me of that terrible day in Appleoosa. But I do not fault you for saving my life.”

I hadn’t realized the constant tremor in her left fore hoof was gone, though as I sat there, I realized she was right. Her new metal hooves were still and unmoving, void of any signs of any real life.

I gulped. “So then what are we?” I re-asked.

“Whatever we want to be,” Xayah said, tilting my head up and nuzzling my cheek. “I doubt that we will ever have what we once did, but I’m willing to try. So long as you will take me back…”

I felt a loud sob-like laugh escape my throat. “Yeah… of course I will. And I’m willing to try too. If you will take me back as well of course.”

“I think that goes without saying at this point,” Xayah said with a small chuckle. The muscles in her body relaxed a little and a soft sigh escaped her lips. “I love you, you foolish pony.”

“I love you too, Xayah,” My eyes landed on the dark red and black anti-machine rifle I had stolen, lying a few feet away. My whole body perked up slightly at the thought of it and I temporarily pulled myself away from Xayah to retrieve it before crawling back into her embrace. Her eyes followed me questioningly as I moved to fetch the large rifle. “I got you something by the way,” I said simply, giving the rifle over to her.

Xayah took the rifle and looked it over, marvelling at the weapon's impressive scope. “Th-thank you… Where did you even get this?”

I smirked smugly. “It was a gift from Red Eye to Stern. I figured that since you probably had your sniper taken away when they captured you, you probably deserved it more.”

Xayah gave a smirk and glanced down the rifle’s scope, panning the surrounding area with it. She smiled and placed it down, once again wrapping me in a warm embrace. “Thank you Amber. I love it.”

We sat like that for a long while, simply enjoying each other's company in the middle of the wastes, our embracing forms lit only by the flickering lights of the lone, dying campfire. There was a lot of work to be done before either of us would ever be able to truly rest, but for the time being, nothing else in the wasteland mattered to us except each other.

After a long while, Xayah suddenly shifted, one of her ears perking up and twitching. I looked up at her, confused. “What is it?”

“I heard something,” She whispered back, unlocking her hooves from around me and pulling herself up to her hooves. She reached for her new rifle, using the scope to scan the area.

I scampered up to her side, my magic sweeping up Braeburn’s Liberator and looking around as well. I gulped as I realized I didn’t have any ammo left for my gun. In the darkness I could see little more than the rocks and ash that surrounded us. “Do you see anything?” I asked quietly. I was beginning to hear something as well. A slow dragging sound, like hooves scuffling through dirt. It sounded like it was slowly getting closer.

Not for the first time, I cursed Silver Ace for taking my Pipbuck. I really really missed EFS.

“Not yet. I think it’s coming from…” Xayah turned, one eye closed as she looked down the large scope. She paused, her gaze fixated on a spot in the distance. “I see it. It’s an Alicorn. Should I take the shot?”

Her words made me pause. An Alicorn? It couldn’t be? “Not yet..." I said, holding my hoof out to stop her from firing. “What colour is it?”

Xayah paused herself, clearly having not expected that answer from me. “She’s… purple. Hard to tell in the dark,” She hesitated, her one open eye looking over the Alicorn in the distance. “I think she’s hurt.”

“Don’t shoot. I think I know this one,” I said, taking a step towards where I assumed the Alicorn was. As I watched, a shape began to slowly limp into the dancing firelight.

It was indeed a purple Alicorn. She was badly wounded, her wings bent outwards at awkward angles and all of her hooves seemed to have been snapped at the joints. The tip of her horn had been snapped off and a web of cracks raced down its front. One eye was missing and their body was coated in a thick layer of ash; a clear sign of her exposure to the vile Fillydelphia air.

The Alicorn looked up at us from across the fire for a second. She opened her mouth to say something, only for her wobbling, broken hooves to collapse from under her. She hit the ground with a thud, a loud crack sounding out as she fell and broke yet another bone in her body.

Xayah glanced over at me worriedly, but I had already limped my way over to the fallen alicorn. I propped her head up, looking down at her in concern. “Are you alright?” I asked, wincing as the alicorn's shattered horn brushed against my stomach.

The alicorn groaned, her eyes rolling up to glance at me. “We- I shall be fine,” The alicorn declared, her voice sounding oddly regal despite the amount of pain she was clearly feeling.

I looked up at Xayah. “Do we have any healing supplies? Anything?” I asked, knowing full well that we didn’t. Even if we had, we would have most likely used them to heal our own wounds that still covered our bodies from our time in Fillydelphia.

Xayah gave me a small shake of her head. “We do not.”

“I said I shall be fine,” The alicorn repeated, trying to get back to her hooves. She succeeded, but not without a lot of pain. “There is plenty of radiation around here. Though we thank you for not shooting us on sight. It is not normal for ponies to ask if we- if I are- if I am alright,” She spoke, stumbling to find the right words to speak. She was clearly having a lot of difficulty speaking in the first person.

“You were the one that got us out of Fillydelphia?” I asked, once more moving back to Xayah’s side as the alicorn limped around our campsite.

“We- I am indeed,” The alicorn soothed, flinching as they applied pressure to their foreleg.

Xayah was clearly surprised by that news. She cast me a confused look. “We were saved by an alicorn?” I gave her a quick nod of confirmation, realizing that that was one piece of information I had skipped over in my recap. She turned her head back to the alicorn, still clearly confused. “Why? Excuse my scepticism, but my history with alicorns has not led me to find them very generous or caring creatures.”

The alicorn winced at that. “I do not blame you for your judgement. Our kind has perhaps not always been the most friendly. We- I seek to change that now that we are no longer we.”

I had to wrap my head around that last sentence before it finally clicked in my mind. “Now that the Goddess is dead, you mean,” I finally said, thinking back to my few encounters with alicorns prior. “It severed the hive mind thing you ponies had?” Unity, was it called? I think I remembered a couple of different occasions where alicorns had mentioned it.

The purple alicorn nodded, one of her broken forelegs twitching and causing her to stumble.

“So why rescue us?” Xayah asked, her tone still sceptical and pushing, but I noticed she had lowered her rifle so that its muzzle rested against the ground. “What do you have to gain from daring Fillydelphia to rescue us?”

The alicorn planted their hooves down firmly and looked us over, taking on a more headstrong and regal stance, though the pain was still clearly evident on their face and I strongly suspected that they were trying their best not to collapse again. “We were already in Fillydelphia. We were one of the chosen that the Goddess sent to oversee Red Eyes contributions to Unity. Many of my sisters chose to remain joined with Red Eye once the Goddess fell. It was the easiest solution.”

“But why rescue us then?” I pushed. “And why didn’t you join up with Red Eye yourself? It certainly would have saved you a lot of trouble.”

The alicorn glanced around, her eyes finally landing on a patch of radiation not all that far away. I hadn’t seen it before, not in the darkness of the night nor in my hazy vision when I had first arrived, but now that the alicorn's attention had been drawn to it, I could make out the faint green glow that wafted from the small, pony sized crater.

“I shall explain after I am less damaged,” The alicorn declared, taking a small step towards the crater, her hooves trembling slightly.

I nodded as I watched the Alicorn take another step. “I’ll come with you. We can talk while you heal,” I glanced over to Xayah beside me. “Can you watch over Tinker for a minute?”

Xayah gave a small nod. “I can,” She cast a small glance towards the alicorn. “Watch that thing carefully. I do not trust her yet.”

“She did get us out of Filly,” I reiterated, beginning to move after the alicorn. “If she wanted us dead, she could have sat back and let the Courser kill us. He certainly would have had no issue.”

Xayah thought over that for a second before finally putting her gun away completely. “Alright. Just be careful.”

“I never am.”

“So what exactly is your name?” I asked the alicorn, watching as she began soaking in the radiation around her.

We had moved to the small crater. I held back a few feet while the alicorn moved to the area where the radiation seemed to be strongest. I wasn’t able to tell if I was far away enough to not take any rads or not, not without my pipbucks useful geiger counter, but hopefully I was taking as little as possible.

“I do not have a name,” The alicorn stated, a small sore closing up on the side of her leg. The healing process seemed to be taking a long time. Clearly the crater wasn’t as radioactive as she had hopped. “In Unity, I was called Sister. We were all called Sister.”

“I had a friend like that,” I said, thinking back to when I had first met Mirra. “Granted, she wasn’t an alicorn, but she didn’t have a name when we first met.”

The alicorn gave me an interested look. “This friend of yours, what do you call her?”

“We named her Mirra,” I said, smiling a little. “Or rather, she named herself that. Is there something you want to be called?”

The alicorn thought for a moment. “I do not know. Perhaps my name before I was in Unity, though I do not remember what that was.”

“Do you remember anything from your life before Unity?” I asked, sitting down on my rump and leaning back a little. My weary legs were getting exhausted from standing so long.

The alicorn gave me a sad look. “We remember very little. We believe that we were teachers once,” She looked down at herself as the ambient radiation closed up yet another wound on her body. Her legs seemed to be getting stronger, though the bones themselves had not yet healed. Her missing eye was slowly reforming as well, slowly changing from a goop filled socket to a menacing looking slitted pupil. “I do not think Teacher is a good name however. It is not very becoming.”

I gave a small chuckle at that. “Well, I’ll call you whatever you want to be called so when you think of something, just let me know.”

The alicorn bit her lower lip in intense concentration. “Yes, we shall ponder this quandary to the best of our ability.”

I had to stifle another laugh. “So why did you decide to rescue us?” I finally re-asked. “And why not join up with Red Eye like the rest of the alicorns?”

The purple alicorn looked me over questioningly for a long moment. “Do not think of us all as monsters, Amber Aura. Many of us were normal ponies before we joined up with Unity. Many of us have been a part of Unity for so long that we do not fully understand how to live without a leader to give us orders. Red Eye is strong and asks for our devotion. He himself plans to ascend to godhood one day. That is something a lot of alicorns are going to be latching onto in the days to come.”

“But not you?” I questioned, raising an eyebrow. “You wanted to get away from leaders? Live your own life?”

The alicorn cocked her head and for a brief second, a look of confusion crossed her face. After a second, a look of understanding replaced it. “You misunderstand me, Amber Aura,” The alicorn soothed, one of the joins in her legs popping back into place. “I did not save and join you to escape servitude. I came to give my servitude to you.”

I froze, my eyes widening at the remark.

She was what?! I blinked a few times, expecting the words that had just come out of the alicorns mouth to suddenly make sense. They didn’t. There was no way that I had heard that right. Perhaps this alicorn was simply delusional.

“You… servitude… me?” I stammered, still completely dumbfounded by the alicorn’s intentions. The alicorn nodded back to me. “But… what? Why?”

“I saw you through the eyes of one of my sisters, and the goddess has been keeping tabs on you for a while, ever since you managed to kill Kamari. Something she had tried and failed to do on numerous occasions,” The alicorn answered simply, as if that statement alone somehow proved her point.

My mouth continued to hang open as I continued to fail to understand why this Alicorn had suddenly decided to serve me. “So… what? I’m still confused,” I finally confessed, feeling that the word confused was probably the biggest understatement of the year.

“You have proven many times that you are a worthy pony to serve,” The alicorn continued again, her voice coming out as if she were talking to a foal that was failing to understand a simple math equation. “I have seen you demonstrate leadership and perseverance. You have shown that you are a deadly combatant and have noble intentions. Furthermore, you have managed to create a family out of strangers you picked up in the wasteland. Many of the alicorns that have flocked to Red Eye seek the connectedness of Unity, but they will not find it there. But I will find it with you…”

I stumbled to my hooves and took a step back. “You… want to be family with me?” My mind was racing as I scrambled to figure out what she was saying.

“Yes. You and the green pony became family, despite not being related. You even consider the band of misfits that travel with you to be family. Only you can create a new Unity for me,” She took a step forward, her body glowing slightly from the radiation. “You understand us. I know you do. You are like us. I know what happened to you at the hooves of one of our sisters in the metro below Manehattan.”

I felt a gasp escape my lips as memories of the insane blue alicorn in the metro flashed through my mind. Visions on blood and taint filled my head and I could almost feel the painful slices of the scalpel as it dug into my body, making room for rotting wings that would soon be fused to my flesh and muscle tissue.

Snip, snip, snip...

“I am not an alicorn,” I scowled, trying to push the haunting thoughts from my mind. I felt a tremor pass through me as I remembered being tied down to the gore stained medical bed as the alicorn cut me open. A low growl escaped my lips. “I am nothing like you.”

The alicorn flinched in response, glancing away and losing much of her posture. “My apologies. I had assumed you understood,” She looked back up, her steady gaze returning. “Even still, our original statements still stand.”

I sighed and looked down at my hooves, not able to take the alicorn's piercing gaze for any longer. “I don’t know what to tell you. If you want to help me out or be my friend, that’s one thing. But I won’t accept your servitude. I’m not that kind of pony,” I glanced up at her again, taking in her confused look. “I had the servitude of something else once. It didn’t go over well.”

“A hellhound,” The alicorn monotone, her face thoughtful. “Yes. I recall. The Goddess was very disturbed to learn you had one working for you.”

I cocked my head at that. “Why would the goddess care if I had a hellhound?”

“Hellhounds are deadly combatants, even by alicorn standards,” The alicorn said, shifting uneasily. “A single hellhound is capable of killing a whole wing of alicorns if we are caught unprepared.”

I nodded. “Regardless, you can travel with me if that is what you want, but I won’t accept servitude.”

The alicorn thought that over for a long moment before nodding. “Very well. We accept your order and will simply follow you.”

I folded my ears back against my head. “No no, that wasn’t an order. You don’t need to-” I paused as the large alicorn winked at me. I felt myself blush a little. “That was a joke, wasn’t it…”

“It was indeed. We find humour to be a very new and amusing concept,” The alicorn replied with the faintest of smirks. “But witticism’s aside, we shall indeed follow you. At the very least until you have reunited with your friends.”

I frowned. “You seem to know a lot about what we’re doing,” I said, slightly unsettled. “I don’t remember telling you we were separated from my friends.”

“As I said, the goddess is- was watching you for a long while. She grew fairly interested in stable dwellers after the one they call Littlepip arrived in the wasteland,” The Alicorn reminded me. “As for your recent movements, I watched you from a distance during your time in Fillydelphia. I apologize for not stepping in to assist you sooner, but I was unsure how you or your party would react to me.”

I watched as another one of her bones seemed to pop into place from the glowing radiation around her. I quickly glanced up at her horn, watching as one of the large cracks began to slowly heal. “Once your horn is back, do you think you’d be able to teleport us to Manehattan?” I asked, feeling slightly hopeful. “Like you did to get us out of Filly?”

The alicorn let her eyes wander up to stare at the broken horn protruding from the top of her head. “It is unlikely that my horn will heal properly. Perhaps if I were to stand for a few hours in the Fillydelphia crater it would heal, but right now I do not have enough to restore it to full. I will likely be unable to teleport us more than a few inches.”

I groaned. Of course, why did I suspect my luck would allow otherwise.

A question suddenly formed in my mind, one that I wasn’t sure if I wanted the answer to. “What happened to the Courser,” I said, my body shaking slightly as I remembered Chestnut's body glowing and turning to dust in her son's hooves. “You’re here, so you must have killed it, right?”

The alicorn shuddered. I don’t think I had ever seen an alicorn look scared like that. “If you are referring to the black coated pony, then no. It is alive. I had to flee. Never before have I seen a pony as deadly…”

“Not a pony, a Courser,” I corrected, realizing the alicorn had no idea what it was she had fought. “They’re death machines hiding in pony flesh. Designed to hunt and kill, nothing else.”

“They scare me,” The alicorn whispered, her voice trembling. “I do not wish to face that thing again.”

I could feel my own body grow cold as I remembered they could literally shut me down just by speaking a few words. “Yeah, they scare me too.”

Eventually, the alicorn pulled themselves out of the small crater, almost all of the wounds on their body had healed, though I noted that her horn was still cracked like she had said it would be. The two of us began trotting back to the small campfire Xayah had set up in silence, neither of us really knowing what to say.

“Nova,” The alicorn suddenly said, her tone of voice sounding oddly pleased.

I looked up at her as we walked along, one eyebrow raised. “What was that?”

“Nova. That is the name I wish to go by,” The alicorn elaborated, a silly looking grin across her face. “I find it to be very fitting.”

I thought back to an old book I had read back in Stable 25 about old Ponish. I was hardly fluent in the language, but a few words had stuck with me over the years. One of them being novus, the old Ponish word for new.

I gave a small smirk. “I think it’s rather fitting as well.”

Tinker had awoken by the time we got back to the small camp we had set up. He was curled up against Xayah, trying to fend off the cold breeze and had his face buried in her striped coat in an attempt to hide his tears. He looked up at us as we approached, his eyes landing on Nova with curiosity.

“You fought the bad pony in Fillydelphia?” He asked simply, a hoof wiping away the last of his tears.

Nova nodded. “I did.”

“The bad pony killed my mom,” Tinker said simply, his voice shuddering slightly, though remaining otherwise emotionless.

Nova gave another nod, this one looking much more downtrodden. “I am sorry I could not have saved her as well…”

Tinker gave her a small smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Did you kill the bad pony?” When Nova shook her head, his face fell. “Good… I want to kill them myself.”

I winced at that. I knew exactly what Tinker was going through. I had felt very much the same thing when my Stable had been flooded with pink clouds. He was treading down a dangerous path, one I had to be sure he never managed to go down fully.

Xayah pulled herself up and limped over to me, pain reflecting in her eyes as she applied pressure to her damaged hooves. “We just saw a slaver scouting party not far away. We need to get moving or risk them finding us.”

I nodded, my whole body telling me that I wasn’t physically fit to walk more distances. “Yeah… Yeah, lets get going. We need to get back to Manehattan as soon as possible.”

The Fillydelphia outskirts just seemed to keep going. I had moved between Filly and Manehattan a few times now, but never with so many broken bones. Each step felt like I was sinking deeper and deeper into the ash and debris.

Nova had picked up Tinker after the first hour of walking, the small foal's body nearly giving out with exhaustion as he stumbled along beside us. I had half a mind to ask Nova to carry me as well, but from the expression of pain across the large alicorn's face, I could tell that she wasn’t strong enough.

A terrible thought in the back of my mind told me that she would force herself to carry me regardless. She was my servant after all.

I quickly pushed those thoughts from my mind and mentally stomped on them until they were little more than mental dust. She wasn’t my servant, as much as she claimed she wanted to be, and I wasn’t going to change that any time soon. I was no slave master. I was no Red Eye.

The sky was still dark when we came across what looked like the ramshackle remains of an old pre war bar. Bits of the walls and roof had crumbled away and most of the buildings around it had been devastated so badly they were practically dust.

But the building was not abandoned like most of the other buildings we had passed. Many of the crumbling, battered walls had been patched back together with rusting slabs of metal or large plywood boards and a flickering light illuminated the cracked windows, drawing our eyes to it in the darkness of night.

The closer we got to it, the more we could hear the clinking of glasses and the laughing and general hubbub of ponies within.

Interested, I limped up to the door and pushed it open with my head, allowing me to get a good look inside.

I was surprised to find the interior of the bar to be fairly nicely furnished, as far as nicely furnished goes in the wasteland anyway. Tables and stools had been scattered around the large room, seating different ponies from seemingly all across the wasteland, and even a few griffins too. A large bar counter was set against the far side where a scarred griffin served up drinks to the ponies within.

“-Do not be alarmed. The Grand Pegasus Enclave is here to help,” A nasally voice spoke from a radio of to one side. “By now you have probably seen our airships. Do not interfere, and you will be protected-”

“Turn that fuckin’ shit off!” A stallion wearing combat barding scowled from across the bar, waving his hoof drunkenly at the radio. “I’ve heard enough of that Enclave bullshit!”

A mare quickly trotted over and shut it off, clearly just as eager to be rid of the broadcast as he had been.

The griffin behind the counter glanced up at the door as the music went dead, her eyes catching with mine as I peeked through the doorway. She was a dark black griffin, with an ash grey plume of feathers covering her head. Thin criss-crossing scars were prevalent on her body where her feathers or hide had failed to fully grow over. One particular nasty scar raced down her face and past her beak, twisting menacingly every time she moved her mouth.

A smirk broke out across her beaked face, causing the long scar to warp in strange ways, and she gestured me in with a welcoming wave from one of her tattered wings.

“Come on in! Welcome to Skyfire’s,” The female griffin smirked, looking down to continue cleaning a particularly dirty shot glass. She glanced back up quickly, their eyes catching on Nova as both Xayah and the large purple alicorn moved into the bar after me. Her face registered with surprise for a moment, and I saw her reach for a shotgun on the wall beside her before clearly thinking better of it.

I pulled myself up to the bar table, my aching legs seemingly giving a loud sigh of relief as I finally let them rest.

The griffin’s hawk like eyes looked over our group, seemingly analyzing every small detail of us. Her eyes lingered on the lash marks covering Xayahs back for a long second before she gave a shrug. “Not everyday that an alicorn comes out to this establishment.”

“Is that going to be a problem?” I asked, an edge to my voice.

The large griffin held my gaze, clearly not threatened by my tone. Finally, she shrugged again. “Not unless you ponies make it a problem. We got one rule here at Skyfire’s. Keep things civil. We don’t care who you are or who you work for, everypony is welcome here. But if somepony tries to start somethin’, they’ll find themselves dead long before they can pull a trigger,” As if to prove her point, her tail snatched a knife up off the table behind her and flicked over her head with lightning speed. The knife sailed through the air and embedded itself in the dead centre of a dartboard on the far wall. The griffin didn’t even move her gaze away from me to look at the dart board.

I nodded, gulping. “Got it… Crystal clear.”

“Good,” The griffin soothed, straightening their back and putting down the shot glass before turning to face us properly. “My name’s Skyfire. What can I do ya for?”

I cast a glance at my friends before returning my attention to the griffin. “What do you have?”

The griffin smirked. “Food. Just about any form of whiskey you can think of. A few other booze if you’re interested. Got clean water as well for the kid, ‘less you’re fine with him havin’ alcohol,” Her gaze swept over our battered bodies. “From the look of y’all, I’m guessing you just broke out of Filly. That or the Steel Rangers ‘round here are getting more savage than usual. I have a few healing potions in the back, if you got the caps.”

I could feel relief wash over me at the mention of her having healing potions. I quickly pulled out my cap stash and placed twenty or so caps on the counter. “A meal and a drink for everyone as well as as many healing potions as this can buy, I guess,” I said, before deciding I hadn’t paid enough and dropping five more caps on the table.

Smiling, the griffin scooped up the caps with her tail and pocketed them before turning and beginning to pull out a few glasses. She looked into a back room I couldn’t see for a moment, calling out. “Cocktail, can you grab four meals and six healing potions for our friends out here?” I didn’t hear a replay, but Skyfire turned back anyway, carrying the glasses. “You folk want somethin’ specific to drink?”

I looked back as Nova and Xayah, both of which gave me shrugs. “Whiskey sounds most wondrous,” Nova nodded, her expression unmoving. “We have not had such a beverage before!”

Xayah sighed. “I never did get to have one of those wild Pegasus’ Brisk was saving.”

Turning back to Skyfire, I gestured to the glasses. “Two Wild Pegasus’ for my friends. Just water for me and the kid.”

Skyfire nodded and began filling up the glasses, though she did give me a skeptical look. “You still to young t’ drink? Rare to find ponies that actually follow drinking laws 'round the wasteland.”

I shook my head. “Can’t stand the liquor,” I felt a pit form in my gut. “That and it reminds me of an old friend I lost.”

Skyfire softened at that. “We’re all grievin’ over somepony out here. That’s the simple truth of the wasteland,” Her eyes landed on my shotgun. “That’s a fine weapon you got there. Say, if ya throw in a few caps, I got a few rounds of buckshot in the back as well.”

I felt the light weight of my ammo-less gun and gave a simple nod, tossing ten more caps onto the counter. “Thanks. I was running short.”

“I figured, seeing how I’m guessing y’all just fought your way out of Filly. That doesn't generally leave ponies with many supplies. Rarely leaves them with their life,” Skyfire snatched up the caps and placed the drinks down before us. She walked away from a second, before returning with a pile of twenty shotgun shells.

I thankfully took the shots and loaded four into Braeburn’s Liberator.

“I must ask Skyfire,” Xayah started, finally sitting down and taking a small swig of her drink. “What is this place doing out in the Fillydelphia outskirts? Doesn’t seem like a smart place to set up with all the slavers about.”

Skyfire gave her a smug look. “I told y’all when you came in. We don’t care who you are or who you work for, everypony is welcome here. Slavers bring in good caps. Steel Rangers and runaway slaves do too. Few of that latter one as there are of course.”

A small yellow mare with a light purple mane tied up in a bun shuffled out of the back room, a collection of food covered plates balancing on her back and a couple healing potions resting in her saddlebag. She dropped the food and potions on the counter in front of us.

My stomach gave a loud growl as my eyes fell on the food. Both Xayah and Tinker had similar reactions, their eyes going wide as they looked at the plates.

Lifting up the healing potions with my magic, I floated two to Tinker and Xayah. They thankfully took them, gulping them down and letting the healing magic patch up the scars that littered their hides. I took one potion up myself and downed the contents. The itching feeling was near unbearable as almost every inch of my body began twisting and warping as the healing potion began to stitch together the lacerations across my body.

It didn’t deal with the broken bones, in fact, if what Star had told me was true, it probably made my bones worse, but anything was better than being in the state that we had been in.

Not saying another word, I dove into my plate of food, shoving as much of it down my throat as I could. I didn’t bother savouring the taste, though it was shockingly well cooked for wasteland food.

“So, what’s your story?” I asked Skyfire, as I continued to shovel more and more food into my mouth. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Xayah and Tinker doing much the same, while Nova took small and cautions bites.

Skyfire watched us eat in amusement before responding. “Used to work for the Talons. Long time back. Back before they were as fractured as they are now,” She started, her gaze shifting to her gun and eyeing it longingly. “Back then, the Talons were all about doing jobs for caps. I guess they still are, but back then I felt like I was actually makin’ a difference in the wasteland instead of just bein’ another merc group.”

“I do not remember hearing about a schism within the Talons?” Xayah asked, her own mouth stuffed with food. “When did this happen?”

“Few years back now, most ponies never really realized it even happened,” Skyfire replied, her eyes hardening somewhat. “Stern took on a permanent contract of employment for Red Eye, took almost half the Talons with her. I considered joinin’ up with one of the other bands, but it never felt right either to me.”

“You knew Stern?” I questioned.

“Practically raised her,” Skyfire said dourly. “Taught her how to shoot, how to fight. Probably one of the biggest mistakes I ever made,” She sighed and looked around her bar. “I ended up opening up this place. Good way to make caps, but better yet, I felt like I was helpin’ ponies. Lot of ponies need refuge out in the Fillydelphia outskirts. Some need food, some need supplies. Others just need a good drink…” She trailed off, once more returning her gaze to us. “Now what about you four? I’d imagine you’ve seen some shit…”

“We’re heading to Manehattan,” Tinker chirped, though he sounded a lot sadder than his smile implied.

Skyfire gave us all a stern look. “I reckon you’ve been in Filly for a while. Guessin’ you don’t know what’s been going on as of late. Word of advice to ya, don’t go anywhere near the damn city of Manehattan.”

My eyebrows furrowed. “What, why not?”

Skyfire leaned back, holding up another dirty glass before her face and starting to clean it. “That whole place is winding itself up for a war. The shit with the Steel Rangers was already bad, but now there's the Outcast and those fanatical True Steel fuckers. I give them a week before they cause a civil war to break out across half the wasteland. Manehattan’s going to get it the worst. But unfortunately, that ain’t even the half of it…”

“What else?” Xayah asked, finally putting down some of her food to listen more carefully.

“Well, there’s the Enclave for one. They’re gathering around Manehattan right now; most ponies are saying they’re readying for some big attack there soon. Then there's Red Eye, obviously. Tones of his slavers are patrolling the city. One of their trading outposts got hit by the Enclave and now they’re trying to fight back,” Skyfire continued, her eyes not bothering to look up from the glass. “Then there’s the issue with ponies suddenly going crazy and going on a killing spree. Started a few days ago. Ponies all over started losing their shit and turning on their friends and family. A few sharp shooters managed to take one of those maniacs down, only to find their insides filled with wires, gears and sprockets. Synths they’re callin’ them I think…”

A pang of fear went through me. That would have all started around the same time Pureblood took over the Institute. That didn’t sound good.

“...Then of course walking mannequins started attacking caravans and cutting off trading supplies to all the major cities. Friendship City and Tenpony haven't gotten any food or medical supplies in almost three days. Ponies are starting to panic.”

Xayah looked over at me worriedly. “What is Pureblood doing?” She asked, a small tremor going through her.

I growled. “He’s keeping everypony down. He knows that nothing matters once he gets the Utopia Program running. If that happens, he wins. He’s making sure no pony has a chance to stop him,” I could feel a little bit of anger flare up in me at that.

“Of course, this is only talking about the big shit that’s going down,” Skyfire added, one eyebrow raising at our hushed remarks. “There's also rumours of another faction of ponies calling themselves the Friendship Express. Not sure much about them, but they’ve been seen hanging around the MWT building. Bloodshed is coming to Manehattan, and a lot of it. As soon as the fightin' starts, a lot of ponies are going to die.”

I shivered. Straight up war in Manehattan. I didn’t even want to think about what that would be like. The Hollow Shades Massacre had been bad, but I doubted that would even come close to comparing to the amount of death and violence this would bring. Hopefully I could stop Pureblood before any of the violence broke out in earnest.

Finishing cleaning the glass, Skyfire put it aside and looked us over again. She opened her mouth to say something, when the door burst open and a dirt brown stallion scrambled in, pulling himself up beside us. “Skyfire, we got a problem!” He said, his voice slightly frantic.

Skyfire cocked her shotgun. “What is it Lookout?”

Before the stallion could answer, the door to the bar banged open again and three power armoured Pegasi trotted into the room, each one wielding a deadly looking plasma rifle at their side. The ponies in the bar spun around and pulled themselves from their seats, each one reaching for their own firearms as the three Enclave troopers moved into the building.

“Everypony stand down and no pony gets hurt!” the leading Enclave trooper ordered, their plasma rifle glowing and making a threatening sounding hum. “We are not here to hurt you, unless you do not cooperate!”

Skyfire’s shotgun was up in a flash, aiming at the leading troopers head. “Welcome to Skyfire’s,” The scarred griffin growled. “Everypony is welcome, so long as you put your weapons down and remain civil.”

All the Enclave troopers took a large step towards her, each of their weapons glowing. “Do not interfere with Enclave business,” The leader spat, the insectoid like eyes on their helmet seemingly glowing. “We are searching for a pony named Amber Aura. Failure to hoof her over will result in execution.”

I winced. Damn it, why the fuck was the Enclave after me?

Skyfire scowled. “Any pony under this roof is under my protection. That includes you unless you do something stupid. You will take your business outside or there will be consequences.”

The leading Enclave troopers eyes landed on me, their gaze clearly shifting over to me due to the large shape of Nova beside me. Their weapons shifted to refocus on me. “Amber Aura. You are to come with us or be shot.”

Damn it! “What do you want with me?” I demanded, taking a small step towards them.

“On order of Colonel Autumn Leaf, you are to be taken into custody for possible knowledge of Enclave assets, association with the scientist Star Breeze and possible threat to Enclave ideals,” The leading trooper retorted.

Possible threat? They wanted to take me in on the suspicion that I might be a threat to them. Star Breeze had told me that the Enclave was beyond paranoid, I just hadn’t realized to what extent.

“Amber, what’s the plan?” Xayah asked, pulling herself in front of Tinker. I saw Nova reach out with a hoof to do the same.

I took a deep breath. We outnumbered the Enclave troopers, and by the looks of the raised weapons in the room, it looked like the rest of the ponies and griffins in the bar would side with us as well. I could deal with this. I just had to…

“Perhaps we should take this outside,” A cold voice monotone from behind the Enclave soldiers. “I would hate to make things difficult…”

I felt a chill pass through me as I heard the voice. My eyes shifted, turning to look at the horrifying figure standing in the doorway.

It was the Courser. The same one that had attacked us Inside of Filly. The same one that had murdered Chestnut for no reason other than to get to me. He looked just as I had last seen him, dark black coat that seemed to blend into his leather trench coat, ash mane and piercing blue eyes.

The Courser shifted its head and gave me an icy grin. “Hello again, Amber Aura.”

The Enclave troopers spun, plasma weapons aiming at the Courser. “Do not interfere. We are the Grand Pegasus Enclave!”

The Courser didn’t bother raising his weapon. He rolled his chilling eyes and took a step backwards, gesturing for us to follow.

I felt more than saw Tinker push past Xayah and Nova. He screamed, rushing towards the door and waving a knife he had picked up from the table. “You killed my mom!” He shouted, another scream, this one not sounding like something that came out of a pony, escaping his lips as he charged forwards.

I reached forwards, trying to stop him. “Wait! Tinker, no!”

The Courser twisted, his hind hoof striking out and slamming into Tinker's neck. The colt was sent flying backwards, gagging, crashing into the leading Enclave trooper and sending him staggering back.

Rage flared in the Enclave troopers eyes and their guns flared bright green. A second later, their plasma weapons fired, streaks of deadly energy lashing towards the Courser. The Courser side stepped, easily moving out of range by moving beside the door frame.

A shotgun rang out, Skyfire’s first shot pulping the head off the leading trooper. The remaining Enclave spun around, only for the rest of the ponies in the bar to open fire. Bullets riddled the remaining troopers and they both crashed to the floor of the bar with a sickening thud.

One of them managed to pull themselves back up, blood spilling from the bullet holes all over their body. They staggered, more blood oozing from their wounds as they glared at us all in anger. “You’re all going to pay for this!” they scowled, their voice gurgling as blood filled their throat. “The Enclave is going to kill you all! You’re all going to die!”

There was a bang and the Pegasi hit the floor with a thud, their head blasted to bits by Skyfire’s shotgun.

Not even a minute had passed, and the fighting was over.

I crouched down, my gun aimed at the door. I saw the Courser, step back into view, his black hooves brushing dust from his thick coat. He glanced up at me and grinned, showing teeth.

Skyfire re-aimed her shotgun at the Courser’s head. “I don’t know who you are partner, but if you make any sudden moves I will blow your fuckin’ brains out.”

The Courser’s icy gaze shifted over to the scarred griffin. He looked her over for a second before checking out the rest of the guns that had aimed towards him. Finally, he shrugged and looked back at me and my friends. “I will meet you outside. Do not try to run. You will not get far.”

With that, he turned and trotted back out the door.

I released a breath I didn’t realize I was holding released as soon as the Courser left my line of sight. I quickly moved over to where Nova was helping Tinker back up to my hooves. “Kid, are you alright?”

Tinker scowled, rubbing at a large bruise on his neck. “I’m fine.”

“You’re not!” I shot back, making the colt wince. “You’re hurt and you’re moms dead. You are anything but fine.”

I flinched slightly at my own words. No later had they left my mouth than I realize I should have tried to be a little less forceful. Tinker looked up at me, his eyes wide and suddenly brimmed with tears.

“I want to kill him Amber…” He whimpered, a tear streaking down his face and dripping from his chin. “I want to kill him so badly.”

I trembled and dropped down to his level, looking him in the eye. “I know… I know exactly what it’s like to want to get back at the ponies that took away the ones you love. But revenge isn’t going to give you what you want.”

Tinker scowled at me, whipping away his tears. “I don’t fucking care,” I winced as the colts words cut at me like a knife. “I’m going to kill him!”

Tinker kicked up, spinning around and darting towards the door as fast as he could. He got less than a foot before Nova’s lavender magic wrapped around him and pulled him into the air. The tall alicorn looked down at me as if expecting orders. “Do you want me to hold him?”

I nodded. “Yes. Thank you Nova.”

Skyfire flapped her wings and lifted herself up and over the counter to land next to me. “You ponies have just brought a big heap of trouble down ‘pon us here. I reckon we’ve just made ourselves official enemies of the Enclave, now that we’ve killed three of their own. I hope that was worth it…”

“Sorry we dragged you into…” I glanced down at the dead Enclaves. “Whatever that was… truthfully I don’t know what just happened myself.”

“I believe you. I try to accept everypony ‘round here. Enclave included, but I don’t trust them flying rats for a second.”

Xayah tilted her head to look out the doorway. “The Courser is still outside. How do you want to handle this Amber?”

“I can lend you a talon if you need it. I don’t appreciate ponies ‘causing violence in my bar,” Skyfire growled, cocking her shotgun. "And from the sounds of it, that bastard killed a foals mother right in front of him. I, for the record, don't tolerate none of that either."

I shook my head. “No. I think we’ve caused you enough trouble today. Thank you for helping us out. We’ll deal with the Courser,” I glanced up at Tinker who was still suspended in the air, struggling to reach the door. “That said, can you keep Tinker safe for us. I don’t want him anywhere near that thing.”

Skyfire nodded, flapping over and snatching Tinker up out of the air. The colt struggled, but Skyfire’s grip was far too strong.

I looked over at Xayah who was still looking out the doorway nervously. I opened my mouth to say something, when I spotted a large shadow passing over the desolate terrain outside. Xayah saw it too, her eyes widening as she took a step forward and turned her gaze skyward.

“What the fuck is that thing!?” The pony I had seen complaining about the radio when I first came in gasped, rushing to the window and looking out.

Skyfire rushed to the window herself, Tinker still in her grasp as she glanced outside. I saw her whole body go still. “No…”

Daring myself to look, I pulled myself up beside Skyfire and looked out the window. My jaw dropped when I saw what was outside.

The Courser stood a few feet away from the bar, standing still as a statue and staring forwards at us with his emotionless face, his dark coat nearly making him invisible against the darkness of the night. He glanced up lazily, his eyes looking up with amusement at the monstrosity that had appeared above him.

Looming in the air above the Courser was a large black airship consisting of a massive deployable hangar. Platforms jutted out from each side, each one supporting oversized magical energy cannons that crackled and glowed. Thunderclouds surged around it and the whole machine was pulled through the air on a dozen spinning, blade-like propellers.

“What is that?” I heard Nova breath from behind me as her gaze was drawn up to the large airship.

“I heard stories of those from some of the Griffins in the Talon that had been above the clouds…” Skyfire stated, her eyes wide as she stared upwards. “It’s an Enclave Raptor. Fuckin’ cloud ships built for small scale assaults. Fast, maneuverable, and strong enough to kill a full grown dragon.”

I gulped. “Fuck…”

“This is the Grand Pegasus Enclave!” A tinny voice boomed from a speaker somewhere aboard the Enclave Raptor. “We know you are housing the fugitive Amber Aura! You are to hoof over her and her friends or you will be treated as threats and enemies to the Enclave and be neutralized accordingly!”

I took a step back from the window. Shit, this was bad. Really really bad.

A stallion on the far side of the bar growled. “I say we give her over to them! Her and her freak friends! I’m not dying to some Enclave bastards for her!” There was a roar of agreement from a bunch of the other ponies around us.

I growled, stepping in front of Xayah and Nova as the ponies turned and started closing in around us, their gazes filled with anger.

There was a loud click as Skyfire levelled her shotgun at the pony that had spoken up. Every pony paused as she aimed her weapon. “Now listen here, all of you! You all know the rules. You attack one of my customers and you find yourself pickin’ buckshot out of the back of your skull!”

“You want us all to get fuckin’ blow up for some random mare and her alicorn and zebra friends?” A mare spat, stepping forward and inciting Skyfire to switch her aim over to her. “I’m not dying for them.”

“Look, maybe I can just give myself over to them peacefully. Maybe we can avoid any more bloodshed,” I stated, taking a step towards the group. “I didn’t want to bring any of you into my troubles.”

The crowd of ponies glanced around at each other, clearly surprised I was willing to simply give myself up. Skyfire turned back to face me, her expression sharing the gathered ponies confusion. “You sure about that partner? I’d fight for you if they try anything here.”

I nodded. “Just keep Tinker safe,” I said, looking at the small colt struggling in one of Skyfire’s talons. I turned to Xayah and Nova. “You two ready.”

They both gave me grim nods.

I turned back and looked down at Tinker. “I’ll be back for you, promise,” I told him. “I’m not going to leave you here.”

Tinker nodded, though he still squirmed to try and escape Skyfire’s grasp. “You better,” His face tightened. “And killed that Courser…”

Outside the window, I saw a group of five armoured Pegasi drop down from the Raptor, their metal clad hooves slamming against the ground and making a clapping sound akin to a thunderbolt. Their weapons glowed as they moved towards the bar.

I saw the Courser watching them from a distance with his unblinking eyes, though he made no move to stop or interact with them. The Pegasi ignored him entirely.

“Amber Aura! You are to exit at once!” One of the Enclave troopers demanded in a booming, magically amplified voice. “This is your last and final warning!”

Cautiously, I stepped out through the door and confronted them, Xayah and Nova flanking me on either side. “I’m right here,” I declared, taking another bold step forward.

The Enclave troopers plasma rifles swivelled to aim at me, each one of them keeping me in their sights. “Lower your weapons and step towards us slowly!”

Xayah and Nova looked to me for confirmation. Gulping, I nodded and slowly lowered Braeburn’s Liberator. Xayah and Nova quickly followed suit. We took a few more steps closer, inching our way toward the Pegasi.

My eyes flickered over to the Courser. He was still just standing there, watching the scene unfold calmly. I shivered just by looking at him.

The Enclave troopers quickly moved to surround us. One of the troopers put a hoof to an intercom in their helmet. “Amber and her associates have been secured. What do you want done with the ponies inside...” He paused, listening to a voice on the other side. Finally, he nodded. “Understood…”

There was a loud crack as one of the huge magical energy cannons on the Raptor opened fire. A beam of energy flashed forwards striking through the window of the bar. Flames burst through the shattered glass as the energy blast exploded in a burst of light.

There were screams as the ponies inside dove for cover from the unexpected blast, fire and plasma flaring over their heads. I saw one pony simply vaporized as the deadly blast hit him point blank.

“NO!” I screamed, panic flaring up inside me as I imagined Tinker getting blasted apart by the deadly beam.

I reared up, my fore hooves bucking at the face of the Enclave trooper that was holding me at gunpoint. The Pegasi cried out in alarm, stumbling back, their plasma rifle firing wildly off into the night sky.

Nova and Xayah whirled around, Nova’s horn flaring as she wrapped another trooper in her magic and sent him flying backwards, his head slamming against a rock, his body going still. Xayah’s anti-machine rifle boomed, a shot slashing through another trooper's chest and sending him crashing to the ground.

I ducked, a beam of energy lashing over my head. I could feel my mane singe as the blast sizzled past me. I managed to righten myself just in time to catch a blow to the head as one of the Enclave’s armoured hooves slammed into me.

I stumbled back, my head throbbing and spinning. I could feel a bump forming on my head and I rubbed it painfully with an aching hoof. I growled at the trooper, my gun raising to fire in retaliation.

I paused as four more troopers dropped out of the sky, their weapons glowing and preparing to fire.

“Nova! Shield! Now!” I demanded, backing up and bumping up against Xayah and Nova as the Enclave quickly surrounded us.

Nova’s horn flared, a violet bubble shield forming around us. Almost a second later, our vision filled with green as the surrounding Enclave troopers fired, their weapons deadly blasts bashing against the alicorn’s powerful shield. Energy rippled across the shields surface, cracking it and forcing Nova to drop to her knees, pain flashing across her face as her magic surged through her cracked horn.

I flared my own horn, adding my magic to Nova's rapidly breaking shield. Amber light glowed from the cracks the Enclave's weaponry had wrought, patching the small holes back together.

“Amber, we need a plan!” Xayah said, her rifle swinging to track one of the Pegasi as they flew in circles around the shield.

I looked around, trying to spot anything that could help us. Nothing caught my eye.

Another round of fire slammed into the shield, once again causing glowing cracks to spider web across the shields surface. Nova cried out, the magic around her horn almost dissipating under the power of the Enclave’s attacks. I tried to patch the shield again, but the Enclave's attacks were to much for my limited magic.

One of the magical energy cannons on the Raptor swivelled, turning downward to face us. My eyes widened as I realized they were preparing to blast us apart. No shield was going to be strong enough to protect us from that.

The shape of a dark griffin flashed across the sky, an apple grenade tumbling from their grasp and clattering down the barrel of the huge cannon. Then there was an ear wrenching boom and the front of the cannon exploded in a shower of green flames.

There was a volley of angry yells as the ponies from the bar began pulling themselves up from behind the shattered bar window, their guns blazing as they fired blast after blast at the Enclave troopers that had surrounded us. The Pegasi darted back, swerving in the air to avoid being filled full of holes.

“Go! Now!” I shouted, rushing towards the remains of the bar as the Enclave's attention was temporarily pulled away from us. Nova dropped her shield with a gasp of relief, flapping her wings and darting along beside me.

Xayah fired off a shot, dropping another Enclave trooper out of the sky, before turning and rushing after us.

Beams of plasma flashed past me as the Enclave tried to take aim, but their constant need to swerve out of the way of the ponies fire threw off their aim. Another trooper was blasted out of the sky, dropping to the ground as their wing was rendered useless by a well aimed shot of a hunting rifle.

I threw my body over the window sill, wincing as the shattered glass sliced at my underside. Nova and Xayah dove in after me, Xayah firing off another shot to cover us as we made our way back behind cover.

The ponies inside looked at us fearfully as we pulled ourselves up behind cover. A few of them looked relatively alright, with only a few scratches or burns across their body. Others were in worse condition, with missing limbs or severe burns that had turned their hide into a giant scab. I noticed a few corpses lying in the middle of the room, their bodies steaming and their faces wrapped beyond recognition. Thankfully, Tinker was not among them.

“Why are they attacking us? You gave yourself over?” One of them whimpered, their eyes brimmed with tears as they tended to their missing fore leg. Blood spilled down their body, pooling around their remixing hooves.

“Because they’re fucking Enclave pieces of shit. We shouldn’t have trusted them in the first place,” A mare shot back, loading her revolver and firing out the window. She cursed under her breath as she missed her mark and had to reload.

Tinker rushed up to me, his eyes wide and blood dripping from a gash on his side. He wrapped his hooves around my middle, his whole body trembling. “I told you I’d be back for you,” I said, patting him on the head. “Granted, I hadn’t expected to be back this soon…”

Beams of energy flashed through the window and over our heads, all of us ducking down low to avoid being turned to smouldering green goo. The far wall of the bar was seared by the blasts, the once off white walls turning a charred black.

A mare with a large gash across her forehead had pulled herself up against a small radio inset into the wall, her hooves desperately clutching the speaker. Tears had streaked down her face, leaving trails of wetness in the ash that coated her hide. “Help! We’re under attack from the Enclave! If anypony can hear us, please! Send help!” she cried into the speaker, her hooves trembling. There was no response from the other side of the radio.

A pegasus soared into the building, their weapon firing and striking the trembling mare down as she screamed for help over the radio. She cried out as the plasma beam slashed into her, then her body went limp and she dissolved into a puddle on the floor.

The Enclave trooper only had enough time to return their gaze to the rest of us when I blew their head off with a shot from my shotgun.

Skyfire swooped in and landed in front of us, panting as she wrapped a wound on her legs up in gauze. “Damn. Those fuckers are persistent,” She snarled, snapping her beak in agitation. “I managed to get all their big guns down, but they got fucking Pegasi working on getting them up and running again already. At the speed those fucks are fixing them, I give us five minutes max before they blast this place apart.”

“You took all the cannons out by yourself?” I gawked, ducking lower as another blast of plasma was flung past me.

Skyfire smirked and smoothed back her crest feathers smugly. “I wasn’t lying when I said you’d find yourself dead before you could pull a trigger,” She dipped to the side as one of the Pegasi dared to fire at her, wincing as she applied pressure to her injured leg. “That said, even I can’t take all these shits down.”

I glanced out the broken window, keeping low to avoid making myself an easy target. As I watched, five more Pegasi descended from the cloud ship, their unified flapping wings filling the air with an ominous thumping sound.

“We got more incoming!” I heard Xayah shout, ducking back from a window across from us as a steam of energy blasts spewed past her. There was a clattering noise as a pulsing green sphere was tossed through the window.

“Plasma grenade!” I heard a pony shout as they pushed back with their legs and rushed for the far side of the bar.

“Everypony back!” Skyfire screamed, her own wings flapping and hauling herself away from the explosive, her two talons snatching up two more ponies and throwing them out of harm's way.

I wrapped my own hooves around Tinker, pulling him aside and shielding him with my body as I sprinted away from the pulsing orb.

Boom!

The plasma grenade detonated, my vision flaring with baleful light as the explosive burst the bars side wall apart. Streaks of green energy raced across the walls, many of the tables being flung through the air and smashing into splintered against the wall. Two ponies were blown apart, their limbs bursting from their bodies and sailing across the room as they were ripped into by the deadly blast.

I felt my back sizzling as the green energy raced over me. Tinker shivered in my grasp as he felt the searing heat wash over us. I screamed, my voice drowned out by the ringing in our ears as our washed out vision slowly faded back into reality.

More plasma flared over my head, this time in the form of energy blasts as the Enclave troopers piled through the blasted open hole in the wall. The ponies around me scampered to their hooves, their weapons raising and firing as they fought back against the onslaught. Another pony fell as they tried to stand back up, their chest ripped open by a violent slash of one of the Enclave's scorpion like tails.

I pulled myself back to my hooves, my vision spinning and Braeburn’s Liberator firing as I dipped and weaved to avoid being turned into a glowing pile of goop. My fourth shot finally made its mark, the buckshot ripping through the chest plate of an Enclave pegasus, fire flaring across the wound and cooking them alive within their armour.

I ducked behind a broken down table. Quickly ejecting the spent slugs and rapidly reloading four more shots into my gun. An Enclave trooper flashed towards me as I reloaded, their weapons glowing as they readied to turn me to ash.

A shot from Nova’s horn slashed through the pegasus’ neck, dropping them to the ground dead, blood burbling from their lips. I gave her a thankful nod, propping myself up on the broken table and aiming at another of the incoming Pegasi. I pulled hard on the trigger, another shot of buckshot flashing out and shredding a troopers wing.

More Enclave troopers began flashing in through the front windows, their armoured hooves smashing against the floor and cracking it. Their weapons raised, beams of green light flashing from their muzzles and forcing us to move back to get behind cover.

“Into the kitchen, now! Go, go!” Skyfire shouted, another blast from her shotgun making it mark and blasting a pegasus apart. She began moving backwards, cocking her combat shotgun violently between each shot. Nova’s shield once more flared to life, creating a thin veil of magic between us and the enclosing Pegasi.

I scrambled to my hooves, tossing Tinker atop my back as I moved to cover Skyfire and the rest of the ponies as they began moving their way back towards the kitchen. Skyfire kicked the door to the kitchen open for us, her shotgun roaring as she gave us all cover fire.

Xayah pulled up next to her, her rifle’s muzzle flaring with light every few seconds as she expertly shot Pegasi down with precise shots to their visor.

I pushed my way into the kitchen behind the rest of the ponies, moving behind the wall to keep myself out of range of the Enclave's lethal attacks. A few seconds later, Xayah and Skyfire scampered in after me, slamming the door shut and blocking us off from the violent assault.

A pony moved forwards, blocking off the door with a chair in an attempt to barracked it shut.

“That’s not going to hold them for long,” Xayah said, stepping back as the loud banging on the door began.

“Correct,” The monotone voice of the Courser cooed in my ear, making me spin around to see him flashing into existence beside me in a beam of blue light. “Which is why it is about time we leave...”

I raised my hoof to strike at him, but before I could I was sent flying back by a strong kick to the gut. I slammed against the wall, my vision spinning.

The ponies around us raised their weapons, aiming at the Courser. Before they could fire, the Courser spun, his Institute magical energy rifle blasting out beams of blue energy in every direction. Two ponies were hit by the blast square in the chest, their bodies slumping as they dissolved into glowing ash.

Skyfire fired, the buckshot spewing from her shogun only missing by inches as the Courser twisted out of the way. His hoof shot up, slamming against the scarred griffins neck and pinning her to the wall.

Both Xayah and Nova lunged forwards, sticking at the Courser, only for their hooves to clatter against the wall as the Courser released his grip on Skyfire and duck out of the way.

The door rattled harder, blasts of plasma flashing though the crumbling surface as the Enclave tried to power their way inside. A chunk of the door was blasted away, skidding across the kitchen floor.

I staggered back up, my horn glowing as I tried to level my shotgun with the Courser. The Courser knocked it aside with ease, his body flipping out of the way as the ponies around him tried to fire.

Tinker swung his small hooves at the deadly synth hunter, only for the Courser’s rifle to bash him across the head, knocking the colt down to the ground.

“The cannon’s repaired!” I heard one of the Enclave troopers beyond the door shout over the sound blaring sound of the gunfire. “Move, now!”

I felt my eyes widen, terror flashing through me. “Everypony down! Get down now!”

I hit the floor just as the massive cannon on the Raptor fired. Fire flared through the bar, the already breaking door to the kitchen flying from its hinges as it was ripped apart by the powerful blast. What few windows that still remained shattered, jagged shards of glass slashing through the bar.

The Course dove to the side, crackling plasma flashing through the doorway and blasting apart where he had just been standing.

The whole structure creaked, the walls threatening to give out from under the devastation of the Enclave Raptors attack.

I tried to drag myself back up, only for my head to be slammed against the ground again as the Courser’s dark hoof crashed down atop my head. I rolled over, getting a good look at the Courser’s leering face as he pinned me down to the debris covered floor. I grasped at my neck as the looming Courser began to choke me.

“X23762Z,” The Courser smirked, their hoof pressing down hard on my neck.

I choked out as the pressure was applied to my throat, by the sensation was fleeting. My choking was abruptly cut off as my whole body went limp, every muscle in me suddenly releasing as the words the Courser spoke washed through my ears. I could feel something inside of me quite literally shut off as my synth deactivation code was spoken aloud, this time in full.

It was a strange feeling, suddenly being unable to move. I could still see everything clearly, but my thoughts were foggy. I tried to stay focused, but I began to slowly forget what exactly was happening around me. I saw shapes moving about, but what those shapes were suddenly felt alien. I tried to raise my hoof, only to find that I was completely immobilized. I tried to turn my head. Again, nothing happened.

Funny… I thought, my head dizzy somewhat. Shouldn’t I be able to move?

A purple alicorn was standing over me, their wings flared and their horn glowing as they sent beams of light streaking towards a dark black stallion. The stallion was dodging easily, one of his hooves lashing out and crashing against the alicorn's face, sending her stumbling away. She screamed I think, but I couldn't hear it for some reason.

The dark pony moved towards me again, their hoof raising to what appeared to be an intercom on their ear. Suddenly a zebra slammed into them, sending them skidding away, their face growling with rage.

I tried to look at the zebra, but even my eyes seemed unable to move. Unable to blink, my pupils fixated on a specific spot on the roof directly above me. The zebra seemed so strangely familiar to me, but I simply couldn’t seem to recognize her. maybe I had seen her in a picture somewhere once...

More ponies were pulling themselves back up around me, ash and debris falling from their bodies as they clawed their way out of the rubble. Many of them were bleeding from wounds that had been ripped open across their flesh, a few of them fell back down, Never to get up again. I wanted to furrow my eyebrows. Who were these ponies? What were we all doing here?

The dark ponies hoof wrapped around the zebra’s neck, pulling them down and sending them tumbling to the floor. The dark pony pinned them down, their rifle firing as they blasted round after round at the rising ponies.

In my peripheral vision, I saw dark, armoured shapes charging through the doorway, green plasma weapons at their sides firing.

A scarred griffin screamed, their shotgun firing off a blast of buckshot as the armoured Pegasi continued to pour through the door.

Odd. My ears must have stopped working. All of the gunshots were silent.

Then there was a sound that I could hear, or rather, that I could feel. The whole building shuddered, a massive boom quaking the earth and causing everypony to look up in surprise. Even the black coated pony turned his gaze upward, looking out the door and up into the night sky beyond.

Just out of the corner of my vision, I saw green flames flaring through the night. Pegasi rained down from the sky, their bodies ripped apart by shrapnel, bullets and growing flames. What appeared to be a massive cloud ship fell from the sky, its haul torn asunder by an explosion bright enough to completely illuminate the night.

The armoured Pegasi began fluttering around in panic, their eyes wide as the ponies around me ripped into them with their guns. They tried to retaliate, but large ponies in suits of metal power armour charged through the doorway, their own guns firing and blasting the armoured winged ponies apart.

The dark stallion screamed something I couldn’t hear, lunging forwards and wrapping a hoof around my body. I couldn’t feel his hoof. Funny. My nervous system must have stopped working.

The dark stallion’s hoof raised, once again clicking an intercom around her ear. His mouth opened as he tried to say something, only for the familiar zebra to once more slam into his side, pushing him away from me.

He scowled, his dark face contorting with what seemed to be a strange form of faux rage. He lunged forwards again, only for the large, armoured ponies to move between him and me.

The dark pony scowled as he was confronted by the excessive firepower. He turned his head, glaring at my limp body. “Other ponies can’t save you forever,” The stallion snarled, his words strangely cutting through the silence that my world had fallen into. Then he disappeared in a flash of blue light, his icy gaze the last thing to vanish before he was gone from sight.

The familiar zebra crouched over me, looking me over with wide, worry filled eyes. She had a pretty face. Dirty and covered in scratches, but pretty. Her mouth moved, some strange word coming from her mouth, over and over again. I tried to make it out, but none of the sounds made any sense. Amber, was she saying? why would she be saying that?

The zebra looked around frantically, water seeming to be dripping from her eyes. She was saying something to the ponies around her who were all looking down at me now in confusion. I spotted one of the armoured ponies looking me over, their expression hidden behind their enclosed helmet.

I saw the purple alicorn again, this time she was saying something to the zebra.The zebra nodded desperately, her face still filled with worry. The alicorn leaned down close, her lips brushing against my ear softly. “X23762Z.”

The words flashed through my mind like a lightning bolt. I shot straight up, my mind filling with hundreds of thoughts as I was suddenly granted the ability to move again. I gasped audibly, air suddenly filling my lungs. My eyes darted about, making out the carnage that filled the room.

A dozen Enclave troopers now lay dead on the ground around us, their bodies ripped apart by explosive fire. Blood seemed to soak every Inch of the room and the bar was in ruins, but the building had somehow managed to miraculously stay standing despite the devastation the Enclave Raptor had wrought.

The surviving ponies all stood around me in a small semicircle, each one of them looking down at me with a mix of shock and confusion. Skyfire leaned against the far wall behind them, one eyebrow cocked at me while she slowly wrapped up her broken wing.

Standing amongst the ponies were a large group of Steel Rangers, each one clad in a full suit of power armour. Two of them had massive Balefire Egg Launchers slung over their shoulder, no doubt the very weapons they had used to tear the Raptor down out of the sky. One of the rangers held a wounded Enclave trooper at gunpoint, the pegasus’ wings and hooves bound together tightly.

“Let go of me, you fucking savages!” The pegasus scowled, struggling against their bonds. Everypony ignored them as they continuously protested.

I heard both Xayah and Nova let out a long breath as I suddenly came back to my senses. "I am glad that worked," Nova stated bluntly to the zebra, her eyes looking me over with concern. "I was not sure if it would or if I had heard the Courser correctly. It would be best to remember that code incase such an event is to occur again.

I looked up at Xayah as she wrapped me in a tight hug. “Do not do that again, you foolish pony,” Xayah ordered, pulling back slightly and glaring me in the eyes.

I grimaced. That whole experience had been awful. Even just knowing that it had happened stripped me of what little feeling I had maintained that I was still a pony. “Trust me, that’s the last thing I want to have happen again,” I replied, kissing her quickly on the muzzle before turning my gaze to the Steel Rangers that had taken out the Enclave. “What are you guys doing here?”

“We received a distress transmission from here a few minutes ago claiming you were under attack from the Enclave,” The Ranger that seemed to be in charge declared, taking a step forward. “We came to lend our assistance.”

I shakily pulled myself up and gave them a skeptical glare, reaching out with a hoof and pulling Tinker close to me protectively. “Since when did the Steel Rangers decide to start helping out wastelanders?” I asked, brushing off some of the dust on my coat. “Isn’t that more the Outcast’s thing?”

The Ranger huffed, glaring at me. “It became our business when the Enclave started launching attacks on our rangers. Do not mistake us for those True Steel fanatics, civilian. Be thankful that we chose to come to your aid. Without us, you would most likely be dead.”

I glanced down at the tied up Pegasus they still held at gun point and gestured to them. "What are you planning to do with them?"

The Ranger looked over at the Enclave trooper for a second before snorting. "The Steel Rangers, like the rest of the wasteland, was not prepared for Enclave invasion. We need as much intelligence out of them as we can get."

The Pegasus spat at them, their whole body quivering in fear. "I'm not telling you anything you fucking tin can!"

Ignoring the Enclave's insult, the Ranger turned and looked over at Skyfire who had picked up a bottle of Wild Pegasus Whiskey and was taking small sips from it. “Skyfire. It is good to see you survived the attack.”

Skyfire gave them a grim nod. “Barely, but I’m still kickin’. It’s good to see you Paladin Sardine.”

The large paladin gave a grunt of acknowledgement before turning his headstrong gaze to the rest of the gathered ponies. “As you were civilians. I’m sure you have a lot of work to do,” He gestured to the destroyed bar and the wounded ponies around them. Skyfire joined us with a flap of her wings as Paladin Sardine turned to once more face me and my friends.

“You two know each other?” I asked, looking between the Steel Ranger Paladin and the scarred griffin.

Skyfire nodded. “Most ponies around the Fillydelphia area stop by here at least once. I’ve served pretty much anyone you would imagine. Slavers, raiders, Steel Rangers. Red Eye himself has stopped by twice now," I blinked in surprise at that comment.

Paladin Sardine looked me over slowly, his eyes studying me through his visor. “Am I correct in believing that you are Amber Aura?” The ranger rumbled.

I glanced at Xayah and Nova who gave me small shrugs in return. “Maybe?” I responded cautiously, turning my head back to him. “Why?”

Paladin Sardine glanced over at one of his fellow rangers. “Perhaps we will get something out of this rescue mission after all…” He turned back to face me. “We have a proposition for you.”

Xayah raised her eyebrows. “Forgive us, but our experience with Steel Rangers in the past has not always been friendly,” She took a step forward, eyeing the large Paladin. “Is this proposition optional, or are we expected to simply comply?”

The Steel Ranger to Sardine’s right growled. “We could kill you if we wanted stripe. Watch your tongue,” I took a protective step in front of Xayah at the rangers outburst, snarling.

Paladin Sardine raised a hoof to quite the ranger. “We demand nothing of you, though if you accept our proposition, we will help you help you get safe passage out of the Fillydelphia outskirts. You four won’t make it out on your own, even with an Alicorn.”

Nova cocked her head at that. “And why is that?”

“Because,” Paladin Sardine growled. “You still have miles to go before you reach Fetlock, let alone Manehattan. Rumour has gotten out that every slaver and raider on this side of the wasteland is searching for you on order from Stern herself. The Enclave is clearly out for you as well, and…” he paused and looked at the spot where the Courser had vanished. “...I have only ever seen one Courser before. It took out an entire Squadron of Steel Rangers before they even had time to react. If you truly think you will be able to reach Manehattan by yourselves with that monster after you, then you’re dead wrong.”

Alright, all of that did make sense. “Okay… when what do you want from us in return?”

“Over the last two months we’ve been having issues at our Fillydelphia headquarters. Highly classified information on our movements and procured Stable-Tec files have continuously been finding themselves in Red Eyes hooves. The issue only amplified after the Schism,” the Paladin stated, his eyes finally leaving me and looking towards the red glow of Fillydelphia on the horizon. “We have a mole in our midst. We need assistance finding it.”

“So why ask us for help?” I pushed, letting go of Tinker and taking a step forward. “Why can’t you do it yourselves?”

“If we could have done so ourselves, we would have,” Paladin Sardine grunted. “Whomever this mole is, they're well informed on what goes on in our base. Any attempts to find them have been met with failure. We need somepony that works outside of our protocols.”

“And so you think we’re the ponies you need?” I monotoned, giving him a disbelieving stare.

“Your accomplishments have not gone unnoticed,” The large ranger remarked back. “And we are under the impression that you don’t want valuable information falling into the hooves of Red Eye just as much as we do. If not more so.”

He had me there. A small spark of what I could only describe as excitement leapt into my chest. A memory nagged at the back of my mind, reminding me that the Steel Ranger headquarters in Fillydelphia was the old Stable-Tec headquarters. The same headquarters that Pureblood used to teleport Crank and his cyber ponies into Stable 25 all those days ago.

That spark of excitement was quickly extinguished by anger. That mole was very likely the pony responsible giving Pureblood access to Stable 25 and starting all of this in the first place.

“Alright, you’ve got yourself a deal,” I finally grunted, extending my hoof out to the Paladin.

Paladin Sardine looked at the hoof for a second before reaching out and bumping it with his own. “Good. Get ready. We leave now.”

I nodded, taking a step away as Paladin Sardine and his rangers trotted out of the kitchen to wait for us in the broken remains of the bar. The rangers dragged their still captive Enclave trooper out with them, the wounded pegasus complaining the whole way out.

I turned, looked at Skyfire as the griffin panned her eyes across the ruins of what had once been her bar. “Sorry about your place,” I said slowly, taking a step towards her.

Skyfire just shrugged off the apology. “Don’t sweat it kid. You did your best to protect this place. Even gave yourself up to the Enclave for us,” Her beak twisted into a scowl. “Too bad the damn Enclave didn’t know when to stop when they were ahead.”

She flapped her wings and fluttered off, moving to help out the surrounding ponies tend to their wounds.

I turned to my friends, looking them all over carefully. Save for a few scratches and a large gash on Tinker’s side, we had all come out of the fight relatively unharmed.

“Are you sure we can trust them?” Tinker asked, looking out the door at the waiting Steel Rangers. “Mom never trusted rangers.”

I shook my head. “No idea, I’m not much for trusting Steel Rangers either. But they aren’t as bad as the True Steels are… I hope. And they’re right. We won’t be able to make it back to Manehattan alone. Not with the Enclave, slavers and that Courser on our tail”

I didn’t bother mentioning my eagerness to find the pony responsible for giving Pureblood access to Stable 25.

“Let us not keep them waiting then,” Xayah said, turning and moving out the door after the rangers. I nodded to her in response, slowly following after her. Nova trotted behind me, picking Tinker up and carrying him on her back.

The Steel Rangers gave us grunts of acknowledgement as we trotted over to them before turning and exiting out into the dark wasteland. I glanced up at the night sky as I followed after them, wondering just how long I still had before Pureblood activated Utopia. Three days? Not long enough? Not nearly long enough to find a way to stop him.

I cast a quick glance back at Skyfire’s ruined bar and the wreckage of the Enclave Raptor. In the darkness of the night, I could have sworn I spotted the shrouded, black figure of a Courser watching me, their icy eyes scanning my every step as my friends and I trotted alongside the Steel Rangers, once more heading back towards the hellish red glow of the vile city of Fillydelphia.

Footnote: Maximum level reached

Chapter XXXIV: Secrets and Conspiracies

“You’re wearing a suit of steel and energy. You’re standing with… your brothers… Dangerous objects taken from those who don’t understand. Those who can’t be trusted.”

Rangers.

It had been a long while since I had been in the company of the Steel Rangers proper. I had battled against the True Steels a few times now, and fought alongside the Outcasts repeatedly, but as for the Rangers themselves, they had all seemingly disappeared from Manehattan ever since the schism.

Not that it was hard to understand why. They had been decimated. The Manehattan and Fillydelphia branch had fractured, first into the Outcasts, then later into the True Steels. Dozens had died at the hooves of the Stable Dweller, both in whatever event had caused the schism to begin with, and again when Little Pip had wiped out Bucklin Cross. They were fighting a war on all fronts. From the ever growing forces of Red Eye, from the Enclave and from mutiny within their own faction. And they were losing.

But I had been wrong to think that they were no longer a force to be reckoned with. There was a good reason why their Fillydelphia headquarters had stayed standing amongst the endless onslaught that assailed them.

While Xayah, Nova, Tinker and I limped along beside them, I was reminded why they were still a faction to be feared. One ranger was enough to take on a whole gang of raiders, the dozen that traveled with me now could likely take on a small army if prepared.

The usually silent, ash coated expanse between Fillydelphia and Manehattan was filled with the sound of heavy clunking of metal on metal as the large rangers marched forwards in their massive suits of power armour.

I glanced over at the Ranger leading the group. Paladin Sardine’s armour seemed to gleam in the diffuse moonlight as he powered forwards. Wanting to quench my curiosity, I limped forwards a little faster so that I could trot beside the paladin. Paladin Sardine cast me a small glance as I approached, but otherwise remained silent.

“So where is the Rangers outpost in Filly?” I asked, my eyes scanning the irradiated wasteland around me. “I know it’s in the old Stable-Tec headquarters, but where is that exactly?”

“Not far from the Fillydelphia wall, just outside the inner city. The ruins that were once the Fillydelphia suburbs were a prime location for Stable-Tec back during the war due to the large civilian population,” Paladin Sardine rumbled, his eyes continuing to face forwards. “We should be arriving in a few minutes.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Why so close to the wall? Wouldn’t it be safer to set up a base farther away from Red Eye?”

Paladin Sardine cast his piercing gaze back down to me. “Your question only emphasizes your lack of strategic knowhow. If we set up farther away from the wall, we would be forfeiting our stronghold to Red Eye, giving him more territory and losing the valuable tech inside.”

Right… I felt stupid now. Dumb question.

“Now allow me to ask you a question of my own,” Paladin Sardine grunted, his deep voice demanding answers. “What happened to you back in Skyfire’s?”

I winced, the memory of the Courser deactivating me and going completely immobile flashing through my mind. I opened my mouth to answer, only to quickly shut it again. Knowing the Steel rangers, something told me telling them I was a synth was not the smartest idea. These were the ponies that liked to hoard advanced technology for themselves after all.

I gave him an uncomfortable, forced laugh. “I, um… I got knocked out?”

“Is that a question?” Sardine retorted.

“I got knocked out,” I reiterated in a more confident voice, knowing full well that he could see through my blatant lie. I needed to change the topic. “Sooooo… what do you know about this mole that you want me to deal with?”

“Shockingly little,” Sardine stated, slowing slightly. “We know they have access to some of our most secure files and have the ability to send them to Red Eye. Outside of that, nothing. They have been doing an exceptional job of evading our attempts to find them so far. We can discuss what little we have in further detail upon arrival.”

I nodded, though that didn’t give me much to go off of. “So what do you want me to do?”

“At the moment, nothing,” The large paladin declared, turning to look me over. “Firstly, you and your companions need medical attention. It’s clear you have been taking healing potions, but even still you and your companions can hardly stand. I don’t doubt that you all underwent hell inside of Filly. Especially the stripe. We will deal with our agreement afterwards.”

I felt my legs almost go limp with relief. “R-really? Thank you!” I had been thankful for the healing potions Skyfire had given us, but our time in Filly had left us far more broken than what a few potions had the ability to fix.

“I’ll reiterate what I told you back at Skyfire’s. We are not monsters like those True Steels you encountered back in Manehattan,” Sardine grunted. “You’re next to useless in your current state. How you managed to survive that Enclave attack for so long before we intervened is beyond me.”

Feeling that are exchange had come to a natural close and breaking away from him, I moved back to where Nova was carrying Tinker atop her back. A few of the rangers were casting dirty glances in the alicorns direction, but they were choosing not to comment at the moment.

“How are you two holding up?” I asked, looking them over.

Tinker looked tired, but he seemed to be forcing himself to stay awake. He forced himself to give me a nod, though his eyes seemed to drift close a little at the motion. “I’m doing okay.”

“I am well enough,” Nova monotone as well, bending her neck down to look down at me. I shivered slightly as I met her slitted, piercing gaze. Despite knowing she meant me no harm, every time I looked at her she reminded me off… I shook my head before my thoughts could wander too far. Nova reverted her gaze from me to the rangers around us. “Though, these Rangers do not seem very hospitable to my presence.”

“Steel Rangers tend to not like alicorns much,” Xayah nodded in agreement from behind us. She was staring through the long scope of her anti-material rifle at the barren wastes, seemingly searching for something. On a bitter note, she added, “They tend not to like zebra’s much either for that matter.”

I raised an eyebrow at her. “What are you looking for?” I asked her, taking a step in her direction and scanning the area myself with my naked eye.

“The Courser,” She stated bluntly, her rifle sweeping the area and a small scowl forming on her face as she forced herself to spit out the word. Despite her determination, she still looked weak from her time in Filly. A lot of colour had returned to her face after the doses of Radaway I had given her, and the warm meal from Skyfire’s seemed to help, but I could tell she was still in a lot of pain. “I spotted it following us when we first left the bar. It seems to be gone now though.”

“I doubt it’s gone,” I grumbled, my own eyes looking around for any signs of the deadly synth hunter. I saw nothing but desolation and ash. “That thing isn’t going to give up until it has us or it’s dead. Hopefully we won’t see him again. At least not until we join back up with the rest of our friends at Friendship City.”

“That bastard is not the only thing you’re going to have to worry about!” A snarling voice scowled at us. We all turned to look at the Rangers Enclave captive growling at us as one of the rangers dragged him along. “When the Enclave finds you, you’re dead! You hear me! Dead! You have no idea how fucked you all are! And you have no idea what is coming...”

The Ranger that was dragging him along smacked him across the head, shutting him up. “Quite!” The Ranger retorted, their laser rifle pressing against the pegasus’ head. The trooper instantly went silent, casting all of us one last hate filled glare.

I exchanged a worried look with my friends, before turning and continuing after the Rangers.

The Stable-Tec HQ was massive. The second my eyes landed on it, I instantly understood why the Rangers felt it was so important to keep out of Red Eye’s hooves.

The towering stone building had been converted into a sort of citadel, with a looming metal wall surrounding the outer area of the structure. The front gate was made from what I could only guess was the haul of a battleship and two monstrous sentry bots stood guard in front of it. Teams of Rangers patrolled the roof of the HQ, their weapons scanning the area below for any signs of unwelcome guests.

The base was nothing compared to Fort Strong, the True Steels base back in Manehattan. Not with the massive, small skyscraper sized cannon on Fort Strong's roof, but the Fillydelphia base at the very least gave it a run for its money.

As we got closer, I was able to spot what appeared to be a large fountain that had long since begun to crumble away, a statue atop it depicting what appeared to be one of the three mares that had run Stable-Tec. Sweetie Belle, I think her name was. Raider graffiti had marred the once beautiful statues surface and turned it into a monument of the wastelands evil.

We came to a stop in front of the large gate. A Ranger with a comically large gun that was standing guard by the entrance took a step forward, saluting Paladin Sardine before moving aside for us to enter. A massive crane slowly began to raise the impossibly heavy gate, giving me a clear view of the courtyard beyond.

The courtyard had been turned into a large training and drilling ground for ranger initiates. Multiple tents had been set up where groups of initiates were undergoing extensive workouts. More fully armoured Rangers patrolled the courtyard's premises, armed to the teeth with deadly firepower.

“I thought the rangers out here were barely holding out…” I muttered, looking around the impressive compound.

“You thought correct, despite what this place looks like now,” Paladin Sardine confirmed. “After the death of elder Blueberry Sabre and Star Paladin Nova Rage, most of the Steel Ranger contingency out here fell apart. I’ve been doing my best these past few weeks to hold everything together the best I can, but I'm not elder. Hell, I'm not even a full Star Paladin. It hasn’t been easy, but a lot of Rangers from across the wasteland have been regrouping here under the threat of the Outcasts and True Steels. We’ve managed to secure this area for the time being. If Red Eye was determined to take us out, he would, but right now he has bigger issues to deal with.”

“The Enclave?” Xayah asked, her own eyes looking over the impressive base.

“Indeed,” Paladin Sardine confirmed. “A problem that we too are needing to face,” He turned from us to address one of the Rangers standing beside him. “Knight Shortcake, will you please bring our guests to the medical wing and get them healed up. When they’re done, bring them to me.”

The Knight gave a quick salute before gesturing for us to follow after him. “This way. We’ll get you patched up.”

Sardine slowed to a stop and looked us over one more time before letting us part ways. “Before you go in there. A word of advice,” The large Paladin warned ominously. “I would suggest keeping a low profile if possible. The Steel Rangers here are not fans of alicorns or zebras. To suddenly come waltzing in with both at your side… some might see that as an insult. Others as a threat or challenge… You’ve been warned.”

I nodded as Knight Shortcake began leading us into the headquarters proper. “Thanks, I’ll keep that in mind.”

I watched as a small group of Knights dragged their Enclave prisoner away to who knows where, the pegasus kicking and screaming all the way. The Enclave troopers' screams caused Tinker to stir atop Nova’s back and look up, taking in his surroundings. Until then, I hadn’t even noticed he’d fallen asleep on the last bit of the walk here. It was good to know the kid was still able to sleep after all that he had been through.

“Shortcake… Your name sounds familiar,” I said, trotting alongside the Steel Ranger Knight. “Have we met?”

The Knight nodded enthusiastically. “I’m surprised you remember my name. Yeah, I met you back in Fetlock. Back when I served under Senior Paladin Iron Hock. Senior Paladin before he went rogue anyway.”

Xayah’s face darkened. “You were one of the Rangers that took us prisoner…”

Knight Shortcake gave a very uncomfortable sounding laugh. “I uh… Yeah… I guess I was… oh look, we’re here!” He proceeded to lead us the rest of the way to the hospital in nearly complete, awkward silence.

A few doctors looked us over as we stumbled in, their faces clearly surprised by the multitude of wounds we had across our bodies. I could only imagine how dirty we looked after our time behind the looming walls of Fillydelphia. Or our time in the wasteland in general for that matter.

I’m pretty sure the last time I had the opportunity to wash myself was back in Tenpony Tower.

“Ow ow ow ow!” I winced, a strange, dull, prickling pain crawling up my leg as the doctor standing over me sewed one of my wounds shut. I flinched as they tugged on the needle, causing my flesh to fasten together. “Why couldn’t you just use a healing potion!?”

“Because you were in desperate need of extensive surgery,” The doctor grumbled back, snipping the sutures with a small pair of medical scissors. “It’s clear that you have been using healing potions to mend broken bones, which, if you were unaware, is not an effective method of healing your body. If anything, it will only make your situation work, permanently wrecking your bone structure. You’re lucky you're not a paraplegic.”

“So I’ve heard,” I mumbled in response, biting back another moan of pain.

Nova stood beside me, looking over the doctor’s shoulder curiously as they worked. The doctors weren’t able to do much for her damaged horn and they didn’t know much about alicorn biology, but they did give her a healing potion that seemed to do very little. Her slitted pupils traveled down to my face as I squirmed. “I am surprised that you are in such distress,” The alicorn stated flatly. “After what you had been through, I had assumed you would have a higher pain threshold. Especially since you are currently on a fair amount of pain medication.”

“I think it has less to do with the pain, and more to do with the surgery,” I mumbled back, wincing as the doctor once more began cutting away at my skin to get to the damaged bone beneath. Nova wasn’t wrong, most of my body just felt numb at the moment and the only real pain I felt was a small, tingling sensation where the needle probed into my hide. “I’ve had some pretty bad experiences with surgery.”

Nova nodded, her eyes watching as the doctor worked. “Yes. I’m sure what my sister did to you in the Manehattan metro must have been quite traumatizing.”

And of course having Pureblood cut me open and put a foal inside of me, I wanted to say, though I kept the thought to myself. I didn’t really want to get into that conversation again. Instead, I simply forced my gaze up to the ceiling, ignoring her statement all together.

“You are still uncertain of my presence?” Nova asked bluntly a few moments later after I failed to properly answer her.

I grimaced. “That obvious?” When Nova nodded, I sighed. “Sorry. Yeah. That alicorn in the metro kinda made me a little afraid of alicorns.”

“You fear me?” Nova questioned. Her voice sounded more interesting than hurt.

I gulped and gave her a nod. I didn’t think I was afraid of her specifically, but having her looming over me all the time definitely gave me a strong sense of unease. “Wouldn’t you be in my situation? I mean, it’s scary enough that you alicorns are strong, fast, can fly and have powerful magic that can literally rip out my heart. Getting strapped down in some bloody medical ward while an alicorn rambles manically and cuts me open kinda makes it hard to not be just a little freaked out.”

“And yet you still allow me to follow you?” Nova continued, her voice suddenly thoughtful and strangely reminiscent. “Why?”

Wasn’t that the question of the year. I gave her a small shrug. “I don’t know. If you wanted to kill me, you could have let the Courser do it. But you saved my life instead. I figure I owe you or something… I guess I figure you at the very least deserve a chance.”

Nova’s slitted eyes softened. “I appreciate your acceptance. If I can do anything to ease your discomfort of my presence, just let me know.”

“Just don’t strap me down to a medical bed and cut me open,” I grinned back at her, only half joking.

Nova cast a wary eye at my strapped down form and the doctor that was currently doing surgery on my leg. “I feel this was the wrong time to ask this off me. Do you wish for me to stop the surgeon?”

“You will do nothing of the sort,” The doctor snapped, not bothering to look up from my leg as they worked with my ruined leg bone. “Amber Aura has made a big enough mess of her legs as it is. I do not need you making this procedure harder.”

I chuckled and shook my head. “Don’t worry about it Nova. I’m fine.”

The tingling sensation in my leg stopped for a second and I heard the doctor exhale a small breath. “What the hell do we have here?”

Grimacing, I glanced down, looking at the small metallic object the doctor had found below my flesh in the joint between my hind leg and thigh. I blinked at the metal object a few times, trying to figure out what it was. After a few seconds, I realized I was looking at the beginning of a very small wiring system that seemed to travel up deeper into my body.

The doctor looked up at me with surprise. “This is cybernetic augmentation like I have never seen before… well above any technology that existed before or after the war… where did you get this?”

Not cybernetics, but synthetics from the Institute, I realized. The inner workings of my synthetic body. Again, I reminded myself that telling the Steel Rangers I was a synth was probably not the best game plan. “MWT hub in Manehattan,” My mouth lied. “They have a lot of cybernetic augmentations there…” Only kind of a lie. Technically the MWT building did have a lot of cybernetics and it did hold the secret entrance to the Institute as well.

The doctor gave me a quizzical look. “None of our sources said anything about tech this advanced at that facility. Though I doubt we’ll be able to get a squadron out there, not with all that’s been going on there.”

“What’s been going on out there?” I asked, raising an eyebrow and looking away again as the doctor continued to work.

“In Manehattan? A lot. Most of us fear a full on war out there is inevitable. Be it against the Enclave or other factions. At the MWT hub specifically? From what I’ve heard, the True Steels are finally making a move on it. No doubt they want the tech inside. But they’re facing some pretty heavy resistance.”

“From who?” Nova questioned, her eyes seemingly fascinated by the scalpel cutting away at the excess skin in my hind leg.

“When the True Steels arrived, the MWT building was already in a conflict between a small faction calling itself the Friendship Express and.. Um…” The doctor cleared their throat, as if they didn’t believe what they were about to say. “...And walking mannequins apparently,” The doctor grunted, his voice sounding almost unbelieving. “Apparently a lot of the mannequins that littered the Manehattan ruins started coming to life two days ago. A lot of settlements and caravans are getting attacked by them.”

I gave a grim nod. “Yeah. I heard that too.”

The doctor gave a serious looking shake of his head. “Those True Steels are taking territory fast. If they managed to take the MWT hub, I’m not sure what we would be able to do to stop them. They already have Fort Strong. Anymore and we might as well hang ourselves,” There was a strange pulling sensation followed by a loud snipping of scissors, and the doctor pulled away. “There you go. All done. Try not to be as reckless next time.”

I gave them a grateful nod and tried to crawl off the bed, only to fall on my face due to the strange sensation of not being able to feel my hooves thanks to the pain medication. I felt Nova’s mouth clamp down around the scruff of my neck as she picked up my rather small body and placed me over her withers.

“Your zebra companion is in the other room. Her wounds were quite impressive,” The doctor stated, leading us over to a door on the far side of the medical office. Nova followed after them, carrying me with her. “That and she was suffering from fairly severe radiation sickness. We did find Radaway in her system, as I’m sure you’re well aware, but the effects of her time in Fillydelphia are probably going to leave some lasting side effects.”

I felt a sense of alarm shoot through me at that. “Lasting effect? What do you mean by that?”

“The radiation poison caused a minor mutation in her lung,” The doctor explained, ushering us into the next room where Xayah lay on a medical bed being tended to by two doctors. “Hopefully the effect won't be too bad, but expect shortness of breath and for her to tire easily.”

Nova carried me towards Xayah’s bed. Tinker was standing next to it, squeamishly looking away as one of the doctors detached one of Xayah’s cybernetic legs to get to the irradiated flesh beneath. Tinker’s wounds had been minimal, I doubted that the doctors even needed to do much more than a simply healing potion for him.

“These legs of yours are extraordinary,” The doctor that had removed Xayah’s leg stated, holding the mechanical hoof in his grasp and looking it over carefully. “If you were not here on request of Paladin Sardine, I would insist we confiscate your legs for closer examination!”

“Yeah, that won’t be happening,” I snarled at him, trying my best to pull myself off of Nova’s back and stand next to Xayah. “How are you doing?”

Xayah gave me a sheepish smile. “Alive,” Alive was good. Alive was great. “But the doctor said I should probably stay here for another hour or two.”

That was less good.

“Why? Is something wrong?” I asked, worry filling my voice.

“We need a little longer to fully flush all the radiation from her system,” The doctor that hadn’t spoken yet told me, looking up from Xayah only briefly to address me properly. “The fact she isn’t dead is honestly a miracle.”

Xayah gave me a gentle smile. “Clearly you got me out of Filly at the right time. Any later and I’d be dead.”

“Clearly I didn’t get you out soon enough,” I grumbled back, not feeling particularly good about myself at that moment.

Xayah gave me a stern look. “Do not be a foolish pony, Amber. You did what you could.”

I gave a grim nod, but I felt bad regardless. “Knight Shortcake is waiting for you outside,” A doctor told me, leading me away. “It would be best if you did not leave him and Sardine waiting.”

I leaned down and gave Xayah a quick kiss on the forehead. Her forehead was uncomfortably hot to the touch, a clear sign of her high fever. “You get better, alright. I’ll be back soon,” Turning, I began hobbling on my numb legs towards the door, Nova close behind me. I turned to glance back at Tinker. “Do you want to come with us?”

But Tinker’s gaze had shifted elsewhere. He was staring at one of Xayah’s detached mechanical legs, his eyes puzzling over them slightly.

“Uh, Tinker?”

Tinker glanced up at me, as if he hadn’t heard me. “Hmm… oh, uh… can I take a look at those legs? They’re cool, but I think I can improve them...”

I cast Xayah a quick glance. I didn’t know how I felt about Tinker messing around with my marefriend's legs. The last thing I wanted was for him to damage them as we didn’t exactly have spares. On the other hoof, Tinker desperately needed something to get his mind off of the loss of his mother, and Chestnut had said he was rather talented with machines.

Xayah met my gaze and seemed to come to the same decision. She turned her head and gave Tinker a warm smile. “Of course. I would love to see what you could make.”

Tinker quickly jumped to his hooves excitedly, giving off the first genuine smile I had seen on him since Chestnut had died. “Oh, thank you thank you thank you! I’ll make your legs the coolest thing you have ever seen, I promise!” The colt assured Xayah, picking up her detached legs and quickly scampering off into the corner to fiddle with them. Xayah winced as the colt pulled out a screwdriver and began detaching components on her left foreleg.

It was almost silly to watch, seeing the small foal rushing off with Xayah’s legs while she watched. Maybe if we weren’t all hurting so much from our losses it might even have been funny.

I gave Xayah a thankful look and exited the hospital with Nova, finding Knight Shortcake waiting for us outside. “Alright, let's get this over with,” I told the Knight as he started leading us down one of the hallways.

The hallway we walked down led out into a grand looking atrium area, uncomfortably similar in architecture to the atrium back in Stable 25. A holographic image of the same mare I had seen a statue of outside seemed to have been set up in the centre of the room, spouting information about Stable-Tec to pre war visitors that had long since stopped coming on the account of balefire detonation. Up above, I saw a large balcony that overlooked the atrium, no doubt some sort of Overmare office for the heads of Stable-Tec.

I wondered just how many twisted experiments the ponies that worked here had created before everything went to hell. Had they developed the hereditary cutie mark experiment for Stable 25 here as well, or had Pureblood manufactured that himself in secret within the Institute?

“Hey, so I just wanted to say sorry about what happened with Iron Hock. Back in Fetlock and all,” Shortcake said out of nowhere, his words breaking me away from my thoughts. “For what it’s worth, I thought taking you ponies prisoner was wrong, and I transferred here to Filly after. I never was a big fan of how Iron Hock handled things.”

“Don’t sweat it,” I said, waving off his apology with a hoof. “I remember you being one of the nicer Rangers anyway.”

Knight Shortcake seemed to beam with pride at that. “Heh, well I try my best. Protect the ponies of the wasteland, that’s what I’m here for.”

I bit my lip slightly at that. “I hope you don’t mind me asking, but if that’s what you’re here for, why don’t you join the Outcasts? Why stick with the Steel Rangers? It seems like they are doing a lot more good.”

Shortcake gave me a grim look. “Because the Outcasts are doomed to fail. Don’t get me wrong, I get what they’re trying to do. Admire it even. Sure some of the Rangers here think they’re all just backstabbing traitors that broke their oaths to the Rangers, but I don’t see it that way.”

Nova raised an eyebrow at that. “Then how do you see it?”

Shortcake shrugged. “It’s like this. The Outcasts are using up resources fast and sticking their necks out for every wasteland civilian that needs help. That might be good right now, but in ten or twenty years that’s going to bite them in the ass. I think we should help the ponies of the wasteland, but if we just keep taking the bullet every time somepony needs help and we end up dying out, then everything we did would just amount to nothing,” He looked back at us, trying to gage our understanding of what he was saying. “I mean, that’s what this is all about right? What the Rangers are doing. What you’re doing. Hell, even what Red Eye is doing. We’re trying to fix the wasteland. Anything short of restoring Equestria to what it once was isn’t enough. It’s got to be everything.”

I felt my heart sink. The idea of restoring Equestria to its former glory seemed impossible. No pony, not even Red Eye and his city of industry could do that. The only thing that could possibly do something like that was…

...Was the Utopia program… And I sure as fuck wasn’t going to let that happen.

“Though, I hope I’m wrong,” Shortcake finally concluded, turning another corner and leading us to a set of stairs that lead up to the next floor. “If the Outcast’s do manage to change things for the better, I’ll eat my words and join them.”

I nodded, accepting that answer. It was good to know not all Steel Rangers were selfish raiders in fancy suits of armour. “Do you know anything about this supposed mole I’m supposed to be dealing with?” I asked, switching subjects. My itching curiosity on who this traitor was was gnawing away inside of me. It felt almost surreal to know that I might come face to face with the pony that had leaked the files on Stable 25 and started this whole mess.

Shortcake gave another shrug. “Not really. But then again, no pony does. They’d have to have access to our files and the files left behind by Stable-Tec from before the bombs, but that doesn't limit it down by much. Pretty much any Scribe with the ability to hack a terminal can access that, and I’m pretty sure most of our Scribes can hack terminals.”

“Do you know any of the Scribes?” I pushed, hoping to get something I could use out of the Knight.

“I mean, I know scribe Hail. She transferred to Filly with me from Manehattan when Iron Hock and his goons broke off from the Rangers. She’s a good mare though. I doubt she’d be a spy for Red Eye,” Shortcake replied truthfully.

“Wouldn’t have been here long enough to leak some that information anyway, even if she was a spy,” I grumbled in agreement. At least that checked one possible option off the list. Only around a hundred to go.

“Perhaps we will learn more from Sardine,” Nova soothed from beside me as we began to approach a large door that I assumed was the entrance to the large office I had seen overlooking the atrium. As we approached, the door slid open with a near silent click, allowing us to hear the voices that were speaking beyond.

“Iron Hock’s soldiers have already attacked some of our brothers,” I heard a pony that I didn’t recognize snarl. “We need to stop holding back and letting him walk all over us. The longer we sit and do nothing, the more territory he gets.”

“We can’t openly declare war on the True Steels. Not while we’re being flanked by both Red Eye and the Outcasts. We’re barely strong enough to fight one war. Three at once is suicide,” The very distinct voice of Paladin Sardine rumbled back. "And with the new Enclave threat, we need to make our next moves very, very carefully."

Nova and I trotted into the office, making out the forms of four ponies crowding around a large, circular table. It reminded me of Toffee and Purity back in the Hollow Shades, plotting over how to best take back their town from Red Eye’s slavers.

“We’re already at war with the True Steels,” The Ranger I hadn’t met before snapped back. “If they weren’t already our enemies when they chose to turn their backs on the Rangers and their oaths, then they became our enemies when they stormed Fort Strong and decimated the remaining Rangers there!”

“I’m not saying they aren’t our enemies. I’m saying that we need to deal with them carefully. Diplomacy is our friend right now. Violence will only get us killed” Sardine boomed. “War is coming to Manehattan, of this I am certain. But if we start it preemptively, we’ll be dead before it’s even begun.”

Shortcake cleared his throat from beside me, making all four ponies gathered around the table lift up their heads and glare at us. Two of them wore red robes, Scribes, if my memory serves correctly. The other two were Sardine and the unknown Ranger, both clad in their heavy suits of power armour.

“What is that civilian and that freak doing here?” one of the Scribes scowled, narrowing her eyes and Nova and I.

“I asked them to be here,” Sardine rumbled back, raising a hoof to silence the Scribe that had spoken. “I expect them to be treated with courtesy, Scribe Inkwell.”

Scribe Inkwell just scowled back. “Elder Blueberry Sabre would never have allowed civilians and mutant freaks to walk all over us. We can deal with our matters on our own. We didn’t need them then, and we don’t need them now.”

“Elder Blueberry Sabre is dead. Perhaps if she had been a little more lenient towards outsiders she would still be alive,” Sardine retorted with a loud huff. Inkwell scowled back and gave me a death glare, but didn’t comment further.

I took a cautious step forward, addressing Sardine. “You were going to tell me more about what you need from me? About the mole?”

That set Inkwell off, making her scowl again. “This is who you got to deal with the mole? We don’t need her!”

“Inkwell, I said that’s enough!” Paladin Sardine bellowed, stomping his hoof angrily on the ground. “If we didn’t need assistance dealing with the mole, then we would have captured them months ago. If you are not capable of playing nice, then leave until we are done here.”

Inkwell stared at him slack jawed for a second before grunting and storming out of the room, pushing her way past me.

“Ignore Inkwell. She means well, but she takes the Steel Ranger oath very seriously. And she hasn’t had the best experience with alicorns,” The scribe that hadn’t spoken yet said in a much kinder tone. Her face softened a little and she waved at Nova and I almost timidly. “I’m Scribe Hail by the way. It’s a pleasure to meet you both,” She blushed, her yellow coat going a deep red. "I'm, uh... I'm a big fan of yours by the way."

A big fan? Of me? That was probably the craziest thing I had ever heard any pony say. I figured I must have made some sort of reputation for my self with the amount of things I had done in the wasteland over the last few weeks, but the idea that somepony, a Steel Ranger no less, was a fan of mine was surreal.

I opened my mouth to comment on that when Paladin Sardine interrupted me. “Regardless of Scribe Inkwell's behaviour, we should return to the topic at hoof,” the large Paladin interjected, taking a step forward. “I can supply you with access to the files that the mole leaked. I am aware of your technical knowhow, perhaps you can use the files to uncover the spy.”

I grimace, completely forgetting about the whole 'fan' comment. That wasn’t overly much to go on. But that said, this was Stable-Tec technology, and that was my specialty. “ Is there anything else you can give me?”

Sardine shook his head. “Unfortunately, not much. As previously stated, this spy has done a terrifyingly good job of staying under the radar. Whenever we seem to be closing in on them, all trials seem to come to an abrupt stop. Almost as if they simply stop existing for a short time. At least long enough for us to lose their trail. We have however managed to intercept and decode a single message sent from Fillydelphia to the spy, though we were unable to make much leeway on its meaning. We suspect the message was one of many, though we have been unable to attain any others,” He gestured over to a large terminal inset into the wall behind him. “This terminal has access to most of the files, including the intercepted message. I advise that you start here.” He gestured to both Knight Shortcake and Scribe Hail as I began approaching the terminal. “Shortcake and Hail will accompany you to ensure that you do not… Meddle... with things you are not intended to.”

I nodded, rolling my eyes. I clicked on the terminal and watched as the lines of code began scrolling across the screen. The terminal had already been unlocked for me, and a good thing too. The password looked like it was around sixteen letters long.

Not that I doubted my ability to hack it even if it had been locked.

“Alright, what do we have here,” I muttered to myself, looking the files over. There were hundreds of different files, only some of them having anything to do with Stable-Tec. It would appear that the Steel Rangers had been using the Stable-Tec database to store much of their own data as well.

“That there is the intercepted message,” Scribe Hail said, pointing to one file on the terminal. “We’ve already read it through quite a few times, but hopefully you might be able to make something out of it.”

I thanked her, pulling the contents of the file up.

>Classified

>Encrypted message…

>Message decrypted…

>Your mission is to acquire and send access to any and all Stable-Tec files associated with something codenamed Project Redirect. It is of utmost importance that this remains on the down-low. This is your most important objective, even above locating the A.A.S.S. Do not allow anypony to realize what you are doing, and destroy all access to all information that you send to me. We cannot allow anypony, even the Steel Rangers to figure out what is going on.

>Sincerely, Leaden Excellent.

“Leaden Excellent,” I mouthed, reading over the name. “What kind of fucking name is that?”

“We’ve searched through every file and text that we can on the name, and have been unable to find any matches,” Hail stated, looking at the odd name herself. “Nor were we able to find anything out about this Project Redirect that they mention.”

“I’m not surprised. It sounds like they put great efforts into covering it up,” I grumbled back. This was just what I needed. Another secret project that was going to give me a hard time. Dealing with the Utopia Program was already hard enough.

Not sure what else I could gather from what was most likely an intentionally vague message, I started scrolling through the other files. There was one bit of information I knew this Red Eye spy had leaked. Scrolling through the files, I quickly spotted the file labeled ‘Stable 25’ and opened it.

>Stable 25

>This file has been updated on request of Co-founder of Stable-Tec, Scootaloo.

>Stable 25 is a little bit of an oddity among Stables out in the Manehattan area, or all of Equestria for that matter. Most Stables have a designated experiment to go with it, but Stable 25 is a testing ground for a larger collection of much smaller experiments. The primary experiment of course, is to see if it is possible for leadership to endure in the event that Celestia and Luna are taken out of the picture. A project that Pureblood has been very interested in, no surprise there.

>Other tests include Stable 25 being one of the only Stables where Pipbucks are designed to be easily removable from the inhabitants foreleg. A key is of course still required, but the locks are significantly weaker and all Stable dwellers will be designated a key for their specific pipbuck. An extension of the first experiment. A test to see if leadership can still be maintained, regardless of the extensive monitoring that the pipbucks of other Stables such as Stable 2 provide.

>Perhaps the other most notable experiment is the instalment of a new device called the Atmospheric Administering Sustenance System, or A.A.S.S for short. Scootaloo had it implemented into the Stable just a few days ago. She said it was of the utmost importance that it was kept on the down low from everypony, including the designated Overstallion, whomever that will be, until they are put in control of the Stable proper.

>Hopefully, that never needs to happen.

>There is one other experiment… or at least what I assume is an experiment. I’m not really all that sure. Stable 25’s maneframe is-

[The remainder of this file has been deleted as of 31 days ago]

I blinked, suddenly thrown off by the abrupt stop to the file.

Part of the file had been deleted? Assumably that meant that whatever the rest of this file held pertained to this Project Redirect, if the spy had succeeded in deleting what they were supposed to anyway. And only thirty one days ago? That would have been only shortly before I left the Stable for the first time. I turned away from the screen and pointed it out to Scribe Hail who was chatting quietly with Shortcake behind me while I read. “What do you make of this?”

Scribe Hail looked over my shoulder at the deleted section of the file. She gave a small grunt of confusion. “I’m not sure. None of the other files that were leaked by the spy were deleted. Maybe it was an error on the computer?”

I shook my head. “I don’t think so. Too much of a coincidence for that.”

“You think it is connected to this Redirect thing?” Shortcake asked, asking the obvious.

I nodded. “What else could it be?”

“Then what do you suggest?” Nova asked, reading over the file herself. “Is there any way to retrieve the lost data?”

I bit my lip, thinking. “Not that I know of. Not unless there is a backup computer somewhere that stores everything.”

“This building's basement houses an unfinished Stable that was intended to be used as tours to show off Stable-Tec technology to tourists,” Knight Shortcake interjected helpfully. “There’s a maneframe down there that houses the locations of all the Stables. I think it backs up a lot of the other Stable-Tec information as well.”

I felt myself grin at that. It was like the answers were practically being given to me. “That’s perfect! Do you think you can lead me to it?”

Knight Shortcake gave a sheepish nod. “I mean, I’ll need to get permission from Paladin Sardine, but yeah, I don’t see why n-”

“What do you mean he’s refusing to talk!” Paladin Sardine scowled at the other ranger in the room, cutting off Shortcake. I turned to see the two fully armoured Rangers still standing around the round table, talking back and forth.

“He said he refused to speak to anyone associated with, and I’m quoting him here, ‘primitive tin can suits’,” The Ranger replied grimly. He raised a hoof and pointed at me. “He says he wants to speak with her, and her only.”

I stiffened. “Wait, what’s happening.”

Paladin Sardine sighed and shook his head. “It would seem that I am going to need to ask another favour of you before you even complete the first task. That Enclave prisoner we captured... they’re asking for you.”

Nova raised an eyebrow. “Why. We have no business with him.”

Sardine shrugged. “Clearly he doesn’t see it that way,” He turned so that he could face us more directly. “I understand that you are eager to get this whole interaction with us over with so you can return to Manehattan, but I would like to request you to accompany me to interrogate the prisoner. Perhaps we can both learn something valuable out of the exchange.”

“What information are you hoping to get out of him?” Nova questioned, stepping up beside me.

“Anything on the movements of the Enclave,” The Ranger that I didn’t know the name of answered. “When the Enclave came down from the sky, they decided to start making a lot of enemies fast, the Steel Rangers included. And with their advanced weaponry and aerial advantage, we need all the help we can get combating them.”

“I nodded. “Alright. I’ll help out,” I wasn't feeling particularly fond of the Enclave myself. Not after they had attacked me, the ponies at Skyfire’s Bar, and the ponies out in Oasis.

Taking my confirmation as a cue to go, Sardine turned and began quickly leading us out of the room and down a few more hallways until we reached a section of the building that the Steel Rangers had converted into a prison area.

It looked to have once been the main office location, with multiple small rooms filled with even smaller cubicles. Now the doorways had been reinforced with iron bars and turrets had been expertly installed into the ceiling. Most of the makeshift cells were empty. All except one.

Two Steel Ranger guards stood sentinel outside of the iron barred doors. Beyond them, I could make out the form of a pegasus relaxing in a rather uncomfortable looking chair. He had been stripped of his black, insectoid looking armour and currently had his hind hooves propped up on the slanted, rust coated table in front of him.

His composure was a lot calmer than it had been when I had watched the Ranger first drag him in, but I could tell he was still relatively nervous from his darting eyes as they moved from one of us to the next.

One of the two guards quickly pulled the barred door aside for us as Nova, Sardine and I approached. As we entered, Sardine quickly ordered Knight Shortcake and Hail to wait for us outside.

“Alright, I brought the Stable Dweller and her friend as requested,” Sardine rumbled, marching over to where the Enclave pegasus was resting. “Now you’re going to cooperate.”

The pegasus glared up at him for a second, his eyes narrowing. Then he leaned back further in his chair and gave a smug looking smirk. “Nope.”

“What do you mean, no,” Sardine scowled, his resonant tone vibrating the walls slightly.

“I mean, no. I said I refuse to talk while you Ranger bastards are present. So fuck off,” The pegasus shot back, giving Paladin Sardine a twisted grin.

Sardine stamped his metal clad hoof in frustration and gave a loud grunt. “Fine. You have five minutes,” He turned to me and gave me an even stare through his tinted visor. “You two have five minutes to deal with him. Get anything you can out of the prick.”

I nodded back and slowly approached the table with Nova as Sardine trotted out of the room.

“So. You’re the unicorn that’s got the whole Enclave up in arms and got my whole squad massacred for,” The pegasus soothed as I sat down across from him. “You don’t look like such a big deal to me. Your name’s Amber, right?”

“What do you want to talk to me about?” I retorted back, not feeling in the mood to deal with this ponies taunts.

The pegasus smirked. “I want to make a deal with you,” He leaned in close, his voice lowering so that only Nova and I could hear. “I want you to help me get out of this place.”

I cocked an eyebrow. “And why the hell would I do something like that?”

The pegasus scoffed, his eyes narrowing. “Because you ain’t one of these Ranger fucks, why should you stick your neck out for them? I know you’re trying to get back to Manehattan. I assure you, the Enclave can protect you better than these steel clad dicks can. Besides, if you stick around here, you’re going to have much bigger problems.”

I leaned back, glaring at him. “I’m not a big fan of the Steel Rangers, true, but as far as I’m concerned, the Enclave is a hell of a lot worse than they are. That’s hardly a reason to help you escape after you attacked me and my friends.”

“Alright, fine. Here’s a bigger piece of incentive for you then,” the pegasus scowled, gritting their teeth. “The Steel Rangers searched me down, took all my shit, but not quick enough. I sent out a signal to the Enclave high command. There’s a fleet coming out this way to rescue me as we speak. You maybe have about an hour before this place goes up in flame.”

“I find it unlikely the Enclave would take such drastic action so soon to help just a single soldier,” Nova coed, glaring at the pegasus. “Do you have any proof of this?”

The Enclave trooper leaned back in his seat again, looking us over. “Clearly you don’t know the Enclave like I do. They wouldn’t dare let any of the information I’m holding slip into enemy hooves. They’ve already wiped out one settlement for less. They’ll be here. And when they do, this whole place is coming down,” I grimaced, realizing he was right about that. He leaned forwards again, this time his smirk was wide enough that it almost reached his ears. “And if that isn’t enough incentive, I’ve got something else that might be a little more personal for you…”

I felt a shiver pass through me at his words. I didn’t like his tone one bit. “Oh yeah? What?”

“I heard what you said to that striped cunt friend of yours. That you have friends waiting for you in Friendship City,” The pegasus started. “Well it just so happens that the Enclave is on their way there now as we speak. Getting ready to burn the whole fucking place to the ground.”

I bolted to my hooves in alarm. “You’re lying!”

“I’m not,” The pegasus smirked back. “We had a spy inside of the city. Raspberry Tart I think her name was. She’s letting the Enclave waltz right into the city without resistance. Once inside they’re going to kill everypony. You can kiss your sorry friends goodbye.”

I spun around, darting for the door to the cell. Nova quickly pulled herself up and moved beside me. I had to get out of here. I had seen just how deadly the Enclave could be with just one Raptor and a couple troops. If they were planning to kill everypony in Friendship City, then… Then my friends were about to be in for a whole heap of trouble.

The Enclave pegasus’ eyes widened as I made for the exit. “W-wait! What do you think you’re doing! You’ve got to help me out of here!” I could hear fear creeping back into his voice. He jumped up, his wings flaring. “Don’t just leave! No wait!”

I ignored him. He had given me much bigger issues to deal with.

I slammed on the bars to the door with a hoof, making the two Ranger guards outside pull it open for me. The second it was open, I burst out and began to move towards the hospital. I had to get Xayah and Tinker and get out of this place. Fast!

“Where do you think you’re going?” Paladin Sardine demanded, stepping in front of me before I could charge off. Three fully armoured Steel Rangers flanked him, backing him up as he confronted us.

“I’m leaving. Right now!” I declared, gesturing for the large Paladin to step aside. “I need to get to Friendship City and-”

“You aren’t going anywhere until we’ve dealt with the mole,” Sardine monotone back, his massive guns aiming at me.

I snarled. “The deals off. I have more important things to deal with right now!” I turned to address Nova. “Go get Xayah and Tinker. We’re getting out of here.”

“That won’t be possible,” Sardine scowled, advancing towards us before Nova could move. “I wanted to keep this civil between us, but if I need to hold your friends captive I will.”

I glared back at him, my magic wrapping around the handle of Braeburn's Liberator. “What did you do to them?”

“Nothing yet,” Sardine informed me, his voice shifting to a softer tone to try and defuse the situation somewhat. It didn’t work. “We aren’t monsters. The colt will be safe. The stripe on the other hoof is in a very different situation.”

“You lay a hoof on her and you’re dead,” I growled back. I was done negotiating. I had just fought through the entirety of Fillydelphia to get Xayah back. If Sardine thought he could keep her from me with only a couple of Steel Rangers in the way, then he was dead wrong.

“Then I suggest you cooperate. Make this whole ordeal easier on yourself,” Sardine retorted. “What did you learn from the pegasus.”

“He led the Enclave right to you. You have roughly an hour before his buddies show up to rip this place a new one,” I spat back, trying to move past him. He easily blocked me with one of his large hooves.

Paladin Sardine grunted. “Damn. We aren’t prepared for a direct attack from the Enclave. Not right now…” He turned from me, addressing one of the Rangers behind him. “Lock the base down and ready everypony for an assault. We might be in for one hell of a fight. No pony gets in or out of the base,” the Ranger he addressed gave a quick salute and charged off.

I scowled. “You can’t lock this place down. Not yet. We need to get out of here first.”

“No, you aren’t,” Sardine reiterated. “If anything, this should give you one hell of a reason to stay. The Enclave attack is going to put this place into more chaos than it has seen in a long time. If the mole is going to act, they are going to act now while the rest of the base is busy. They won’t have a chance like this again, and neither will you. You need that spy gone just as much as we do. If not for the Rangers, then for Stable 25. Correct me if I'm wrong, but you have a personal score to settle with this spy, no?”

I growled, more to myself than to him. Damn it, he was right. the last thing I needed was Red Eye getting more control and influence.

“Knight Shortcake!” Sardine roared, ordering the young Ranger Knight to move over to him. “Accompany Amber and the alicorn. Make sure they stay on task. Help them if you can.”

Shortcake gave a quick nod and a salute of his own. He turned to face Nova and I. “I can take you down to the maneframe, if that’s still what you want to do?”

I took a deep breath and nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, I just need to do something first.”

“Don’t worry Amber, I’ll make sure Tinker stays safe,” Xayah said, flexing one of her mechanical legs and wrapping her metal hoof around her anti-Material rifle. Tinker had, much to my surprise, done a wonderful job of enhancing Xayah’s forelimbs. They seemed to be much lighter, both in colour and in build. I could tell that despite Xayah’s disdain for them, they were much more comfortable than they had previously been. “He’ll be fine.”

“I’m worried about you as well,” I stated flatly, giving her a level stare. “I don’t want to come back and find that the Enclave vaporized you.”

Nova and I had quickly returned to the hospital to check in with Xayah and Tinker before we began heading down to the basement with Shortcake. I was thankful to see that as a result of the impending Enclave attack, two rangers had been posted on guard duty outside the hospital. I had been worried that the Rangers wouldn't give Xayah much protection on the account of her being a zebra.

Xayah seemed to be doing better as well, and a lot of colour had returned to her face, but the doctors were still insistent that she remained in bed for a little longer. For the first time, I wondered if they were keeping her in the hospital for her health, or if this was part of Sardine’s hostage situation. Regardless, I wasn’t going to pull Xayah away from medical assistance if she did indeed need it.

“Do not be a foolish pony,” Xayah quipped back, giving me a smug look. “I think I have proven to be very capable in combat.”

I grimaced. “I’m not questioning that. Celestia knows you could probably kick my ass if you tried.”

"That is debatable," Both Nova and Xayah responded, giving me a flat look. I Rolled my eyes, but didn't think it necessary to dive into the argument of who was stronger than who.

“Besides, she can be super sneaky now with her new legs!” Tinker piped up, given me a wide grin. He tapped one of her now white, cybernetic legs.

I gave him a small pat on the wither. “You did a good job with those.”

“Tinker added Stealth talismans into the legs,” Xayah said almost proudly, giving the colt a warm smile. “They are greatly appreciated.”

Nova gave us all a skeptical look. “Where did you get Stealth technology like that?” She asked bluntly, looking the legs over curiously.

Tinker flushed, pointing over to a shelf on the other side of the room that seemed to hold a lot of very expensive equipment. “I, um… stole them from off the shelf over there…”

The doctor’s head beside us bolted upright at the colt's testament and stared at him. “You did what!” Tinker stuck his tongue out at the doctor triumphantly. The doctor huffed, their eyes narrowing. “This is why I am never having foals. Goddesses, I miss Elder Blueberry Sabre. She would never have tolerated this.”

Moving back out into the hall, I expected to find Knight Shortcake once again waiting for me. I was instead surprised to come face to face with a snarling Scribe Inkwell.

“You, Stable Dweller. Come with me. Now. Leave the Alicorn freak behind,” The scowling Scribe growled, gesturing me towards a small hallway off to the side.

I paused, hesitant to follow. “What exactly do you want?”

“Get over here and I’ll tell you,” Inkwell demanded, stomping her hoof slightly. “I know you don’t have all day, and neither do I, so make it snappy.”

Giving her a suspicious look, I signalled for Nova to stay while I followed the Scribe around the corner. She walked silently ahead of me for a bit before turning and entering a small room that branched off from the main hallway.

Cautiously, I followed after her, the large metal door to the room sliding shut behind me. The second the door closed, a force slammed into me and pushed me violently up against a wall. My head bounced slightly as it was knocked against the metal surface, making my vision spinning slightly.

“What’s your game,” the Scribe hissed, the gun she had pulled still pressed against my neck. “And don’t fuck with me. I won’t hesitate to blow your fucking head off.”

“Look, I don’t know what your problem with me and my friends is. We don’t have any game. We just want to get back to Manehattan,” I scowled back, trying to twist out of the Scribes grip. She was a lot stronger than she looked, and certainly a lot stronger than me.

...Or maybe I was just weak. I was probably just weak.

Inkwell gave me another menacing glare. “I’ve done my research. I know all about you and your friends, and the facts don’t add up,” she hesitated a second before slowly pulling away from me, though she kept her gun aimed at my head. “No pony just walks out of a Stable one day and becomes a fucking wasteland hero the next. It simply doesn’t work like that…”

I gave an almost arrogant smile. “Actually, from what I’ve seen, that’s exactly how it works. And I’m not the only one.”

Inkwell huffed, lowering the barrel of her gun ever so slightly. “No… No, I suppose you’re not. But you are the only one still alive. All my sources have told me that all the other Stable dwellers turned heroes have met a rather untimely fate in the last three days. Lightbringer, got blown up in Maripony. Security, killed in action in an explosion atop Shadowbolt tower out in the Hoof. I wonder how much longer you have till something finally kills you.”

I took a deep breath at that. I didn’t like the idea that my life was quickly racing towards some sort of grand finale where I meet and unfortunate, grisly end. “Is there something you wanted to tell me, or did you just drag me aside to question my intentions and tell me I’m probably going to die soon?”

Inkwell glared at me for a second before looking around, her eyes scanning the room for danger. “No. I came to warn you,” I raised an eyebrow, inciting her to continue. “A few minutes ago. I intercepted a second message from this mysterious Leaden Excellent to the spy. It was sloppy. Sloppier than their usual MO anyway. I think your presence here has them in a bit of a panic…”

I felt my heartbeat quicken a little. “Well? What did it say?”

Inkwell gave me a stern look. “Not much. It said only this…” She paused, finally lowering her gun completely. “Execute Amber Aura.”

I returned to the Hospital to find Nova and Shortcake waiting for me outside. Shortcake looked up at my approach, signalling me over. “Are you ready to head to the maneframe?”

I nodded, looking around. “Where did Scribe Hail go?”

“Sardine called her away to deal with the Enclave threat. They’re currently trying to see if they can find any Enclave radio signals and get some sort of tactical advantage on them,” Shortcake replied as he began leading us down a long, sloping hallway that branched off from the Atrium. From the hallways size, I figured it was intended to carry large groups of tourists down to the unfinished Stable below.

The hallway was lined with long since looted display cases that at one point had shown off different pieces of Stable-Tec technology and there were large portraits on the walls depicting what I could only imagine were much happier ideas of what the post apocalypse would look like.

“Have they had any luck?” I asked hopefully, ignoring the voice of Sweetie belle as a pre recorded message of her voice spouted off some long since useless Stable-Tec facts. I looked up at one of the paintings on the wall as we passed it, seeing the image of a pony in Stable Barding and curly yellow hair smiling out at me while a balefire bomb exploded behind him.

“Not that I’m aware of,” Shortcake replied, turning his head slightly to look back at me. “With any luck, that Enclave bastard was just bluffing and there won't be an attack.”

“There will be,” I assured him. “The Enclave wont stand to have possibly valuable information in the hooves of anypony that isn’t them. They attacked me and everypony at Skyfire’s for less.”

We continued to walk in silence for a bit as we moved farther and farther down the hall. The only noise around us was the clanking of Shortcake’s heavy armour and the stomping of his hoof steps.

Up ahead, the tunnel seemed to turn to rock and stone. Real at first glance, but the closer we got, I began to see places where chunks of plaster from the “Cave wall” had begun to fall away, showing off the wire mesh that held it up beneath. Two hundred years ago, before age and decay had rotted its facade, it would have made a very realistic looking cave.

Inset into the fake rocks sat a massive Stable door. It was identical to the door of Stable 25, or any other Stable for that matter, though this one had a large yellow zero printed across the front.

Shortcake trotted over and pulled a rusting switch against the adjacent wall. Not a second later, two spinning, yellow lights that hung from above the pretend Stable door sprang to life, something I noticed hadn’t been at any of the other Stables I had seen.

“Are we to expect any dangers down there?” Nova asked, her own gaze landing on the mock Stable door.

Shortcake shook his head. “There shouldn’t be any. This is far from the first time we’ve been down here. A hellhound once tunnelled its way in, but that was a long time ago and Elder Blueberry Sabre made sure we made quick work of it. Most you’ll find down there now are radroaches.”

“Stable-Tec welcomes you to our new line of subterranean stables, featuring our patented S.A.S. arcano-technology. S.A.S. technology is the product of years of dedicated, uncompromising effort by our Stable-Tec scientists to bring you the most advanced and enduring designs based on the three pillars of post-apocalyptic survival: Safety, Amenities and Sustainability.”

The crackling voice of Sweetie Belle spoke to us as the door began to swing open. I raised an eyebrow in surprise to find that this Stable door opened on hinges and didn’t slide away on a massive pendulum like all the others.

“Ignore the recorded voices,” Shortcake told us again, leading us deeper into the fake Stable. “We all just get used to them after a while. The maneframe is just down here, next to the actual Stable zero.”

“This isn’t the real Stable zero?” I asked in surprise, following the Knight into the eerie Stable hallway and following his advice in ignoring the Sweetie Belle recordings.

Shortcake shook his head. “Nah. This Stable here is just made for tours. The real one is down by the maneframe. Unfinished. I think it leads into some sort of cave system where the Stable rooms are uncompleted. We admittedly haven’t explored as much of that area as we would have liked. Not very many ponies can fit through the Stable door and there's little else to see outside a small hoofful of metal walls.”

Before I could ask exactly what 'not many ponies can fit through the door' meant, Shortcake directed us to a large elevator that went down into the Stable-Tec HQ basement. The door opened up with a loud bing, and we all quickly stepped inside.

I chuckled nervously as the elevator doors slammed shut behind us. “You know, I’ve had some pretty bad experiences with elevators. Seems like every elevator I’ve ever been in collapses while I’m inside it.”

Shortcake gulped. “I wish you had told me that before I decided to get into the elevator with you,” I gave him a sheepish grin, only making him shudder more.

The elevator ride down was significantly shorter than I expected. I suppose if it led to a Stable, then ponies would have needed to get to it fast. Come to think of it, who the fuck puts the entrance to a Stable at the bottom of an Elevator? That has got to be the single stupidest idea I’ve ever heard.

I braced myself for impact out of instinct as the elevator came to an abrupt stop, expecting it to suddenly start free falling. To my surprise, nothing happened save the sturdy elevator door sliding open once more. We seemed to have arrived safely at our destination.

“And here we are,” Knight Shortcake declared, stepping out first and waving towards the room beyond with a sweeping hoof. “The Stable-Tec maneframe and Stable zero.”

The room was dark and cold with little light to see by, save for the blinking lights of the large maneframe in the centre of the room. Two turrets sat by the entrance, their metal chassis’ coated in a thick layer of dust. I could tell that this room hadn’t seen very much use from the Steel Rangers, though a few sets of hoof prints implied that some ponies had been here not all that long ago.

I once again wished I still had my pipbuck so that I could use my pipbuck light. Instead, I had to rely on the round beam of yellow light that was being emitted from Shortcake’s helmet.

The round light reflected off the circular gear door of the real Stable zero inset into the far wall. Through the dim light, I was able to make out what Shortcake had meant by not many ponies being able to fit through the Stable door. It had been jammed open, but only open enough for a small framed pony to squeeze through.

I moved up to the large maneframe first, reaching out with a hoof and clicking it on. To my surprise, it was already unlocked and had a file pulled open. A file pertaining to one Stable 101.

Not finding anything I didn't already know on the file, I closed it and began searching through the rest. Most of the files were simply records of the locations of all the Stables across Equestria, but there was a lot of backed up data as well, though most of it had been encoded and compressed to reduce the extensive files sizes.

“Any luck?” Nova asked, hovering behind me and looking over my shoulder.

I nodded, pulling up an encoded file labeled, ‘Stable 25’. “Yeah, I think this here is the file that we were reading upstairs,” I paused for a second, looking over the file over. “It looks like somepony tried to delete it off of here as well, but they weren’t successful.”

“Why?” Shortcake asked, stopping a few paces behind me and looking around the dark room.

“It’s likely the maneframe has some sort of backup. Stable-Tec probably didn’t want their data getting destroyed and put fail-safes in place in case the files got damaged. Give me a sec, I think I can decode it.”

I pulled up the in-terminal data and began scrolling through the lines of coding. I didn’t even need to try and hack it, I knew the password as soon as I saw it.

>Passord: cmcforevor

>Password accepted

>Welcome Applebloom

I smirked as the file opened up, giving me complete access. I was getting terrifyingly good at this. Shortcake whistled in surprise at the speed in which I hacked the terminal. “Are you sure you aren’t interested in joining the Rangers? You’d make one hell of a Scribe.”

I gave him a smug look, but chose not to answer. I had no desire to become a Ranger. Pulling up the file, I quickly scrolled down the section I had already read until I found the part that had previously been deleted.

>Hopefully, that never needs to happen.

>There is one other experiment… or at least what I assume is an experiment. I’m not really all that sure. Stable 25’s maneframe is connected directly to the Crusader Maneframe mark II. In specific events, and assuming one has the proper password, Project Redirect can be activated directly from the Stable 25 Overstallion’s terminal.

>I hope we never need to use Project Redirect. If we need to use it, it means that things are bad. Really bad. The bombs would have fallen, the Institute will have been compromised and [Redacted] is our only salvation. Please don’t let that happen. Celestia damn it, don’t let that happen…

>Co founder of Stable-Tec and Overmare of Stable 2, Sweetie Belle.

I sat there, reading over the file again and again. The Overstallion terminal in Stable 25 was connected to the massive maneframe in the Institute? Why? For what purpose? And I still had no clue what Project Redirect was.

I was about to turn away from the terminal when another file caught my eye. This one was encoded multiple times. Somepony was clearly trying to keep others from reading its contents.

Curiosity killed the cat as they say.

I pulled open the coding and began hacking away at it. Like before, despite the extensive security, I managed to pull it open in record time. The password had been ‘Redirect’.

The file wasn’t what I had expected. Instead of being a terminal entry, it consisted of a collection of messages that seemed to have been sent back and forth from the maneframe to another terminal located somewhere in Fillydelphia.

>Scribe Valour is taken care off. [Message sent]

>Data secured. [Message sent - File ‘Stable 1’ attached]

>The Rangers are on to me. They suspect. [Message sent]

>Abort. We’ll send a new one. -Leaden Excellent- [Message received]

>Knight Orange Peel is taken care off. Body stashed with the first one. [Message sent]

>Data secured. [Message sent - File ‘Stable 25’ attached]

>The Rangers are on to me. They suspect. [Message sent]

>Abort. We’ll send a new one. -Leaden Excellent. [Message received]

The messages kept going, following a similar pattern to the first few. I looked away from the messages, drawing Shortcakes attention to them. “Do these names mean anything to you?”

Shortcake trotted over, looking over the messages himself. “Leaden Excellent is still a mystery to me, but Scribe Valour and Knight Orange Peel? Yeah, they were members of the Steel Rangers positioned here before I transferred from Manehattan. They were both killed in raider attacks before I moved here.”

“Perhaps they suspected the spy,” Nova suggested. “The spy might have had to kill them to keep their cover. Faked a raider attack perhaps?”

I hummed thoughtfully. “Maybe… I don’t know. This doesn’t feel right,” a specific line tugged at my mind. Body stashed with the first one. I turned to face Knight Shortcake. “What happened to Scribe Valour and knight Orange Peel after they died?”

Shortcake shrugged. “Not sure. Their bodies were disposed of before I moved here from Manehattan. They were most likely buried like the rest of our fallen brothers and sisters outside.”

Alarms were starting to sound in my mind. Something was off. Really, really off. A terrible suspicion suddenly washed over me and I turned to face the slightly ajar door to Stable zero. “You said no pony could fit in there, right?”

“Some ponies can,” Shortcake corrected. “If they’re small enough… I suppose they could teleport in if they’re a unicorn too. Not many unicorns in the Steel Rangers though. Most of us are Earth ponies,” he tapped the side of his helmet with a hoof to emphasize his point.

Teleport in. That made the sinking feeling in my mind suddenly cement. I gave Shortcake a grim look. “Are you okay if I go check out the Stable for a second?”

Shortcake gave me a confused look. “I mean, sure. Not much in there save for unfinished Stable walls and caves.”

I nodded and trotted over to the door. I flared my horn up to teleport in, but found that there was just enough room for me to squeeze myself through. Barely.

After a second of struggling, I pulled myself through the gap and landed on the cold floor of the Stable entrance room. I pulled myself back up, looking back through the cracked open door and at Nova and Shortcake on the other side.

“Nova, do you think you can teleport in?”

Nova grimaced and glanced up at her badly cracked horn. She stole herself for a second before letting it flare with light. There was a pop, and the large alicorn materialized beside me in a large flash of light. She rubbed her horn gingerly with a hoof, her head clearly in a lot of pain from teleporting.

“You two see anything in there?” Shortcake called, peeking at us through the hole.

I glanced around, spotting little more than a curled up skeleton with a large bow on their head on the floor by my hooves. Curiously, they had an early-model pipbuck on their fore hoof. To my right sat a lone tunnel that descended deeper into the unfinished Stable. I shook my head. “Not yet. Nova and I are going to go a little deeper. Wait for us here.”

I audibly heard Shortcake nod as his metal helmet clanked against the metal armour. There was a stomp as he shifted into a headstrong, guard-like posture.

“What do you expect to find down there?” Nova asked me as I started walking into the dark cavern. The cave around us seemed to get darker and darker as we descended, moving farther and farther away from any light sources. The only light we had to see from was the dull, amber glow of my horn.

“I’m not sure. Hopefully answers,” I answered back, my hoof skidding slightly below me as the dark tunnel began to slope downwards. “We need to get this whole ordeal with the Rangers over fast. I don’t know how much time we have left until the Enclave arrives at Friendship City. Hopefully what we’re looking for is down here.”

There was a few seconds of silence between us as we delved down deeper, neither of us really knowing what to say to the other. With each step, the caves seemed to fill with a vile stench that wafted up from the depths below, slowly overpowering my other senses. The stench was familiar, though I was having difficulty placing it.

Finally, Nova broke the silence. “What do you plan to do about Tinker?”

I looked back at her, confused. “Wha… What do you mean?”

“Tinker. The colt that is accompanying you. What do you plan to do about him,” Nova elaborated. “I doubt your journey will be over once you reach Friendship City. Will you continue to drag him across the wasteland with you? I find that choice to be unlikely, though I do not know where else Tinker will go. He has lost both of his parents already.”

My head drooped. “Oh… I… I don’t know. I haven’t really thought about it yet,” I said honestly. “I was just so focused on getting him away from Fillydelphia, I never stopped to think about what would happen with him after…” I paused, trying to think of what to do about that. “I could drop him off in the Hollow Shades, maybe… he knows people there. Toffee could look after him…”

“When?” Nova pushed, taking a step towards me. The alicorn looked oddly menacing in the gloom, her slitted eyes seemingly glowing in the darkness. “You are running out of time to stop this Utopia program. You do not have the time to take a trip out to the Hollow Shades.”

“Are you suggesting something then?” I asked back, getting the distinct impression that Nova was trying to build up to something.

Nova held my gaze for a moment, then hesitated, looking away shyly. “I am not sure. No. Maybe.”

“If you have an idea, I’d love to hear it,” I pushed.

Nova glanced back up at me, her own expression confused. “You are not like I thought you would be Amber Aura. Not at all.”

I cocked my head at her, waiting for her to elaborate. “What did you expect me to be like?”

“I am not sure. More like the goddess I suppose. That is why I came to you in the first place. Seeking family,” Nova said honestly. “Though I do not think I fully understood what that meant.”

“You came to me looking for servitude,” I corrected, realizing that to Nova those were probably the same thing.

“Correct,” Nova deadpanned, holding my gaze. “Perhaps what I am saying is that you were not the pony I should have been looking for…”

I raised an eyebrow in surprise. “Are you offering to look after Tinker once we get to Friendship City?”

Again, Nova hesitated. “Maybe. Though I will leave it up to Tinker as to what he desires to do. But if he wishes, we- I will look after him until a proper home can be found…” I saw a strange emotion cross her face, her eyes seemingly lost in some sort of nostalgia. “I think… I think I was a teacher once… before the goddess… Perhaps I could be good… with kids or… I do not know…”

I remembered her mentioning that briefly when she had first introduced herself. I gave her a small nod, not really knowing what else to say. “We’ll leave that up to Tinker once we reach Friendship City, but you’re right. I can’t keep dragging him around the wasteland with me. That would just get him killed.”

Nova opened her mouth to respond, but before she could, something caught her eye and she lifted her gaze to stare at something behind me. “Amber, I think we have a problem…” her hoof raised and tapped at a large crack in the rock face. The cavern shuddered, and the wall crumbled away, revealing a hidden room beyond.

I turned, raising my horn to illuminate the area before me. I felt myself take a small step back and a loud gasp escaped my lips.

I finally realized what the terrible stench was… it was rot...

The concealed room was filled with corpses. Some of them looked rather old, as if they had been rotting down here for months, but others were more fresh, as if they had only been dumped down here a few weeks or even days ago. Large, bloody drag marks indicated that the ponies had not died here, but been moved here from a different location. But all the bodies had at least one thing in common. They were all members of the Steel Rangers.

I raised a hoof to my muzzle in an attempt to lessen the overwhelming smell of rotting flesh and decay. I swallowed, trying to clear the vile taste that the rank air had started to accumulate in my mouth.

I took a step forward, reaching for the dog tag that hung around the neck of the closest Ranger corpse. The name read ‘Orange Peel’.

I staggered back, moving to the next corpse. I wasn’t surprised to find their tag reading the name ‘Valour’.

“What the hell,” I grunted, coughing in a futile attempt not to gag.

“If They died in a raider attack… what are their bodies doing down here,” Nova mused, reading over Orange Peel’s dog tag herself. “They do not look like they were killed by raiders…”

“I think I know…” I breathed, my eyes catching on two of the corpses that had been carelessly tossed into the corner of the room. From the still fresh blood that spilled down their bodies, I could tell they were the most recent.

Daring myself to get closer, I limped over to the two bodies and looked down at them. The terrified faces of Knight Shortcake and Scribe Hail stared back at me with wide, unblinking eyes, their stiff hooves still wrapped around each others cold corpses in a terrified embrace. A large bullet hole dripped blood from the centre of both of their foreheads.

“We’ve been looking for the wrong type of spy…”

Nova stared in horror at the corpses. “But… If they’re down there… how did we just see them still alive… how did Shortcake bring us down here…”

“Sardine told us that every time they thought they were getting close to catching the mole, all traces of them would disappear, as if they simply ceased to exist,” I reminded her, leaning down to examine the two corpses. Pieces slowly began falling into place in my head. “I thought that maybe it was because the mole was covering their tracks. I was wrong. I think we were wrong about a lot of things. For instance… There's more than one spy… This is a whole conspiracy...”

Nova gave me a confused look. "A conspiracy? What do you mean?"

‘Abort. We’ll send a new one.’ The terminal had read. I gulped, a shiver passing through me as I finally realized what that meant. There were a whole lot of bodies down here...

“The mole isn’t working for Red Eye. Not directly anyway,” I snarled, everything finally clicking into place inside my head, the final piece of the puzzle falling perfectly into its spot. “They’re working for the Institute… for Pureblood... The spy we’re looking for is a synth…”

BOOM!

The whole cavern rocked as a large explosion detonated somewhere far above our heads. Nova and I flinched back as a few rocks collapsed downwards towards us, one nearly taking off my horn as it slammed into the ground inches in front of my face.

“I suppose that means the Enclave is here,” Nova muttered, her slitted eyes transfixed on the cave roof above us.

I nodded. “Yeah. And it also means there’s a good chance that Scribe Hail is going to use this opportunity to leak a whole hell of a lot of information to Pureblood,” I spun around, racing back up the cavern tunnel and towards the gear door of Stable zero. “We need to get up there! Now!”

The Stable door was still slightly ajar, giving me just enough to squeeze back through into the mainframe room. I stumbled to the floor, quickly trying to pull myself back up.

I felt the rocket flashing towards me a few seconds before it exploded. I jumped backwards defensively, only to be sent flying backwards as the explosive projector detonated inches away from my hooves, my head cracking against the steel wall of the room. Pain flared across my whole body as the explosion seared off a layer of my flesh.

Nova flashed into the room and protectively stood over me, her cracked horn glowing dangerously as she faced off against the silhouetted Ranger that quickly approached us from across the room.

I pulled myself back up, my head spinning and Braeburn's Liberator rising in my magical grasp. I grasped onto the side of the wall for support as I tried my best to haul myself up onto my hooves proper and face the Ranger.

“You are very clever, Amber Aura,” The voice of Shortcake spoke at me as the synth approached. His tone had lost most of its inflection and now just sounded hollow. “But you are getting too close to uncovering things the director doesn't want you to know. I’m afraid that I have been ordered to carry out your execution.”

I forced myself to grit my teeth to avoid screaming. I had liked Shortcake damn it! Him and Scribe Hail were probably the only two Rangers I could tolerate, and now I was finding out they were both fucking dead and replaced with synths. Fucking Celestia damn me!

Nova wrapped her magic around me and tossed me out of the way just as another missile streaked forwards from Shortcake’s battle saddle. I hit the ground hard, my sides screaming with protest as they scrapped against sharp scraps of metal on the ground.

Nova’s horn flared, a shield of magic forming between her and the missile seconds before it hit. The shield exploded, sending Nova flying backwards and slamming into the large Stable door across from me, her whole body steaming and a trail of smoke following her through the air.

I picked myself up, rushing forwards at the synth. I fired a round from my gun, the explosive buckshot flashing across his side and forcing him to stumble away from me, his armour dented. The synth roared in pain as the dented armour stabbed into him, the mini gun on their battle saddle whirring to life on one side while a missile clicked into place on the other.

Blam! Blam! Blam! Blam!

The large mini gun fired a stream of bullets towards me, forcing me to weave out of the way. One of the shots lanced through my leg, dropping me to the ground in a cry of pain. I rolled over, trying to squirm out of the way as the synth powered towards me, their power armoured hooves pounding against the ground as they closed in.

The booming sound of an Enclave raptor’s energy cannon firing echoed down at us from far above, followed quickly by another powerful explosion that shook the entire building, forcing the synth masquerading as Shortcake to come to an abrupt halt to avoid toppling over. A piece of the ceiling collapsed down from above, forcing the synth to dive out of the way.

I rolled to the side, a chunk of metal from the roof crashing down where I had lain only moments before. Scrambling back to my hooves, I raised my shotgun and fired off another shot, this one bursting against Shortcake’s Foreleg as the synth tried to get back into a battle stance.

There was a whoosh as the missile launcher at Shortcake’s side fired, the projectile lashing towards me at impossible speeds. I ducked and rolled under it, the shockwave of it’s massive explosion knocking me prone on my face as I tried to get back up.

Nova lunged forward, her horn glowing and creating a shield around the two of us as the synth’s mini gun once more opened fire. I flinched, the bullets pinging off the translucent shield only an inch away from my face.

The synth scowled, rounding on Nova and bucking at her with their powerful hooves. Their hooves collided with the purple alicorn’s jaw, sending her staggering back with a cry of pain. I heard a painful sounding snap as the synthetic Rangers hooves shattered her lower jaw.

I leapt forwards, wrapping my fore hooves around the Rangers metal covered neck and swinging up onto their back. The synth bucked backwards, trying to shake me off, but I clung on tightly for dear life, my lower half flailing around wildly as the fake Shortcake tried to send me flying.

Gritting my teeth, I raised Braeburn’s Liberator and pressed its four barrels against the side of the synths head. I shut my eyes, trying to keep focus as I was whipped about and tried to pull down hard on the trigger.

Before I could fire, Shortcake slammed himself into the wall, crushing me between the heavy metal surface as the Rangers large bulk. I screamed out, my whole body burning with pain as I felt one of my ribs pop out of place. Braeburn’s Liberator was sent skidding from my grip and across the floor, coming to a rest against the large maneframe.

Shortcake pulled away from me, giving me just enough time to drop to the floor out of breath before his armoured hoof swung down, knocking me violently back into the wall. I coughed, blood spilling past my lips as I struggled to catch my breath.

The synth reared back up, hooves poised to crush me flat. Biting back pain, I let my horn flare with light and surrounded myself in a field of magic. A second later I felt my whole body turn invisible and I rolled out of the way, just barely avoiding the synths deadly attack.

I felt my magic quickly draining as I forced myself to keep my horn going and keep me invisible. Like the last time I had used the spell, the invisibility was far from perfect, but in the darkness of the room, it might as well have been flawless.

The synth scowled as they whipped around, trying to spot me. “What hope do you think you have Amber Aura,” The synth monotone, their voice creepily cold. “You will never stop Utopia in time.”

“But I’ll sure give it my all,” I snarked back, the magic around my horn fading to reveal me right in front of him, my shotgun already reacquired. There was a click as I pressed Braeburn’s Liberator up against the synths chin with my magic. “Gotcha.”

Steel Ranger power armour was strong, but not strong enough to stop a direct blast to the head with a powerful unique quad barrel shotgun though. The synths head exploded in shrapnel and fire as my shotgun ripped into them, emptying its final shot into the fake rangers skull. The synth wobbled for a second, then collapsed to the ground with a loud thunk.

I looked down at the fallen synth, my heart heavy. I had liked Shortcake. He hadn't been perfect, but he had been a good pony. I wonder if he had even known that he was an Institute spy, or if he had been blissfully unaware of exactly what he was until it was far too late.

Grimacing, I hauled myself over to Nova and helped her back up to her hooves. “Are you alright?” I asked, looking over her wounds. Aside from a broken jaw and a few cuts from exploding shrapnel, she seemed to be doing okay.

“Yes. I shall be fine,” The alicorn insisted, raising back up to her full height. “I shall find myself a patch of radiation to bask in once we are out of here,” healing via radiation seemed like the single most useful thing in the wasteland. I admittedly found myself a little jealous of the ability.

Another boom, this time followed by the sounds of screams as a few Rangers on the floors above us were vaporized by the Enclave’s magical energy weaponry. I glanced up as I began to make out the sound of smaller energy weapons firing in retaliation to the Enclave Raptors much larger attacks.

“We need to get up there. We still have the Enclave and one more spy to deal with…”

We limped out way back to the elevator and pulled ourselves inside. I had expected that with all the fighting and chaos, this would be the moment the elevator decided to break down on me. But to my surprise, it remained functional long enough to get us both back into the mock Stable safely. Apparently being in an elevator while it collapsed simply wasn't on the menu for today, surprisingly...

As we began racing down the fake Stable halls, the speaks above us crackled to life. Instead of hearing the pre recorded voice of Sweetie Belle as I had expected, the commanding voice of Paladin Sardine boomed over the speakers. “The Enclave has entered the building! I want them eliminated, now!”

We burst out of the Stable and began charging down one of the hallways in the Stable-Tec HQ proper. As we rushed past, I spotted two Steel Ranger Knights lying on the floor, dead.

Damn, the Enclave had already been here.

I slowed down as I heard voices from up ahead from a doorway that lead into the Steel Rangers prison area. The voices didn’t sound happy.

“What information did you tell them!” One of the voices snarled. Nova and I peeked around the corner to see two Enclave troopers that were looming over the still bound Enclave captive. Both of the Ranger guards had been turned into steaming piles of green goop by the Enclaves impressive weaponry and the turrets had been melted to slag.

“Look, we don’t have time for this,” The bound pegasus spat, squirming in an attempt to break free of his bonds. “I’ll explain everything once we're somewhere safe, but right now you just gotta get me out of here. These surface ponies are crazy! They have fucking alicorn freaks down here!”

Neither pegasus moved to untie him. “I demand that you reveal what you told them at once,” The Enclave trooper reiterated, glaring daggers at the captive. “You will answer or you will be branded as a dashite!”

The tied up pegasus’ eyes widened in fear at that. “Alright, alright! I told them you were coming and that the Enclave plans to strike Friendship City! That’s it, I swear. Now get me the fuck out of here!”

Both Enclave troopers glared at him, seething. “You told them what!” The pegasus that seemed to be in charge roared, his voice flaring with rage. The plasma weapons attached to his battle saddle flashed with green, a bolt of glowing energy instantly lashing through the pegasus captive's throat. The pegasus screamed, but the sound was quickly drowned out by gurgling as he dissolved into a glowing pile of goop on the floor.

Snarling in disgust, the Enclave trooper put a hoof to his helmet and activated a small intercom. “This is Skysprint to Raptor Lenticular. The captive told them about our plan to attack the settlement known as Friendship City. Inform Commander Thunderseer of the raptor Pyroculus that we need to begin our siege of the city early.”

My eyes widened. No!

I bolted out from behind cover, Braeburn’s Liberator firing off a shot point blank into the Enclave troopers head. Their head exploded, viscera slashing across the shocked face of the other pegasus which quickly took to the air in surprise.

I jumped to the side, the Enclave’s magical energy rifle blasting past me. The throbbing pain in my foreleg from one of Shortcake’s shots slowed me down, allowing one of the Enclave’s blasts to slash away at my side, searing the flesh and drawing blood.

Nova rushed forward, her horn erecting a magical shield around the both of us as the Enclave trooper continued to fire. I used the temporary cover to pull myself back to my hooves, bracing myself for when the shield fell.

Bang!

The Pegasus dropped to the ground, a bullet lashing through their neck and sending blood splattering against the wall behind them. I looked up, making out the shapes of Xayah and Scribe Inkwell as they slowly limped their way into the room. Xayah was walking on her new upgraded fore legs, their white paint job blending into her white and black striped hide far better than the dark metal ones had.

“Xayah, what are you doing out of the hospital? Where’s Tinker?” I asked, wide eyed as I approached her.

“I am dealing with the Enclave threat,” Xayah said bluntly, holstering her anti-material rifle and giving me a smug look. “Do not think I would just lie around while the building was being stormed you foolish pony. As for Tinker, he is back at the hospital, being guarded by two Rangers.”

I nodded, taking a deep breath. At least Tinker was safe then.

“What has been going on?” Scribe Inkwell demanded, stomping over to me. Shortly after the Enclave arrived, Knight Shortcake’s tag disappeared off of my EFS. What happened to him.”

I gave her a grim look. “I’ve got good news and bad news. The good news is that I know who the spy is.”

Inkwell growled. “And the bad news.”

“Well… when I say bad news, I mean that in the plural sense,” I corrected. “There’s more than one spy. And they aren’t ponies. The Institute has been sending synths in as moles for quite a while now. The reason no pony has been able to catch them is because every time you start to pick up on their trail, they stage their own death and send in a new synth to replace another member of the Rangers.”

Inkwell gave me a wide eyed expression of shock and fear at that. “And right now the synths are…”

“Shortcake and Hail. The Institute likely killed and replaced them shortly after they transferred here… we found their bodies down below in Stable zero. Along with many other Steel Ranger bodies that had been hidden down there...” I said, feeling my gut sink at my own words.

Inkwell's face filled with grief. “Damn… so… You took care of Shortcake then? That’s why his tag is gone?”

I gave her a sad nod. “We did, but Scribe Hail is still at large. And chances are that she’s going to use the fight with the Enclave as a distraction to leak a fuck ton of information to the Institute before disappearing again.”

“Then we need to stop her. And fast,” Inkwell affirmed. “If we lose this synths trial, it’s likely we won’t be able to find them again. They wont let themselves get caught twice.”

Xayah’s ears perked up. “I saw Hail heading up to the Overstallions office on our way here,” She declared, looking towards Inkwell, her eyes wide. “That was almost three minutes ago.”

At that, we jumped into action at once, sprinting down the hallway towards the stairs leading up to the large office room. In the atrium below us I could see squadrons of Steel Rangers holding off teams of Pegasi as the Enclave began pouring in through the now blasted open door to the Stable-Tec Building.

Inkwell moved up to the door, tapping away furiously at the terminal that locked the door closed. “Fuck. She's overridden the lock. I don’t think we’ll be able to hack this…”

I was about to tell her to give me a shot at hacking it, when Nova stepped forwards, her horn blazing with violet light. “Step aside,” The alicorn ordered, her magic wrapping the steel door with its glow. Inkwell quickly moved back, scuttling up beside me as the alicorn closed in on the door.

There was a loud crack and Nova tore the door right from its hinges. The steel frame bent and snapped, the door slamming forwards and getting magically flung across the room beyond.

Scribe Hail stood at the large terminal against the far wall, typing furiously on the keypad as long lines of flickering green text flashed across the massive monitor above her.

“Scribe Hail! Step away from the terminal!” Inkwell ordered, raising her magical energy rifle to aim at the synth. “I don’t want to hurt you. Please. Let's end this peacef-”

Before Inkwell could finish, Hail spun around, her own rifle firing off a blast towards us. The shot struck Inkwell in the leg, the scribe screaming in pain as she dropped to the ground, the hide around her foreleg charred.

There was a hollow look in Scribe Hail’s eyes. Whatever bit of Hail’s mind had been programmed into her synthetic brain was gone. Now she was no more machine than any other robot.

I dove forwards, avoiding another blast as Hail once more opened fire at us. Still blindly firing behind her, the Scribe spun around and clicked a few buttons on the terminal. Instantly, five turrets popped down from the roof above us, their tri-barrels whirring to life as their targeting talismans locked onto us.

Nova’s horn surged with light, surrounding us in a thin field of magic as the turrets began bearing down on us. Xayah managed to take down one of the turrets with her rifle before the shield went up, the turret exploding in a burst of flame as the large, .50 caliber round blasted through it.

“Hail! Please. You need to stop!” Scribe Inkwell pleaded, forcing herself back up into a standing position. Blood drizzled down her leg where the magical energy rifle had slashed into her.

“That isn’t Hail,” I told her, watching sadly as tears began to form in the Scribes eyes. “It's a synth. And not one that has any free will over its actions.”

That could have been me, I noted to myself glumly. Wasn’t that a scary thought.

“I do not think I can hold this shield for much longer,” Nova stated, wincing as magic poured through the large crack in her horn. “I will need to drop it soon.”

“Xayah, Inkwell! Take out the turrets as soon as the shield goes down,” I ordered over the blaring gunfire, my legs bending into a battle stance. “Nova, try and keep as much fire off of us as possible. Everypony ready? Go!”

The glow around Nova’s horn extinguished and the shield fell. We all scattered at once, the large turrets blasting into the spot we had once stood.

I darted forwards, my shotgun aimed at where Scribe Hail was standing. The synth dipped out of the way, their hind hooves bucking at my chest as I went to attack them. I staggered, trying to stay upright as the synth beat into me. Thankfully, it didn’t seem like Hail’s strength was all that much greater than mine.

I ducked low as the Scribe swung a hoof over my head, her strike only just missing my face and the underside of her hoof brushing up against the tips of my mane. I returned the attack with a buck of my own, my meagre strengths still enough to knock the synth back and stumbling into the terminal.

Nova gave a shout of pain as one of the turrets penetrated her hide. The alicorn staggered back, her horn glowing as she quickly tried to regenerate the wound. The tri-barrel turret began to spin up again to fire at her, only for its aim to be blocked as Nova’s magic shoved the large toppled table between her and it.

Xayah’s rifle let out a loud crack, another round of her massive weapon striking the turret firing at her and causing it to burst apart. Her victory was short-lived as one of the last two remaining turrets spun around and blasted five rounds directly into her side. She screamed, collapsing to the floor, blood spilling out from her body.

I raised Braeburn’s Liberator to fire at Hail, but it was quickly knocked aside with a swipe of the Scribe hooves. I took a step back, trying to reassert myself, but Hail advanced on me, her magical energy rifle swinging up to blast my head from my shoulders.

I threw myself to the side, the burning red beams of energy lancing through the air where I had once stood. I hit the ground hard, my whole body shuddering as I dove for cover.

Inkwell pranced over me, her rifle firing off beams of energy up at one of the turrets shooting at her. One of her magical energy beams hit, melting the turrets spinning barrels to slag. A second later, the final turret was smashed apart as Nova ripped it from the ceiling with her magic and bashed it violently against the floor, her expression wincing slightly as the turret was rendered to scrap.

Scribe Hail backed up, suddenly facing the end of four barrels as we all turned our full attentions towards her. Realizing she was outnumbered, she spun around, darting for the door. She didn’t make it.

Biting back the pain in her side, Xayah pulled herself back up, her anti-material rifle blasting out one of the Scribes fore hooves. Hail collapsed to the ground, blood rushing from her body and pooling around her crumpled form.

Scribe Hail rolled around onto her back, blood dripping down her face and her rifle swivelling up to fire at us. I ducked to the side, avoiding the blast and taking cover beside the large flickering terminal. The blast of energy slashed at the wall, leaving a large black burn mark where it seared the metal.

Blam!

A beam of red energy slashed through Scribe Hail’s chest. Hail screamed, blood oozing from her lips as her insides boiled. Then she slumped to the ground, half her face and side sizzling away and melting into glowing ash.

Inkwell took a deep breath, her body shuddering as she lowered her steaming rifle. “Fuck…” She breathed, her voice trembling. She turned and looked at me, her eyes a mix of sadness and rage. “If you ever find the pony responsible for all this. I want you to fucking kill them.”

I gave her a grim nod before quickly moving over to Xayah. “You alright?” I asked her, looking over the collection of oozing bullet holes in her side.

Xayah gave me a nod, pulling out a healing potion and chugging its contents. “Yes. I will survive,” she looked up from her healing wounds, her eyes fixing on the flickering terminal behind me. Surprise and terror danced across her features. “Uh… Amber?”

A vile sounding chuckle slowly began to fill the room, nasally and filled with a crackling static. I felt a shiver pass through me at the noise, horrifying memories of my time in Red Eyes Cathedral flashing through my mind. Slowly, I turned towards the sound of the laughter, all the muscles in my body clenching up. Even before I saw the sneering face, I knew who I was going to see staring back at me though the monitor.

Through the green glare of the large terminal monitor, Pureblood’s leering face grinned at me, his flickering screen eyes filled with curious amusement and the projection of his cracked lips twisted into a terrifying smile.

“Ah, Amber Aura,” Pureblood coed, his voice sounding just as snooty and vile as ever. “Imagine my surprise when I learned that you actually managed to sneak out of the Institute alive, only for you to foolishly reveal your location to me here accidentally,” the screen displaying the cracked visage of his mouth warped into an unsettling grin. “Though I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. You do have a nasty habit of getting in the way of things, don’t you?”

“Amber, who the fuck is this?” Inkwell gasped, taking a shocked step away from the large terminal. “You know them?”

“You could say that,” I growled, still facing the image of Pureblood. I could feel a sense of anger growing in me just by looking at him.

“Amber and I are very well acquainted,” Pureblood purred, his voice sounding like he had a throat full of gravel. “She is my great descendant after all… And the bearer of my future vessel.”

Xayah snarled in response to that, protectively stepping between me and the monitor. Nova gave a confused raise of her eyebrow, but otherwise just continued to stare at Pureblood menacingly.

“I met the Courser you sent after me,” I spat, puffing my chest out slightly.

Pureblood practically beamed. “Like him? Now that I am in full control of the Institute, I’ve decided to do a few much needed upgrades. That Courser you met was the first of my new Courser design, modelled after the late Changeling General Azar. I believe the two of you had met before actually.”

I felt my jaw drop open. No wonder that Courser had been so deadly, even more so than the ones I had seen before. “You… you modelled your Coursers off of Azar!?” The idea was both insane and terrifying. “That’s- Are you insane!”

“I like to think of it as poetry,” Pureblood sighed in sarcastic exasperation. “Like Changelings, synths were designed to be perfect spies. Blend in with pony kind. I found it only fitting that my Coursers, synths designed specifically to hunt and destroy, would be modelled after a changeling of much the same nature. Just think, given a few hours, I’ll have a full army of them. All waiting to defend my interests to the last.”

Inkwell pushed past me, glaring daggers up at Pureblood. “I don’t know who you are, but I demand that you explain how you managed to get onto the Steel Rangers systems!”

Pureblood's screen eyes rolled. “You’re a Scribe of the Steel Rangers. I thought you would be smarter. Surely you can figure it out,” Pureblood drawled, his eyes looking down impatiently at the Scribe. “Hellooo. My little spies here have been reporting to me for months, leaking your precious information. I was intending to talk to my informant… though it would appear that you dealt with them already…” he glanced down lazily at the slumped, half disintegrated form of Scribe Hail.

I took a step forward, a scowl still formed on my lips. “I want answers, Pureblood. And you’re going to give them to me!”

Pureblood gave off a loud, grating laugh. I winced as the noise made me want to rip off my ears. “And why the fuck should I answer anything for you. Last time I checked, you don’t exactly have my best interests at heart,” the large brainbot slowly pulled back, drifting away from the screen. “No. I don’t think I’ll tell you anything… My Courser will be in touch with you soon Amber Aura. Do try to make your death easier for all of us.”

“What’s Project Redirect?!” I shouted, interrupting him before he could cut the connection between us and him.

Pureblood paused at that, looking back at me curiously. “Where did you hear about that?” His voice snapped, his tone sharper and clearly slightly taken aback.

I flinched at his aggressive tone. “From messages sent between somepony in Fillydelphia and the spy here. Somepony named Leaden Excellent. I assume they work for you?”

Pureblood gave off a loud, angry hiss. “Fucker… I sent no order to prepare Project Redirect…”

I felt my eyebrows knit together. “Wait, you weren’t behind that-” My eyes flicked to the steel frame of the monitor. A metallic lead colour. Something clicked in the back of my mind. “Oh, shit…”

“Amber, what is it?” Xayah asked, her eyes still pinned angrily at Pureblood.

“Leaden Excellent,” I reiterated, the name finally making sense to me. “It’s not a name. It’s a synonym for a name. Leaden is a dull, silvery-grey colour. And Excellent- another word for…”

“...Ace...” Xayah finished, catching on with my train of thought.

“Precisely,” Pureblood cooed, his unblinking eyes now taking on a much darker expression. “It would appear my loyal subject has not been fully transparent with me. A grave mistake, among many others he has made recently…”

I cocked my head at that. “Others? What others?”

“Well you, for one,” Pureblood nickered, his robotic face suddenly seemingly to loom over me. “When we put you into stasis to keep my vessel safe, I had half a mind to leave you like that. Frozen in time, a vegetable. It certainly would have saved me a lot of trouble. But Silver Ace had other plans for you. He was insistent that we give you a synthetic body while your mind remained dormant within your flesh. An experiment of his. He always was very fond of his experiments. Clearly we should have never given you such an opportunity to escape. Something my Courser intends to rectify.”

Inkwell gave me a shocked look. “You’re a synth!?”

“Yeah… trying to figure out how to fix that,” I grumbled back, my gaze never leaving the monitor.

Pureblood snickered. “I’m afraid your normal body is not something you will ever be getting back. You will never succeed in making it back to the Institute. I’ll make sure of that. And once you have birthed my future vessel, I intend to incinerate your dissected remains.”

Xayah pulled me behind her protectively, stepping up to the monitor as if to face Pureblood down, muzzle to muzzle. Or at least, muzzle to whatever the fuck Pureblood had left being a brain in a jar. “You will not touch Amber Aura again you beast!”

“Ah yes… the zebra,” Pureblood groaned, his disdain audible through his tone. He rolled the word ‘zebra’ around in his mouth, as if he could taste it. “I have seen you through my surveillance cameras across Manehattan. Why a descendant of mine, however degenerate they are, would ever have feelings for a striped savage such as yourself I will never understand…”

That was enough. It was one thing to mock me, but no pony insulted Xayah like that! I growled, bearing my teeth at the monitor. “Listen here Pureblood. I don’t care how many fucking synths you are hiding behind in the Institute. I’m coming for you. And I’m going to stop you!”

Pureblood stared back at me with mild amusement. “Don’t care how many synths I have? You should. I have whole armies at my disposal. Synths, Coursers, slavers, Canterlot Ghouls. What do you have? No army. No real plan. Your so-called friends are a bunch of lowlife wasteland rejects that have been wounded and scattered across the stretch between Fillydelphia and Manehattan. You don’t even have your precious little pipbuck anymore. All you have is a handicapped zebra, an alicorn with a broken horn and a foal still in his teething stage,” His face suddenly took on an excited look. “Need I remind you that Utopia launches in three days? Tick tock Amber... Now, if you’ll excuse me. I think Silver Ace and I have to have a little… Talk… about where exactly his loyalties lie.”

There was a loud beep, and the large monitor screen shut off. We all stared up at it for a long while, our guts clenching as all of Pureblood's words slowly sank through us. Finally, Inkwell gave a long, rasping breath. “What the fuck…”

The Enclave didn’t stick around. Shortly after Pureblood had disabled the connection, the Enclave raptor had ceased firing and began pulling away into the distance, taking all of its troops with it. They had gotten what they had come to take… the life of their Enclave subordinate.

Xayah and I found ourselves on the roof of the Stable-Tec building, watching as the Enclave raptor slowly faded away into the distance. It had become little more than a small speck of black on the horizon now.

Xayah sighed, resting her head on my shoulder as we stared out at the desolate expanse of the Fillydelphia outskirts and the looming wall of Red Eyes city of slaves. I wrapped one of my fore hooves around hers, but she didn’t seem to notice the touch. Her metal forelimbs were without feeling.

After a long second of silence, I cleared my throat, drawing Xayah’s emerald gaze up to mine. “Xayah, are you sure things are okay between us?” I asked, my whole body feeling heavy for some reason.

Xayah gave me a confused look, though there was a clear sense of understanding in her eyes. “We talked about this already Amber. I will give you another chance if you give me one,” She looked down, finally noticing my hoof wrapped around hers. She smiled and shifted a little closer so that she could feel my embrace. “Why. What is troubling you?”

I grimaced. “A lot, honestly. We only have three days until Utopia launches. Something tells me those three days are going to put all of us through a lot if we're going to have any hope of actually winning… Maybe longer if things don’t turn out…”

Xayah nuzzled my face slightly. I could feel her warm breath against my cheek. “Things will turn out. We’ll get through this.”

“Even still, whether we win or not, things aren’t going to be easy. These coming days are probably going to be hard on all of us. I just want to make sure that before we charge into whatever is ahead of us, that the two of us are going to be okay,” I continued, melting into her embrace. “We don’t have time to be fighting amongst ourselves… Not again... Not while we're this close to the finish line.”

Xayah nodded, pulling back a little so she could look me in the eyes. “The wasteland can try to rip us apart. We’ll make sure it never does. We betrayed and hurt each other once. Now is not the time to hurt each other again. Now is the time to do our best to heal the wounds of our past. Make ourselves stronger because of it.”

I gave her a thankful smile and pulled in close to her again, pressing my head up gently against her chest. I could feel her slow breathing as I cuddled against her. Up as close as I was, I could hear the terrible wheezing coming from her lungs. The doctors had been right, the radiation poisoning had damaged her lungs beyond repair.

We sat there for a long while until I heard the sound of hoofsteps cautiously approaching us. From the sound of the long strides, I figured it was Nova. Her voice confirmed it for me a second later. “Can we join you, or are we interrupting something?”

I looked over my shoulder, seeing the tall, purple alicorn carrying Tinker atop her back. I gave her a nod, gesturing to the spot beside us. “Of course not.”

Nova gave a thankful nod and trotted over, resting her tired legs beside us. “Thank you,” She said simply, her slitted eyes looking out at the wasteland beyond us.

I looked up at Tinker as Nova lowered herself down. “Good work on Xayah’s legs. You did a great job,” I told him, trying to think up a good conversation starter with the kid and hoping I wasn’t speaking too much on Xayah’s behalf. And it was true. Her legs looked much sleeker than their original model, and the lighter colour helped to blend them in more seamlessly with her hide. They were still clearly cybernetic, but one might overlook that if they weren’t paying too much attention.

Xayah gave a happy nod of agreement. “Yes. They are much lighter than before and feel much more natural. I thank you greatly.”

Tinker smirked, a clear sense of pride glinting in his eyes at our remarks. “Thank you. I think it’s one of my best works,” his face took on a more curious expression. “So is it true?” he asked, changing the topic and looking down at me from atop Nova’s back. “We’re going to Friendship City now?”

I gave the colt a small nod. “Yeah. Have you ever been?”

Tinker nodded, though noticeably wearily. “Yup. Long time ago with my… my mom and dad… before we moved to the Hollow Shades. I don’t remember it much.”

Knowing it was a conversation that needed to be had, I forced myself to ask. “Tinker, what do you want to do… when we get to Friendship City?” At his confused expression, I elaborated. “I can’t keep bringing you with me across the wasteland. It’s not safe. Where do you want to go… now that… uh… now that Chestnut is…” I gulped, not sure how to finish that train of thought.

Tinker’s face fell at the mention of his late mother. “I… I don’t k-know. I never thought about it… Can’t I just stay with you?”

I shook my head. “Too dangerous,” I glanced over at Nova, our previous conversation still playing in my mind. “Nova says she can look after you… at least until you know what you want to do. I figure we could take you back to the Hollow Shades when this is all over or something. Toffee could always take care of you. I'm sure she'd be willing.”

Tinker looked down at the alicorn he was sitting on, as if getting taken care of by them was an option that he had never considered before. “I, um… Sure. yes. That is fine,” The colt said simply, though there wasn't much zest in his voice. Nova clearly winced at the lack of enthusiasm, but we both knew full well that no pony would be able to properly replace Chestnut.

There was a loud stomp from behind us. We all turned our heads at the noise, making out the shape of Paladin Sardine just as he emerged out onto the roof and stood across from us, his face obscured by his heavy helmet.

“Scribe Inkwell gave me a rundown of what happened,” Sardine rumbled, looking us over. “I understand that you dealt with our mole issue. The bodies you mentioned to Inkwell down in Stable zero have also been recovered. Already we have begun to weed out many of the spies in our ranks.”

I nodded, pulling myself up to face him. Xayah quickly followed suit. “Yeah. So you’ll help us get back to Manehattan now?”

The paladin paused for a second, clearly trying to figure out how to word something. “Inkwell also mentioned in her report to me that you were an Institute synth,” Sardine finally stated bluntly, his eyes boring into me. I flinched at that comment, suddenly feeling very insecure. “And this fact was later confirmed for me by a very curious report from one of our doctors about enhanced cybernetics found in you during your surgery.”

“Is that going to be an issue?” Xayah snarled, glaring down the armoured Steel Ranger. “We have done our part of the bargain. I hope you intend to do yours.”

The Ranger looked us all over for a second longer, trying to best gauge how to handle the situation. “It is unprecedented for the Steel Rangers to help a group such as yourself. We have never taken kindly to alicorns or zebras. Inviting you all in in the first place was a big risk for me and threatened my position here as head Paladin. But to help a synth as well… The Steel Rangers have very strict rules around synths. Our very existence and purpose is to reclaim technology and keep it out of the hooves of ponies that would otherwise use it for destructive matters. Synths and the Institute are a prime example of this, and something that has been of top priority since the attacks in Manehattan began.”

I crouched down into a battle stance, suddenly expecting for the Paladin to lunge at me. He never did.

“If Elder Blueberry Sabre were still in charge, you likely would be executed on the spot,” Sardine continued, his voice hard. “But luckily for you, I am not her. The wasteland is much more nuanced in this day and age than in the days of old. I understand that things are not as black and white as some of our ways may suggest. Perhaps not as much as the Outcasts would like to think, but different all the same.”

“So you will help us then?” Nova pushed, standing up herself and pulling Tinker up with her. “Get us across the Fillydelphia outskirts safely?”

Paladin Sardine nodded. “I made you all a deal. I intend to make good on it,” His voice darkened and he took on a slightly more imposing stance. “But I would recommend that we leave quickly and that you do not return here if you can help it. Already many of the Rangers here are calling for your death, whether you helped us out or not.”

It hardly felt fair. That I would risk my life for them and they would want to kill me just because I was a synth. But I suppose things could have been a lot worse. I might not be a big fan of Paladin Sardine, especially after he had threatened Xayah’s life, but at least he was honest and not as cold and bigoted as some of the other Rangers out there. Had he been more like Iron Hock or Elder Cottage Cheese, this conversation probably would have turned out very differently.

“Thanks then… I guess. For not deciding to kill us that is,” I said, albeit rather glumly.

Paladin Sardine grunted in response. “I would suggest not dawdling. We leave for Manehattan now,” He turned, slowly retreating back into the Stable-Tec headquarters. He stalled, turning his head back a little to face me. “And if memory serves, you’ve got a date with the Enclave in Friendship City. I deem it best not to keep them waiting.”

Then he moved down and out of sight, leaving the four of us alone on the roof. I turned, looking out across the ash coated expanse of the Fillydelphia outskirts. Far in the distance, past the radioactive hell hole and the scouring teams of slavers, I could see the silhouette of Manhattan's jagged skyline, marked distinctively by its crumbling monorail.

I let out a deep breath, my stomach clenching as I tried to focus on the struggle ahead. This had been one of the longest nights of my life, but at long last, it was almost over. But I knew full well that with the morning would be a whole heap of new problems. Problems that wouldn’t stop unless I could cut the head off the Snake. Pureblood had told me that I had no hope of beating him, and maybe he had been right. But there was one thing he had gotten very, very wrong.

He had said that my friends were wounded, lost and scattered across the vast expanse between Fillydelphia and Manehattan. But I knew where they were heading, and I was going to make damn sure that when we finally arrived in Manehattan, that we would reunite. And when we did, when we finally managed to pull ourselves from the fire that had been the last few days, Pureblood was going to have hell raining down on him.

“Alright then…” I breathed, feeling my heartbeat quicken in anticipation. “Time to go back to Manehattan. Time to go home…”

Footnote: Maximum level reached

Author's Note

Fallout: Equestria Belongs to Kkat

Have a great day!

Chapter XXXV: Family Reunions

“Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?”

Morning.

It felt as if the night had lasted forever, but as we slowly trudged across the last little bit of the desolate expanse between Fillydelphia and Manehattan and finally moved into the suburbs of Fetlock, the glow of the morning sun slowly began to peek through the thick layer of overcast clouds.

I could feel myself relax a little at the familiar sights of the shattered, looming skyscrapers and crumbling monorail that littered the skyline. That relief was short-lived as my eyes landed on the shape of three Enclave raptors in the distance, slowly moving towards the Manehattan Harbour and the Pony of Friendship statue.

The Enclave raptors would be at Friendship City soon, and something told me that the Enclave would be sending in armoured troops early. We didn’t have long before the fighting would break out in earnest.

I saw Paladin Sardine and the four Rangers he had brought along with us stop a few paces in front of me as his hoof came inches away from the border of the Fetlock suburbs. Confused at why he stopped, I returned my gaze forwards and looked at our more direct surroundings.

Not all that far away, three ponies clad in full suits of the black and Red Outcasts armour were approaching us, their weapons already drawn. I saw one of the Steel Rangers accompanying us drop into a battle ready stance at the sight of the Outcasts.

“This area is off limits to Steel Rangers,” One of the Outcasts ordered, their voice distorted slightly by their helmet. “State your business.”

My ears perked up at the Outcast’s voice. “Crusader Blueberry?” I asked, pulling myself out from behind Paladin Sardine to address the Outcasts.

The Outcast Ranger in the middle looked over at me in surprise, their hostile demeanor suddenly shifting to a much more laid back one. “Amber?” Crusader Blueberry turned to fully take the rest of our group in. Nova and Tinker were not faces he recognized, but he seemed to brighten when he spotted Xayah with me. “What are you doing in the company of Steel Rangers?”

“They were in need of protection. I was helping to escort them across the Fillydelphia outskirts safely,” Paladin Sardine rumbled factually before I could respond, his body remaining completely still beneath his armour. “Amber and her Friends let us their assistance. I am following through on my side of the deal.”

Blueberry looked at the larger Ranger for a second before daring to lower his gun and take a step forward. “Paladin Sardine? Is that you? I haven't heard from you in a long time. I heard a rumour you had died.”

“Yes, A find myself thankful that what you heard was only a rumour. And congratulations on the promotion to Crusader, Blueberry,” Sardine responded, his deep voice seemingly lacking any form of emotion or inflection. “I was under the impression that you died in the raid on Stable 2. I am glad to see that you made it out alive.”

Blueberry just gave a thankful nod of his head. “I uh.. Thank you. Though I’m afraid I can’t let you come any further. I am under strict orders from Elder Crossroads to keep any and all Steel Rangers from entering our territory.”

I saw Sardine raise an eyebrow from behind his helmet. “Elder Crossroads? What happened to Steel Hooves?” Seeing Blueberry slump into a saddened manner seemed to answer his question. “Oh… I see. That is Unfortunate. Though I do not agree with all of Steel Hooves beliefs, he was a good stallion.”

Sardine stepped back, gesturing for my friends and I to go on without him. “Go.”

I gave the large ranger a nod of thanks as my friends and I moved past him to stand next to the three Outcasts. “Thank you for your assistance,” Xayah said curtly, though her tone suggested she still had some issues with the large paladin. I didn’t blame her. He had threatened her life to keep me in line after all.

“Perhaps we will meet again,” I added, giving the Paladin a small smile. “And thanks again for not deciding to kill us… If that's something I should need to thank you for.”

Paladin Sardine grunted. “Hope we don’t meet again. I think I’ve extended the Steel Rangers courtesy for you enough already,” With that, he turned around and began trotting back towards Fillydelphia, his four Rangers quickly moving along behind him.

Blueberry and his Outcasts watched the squad of Rangers trot off for a long moment until they were sure that they weren’t going to try anything. Eventually, Blueberry turned to me and gave me a quick salute. “Amber, it’s good to see that you are all right. With everything going on in Manehattan, I was worried you might have been killed. What were you doing out in Filly?”

“Amber saved us all from slavery in Fillydelphia!” Tinker chirped up from atop Nova’s back. “It was super cool.”

Blueberry chuckled at the colts take on his time in Filly as being ‘super cool’. I was just glad that Tinker wasn’t feeling as sulky now that he had had a few hours to come to terms with what had happened to his mother. “I’m sure it was. Amber seems to have a knack for doing stuff like that.”

“Yes. So we have noticed in our short time in her company,” Nova agreed flatly, though she did give off a small smile. Blueberry gave a worried look at the alicorn, but didn’t question her presence further. I suppose he figured if I was okay with her being there, then she was friendly.

Slowly, Blueberry turned and started leading us into the Fetlock suburbs. I trotted a little faster, trying to keep pace with him. “How has everything been for the Outcasts out here? I’ve been hearing some pretty bad reports about the happenings in Manehattan.”

Blueberry sighed. “Things aren’t looking good. Enclave has us worked to the bone, and the True Steels seem to be getting stronger by the day. And now that Elder Steel hooves is gone… We’re in a pretty tight spot.”

I nodded, following along. “Steel Hooves, what happened to him?” I didn’t remember the large Outcast elder well. My only experience with him being the few short interactions we had had prior to our siege on the Fluttershy Medical Centre.

“Hellhounds,” Blueberry responded, his voice filled with a mix of heartache and frustration. “But he’ll live on… through the Applejack Rangers… We won’t let what he started be for nothing,” Sighing, he looked back at me. “I suppose that, knowing you, you’ve got some sort of plan to help out with all the stuff going on in Manehattan right now.”

Xayah gave a small nicker from beside me. “I do not know where ponies get the idea that you are good with plans. I find your plans usually involve a lot of improv.”

I rolled my eyes a little at the comment. “I’m going to do something about it, yeah… Just don’t know what yet.”

“Well, if you come up with something, the Outcasts have your back,” Blueberry said earnestly. “You’ve more than proved yourself as an ally to us in the past. And right now, we need allies more than ever.”

An idea popped into my head. “Well, since you say that… We’re heading to Friendship City. We’re expecting the Enclave to attack there soon. A few Outcasts could probably go a long way to help with that fight.”

Blueberry’s face fell. “We saw the Enclave Raptors on the horizon. We were hoping it didn’t mean what it looked like… damn…” Blueberry sighed, looking toward the looming Pony of Friendship protruding from the harbour. “I wish we could help you… but right now we’re stuck in Fetlock. If we start sending forces outwards, we're going to be in a lot of trouble with the True Steels and the Steel Rangers, and that’s not a confrontation we can take right now.”

My ears drooped at that. “Damn… that’s fine… we’ll figure something out. Thanks anyway.”

“I’ll take it up with Crossroads though,” Blueberry added, sounding a little disappointed with himself. “Helping ponies is what the Outcasts are here for. We might not be able to send troops right away, but we’ll try to send help as soon as possible… I’m sorry, that’s all I can really do at the moment.”

“We understand. These are troubled times,” Nova nodded, looking down at Blueberry thoughtfully. “Though we do appreciate your assistance.”

Blueberry nodded, still very clearly uncomfortable with the presence of an alicorn. “I can lead you to the edge of Fetlock, but I’m afraid I’ll have to leave you there.”

I just gave him a small smile. “Thanks. Again.”

Xayah looked over at me, her face worried. “Do you think that our friends made it back to Friendship City already?”

I felt my shoulders tense up at the idea they hadn’t made it. The idea that they were still stuck in the Fillydelphia outskirts was a terrifying one. “I hope so. I trust Brisk to keep them safe though. And Mirra and Scarlet are stronger than they look.”

“I do not wish to be the voice of doubt,” Nova started, bending her neck to look us in the eyes. “But what if the Courser decided to go after them when they failed to kill you. It has been quite a few hours since that thing has shown itself.”

I felt my gut clench. I hadn’t even thought about the possibility that the Courser had decided to go after my friends. Eventually, I just shook my head. “They’re fine. They’ll be in Friendship City when we arrive. Trust me.

If they were at Friendship City already, they weren’t waiting for us at the entrance. Not that I had expected them to. They had had a rather large head start on us, and we had been sidetracked multiple times.

As Blueberry had said, him and his rangers had escorted us to the boarder of Fetlock before needing to turn back, leaving us to walk the rest of the distance between the suburbs and the large bridge that stretched across the harbour from Manhattan to the island that held the Pony of Friendship Statute and the city within.

The guards at the entrance to Friendship City removed us of our weapons and ushered us in quickly before piling in behind us slamming the large entryway shut. They all cast worried looks at Nova, but I quickly assured them that the large alicorn was safe. As the guards started locking down the gate, a pony I recognized as Chief Lantern quickly approached me.

“You’re lucky you arrived when you did,” Lantern explained, leading me away from the door. “We just received word that the Enclave is on their way to the city. We were just preparing to lock everything down.”

That was somewhat of a relief. At least the city wouldn’t be caught completely unaware by the attack.

Xayah stepped forwards, addressing Chief Lantern. “We are looking for some ponies that hopefully stopped by here within the last few hours. A green Unico-er… A green stallion, a filly and an auburn unicorn mare. Do you know if they have arrived?”

Lantern thought about that for a second. “I don’t think… oh wait. Yes, I remember a group like that arriving a few hours ago. They were hurt, looked like they just clawed their way out of Fillydelphia. They most likely headed up to the hospital. Third shop on the second level. They’re probably still there, considering their wounds.”

Another wave of relief washed through me. “Oh thank Celestia. Thank you.”

I turned to leave, only for Lantern to quickly cut me off. “Once you check on them, I’d recommend getting you and your friends to safety. Last I heard, the Enclave is only eight or nine minutes out.”

I nodded, quickly moving away from him and up the steps that led to the second level of Friendship City, my friends close on my heels. I was surprised by how many ponies were still out and about. The guards knew about the incoming attack, so why was no pony panicking?

We reached the second level and started heading in the direction that Lantern had directed us. Sure enough, a hospital area had been built into the remains of an old cruise ship that had been taken from the surrounding harbour.

We hadn’t even made it all the way to the hospital when a ball of green and yellow fur plowed into me, knocking me to the ground. I struggled, trying to dislodge the small, smiling filly that had wrapped their hooves tightly around my neck. “Amber!”

I coughed, the tight hug feeling like it was choking the air out of me. “Uh… hello… you...?” Xayah just chuckled from beside me as she watched the filly tackle me.

The yellow and green filly leaned back, looking me over carefully. “Uh, Amber? It’s me,” The fillies eyes flashed, and for a second I saw Mirra’s pupil less blue eyes in their stead.

I felt just a little more relief wash through me. “Oh, hey kid. Didn’t recognize you… you know… on account of you shapeshifting.”

Hesitantly, Mirra slowly crawled off of me to go hug Xayah, giving me room to stand back up. I had only just gotten back to my hooves when another pony, this time much large and an auburn and orange in colour, launched themselves at me. I was slammed back into the ground, this time being crushed in an even tiger hug from the much larger mare.

“Okay, yup... More hugs… Good to see you too, Scarlet,” I wheezed, slowly hugging her back and struggling back to my hooves. “It’s good to see all of you again.”

“I’m glad you’re okay,” Scarlet breathed, finally letting go of me and letting me stand back up fully. I braced myself, expecting another pony to ram into me, but thankfully it seemed like that was the end of the hugs for the moment. “When you didn’t make it out of Filly with us, well… we weren’t sure if you would.”

I gave her a sheepish look. “Hey, I said I’d make it out, didn’t I? I keep my promises.”

Scarlet rolled her eyes. “Alright, alright. I’m just glad you’re safe,” Her eyes drifted over to Nova as she spotted the Alicorn for the first time. Instantly, Scarlet’s whole body locked up and her horn sparked dangerously with magic. At least her horn seemed to be working again. “Amber, who is this,” She snarled, her voice suddenly threatening.

Nova took a step back, taken off guard by Scarlet’s sudden hostility. I quickly pushed myself between them. “Scarlet, this is Nova. She helped us escape Filly. She’s nice.”

Scarlet snorted. “I do not trust alcorns. And neither should you,” She jabbed a hoof at Nova, her eyes narrowing. “I’ve seen what those monsters can do. I saw these things rip ponies apart limb for limb during my time in Filly. They’re evil, Amber.”

I opened my mouth to object, but Nova silenced me with a gentle wing on my shoulder. Cautiously, the alicorn stepped forwards, approaching Scarlet. “We- I understand your hatred, but we do not wish to be like the creatures that you speak off,” Nova told her softly. “I do not ask for you to forgive my kind for whatever you have seen or endured at the hooves of my sisters, but we- I asked that you understand that I am not like the ones you have seen before…”

Scarlet was clearly taken off guard by that. She looked the alicorn over for a long time, her expression filled with confliction. Seeing Tinker riding on nova's back calmly seemed to ease her anger a little. “I... um… I am sorry for my hostility,” She finally said, her voice sounding somewhat pained. “My time in Filly wasn’t a pleasant one…I saw alicorns do, uh… I saw them do really bad things... I will try to be more accepting of you… Sorry.”

“And I am sorry you have needed to suffer because of our sisters,” Nova soothed.

Turning back to me, Scarlet looked me over. “You guys look good for having just escaped Filly. I’m guessing you got medical attention somewhere?”

Xayah nodded. “We’ve had a long night, but yes, we have healed for the most part.”

Scarlet’s eyebrows furrowed. “Wait… Where’s Chestnut?”

We all exchanged sad looks, memories of Chestnut turning to ash in Tinkers embrace flashed across my mind. Finally, Tinker hopped down from Nova’s back, his face downcast. “She… she didn’t make it… she…” a tear rolled down his cheek. Mirra quickly fluttered over and wrapped the colt in a tight hug. “A bad Courser pony killed her…”

Scarlet’s eyes widened. “A Courser?!” She looked over at me for confirmation. I gave a grim nod. “Damn… that’s- that's not good.”

Taking a deep breath, I pushed the thoughts of the deadly synth hunter out of my mind. I’d have to deal with him later. “Where’s Brisk? Is he alright?”

Scarlet nodded, casting a glance at Mirra. “Yeah, he’s fine. A couple of slavers caught up with us before we managed to reach Manehattan. We escaped, but Brisk took a pretty bad shot to the chest. He’s been with the doctor for a bit now. He’ll be out soon,” She gestured for us to follow her. “Come on, I’ll take you to him.”

I turned and started following Scarlet. I had only taken two steps when a ball of green fur pounced on me, knocking me to the ground and wrapping me in a huge hug. “Sis!”

“Or, maybe he’s already out,” Scarlet chuckled as Brisk slowly crushed the air out of me. “How’s your chest feeling?”

Brisk let me go and gave Scarlet a smile. “Better. Sore, but I’ll be fine,” He turned back and helped me up. “Hehe, sorry about that. I’m glad you’re back with us sis.”

“Yeah, I am too,” I agreed, my head looking left and right, expecting something else to come plowing into me. “Now, am I going to get tackle-hugged by anypony else, or is that about it?”

Brisk shrugged. “We’ll find somepony else to tackle you when you least expect it,” He looked me over, then glanced at Xayah. “You're looking a lot better than when I saw you in Filly. You doing alright?”

Xayah nodded, giving him a smile. “Yes. Thank you. I’m glad you are alright also.”

Brisk nodded, his expression strangely distant. “And you and Amber here are okay again?”

Both Xayah and I exchanged heavy looks. I gave her a warm smile. “Yeah. We’re good. Hurting a little, but back together.”

A huge weight seemed to be lifted off of Brisk’s shoulders at those words. “Oh good. That's great, really. We already lost Pyre from our group, I didn't want us to get split up any more. I’m really glad you guys worked it out or whatever,” He glanced down, taking in Xayah’s new cybernetic legs. “Hey, nice legs. Did Amber make them?”

Xayah shook her head. “No. That was Tinker’s work,” She gestured to the small colt. Then she blushed a little, chuckling. “But that you… I am… glad that you like my legs.”

I chuckled at that as well, watching Brisk’s green face turn a bright red. “Oh, uh… Don’t take that out of context,” He gave me a small glance and smug smirk. “I wouldn’t want to get in the way of everything,” I swatted him in the back of the head with a hoof, but we were all laughing anyway. He glanced over at Nova, his grin growing just a little. “You have an alicorn friend now too? Cool!”

Scarlet seemed to want to argue that, but bit back whatever remark she had been going to say.

I felt myself smile. I missed these ponies.

Mirra trotted over and tried to wrap all of us in a hug at the same time. Her small hooves were not nearly long enough to wrap around all of us, so I helped her out, bringing both Brisk and Xayah in close.

Scarlet, Nova and Tinker stood a few steps away from us, watching awkwardly as we all embraced. After a few seconds, I reached a hoof out to them as well. With a smile, they all trotted over and joined us. Things finally seemed right in the world. But I knew it wouldn’t last. Time to get to business.

Pulling away, I looked them all over. “I wish we could just hang out and all, but we have a problem. The Enclave is on its way. They’re planning to attack the city.”

Brisk and Scarlet looked at each other in worry at that. “Wait wait wait. There’s actually an attack on the city coming?”

I frowned. “Yeah. The guards seemed to know about it.”

“Mayor Black Seas had an announcement a few minutes ago urging everypony to get to their homes. Said it was an exercise in case of an attack,” Scarlet explained, looking at all the ponies that still lingered in the market area. “Exercises didn’t really motivate us much. Most ponies are still in the open.”

Xayah raised an eyebrow. “They probably don’t want to cause a panic,” She glanced about, taking in all the ponies. “Hopefully, the Enclave won’t be able to breach the city itself. I mean, it does have a fair amount of defences, right.”

This time Mirra joined in on Brisk and Scarlet's worried looks. “That's bad,” Brisk grumbled, more to himself than to us, understanding crossing his face. He turned back, facing me. “Apparently there was a malfunction with the harbour guns. Sabotage or something like that. Some pegasus named Calamity or something is currently trying to fix them, but more than half are still down.”

“That Enclave trooper did say they had a spy in Friendship City,” Nova reminded me, bringing up my brief interrogation with the Enclave pegasus back at the Stable-Tec HQ. “Perhaps they were trying to clear the way.”

A bad feeling was quickly rising in my gut. The guns were down!? The city was almost completely defenseless! If the Steel Rangers could hardly hold off one Raptor, what was a city full of civilians going to do about three!?

“Alright, we need to come up with some sort of plan,” I said, realizing that things were about to get bad really fast. “I heard we still have eight or so minutes before they arrive. That gives us a little bit of time to try and think of some-”

“Attention, citizens of Friendship City!” A distorted voice suddenly boomed over the city’s public-address loudspeakers. “We are here to take into custody a pegasus wanted for crimes against the Grand Pegasus Enclave. His name is Radar. You can recognize him by the following brand on his flank…”

Oh shit, right… The Enclave was coming early…

The Raptors might not be here yet, but the armoured troopers sure as fuck were.

“…Failure to produce this pegasus and turn him over to the Enclave will be considered an act of collusion. Prompt compliance will be rewarded. Refusal will be met with force.”

Panic began breaking out across the city. Ponies began rushing for the stairs, searching for anything to take cover behind. I heard a loud scream as a buck was knocked over the railing, falling three stories to hit the ground below with a heavy thud, knocking two more ponies on the ground level over.

Tinker whimpered, cowering behind Nova’s leg. I spun, looking at Tinker and Nova. “Nova! Can you get Tinker out of here? Hide him in one of the rooms upstairs. Keep him safe.”

“What? No! I can help!” Tinker said bravely, stepping around Nova.

Nova just nodded and wrapped a hoof around the trembling colt. The alicorn gritted her teeth as her horn flared with magic. Power surged through the cracks along her horns surface, and a bead of sweat dripped from her brow. Then there was a flash of light around them, and both Nova and Tinker disappeared.

“Tinker isn’t going to be happy about that,” Brisk grunted, staring at the spot they had just stood.

I shrugged. “I was rather he was mad at me than dead,” Please don’t let that kid die. He was a good kid.

A loud bang sounded from down below. Moving to the edge of the balcony overlooking the floor below, I saw the large doors into the central chimney burst open and the nightmarishly-armored forms of four Enclave pegasi march in, their scorpion-like tails curling slowly and their antenna-like integrated weapons on their Enclave armour pulsing with coloured light.

“Everypony stay where you are!” one of the Enclave Troopers ordered. “We are the Enclave. We are here to bring one pony to justice.”

All the ponies in Friendship City froze, their eyes staring in horror at the armoured Pegasi as they closed in on the crowd. The sound of fearful whispering echoed around the city and somewhere I heard a foal crying out.

“We will be searching the premises,” One of the pegasi informed the crowd. They’re voice leaving no room for debate. “Do not attempt to hide. Do not attempt to flee. Do not attempt to interfere. Obey, and we will be out of your manes in short order.”

I crouched down low, watching one of the pegasi in the back stepped forwards as the other two began fanning out. I tried to think of something to do, but something told me if I started attacking, a lot of innocent ponies would start dying.

Not to mention that I got the impression I wasn’t much of a match for these fully armed, well trained pegasi without my weapons.

“Any pony with information leading to the swift arrest of the pegasus Radar will be rewarded with a finder’s fee of five thousand bits!” One of the Enclave Troopers shouted. I couldn’t tell which one it was because of their helmets.

Also, bits? Clearly they didn’t understand how the wasteland worked. It was no surprise that not a single pony decided to take them up on their offer.

“Fuck you!” I heard a pony shout from the spiral stairwell.

Fzzzzzat!

Just like that, one of the magical energy weapons at one of the Enclave’s sides fired, turning the buck into glittering ash. The ponies around him scattered, their faces masked with terror. Two ponies broke away and began to run. They didn’t make it far.

Fzzzzzat! Fzzzzzat!

Both ponies that had run dropped dead, one of them scattering into a pile of ash as they fell.

“I repeat: do not attempt to hide, do not attempt to flee, do not attempt to interfere. Obey.” This was getting bad. I looked around, trying to find anything I could do to help all the ponies down below. I didn’t see anything.

As my gaze swept the area, I spotted a mare on the floor below me. She was small, just a little smaller than I was. Her scar riddled coat was a light grey and her mane a messy brown. What drew my attention the most though, was her Stable barding sporting the number 2 on it.

I felt myself inhale deeply. Littlepip? She was alive? But… I had seen her die in the centre of a balefire explosion!? How could she possibly be alive?

Then again, I had walked out of a balefire explosion completely unharmed myself. Who was I to say this little pony couldn't.

She seemed to be inching herself closer and closer to a terrified looking filly across from her. Slowly, Littlepip reached out a hoof in a gesture that looked like she was trying to comfort her. Clearly the filly didn’t see it that way. She screamed something I couldn’t hear and began to run.

I felt my breath catch as I watched the scene below us. No! No, don’t run!

Fzzzzzat!

“NO!!” I could hear Littlepip's scream even from up here. Littlepip fell to the ground, her hooves raised to her muzzle in an attempt to contain her screams as she starred in horror as the filly dissolved into a pile of glowing pink dust on the floor, dead. “Noooo!”

“Brightwind, you shot a filly!”

“Fly steady, soldier.”

“Fly steady?” I watched as the pegasus rounded on the other. “You just shot a filly!”

The first pegasus, Brightwind, turned to her accuser. “We had our orders, and you will obey them. Now fly steady!”

I wanted to kill all of them right then and there. They’re orders be damned, I hoped they all payed for what they had just done.

I saw Xayah trembling beside me, staring at the spot where the foal had just been turned to ash. Damn it. Yet another foal I had failed to save. Brisk looked over at me, wide eyed and clearly shaken by how coolly the pegasus had taken the life of the filly. “Amber, we need a plan.”

A plan? That was the last thing that I had right now. We didn’t even have our weapons.

“She wasn’t running to warn Radar or to hide him! She was just scared!”

“W-we can’t know that, soldier,” Brightwind insisted defensively, her own voice finally showing a little bit of uncertainty over what she had done. “Now either shut up and fly steady or get your tail back to the Raptor and I’ll deal with you later!”

“I didn’t sign up for this,” the pegasus stated, turning away and flying back out the door. At least not all Enclave were evil it seemed.

It didn’t take long for all hell to break loose.

Friendship City had refused to give up the pony the Enclave was looking for, and for it the Enclave sent fire raining down on them. The loud booms of the harbour guns firing alerted us at the arrival of the three Enclave raptors as they descended upon the city. The massive holes being ripped through the city's defences only confirmed their arrival more.

I scampered to my right as a beam of crimson energy speared through the building. The deadly beam slashed at one of the upper levels of the city, blasting apart entire homes and raining debris down on to panicking ponies below.

One of the large catwalks crumbled, splitting in half and sending the hundreds of ponies rushing across it flailing to their death.

“Amber, catch!” Brisk shouted, tossing me Breaburn’s Liberator. I caught it in my magic, giving him a thankful look. I had been able to do little but help steer ponies away to safety without my weapons.

Beside me, Xayah was standing on her hind hooves, her mechanical hooves raised and occasionally firing off a shot from her large rifle as Enclave pegasi swooped into the city through the blasted apart holes that the Enclave Raptors had ripped into the massive statues walls.

“We need to get everypony out of the city!” I heard Scarlet shout, her Institute rifle blasting apart an Enclave Troopers wing as she spoke and sending them crashing to the ground. “Everypony is going to die if they stay here!”

I nodded, feeling my heartbeat quicken. “Okay. We’ll try to lead them to the docks. We should be able to get everyone out on escape boats!” Not far away, I saw a security guard drop dead, a beam from one of the Enclave’s saddle mounted weapons slashing through their throat.

Another blast from a Raptor sent a beam of energy bursting through the side of the statue, leaving a hole roughly the size of a chariot in the wall. The beam engulfed the Warm Smiles Inn, fuchsia-coloured flames bursting from within the exploding structure and incinerating anypony that was inside.

Goddesses no! I prayed that Nova hadn’t taken Tinker to hide in one of those rooms. Please tell me they hadn’t gone there!

I glanced down, trying to make out the best way to protect these ponies through all the smoke. The thick smoke from all the fires was quickly obscuring my vision, making it hard to breath. Down below I could still see the slumped form of Littlepip as she and a rust coloured pegasus swept the remains of the disintegrated filly into a Sparkle~Cola bottle.

Brisk hopped up onto a broken table, his large mini gun firing a stream of bullets at the dive bombing pegasi. They pegasi swerved out of the way, Brisk’s mini gun trailing behind them as he tried to keep the Enclave at bay. One of the armoured troopers were torn asunder by his gun, screaming as they were riddled with holes and sent spiralling to the ground below.

“Everypony! We need to get you all out of here!” I shouted, trying to get some of them to follow behind me. A few ponies paused and rallied around me, desperate for some way out of this nightmare. Most of them were already battered and bleeding, large gashes and burn marks scoring their hides where the Enclaves weapons had struck them.

Most ponies just ignored me though. They continued running wildly, seeking any bit of cover they could. A few had managed to get their hooves on some guns and were firing up at the Enclave in desperation as the armoured pegasi swooped down at them. But their frantic shooting was nothing compared to the well trained Enclave fire. As I watched, another foal was shot down by one of the invading pegasi, their head bursting open as the Enclave’s vile energy weapons tore through their skull.

Through one of the massive holes in the side of the statue, I saw one of the city's massive harbour guns rip an Enclave Raptor appart. There was a loud boom and flash of blazing light as the huge gun caused the large airship to explode, sending massive chunks of flaming metal slashing through the air in all directions and filling the sky with raining shrapnel.

I felt my spirits lift a little. One Raptor was down already. We could do this!

My hopes were dashed as the massive gun on one of the Raptors swivelled and fired, the huge, lethal beam blasting apart the last and final harbour gun. I heard screams of panic from somewhere up above as the last of the city’s defences fell.

Firing every few seconds, we began leading the cowering ponies around us towards the spiral stairs that led to the large entrance. One round of my buckshot burst against the side of an Enclave trooper that dared to swoop down at us. Fire burst across their side from the fire talisman in my gun and cooked them alive from within their suit.

Mirra rushed past me, her disguised horn glowing as she weaved around incoming beams of enemy fire. I saw her wince as her revolver fired a shot, taking the leg off of an Enclave soldier that had opened fire on a cowering family.

We managed to make it halfway down the stairs to the main Chimney area. One of the ponies following behind me screamed out as an Enclave laser lashed at their side. Their screams died as they dissolved into ash. Scarlet quickly avenged them with a shot from her own rifle.

“Come on! Go go go!” I heard Brisk shouting, his mini gun clearing a path for us as we all rushed our way towards the exit. His mini gun slashed through a group of pegasi that were charging towards us through the entrance themselves, forcing them to scatter and search for cover.

A mare struggling to follow me cowered as a piece of the catwalk above us exploded, large chunks of metal raining down around us. “We’re all going to die!” I heard her screaming.

I grit my teeth. Fuck, I wasn’t going to let all of them just die like this.

Blam!

I fired another shot, the head of a charging Enclave pegasi bursting open in a shower of shattered skull fragments and brain matter. Even after death though, their final actions carried through as their battle saddle fired off a single shot, lashing through the screaming mare's chest and sending her collapsing to the ground. A crying foal rushed to her side, begging her to get back up. She never did.

“We’re almost at the exit!” I shouted, jumping back as the spot in front of me was blasted upon by enemy fire. “We can make it!”

Xayah rushed past me, using her own body to shield two trembling foals as the Enclave shot down at her. I saw one of the Enclave’s shot blast at one of her metal forelimbs, searing the white metal black.

Braeburn’s Liberator swivelled in my magic, firing a shot of buckshot directly into a pegasus’ chest. The Enclave soldier collapsed, their dented armour puncturing their lungs and killing them slowly.

I looked up as I began to near the exit, making out the looming forms of the two remaining Raptors. One of them fired another deadly beam of energy at the city, the beam flashing through the city and ripping through a section of the marketplace above me. The other Raptor simply floated impassively, not firing, but not retreating either.

What the hell was happening up there?

I rose to my hind hooves and rammed an Enclave trooper out of the way as I charged my way to the door. They crashed to the ground, their wings beating frantically as they tried to righten themselves, only for Xayah to finish them off to a shot through the eye.

“Come on! Get to the boats!” I shouted, urging the group of ponies that were still following me to keep going. “Hurry!”

The ponies I was trying to lead to safety had only just begun to spill out the front door and out into the harbour beyond when an Enclave pegasus pulling a large war wagon dove towards us, their hind hoof kicking out and snapping open a door beneath the wagon.

I stared up in horror as bombs poured from the back hatch in the wagon, dropping to the ground and clattering around our hooves as we tried to escape.

‘Everypony! Move!” I shouted, my voice filled with terror as I grabbed onto Mirra and dove away from the exit as fast as I could.

Boom!

The helpless ponies we had been trying to help escape were rent apart, their bodies flun in tatters by the massive savage energy explosion. The body of a stallion that had been trying to help an elderly mare out the door was sent flying back, their lifeless eyes staring up at the exploding statue around them.

I hit the ground hard, the explosion knocked the air out of my lungs. I screamed, pain flaring across my body as the detonation seared my side and ripped off a wad of flesh and hide. Mirra trembled under me, her body covered in cuts from the explosive shrapnel.

Blood drizzled from my mouth as I rolled off the small changeling, trying to climb back to my hooves. My head spun and I was seeing triple of everything. The sound of battle was drowned out by the loud ringing that filled my ears. I dropped back to the ground, my battered legs giving out from under me. Mirra scrambled up beside me, blood spilling from a large gash on her forehead.

I wiped the blood from my muzzle and managed to look up just in time to see the Enclave war wagon that had bombed us exploding from a well aimed shot from a rust coloured pegasus.

Xayah dragged herself over to me, her tear streaked face matted with blood. She said something to me, but I couldn’t hear it over all the noise.

More pegasi were swooping into the building, their magical energy weapons firing down and putting the few ponies that had survived the sudden bombardment out of their misery. A mare that had lost both of her fore hooves in the explosion was dropped dead from a sudden shot to the back of her head.

I felt a set of hooves wrap around me and managed to look up to see both Xayah and Scarlet helping me back up. I opened my mouth to thank them, but I couldn’t even hear my own voice over the rigging in my ears.

Brisk limped over to us, his eyes trained upwards as he fired up at the pegasi above.

More war wagons were beginning to swarm around the large statue of Friendship. Those wagons too began dropping bombs, some of them blasting appart ponies that had managed to reach the outer limits of the city, while others let loose their explosive load on the docks. I stared in terror as the ships and bridge to Friendship City were blown apart, their burning wreckages slowly sinking into the murky water.

There would be no escaping this island by boat or bridge.

I spotted the smouldering remains of a delivery wagon for something called Absolutely Everything, its burning fragments slowly floating away from the city forever.

We had failed. And the battle had only just begun.

“Come on Amber, we need to get moving!” Brisk’s frantic voice finally managed to pierce through the drumming in my ears. I looked back at him, my eyes wide. Even in the Hollow Shades Massacre, I had never seen this much death. At least there we had had a fighting chance, but this… this was just wrong… evil.

“B-but… the ponies, we need to…” I started, my voice stammering. I tried to take a step, but my spinning vision caused me to wobble and fall flat on my face.

“Amber!” I heard Brisk shout in worry, how hooves reaching down to help me back up. “We can’t help them… those ponies are dead… We need to protect anypony that’s still alive inside the city.”

I nodded, feeling another wave of dizziness wash over me from the motion. I must have gotten a concussion from the blast. Looking at the scattered pony limbs around me, I decided I was lucky that was all I got.

The still attacking Raptor fired another blast, this time at the crown of the Pony of Friendship, one of the sniper platforms bursting apart by the beam of deadly magic. We all ducked back as chunks of flesh rained down on us. I bit back a scream as the charred corpse of chief Lantern hit the ground beside us with a heady thud.

“We need to find cover!” Scarlet shouted, darting to the side as two Enclave troopers sent beams of energy lancing towards us.

I dogged out of the way, following after her and Scarlet as they raced for a mostly intact general shop that had been built into a rusting hull of a small cargo ship. Xayah and Brisk hunkered down beside me as Scarlet and I dove for cover behind where the till had once been.

I glanced around looking for Mirra, only to see the shivering changeling curled up against Brisk’s chest, tears racing down her horrified face.

The hull of the cargo ship rocked violently as the weapons on the attacking Raptor flashed through the building. I heard the sounds of screams as the massive gun vaporized entire families in seconds.

“B-Brisk…” I heard Xayah mutter from beside me. Brisk and I looked up at her, both our throats seeming to lock up. Xayah bit back tears, pointing at Brisk’s pipbuck. “Y-your pipbuck.”

Brisk glanced down, noticing a small light that had started beeping on his pipbuck. Flipping through the tabs, he pulled up a new radio signal that seemed to have been broadcasted directly to his pipbuck. Curious, he activated it.

“-Brisk? Amber?” Nova’s panicked voice shouted through the pipbuck.

I felt a wave of relief flood through me. She was still alive! That ment Tinker probably was too. “Oh thank Celestia. Nova, are you alright! Is Tinker there? When I saw the Inn get destroyed I thought you two might have-”

“Amber! You need to run!” Nova shouted, cutting me off. “He’s here! In the ci-”

“Fzzzzzat!”

Her voice cut out, suddenly silenced by her scream and the sound of a magical energy rifle firing. I felt my heart freeze.

“Amber Aura,” A new voice oozed through Brisk’s pipbuck. I felt my whole body go rigid and a chill flash through my body as the voice reached my ears. I saw Xayah lock up beside me as well. That wasn’t a voice you forget. Cold, low, and strangely monotone. Lacking in the type of inflection you’d expect from such an organic sounding voice.

The voice of the Courser.

I felt rage bubble up inside me. “What did you do with Tinker and Nova!” I screamed, my voice only slightly obscured by the booming of the Raptors guns above me.

“The colt is alive... for now,” The Courser groused. I was thankful to hear his claim backed up by the sound of Tinker whimpering over the speaker. “If you want him to stay that way, you will meet me at the top of Friendship City. You have ten minutes.”

The line went dead.

No. No, damn it, no! I could feel my anger getting smothered by gripping fear. The Enclave was enough to deal with, I couldn’t deal with the Courser now too! Not here!

“A-Amber, what are you going to do…” Scarlet breathed, staring at Brisk’s pipbuck with fear. “Th-that w-was the Courser… w-wasn’t it…”

I nodded, my panic making coming up with any sort of cohesive plan almost impossible. “I… I don’t know what to do… I can’t just… I can’t just run off to fight the Courser and leave all the ponies here to be killed by the Enclave?”

Brisk grunted. “You go save Tinker. Nova too if she is still alive. We’ll try to hold off the Enclave.”

Scarlet stood up, looking strangely determined. “I’ll go with you. I have a score to settle with the Institute anyway.”

“Bad idea,” Xayah retorted, looking over the top of the counter and out at the horrific bloodshed outside. “That Courser can deactivate synths just by speaking. Somepony that isn’t a synth needs to go to keep you covered.”

I glanced back and forth between all my friends, trying to come up with a plan of action that didn’t involve all of us and the entire city dying horribly. I didn’t like any of the likely outcomes of any of the plans I could think of. I looked down at Mirra who was still shivering in Brisk’s embrace. The changeling looked up at me, terrified. “Amber, I’m scared.”

Taking a deep breath, I pulled myself up. “Alright. Scarlet, Xayah, try to keep as many ponies as you can safe from the Enclave. Mirra, try to find somewhere safe. If you can find a way to evacuate everypony, report to Xayah or Scarlet,” I turned, looking at Brisk. “You’re with me. We need to save Tinker and Nova.

Brisk gave me a grin that he clearly in no way felt. “Alright. Let's go kill a synth death machine.”

I gulped, remembering that Pureblood had told me he had modeled the Courser after the deadly changeling general, Azar. “Yeah… we can try.”

Giving each other all a quick hug, we split up, Xayah and Scarlet rushing back into the frey while Brisk and I rushed further into Friendship City. Mirra slinked off, sticking to the edges of the city as the Enclave pushed past the remaining security and swarmed the living areas.

My hooves pounded heavily against the ground as I tried to keep pace with Brisk. He was a lot bigger and faster than me, making staying in line with him a fair amount of effort.

“The Enclave destroyed the staircase up to the next level!” I shouted, jumping over a collapsed piece of coppery debris that had fallen from the wall of the massive statue. “How are we getting to the top!”

“There’s an elevator at the back of the city that leads up to the top floor!” Brisk shouted back, his mini gun firing off a few rounds and dropping two Enclave troops to the ground. “With any luck, the Enclave hasn’t managed to damage that far into the city yet and we can ride it up!”

I felt my eyes shoot up in alarm. “You want to get onto an elevator with me while the city is being attacked by Enclave Raptors?!” That might have been the worst idea I had heard in my entire life.

Brisk grimaced. “You’re right. Bad idea,” He grimaced again. “Really, really bad idea. Come on, there’s a second staircase. We’ll take that!”

He led me further back into the city, taking the fastest route he knew to get up to the next level. We rushed past a group of ponies cowering together in a dark corner of the city, holding each other tightly and crying. I sent a prayer up to Celestia that they made it out of this alive.

We’d get them out of this somehow. Littlepip was in the city somewhere too. She’d do something. The Lightbringer always saved the day, right?

We reached the staircase Brisk had mentioned, not bothering to slow as we started racing up the steps. The whole city shook as the Raptor fired again, though this time I was far enough into the city that I didn’t see the powerful magic blast rip through the city's walls.

We reached the second floor, only to start rushing up the next set of stairs onto the third. As we ran, the steps in front of me were blasted to slag as an Enclave soldier flew up at us from the level below. Brisk wrapped his hooves around me and threw me aside as the pegasus fired up at us again, all four of the pegasus’ shots slashing through Brisk’s armour and piercing his stomach.

Brisk screamed, blood spraying from his mouth and oozing down from his body as he collapsed to the side of the stairwell in pain. He shivered, pain racing through him as he slumped against the railing and went unconscious.

“NO!” I screamed, rushing over and firmly placing my hooves on the bleeding holes that had been ripped into his side. He was losing a lot of blood, and fast! I glanced up, my eyes narrowing in rage at the Enclave pegasus as they landed on the stairs a few steps above us. The pegasus narrowed their eyes in return, their antenna-like weapons pulsing with coloured light and their scorpion-like tail swishing back and forth behind them menacingly.

I pulled myself up, Braeburn’s Liberator lifting up in the amber glow of my magic to aim at the pegasus. I hesitated as five more armoured Enclave Troopers swooped in from above, landing behind the pegasus that had shot down Brisk.

I looked down at Brisk, weighing my options. Things weren’t looking good. Brisk was in no condition to fight right now, and there was now way I could fight my way through all of them while carrying him on my back.

That train of thought was only amplified as three more fully armoured Pegasi started swooping towards us from behind, landing on the steps behind us and levelling their deadly weapons at my head.

I took a shaky breath, my eyes darting back and forth as I searched for a way out of this. I saw nothing.

Fwoosh!

A stream of fire roared down from the floor above us. The Enclave troopers that had landed at the top of the stairs only had just enough time to give a shout of alarm before the blazing inferno overtook them and cooked them alive inside of their armour.

The pegasus that had shot Brisk spun around, their eyes wide as a massive, power armoured figure burst from the writhing flames and slammed into them. The large ponies steel clad hooves stomped down on the pegasus’ head, crushing their skull flat under the tremendous force.

The Enclave pegasi that had been rushing up the stairs at me paused, their faces filled with horror as the dancing firelight silhouetted the imposing power armoured pony.

Despite everything that had happened, I felt myself smile. It had been a bit since I’d seen her, but I could never forget that intimidating suit of black hotrod armour. “Pyre…”

Pyre looked down at me, her eyebrows raised a little from behind her visor. “Hey Amber. Been a while, hasn’t it,” She looked past me, glaring at the three Enlcave soldiers staring up at her in horror. “These winged rats cousin’ you trouble?”

My smile simply wouldn’t leave me. She was back! She was finally, finally back! I allowed myself to shift my wide, beaming smile into a slightly less beaming smirk. “They very definitely are.”

Only one of the Enclave ponies managed to dodge out of the way as Pyre’s flames sent a wave of napalm spewing towards them. The pegasus fired off a shot from their rifle, only for the beam of energy to bounce almost harmlessly off of Pyre’s armour.

Pyre spun around, her hind hooves rocketing backwards and bucking the Enclave trooper in the face. Her powerful hooves quite literally ripped the poor ponies head from his body. I almost felt sorry for him. Then I looked at all the death around me and decided it was a just reward.

I quickly poured a healing potion down Brisk’s throat before standing up and facing her. The potion patched his wounds a little, but they still oozed blood and he didn’t leave his unconscious state.

Pyre took a second, breathing deeply as she tried to catch her breath. She hadn’t even turned back to face me before I rushed forwards and wrapped the big mare in a tight hug. I doubt she could feel it through her armour, but I wanted to hug her anyway.

“Heh... Hey… I’m back… I guess,” Pyre said, slowly dislodging herself from me. “What I miss?”

“Nothing good, trust me,” I grimaced, pulling away and looking her over wearily. “What’s happened to you? Where have you been?”

Pyre glanced down at herself, taking a moment to think things over. “I didn’t know what to do when I left at first,” Pyre stated honestly. She looked back up at me and I could see her trying to sort something out in her head even as she spoke. “Eventually I decided I’d try to sort some of this synth stuff out…”

I raised an eyebrow at her. “Did you?” Nodding, Pyre reached back with one of her hooves and pulled something out from her saddle bag before tossing it to the floor in front of me. I looked down at it, then gagged. She had just taken out a decaying pony heart. “Ew ew ew ew… Pyre, why?”

“I started trying to figure out when the Institute had replaced me,” Pyre answered grimly. “I guess I just wanted to know what I’ve actually done and what this… this robot that I am now has done… I don’t know why… thought it might help or some shit. I followed any rumours I could find about my whereabouts over the last few months. Took me half the way back to Las Pegasus…”

I still kept staring at the rotting heart, still waiting for that to make sense. “Oookay… So what’s with the gross myocardium?”

Pyre glanced down at the rotten organ for a second before stepping past me and gingerly picking Brisk up from the stairwell and placing him on her back. “Wasn’t easy, but I tracked down the location I had been replaced… I found that… Well, I found more than that... “ I heard her voice shiver as some painful memory flooded her mind. “I found my body, torn apart and dissected, left to rot away in some back alley in the middle of nowhere…”

I glanced down at the gross organ with a new horror. “Wait! That heart is yours!”

“That heart is Pyre Blaze’s,” Pyre corrected, carrying Brisk’s limp body up the stairs. “I’m just a robot. Some stupid synth that likes to think she’s Pyre…”

“You’re wrong,” I said flatly, following her up the steps. She didn’t seem to have any intention on picking the heart back up, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to touch it. “You’re still Pyre.”

Pyre glanced back at me. “No, I’m not Amber. But thank you for the thought. You wouldn’t understand.”

I felt just a little bit smug when I replied. “I might understand more than you know…”

Pyre paused, her eyes darting down to look me over. After a very long moment of silence, she spoke again, her voice coming out in a low, threatening rumble. “What the fuck did the Institute do.”

I actually winced at the sudden rage that seemed to flow from her. I had to force the smirk back onto my face, though I didn’t feel it anymore. “I’m a synth now too Pyre… My body's still out there somewhere, alive… But right now I’m like you.”

Pyre glared at me from the top of the steps, seething, though I could tell that her rage was not directed at me. “Amber,” She finally said, her tone sounding just a little softer, though still very clearly having a sharp edge to it. “I don’t care what it takes. I’m going to get your real body back. No pony deserves this…” She looked back up the steps, her hostile posture fading a little. “Now come on, this is no place to talk. Not with the Enclave. We need to get Brisk healed up before he loses too much blood.”

I nodded, following after her as she carried Brisk up the last few flights of stairs. “Not to try and complicate things more than they already are, but we have issues bigger than the Enclave,” I informed her, trotting up beside her. “There's a Courser on the top floor of the city. He has Tinker and Nova hostage,” Assuming Nova is even still alive, I added to myself.

Pyre Blaze gave me a confused look. “Tinker and Nova?”

I tried to figure out how to give her a quick rundown of everything without taking to long, realizing she wouldn’t recognize either of those names. “Err, yes. Friends of ours. You’ve missed a lot. I’ll make sure to fill you in if we survive all of this.”

Pyre simply nodded, moving to start heading up the next flight of stairs. “Alright. We’ll find some healing potions for Brisk, then head up and confront this Courser.”

I glanced down below me at where the Enclave were still ripping apart the floor below. There were a few Pegasi that were flying up to the higher floors to attack some of the hiding ponies above, but most of them were staying on the main level where there seemed to be the highest concentration of civilians.

Looking back at Pyre. “I really missed you, but… what are you doing here?”

Pyre glanced back at me slightly, looking me over through her tinted visor. “Yeah, I missed you too,” She gestured to the destruction the Enclave had wrought upon the city around us. “I saw the Raptors moving towards the city. I figured I’d try and help out. I didn’t expect to run into you here though…”

I brushed my side against her large frame as we walked. “Are you going to travel with us again? I know we would all love to have you back,” I gave her my biggest puppy eyes. “I know Mirra really misses you.”

Pyre scowled at me. “Oh don’t give me those big eyes Amber. I’ve seen you do enough bloody shit that your adorableness doesn’t really work anymore,” She looked away from me. “And no. I can’t join you guys again… not with the Institute using my eyes to spy on you.”

I felt a little bit of smugness return. “Actually, I already dealt with that. I got back into the Institute, managed to delete both of us from their database. They don’t have any control over us anymore.”

Pyre paused, looking back at me with awe for a second. Finally she just grunted. “Damn, you’ve been busy I see.”

“You don’t even know the half of it,” I smirked back.

We came to a long hallway that seemed to have so far remained untouched by the Raptors weaponry. It hadn’t however, remained free of the Enclave entirely.

Pyre crouched down into a battle stance, her eyes clearly catching hostile movement on her EFS. A second later I heard muffled voices shouted from a room beside us, the magically enhanced voices of the Enclave troopers beyond still audible through the door.

“Step aside!” We heard the voice of an Enclave soldier boom. “Step aside or I’ll have you branded as a dashite!”

Pyre and I crept forwards, slowly moving our way towards the door the voices were coming from.

“No!” A mare's voice shouted out. I recognized the voice at once and picked up my pace. “They’re just foals. I-I can't let you fucking do this!”

Pyre and I peeked around the corner of the doorframe, making out the scene in the room beyond. As I had suspected, the Enclave scientist Star Breeze was facing off against five fully armoured Enclave soldiers, a group of eleven or so foals cowered behind her as the imposing pegasi closed in on them.

“We have our orders Star! Now I’m not going to ask you again...” The leading Enclave trooper demanded, stomping a hoof down in frustration. “Step aside and report back to the Pyroculus, or I’m going to fire whether you’re still standing in the way or not.”

Star Breeze visibly trembled at the threat, but she held her ground. “I-I-I’m not g-going to let you kill foals!”

The Enclave soldier growled. “Fucking shit Star, get out of the goddess damned way!” Their magical energy rifle began glowing dangerously, crackling with energy.

Pyre had clearly had enough of just hiding and watching. She leapt out from our cover, her flamers roaring as she sent a wave of fire flashing over the Enclave troopers. The pegasi darted back in surprise, taking to the air as Pyre lunged towards them.

I pulled myself out, Braeburn’s Liberator firing off a round of Buckshot point black into an Enclave Soldiers head. The pegasus was flung back, their now headless corpse hitting the ground with a loud crack in front of the cowering foal.

Star Breeze dove in front of the foals protectively with a loud “eep” of surprise, her body taking the hit of one of the deadly beams of energy that started lancing out across the room. She felt to the ground whimpering, her chest rising and falling as the wound was quickly cauterized by the searing laser.

Pyre rose onto her hind hooves, her fore hooves crashing down on an Enclave Troopers neck and crushing their windpipe. The pegasus struggled, their eyes wide as they choked out, blood spilled from their mouths.

Fzzzzzat!

One of the foals was hit with a beam of energy, their body instantly dissolving into a pile of glittering ash. The foals around them screamed, huddling together in fear. I returned the favour by tackling the murderous pegasus to the ground, my shotgun hovering over their head for only a second before I unloaded two rounds of buckshot into their face. Their body spasmed as the explosive slugs ripped through them, then they went limp.

Another Enclave trooper blasted at me with their rifle, the beam of energy missing by mere inches as I ducked and rolled towards them. Before I had time to attack back, Pyre’s flamers flashed out and lit them ablaze. The pegasus writhed in the air, desperately trying to put out the searing flames. Their attempts were in vain as the flames rushed across their body and slowly burned them alive.

A blast from Star’s own magical energy rifle dropped the last pegasus to the ground, turning them to a pile of ash.

Groaning, Star pulled a healing potion out of her saddle bags and downed the contents, the wound on her chest quickly patching itself back together. She looked up at us and gave us something that was a mix between a grateful smile and a scowl. “Well well, look who it fucking is.”

“What are you doing here?” I asked, helping her up to her hooves. She gratefully took my hoof and pulled herself back up before brushing at her lab coat and trying to get out the wrinkles.

“Uh, I’m Enclave, remember?” She spat back. Then she hesitated, looking at the pegasus corpses around us. “Or… well I was until just about right now I guess… Fuck… I knew about Operation Cauterize, but… but t-this… This is madness… Thundersee just fired on the Raptor Altostus… and and… of fuck… Fuck, I’m a scientist, not a soldier! I shouldn’t even be here right now!” she seemed to curl in on herself as she started going into some sort of panic attack. “F-fuck… I… I can’t do t-this… I’m not made for this kind of fucking shit… oh goddesses…”

“Star, I need you to focus,” I said, trying my best to comfort her. “We have some serious problems right now and Brisk is hurt. Can you help him?”

Star gave me a timid nod and sauntered her way over to Pyre, looking Brisk’s wounds over. Having something to work on seemed to calm her down a little bit. “O-oh fuck… fuck fuck fuck,” The pegasus muttered to herself as she got to work patching together Brisk’s wounds.

I turned and addressed the cowering foals. Save for the colt that had been turned to ash, they all seemed to be unharmed. “Are you all alright?” One of the foals nodded solemnly at me while the rest of them just stared back with tear streaked faces. “I need you to stick close with Star, alright. She’ll keep you safe,” I told them, slowly moving back to Pyre.

Star looked up at me with surprise at that. “W-what? I’m not a fucking foalsitter Amber!”

Pyre seemed to smirk through her helmet. “I mean, you’re already looking after Brisk right now. That’s pretty much like foalsitting.”

Star Breeze scowled, her lips quivering. “N-not f-funny.”

I knelt down and gave the trembling Enclave scientist a small pat on the shoulder. “We have to go deal with a synth death machine right now… Can you please look after the foals for us… They need somepony they can trust to look out for them.”

Star let out a long, shaky breath. “Fuck… A synth death ma- Goddesses fuck me in the ass… Why do things always go wrong for me when I run into you…” She took another deep breath, this time sounding a little less panicky. “Alright. Fine. I’ll be a foalsitter for a bit. Just don't die. I um… You owe me for all this.”

For once, I agreed with her. “Yeah. I’ll get you whatever you want when we’re done. Thank’s Star,” I turned, heading back out the door with Pyre.

“Y-you better….” Star Breeze whimpered back, her gaze turning back to Brisk’s seeping wounds.

“Alright, that takes care of Brisk, hopefully,” Pyre said, turning to the end of the hallway that led to the final set of stairs leading to the crown of the Pony of Friendship statue. “Let's deal with this Courser.”

I nodded, following after her. “It’s not going to be easy. This Courser is modeled after Azar. And now that Brisk is out of commission, it’s going to be a lot easier for it to take us down.”

Pyre glanced at me in confusion. “You have me now. I think I can deal with a synth,” She hesitated for a second. “That Azar thing is concerning though… That zebr- changeling was a bitch and a half to kill.”

I shook my head. “No, it’s not just that. Coursers can deactivate synths by saying their deactivation code. If we let it speak, it’ll just turn us off,” I grimaced at Pyres worried reaction to that. “That was why I brough Brisk along. Keep the fight going if I get deactivated.”

Pyre growled. “Well fuck. That complicates things… is there any workaround for that?”

I gave a tentative nod. “Kind of. I think if you repeat the code again, we’ll go back online. But if that happens, you need to be fast. I doubt the Courser is going to give us time to just reactivate each other over and over again.”

“Do you know the codes?”

Again, I hesitated. “Mine is… uh… X237- uh… seven something… I don’t remember it well. Your memory gets all funky after you get deactivated... And I have no idea what yours is,” I grimace, realizing that that put us at one hell of a disadvantage. “The Courser will have to say it to detective us though, so just repeat what they say and we should be fine… probably… maybe… probably not…”

Pyre rolled her eyes. “Wonderful prep talk. Really giving me that boost of confidence I need before taking on a synth death machine.”

We started moving up the final, steep set of stairs. Up above I could see the diffused sunlight shining down on us. We were almost at the top of the city.

Pyre paused at the top step, clearly checking her EFS. “I got three dashes up there. Two friendly, one hostile.”

I felt my knees go limp with relife. “Oh thank Celestia. That means Tinker and Nova are still alive,” The Courser hadn’t decided to just kill them then. Small blessing I supposed. “We need to be careful. The Courser is probably waiting for us.”

Pyre nodded, her legs bending down into a ready position. She glanced over at me. “You ready?”

I nodded. “Alright, let's do this,” With that, we sprung up the last steps and burst out onto the top of the roof.

“X23762Z!” I heard the Courser’s voice shout out the second my hoof touched the top step. I immediately felt flat on my face, my whole body suddenly locking up as my deactivation code rang out across the rooftop. I had been right, the Courser had been waiting for us.

“X237- uh- 62Z” Pyre’s voice roared back, the collection of letters and numbers suddenly bringing me out of my immobilized state. I rushed back to my hooves, my magic levelling my shotgun with the Courser.

The Courser scowled as I pulled myself back up, their icy blue eyes narrowing as they flickered over to where Pyre was standing. “TR348X2!”

Pyre’s body sagged, her form going limp within her power armour. “TR348X2!” I quickly shouted back, repeating the code that had just left the Courser mouth. Instantly, Pyre straightened, taking a frightened step back as she was given control over her hooves again.

Again, the Courser scowled, his gaze seeming murderous. His dark lips pulled back, bearing his teeth. “Very clever,” The Courser sneered, taking a step towards us. His horn sparked dangerously as he started closing the distance between us. “Fine… let's talk…”

I took a deep breath. At least the Courser wasn’t going to be able to take us out as quickly as I had been afraid he would.

Now that the initial panic was over, I was able to take in our surroundings. The top of the Pony of Friendship statue had been obliterated by the Enclave Raptors fire, leaving the area as a massive, open platform overlooking harbor below. Charred corpses were strewn across the large opening and I could see the massive Raptor still firing at the city floating far below us, though I noticed the second Raptor had been destroyed, its wreckage having crashed down and taken out a large chunk of the Bridge to Friendship City. Swarms of pegasi darted around the city, their deadly energy weapons blasting apart anything that moved.

The dark Courser stood in the centre of the large platform, his black trench coat billowed around him and his Institute laser rifle was floating beside him, its aim shifting back and forth between Pyre and myself. Both Nova and Tinker were on the ground behind him. Tinker had crawled his way over to Nova and was currently trying to stop her from bleeding out from a blast of magical energy that had severed one of her wings.

A strong wind blew across the rooftop as we faced down the Courser, whipping our manes around us.

“So, you're a Courser,” Pyre stated simply, trotting forwards and looking the synth over curiously. “You’re shorter than I expected,” The Courser was tall enough to tower over me by almost a foot, but I did notice that the top of his head still only reached up to Pyre’s neck while she was in her large suit of power armour.

The Courser grinned back at her. “I had not expected to run into you as well, Pyre Blaze. My Institute files showed me that you had left Ambers employ a few days ago. Clearly they need to be updated,” His grin became a rictus smirk. “But I am most pleased at this meeting. I had orders to hunt you down and exterminate you once I had dealt with Amber Aura. You have both simplified my job tremendously.”

I took a step towards him, careful not to get too close. I knew how dangerous this Courser could be in hoof to hoof combat. No doubt, that was a trait he had picked up from Azar. “You’re going to let Tinker and Nova go, right now!” I demanded. “I’m not going to ask you twice.”

The Courser raised an eyebrow at me. “Hmmm. No,” The Courser cooed. He responded to my advancements by taking a step of his own towards me. I promptly stepped back, not daring to let it get within melee range. “As of right now, I have your friends hostage. This is not an advantage I will simply toss aside because of baseless threats.”

“I’m not going to let you hurt anypony else,” I scowled, making sure to keep my gun level with his head.

The Courser just gave me an amused look. “You two may have found a way to keep me from immediately shut you down, but you will both still die here,” his emotionless smile was unbearable. “You could not defeat me back in Fillydelphia or at Skyfires. What makes you think things will be different here?”

Pyre cast another glance my way. “You were in Fillydelphia? I really need to get caught up on everything that has been going on.”

I scowled at the Courser. “I’m ready for you this time.”

That actually made the Courser laugh. “Are you now, Amber Aura? Then I implore you to take me out. Things here will not go your way,” The Courser’s eyes darted to Pyre for a second, then quickly returned to me. “Now, I think we’ve talked long enough. We both know how this needs to end.”

I jumped out of the way just in time to avoid the beam of deadly blue energy that slashed past my face. I rolled across the ground, the hide on my side being ripped open as I rolled across the sharp debris that was scattered across the roof's surface.

Pyre lunged forwards, her powerful hooves swinging at the Courser’s head. The Courser easily stepped aside, his hind hoof lashing out and sticking Pyre across the face. Pyre was thrown back, crashing to the floor with a loud thud. Had she not been in her armour, the hit probably would have shattered her skull.

“TR348X2!” The Courser shouted, spinning around and lunging for me. Immediately, Pyre went limp, her body sagging as the deactivation code flashed through her ears.

“TR3-” I started, but I was cut off as the Courser slammed into me, their powerful hooves bashing at my throat and forcing me to take a gasping breath of air. I stumbled back, my hooves clutching at my neck as I tried to get air into my crushed windpipe.

The Courser rounded on me again, swinging their hooves at my head. I ducked low, still gagging as I tried to get air into my lungs. Before I could righten myself again, the Courser’s hoof flashed out and smacked me across the back of the head, toppling me to the ground.

I coughed, blood splattering against the rooftop. “T… R… 3...” I started to sputter, pain flaring up my constricting throat as I tried to reactivate Pyre. The Courser was faster.

“X23762Z!” The Courser sneered. I dropped to the ground, my whole body stilling. I felt panic grip me as my deactivation code forced me out of control of my body. I stared up at the sky with my unblinking eyes, my understanding of the world around me rapidly dwindling away.

What was I doing up here again? Who was that large black pony standing over me? Why was he smiling? Why was his gun aimed at my head?

“X23762Z! TR348X2!” I heard Tinker shout out.

I bolted back up, my hooves knocking the Courser’s gun aside as I was jolted back to life. The Courser stumbled back, surprised. I looked over, seeing Tinker smiling weakly at me from Nova’s side. Across from them, Pyre was pulling herself back up in her heavy suit of armour, growing at the Courser.

“You little brat!” The Courser roared, his Institute rifle swivelling in his magic to aim at the small colt.

Fzzzzzat!

A blue beam of energy fired from the rifle, slashing through Tinker’s leg and sending the colt collapsing to the ground with a loud scream. The Courser aimed again, this time the shot lined up for Tinker’s head.

Pyre rammed into him, her flamers blazing with burning light and forcing the Courser’s shot to go wide. Her hooves flashed forwards, smashing into the Courser and sending him staggering back. He wheezed painfully, his chest dented inward.

I fired a shot from Baeburn’s Liberator. The Courser dodged out of the way, the buckshot missing their head but taking off their ear. Blood spewed across the roof as the synthetic ear flopped limp to the ground.

“Why won't you ponies just die!” The Courser snarled, dark blood dripping down his face and staining his coat. His rifle swiveled, blasting five beams into Pyre’s side. Pyre staggered, but her strong power armour took most of the hits for her.

I lunged forwards, wrapping my hooves around his neck and trying to drag the Courser down to the ground. They whipped around, flinging me off of them and sending me crashing back to the ground with a thud.

With a roar, Pyre lunged forwards again, her twin flamers spewing waves of fire. The Courser ducked back, the front of his face singed as the flames licked at his hide. The air filled with the smell of burning hair and flesh.

The Courser’s hoof slammed into my face, knocking me to the ground. I felt blood drip down my face as the Courser’s hoof broke my nose. I rolled onto my back, only for the Courser’s hoof to crash down on my chest, pinning me in place. Their rifle swung around, aiming down between my eyes.

Fzzzzzat!

I flinched, the blue beam of energy flashing from the barrel of the Courser’s gun only inches from my face. But the bolt never made it to me. It was stopped as a shimmering shield of violet magic materialized between us.

I looked up, seeing Nova’s horn glowing faintly as she poured what little strength she had left into keeping me alive.

The Courser growled. For the first time since I had seen him, I saw true rage flash across his face. Not that strange, faux emotion that he sometimes emoted. He whirled around, his rifle flaring and blasting a beam of light at the alicorn.

Nova screamed in agony, the beam of energy slashing through her horn and incinerating it. Blood spilled across the rooftop from where her long horn had once been.

Pyre pushed herself between the Courser and Nova before he could finish her off, letting her power armour take the brunt of the shot. She smirked at him, flashing forwards and trying to crush his head between her hooves.

The Courser danced back, avoiding her attack, but giving me enough room to haul myself back up. I cast a glance at Nova, seeing her slumped against the floor. Her whole body was trembling in pain, but she was thankfully still alive.

Once again, the Courser dodged away from Pyre’s attack, scowling as he watched me pull myself fully back to my hooves. Ducking under a blast of fire, he darted forwards and slammed his hooves hard into Pyre’s head, forcing her backwards.

Now with a little space, the Courser put a hoof to his still attached ear, activating some sort of intercom. “Amber Aura is on the roof of Friendship City. Send reinforcements.”

Shit, that was bad.

Blue light flashed around me, signalling the arrival of a squadron of synths as they teleported up onto the roof. I hopped backwards, their Institute rifles flaring and sending beams of blue light slashing at the spot I had been standing in.

I tried to aim at one of the approaching synths, only for the Courser to lunge at me and send me toppling to the ground. As I felt, I saw two of the synths fire on Pyre, their lasers slashing at her armour and searing her flesh beneath.

Blam! Blam! Blam! Blam!

Two of the synths fell as a stream of bullets tore through them, ripping out their electronic innards and sending them falling limp to the ground.

The Courser looked up with a snarl, spotting Brisk and he pulled himself up onto the roof, his mini gun whirring loudly as he ripped through the synths. He gave me a wink as his gun fired off a flurry of bullets. “Hey sis. Thought you could just go fighting killer robots without me?” he looked over to Pyre, smirking. “Good to see that you’re back.”

Pyre nickered at him. “Good to be back.”

Star Breeze swooped out of the stairwell and onto the roof, her magical energy rifle firing shots off behind her as two Enclave soldiers raced up after her. “Amber, I’m sorry! I told Brisk he was in no condition to fight but he insisted and the Enclave showed up and- oh fuck!” she did a flip in the air as one of the synths fired up at her.

The two Enclave troopers soared out onto the roof, their weapons firing off bolts of coloured light. I saw their eyes widen as they took in the Synths firing up at them. “What the fuck are those thin-” The Enclave soldier was cut off as a synth fired a beam of blue energy through their visor, the lethal beam melting the flesh from their face.

I jumped to my right as the Courser lashed at me with their hoof. Their hoof sailed past my ear, nearly taking my head clean off. I returned the favor with a kick to the chest. I doubted it did much damage itself, but Pyre had already managed to damage that spot, making my attack seem far worse than it was.

The Courser stumbled backwards, growling. Brisk fired more shots at him, forcing him to dip away. His ice blue eyes darted around, finally landing on Tinker as the bleeding colt slowly dragged his way over to where Nova was bleeding out.

Another synth was blown apart as Pyre slammed into it, crushing it flat with a heavy stomp of her hoof. The synth spasmed underneath her before finally going still.

A shot from Star Breeze dropped the last Enclave Trooper to the ground, her energy rifle lancing through his neck and sending viscera spilling across the rooftop. They landed with a thud next to Tinker, a loud crack filling the air as their bleeding neck snapped.

The Courser rushed across the rooftop and snatched Tinker up, his dark hoof raising him into the air a moment before slamming the colt's head into the ground. The Coursers Institute rifle pressing roughly against Tinkers head, its end glowing a vibrant blue as he prepared to fire. Tinker screamed out, thrashing as he was pinned down by the monster that had killed his mother.

“Take another step and the colt dies,” The Courser hissed, his eyes flashing dangerously. I froze, taking in Tinker’s situation. I couldn’t let him die! Not now. Not after I had promised his mother I would keep him safe.

The Courser sneered, seeing all of us pause. His hoof pressed down harder on Tinker’s chest, making the colt give a loud whimper of pain.

I kept my weapon aimed at the Courser, though I didn’t dare take another step. “Don’t you dare hurt him!” Brisk backed me up by giving the Courser an angry snarl form beside me.

The Courser smiled coldly at him and I saw his magical grip on the trigger of his rifle tighten. “This is not the first time that I have threatened your friends' lives in exchange for your surrender, Amber Aura. I have decided that this tactic has less effect on you than I had initially anticipated,” His grin grew. “Perhaps I will just kill the colt now. Perhaps that will finally get through to you!”

I saw Nova reer up from the ground beside the Courser, blood spilling down her face. The alicorn dove forwards, using what little strength she could to push the Courser away. Her jagged horn slashing at the Courser’s throat. “Nooo!”

Fzzzzzat! Fzzzzzat! Fzzzzzat!

Three blasts of the Courser’s Institute rifle blasted through Nova’s neck as she dove between the deadly rifle and Tinker. Nova shuddered, falling limp to the floor, blood spilling down her body as three massive holes were ripped open in her.

Tinker darted away, his hooves snatching up the magical energy rifle from the dead Enclave Trooper that had collapsed next to him. He spun around, the rifle in his hooves firing five beams straight into the Courser’s chest as the Courser staggered from the sudden slash to his neck.

The Courser’s eyes went wide as the blast ripped through their body, blood spilling down his front. He sagged, staggering back as another blast from Tinker’s gun lashed through him.

Pyre pounced forwards, smashing her hooves down heavily across the Courser’s back. The Courser bucked at her, sending Pyre skidding away, but collapsing to the ground himself as her strong hooves shattered his spine.

I saw Tinker rushing forwards, his eyes blazing with furry as he pressed the magical energy rifle against the Courser’s head. I screamed, racing towards the enraged colt. “No, wait! Tinker! Don’t get too close!”

Fzzzzzat!

Fzzzzzat!

Two shots were fired, one from the Courser’s rifle, and one from Tinkers. Tinker screamed as a bolt of burning energy slashed through his chest, blood surging from the wound as the young colt dropping limp to the ground.

The Courser howled in pain as Tinker’s bolt of energy lashed through him, the blazing beam blasting apart the right side of his head. The Courser’s remaining eye flashed with pain as his body spasmed and began to glow. Slowly, his body disintegrated into a glowing pile of ash, the strong wind blowing his remains away where it spiralled into the air, scattered and lost forever.

I rushed to Tinker’s side at once, dropping down and propping the colt up. “Star! Healing potion! Now!” I ordered, grabbing hold of the healing potion Star tossed me as she rushed over to Nova. I quickly began pouring the potion down his throat, watching in horror as the wound very slowly began too close.

It wasn’t going fast enough. I quickly poured the rest of the potion on the seeping wound itself. That seemed to work a little better.

Tinker coughed and sputtered, hacking up blood as the potion worked its magic and the wound stitched itself back together. He blinked up at me, his drowsy expression mixed with pain. “A-Amber!” I felt my breath hitch as I embraced him, careful not to hug him to tighty. He was alive. Thank the goddesses. “W-where’s N-Nova?”

My relief was crushed by terror. I looked up to where Star was frantically working over the collapsed alicorn. Star glanced up at me, sensing my worried look. “She’s alive. Barely,” My refeif returned, though it was only minimal. Alive didn’t mean she was going to survive. Star looked over at Pyre, her expression stern. “Power armour chick!! Get over here! I need you to carry the alicorn.”

“My name’s Pyre,” Pyre drawled, but she quickly did as instructed and lifted Nova up onto her back. “Where are we taking her?”

Boom!

Before Star could answer, the large Raptor firing at the city exploded, bits of metal and shrapnel bursting in all directions as it was ripped apart. I looked down at it, watching as the Enclave soldiers began frantically pulling back.

Littlepip’s work no doubt. That or Xayah had gotten more aggressive than normal.

Star didn’t even bother to look up as the Raptor was torn apart. “Amber, Grab the alicorn’s wing. I think I can attach it again if we get her somewhere safe.”

I nodded, dragging myself across the rooftop and picking up the limp, bloodsoaked appendage. Tinker trailed behind me, limping painfully on his wounded hoof.

“Amber, is Nova going to be alright?” Tinker asked, staggering as he tried to hold himself upright on his injured leg.

I gave him a grim look. “We’re going to do our best… I swear we’re going to do our best.”

Most of the Enclave abandoned the fight after the Raptor, which Star had informed us was called the Pyrocumulus, had been destroyed. A few had stayed behind to “Mop up”, but Pyre and the remainder of the Friendship City security had done a decent job of taking care of them.

I had been getting mixed reports from everypony I asked, but it seemed like around a quarter of the ponies in the city had survived. A victory on a technicality, but it sure didn’t feel like a victory to me. You couldn’t say you won after so many ponies had died.

I had been thankful to hear that the foals I had left in the care of Star had all survived, though most of their parents had not. A group of survivors had quickly started up an orphanage of sorts in the wreckage of the living area. We had managed to give the foals over to them who took them in without complaint.

Pyre and Brisk stood next to me as I watched Star and Tinker work over Nova. Tinker wasn’t much of a medic, but he had insisted on helping Star keep Nova stable. After about ten minutes of begging, Star finally agreed to let him hand her things as she needed them, a job the colt seemed to actually be quite good at.

We had moved Nova to the remains of the Friendship City hospital, though the Enclave Raptor had damaged the structure pretty badly. A few other ponies had dragged themselves to the hospital looking for medical attention as well. Thankfully the city's doctor had survived and was currently swamped up to her hooves in patients as she tried her best to keep everypony alive.

A lot of ponies were giving Star nasty glares, but they didn’t seem to try and do anything about her since she was one of the few ponies around that seemed to have any form of medical training.

“H-hey, Star?” Brisk said, blushing as he trotted up to her while the pegasus frantically worked over Nova. Star cast him a grump look, but didn’t answer. “I just wanted to thank you for fixing me up. I never got the opportunity with the Enclave and the Courser and all.”

Star shrugged. “Whatever. Don’t mention it. It was nothing really. Just let me focus.”

Brisk gave her a nervous nod in response and quickly shuffled out of the way, his face downcast and flushed with embarrassment.

I almost jumped out of my skin as a hoof wrapped around my neck and pulled me into a tight hug. I twisted around in the grip to find myself face to face with Scarlet. She didn’t seem to be badly wounded at all, though her body was covered in a fair amount of cuts and bruises.

I smiled at her. “Hey. Glad to see that you’re alright.”

The auburn mare smiled warmly. “I am glad you are alright too. I wasn’t sure you would be, with you going after a Courser and all.”

“What? No hug for me?” Brisk joked, opening his hooves up a little. Scarlet rolled her eyes and gave Brisk a tight hug as well.

When she pulled back, Scarlet gave me a grim look. “And did you… did you get the Courser? Is it dead?”

“Y-yeah. I did...or rather, Tinker did,” I said, gesturing towards the colt who was currently in the process of digging for something in Star’s medical bag. “He won’t be an issue anymore.”

Scarlet gave me a sad look at that. “I doubt that. Pureblood will send more. We have only delayed them a little bit,” She looked up, taking in the large form of Pyre beside me. Her face brightened immediately. “Oh, hello… You must be Pyre!”

Pyre glanced around suspiciously. “I um… yeah. Who are you again?”

Scarlet outstretched her hoof for Pyre to shake. “Scarlet. I helped Amber free you from the Institute.”

Pyre looked at her for a second before bumping her armoured hoof against hers. “Scarlet… that makes you… uh… you’re the marefriend of the cybernetic alicorn, right?” Her voice was hesitant. I had explained who Scarlet was to everypony after I had returned from the Institute the first time, though I’m sure Pyre’s memory of that must have been relatively foggy.

Scarlet blushed a little. “Uh… yeah. Crank. I understand that you and him didn’t exactly have the best experiences together. Sorry about that.”

Pyre shook her apology off with a hoof. “He beat me up, I called him a metal bitch once. I think we had a staring contest on a train. Honestly, I had a nicer experience with him than I’ve had with most of my old friends.”

“I remember he always beat me in staring contests,” Scarlet answered dreamily, her face flushing a little.

Pyre chuckled. “Ah geez, you’re more hopeless over that cyborg than Amber is over the zebra…” She let out another small laugh. “And if you thought he was good at staring contests back then, you should have seen him back on the train. I swear, those glass eyes of his did not need to blink.”

I smiled at their goofy conversation. It felt like we never got enough time to simply joke around with one another. I turned back to Star and Tinker to find Nova awake, her hazy eyes blinking up at me sleepily.

“Amber? W-what happened?” The wounded alicorn grumbled, one of her hooves rubbing at her forehead tiredly. She froze when she felt the cracked, ruined stump where her horn had once been. Her eyes went wide with fear. “M-my horn!”

“I tried to fix it, but there's not much I can do after it’s been turned to fucking ash,” Star grumbled, still working on the wounds on Nova’s neck. “I did manage to get your wing back on, but I’d recommend not flying on it for a few days.”

Nova glanced worriedly at her wing and seemed to relax a little bit to see it once more attached to her body. Her expression softened even more when Tinker rushed forwards and wrapped his hooves around her.

“Thank you Nova!” The colt cried into her coat. “I… I couldn’t have killed the Courser without you. Y-you saved me,” Nova gave him a thin smile and wrapped her uninjured wing over his body in a small hug.

Scarlet glanced at me for confirmation on what Tinker said. I simply nodded at her. Taking a deep breath, Scarlet stepped forwards. “Nova. I um… I am sorry about what I said about you earlier,” She looked down at her hooves, slightly ashamed. “You do not seem as bad as the other alicorns I met.”

Nova raised an eyebrow at her. “You have already apologized. We do not blame you for your previous perception of me.”

Scarlets brow furrowed a little. “I know, I just… Felt I should say it again… with a little more sincerity this time.”

Nova gave her a small nod in response, but didn’t answer further.

Suddenly, a blur of colour launched into the room. Pyre staggered back as a small filly slammed into her, wrapping her tiny hooves around her armoured neck. “Pyre!” I heard Mirra shout gleefully, as she squirmed around to get a tighter grip on Pyre.

I could practically see Pyre beaming with joy underneath her armour as she embraced the disguised changeling. “Hey kiddo. Miss me?” The answer was obvious even before Mirra answered.

“Oh, you have no idea!” Mirra was practically bouncing in the air with excitement. “So much has happened! We fought through a Stable full of True Steels and skin monsters! Then we got trapped in Filly and they made me turn into Rainbow Dash, but I couldn’t do it right, cause I was always too small! Then Amber showed up and she was super awesome like always and showed those slavers whose boss and broke out! Then we got separated and fought some slavers that were chasing us and Brisk was all, You don’t want to mess with me buddy! But then he got shot and Ms Scarlet had to save him and and and-”

Pyre cut off her excited rambling by putting a hoof to the small changeling's mouth and chuckling. “Yeah, that sounds like a lot. Sorry I had to miss it.”

Mirra paused for a second, moving away and looking Pyre over with her large eyes. “And um… Are you going to be coming back? As in like… traveling with us again?” she kicked at the grown nervously with her hoof a little.

Pyre cast her gaze up at me, as if looking to me for the answer to that question for her. I just shrugged, the choice was hers, but I really hoped she’d stay. I had really missed her too. “The Institute doesn’t control you anymore,” I reminded her, hoping that would sway her opinion.

Finally, Pyre took a deep breath. “Yeah. I’m back. For good this tim-” Mirra tackled into her again before she could even finish speaking.

“EEEEEEEE!” Mirra squeed happily, all four of her hooves prancing joyfully on the spot as she hugged Pyre tightly. “ohThankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou!”

“I am glad that you are back as well,” I heard Xayah agree. I turned to see her trotting into the ruins of the hospital with us, smiling widely at Pyre. “It has been too long.”

Pyre grinned back at her through her helmet. “Xayah. Nice to see you too. I like the new legs. Very nice.”

I rushed up to her and wrapped Xayah in a big hug, nuzzling her neck a little. “I’m glad you're okay.”

Pyre gagged. “I missed you guys, but I did not miss the constant public displays of affection you two always so generously gift us with,” She wiggled her eyebrows at us from behind her visor. “Do we need to get some ponies a room?”

Xayah gave Pyre a glare, but she smiled anyway. “And I did not miss the constant snark from you.”

Pyre clapped her hooves together as if trying to call us all to attention. “Alright. I’m back now. I think it’s about time you all catch me up on what I missed.”

Pyre leaned back, looking me over suspiciously. “Okay… so… let me try and get all of this straight…” She paused for a second, thinking over everything I had told her. “Two brains in jars, one of which being some noble pony or some shit, are in control of the Institute, replaced you with a synth and in just over two days, they're going to launch this Utopia Program and mind rape everypony with it?”

We had retreated to our old room in Friendship City to explain everything to Pyre. Tinker decided to stay with Nova in the hospital to keep an eye on her, though Star said that she had done all she could at the time being. Only time would tell for sure if Nova’s wounds would heal.

The destruction that the Enclave had wrought to Friendship City had left our old room in ruin, leaving it as a broken, crumbling room of scrap and slag. Practically every bit of furniture in the room save for the large bed had been destroyed, leaving us to sit in a small circle on the floor.

Brisk had opted to sit next to the window, looking down at the Harbour far below. Some things never change I suppose.

I had done my best to explain everything that had happened since Pyre had parted ways with us, though Mirra was anxious to speak with Pyre about anything she could it seemed and ended up doing most of the talking. Pyre had remained dead silent until the story was done, and was now just looking at me blankly as she tried to process everything.

“Uh, yeah. That about sums it up,” I nodded, crossing my hooves in front of me. “Right now we need to figure out a way to get into the Institute and shut everything down, but I don’t know how we’re supposed to do any of that.”

“But we do know how to get into the Institute using that secret entrance under the MWT building,” Brisk pointed out from the window. “Why don’t we just sneak back in that way and take the fight to them now?”

“Because it isn't that simple,” Scarlet rebuked. “Chances are that Pureblood has reinforced the security on that entrance now that we managed to escape out of it. Furthermore, once we do make it inside the Institute, we’re going to have to fight our way through an army of synths, Coursers, Canterlot Ghouls and Slavers. Not to mention the Institutes pre existing security systems such as turrets and sprites.”

“That and Pureblood has already proven that he is able to flood the Institute with radiation as a last resort if he needs to,” I pointed out. “If we just charge in there without a plan we’re as good as dead. Pureblood won't hesitate to kill a few of his slavers in the process if it means winning. Nothing matters to him as long as it means he gets Utopia active.”

Xayah looked back and forth between us as we listed off all the things in our way. “And I don’t suppose there are any factions that would be willing to lend us a hoof either?” She looked to me hopefully at that.

“No. There isn’t,” Pyre answered for me, shaking her head. She seemed to become lost in thought for a second as an idea hit her, but she quickly shook that thought away as well. “The Steel Rangers and the Outcasts are too busy dealing with each other, not to mention the Enclave and the True Steels. Red Eye is working with Pureblood, so good luck getting his help even if you you wanted it. The Goddess is dead, so using alicorns isn’t an option. We could probably get the Friendship Express on board, but they’re hardly a faction of fighters and we’d have to find them first. So unless you want to go ask the Enclave for help, we’re on our own.”

“This whole thing is crazy! If I had half a mind I would just fly off and leave all of you here!” Star spat, shivering a little. She hadn’t spoken much while we explained the events of the last few days, but the expression on her face had been growing with horror the whole time. “B-but I think I might have a solution to at least one of those problems.”

Xayah raised an eyebrow at her. “Oh? And what is that?”

Star Breeze shuffled nervously a little under the zebras' gaze. “When the Enclave decided to come down from the sky, they did so with extreme paranoia. They act all tough, but the simple idea of radiation freaks them out. They’re currently planning a big attack on Fillydlephia in the coming days, and that place is like the fucking radiation capital of the wasteland.”

“They have power armour,” Brisk grunted. “Won’t that protect them from the rads?”

Star shook her head. “A little, but not to the same extent as Steel Ranger armour. Certain variants of Enclave power armour don't even cover the mouth area and almost every variant has a few exposed spots to allow maneuverability. So to combat this issue, the Enclave has a huge stockpile of radaway, power armour and radiation ventilators. Probably enough to supply a small army actually.”

“And you know where this stockpile is?” I asked, feeling hopeful.

Star nodded, but she looked hesitant. “I do, yeah. It’s here in Manehattan, waiting for our Thunderhead to pick it up on its way to Fillydelphia. Buts it’s going to be really fucking hard to get. Firstly, it’ll be well defended. Secondly, it's located on the top of a skyscraper, and the Enclave made sure to destroy every entrance up. You need to fly to get there.”

“And I don’t suppose you're just going to be able to fly up and get those for us?” Pyre snickered.

Star’s eyes shot wide in fear at the idea. “W-what! N-n-no! I’m a fucking scientist! I can’t take on an entire squadron of Enclave troopers!”

“Then we’ll need to find a way to get up there ourselves,” I nodded, wracking my brain for ideas. “We’ll still need to come up with a plan of attack, but this is at least a start.”

Scarlet suddenly perked up. “Wait, what about the Enclave war wagons?” At our confused looks, she elaborated. “The Enclave just attacked Friendship City. There are crashed pegasus war wagons littered all over the harbour right now. Not to mention the wreckages of three Raptors. We could try fixing one up and having Star fly us up to the rooftop.”

Star gave her a scowl, though she looked nervous. “Oh great. Now I’m a fucking taxi,” she sighed, rubbing her temple with a hoof. “Fuck it. I’ve already been fucked in the ass enough today as it is. I guess I don’t have much fucking dignity left anyway.”

I gave a small nod. “Alright, we’ll try and get one of those war wagons up and running. Hopefully we can come up with a small plan to deal with the Institute in the meantime.”

With the beginnings of a plan in place, we picked ourselves up off the floor and started heading back out. Before I could leave though, Pyre grabbed onto me and held me back, taking me aside to talk to me alone while the rest all filed out. “Amber, I think I have an idea that might get us through this whole thing with the Institute alive,” She hissed, keeping her voice low.

I raised an eyebrow up at her expectantly. “Really!? I’d love to hear it.”

Pyre glanced around, making sure all of our friends were already outside. She hesitated, looking back at me. “I uh... I’m still working out the details, and I promise I’ll give you a full rundown as soon as I figure out how we’re going to try and make it work, but right now I’m just going to need you to trust me on this. It’s risky. Riskier than normal for us. And you’re not going to like it.”

Her tone of voice was making me feel very uncomfortable. “Pyre, I trust you, but I need a little bit more to go off of than just that. What are you thinking? I can help.”

Pyre just shook her head. “I think I might know where we can find some help… just… focus on getting a war wagon up and running. We’re going to need it for my plan as well as Stars.”

Sighing, I gave her a small nod. “Alright Pyre, I’ll trust you on this. But I want you to explain everything when you can, okay?”

Pyre nodded, letting me go and following me as we headed out for the harbour. “I will. Promise. Just don’t expect to like the plan when you hear it.”

Star was more than thrilled to find a crashed war wagon that was in fairly decent condition. It was a wreck still, but fixable.

We had grabbed Tinker from the hospital to help us get it back into working condition. I wasn’t sure how much help the colt would be, but we needed all the hooves we could get, and he had proven to be fairly good at fixing things so far.

I had been surprised when Scarlet had offered to look after Nova while Tinker was busy. She was clearly feeling bad about her previous treatment of the purple alicorn and was wanting to make it up to her. Despite probably needing her help to start up the wagon, I was in no position to get between her and making amends.

Pyre and Mirra had gone inside the crashed wagon to clear it out while Brisk, Xayah and I worked around the outside, patching up any holes we could find in the wagon's outer shell.

Brisk grunted as he hammered a slab of metal into place over a spot at the rear of the wagon, covering up a section of wiring that Star had just fixed up. “How exactly does this thing work? I mean, it’s not like Star is strong enough to carry all of us,” He quickly backpedaled as Star snarled at him. “I’m not calling you weak. I uh… you’re probably really strong… like, uh… like really strong and stuff... It's just that this thing is really heavy, and now that Pyre’s back with us that’ll be even more weight.”

“Are you calling me fat,” Pyre’s voice called back at him mockingly, though she didn’t sound overly offended.

Brisk bristled. “W-what? No! You just are larger and have power armour and stuff,” he slumped in defeat, making me chuckle a little. I gave him a reassuring pat on the back.

Star’s snarl turned into a small smirk. “All Enclave flying machines have weight talismans in them. Makes it super easy to carry around. We lucked out. The talisman on this wagon still seems to be operational.”

Tinker pulled himself out from under the wagon, his face coated in a thick layer of grease. “Yeah Brisk. Don’t you know anything about machines?” That only made Brisk bristle more.

Star chuckled, giving the colt a wide grin. “Hehe, I like you kid. You tell this green buck who’s boss.”

“M-my name’s Brisk,” Brisk said back, his voice sounding more timid than normal.

“Yeah, okay, whatever,” Star turned back to the wagon and gave it a little kick with her hoof. “Unfortunately, it also requires a levitation talisman to fly as well, otherwise it would be dead weight and dangle from me like a limp dick. We’ll need to replace those.”

“That was not a metaphor that I wanted to have in my head,” Brisk grumbled, wrinkling his muzzle a little.

“Its only weird if you make it fucking weird,” Star retorted sticking her tongue out at Brisk and making his blush furiously.

“Alright, so where are we going to find these Talismans?” I asked, flipping open a small hatch on the side of the wagon and looking it over. I was a whizz with machines, but this Enclave tech was still alien to me.

Star Breeze rolled her eyes and waved at the area around her with a hoof. “Uh, duh! We have three freshly crashed, unlooted, Enclave Raptors literally just sitting in the harbour waiting to be picked clean for parts,” She gestured for me to go with a hoof. “Well don’t just stand there. Go grab that power armour chick and the creepy bug girl or something and go get those talismans. You know what they look like, yes?”

I gave a hesitant nod. I didn’t really know what they looked like, but I had seen talismans before, so I was sure I could probably figure it out.

Moving away, I went to trot into the back of the war wagon and get Pyre and Mirra. I froze as the hushed voices inside caught my attention. I slowly pulled myself up beside the wagon entrance, peeking my head inside.

Pyre and Mirra were inside, looking over the interior. Pyre was half way through shoving the charred remains of an Enclave pegasus that had died during the crash out a window.

“-and you’re really going to stay this time? For real?” Mirra questioned, watching Pyre nervously. “You’re okay now?”

Pyre nodded. “Yes. I’m not lying. I’m here to stay,” The corpse clattered out the window, causing Xayah to give a frightened eep from outside as it collapsed down next to her. Pyre paused, looking Mirra over for a second. “And no. I’m not okay. I don’t think I’m ever going to be okay, but I’m better. My heads a little clearer anyway.”

Mirra fluttered over a little and gave Pyre’s leg a nuzzle. Pyre obviously couldn’t feel it with her power armor in the way, but the thought was there. “We could work through it together.”

Pyre looked away, the words clearly making her a little uncomfortable. “You asked me that before Mirra… I know what you want from me and I don’t think I can give it to you…”

I could see Mirra’s features sag a little, but she kept up a determined look. “I… I’m not asking you to do anything you don’t want to do Pyre…” She shifted a little, scuffing at the floor with her hoof nervously. “I just want to make sure we are going to be okay. Xayah and Amber almost lost each other and I don’t want something like that to happen to us too.”

I felt a little stab of pain at the comment, but kept my mouth shut.

Pyre gave a little chuckle. “What you want from me isn’t what Amber and Xayah have. It’s not even what Amber and Brisk have. You’re… Look, Mirra. I’m a bad pony. I did bad things. You know about some of them. Not all of them. I’m trying to be better, I really am, but I still have a long way to go,” She looked down, looking into Mirra’s large eyes. “I’m not mother material. I’m… I’m just not…”

Mirra just gave her another hug, not saying anything. “And I’m not going to ask that of you… I just want you to be happy.”

Pyre shuddered at that. “Happy…” She breathed, as if the words didn’t fully make sense to her. After a long moment, she let out a deep, shaky sigh. “Mirra, I have a plan to help deal with Amber’s problem… This plan is going to be really dangerous and… well it's crazy and… a-and it scares me… A lot. I need you to promise me something…”

This plan scared Pyre? She was right, I wasn’t going to like whatever this plan was at all, was I? Anything that scared Pyre Blaze was something to worry about.

Mirra looked up at her with wide eyes. “Y-yes? Anything?”

Pyre gulped, looking away. “Don’t die… I’m tired of having the ponies I care about die…” taking a deep breath, Pyre looked back at her. “A-and I really care about you Mirra… more than I’ve cared about for a pony in a long time… Not since Viscer-” She cut herself off, not daring to finish the sentence. She just stood there and shook, staring at the walls of the war wagon around her.

Mirra cautiously crawled up onto her back and wrapped her hooves around the big mares neck. “I won’t be like Viscera,” Mirra assured her, her own voice sounding a little shaky. The horrors of what Viscera had done to us were still very prevalent in her mind.

“I-I know,” Pyre nodded, her body still shaking a little. “You’re better than she is…” I sat back and watched them for a long while, not daring to interrupt their tender moment. After a while, Pyre looked up and cast a small glance at me. “Well, are we going to get those flight talismans Amber?”

I flushed with embarrassment, pulling myself out from behind my hiding spot. Of course Pyre had known I was listening in. No doubt she saw me on my EFS. And by her question, she probably heard me coming too. “I uh… Yeah. We need to go loot one of the crashed Raptors.”

“Mmhmm,” Pyre grunted, trotting out with Mirra still hugging her atop her back.

The first two Raptors we tried to loot were less successful than I would have liked. The Pyrocumulus had been blown to bits, leaving it as little more than a smoking pile of debris. We searched around for a bit, but nothing showed up.

The other Raptor, the first one to go down in the fight for Friendship City, had already sunk to the bottom of the Harbour, making it inaccessible to both Pyre and myself. Mirra could get down there easily by turning into a fish, but without hooves she wouldn’t be able to do much once she got there. That and Pyre had immediately refused to let her go alone after she had offered.

That only left the third Raptor, the one Star Breeze had referred to as the Altostus. The Raptor had crashed into a section of the Friendship City bridge, making exiting the city without wings nearly impossible. Half of the Raptor had been submerged in the radioactive water, but a large chunk of it still protruded from the murky waves.

“Alright, I’ll go first,” Pyre grunted, shifting her position so that she could fit into the hole that led deeper into the wreckage. “I’ll be able to take a few hits if there are any Enclave still alive in there, and if the Raptor decides to sink from my added weight, I want to make sure you two are behind me.”

I nodded, understanding her logic. Slowly, Pyre lowered herself down into the Raptor, dropping into the darkness below us and out of sight. I heard a loud clang as her metal hooves hit the bottom of the floor below. The whole ship creaked as her weight was added to it, but it remained as it was.

“Alright, it’s safe. Mirra, you’re next,” Pyre shouted up. I saw her hooves raise up in the darkness to catch the filly as she dropped in. Mirra instead fluttered her glassy wings and floated down into the hole, not needing either of our help.

I followed after her, feeling the Raptor tilt a little as I squirmed into it. A tight fit, but much easier for me and my small frame than it had been for Pyre and her bulky armour. I landed on the floor of the Raptor, looking around me. It was nearly pitch black down here, with our only light to see by being the strong beam that glowed from the top of Pyre’s helmet. Muffled, but still clearly audible, I could hear the sound of waves crashing against the groaning hull of the Raptor and a loud dripping noise seemed to punctuate every few seconds.

“Alright, down this way,” Pyre said, slowly leading us further into the wreckage. “The talismans should be down by the engine.”

“How do you know so much about the layout of Enclave war ships?” I asked, following after her without complaint.

Pyre glanced back at me. Something about that question bothered her for some reason. “The raiders out in Las Pegasus have a Raptor,” She finally stated, looking around for a second before spotting a hallway and trotting down it.

I gaped at her. “They have a- how the fuck did they get a Raptor?” Mirra nodded eagerly, wanting an answer herself.

Pyre rolled the question around in her head for a second. “That’s a bit of a long story… let me think… Quite a few years back now, nearing on a hundred years ago, so well before my time, there was a big schism up in the clouds between the Enclave and a bunch of pegasi that wanted to go and help the surface world. Over two hundred pegasi self proclaimed themselves as dashites and fled the clouds, looking to come help us poor folk out down here,” she turned, taking another tunnel. “Well, the Wasteland is a shitty and dangerous place, and it was even worse back then. No real settlements, lots more raiders and far more radiation than there is today. Didn’t take long for those self proclaimed dashites to get eaten up and spit back out.”

“They all died?” Mirra asked, her tone sounding both terrified and sad.

Pyre shrugged. “Most of them died, but a lot of them tried to get back up into the clouds, pleading for the Enclave to take them back.”

I grimace. I had seen how the Enclave treated traitors. “I’m guessing that didn’t go over very well with the Enclave.”

“Nope,” Pyre chuckled, though her chuckle lacked mirth. “ The Enclave kicked them back out into the Wasteland. With nowhere else to go, the dashites turned to the one remaining cloud city that wasn’t controlled by pegasi.”

“Las Pegasus?” Mirra asked, though that much had already been obvious to me.

Pyre nodded. “Yup. But the Las Pegasus raiders ain’t like other raiders. Most raiders would just shoot them on site. The Las pegasus raiders had very different plans.”

“They recruit ponies, right?” I asked, trying to remember what little Pyre had told me about the Las Pegasus raiders. “They don’t waste resources.”

Pyre gave me a nod. “The Overboss knew that having a bunch of pegasi working for them would be one hell of an advantage. Las Pegasus is out in the middle of the Neighvada desert. Making crops is hard enough in the wasteland, but in the desert? It’s damn near impossible.”

I raised an eyebrow at her. “How does having pegasi help with making crops?”

“Cloud seeding,” Pyre replied simply. “How else do you think the Enclave stays alive above the clouds like they do. Las Pegasus raiders used that to their advantage, monopolized practically all the food sources out in the Neighvada area, but that’s besides the point,” she shook her head, returning herself to the story. “Anyway, in exchange for food and servitude, the raiders gave the dashites a safe place to stay, protection, all that good shit. They turned the M.A.S.E.B.S. Tower out in Las Pegasus into a living space for the pegasi. The tower has become known as dashite city now, though it's only inhabited by the original dashites grandfoals now, no actual dashites. Those pegasi were able to hack through a bunch of cloud terminals the raiders hadn’t been able to get through before, finding a large stockpile of Ministry of Awesome tech.”

“And the Raptor was one of those things?” Mirra questioned. A bit of the floor beneath her crumbled away a little bit, dropping down and clattering into the darkness. Mirra squeaked, jumping into the air and latching onto Pyre’s leg.

Pyre chuckled at her antics, nodded back at her. “Among a lot of other stuff, yeah.”

I gulped. That explained why the Enclave had been heading out to Las pegasus. If they had started the attack on Friendship City just to kill one dashite, I could only imagine what they would do to try and kill a whole city of them. And I doubted they were very happy about a city of deadly raiders having pegasus airships.

My hoof snagged an a broken chunk of the floor, making me stumble. My sudden movement caused the Raptor abruptly lurch to the side. I spread my hooves, trying to keep my balance as the large airship sagged down into the depths of the harbour a little more. Pyre tightened her grip on Mirra, keeping the changeling filly close to her chest. After a second, the teetering wreckage stilled again.

“We should probably find that talisman quickly and get out of here,” I decided, peeking into the ominous darkness around me as the large hull of the Raptor groaned ominously. I didn’t like being stuck down in this Raptor like this.

Pyre gave me a nod of agreement. “Yeah. Come on, it should just be this way.”

She led us down another tunnel, this one now sloping steeply downwards. Bits of water dripped down from the roof and slid from the walls, making the already ruined Raptor have a rather eerie fell. Our hoof steps echoed around us as we crawled forwards, drawing out the continuous sounding drips.

Up ahead, the roof had collapsed down atop the hallway, leaving only a narrow crawl space under all the rubble. Pyre scowled at the hallway. “Fuck. We’ll need to find another way around. The talisman should just be on the other side...”

Mirra shook her head, looking over the small crawl space that was all that remained of the hallway. “I can probably fit through there,” She looked back up, her large blue eyes rolling over me. “Amber too if she squeezed hard enough.”

“I’m not letting you go off into a Raptor without me right now,” Pyre responded gruffly. "It’s not unlikely that there is a survivor or two down there, and if you get stuck and the Raptor starts sinking more then-”

“Too late,” Mirra squealed, darting into the hole.

“Mirra, wait! Damn it…” Pyre grumbled, taking a frantic step towards the small hole Mirra had darted through. She whipped around glaring at me and pointed a hoof at the hole. “Get in there and keep her safe.”

“You seem more protective of Mirra than normal,” I commented, looking her over. “Are you alright?”

Pyre sighed. “She keeps asking for me to be her mom and…”

“...And you don’t want to, I know,” I finished for her, frowning a little. “I could try talking to her about it? I agreed with what she said back at the wagon though, I just want you both to be happy.”

Pyre shook her head, glaring at me. “N-no, it’s not that it's… It’s not that I don’t want to be her mom... It’s that I shouldn’t be her mom. Why doesn’t she see that?” She took a long, deep breath. “Every time she comes to me looking for the answer to that question, it gets harder and harder for me to say no…”

I didn’t fully know how to answer that. I hadn’t expected that from Pyre. I bit my lip, trying to think of what to say. “I can’t make any decisions for either of you,” I finally started. “But maybe… if it's what you both want… maybe it might be the right thing to do?”

Pyre looked away from me, her helmet obscuring any chance I had at seeing what expression she held on her face. “B-but what if I hurt her Amber?” She looked back up at me, and this time, to my surprise, I was able to see tears glinting in her eyes from behind her visor. “What if I kill her!?”

“You won't,” I assured her, placing a hoof across her armoured withers. “I don’t think you’re capable of hurting Mirra.”

“Like I wasn’t capable of killing Heartbeat?” Pyre shot back, pushing my hoof away. Her words punched into me like a blow from a hammer. “Like I wasn’t capable of killing my own mom and dad? Like I wasn’t capable of leading Viscera to us and having her rip Xayahs legs off because of me? Like I wasn’t capable of leading you into a den of raiders to find my dad and having Brisk’s horn get blown the fuck off!”

I took a step back, nodding. “Yeah… uh… like that.”

Pyre just scowled. “What's going to stop this time from being any different? And don’t give me any feel good friendship bullshit. I had your friendship and that didn’t save Heartbeat.”

I took a deep breath. “I don’t know Pyre. But you’re a good pony, or at least you're trying to be. I guess it’s up to you to make sure something like that doesn’t happen again,” I looked back at the hole Mirra had crawled through. “I’ll go check on Mirra. Keep her safe. You just stay here, think about things. I don’t know what the right answer to your problem is, but I trust you enough to believe that you’ll figure out what is the right thing to do.”

With that, I turned and crawled my way into the tight space after Mirra.

Thankfully, the tight tunnel opened back up into the main hallway fairly quickly. I found Mirra standing in the middle of the hall, poking at some hunk of metal with one of her gnarled hooves. She looked up and smiled as she saw me pulling myself out of the tunnel. “What took you so long, slow poke!”

“Just chatting with Pyre,” I said simply, finally pulling myself free and standing up proper. “You find anything interesting?”

Mirra’s face fell. “You were chatting with Pyre about me, weren’t you?” She asked flatly, ignoring my question entirely. Her question was more of a statement. I winced. Damn, this filly was more perceptive than I gave her credit for.

I nodded slowly, not sure what I should actually tell her. “Just be patient with Pyre. She’ll come around eventually… maybe.”

Mirra shook her head. “She won’t. I already know she won't… I just want to make her happy, and hugs seem to make her happy sometimes. I don’t think ponies hug her enough.”

That just made me feel sad.

I fell in step beside Mirra as we moved further into the wreckage. The hallway was still sloping downward at a dangerous angle, but now the floor was slick with water, making each step a chore. Mirra quickly opted to take to the air and flutter along beside me instead of struggle to keep her balance on the slippery surface.

I unfortunately was not lucky enough to have wings. Wings were so unfair.

A rasping cough echoed up at us from the depth below, bouncing around the seeping, damaged walls of the Raptor. I wish Pyre had managed to come down here with us, I could really have used her power armours headlamp right now.

I lit up my horn, illuminating the area around me. Mirra let out a loud gasp when the Amber light fell on the struggling form of an Enclave pegasus mare that had been crushed below a chunk of collapsed roof. The pegasus was worse for wear, their armour having been badly banged up and a large pool of blood having formed around their broken hooves. A jagged chunk of metal had skewered the pegasus to the floor, the dark metal having stabbed through her chest and seeming to have punctured a few of their organs when it had lanced through them. Their lower half was hidden from us by a large body of murky water that filled up the lower half of the ship.

The pegasus looked up at us as the light of my horn hit them, but was forced to look away as the sudden light blinded them. She tried to look up at us again, squinting. “P-please, help me…” They rasped, their pleading voice trembling. Their lips had turned a pale blue and they were shivering. “P-please…”

Mirra looked up at me, terrified. “A-Amber… C-can we help them?”

Unsure what to do, I quickly trotted over and knelt down next to the dying pegasus, looking over their wounds. I could feel myself grimace. Even if Star was with us, or even Heartbeat for that matter were he still alive, I doubted we would have been able to save the Pegasus. Her wounds were just to sever.

“What’s your name?” I asked the pegasus, trying to sooth them a little.

“C-c-cloud Walk-ker,” They mumbled, their voice coming out in a shaky rasp. “I-I-I tried t-t-to get them to stop attack-k-k-king the city… t-th-they fir-red on us… Celestia w-why would they fire on us…”

I felt a small stab of sorrow go through me. This wasn’t even one of the bad pegasi. They had tried to save the city after they realized what the Enclave was doing. I took a deep breath. “I don’t think I’m going to be able to save you Cloud Walker. But thank you. You saved a lot of ponies by not attacking the city.”

The pegasus smiled up at me, though blood dribbled from her mouth. Her smile turned into a fearful whimper. “I-I-I-I d-don’t want to d-die alone down here…”

I nodded, shifting a little closer and running my hoof through their matted mane. “Just rest your eyes. I’m here for you,” I whispered softly.

The pegasus looked up at me for a long second before nodding and closing her eyes. “O-o-okay… I feel really t-t-tired…” I could feel her body slump a little as she finally let herself drift away.

I looked up at Mirra, my eyes feeling a little wet. I hated death. I didn’t know how I had managed to become so desensitized to it since leaving the Stable. It was horrific.

“I-I want to get out of here Amber…” Mirra whimpered, her eyes locked on the slumped form of the pegasus.

I nodded and gave her a tight hug. “Yeah. Let’s find the talisman and get out of here.”

It took us another twenty minutes or so before we found what we were looking for. The Flight talisman had indeed been by the engine like Pyre suggested, though Mirra had ended up needing to swim to the bottom of a large section of the Raptor that had been flooded with water to reach it.

As soon as she broke the surface, gasping and sputtering, I pulled her back from the water, making sure she drank down a full thing of Radaway. The water in the harbour surrounding Friendship City wasn’t the most irradiated water in the Wasteland, but enough exposure to it could still be rather deadly.

Pyre was relieved to see us finally squirming our way back towards her through the crawl space, and after a few minutes of Pyre lecturing Mirra on not running off, we were making our way back to the surface. I was not in the least bit sad to leave the cursed Raptor wreckage behind me.

“Yup that’s the thing,” Star beamed, plucking the talisman from my magical grasp and beginning to set it into place. “Now you ponies go get some sleep, or party, or whatever it is you do. I’ll need a few more hours to get this damn thing off the ground again. We should be airborne by morning.”

I didn’t like the idea of just waiting around till morning to leave, but with the dock and bridge to Friendship City destroyed and Pyre still seeming to be working out the details of her plan, there wasn’t much else that I could do.

“Are you sure you can fix all this up by yourself?” I asked, looking over the war wagon. It was coming together nicely, but it still had a ways to go. “I could help. I might not be expert with this Enclave tech, but I know my way around machines.”

Star just shook her head. “Nah, I’ll be fine. Tinker already volunteered to help me out and he’s been doing a pretty good job so far,” She waved up at the grease splotch covered colt who was currently sitting on top of the wagon, bolting something down. Tinker waved back, smiling a little. The colt seemed to be a lot happier now that Nova was on the path to recovery.

Finally giving in, I gave Star a small smile and quickly hugged her. She squirmed in my embrace, trying to get free. “Thank you Star. For sticking with us and helping even when you could have just flown away,” I told her, finally pulling away.

Star just blushed and looked away. “Yeah well… I figure I can’t really go back to the Enclave. Chances are I’d just be branded as a dashite for having talked with you ponies again. Assuming they don’t just shoot me dead on the spot,” she sighed, looking over the spot on the broken war wagon she was currently fixing up. “Besides, if all this stuff about Utopia and the Institute and shit is real, then it's in my best interest to help you all out. I’m just kinda fucked no matter what I do.”

I shook my head at her. “Well, even if you feel like you're stuck with us and don’t have a choice in the matter, I’m glad you’re with us. Though I’d like it if you could travel with us as our friend,” I gave her a wide-eyed hopeful look that made her laugh just a little. “I know we didn’t meet on the right hoof, and that every time we show up in your life, bad stuff happens, but I really do hope we can be friends.”

Blushing a little, Star just gave me a sheepish smile. “I uh… yeah, sure. Friends. That’s cool. Yeah… never really had friends before.”

I blinked in surprise at that. “Never?”

Star just scowled. “Yeah. doesn’t matter,” She turned away, suddenly seeming uninterested in the conversation, though I could tell her sudden passiveness was little more than an act. “Go spend time with your old friends. Tinker and I will be here. We’re fine, really.”

Nodding and giving her one more quick hug, I trotted off to join the rest of my friends as they piled back into the ruins of Friendship City. I seemed to be extra huggy today. Maybe I was just happy to see everypony, though I think I was just worried that this was going to be my last time to simply hang out with all of them normally.

“Did you ponies know that the Friendship City bar is still open?” Pyre smirked as I stumbled my way back over to them.

“Right now?” Brisk questioned, raising an eyebrow. “Even after the Enclave blew it up?”

Pyre nickered. “Especially after the Enclave blew it up. It’s times like these that are best for business. Lots of ponies need a place to escape.”

“Shouldn't we be preparing to leave?” Xayah pointed out, her eyes darting to me for a second before returning her gaze to Pyre. “We only have two and a half days until the end of the world after all.”

“We won’t be able to leave the city until tomorrow morning,” I said, finally coming to a stop beside them. “So we have a few hours to spend around the city… or whatever is left of it…” I glanced down at my shotgun, counting out my last six shots. “I know I need to get more ammo.”

Pyre curled an armoured hoof around me. “Oh no! You’re coming with me. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you drunk, and I need a good drinking buddy!”

I pulled away, my eyes wide. “W-what! I don’t drink. Can’t stand the liquor. It burns going down every time! I don't know why any pony force themselves to endure that!”

Pyre just chuckled coolly. “You just haven’t had the right alcohol. We can find one you like, I’m sure. Come on! I wanna see drunk Amber.”

Xayah watched us in amusement as Pyre begged. “I would not be unopposed to seeing drunk Amber either. I feel like that would be very amusing,” My eyes grew wider at Xayah’s remark. Betrayal!

“Seeeeeee,” Pyre practically purred, prancing on her hooves a little. “Your marefriend says we should go drinking. Brisk, you wanna come?”

Brisk shrugged. “I could use a drink myself, hell yeah.”

I felt my eyes widen even more. “Waitwaitwaitwait! Nononononono!”

But it was too late. I was swept across the ruins of Friendship City, my friends dragging me along and plucking me down in a creaky bar stool in front of a cracked and slanted bar counter. Pyre had been right, the bar was still open, and by the looks of it, it was in full swing. Though the ponies drinking there didn’t seem all that joyous. Most of them clutched at their bottles solemnly, tears streaking their faces as they chugged the burning liquid inside.

I wondered just how many good friends and family all these ponies had lost in the fight against the Enclave. Probably a lot.

“Alright, one whiskey for myself, and something that doesn’t ‘burn going down’ for my pal here,” Pyre instructed the somber bartender, patting me on the back with one of her large hooves. The bartender nodded, taking Brisk and Xayah’s orders as well before trotting away. Pyre quickly shot down Mirra’s curious request when she asked for a drink herself.

“I’m telling you, I don’t drink!” I insisted, my face flushing.

Brisk shook his head, grinning at me. “Come on Amber. It’ll be fun.”

I scowled, but finally relented. “Fine. One drink. But that is all.”

The bartender eventually returned, dropping off our drinks before rushing off to help another pony that had staggered in. I eyed my glass suspiciously, looking at the dark red liquid inside. I raised the glass up a little in my magic, inspecting it from all sides.

“Just drink it Amber. It’s wine, not poison,” Pyre chuckled, pulling off her helmet so that she could start drinking from her own glass. It was nice to see her face for the first time in a while, though she looked really tired and the three bloody gashes Viscera had slashed into her face were still surprisingly puffy, even after all these weeks.

Hesitantly, I raised the glass up and took a sip. It wasn’t nearly as bad as I had expected. Better than Wild Pegasus Whiskey was anyway. I felt it hardly compared to a good ol’ Sparkle~Cola, but I could at the very least tolerate it. Tilting my head back, I downed the drink in one big gulp.

“You haave a prrrretty face,” I slurred at Xayah as she slowly hauled me up the battered and warped staircase. “I wanna kiss it!”

Xayah blushed, but didn’t answer directly. “You are drunk Amber. I think it’s time that you got to bed.”

I groaned, wiggling around on her back a little and trying to get my hooves onto solid ground. Funny, the ground seemed to be swaying live waves. “I don’t wanna gotta beeed,” I complained, planting another kiss on Xayah’s pretty striped neck. Deciding that wasn't enough, I kissed her neck three more times just for good measure. Was she always that pretty? I wanted to kiss her more. “I’ll goooooo to bed if you go to bed with me,” I hiccuped and giggled, nibbling at her ear.

Xayah froze, her face turning beat red. “A-Amber, you are drunk. You need to sleep it off,” She insisted, finally moving again. “I will kiss you once you are not drunk.”

“But I wanna kiss you noooow!” I argued. That just had to convince her. My logic was airtight.

Xayah struggled to haul me into our room and gently place me down on the large bed. She went to move away, but I quickly tried to scramble after her, my hooves reaching to wrap her in a hug. I missed completely and was sent crashing to the floor at the foot of the bed.

“Amber!” Xayah declared worriedly, rushing back and pulling me back into bed.

I nuzzled at her neck, trying to get her to crawl into bed with me. “I wanna cuddle my zebra,” I informed her sternly, giving her my best puppy eyes. “I want to give my beautiful zebra lots and lots of cuddles.”

“You are adorable, but no,” Xayah said flatly, tucking me in under the covers and moving away again. Once more I tried to follow, but she had wrapped me up in the blankets too tightly.

Realizing she had trapped me, I gave her a playful whimper and held out my fore hooves for a hug. “Just a smaaall cuddle!” I insisted.

Xayah rolled her eyes. “I will see you when you wake up Amber. You can kiss and cuddle me as much as you want then.”

I pouted, but that was an exciting idea at least. I finally grinned back at her, at least a little happy with that outcome. “Imma gonna to cuddle you and hug you and love you so much and kiss you everywhere,” I declared proudly, wiggling a little to try and get free, but I couldn’t seem to figure out how to get the blankets off of me.

Xayah’s already red face turned even redder. “I um… I look forward to it then. Now go to bed,” She quickly closed the door before I could say anything else.

I giggled to myself as the pretty zebra trotted out of sight and I turned my head to look out the window. “Go to bed? IIIIIII’m not tired,” I agreed to myself, looking out at the sun that was still peeking through the thick cloud layer above. “It’s not even bedtime yet.”

My eyes drifted open and I let out a loud groan. “Why do I feel like I just got hit in the head with a Balefire bomb,” I grumbled, trying to climb out of bed. I found my hooves all tied up in the blankets and promptly fell to the floor, slamming my chin on the ground beneath me. “Ow.”

I felt Xayahs hooves reach down and pull me back up. I glanced up at her, my eyes squinting to try and to adjust to the lights. I quickly realized that the room was actually quite dark, my head just hurt like fuck. The sun had long since set outside the window and the room had been cast into shadow. Celestia damn it, why did my head hurt so much.

“As amusing as all of that was, I believe we need to agree not to let you go drinking with Pyre again,” Xayah said with a chuckle, helping me back up onto the bed.

I gave her a confused look. “I… Drinking with Pyre? I thought I only had a glass?”

Xayah looked both worried and amused. “Perhaps one bottle is more accurate, but I think even that is being generous.”

I tried to blink away the headache, but it didn’t seem to recede at all. “I thought ponies said the fun part was being drunk,” I grumbled, rubbing the side of my head with a hoof. That kind of made me feel better, but not nearly by enough.

Xayah laughed at that a little. “That is the fun part.”

“So alcohol burns going down, you don’t get to remember the fun part and it hurts like fuck when you wake up? Remind me again why ponies drink that stuff.”

“Most ponies try to use a little bit more moderation than you did yesterday,” Xayah giggled, laying me back down onto the bed. “Drink a little less next time and maybe you will get to remember the fun part and the hangover will not be as unbearable,” She bit the bottom of her lip as she looked down on me. “You do not remember anything that happened?”

I furrowed my brow at the question. “I remember gulping back a glass of wine. A lot of fuzzy lights… maybe… Was Brisk wearing an elephant costume at one point?” There was no way that part happened, my mind was probably playing tricks on me. I glanced up at Xayah. “I’m pretty sure you were doing something pretty at some point, but that’s normal.”

Xayah laughed, though I didn’t know if it was at my pretty comment or about Brisk being dressed as an elephant. “You are most adorable when you are drunk Amber,” She cooed. “It is a shame you do not remember everything. You said some very sweet things.”

Damn it, was drunk me smoother and sober me? That probably shouldn’t be a surprise. Sober me is about as smooth as sandpaper.

“I can always say nice things when I’m not drunk,” I huffed defensively. “I remember reading a book back in the Stable that said being drunk doesn’t make you lie, it just makes you more honest. So like, if I said something super smooth or awesome, that was just me normally.”

Xayah raised an eyebrow at my remark. “I am intrigued to hear that you think Brisk should dress up as an elephant more often.”

What the fuck! That wasn’t part of a weird fever dream!? Where would he have even gotten something like that!? I was definitely going to have to ask him about that. “I uh… Maybe I lied about that part… Please tell me I lied about that part. Just forget about the whole being drunk makes you honest thing. It doesn’t apply to elephant suits,” I backtraced quickly, only making Xayah chuckle more. It was good to see her laugh. “How long was I asleep?”

“Seven hours or so. I know you wanted to go buy some ammo for your gun before Pyre roped you into drinking, so I went out and bought some for you. It should be around midnight now,” Xayah replied, glancing out the window and trying to gage the time as best she could. I smiled and gave her a little hug for the comment about my ammo. “Star and Tinker just checked in for the night an hour ago. They’re staying down in the hospital with Nova and Scarlet. She said the wagon is working and ready for us in the morning. Brisk, Mirra and Pyre are sleeping in the other room. Brisk was… just about as drunk as you were.”

“So we got the room to ourselves, huh,” I said, my eyes looking around the wreckage of the room. It had been a fairly nice room when Emissary had first given it to us all those days ago. Not anymore though. The Enclave Raptors had ripped it apart, leaving it as a mess of broken metal and melted walls.

Xayah blushed a little, shuffling slightly closer to me. “Mmhmm, yes. We do indeed have the whole room to ourselves.”

I nodded, unsure why exactly she had decided to repeat that specific fact. I looked back at her. “Why are you still awake by the way? Shouldn’t you be getting some sleep? We have a long day ahead of us tomorrow.”

Xayah gave me a weird smirk that told me I had missed something, but she answered my question anyway. “I was having trouble sleeping. I am worried about the coming days. I think we all are.”

I nodded, understanding that. “Yeah. I think Pyre has some kind of plan though. I don’t know what it is, but I trust her.”

Xayah nodded. “Yes. I have grown to trust her as well. I look forward to hearing what Pyre is going to say in the morning. Until then though, it is just the two of us in here.”

“Mmhmm, until morning,” I agreed sleepily, letting my eyes drift closed. I didn’t know what Pyre’s plans were, but I knew that whatever they were, tomorrow was going to be a long day. I heard Xayah chuckle softly to herself and start to move away from the bed as I began to drift into sleep. Too bad, I would have liked to have cuddled her a bit before going to bed.

My eyes shot open. “Wait, we have the room to ourselves!” I jumped up immediately, wrapping my hooves around her neck in a tight hug as a sudden memory of something I said early returned to my mind. “I, uh… I t-think there’s enough room for us both in my bed,” I stated nervously. “I could um… use a few zebra cuddles?”

Xayah gave me a small kiss on the tip of my muzzle and smirked at me. “For such a smart pony, you are also quite an oblivious little pony sometimes,” She kissed me again, this time on the lips. “Yes. I think your bed will do quite nicely. Mine happens to have been destroyed during the attack anyway.”

I pulled her back into bed with me, wrapping my hooves around her and nuzzling at her cheek. We kissed each other, tracing the outline of the others' faces with our mouths. One of Xayahs rear hooves rose up a little, pressing upwards and finding its way between my hind legs and making an excited “eep” escape from my mouth before I could hold it back.

Instinctively, my eyes darted for the crooked door leading out of the room, my racing mind vividly recalling Brisk and Pyre bursting in during the middle of the last and only other time we had tried to do this. Thinking quickly, I pulled away and darted for the door, seeing Xayah watch me in confused bewilderment as I tugged on the door handle with my magic, making sure it was indeed locked.

Grinning, I spun back around and pranced back over to her, my tail swishing back and forth behind me more than usual. I wiggled back into bed, planting a quick kiss on her still very confused face. “There. No way anypony will barge in on us this time,” I smiled excitedly. I noticed a very specific part of my body was feeling a little wetter than usual.

Xayah just rolled her eyes and smiled. Something told me that I wasn’t going to be betting very much sleep tonight.

“Good morning Amber, have a good sleep?” Brisk nickered as I strode into the ruined remains of the room that Brisk, Mirra and Pyre had slept in. I was surprised to see that Star, Tinker and Scarlet had also gathered in the room. They must have gotten up before me at some point.

I was feeling strangely confident this morning. Like I could take on the entire fucking world. Brisk looked me up and down a few times, his grin never leaving. “Dear Celestia, you’re practically glowing. It was that good?”

My confidence suddenly froze dead in its tracks. “Uhh…. I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I answer, feeling my cheeks heat up. I glanced around nervously as Xayah slowly trotted into the room behind me, a tray of freshly made cookies atop her head.

Pyre gave a loud, playful sounding snort of amusement. “I hate to break it to you Amber, but the walls here are not soundproof.”

There was a crash as the tray of cookies Xayah had been balancing on her head fell to the floor as her hooves clamped over her mouth in embarrassment. “W-wait… you ponies did not hear…”

Brisk wiggled his eyebrows at us. “We did. You two are very loud.”

Both Xayah and I’s faces were red enough that our original coat colour was no longer recognizable. “Y-you should have knocked a-and t-told us to be quiet!” Xayah whined in protest. “W-we would have quieted down!”

Pyre shook her head. “We were going to, but we figured you two deserved some quality time together… You know, after everything that’s happened recently and all, not to mention everything that's going to be coming at us in the next few days,” Her voice dropped to a very sinister sounding tone. “Course we still get to tease you both mercilessly about it. That’s the trade off.”

“Thats- Wha- I didn’t agree to these terms!” I declared, sitting down next to Scarlet with a huff. Scarlet just laughed.

“Yes you did, they were written in the fine print of the contract you signed with you let me join your group,” Pyre said in a tone that almost sounded serious.

I narrowed my eyes, wrapping my hooves around Xayah as she moved to sit down on the other side of me, the tray of fallen cookies back in her grip. “T-there was no contract.”

Pyre’s faux stoic face cracked with a smirk. “Yes there was. It’s called the, ‘Amber and Xayah have sex we get to mock’ contract,” Mirra just snickered at Pyre’s remark.

Scarlet rolled her eyes and put a hoof over my withers. “Alright, alright. I think that’s enough picking on the two love birds.”

“I agree,” Star snorted, lazily looking over at me. “As much as I’d love to tease Amber and Xayah for that, we have things to deal with. The War Wagon is working, so whenever we’re ready to leave, we can do so.”

I nodded, still trying to hide my blush. I glanced over at Pyre. “Alright, and what about your part of the plan? You ready to let us all in on what we're getting ourselves into?” All eyes turned to Pyre.

Pyre stared at me for a moment, her previous smirk now completely gone. “Uhhh… My plan. Right… yes... “ She took a deep breath and pulled herself up to her hooves. “So uh, as you all know, we need to find a way to fight our way through the Institute... I think that I can get us an army.”

Xayah gave Pyre a wide eyed expression as she started to pass around the tray of cookies. "An army? How?”

Pyre winced at the question, one of her armoured hooves pawing at the ground nervously. “Well, um… Okay, this plan is going to be really hard and it's going to sound crazy, but it’s the only chance we have.”

“Just get on with it,” Star interjected, growling a little. “We only have two days till the end of the world, remember. We’re not getting any younger here.”

Pyre took another deep breath, clearly trying to put on a strong front. “I think I can get the Las Pegasus Raiders to help us.”

There was a round of gasps from around the group. “What!” Scarlet jumped to her hooves and narrowed her eyes at Pyre. “Are you insane!? Do you have any idea who those beasts are!?”

“Yes, better than anypony. I used to be one,” Pyre quipped back, meeting her even gaze. “Look, I know that plan isn’t ideal but-”

“I’m with Scarlet on this one,” Star snapped, jumping up to her hooves herself. “I haven’t been on the surface long, and even I know you don’t fuck with the fucking Las Pegasus gangs!”

“Please, listen. I know that-”

“The Las Pegasus Raiders are the ponies that first took Crank away from me!” Scarlet growled, stomping her hoof aggressively. "I will not work with them. Even if you could make them fight for us, which you can't. It simply isn't possible."

Brisk gave Pyre a perturbed look. “This is a bad idea Pyre. You know how much they hate you. Going anywhere near them is suicide.”

“Wait. If you’d just hear me out-”

“Those monsters deserve to be shot!”

“It’ll never work out!

“We don’t work with raiders!”

“Enough!”

We all turned, making out the large shape of the purple alicorn that had appeared in the doorway. Their horn had been destroyed and they had to grip tightly to the wall for support, but most of their wounds had healed.

“Nova!” Tinker cried happily, rushing over and giving the big alicorn a tight hug. Nova winced, but wrapped a wing around the colt all the same.

I gave the alicorn a smile. “It’s good to see you up.”

She gave me a polite nod before returning her gaze to everypony else. “Perhaps let Pyre explain her plan?”

After a second of silence, Mirra stood up as well and looked to Pyre. "I-I want to hear what Pyre has to say too... If that's okay?"

No pony moved for a long moment, but eventually everypony sat back down and looked to Pyre for her to continue speaking.

Pyre sighed. “Look. I know what this sounds like. This idea is crazy. I know it's crazy. But it’s the only way. We aren’t going to be able to stand up to the Institute by ourselves, and we’ve already ruled out every other faction as either being too weak or not available. Red Eye and the Enclave have everypony up to their neck in problems. We can’t rely on anypony else for help. But the Las Pegasus Raiders have no business with all that shit, and trust me, they are plenty strong enough to take on an army of synths.”

I cocked my head at her a little. “Okay, but how are we supposed to exactly get them to work for us? Last time I checked, they want you dead pretty badly.”

Pyre nodded. “That’s where things get a little bit tricky."

Scarlet gave her a wide eyed glare, her face filled with discomfort. "Oh, that's where things get tricky?" her voice was filled with disbelief at what she was hearing.

Pyre ignored her remark and kept talking. "The Las Pegasus Raiders aren’t just your normal wasteland faction. You can’t just go right to the top and ask the big boss to help you out. You need to make them help you..." She paused, trying to think of the best way to explain everything. "There are three main gangs that run Las Pegasus. Razor Blade’s Disciples, Magazine’s Operators and… well... you all already met Viscera’s Pack. There are other gangs too, like the Shackles, the Flesh Rippers and the Queens, but we only need to focus on the main gangs hopefully. And yes, if the names didn’t give it away, these ain’t your average raider gangs, and they all want control over Las Pegasus. Las Pegasus is only a few small pushes away from an all out bloodbath. If Overboss Jinx wants to keep her raider kingdom, she needs to keep the gangs both in line and from tearing each other apart.”

“How exactly does that help us?” Scarlet scowled, still very clearly not liking the idea. “Aside from meaning there is more than one blood thirsty gang of raiders there that want to wipe us out.”

“If we can convince the gang leaders to help us out, that’ll most likely force Jinx to help us,” Pyre insisted honestly, though she sounded noticeably uncertain. “Some of them will be easier than others. Magazine and her Operators are a little more reasonable than most raiders. Promise them caps and advanced tech and they’ll be onboard. Seeing how we’re storming the Institute, they’re going to want in. Razor Blade is a bit more of a glass cannon. Him and his Disciples just want blood. Convince them it’ll be the fight of their lives and they’ll probably join up… maybe… I’m not sure about them…”

“And what about Viscera?” Mirra asked, trembling just a little at the memory of the psychotic raider.

Pyre hesitated. “I uh… Viscera and her Pack won’t join us. She’ll most likely try and kill us actually. We’re just going to have to hope that the rest of the gangs agreeing to our terms will be enough to sway Overboss Jinx over to our side.”

“This is crazy,” Scarlet said flatly, still glaring at Pyre. “This plan is going to get us all killed,” she took a deep breath. "Look, Pyre... Amber trusts you, so I trust you, but you can't just go knocking on the Las Pegasus Raiders door and expect them not to kill you on the spot. That's just not how it works."

Pyre ignored her and glanced over at me. “Amber, I know this seems impossible. Fuck, it might be impossible. And it scares the shit out of me. But I’ve thought everything through. There is no other way we are winning this.”

I could feel myself hesitate to respond. I understood what she was trying to say. I had seen first hoof just how deadly the Las Pegasus Raiders could be. The massive army they had used to storm the Hollow Shades had been a force to be reckoned with, and that had only been a small taster. Who knew how powerful the gang could really be in full force.

But to work with raiders? To try and get a raider gang that had done nothing but try and kill us for almost a month to join us in battle? It really did seem impossible.

"We aren't raiders, Pyre," I told her sceptically. Brisk's ears perked up a little as I repeated what I had told him so long ago.

"And I'm not asking you to be raiders," Pyre retorted, taking a step away from us. "But right now we need to fight through an entire army to get to the Utopia program. We need an army, and they're the only ones we're going to be able to get. Please Amber, you need to trust me on this."

“I… Pyre, this plan… I don’t know if…” stammered, trying to figure out the right thing to do. Why did my friends always seem to put these kinds of choices on me? “Your plan is risky and asking a lot… and with only two days to do it…”

“A-Amber… I… I think this is something that I need to do,” Pyre said slowly, taking a small step forward. “Please… I don’t want to do this without my friends…”

I took a long, deep breath. “You have to know how insane this whole thing is, right?” I looked her over, weighing my options. “But I trust you Pyre. If you say this is the only way, then it’s what we’ll do,” I paused, thinking her words over carefully. “But there’s more to this plan than just beating the Institute, isn’t there?”

Pyre looked down at her hooves, her whole body seeming to tremble. “Amber, I’m trying to be a better pony. You’ve helped me do that a lot. All of you have. But being a better pony means more than just not doing bad. It means doing good too. This is how I want to do good. The Las Pegasus raiders have been a scourge on the wasteland for far to long… They need to be stopped, just as much as the Institute...” She looked back up, her pleading eyes locking with mine. “I want to try and reform the Las Pegasus Raiders, Amber. I want to try and reform all of them…”

Footnote: Maximum level reached

Author's Note

This was quite the unique chapter to write. It was very strange writing a pre written scene from another ponies perspective. Also, yay! Pyre's back. I missed her.

Fallout: Equestrian belongs to Kkat

Chapter XXXVI: Viva Las Pegasus

“They returned with tales of a city untouched by the warheads that had scorched the rest of the world and a Great Wall spanning the Colorado River...”

Pyre.

Pyre Blaze didn’t particularly want to get up. Her bed was comfy. Nice and warm. Not like the pouring rain outside the ramshackle hut her and her raider gang had set up. And Viscera’s warm hooves wrapped around her body like they were felt really nice too. She wanted to just stay there all day, enjoying her embrace.

Of course, she knew that wasn’t going to be an option though. Today was the day that everything was going to change.

Groaning, Pyre opened her eyes and started to pull herself out of bed. She only got half way up before Viscera moaned in protest and tried to pull her back into the bed, her cream coloured face nuzzling at Pyre’s side as she tried to keep Pyre in bed with her.

“Just a few more minutes,” Viscera whined, pulling Pyre down a little more.

Pyre frowned, looking back at the cute raider. “They’re going to be here in a few minutes. We should get up soon.”

Viscera just rolled her eyes and groaned. “Come oooon. I want to spend a little more time with you before they arrive, Blazy.”

Sighing, Pyre lay back down beside her, wrapping her own hooves back around Viscera’s slightly smaller body. Viscera practically purred with pleasure at the touch and leaned in, nuzzling at Pyre’s chest before planting a sloppy kiss on her neck.

“You know…” Viscera started, cracking open an eye and looking up at Pyre. “We could always have a little fun before they arrive,” one of her hooves reached down, stroking at a particularly sensitive spot between Pyre’s legs.

“I don’t think we exactly have a lot of time,” Pyre smirked back. “Hate to be all sweaty when they get here. Bad first impression.”

Viscera snickered, cuddling a little closer. She rolled up on top of Pyre, straddling her and resting atop her chest. She fluttered her brilliant blue eyes seductively. “I don’t know... Getting to rut my tight ass might make you look like a big shot to them. Show them who's really in charge around here. You know just as much as I do that most the raiders around here are looking for an excuse to get under my tail.”

Pyre grimaced, recalling the last time a raider had tried to flirt with Viscera. “I know Caltrops did.”

Viscera gave Pyre’s ear a little nibble. Her unnaturally sharpened fangs caused Pyre a little more pain than she would have liked and she squirmed to be free of the bite. “Exactly. Caltrops thought he could have his way with me. That’s why he's dead now. But you… why don’t you show these raiders who my body really belongs to?”

Viscera pulled herself away from Pyre, turning around and flipping up her tail to give Pyre a view of the goods she had previously been hiding beneath. Pyre had to admit, the offer was tempting.

A knock on the door drew both of their attentions away from each other. “They’re here,” Skull Crusher called out to them, his deep, rumbling voice slightly muffled by the door.

Viscera growled. “Ugh… tell them I’m busy Skully. We’ll be out in a second. I’m in heat and I need my fucking morning rut.”

There was a second of silence before Skull Crusher responded. “First of all, I told you not to call me that you bitch. Second of all, they want you out here now. They don’t seem to be asking.”

Sighing and letting her tail drop back into a neutral position, Viscera pranced over to the door, her rump wiggling at Pyre as she went. She flung open the door, glaring at the ponies on the other side.

Skull Crusher stood there, his large sledgehammer slung across his back. But he wasn’t alone. Four raider ponies stood on either side of him, each one dressed in a mix of heavy metal armour and combat barding. All four raiders held deadly looking assault carbines, the lethal gun barrels aimed at all of their heads.

“Sorry to interrupt your fuck time,” One of the raiders smirked, their eyes darting from Viscera to Pyre who was only now getting up from the bed. “But the boss will see you know.”

Slipping on her twin flamers and following them out, Pyre and Viscera made their way out into the rain. Skull Crusher gave them both nervous looks, but followed after the four raiders as well.

Pyre’s eyes widened with surprise as she looked out upon the scene outside. Her raider gang, the Manehattan Scourge, one of the most feared gangs in all of Equestria, was currently surrounded. Her raiders had been stripped of their weapons and corralled into a tight clump, surrounded by a much larger group of raiders, all clad in better armour and wielding far superior firepower.

A tall raider earth pony buck, seemingly the leader, stepped towards them as they approached. He was dressed in dark grey combat armour and to Pyre’s surprise, all four of his hooves had been replaced with cybernetic ones.

“You three are the leaders of the Manehattan Scourge, yes?” The cybernetic raider asked, his voice cold and calculating, demanding an immediate answer from them.

Viscera stepped forwards, bowing slightly to the cyborg. “We are. My name is Viscera. The two behind me are Pyre Blaze and Skull Crusher,” She winked at Pyre before looking back up at the cyber pony, a strange twinkle of excitement in her eye. “I’m guessing you are the representative sent by the Las Pegasus Raiders?”

The cyborg raider gave a nod. “I am. My name is Tripwire. Current leader of the Las Pegasus Operators,” He leaned down, looking Viscera over closely. “You are lucky that Jinx is so interested in your gang. Normally I would never consider showing up myself.”

“We are very honoured that you would bestow your presence upon us,” Viscera sucked up, giving the cyber pony a toothy smile.

Tripwire just grunted and rolled his eyes. “Don’t try to flatter me. I am less lenient than Jinx is,” He turned, looking over the group of raiders that his Operators currently had at gunpoint. “This is your gang? I am disappointed. I had expected more from the great Manehattan Scourge.”

This time it was Skull Crusher's turn to speak up. He stepped forwards, addressing the large cyber pony. “I assure you that they can be quite the force when-”

“Do not interrupt me!” Tripwire hissed, whipping around and glaring Skull Crusher down. Skull Crusher took a nervous step back under the cyborg's intense glare. After a moment, Tripwire cracked a smile. “You have quite a few mares in your gang. I’m sure the Shackles will pay me a nice price for them. And you three seem quite capable, I’m sure you’ll fit in well with the Las Pegasus gangs. The rest however…” He trailed off, letting that linger.

Pyre nervously took a step forward. Tripwire’s intense eyes flickered over to her, prompting her to hesitate. “S-so you will let us join up with the Las Pegasus Raiders then?”

Tripwire shrugged. “You three will. But I need a test of loyalty first... “ He paused, gesting for one of the raiders beside him to step forward. The raider in question quickly stepped towards them and presented Viscera with a viscous looking set of Hellhound hoof claws. “I need you to prove to me you have what it takes. Kill your old gang. Then we’ll talk.”

Viscera looked down at the Hellhound claws as she strapped them onto her hooves. Her eyes seem to sparkle with a strange intensity as she looked over the deadly bone blades. They were free of blood at the moment, unused. She was soon to rectify that.

Pyre took a step towards Viscera, a worried look across her face. “Viscera… we can’t just kill-”

Viscera cut her off by planting a quick kiss on her lips. “You know this is the only way Pyre… We need to do this… I love you… we’ll be safe with the Las Pegasus gang. Please, Pyre, for me...”

Visceras words cemented Pyre’s decision. Slowly, Pyre turned and faced the raider gang that she had been living with for the past few years. Her friends. Her family. She had done this all before, back when she was a slave. It would be no different this time.

Flames flickered to life on the ends of her flamers. Her gang began to scream, begging for mercy and trying to run away. But it was too late for them. They would burn. Just like all her other friends.

Together, Skull Crusher, Viscera and Pyre Blaze descended upon their old gang and one by one, ripped them apart.

“Pyre, are you alright?” My words seemed to snap Pyre out of whatever troubled thoughts she had been having.

“I uh… yeah. Yeah I’m okay. Are we there?” Pyre asked, looking a little confused as she tried to shake the memory from her head.

I shook my head, sitting down next to her. “We should be there in a bit, but no. We aren’t there yet.”

This morning had been a bit of a rush. Shortly after Pyre had explained her plan to recruit the Las Pegasus raiders, we had hooked Star up to our war wagon and taken off. We had opted to join up with the Las Pegasus raiders first, and then attack the Enclave weapons convoy once we had more ponies backing us up. We had a lot of ground to cover before we actually reached Las Pegasus, so we wanted to make sure we left as soon as possible.

Nova had been in no condition to travel. She had insisted on traveling with us, but I had quickly refused. I was already worried about all of us dying as it was. I didn’t want to need to worry about her safety too, especially since there was a good chance we were going to run into Viscera.

I was really, really not looking forward to seeing that psychotic raider again. Hopefully she had died of her wounds back at the MWT hub, but I doubted I was that lucky.

Tinker, to no ponies surprise, had stayed behind as well to look after the wounded alicorn. He had grown rather close to Nova since the death of the Courser that had killed his mother. I really hoped the two of them could find some sort of happiness together once all of this madness was over. Though, even if he hadn't offered to stay behind, I would have made him stay in Friendship City anyway. There was no way in hell I was dragging that colt into a massive city of raiders.

The final pony that had stayed behind was Scarlet. I had told her to look after Tinker while we were gone. Not that I didn’t trust Nova, but the large alicorn was in no shape to be protecting anypony while in her state. It took a fair amount of convincing, but Scarlet had finally agreed after I insisted that somepony also needed to stay behind and help the ponies of Friendship City. They had a lot of healing to do after the fight with the Enclave, and until the Applejack Rangers could get to the island and help them out, they were going to need as much support as they could get.

“Alright, I’ll stay,” Scarlet had finally told me, shortly before we boarded the war wagon. “But I need you to come get me before you attack the Institute. I need to be there for that… for Crank…” There was little else I could do but agree with her.

The trip out to the Neighvada had been shorter than I had expected. Had we tried to get there by hoof, it might have taken a few weeks, but the war wagon was no joke, and after only an hour or so, we were flying over the vast expanse of the Neighvada desert.

Pyre had been shockingly quiet on the trip. I didn’t doubt she was thinking about the confrontation that was awaiting her when we arrived. She had sat herself down by one of the wagon windows, staring down at the endless dunes of radioactive sand as we whipped by above.

“Soooo,” I started, trying to think of the best way to start up a conversation with Pyre. “What should we expect to run into in Las Pegasus? Are we going to need to fight our whole way through the city ooor-” I let that hang in the air while Pyre thought it over.

“Fight the city? No,” Pyre grunted, her eyes returning to the desert below. “Don’t think of Las Pegasus as a giant raider camp. It’s much more complex and nuance than that. It’s run by raiders, sure, but most of the ponies there aren’t raiders. Most are good folk in fact.”

That caught me by surprise. “Wait, it's not entirely raiders there?” Since when did raiders share territory with other ponies?

Pyre shook her head. “The city is split up into four parts, as you’ll soon see for yourself. There’s the main part, the cloud city of Las Pegasus itself, also known as the Strip. Back before the war, the strip was a collection of hotels and casinos, now they serve as bases for the three main gangs that run Las Pegasus. That area is pretty much off limits to anypony that doesn’t have direct permission from the gangs or an invitation from Overboss Jinx. Then there’s the slum city of Freeside located directly under Las Pegasus, an old pre war city that still stands, relatively speaking. It’s a lot like most settlements you’d find out in the wasteland, just a fuck of a lot bigger and run by smaller raider gangs that are always trying to suck up to the bigger ones upstairs.”

“And the other two parts?” I asked. I hadn’t realized Las Pegasus was more than just a big raider camp. To find out it was an entire pre war city turned settlement was both amazing and horrifying.

“Freeside is surrounded by a massive wall. Some of the raider gangs don’t like having just anypony walking all over them, so a lot of ponies get turned away at the gate. Doesn’t stop ponies from trying though. Over the years, a large community now known as Tent Town was built around the exterior of the city. The ponies there are generally pretty friendly, but I wouldn’t recommend staying around there unless you want to get a disease,” Pyre explained matter of factly. “The final part of Las Pegasus is Dashite city. The place I told you about back at the Raptor. That part of the city is housed in the massive S.P.P. Tower in the middle of the Las Pegasus Strip. It’s currently the largest non-Enclave Pegasus city in the wasteland.”

I furrowed my brows as I tried to connect everything. “So the raiders don’t just kill everypony on site. I guess having more ponies that work for them benefits them a lot right?”

Pyre gave a nod of agreement. “Free labor. Keeps the cogs turning and the caps coming. Keeping a whole city the size of Las Pegasus functioning takes work, and Raiders aren’t big fans of manual labour. The fact that most ponies come crawling into the city by choice makes things easier too. Willing workers are more productive than slaves and less likely to stab you in the back.”

“Right… but then, why do ponies want to get into the city?” I asked, that specific part still not registering for me. “If they know the city is controlled by raiders, why not go live elsewhere?”

Pyre chuckled at that. It was not a happy laugh. “Go elsewhere? This aint Manehattan Amber. They don’t have a Friendship City or Tenpony tower out here to turn to. There are a few settlements sure, but they usually aren’t much bigger than a small shack and some dirty mattresses. Do you remember what I told you about cloud seeding yesterday?”

I wracked my brain as I tried to remember. “Uh… Pegasi can make food in the clouds… and that's good for the raiders cause it’s hard to make crops in the desert?” I wasn’t sure if that was exactly what she had told me, but deductive reasoning made that answer seem pretty logical.

“Exactly,” Pyre nodded. “It’s hard to make food out here, and there is practically no water. Since the Las Pegasus gangs have their pegasus serfs in Dashite city and a little bit of control of the surrounding weather, they put a pretty large monopoly on food and water all across Neighvada. If you want a roof to sleep under and the guarantee of food and water then you come here. Otherwise you starve.”

“And no other settlements out here have been able to get food or water?” I wondered, my eyebrows shooting up at her statement.

Pyre gave a sad shake of her head. “Like I said, settlements out here aren’t exactly very prosperous. And those that are usually get wiped off the map pretty quickly once the Las Pegasus Gangs find out about them. There have been a few towns that have popped up over the years, trying to bring water and food to the ponies of the Neighvada, but Jinx always makes sure they stay down.”

I scowled. “We’ll need to find a way to stop them,” The idea that the Las Pegasus raiders were loitering food and water over everyponies heads was a terrible one.

“Not today we won't,” Pyre monotoned ominously. “That's not the kind of thing you can just do overnight. Unless you plan on killing every last raider, which you won’t be able to do, I assure you, fixing the shit out here would take years of work. And right now, we need the raiders help, so let's not poke the hornet's nest and piss ‘em off.”

I grumbled at that, but she was right. Even if I could fix the problems out here, stopping Pureblood from launching the Utopia Program came first. Saving the ponies of Neighvada wouldn’t do much good if Pureblood managed to enslave all of their minds.

“What can you tell me about the Las Pegasus gangs,” I decided to push. “Seeing how we are probably going to be dealing with them a lot, I figure I should know what I can about them.”

Pyre nodded thoughtfully at that. “Well, as you know, there are three main gangs that run the show and three smaller ones that hold varying amounts of control over the city of Freeside. All of them work under the Overboss Jinx. Razor Blade is Jinx’s second, leader of the Disciples gang. They’re what you’d expect a raider gang to be. They like blood, violence and have a personal affinity for knives. Then they’re the Operators, run by a mare named Magazine. They’re more like mercenaries than raiders really, like what might happen if you crossed the Talons with the Steel Rangers. Give them caps and a supply of high tech gadgets and they’re happy.”

“And the third main gang is Viscera’s Pack, right?” I asked, recalling the horrifying group of hellhounds that had tortured us in the MWT building back in Manehattan.

“That’s them,” Pyre growled with a wince. “They’re… well, they’re crazy. Bat shit insane. They aren’t all Hellhounds, but that doesn't make them any less dangerous. You get on their bad side and they’ll rip to limb for limb and feed you to a pack of wild hounds.”

I grimaced. I really didn’t want to need to deal with them. “And the other gangs?”

“The Queens, the Shackles and the Flesh Rippers,” Pyre answered with a roll of her eyes, her tone suggesting she had little care for these gangs. “Smaller gangs vying for control over Freeside. The Queens are a bunch of pre war ghouls trying to imitate the old world monarchy. They act all nice and aren’t as bad as the other gangs, but don’t let that fool you. Fall for their charms and they’ll stab you in the back. The Flesh Rippers are pretty much what you’d expect from a gang of that name. Barbaric cannibals with an affinity for ripping out ponies hearts and eating them while the pony is still alive. Grizzly shit. And finally there are the Shackles, a bunch of renegade Red Eye slavers that wanted to start up their own empire and turned raider. Don’t want a bomb collar around your neck? Don’t deal with them.”

I nodded thoughtfully, thinking all of that over. But there was still one thing I wanted to know about. “And Overboss Jinx? What can you tell me about her?” I asked. I had heard Pyre mention the mythic Overboss quite a few times over our travels. Her name seemed to carry a lot of weight.

I saw the edges of Pyre’s mouth twist up into a grin behind her visor. “She’s the single toughest raider in the wasteland. There are a few raiders out there that like to lay claim to that title, but Jinx has them all beat, I assure you,” She seemed to grin at me a little longer before turning away with a shrug. “I’ll let you meet her first before telling you the juicy stuff. I’d hate to ruin the surprise.”

I gave her an exasperated roll of my eyes and I went to move away. Pyre’s smirk faded as she watched me get up and she put a hoof out to stop me. “Oh, uh… Amber. One last thing…”

Slowly, I sat back down, curious. “Yeah?”

Pyre clearly hesitated for a second, her eyes darting back and forth behind her visor. “When we get there… If we need to kill Viscera I… I just wanted you to know that she wasn’t always like she is now… She was always a little fucked in the head, sure, but she used to be different…” Pyre looked down at her hooves, unable to look at me anymore. “I-I just though I should tell you that…”

I looked her over with concern. “What was she like before…” I couldn’t imagine Viscera as anything but the insane, bloodthirsty killer I had met.

Pyre scuffed her hoof across the floor of the war wagon hesitantly. “She was… nice, uh… nicer… Emotional, I guess is the word I'd use for her. She didn’t use to like killing… she just didn’t see another way.”

It was hard to picture Viscera as anything but psychotic, but I was curious and took the bait. “What changed?”

Pyre just shook her head sadly. “She got addicted to it. Killing, that is. It used to scare her. I remembered she used to cry herself to sleep every night, telling me the names of everypony she killed. But she was convinced that what she was doing was the only way to deal with the wasteland. Only way to beat it. I used to think that too… before I met you that is. I told her to try not to think about it; even enjoy it if she could. I just wanted her to be happy. Lying to herself and trying to enjoy what she did made it a lot easier for her, but she started to enjoy it too much…” Pyre trembled and I could tell some vivid memory was playing out in her head. “When we finally joined up with the Las Pegasus Raiders, she was already starting to lose it. I saw her changing, I knew she was fucking herself up, but I just… I didn’t do anything about it… Didn’t think about it… I figured she was just going through some shit. Life as a raider does that to you… I should have saved her…”

I was silent for a second, rolling that around in my head. “D-did you… love her?” The question came out of my mouth before I could think to hold it back. From Pyre’s flinch, I figured I probably shouldn’t have said that. Too late now though.

“I, uh… Viscera and I are complicated…” Pyre eventually admitted. “We were something once… I think she loved me, a long time ago in her own twisted way… That might be why she hates me so much now… I don’t know if I ever really loved her back. There were days I felt like we could have been more, but… we were something…” She growled at herself and turned away again, looking back out the window and at the desert landscape below. “Ugh, this is hard to talk about... Need a bit to think.”

I gave a grim nod and pulled myself back up, understanding that Pyre wasn’t in the mood to talk anymore. I looked around the war wagon, making out the rest of my friends. Mirra had curled up next to Xayah and the two had quickly fallen asleep. It was good to see that the two of them were able to get some rest before we dealt with whatever was waiting for us in Las Pegasus. I knew Xayah must have still been fairly tired from our ‘activities’ the night before, and Mirra hadn't seemed to be sleeping well the last few days.

Trotting over to the front of the war wagon, I sat down next to Brisk who was looking out the front of the wagon with a dreamy look on his face. “What are you looking at?” I asked curiously when he failed to notice I sat down beside him.

Brisk jumped in surprise, having somehow not noticed me approach. “I uh… nothing,” He quickly covered, his face turning a bright red.

Narrowing my eyes a little, I glanced back out the front of the wagon, trying to spot what had caught his attention. There wasn’t much to look at beyond sand, dust and the occasional ruined building. Most of the view was even obscured by Star’s rump as the small pegasus pulled the war wagon along.

I paused, that last fact making me suddenly realize that Brisk probably hadn’t even been looking at the landscape, but rather the pegasus mare that was pulling us. I glanced back at him with a smirk. “Her eyes are up there,” I grinned at him, gesturing to Star’s head with my hoof.

Brisk’s face went even more red. “I-I... t-that wasn’t what I was… I, uh… S-star just happened to be t-there!”

“Sorry, did somepony say something about me?” Star asked back, craning her neck to look back at us.

“N-n-no!” Brisk assured her, stammering. I was practically rolling on my back with laughter at this point. Brisk gave me a grumpy look. “I’m going to get you for this.”

I stuck my tongue out at him. “No you won’t.”

Star gave a small groan. “Well, whatever you ponies are talking about, wrap it up quick. We’re almost there.”

I bolted up in surprise at that. We were almost there? But I hadn’t seen anything when I looked out the window? I looked out again, this time able to see past where Star had been to a spot on the horizon as we swerved slightly in the air.

What I saw took my breath away.

The loud thumps of metal hoofsteps accompanied Pyre as she trotted up to look out the front of the wagon with us. “Welcome to Las Pegasus. Wasteland’s raider capital of vice and debauchery.”

Las Pegasus was a lot like how Pyre had described. A glowing city of lights rested atop a massive low hanging cloud. From what I could see, the Las Pegasus Strip was a collection of neon sign covered hotels and casinos, each intermixed with bars and carnival rides. A massive ferris wheel and the twisting ruins of a rollercoaster cluttered the city's streets and I could see what appeared to be a looming pyramid made of glass towering over most of the structures on the far side of the city. A massive white spire protruded from the centre of the cloud city, reaching up into the sky and disappearing beyond the even higher clouds above.

Massive platforms had been built out from the hovering cloud city, each one supporting a massive looking gun that slowly panned the area above and below. I gulped as I realized each gun must have been roughly the size of our war wagon, if not a little bigger. They might not have been as big as the gun on top of Fort Strong, but there were lots of them, and these gargantuan weapons were functional.

Below the cloud city of Las Pegasus sat Freeside, a sprawling collection of looming skyscrapers and suburbias that had been patched back together with old slabs of wood and rusting metal. Creaking bridges connected the towering structures together and the streets below were lined with flickering fire barrels, each one causing dark black clouds of smoke to rise above the city. A spotted a few hot air balloons, these ones not all that different from the Pinkie balloons back in Fillydelphia, rising up from Freeside and slowly making their way up into Las Pegasus proper.

As Pyre had suggested, a large wall constructed from toppled buildings, brick and scrap metal had been built around the massive city of Freeside. Outside the city limits were crowds of hundreds of ponies, huddling together as they waited to enter the city. Hundreds, if not thousands of tents had been pitched around the borders of Freeside, giving me a good idea why the area had become known as Tent City. It was practically as big as the city inside was.

We were also not the only ones to have arrived at Las Pegasus.

Five hulking Enclave Raptors floated just beyond the outer cities limits, their weapons glowing dangerously and aimed at a few of the cities massive defenses that had locked in on them. Scores of pegasi swarmed around the five Raptors and I could spot at least twenty war wagons among them.

Star groaned. “Good knews, we’re here. Bad news, so is the Enclave.”

“Why aren’t they entering or attacking the city?” Brisk asked, looking out at the five massive Raptors. “They’re just sitting there.”

“Because of the city's defenses,” Pyre told him, pointing out the massive guns that surrounded Las Pegasus. “Las Pegasus is equipped with over a hundred anti-dragon canons. Most of them went offline after the war, and only about thirty remain functional, but that doesn’t matter. Even only a few hits from those things will down a Raptor.”

“Seems like way too risky of a mission then,” I noted, my own eyes still fixated on the floating city. “Why risk so much on a couple of Dashites?”

Star scoffed. “You were there for the battle of Friendship City. You know first hoof what they’d do to kill only one Dashite. Las Pegasus has a whole fucking city of them…” She paused, thinking that over. “Or at least, a whole city of their grandchildren anyway.”

Pyre pointed down to a spot on the ground below us. “Star, land there. We aren’t going to be able to fly any further than this point. Enclave would shoot us down and the city's defences would shoot us down if the Enclave didn’t.”

Nodding, Star angled down and began bridging us in for a landing. I crawled over to where Xayah and Mirra were sleeping and gently shook them awake. “We’re here,” I told them as they groggily blinked up at me. “And we have trouble…”

On the bright side, it wasn’t that long of a walk from where Star landed to the entrance of Tent City. The downside of course was that the desert was hot as fuck. We only walked for about ten minutes, and I was already soaked with sweat. My mouth was dry and I was desperately craving some water.

I suddenly had a very strong understanding of why so many ponies out in the Neighvada desert came to Las Pegasus despite the raider occupation. Water was incredibly valuable out here, and it was even more rare.

The only one of us that didn’t seem to be dead on their hooves by the time we reached Tent city was Mirra who had happily rode atop Pyre’s back the whole way there. Pyre herself seemed relatively okay, but she’d still give off the occasional exhausted grunt from within their armour.

“Welcome to Tent City, everypony is welcome!” A grimy coated buck shouted at us from atop a pile of collapsed cardboard boxes, flashing his rotting smile our way. “You must be tired! Come get some nice, fresh water!”

I turned to go to him, only for Pyre to quickly grab onto me and force me to turn away. “Not here Amber. We’ll get water once we’re in Freeside. The water here will probably cause severe radiation poisoning just by looking at it.”

“But water…” I groaned, though I decided to take her advice and keep moving towards the thick wall surrounding Freeside in the distance.

Tent City was a mess. Tents had been haphazard pitched everywhere with seemingly no sense of order or planning, making the whole city seem more like a labyrinth of ripped fabric and ramshackle huts than any sort of functioning city. Filth coated ponies staggered between the tents, many of them clearly inebriated or hopped up on chems. Empty needles, chem packages and condemns littered the ground, forcing me to trod forward with extreme caution. The last thing I wanted was for a rusting needle to stab up into my hoof.

I grimaced as we passed two ponies openly rutting in a clearing, surrounded by empty Dash inhalers. A few ponies watched them from the sidelines with blank expressions on their faces, most of them still holding half empty needles into their hooves.

“I do not like this place,” Xayah murmured, her eyes lingering on the rutting ponies for only a second before she forced her gaze away with a huff.

“At last, something we agree on,” Star nodded back, her own eyes simply staring forwards as she tried to zone out the area around her. “It’s places like this that make me think the Enclave has the right idea still.”

Pyre gave us a grimace. “The ponies here aren’t that bad. Most of them are pretty friendly actually. They’re just in a tough place…”

“Is there any way to help them?” I asked, my eyes landed on a buck that seemed to have died slumped against the side of a broken down trailer in a puddle of his own vomit. I couldn’t tell if he had died from hunger, thirst, or chem overdose. Perhaps it had been a mix of all three.

“It won’t be easy,” Pyre informed me. “There might be enough room inside of Freeside for all of them, but that would put the Las Pegasus raiders in a tight spot. This many ponies living within the city walls could threaten their hold on the city, and they aren’t going to take kindly to that. You were surprised that the raiders here didn’t just kill ponies on sight like most raider gangs? Well that is just asking for them to start acting that way.”

As we walked through the crowded ‘streets’ of Tent City, I spotted three pegasus ponies in Enclave armour staring down a crowd of particularly angry, drugged up looking earth ponies. One of the Enclave troopers scowled, stomping their hoof down violently. “We demand entrance into Freeside! You will take us to the leader of this town! Now! Obey!”

“We don’t have a leader! Go fuck yourself!” one of the earth ponies shouted, meeting the Enclave’s even stares. “We don’t want your kind around here! Go back to the clouds where you belong!” He threw a mutated looking blob that looked like it was supposed to be a tomato. The warped fruit splattered against the visor of the Enclave troopers helmet and slid down, plopping onto the ground by their hooves.

With a snarl, the Enclave’s energy weapons glowed and fired, slashing out and striking down the pony that had dared to throw something at them. With a scream of pain, the pony fell to the ground, bleeding from a terrible burning hole in his chest, the left side of his body dissolving into a pile of glittering ash. The rest of the ponies quickly scattered, screaming.

“Looks like the Enclave are trying to get into the city by hoof,” Star grumbled, hiding behind Pyre’s large bulk as we quickly trotted past the seething group of pegasi. “I give them a few hours before they find a way to get past the city's defences.”

“Might they try and do something like they did at Friendship City or whatever?” Brisk asked, his eyes glancing at the Enclave troopers for a second before letting them drift up to look at the looming Raptors above. “Get a spy on the inside to disable the defences and clear the way?”

Star though about that for a second. “Very likely. They’ll have to find somepony on the inside to do it though.”

“They’ll likely get in contact with the Operators,” Pyre nodded, looking up at the looming cloud city in the distance. “Send enough caps their way and they’ll drop the defences.”

I thought that over as we approached the massive gate into Freeside. Three ponies stood guard in front of the gate, each one dressed in very different looking raider garb. Up above on the wall, I saw at least ten more fully armed raiders patrolling the area, their deadly looking weapons sweeping the area for threats.

“Please! You need to let me in!” A scruffy, dust covered stallion pleaded, kneeling down before the three raiders at the gate. “I-I can’t take it out here anymore! I-I need water, please!”

The raider in the middle, a blood soaked buck with sharpened fangs and metal plates welded to his hide, sneered down at the stallion. “You know the deal. You give us somethin’ we want, then we’ll let you in.”

“I-I don’t have anything!” The stallion continued to beg, pressing his hooves together pleadingly “Please, just let me in!”

Blam!

The stallion dropped dead, a bullet from the raider off to the right lodging itself in his forehead. Blood sprayed out from the back of his head as he hit the ground with a thud. The raider mare that had shot him, a ghoul raider in a red sequin dress, snickered as she lowered her smoking revolver.

Both Xayah and Mirra whimpered as they watched the stallion fall dead.

“Fuck. I was hopin’ to sell him,” The raider to the left grumbled at the dolled up raider. This raider was dressed in black leather barding that was covered in dangling chains.

“He didn’t have anything for me. Now he’s dead,” The dress wearing raider smirked. “Besides, now Slit Throat can have a little snack and quit annoying us with his constant complaints about being hungry,” As if to prove her point, the first raider that had spoken got to work, crouching over the dropped body and starting to chow down on the ponies flesh.

I felt bile rise in my throat as I watched the cannibal raider rip out the ponies heart and start gnawing on it. I had half a mind to shoot all three of them dead right then and there, but something told me that wouldn’t turn out very well for any of us. Not with the collection of raiders on the wall above that had all turned their snipers to face us as we approached.

The decaying raider mare looked up at us as we drew closer, her smug expression turning to that of surprise as her violet eyes landed on Pyre’s hotrod power armour. “P-pyre…?”

There was a loud collection of clicks as all three raiders suddenly drew their weapons and pointed them at us. “You got a lot of nerve showing up here you bitch,” The chain bearing slaver scowled, taking a daring step towards us with a large assault rifle held up in his magic. “You know how many caps Jinx has on your fuckin’ head?”

The blood covered raider snickered, drawing a knife and pointing the blade at Pyre’s neck. “You must taste good if you cost that many caps.”

My friends and I quickly crouched down into a battle stance. My magic wrapped around Braeburn’s Liberator and whipped it out, the built in targeting talismans locking in on the three raider guards. Pyre however, stood her ground, unmoving.

“We are here to see the Las Pegasus Raiders up in the Strip,” Pyre rumbled, her voice leaving no room for debate. “You will let us through the gate.”

The bloody cannibal raider, Slit Throat, bared his sharpened fangs. “Oh yeah? And why should we do that? Why not just slice you open and deliver your head on pike to the Overboss?”

“Because we have a deal for Jinx that she’s going to want to hear,” Pyre soothed back. “The last thing you’re going to want is to be the one to get between her and us.”

The mare in the red dress smirked. “Nice try, but I think I’d much rather have the ten thousand caps she promised instead.”

Pyre gave a long, exasperated sigh. “Fine. The caps are yours, here,” she reached into her saddlebags, wrapping her hooves around something and tossing it to the ground before the raiders. I felt myself gasp when I saw what it was. “Give that to Jinx and collect your caps. But you will let me in first.”

Mirra gave a loud squeak of terror as she stared at the severed head Pyre had pulled from her bag. I recognized who the head belonged to at once, even though the three claw marks across the face that I had grown so accustomed to were not present. It was Pyre's own head. Damaged and caked in blood, but still very clearly Pyres.

“Pyre, what the fuck!” I gasped, my eyes still locked on the head she had thrown before the raiders. From the raiders surprised expressions, I could tell they were shocked as well. “I-Is that… Is that your head?”

Pyre gave me a small shrug.”I told you, I found what was left of my body after the Institute was through with it. I took more than just my heart. Figured it might come in handy if I had to fake my death,” She turned back to look at the three horrified raiders. “I know how this works. I give you something you want, you let us in. Take the head, go get your fucking caps. It's real, trust me. More real than my head is actually.”

The raider clad in leather and chains was the first of the three raiders to come back to his senses. “The fuck! How the fuck is that- What the fuck…” he stumbled, looking for words. “That ain’t fuckin’ real! You think we’re stupid?!”

Pyre nickered. “Can I choose not to answer? And yes, it is,” She rolled her severed head around with her hoof, making the raiders flinch in fear. Pyre quickly stopped when she realized it was having a similar effect on Mirra who was starting to hyperventilate atop her back.

“Cage, maybe we should listen to her,” The raider mare in the dress told the chain wearing raider I now knew as Cage. “It’ll save us some trouble and honestly, I don’t want to be in shit with Pyre Blaze.”

Slit Throat and Cage looked at each other for a second before sighing. “This is going to bite us in the fuckin’ ass, but fine,” All three of them stepped aside, making room for us as the large gate into Freeside swung open. Slit Throat scooped up Pyre’s head, looking it over intensely before giving an experimental nibble on the ear. He seemed to like the taste.

We quickly hurried through the gate, moving into the sprawling settlement of Freeside. The raiders watched us carefully as we trotted past them, their faces as mask of horror and rage, but also a little bit of excitement. Pyre Blaze was back in Las Pegasus. Who knew what was about to happen.

As soon as the gate slammed shut again, Brisk spun around and glared at Pyre. “You were carrying around your own severed fucking head!?” he gaped at her, his eyes wide. “I know you’re a synth and found your body, but what the fuck! Most ponies would want to bury their remains or something, not defile it!” Star just gave a shocked, trembling nod of agreement from beside him.

Pyre gave Brisk a hard glare. “I try not to think about it. Helps keep me sane. Burying my remains would only remind me of what happened to me. I figured those parts would come in handy. Clearly they did.”

I gave her a skeptical look. “So was that it? Or are you going to start pulling out other parts of your body at some point? Your heart was traumatizing enough the first time, I really could have lived without seeing you rolling your own head around in the sand.”

Pyre shrugged. “I have my liver also.”

“Gross Pyre! WHY?!”

We slowly made our way through Freeside. I couldn’t tell if it was better or worse than Tent City. It was cleaner, but that wasn’t saying much, though I was thankful to find that ponies weren’t openly fucking in the streets. But the alleys of Freeside came with many of their own issues as well...

Skyscrapers rose up around us on all sides, blocking out most of the surrounding desert landscape from view. The low hanging cloud that held up the city of Las Pegasus blocked out the sky above, making the whole city feel like one giant tunnel instead of an open metropolis. Burning barrels lined the streets, filling the air with a thick black, choking smog. I found myself constantly needing to cough and clear my throat as the thick smoke poured into my lungs.

Large, creaking bridges had been built overtop of the streets connecting all the buildings together. Some of the bridges held teams of patrolling raiders while others seemed to be intended for more public transportation. Wooden shacks protruded from gaping holes in the sides of buildings, making the whole city feel like one giant shanty town.

A large market place had been built into what had once been the city's commercial district. Glaring, neon signs boldly announced the names of the shops and ponies loudly belched out store slogans in the attempts to draw in customers. Instinctively, I looked around for a bookstore, but the only shop of interest to me was an ammo shop. Most of the stores were either sad excuses for casinos or whore houses. I was surprised to see that a lot of the store fronts had Securitron robots standing guard out front.

The cluttered streets were filled with colourful characters as well. Hired thugs and prostitutes seemed to be standing on every corner, offering their services to anypony that passed them. Most of the thugs had been at the main gateway into the city, trying to get a job with the ponies as they came in through the front gates.

“Hey you! Want some Buck! Buck at a discount here!” A sleazy looking stallion in a very bold looking leopard print suit said, waving Brisk over and holding out a few tablets of Buck. Brisk practically salivated as he looked the addictive tablets over, before seeming to growl at himself and keep walking.

“Where exactly are we heading?” I asked Pyre as we turned down another street. “I know we’re going to the Strip, but like… how are we getting there?” I pointed up to the massive cloud city above to emphasize my question.

“Hard to get into Las Pegasus if you aren’t a pegasus. That’s part of the reason it was so easy for the raiders to fortify,” Pyre told me. “But the raiders themselves still need to be able to get in and out. For that, we’re going to need to take a hot air balloon ride,” She pointed to a spot in the distance where a few hot air balloons were beginning to float down from the cloud city above. “It’s the only way up there without getting shot down too.”

I saw Xayah grimace beside me. “I find it most likely that their security has been increased as a result of the Enclave presence outside the city. Commandeering a balloon may be tricky.”

Pyre glanced down at the zebra wearily. “We aren’t going to steal it. The last thing we want is to be shot dead by the Securitrons guarding the station.”

I didn’t bother questioning that as we approached the station Pyre had talked about. Like the outside of the city, a large wall had been erected around the remains of what had once been a sky wagon airport. The front entranceway to the station was guarded by roughly ten Securitron robots, all of which seemed to have huge rocket launchers strapped to their shoulders. Four armed raiders dressed in similar dark leather and chains like the one by the gate stood with the Securitrons, their eyes sweeping the area.

“Ah, yes. That is a good reason to not try and steal a balloon,” Xayah agreed, her emerald eyes landing on the massive rocket launchers.

“So how the fuck are we planning to get a balloon then?” Star asked, scowling. “Unless you have another one of your own fucking heads to toss their way, I doubt they’ll let you pass.”

I gave a nod of agreement. “You did say that only ponies directly offered by Jinx or the gangs were allowed up to the strip.”

Pyre sighed. “I know. I still have my passport to get in, but there's a good chance that they have programmed the Securitrons to deny me entrance anyway. With luck it works and we go up. If not, we’ll need to find a place to-”

“Pyre! Look out!” Mirra shouted out a warning from atop Pyre’s back, cutting her off. Pyre had just enough time to drop to the ground before a large axe swung over where her head had been only seconds before.

I spun around, making out the group of seven blood soaked raiders that had snuck up on us. Each one had bits of metal welded to their flesh and their blood caked muzzles were filled with jagged, sharpened fangs.

Brisk and Xayah hopped back as two of the raiders swung hatchets at them, the rusting weapons flashing through the air where they had just stood. Star flapped her wings and shot into the air, her magical energy rifle blasting out beams of lethal energy at the raiders.

I blocked a blow from one of the raiders with my shotgun, swinging it out in front of me and letting the near indestructible weapon clash with a large butcher's knife that came slashing down at my face. The raider wielding the knife leered at me, showing off their rows of sharpened fangs.

Blam! Blam! Blam! Blam!

Brisk’s minigun tore a hole through one of the raiders, sending their corpse into a violent spasm as they collapsed to the filthy ground. Brisk’s mini gun slowed to a stop as he was forced to dive away from a raider that lunged at him and tried to strangle him with a length of barbed wire.

Pyre pulled herself back up, one of her hooves protectively blocking Mirra while her flamers roared and sent a wave of fire washing over the assailing raiders. Two of the raiders went down in a frenzy of thrashing limbs and fire, their flesh seared from their bones.

I ducked as the bucher knife weilding raider swung at me again. The knife whipped past my head, slashing against a metal lamp post instead of me. Sparks spurted from the sudden, slashing impact of the knife against the metal surface. I countered with a buck to the chest, my pathetic strength doing little more than staggering them back.

The raider reared back up and rushed at me, only for Braeburn’s Liberator to level with their head and send a round of buckshot shooting into his skull. The raider toppled to the ground, blood seeping from the mutilated stump of their neck.

Another raider dropped as Star’s magical energy rifle pierced their side, their whole body dissolving into a glowing pile of ash. One of the raiders raised up a throwing knife and aimed for the pegasus, only for a shot from Xayah’s Anti-material rifle to nail them between the eyes, coating the building behind them in viscera.

The last raider lunged at me, their hooves making it about an inch from my face before Pyre to crash into them and stomp their head flat under her powerful hoof. She looked up at me, her expression masked by her helmet. “You alright?”

I nodded, letting out a breath. “Yeah, I’m fine,” I looked down at the pile of dead raiders around our hooves. “I guess that’s why there are hired guns offering assistance all over the place, huh…”

“Indeed. Most likely to fend off unprovoked attacks such as these,” Xayah agreed, looking down at the raiders that had attacked us.

Pyre snorted. “Yeah, that’s the reason, though this isn’t what I’d call unprovoked,” She gestured to the fresh corpses. “These are Flesh Ripper Raiders; cannibal ponies. A gang favoured by Viscera and her Pack. When they found out Viscera wanted me dead, they probably figured they could kill me and stay in her good graces.”

Mirra raised an eyebrow as she pulled herself out of her hiding spot. “Favoured gang?”

Pyre nodded. “Yeah. The smaller gangs that run Freeside are in many ways branch offs from the main gangs. They work independently, sure, but they each tend to get favors from the big gangs on the Strip. The Queens work with the Operators, The Shackles with the Disciples, and of course, the Flesh Rippers with Viscera’s Pack.”

“Well put,” A ragged voice said. We all turned, making out the shape of two of the chain and leather covered ponies that had been standing outside the station trotting over to us, a Securitron following close behind. “I wasn’t expecting to see you here, Pyre Blaze.”

Pyre nickered. “And I wasn’t expecting to see the Shackles in charge of the Balloon station, so today is full of surprises. What happened to it being under the Queens control?”

The Shackles Raider smirked. “The Queens and the Operators have been falling out of favour with Jinx ever since Tripwire went turncoat. The Queens status around here has been dropping since. Jinx eventually had them removed from control, put us in charge. Magazine is furious, but there ain’t much the bitch can do about it right now without starting a gang war,” Their smile widened. “Now how about we discuss me collecting the caps for your death, hmm?”

A memory nagged at the back of my mind and I gaped at them. “Wait, Tripwire?”

The raider sneered at me. “You been living under a fucking rock? He was the old leader of the Operators before Magazine took control. Real piece of work he was. One of the deadliest pony in the wastes from what I heard. Razor Blade was ecstatic when he finally left the Las Pegasus Raiders. Finally gave him the chance to be second in command.”

I turned to Pyre, my mouth still hanging open. “Are we talking about Tripwire? As in like, Tripwire, Tripwire!? The cyber pony?!”

Pyre just stared at me blankly, not sure where I was coming from. Brisk and Xayah clearly understood what I was trying to say from the surprised look on their faces as well. Eventually Pyre gave a small chuckle. “Wait, have you met Tripwire?”

Brisk snorted out a laugh. “Met him? He was one of the cyber ponies that attacked Stable 25. Amber killed him like, a month ago or whatever,” I blushed at his admission.

The raider paled at the declaration and took a step back. “You killed Tripwire?” His voice was filled with worried skepticism. He looked me up and down with disbelief. “In combat?”

I blushed again. “Well, I shot a balefire egg at him. So… kinda…”

Pyre chuckled. “Amber, how is it that no matter how long we travel together, you never fail to disappoint,” She turned back to the raiders and their looming Securitron guard, holding out a small piece of paper for them to look over. “We need a ride up to the Strip. We have urgent business with the gang leaders.”

The raider looked over the passport and laughed. “Not happening. Razor Blade and Viscera would have me skinned alive if they knew I let you onto the Strip, traitor,” Mirra scowled at the raider for the remark, but the raider just gave her a rotting tooth filled smirk back. "Now I think we've talked long enough. I say it time I kill you and collect my caps."

“Unfortunately, that isn’t going to work,” Pyre told him lazily. “Already gave somepony else the honour of collecting my bounty. You’re a little late to the punch.”

The raider gave her a ‘are you stupid’ sort of look. “You missin’ a few brain cells there, Pyre? That doesn’t even make sense!”

Pyre sighed. “Didn’t expect it to, I just find the fact to be funny. Regardless, we need to get up and you’re in the way.”

The raider growled, pulling a large knife out of its sheath on his leg. “If you want to fight your way through all of Las Pegasus, be my guest. The way I see it, I want you dead, and even if I didn’t, your gang here doesn’t exactly have passports to get in anyway. Couldn’t let you pass even if I wanted.”

“Friends,” Pyre stated back bluntly. At the raiders confused looks, she elaborated. “These are my friends. They aren’t a raider gang.”

“I don’t fuckin’ care what you call them,” The Shackles Raider snarled. “All I care about is taking your head up to the Strip, no body attached!”

The raider lunged forwards, their sharp knife angled for Pyre’s neck. Pyre stepped back, easily avoiding the slash and ramming her hoof into the back of the raiders head, knocking him flat on his face. The second raider took a step forward, but Pyre forced him to freeze by aiming her large, twin flamers his direction.

The Securitrons massive rocket launcher made a loud clanking sound as it targeted in on Pyre’s head. “Kill the bitch!” The raider screamed, thrashing his hooves against Pyre’s hoof as my power armoured friend pinned him down.

“Pyre! Watch out!” Mirra shrieked, rushing forwards and trying to get between Pyre and the readying rocket launcher.

“Mirra! No!”

“That is quite enough,” at the sound of the new voice, the securitron froze, suddenly ignoring the howling raiders commands.

We all turned, taking in the sight of the five ghoulified mares that were approaching us, each one dressed in an identical red sequin dress and aiming a fully loaded tommy gun.

“Let me guess. You’re the Queens,” Star Breeze drawled, letting the beating of her wings slow so that she slowly descended to the ground beside us.

The leading ghoul gave the former Enclave pegasus a pleasant nod before turning to the squirming Shackles Raider and his associate who was still looking unsure of what to do. “Leave these ponies alone. They are currently under the Queens protection.”

The Shackles Raider pushed Pyres hoof off of him and snarled at the ghouls. “Do you have any idea who this is? It’s Pyre fucking Blaze! Jinx would have us all executed if she found out we didn’t kill her!”

The leading ghoul mare waved his concern off. “Regardless, the Queen wants to see them. So unless you want trouble, you’ll let them go.”

The raider snarled for a second before sighing and taking a step back. “Fine. But if word of this gets to Razor Blade then you and your whole gang are fucking dead! I’ll personally see him flay your rotting skin from your bones!”

“Duly noted,” The ghoul deadpanned, rolling her eyes and gesturing for us to follow her.

I glanced over at Pyre for confirmation, but she just shrugged. I quickly trotted up so that I was walking alongside the raider ghouls. “Thanks for that,” I said. It felt weird thanking raiders. As Pyre had said, the Queens seemed nicer than the other gangs, or at least they did in this short interaction, but they were still raiders all the same. “So, why does the… uh, the Queen want to see us?”

The ghoul laughed at that. “Sweetheart, the former second in command of the Pack and public enemy of the Las Pegasus Raiders number one, Pyre Blaze and her entire entourage just trotted through the front gates of Freeside requesting a presence with the leaders of the Las Pegasus Gangs. That’s not something ponies just do, let alone you ponies. Things like that are going to turn some heads. The Queen will explain more once we arrive.”

I gave her a thoughtful nod, but I wished she could have told me more. “How exactly did you get that securitron to stop attacking us? Shouldn’t it have been under Shackles Raider control?”

The dolled up ghoul gave me a thin smile. “It should have been. But we work with the Operators, and the Operators control the robots. They’ll listen to us if we want them too.”

Letting one gang control all of the robots seemed like a pretty big way to piss off the other gangs to me, though I suppose most raiders wouldn’t be able to get much use out of the advanced robots like the Operators would.

As I trotted back to walk with my friends who had fallen a few steps behind, I heard Pyre hiss at Mirra. “What were you thinking?”

“I-I was just… they were going to shoot you and…” I heard Mirra mumbled in response, looking away from Pyre. “I couldn’t let that happen…”

“And if that thing had fired?” Pyre snarled back, her eyes burning into the small changeling filly. “I can take a few hits. You cannot. You promised me you wouldn’t die Mirra. Do not go back on that promise…” Pyre seemed to notice I was listening and gave me a low growl before trotting forwards, one eye kept on Mirra while she went to go talk with the Queen raiders.

The Queens led us through Freeside until we arrived at a large, ornate looking building. A large sign that had been carved into the stone edifice above the door read, ‘Las Pegasus Equestrian Embassy’. The Embassy had been converted into a large base for the Queens, the long since destroyed Equestrian flag on top having been replaced with a flowing red flag that seemed to be made of the same squiend fabrics as all of their dresses. Ghoul mares all in the Queens staple red dress patrolled the large, iron front doors, and I spotted one ghoul on the roof holding a Balefire Egg Launcher. I noted that not all of the Queens seemed to be mares, though they all wore red sequin dresses regardless.

“What use did Equestria have for an embassy during the war?” Brisk puzzled, looking up at the large sign as we started trotting through the doors. “I mean, it’s not like we tried for peace with the zebras.”

Xayah shook her head. “There were a few attempts at peace. Though none of them turned out well,” she thought on that for a second. “And there were more kingdoms than just the zebra empire that Equestria had to worry about. Dragons, yaks, buffalo, griffins.”

“Changelings,” I surmised, recalling the negotiations that had happened between Twilight Sparkle and Queen Chrysalis out in the Hollow Shades.

We were led up a large set of stairs to a massive office room on the top floor. From its size and the extravagance of its decor, I assumed it had once belonged to an old Equestrian Ambassador. A large ornate desk sat in the centre of the room, six chairs had already been set up in front of it, one for each of us.

Behind the desk sat a tall ghoul mare in an expensive looking silver gown. Her pale grey hide had long since rotted away and a sickening pink mist wafted from her pores. She took slow puffs from a comically long cigarette holder as she watched us trot in. She reminded me a lot of Fleur De Lis, though her eyes and mane were different colours.

The dress wearing ghoul that was leading us waved us into the room, declaring boldly. “I present to you, the Queen!”

Cautiously, I sat down in the chair across from the elegant Canterlot Ghoul, waiting for her to speak. The ghoul all but ignored me and kept her laid back gaze on Pyre. “So you really have returned to Las Pegasus,” The Canterlot ghoul surmised as Pyre came to a stop before the table. “I wouldn’t have believed it if I weren’t seeing it with my own eyes… Tell me, what business do you have in Las Pegasus?”

“We need to get to the Strip… Though I’m sure you know that already,” Pyre said. Her inflection was strange and I had trouble figuring out if she was snarling or smirking under her helmet. Mirra hopped off her back and sat down on the chair next to me.

The Canterlot ghoul smirked and leaned back in her seat. “I did, though why you want to go there is any ponies guess. Not much waiting for you ponies up in the clouds. Not unless you have a death wish sweetheart.”

I leaned towards the ghoul. “Can you help us get to the Strip?”

From the ghouls smug face, I could tell I had asked the exact question she had wanted to hear. “Right now, no. But if you do something for me, then maybe I can do something for you…”

“We do not work for raiders,” Brisk scowled, his eyes narrowing. Both Pyre and I shot him a warning glance to play nice, though I had to agree with him.

“What exactly do you want?” I asked back, trying to stay as neutral on the topic as I could.

“I’m sure you’ve heard that the Queens and Magazine’s Operators are in a bit of a rough patch right now. Both gangs are losing a lot of influence in this city. As I’m sure you can imagine, I don’t want that,” The ghoul took another puff from her Quellazaire. “Currently, Razor Blade holds the title of second in command to the Las Pegasus Raiders, and his lackeys in the Shackles gang have control over who goes in and out of the Strip. That is too much power. I want control back over the balloon Station.”

“And why should we help you do that?” Xayah asked from beside me, glaring down the raider leader.

“A few reasons. You want into the Strip. Razor Blade and his Shackles will never allow it, and unless they are removed from this equation, they are the only ponies that can get you passports into the Strip. Put me in charge, and I’m sure I could get you your passports,” She smiled and looked over to Pyre again. “Furthermore, we aren’t the only gang eyeing up control of the balloon station. If we don’t take control of it from the Shackles now, another gang will. And you ponies don’t want that.”

I raised an eyebrow at her. “Why?”

“Because that other gang is the Flesh Rippers,” Pyre grumbled back at me, answering for her. “Viscera’s favoured gang. The last thing the wasteland needs is Viscera getting control over who gets in and out of the Strip.”

The Queen nodded. “Exactly. There is an unspoken rule amongst the gang leaders of Las Pegasus. We can fight amongst each other all we want, but no pony wants Viscera calling the shots. That mare is dangerous,” That might have been the most truthful thing I’d heard in my entire life. Viscera was horrifying. If she had control of Las Pegasus, the wasteland would be in some pretty serious trouble.

“Oookay, so what do you want us to fucking do?” Star asked. She had refused to sit down and instead opted to hover a little of the ground behind us. “Just go and shoot up the leader of the Shackles raiders, ooor...?”

The Queen chuckled. “I wish it were that easy. No. If you just go in guns blazing and take out Darbies, then even if the Queens do get put back in charge, we would never be allowed to let you in. You cannot be caught. Furthermore, the other gangs no doubt know that I have been in contact with you by now. And honestly, I’d rather not get into any more shit with Jinx if I can help it.”

“So then what do you want us to do?” I asked, looking the Canterlot ghoul over.

“A few things. It won’t be easy,” The Queen admitted. “Your pegasus is correct, the leader of the Shackles, Darbies, needs to die, but I need you to make it look like the Flesh Rippers did it. Grizzly work I’m afraid, but doable. You’ll need to find a way to get him alone and get back out without being spotted, which… might be a bit of a trick.”

Pyre gave a small snort. “This plan of yours had better be more complex than that. I know the rules around here. Framing the Flesh Rippers might put them a little out of favour and keep them from taking control of the station instead of you, but that doesn’t mean you get put in charge, especially if the Queens are already dropping in popularity with the Las Pegasus gangs. Most likely case scenario, Darbies second will just assume control and nothing will change.”

The Queen nodded. ‘Exactly. That is why we will need to ensure that the Shackles take the fall as well as the Rippers,” She reached into her desk and pulled out a stack of paper before placing them down before me. “Once Darbies is dead, I need these to be planted in his office. Forgeries, made to look like the Shackles have been letting ponies into the Strip against Jinx’s wishes. This is something that Jinx will not be able to ignore.”

Pyre hummed thoughtfully at that. “That would do it. Jinx openly letting gangs get away with disobeying her would upset her hold on the gangs. Even if she did have suspicions they were fake, she’d be forced to give the position to another gang. And if she chose the Flesh Rippers over the Queens after you framed them, she’d lose support of both you and the Operators. You have this all thought out don’t you?”

I whistle a little at all that. Pyre had been right, Jinx’s control over the gangs was a minefield just waiting to go off. Even the smallest hint that she favoured one gang over the other would set off a chain reaction and cause the fragile peace between the raider gangs to explode and fracture.

The Queen gave her a curt smile. “This plan has been in the works of a bit, yes. With some assistance from Magazine up on the Strip, of course. You ponies just happened to give me a perfect opportunity to enact it and have an alibi. While you deal with Darbies, I, along with the rest of the Queens will make a scene on the far side of the city. I would hate for your little murder attempt on Darbies life to draw attention to me.”

I gave a grim nod. I didn’t like the idea of framing and assassinating somepony, but from what I could understand, these Shackles raiders were both raiders and slavers. I didn’t have too many moral qualms about killing them.

“Making it look like Rippers did it… how are we supposed to do that?” I asked, bringing up an earlier point of the plan.

The Queen gave me a grim look. “Tell me, what do you know about the Flesh Rippers, Sweetheart?” She gave me a curious look. Pyre seemed interested in what I had to say as well, clearly interested in how well I had been listening to what she had been telling me.

“Well, uh… They’re cannibal ponies. One of the smaller gangs working for Viscera,” I tried to remember what Pyre had told me back on the war wagon. “They like to eat ponies' hearts while they're still alive,” That last fact was a scary one.

The Queen gave an appraising smile at my knowledge. “Indeed. I can’t stand the barbaric nature of those beasts, though I must give them credit where credit is due, they keep the fear in ponies,” She gestured over to a ghoul standing next to her, who quickly approached and placed a deadly looking syringe on the table before us. “This is a personal favorite drug of theirs. Immobilizes the victim for a few hours after injection. The victim of course remains conscious and can feel everything happening to them while immobilized, but the drug effectively removes their ability to die of shock as well. Use it on Darbies, then while he’s paralyzed, cut out his heart.”

I felt myself go pale. “Y-you want me to what!?” The idea of doing that was horrifying. Killing a pony was one thing, but to drug them up and cut out there heart while they were still alive was just sick! “Y-you don’t want me to actually eat his heart or a-anything… r-right?”

“Oh Celestia no,” The Queen said, her own face filling with disgust. “I may be a raider, but I am also one of the Queens. I have standards. I just need you to dispose of the heart, sweetheart. I’m not trying to torture you.”

Star swooped down and picked up the needle, looking it over curiously. “What is this stuff? I’ve never heard of anything like it,” her eyes had a fascinated sparkle to them as she turned the needle over in her hooves. “I would love to learn the chemical compound that went into it?”

“I doubt you would have heard of it,” The Queen said, giving her a glare. “The drug was developed after the war, and it is exclusive to the Neighvada region. I find it unlikely that the Grand Pegasus Enclave would have seen anything like it before.”

“We’ll do it,” Pyre interjected, snatching the lone needle from Star's grasp and pocketing it before she could say anything else. “Any idea how to get Darbies alone?”

The Queen smiled sweetly. “Oh, I knew the second I heard you were back that you were the ponies to ask for help!” The Canterlot ghoul thought for a second. “As for how to get him by himself… I’m afraid you’re on your own for that. Queens aren’t usually allowed near the old police station that the Shackles have turned into their base of operations. You’ll have to scout around for yourselves.”

“Do you have any advice? We could use any assistance we could get?” Xayah asked curiously, her eyes staring at where the needle rested in Pyre’s bag. Clearly she was as little of a fan of the plan as I was.

I gave a nod of agreement. “Agreed. We are in a bit of a rush. Anything to get this done quickly will be helpful.”

The Queen scowled, losing her composure for a moment. “I’ve already told you what to do and given you the tools to do it. What else do you want from me,” Her rotting face darkened. “And if you’re in a hurry, then I suggest you get out there and deal with the Shackles quickly. You can meet me back here when you are done. Until then, I expect not to see you again. We don’t need more ponies to see us talking.”

She gestured with a hoof, and two Queen raiders trotted forwards, urging us to get out. I kept the Queens gaze for a second before sighing and trotting back out into the crime riddled streets of Freeside.

I did not like this plan.

The old police station was unmissable. It was a massive, towering cement structure that loomed over the other skyscrapers, its peak just scraping against the underside of the massive cloud that held up the Las Pegasus Strip. A junk wall topped with barbed wire raced along the outside of the building and multiple cages filled with whimpering slaves had been shoved together against one wall.

Like the Queens base at the Equestrian Embassy, the Police station was surrounded by guards, these ones sporting the dark black leather and chain barding of the Shackles gang. Large turrets protruded from the tops of the surrounding wall and the sound of cracking whips and screaming slaves filled the air.

I was unsettled by how much the building reminded me of Fillydelphia. Though unlike the industrial nightmare that was Fillydelphia, the old police station seemed to have focused on a very different use for their slaves. Through the large front doors, I could see what appeared to be a very rowdy looking whore house and multiple slaves that had been tied up in a line out front with a large sign hanging from their necks boldly stating how many caps it cost to ‘use them’.

I was very quickly becoming more okay with ripping out the heart of the pony responsible for all this. I hadn't even entered the building yet and they were starting to piss me off.

“Fuckin’ hell! It’s actually Pyre Blaze. The Rumours are true! Darbies said you’d be by,” One of the slavers guarding the front door laughed, his eyes following us cautiously as we approached. The rest of the raiders quickly looked towards us as well, drawing their weapons to make sure we didn’t do anything brash.

“We’re here to see Darbies, we don’t want any trouble,” Pyre replied coolly, focusing her gaze on the raider guarding the door and ignoring the ridiculous amount of firepower that was being aimed at us.

Mirra trembled a little atop Pyres back, her eyes darting back and forth to all the guns pointed at us. “Y-yeah. We need to talk to him. S-so step aside”

The raider guard sneered, glancing up at Mirra. “What’s this? You got yourself a daughter now Pyre? Didn’t take you as the motherly type.”

Mirra paused and glanced down at Pyre curiously as Pyre figured out how to respond to that. “Are you going to let us through or not?” Pyre eventually grunted, neither confirming nor denying the daughter comment. Mirra seemed to sigh to herself before settling back into her place atop Pyre’s back.

The guard looked us all over for a second before smirking. “Luckily for all of you, Darbies has been expecting you. Said to bring you and your gang up to see him if you stopped by. He wants to talk.”

“They’re my friends,” Pyre snorted back. “Not a gang.”

The raider just gave a roll of his eyes and waved us in. “Whatever. I don’t care what you call your fuck buddies. Just hurry it up. Darbies is waiting.”

The raiders quickly rushed over to strip us of our weapons. I didn’t like parting with my shotgun in the middle of a massive raider base, but the only alternative was to start shooting, and they would only end up with us and probably a lot of the slaves dead. Thankfully, they didn’t seem to notice the deadly needle that I had managed to hide inside of my tail.

Even Pyre was stripped of her massive suit of power armour, leaving her looking far more exposed than usual. Her fiery red tail quickly curled up to cover the burn marks that had once been her cutie mark. She kept her head held high, though I could tell that she was uncomfortable displaying the three jagged scars that raced down her face.

The raiders looked Xayah’s cybernetic hooves over for a bit, trying to figure out just what to do with them. Eventually, they just shrugged and let her keep her fore hooves, not seeing them as much of a threat.

The inside of the old police station was a million times worse than the outside. Large stages had been set up around the room where slavers were proudly displaying their captured slaves and selling them off to the highest bidder. Worn leather couches covered in sticky white and black stains were scattered about the room, some empty while others held drugged up slaves pleasuring their slaver captives. I coughed as the thick, cigarette smoke filled air chocked my lungs.

The longer I stayed here, the more I wanted to start shooting everypony inside. This was beyond horrible.

A slave buck trotted up to me, his eyes distant and bloodshot from all the chems that had been pumped into his system. He ran his short, cropped tail under my chin and fluttered his eyes at me. “I can pleasure you if you want master,” The drugged up slave told me, his voice slurring a little and one of his hind hooves twitching slightly.

Xayah quickly pushed him away and gave him a small scowl. The buck gave an eep of surprise and darted off, clearly not having expected that response. I just gave Xayah a small, shaky smile and continued following after the raiders that led us up a set of stairs to the floors above.

The higher levels of the building weren’t any better. If anything, they were getting worse. More slaves and more whips and seemed to be lashing through the air and down on their backs. I had thought Tent City was bad, but this place was a hundred times worse.

I could feel my scratchy throat rising with bile. I hated everything about this place.

Instead of focusing on the horrors around me, I turned my attention to trying to memorize the path we were taking to get to the top floor. Something told me I would need to remember it in the event I had to make a quick escape.

Left, right, left, straight, up the stairs, right, more stairs, right, right, left, stairs.

I was already quickly getting confused. Who the fuck designed this place? Grumbling I quickly started keeping an eye out for vents and trying to remember where they came out. I doubted Pyre or Brisk would be able to fit through those, but I might be able to escape that way if the need arose. Unfortunately, it looked like the slavers had blocked out of the vents off with slabs of metal. clearly they didn't want any slaves to escape.

After a few minutes, the raiders leading us finally came to a stop at a large door. The sign above it had once read, ‘Chief of Police’, though that had long since been crossed out and replaced with the words, ‘MASTER’.

Without waiting for permission, Pyre pushed through the doors and entered the office. I quickly followed after her, all our friends trailing behind us. Getting here had been far easier than I had expected. We had been here only a few moments and they had already taken us straight to our target. Surely, this couldn't really be that easy.

My hopeful thoughts were quickly dashed as I entered the office. Five raiders in dark combat armour, and one in power armour stood all around us, each one wielding a massive minigun covered in rusty spikes and barbed wire. Two turrets slowly scanned the room and a massive wall of what looked like bullet proof glass cut the room in two. On the far side of the thick glass, sitting at an ornate looking desk, sat a comically obease raider in a dark brown coat and the usual Shackles raider chain barding. Two shivering and whimpering mares had been chained up on the floor beside him. Clearly his own personal slaves. The fat raider gave us all a greasy smile as we were corralled towards him.

“I’m guessing you’re Darbies?” I said, trotting up to the glass and staring at the raider.

Darbies gave a sickening lick of his lips and flashed a toothy smile. “In the flesh, cutie,” He cooed, though ‘in the blubber’ was probably more accurate. I had to force myself not to gag at his 'cutie' remark. His vile gaze shifted up to Pyre Blaze. “I heard you were back. Had to see it with my own to eyes. The great Pyre Blaze, scourge of Manhattan and deserter of the Pack. I heard you were looking for a way up to the Strip. I thought to myself there was no way you're that dumb, but here you are.”

Pyre gave an affirmative nod. “You heard correct. We have some business with the Las Pegasus Gangs.”

"I don't doubt that you do," Darbies smirked. “I’m not an idiot. I heard you’ve been in contact with both the Queens and the Rippers already. They both want something that I have, and I ain't in the mood to give it. You might be a fool for coming back here Pyre, but I won’t insult your intelligence by beating around the bush. Chances are, one of the gangs, if not both, have asked you to take control of the Balloon Station from me for them. If they haven’t asked yet, they will.”

All of us instinctively flinched at his conjecture. He had found us out rather quickly. Brisk quickly stepped forwards. “We haven’t dealt with any of the gangs yet. We figured we should come to the person in charge first before making other arrangements.”

Darbies laughed. “Ha! Brave of you to admit your willingness to make other arrangements. Braver of you still to lie to me. I know you’ve already made some sort of deal with another gang,” He gave Brisk an unfriendly sneer before looking us all over with an appraising eye. His bloodshot eyes lingered a little longer on Xayah and I than I would have liked. “You want passports up to the Strip. I can supply you with them. I’d rather have a little trouble with Razor Blade than whatever the other gangs have planned for me. But I still can’t just give ‘em for free. Imagine what the other gangs would say if I was simply giving out passports to some of Las Pegasus’ most wanted criminals free of charge?”

“What do you want then,” Pyre snarled, stomping a hoof. At her burst of aggression, all the mini guns in the room around us spun up a little in warning, filling the room with a loud whirring noise.

Darbies smiled at Pyre with fake sweetness, raising a hoof to tell his guards to stand down. “As you can clearly see, whatever those raiders told you to do, kill me or otherwise, won't be possible. Not unless you kill every last raider in the building. And if what the radio has been saying about you and these scavers here has any merit, you won't risk the lives of all the slaves in the building,” He leaned back in his seat and smirked at us, his face uncomfortably smug. I had to bite my lip in frustration. He was right. I couldn’t see a way of taking him out, especially not along with all the other things the Queens had asked for, and defiantly not in the rapidly dwindling timeframe we were under. But what the Shackles raiders had been doing here had royally pissed me off, so easy way out or not, I was determined to do something about them.

"Then hurry up and get to the point,” I snapped at him, waiting for him to finish his point. “You want us to do something for you. What?”

Darbies eyes snapped over to look at me greedily again. “Alright cutie, I’ll tell ya. I’m not giving you all passports. It's that simple, but I will give you two. That’s all you’re going to need anyway.”

Xayah narrowed her eyes suspiciously. “What do you mean by that? That is all we are going to need?”

“She’s already got one, though she’ll need my permission to get up to the Strip still,” He smiled, pointing a flabby hoof at Pyre. “And my cost is one pony per passenger up to the Strip.”

My eyebrows shot up in shock as I realized what he was asking for. “W-wait! You want us to sell each other in exchange f-for p-passports?!”

Darbies rolled his eyes before returning them to me, more specifically, to my rump. “I will give the buck, the filly and Pyre a ride up to the top, yes. In exchange, I get you cutie, the stripe and the pegasus,” He leaned in closer, licking his lips with a slimy tongue. Star and I took a nervous step back under his intense gaze. “You look like you’d be a fun time, cutie, and a zebra and a pegasus are so exotic.”

Xayah stepped in front of me protectively, growling at the raider. “You will not lay a hoof on Amber!” She seethed, baring her teeth.

Darbies just chuckled, leaning in close and giving Xayah a cold grin. “And what ate you going to do, stripe? I wonder if you’ll whimper when I break you, or if I can get you to squeal,” I gave him a loud snarl off my own and resisted the urge to spit at the glass between us while I forced down the bile rising in my throat.

“We don’t sell our friends to fat fucks like you,” Brisk snarled, glaring daggers at the raider. Darbies eyes flashed with anger at the comment, but he quickly hid it under a sneer. “I don’t care if you’re the only way to get up to the Strip or not! You keep your filth away from them.”

Pyre gave a loud snort of agreement. “Thanks for your offer, but that’s a big no from us,” Mirra hissed in agreement from atop her back.

Darbies chuckled again, once more leaning back in his seat. “Your loss. Something tells me that whatever business you have in the Strip, it's serious. Serious enough for you to dare returning to Las Pegasus. Ponies that do something that dumb don’t tend to have a lot of options. It’s this, or you don’t get to the strip. Now either fuck off or hand over the mares.”

Pyre hesitated, biting her lip nervously. “W-what if I did it instead. You give passports to the rest of my friends and you get to keep me as a slave. That's a pretty big prize. Having Pyre Blaze as your personal slave would catch a lot of positive attention from all the gangs.”

Mirra’s eyes shot wide with horror at her offer. “Mo- er, Pyre! Y-you can’t!”

I nodded, stepping forwards and standing between Pyre and the thick glass. “She’s right Pyre. You won’t let them buy us, we aren’t letting them buy you. We’ll find another way.”

“As tempting as that offer sounds, I’ll have to pass,” Darbies cooed, much to my relief. “Much as I’d love to have my way with you, I’m pretty sure I’d be dead if Viscera ever found out I was keeping you all to myself. Besides, something tells me you could crush my skull even without your power armour. I’d like to not die, thank you. It’s the three mares, or you don’t get into the Strip. End of story.”

“G-guys, l-lets just g-go,” Star stammered, taking another step away from the glass. Darbies proposal was really shaking her.

I gave the raider one last scowl before nodding. “Yeah. let’s get out of here. I think we’re done negotiating.”

Darbies waved us off with his oversized hoof before gesturing for his guards to take us out. “Get them out of my sight. And I want them monitored. They aren’t allowed back into the building unless they agree to my terms,” he gave another smirk and pulled on a chain attached to his barding, forcing the two trembling mares up to his hooves as he walked out into another office further into the building. “Now if you’ll excuse me. These lovely mares and I need a little bit of alone time...”

The raider guard that had led us up here to begin with gave a salute and began forcing us back out the door, not that we needed any encouragement. I wanted to get out of there as fast as possible. “You got it boss. They try anything, and they get shot on sight.”

We were quickly forced back out onto the street, the guards thankfully returning our weapons just before they shoved us through the gates. The raider guard sneered at us, cocking his shotgun and levelling it at us, urging us to move.

We very quickly complied.

“Fuck. What are we going to do know,” Brisk scowled in frustration once we had gotten a safe distance away. He growled and kicked at a nearby wall with his hoof, dislodging a loose brick. “Anypony have any other bright ideas? That fuckin' shit saw through us before we even got a chance to do anything.”

I shook my head, still feeling a little sick from the way Darbies eyes had been wandering lustfully over my body. “Our plan stays the same. We need to get into the Strip, and after seeing all that, I think we can all agree its better the Queens are in charge than that sack of shit.”

Brisk threw his hooves in the air, clearly pissed off that we had even attempted to deal with the vile raider. “Then what are we going to do? We have less than we did when we went in there,” He trembled, seething in rage. After a few seconds of quiet, he took a deep breath and tried to calm down. “Sorry… I’m not helping, am I…? I just don’t like seeing bastards like him talking about… about… about doing t-things to my friends… and especially not my sister.”

I gave him a warm smile and hug. “T-thanks bro. But I’m alright. Really. I’ll be okay,” At least he hadn’t actually touched me. I’d probably need to shower for a week if he had. I grimaced. “But you’re right. We still don’t have much to go off of. And now we aren’t allowed back inside.”

“T-that might not exactly be true,” Star stammered, still looking a little shaken from the encounter. “We know what that place looks like inside. I made sure to memorize the layout of the building as we walked through it. That’s something.”

I had to bite back my jealousy at her being able to memorize it all better than me.

“Still puts us in a bit of a tricky situation,” Pyre rumbled, looking at the looming cement tower of the old police station. “Can’t get inside, and can’t get him alone. That is going to be really fucking hard.”

“I… I could sneak in and try and take him out,” Xayah offered shakily. She tapped one of her forehooves, activating the built in stealth talisman Tinker had installed into her cybernetics and flickering out of view for a second. “I could easily stay undetected.”

“I am not letting you wander into that awful place by yourself,” I said stubbornly. “If you get caught they might… might...” I cut myself off, not even wanting to consider the possibility. Death would probably be a mercy compared to what those savages would do if she got caught.

Mirra frowned, looking out at the old police station. “What if we killed all the raiders? Is that a possibility?”

“Mirra!” Both Pyre and I gawked at her, our faces shocked.

The small changeling winced at our response, cowering away slightly. “I, um… sorry. I thought we kill raiders… isn’t that what we do?” she asked timidly, both worry and confusion in her voice.

I shared a glance with Pyre. She wasn't wrong, and I had been really tempted to kill them all myself, but it wasn’t like Mirra to jump to mass murder as a solution. These raiders might be a particularly nasty bunch, but that response was far too violent of an answer to get from Mirra.

“Mirra, you alright?” Brisk asked, voicing both Pyre and I’s concern before either of us could voice it.

Xayah gave the Changeling a worried look. “Indeed. It is not like you to jump to such harsh courses of action. Nor would we wish you to.”

Mirra just took another nervous step back. “I-I’m fine. Really. J-just trying to help… Please don’t be angry.”

Pyre kneeled down next to her. “None of us are angry at you kid. Just worried. If something is bothering you, you know you can tell me, right?”

Mirra nodded, but kept her head low. “S-sorry,” Was all she managed to say.

“Regardless, killing them isn’t going to be a fucking option either,” Star grumbled. “You saw all of that firepower they had. We pull something and we fucking die. I don’t care how badass you all think you are. That isn’t a fight we will live through.”

“And there is no way of taking them out without civilian casualties,” Xayah agreed. “There are a lot of slaves in there. We would not be able to keep them safe if we went in guns blazing.”

I felt a disgusting feeling rising up in my gut. There really was only one way out of this. Only one way to get what we wanted. But I didn’t like it one bit.

I took a long, deep breath. “I, uh… I think I have a plan. But you all aren’t going to like it…”

“This is a bad idea,” Brisk grumbled under his breath as he pushed me towards the old police station. “Maybe we should go back to Xayah’s plan and let her sneak in.”

I shook my head sternly, casting a quick glance at Xayah’s trembling form walking beside me. “I am not letting her go into that awful place alone. And if she were to get caught, things would get really bad, really fast.”

“If we get caught, things will still get really bad really fast,” Brisk hissed back as we drew up to the gates. "I fucking hate this plan Amber."

I gulped. He was right, but there was no going back now. “At least if things get bad, we’ll have each other's backs… er… or at least some of us will.”

“Hault!” The guards at the front gate demanded, raising their weapons and pointing them at the six of us. “Darbies has ordered you to be shot on sight unless you are here to-”

“Yeah yeah, we’re here to take Darbies up on his fucking deal,” Pyre scowled, glaring at the raiders. I could tell she was doing all she could not to rip them apart then and there. “Let's just get this over with. I have things I need to do.”

“I can’t believe you’re just going to sell us!” I whined at Pyre, putting on my best performance and trying my best to look angry at her. I considered throwing a few rude names her way, but I just didn’t have it in me to insult my friend.

Star Breeze on the other hoof, had no qualms with insulting her. “You bitch! I flew you all the way to fucking Las Pegasus, and this is how you repay me! Fuck you, you shit fucking cunt!”

Pyre actually flinched a little at that. Brisk looked a little crestfallen as well, but tried not to show it. “Sorry guys. We have no other choice,” Star just huffed at him, sticking her muzzle up in the air.

Chuckling, the raiders moved aside to let us in, stripping all of us of our weapons and armour. One of them quickly scurried off to get Darbies while the others smirked and began surrounding Xayah, Star and myself. They quickly snapped bomb collars around our necks, attaching them to long chains to drag us around like we were dogs. I winced as a magic reduction ring was clamped around my horn and Star’s wings were clamped tightly to her side. I hadn’t considered the possibility that I was going to have to get through this without my magic.

“You really just going to sell your gang like that? I expected more from the great renegade, Pyre Blaze,” One of the raiders mocked, their hoof stroking my mane roughly as they glared at Pyre.

Pyre just scowled. “I do what I need to to get what I want. We all do,” The sneering raider seemed to take that as a solid response.

After a few moments, a Securitron robot rolled up to us, its screen displaying the grinning face of Darbies. “Well well, I’m glad to see you saw reason, Pyre Blaze. There was, of course, no other way you were going to be reaching the Strip alive.”

“Fine. You were right. We didn’t have any other plans. Walking out was a bluff and we are desperate,” Pyre huffed up at him, her eyes filled with rage. “Just give us our fucking passports and let us get out of here.”

Darbies laughed. “Yeah, no. Do you think I’m stupid? I’m not just going to give you your passports and let you run out on your side of the deal. I get the three mares to myself for one full day first, then you get your passports.”

Despite how disgusting I felt right now, I had to try and hide my smirk. Good, there had been lots of witnesses for that. Darbies had just given us a motive for not killing him. That would make getting out of this mess slightly easier. And of course, I had no intention of staying around for a full day anyway.

Brisk growled at the securitron’s flickering screen. “Fine. But we’re in a hurry. One day, then we get our passports, no later.”

“Oh, you have my word,” Darbies voice oozed from the securitrons speaker like slime. The large robot swiveled on its wheel, addressing the raiders around us. “Escort Pyre and her friends out. Then get the bitches into proper attire. I want to have my way with them now.”

The raiders quickly rushed our friends back outside. Birsk and Mirra both scowled angrily at Darbies as they were forced back out the door. Pyre stood her ground for a second, glaring Darbies down, before taking a deep breath and following them out.

I don’t think I had ever felt so embarrassed. My cheeks felt like they were burning a hole straight through my face as the slavers pushed me back out of the changing rooms to join Xayah and Star after having roughly forced me into a rather skimpy looking slave outfit composed mostly of leather straps and collars. The outfit was clearly intended to accentuate some of my bodies very specific features.

My only real solace was that both Xayah and Star had been forced into very similar outfits, their own expressions filled with uncomfortable embarrassment. Not that that was really much of a comfort. I wish I hadn’t needed to drag them into this.

“You okay?” Xayah asked me, clearly seeing the discomfort on my face. I gave her a quick nod and quickly started moving forwards as the raiders gave the chain attached to my neck a rough tug and started forcing me towards the office at the end of the hall.

“I don’t know how the fuck you talked me into this,” Star grumbled, tugging at her leather collar as she was pushed forwards. “This is bad… fucking bad…”

Two guards approached us as we neared the door and quickly began patting us down, making sure all of our weapons had been confiscated before we were allowed in to see Darbies. I flinched as they started combing their hooves through my tail, searching for anything I might have hidden within.

Without thinking, I flipped up my tail, trying to make sure the raiders didn’t spot the deadly needle that I still had hidden within. The raider that had been frisking me chuckled smugly at my reaction. “Hoho! You’re a desperate little bitch aren’t you,” The raider smirked, giving me a rough slap across the flank that made me flinch. “I like that in a mare. Maybe I’ll have a turn with you once Darbies is done.”

Xayah growled at the crude raider, but she was quickly silenced as one of the other raiders smacked her across the face, drawing a small drizzle of blood from her muzzle.

“Alright, they’re clean,” The guard grunted, thankfully not bothering to search the rest of my tail. The large door swung open, allowing us to walk into Darbies personal office.

The office was large, larger even than the room we had first met him in. A large desk sat in the middle of the room, the massive, throne like chair behind it holding up the oversized raider leader himself. The wall to our right was covered in rusted shackles and Darbies two personal slaves that I had seen the last time I talked to him were still chained up by his side, shivering and coated in sweat and blood.

The noise of the hallways outside grew muffled as we trotted in. The room must have had some sort of silence spell around it. I felt myself smirk a little. He was almost making this too easy for us.

Darbies gave the three of us a vile grin as the door fully slammed shut behind us. He raised his fore hooves to us welcomingly, as if he were greeting old friends. “Ah, there you are. I knew from the second I saw you three that I wanted you. You don’t see many stripes or pegasi around here. Jinx has strict rules about those winged rats up in Dashite City, can't lay a hoof on them. I just had to have a little taste,” His sickening grin twisted to me. “And you look like you have the cutest little rump. I simply had to make you scream.”

I took a step towards him, my face growling. I worked my tail a little, trying to figure out what the best way to send the needle hidden inside flying into the raiders smug face.

Before I could act however, Darbies leaned back and held up a blinking device in his hoof. “Now before we get down to business, I have a few things we need to go over. I know Pyre Blaze. You ponies are here not just because you’re desperate, but because you somehow think you can pull a bind one on me. I’m here to tell you that whatever you have planned, it’s not going to work,” He pointed at the blinking device. “See this? You so much as try anything, I’ll activate those collars around your neck and your head goes boom. I’m not really in the mood to fuck a corpse, but I’m not against it either.”

Xayah cast me a worried look. “What’s the plan?” She seemed to ask me. I tried not to look too scared. I had a plan, just had to figure out how to pull it off. I hadn’t considered bomb collars and a lack of magic.

Darbies hoof lowered and he slowly pet one of the whimpering mares chained up beside him. He shook the bomb collar activator in the air a little. “Well. Let's get this party started. Why don’t you cuties go line up against the wall there. Give me a little show.”

Xayah and Star glanced at me nervously for confirmation. Gulping, I gave them both a nod and trotted over to the blood stained wall he had indicated, my muzzle stopping only inches away from the hanging shackled on the wall. Xayah and Star quickly followed, taking their place on either side of me.

I shivered as I felt Darbies disgusting gaze looking us over. “Well, don’t just stand there!” Darbies growled, pulling himself up from his chair and trotting over to us. He loomed over me and rammed his hoof against the back of my head, shoving me face first into the ground. My forehooves buckled. “Faces down, hind legs apart!”

I whimpered as he forced me down into the sultry position, my cheeks burning with shame as he loomed above me. Giving small, frightened squeaks, Xayah and Star quickly followed suit, pushing themselves down into matching positions.

Darbies just gave another low growl, unsatisfied. “You cunts need training. Give it a few years, you’ll get the hang off it,” He turned his head, glancing back at the two mares chained by his desk. “Cuties, show them how daddy likes it.”

Both of the mares pulled themselves to their hooves, spinning around before placing their face against the cold ground and raising their tails. They both whimpered, tears streaking down their dirty faces, but they obeyed without question.

I could practically feel Darbies smile. “See. You’ll learn how to behave like those cuties over there soon enough. Now get those tails up. I want to see what I bought.”

Biting back a snarl of rage and disgust, I slowly raised my tail up, careful not to let the needle inside slip out. I saw Xayah quickly do the same, followed shortly by a very hesitant and furiously blushing Star Breeze.

“Was that so hard?” Darbies chuckled, seemingly more to himself than to us. He started pacing back and forth behind us, practically drinking in the sights we were presenting for him. After a minute, he stopped behind Xayah, looking her over carefully and sneering. “You’ve seen a bit of action, haven't you stripe. Pretty forceful action by the looks of it. Some raiders already have their way with you?”

I failed to bite back my scowl. “Leave her alone!” The words had hardly left my mouth when Darbies’ hoof shot out and slapped my across the face, sending me skidding to the side and toppling to the ground.

“You do not get to talk back to me!” Darbies roared, once more looming over me. His hoof reached out and choked at my neck as he glared down at me in rage. “I am your master now! You will shut up when I rut you and your friends and you’ll fucking thank me when I’m done!”

“Amber! Get off of her now you brute!” Xayah screamed, staggering back up and rushing at Darbies.

Before she could reach him, Darbies swung the detonator up and waved it in her face. “Get back into position stripe or I blow the pink fillies fucking head off and fuck you with her horn!”

Xayah froze, her wide eyes staring in horror at the detonator in front of her before slowly taking a step back and returning to Darbies ordered position. She cast me a worried glance, her eyes filled with fear.

Groaning, Darbies returned his attention to me and smirked. “I think we’ve been beating around the bush for long enough, don’t you? How ‘bout we show your friends what I have planned for you?”

I felt panic flare up inside me as Darbies reached down and started spreading my hind legs. Realizing what he was about to do, I frantically swung my tail up, trying to blindly stab him with the needle hidden inside. My tail simply batted helplessly against his back, doing little more than annoy him.

Growling, he turned and grabbed my tail in his mouth and gave it a hard yank. I gave a startled yelp of surprise as he forcefully ripped me off the ground, my whole body dangling in the air as he violently held my tail. A second later, there was a small clattering sound as the needle in my tail came loose and fell to the floor, rolling across the ground and bumping against Darbies large hoof. I shut my eyes tight and held my breath, praying he wouldn’t notice it.

He noticed it.

I was slammed back into the ground, one of Darbies large hooves pinning my head down as the other picked up the needle and looked it over. “What the fuck is this! Bitch! So the Rippers sent you! Did you really think you could just walk into my fucking a house and fuck with me!” He growled at me, carelessly tossing the needle as far away from me as he could. “I think it’s time I teach you some fucking respect, cunt!”

I gave a frightened scream as he tossed me across the room, my head crashing into his desk and making the two chained up mares whimper with fear. I scrambled back up, trying to pull myself away.

Darbies was faster.

Before I could get back to my hooves, Darbies wrapped a hoof around my neck and slammed me against his desk again, mashing my face into the hard wood desktop. I choked, trying desperately to pull air into my lungs as his whole, heavy body violently leaned over me, both hooves reaching out and holding me down. My eyes shot wide with fear and my pupils turned to pinpricks as I felt something large and hard push itself against the side of my rump.

“Start begging! Scream! I want to hear you fucking scream!” Darbies roared, spittle flying from his vile mouth and splattering across my mane.

Then, Darbies froze. I could feel his whole body go rigid atop me and a low sounding groan of pain escaped his lips. There was a small clattering noise as the detonator fell from his grip, followed shortly by a heavy thud as he slipped off me and fell to the ground.

Breathing heavily and feeling the beginning of a panic attack rising up in my chest, I looked up to see the two mares Darbies had chained by his desk, both of them quickly backing away from the slumped form of the massive raider they had just shoved a needle into the back off. Xayah and Star were staring at me from across the room, looks of horror across their own faces.

I looked down at Darbies immobilized form for a second, making out his slow breaths and his eyes darting around frantically in their sockets, before I looked back up at the two mares. “Th-thanks… A-are you alright?”

One of the mares nodded, their horrified gaze still locked on Darbies. “Y-yeah… w-we… we… We are okay…” she put a hoof to her muzzle as she muffled her own scream. “O-oh my goddesses… Are we going to die…”

I took a deep breath, quickly rushing over to Star and unbinding her wings. “N-no. You’re going to be fine. Star, can you open up a window and fly them out of here?”

Star gave me a wide eyed expression. “But what about you guys?” I can’t just leave you and Xayah here?”

I shook my head, digging around in Darbies desk drawer until I found the keys to unlock our collars and my magic reduction ring. “Xayah and I will be fine. We can handle ourselves. Just get them out of here.”

Star nodded, swooping over and opening up a window before gesturing for the mares to follow her. "Alright, but I expect you to get out of this alive, okay? you, uh... You still owe me..." As soon as they were beside her, she wrapped her hooves around them and shot out into the sky outside. From the strain on her face, I could tell that they were a little heavy for her to carry all at once, but she seemed to make do.

As soon as they were out of sight, I turned back to face the room, taking in Darbies still immobilized form and Xayah’s worried look.

“Amber? Are you okay?” the zebra asked me, her eyes scanning my face for any signs of trauma.

I shuddered a little, recalling just how close I had come to being raped by that monster. “I uh… I’m okay Xayah. Really.”

Xayah looked me over a little bit longer, her expression still filled with concern. “T-thank you for saving me,” She finally said, shuddering a little herself. “And remember that if you need to talk about what just happened, I am here for you.”

I averted my gaze and gave a quick nod. I just wanted to get out of here as quickly as I could. I turned and glared down at Darbies, my magic quickly scooping his large knife up off the desk and hovering it above his chest. His eyes grew as large as saucers as he stared in terror at the floating blade.

I hesitated for a moment, trying to urge myself to cut the monster's heart out. A sick twisted part of myself really, really wanted to, but a small niggling in the back of my brain was still protesting against the idea.

I saw Darbies jaw loosen a little bit. The chems effects must already have been wearing off a little. The Queen had said that its effect should last a few hours or so, but Darbies was a big pony. We probably should have given him a larger dosage.

“W-wait… s… stop,” Darbies managed to gasp out, his body refusing to cooperate with him as he struggled to move. “I c-c-can g-give you… w-whatever... y-you want, cutie... those passports… they’re yours… Just let me… li- ive...”

I shook my head, glaring down at him as Xayah joined me by my side. “I don’t think so. Killing you will give me those passports as well, and you’ve given me a pretty damn big reason to want you dead.”

Darbies eyes widened a little as my words cut through him just as sharply as the knife was about to. “P-p-p-please… I… d-don’t… want… to… die…”

Grimacing, I nodded to Xayah. “Go plant the forgeries. I need a moment with Darbies.”

Xayah nodded, detaching one of her cybernetic hooves and pulling the folded up forgery papers out of the spot we had hidden them in one of her metal joints. She quickly reattached her leg and trotted away from me, scattering the papers across the table and hiding a few of them inside the drawers. The Queens had given us no shortage of forgeries to plant in his office.

Returning my gaze to Darbies and taking a deep breath, I let my magic lurch downwards and stab the serrated knife into the immobilized raiders chest. I winced as blood spurted from the wound, soaking my face in crimson, but I kept cutting. Darbies howled with pain as the blade sunk deep into his flesh, blood flowing from the wound and polling around his rigid form.

Once again, I was thankful that Darbies had been stupid enough to sound proof his room. He had been cautious, but not cautious enough.

Gritting my teeth, I slowly dragged the knife down his front, ripping open his hide and displaying the gore splattered rib cage beneath. One of Darbies' hooves spasmed as I sliced away at him, but he didn’t have enough control over it to try and stop me.

“N-n-n-n-no!” Darbies burbled, blood pushing its way up past his lips and oozing down his front. “Pleeeee-eease….”

I shut my eyes and yanked the knife towards me with my magic, fully slashing open the front of his stomach. More hot blood spilled across the floor, this time accompanied by a wave of spewing intestines. Darbies howls became little more than blubbering as he begged for me to stop.

Stealing myself, I raised my hoof and stomped down on his exposed ribcage. There was a loud crack as my hoof slammed into him, smashing open the gore soaked bones and revealing the pulsing muscle beneath. I slid the knife over the exposed arteries, violently slicing the arteries and freeing the pumping heart from his chest.

It took almost a minute of agonizing pain for him to finally die, even after his heart was fully removed. The Queen had been right, this chem was impressive. And terrifying.

Xayah trotted over to me, grimacing as she looked down at the bloodied corpse of Darbies. Nervously, she glanced back up at me. “Are we ready to get out of here?”

“Are all the forgeries in place?” I countered, sliding the bloody heart into my saddlebag. I felt it sloshing around at my side as it continued to seep blood into my bag. Xayah nodded in response, inciting me to take a deep breath. “Then yeah. Lets get the fuck out of here. I’ve had enough of Freeside.”

Xayah activated the stealth talisman in her foreleg and flickered out of view beside me. A second later I flared up my horn, taking a deep breath as I prepared my spell. There was a small flash, and I disappeared with her.

I finally released the invisibility spell, dropping to the dirty ground in exhaustion. Xayah appeared beside me, worriedly reaching down and helping me back to my hooves. Escaping the old police station had been fairly easy. It was well defended, but it wasn’t prepared for invisible ponies that were already on the inside.

It hadn’t taken long for knews of Darbies death to spread either. We hadn’t even left the building, when cries of alarm started ringing out across the city and raiders started pouring into Freeside from the Strip above. Apparently, killing the leader of the Shackles gang was enough to rile up the big gangs upstairs.

I felt a little bit smug when I started hearing ponies screaming in rage about the Shackles gang letting ponies into the strip against Jinx and the main gang's wishes. Clearly those forgeries were working like a charm. The Queen had been right, that was not something Jinx was simply going to let go unpunished.

By the time Xayah and I reached the alley that we had agreed to meet back up with our friends at, my magic was spent and I could feel myself going into a state of exhaustion. I took a long, heaving breath, trying to steady myself as my horn pulsed with pain and a sharp, stinging sensation slashed through the large crack Viscera had slashed into my horn.

Before I could catch my breath fully, Birsk plowed into me, wrapping his hooves around me in a tight hug. “Sis! Thank the goddesses you got out,” He pulled away, looking at me worriedly. “Star told us what happened. Are you uh… are you okay?”

I winced, glancing over at Star who was shuffling nervously beside Pyre and Mirra as they approached us. “I… yeah. I’m okay. Darbies is dead now. He can’t hurt anypony else.”

Brisk gave me a skeptical look, but did take a step back. “A-alright… but if you need to talk to anypony about what happened, I’m uh… I'm here for you. I know what that kinda shit is like…”

I gave him a grim nod, not really wanting to think about it any more than I have to. “I’ll be fine,” I looked back at Star. "The mares? Are they okay?"

Star gave me a quick nod. "I flew them to the edge of Freeside. They said that they should be able to flee the city from where I left them."

I felt myself fill with a little relief. I wish there was more I could have done for them, but at least they weren't prisoners to that slaving monster anymore. I glanced over at Pyre. "And the Queens? Is everything working according to plan?"

Pyre gave a loud grunt as she pulled up beside us. “A few minutes ago, the Disciples and Operators started coming down from the Strip. The Shackles are already being evicted from the balloon station and power is being transferred over to the Queens. The plan worked like a charm,” she gave Star, Xayah and I a nervous, worried look. “I’m sorry we had to put you three through that. I wish there had been a better way. Selling you to that bastard was… difficult for me.”

I didn’t doubt it, her having been a slave once herself and all. I suddenly felt bad for not thinking about that when I came up with the plan in the first place.

“At least that fucker got what was coming to him,” Star scowled, scrapping her hoof across the rough ground. “I can’t fucking stand slavers.”

“Speaking of which,” I grumbled, reaching into my saddlebag and pulling out Darbies’ fleshy heart. “I’m going to need you to burn this, Pyre. Get rid of the evidence and all.”

Star gagged as I tossed the blood soaked heart on the ground in front of them. “What the fuck is it with you ponies and pulling body parts out of your saddlebags today. Fuck…”

Xayah gave her a timid smile. “They are not usually so vile. You have joined up with us at a bad time.”

Mirra hopped off Pyre’s back as Pyre began disposing of the heart. She fluttered over to me, hoofing over a small slip of paper. “Shortly after the Queens took control of the station, they gave us this,” She told me in an oddly excited tone. “It's about getting up to the strip.”

I took the paper in my throbbing magic and read it over, squinting my eyes to try and read the swirly, calligraphy on the page.

I would have loved to personally thank you for aiding in our swift reclamation of the balloon Station, however, I’m afraid we will not be able to meet again face to face, to avoid any further suspicion of our collaboration of course. The Queens are in your debt. Give this paper to my guards that have just been positioned at the station. They will make sure that you get up to the Strip safely.

-The Queen.

I read it all over one more time before taking a deep breath. "Alright then. I guess it's time to go to the Strip."

I sighed as I looked down at the filthy streets of Freeside below. It looked just as vile from up here in the hot air balloon as it did down on the streets proper, if not more so. I don’t think I had ever been so happy to get away from anywhere. Granted, something told me that the Strip wasn't going to be much better.

“You’re lucky the Queen has given you permission into the Strip,” The ghoul stallion in the red sequin dress groaned from behind me, glaring daggers at Pyre as he slowly raised the hot air balloon higher and higher into the sky. “If it were up to me, I’d fill you all with holes and give your corpses over to Jinx.”

Pyre gave the ghoul a playful punch on the shoulder that made him flinch in fear. “Like you could kill me if you tried.”

I looked away from the streets below me and addressed Pyre. “Anything you want to tell us before we finally get to the Strip? Any last second surprises we should be aware of?”

Pyre thought about that for a second. “Try not to piss the gang leaders off. Even if you really, really want to. We came here for their help. Making them angry will just make them shoot us,” Pyre thought a second longer. “And let me do the talking. Things are probably going to get pretty intense once we get up there. Best you all just don't say anything.”

Star slunked over to the edge of the balloon and looked down, staring down at something that caught her eye on the street below. “It looks like the Enclave managed to get past the wall,” She stated, pointing at a few black specks marching down the street. “They’ll probably make it into the Strip sooner rather than later.”

Brisk grumbled. “I’ve had enough of these Enclave ponies. Hopefully we’re out of here by the time those dicks decide to pull something,” Star gave an annoyed snort at the comment. Brisk’s eyes widened in horror as he released who he had said that in front of. “I uh… N-no offence. Y-you’re great! Like, super cool and stuff! And cute! Wait, did I just say that out loud…?”

Both Mirra and I snickered at him for his outburst.

Star just rolled her eyes. “Don’t mention it. I’m fucking tired of the Enclave too… To think I spent my whole life working for those ass munching cucks, only for them to do all this… Fuck me…”

Pyre gave a small grunt. “We’ll probably need to deal with them before we leave anyway, Brisk. No way in fuck Jinx is just going to lend us her raiders while the Enclave is so close to the Strip.”

Brisk huffed at that. “Fuck. They just had to pick today of all days to make their move on Dashite City. They couldn’t have held off until tomorrow?”

An idea clicked in my head. “That might not be a bad thing though, right? I mean, maybe we can use it as a bargaining chip with the gang leaders somehow? We help them deal with the Enclave and they give us their help in return?”

Star frowned. “You want to try and take out five Raptors? That’s fucking insane! One would be hard enough, but five?! Not to mention they practically have a whole army out there as well, just waiting for an opportunity to storm the Strip.”

"You clearly have not been around us very long,” Xayah mussed smugly. “Overcoming impossible odds tend to be a large part of Amber's plans. They only sometimes don’t work.”

I gave her a grateful smile. “I appreciate your confidence in my plans.”

Xayah returned my smile, though hers was noticeably more playful. “I did not say I was confident in your plans. We will most likely die, as per usual.”

“Would you all quit your yapping? You’re giving me a headache,” The ghoul raider groaned as he tossed a sandbag over the side of the hot air balloon, making the whole thing rise just a little higher. He glanced up at the massive cloud above us that was rapidly getting closer. “Besides, it looks like we’re there…”

The balloon rose and leveled with a large landing pad that had somehow been built into the overhanging cloud. The ghoul tossed a rope over to a raider already awaiting us on the platform, allowing him to reel us in.

Now above the cloud, I was able to get my first good look at the Las Pegasus Strip. Cracked, beige roads made from what I could only assume were tightly packed clouds zigzaged across the massive clouds surface. Towering hotels and Casinos lined the streets, their pristine looking edifices completely covered with blinking neon signs and flashy signs. A massive roller coaster cluttered the skyline and a huge slowly spinning ferris wheel filled the air with a loud creaking noise. Far in the distance, I could see a massive pyramid of glass looming over all the other structures. I had seen the pyramid the first time I had gotten a glance at the city, but now a little closer, I was beginning to realize just how big it was. Some of the casinos here made Tenpony tower look small.

Towering over everything from the centre of the Strip was the massive white monolith of the S.P.P. Tower, rising from the ground and protruded up above the clouds even above this one. I could see a few groups of Pegasi patrolling the skies around the tower and a few platforms protruded from some of the higher levels, each one holding up collections of sky wagons and even a Raptor.

Massive, hanging signs seemed to obscure a lot of my view, each one with large flashing arrows pointing towards different buildings. I managed to quickly make out the hotel names of ‘Gladmanes’, ‘New Rome’, and ‘The Somnambula’ before my focus was averted to more pressing matters...

...More pressing matters like the two hundred some odd guns that were suddenly being leveled with my head. Clearly we were expected.

The landing platform of the Las Pegasus Strip was filled with hundreds of heavily armed raiders. I noticed there seemed to be a clear divide down the centre of the raiders, the raiders on one side wearing light metal armour over top of dirty looking suits, many of them also having been cybernetically augmented in some way, while the raiders on the other side were dressed more traditional raider fashion, bearing heavy welded plates and rusty, blood soaked spikes. The Operators and Disciples respectively, I assumed.

I gulped, my eyes roaming over all the raiders aiming their guns at us. I leaned in a little closer to Pyre. “Uh… This is part of the plan, right?”

Pyre gave a hesitant nod. “We are here to talk to them… so... Kind of? I wasn't exactly expecting the welcome committee though.”

“You got a lot of fucking balls!” A raider roared. I looked back at the mass of raiders, making out a dark grey unicorn buck dressed in a dark leather jacket. A jagged looking knife was strapped to his side and his hooves had been wrapped in criss crossing barbed wire. The grey buck came to a stop in front of the crowd of raiders, sneering at us with his deadly, sharpened fangs. “Pyre fucking Blaze. Why is it that three raiders come up here with your severed head, claiming your bounty, only for me to find out half an hour later that you’ve been spotted again in Freeside?”

Pyre gave the raider a smirk through her helmet. “What can I say, I’m hard to kill,” She waved an armoured hoof at the large group of raiders before us. “Did you really all come to welcome me home? Razor Blade, you shouldn’t have.”

So this was Razor Blade. The leader of the Las Pegasus Disciples and second in command under Jinx. He looked menacing enough to fit the title.

“You’ve caused us a lot of fucking trouble,” Razor Blade scowled, taking another advancing step towards us. “Give me one good reason I shouldn’t slash your throat and throw you off the Strip.”

“Because I have a deal for you. I wouldn’t come here if I didn't have something good,” Pyre replied coolly. “And I think you’re going to want to hear what I have to say.”

"Or maybe you're just desperate,” Razor Blade retorted, his horn glowing a dark red as his magic yanked his twisted knife from its sheath. “Either way, you aren’t leaving Las Pegasus alive.”

Another raider strode forward, this one a large, green mare. She was dressed in what I had begun to assume was the Operators signature grey suit covered by dark grey combat armour and her legs had been replaced with shiny white, cybernetic ones. “Perhaps we should hear her out,” The mare scolded Razor Blade, her intelligent sounding voice lacking any sort of emotional inflection. Razor Blade snarled, but took a step back. “I doubt that Pyre is stupid enough to come back here if she didn't indeed have something truly worth saying,” The mare turned her piercing gaze to us. “Now, this deal of yours?”

Pyre gave a coy nod. “Thank you Magazine, and yes, this plan will interest you. You most of all, but I think all of the Las Pegasus raiders will be rather interested,” She took a step forward, finally moving off of the hot air balloon and onto the large landing pad. After a few seconds of hesitation, we all moved off after her. “I’m sure that over the years, you’ve all heard rumours of the Institute of Arcane Technology, supposedly located out somewhere in Manehattan. I’m sure you’ve also heard rumours of just what treasures they have there. I’m here to tell you that we know a way in.”

Magazine’s eyes widened in interest. “The Institute? You know how to get there? Where it is?”

Razor Blade snarled. “She’s lying. You and your Operators have been trying to find it for years. Tripwire got close, then he disappeared off the map,” He gave Pyre another sharp toothed sneer. “Pyre is bluffing. This is some sort of trick. I say we just kill her now!”

“Not a trick. Amber and Mirra have been there and back already. Amber twice now,” Pyre countered smugly, gesturing to Mirra and I. “We know where it is, and how to get in. And that's where our deal comes into play. We need into the Institute, but there's an army inside standing between us and what we’re after. You help us fight our way through, the tech inside is all yours.”

Magazine looked practically giddy and a small smirk kept flickering across her face. Hiding her smile, she turned to show off the deadly looking gatling laser mounted to her side. “And how do we know you aren’t lying? What is this thing you're ever in the Institute?”

“Is the fact I felt it necessary to risk everything and come back to Las Pegasus not proof enough? As you said, I wouldn't come here if I didn't truly have something good,” Pyre countered swiftly. “As for what we want in Institute we want. There are a few things. First and foremost, they have a big mind control machine in there or some shit that is preparing to go live in about a day and a half, so that’s obviously one thing. I also have my own personal reasons for wanting to make that place burn.”

Razor Blaze and Magazine turned to each other and seemed to exchange a silent conversation as they mulled over what Pyre said. Eventually they turned back, looking somewhat conflicted. “Lots of nice tech, seems more of a gift for the Operators,” Razor Blade stated bluntly. “What do the other gangs get?”

Pyre grimaced. “I did mention there is an army in there. You and your Disciples want blood. You’ll get blood. Lots of it.”

"Hardly a reward, but tempting," Razor Blade scowled, narrowing his eyes. “And Viscera and her Pack? If we get something, she’s going to want something out of this too.”

I felt my stomach drop. I had been silently praying all day that Viscera had actually bleed out and died of her wounds back at the MWT hub in Manehattan. Her absence at this gathering had given me a little hope. But no such luck, apparently she was still alive and kicking somewhere.

Pyre gave Razor Blade an even stare. “Viscora is unreasonable. You know full well she wont accept anything from me, despite if it benefits the gangs or not,” I noticed she raised her voice at that, making sure that all the raiders present could clearly hear her. “The support of two raider gangs will be enough to convince Jinx though, no? So what do you say?”

The large group of raiders were fidgeting restlessly as we spoke, something clearly starting to rile them up a bit. I noticed a few of them starting to look a little trigger happy. A few new raiders were beginning to filter into the crowd, these ones dressed in brightly painted metal plates and nightmarish animal masks. I noticed to my horror, that there seemed to be a few Hellhound Raiders amongst the newcomers. Viscera's Pack was coming. We had to get these raiders on our side, and quickly.

Taking a deep breath, I stepped forwards, pushing past Pyre to stand before the massive army of raiders. Brisk and Xayah quickly reached out to stop me, but I quickened my step to rush past them.

“Amber, what are you doing,” Pyre hissed at me, trying to get me to move back behind her. I just waved her hoof, planting my hooves firmly and puffing out my chest a little.

“Listen. Everypony! In the Institute is something called the Utopia Program,” I started, staring down the boring eyes of the raiders as they glared down on me. “Like Pyre said, it's getting activated in less than two days, and if it activates, it's not just going to be our problem, but your problem too. The Utopia Program is a giant memory based program, and if it activates, somepony named Pureblood is going to use it to enslave the minds of everypony in Equestria. That means all of you as well...”

A few raiders actually had the audacity to snicker at that. I winced, realizing just how ridiculous this whole thing sounded. Magazine gave me an unamused stare. “And what proof do you have that this Utopia Program exists? For that matter, do you even understand the magnitude of what you speak off, little filly? I’ve dedicated my whole life to collecting advanced tech, and I’ve never heard of something even remotely as advanced as what you describe. The amount of power that would be required to even attempt to do such a thing is-”

“This is the Institute. There are technological marvels in there far beyond anything you’ve likely seen,” I argued, bringing up what I knew was a point that would sway the raider mare over to my side. “And they have plenty of power. The Institute has a Crusader Maneframe Mark II, a one of a kind Maneframe developed by Scootaloo back during the war, running at around… uh… five hundred times the power of the other three… I think…” I didn’t really know how much power a normal Crusader Maneframe had, but I was pretty sure that’s what Scootaloo's logs had said back in the Institute.

Magazine’s eyes seemed to sparkle at that. “They have a Crusader Maneframe? Really?”

“That still changes nothing,” Razor Blade interjected. “If you hadn't noticed the Enclave is currently surrounding the city. Even if we did want to make this deal of yours, we can’t leave the Strip undefended with them so close by.”

I opened my mouth to answer him, only to get cut off as a crazed voice singsonged a single word out over the amassed raiders. “Pyyyreeee!” We all froze as the voice reached our ears. Even the squirming crowd of raiders seemed to go still.

Rapidly, the crowd began to part, making way for a blood soaked, cream coloured mare that was being flanked by five, massive raider Hellhounds. The air was filled with ear piercing screeches as she slowly dragged her sharpened hellhound claws across the ground, ripping a trail of groves into the ground as she approached us, her rump wiggled in the air as she seemingly danced along to a song that none of the rest of us could hear. her dazzling blue eyes narrowed in on Pyre as she waltzed forwards, her gaze filled with a strange intelligence and a frightening insanity.

Viscera finally slowed to a stop a few feet away from us, flashing all of us with what looked like it should have been a warm, inviting smile, had her mouth not been filled with jagged hellhound fangs. “Hello, Blazy. I missed you.”

I took a nervous step back at the sight of her, my heart hammering in my chest as my mind was flooded with the horrific memories of what she had done to us back at the MWT hub. I could practically feel Heartbeats blood spilling across the floor and pooling around my hooves. I could see Mirra trembling behind me, her large blue eyes staring in horror at the gore soaked raider.

My eyes glanced down at Viscera’s legs. Where Breaburn’s Liberator had once ripped her leg apart, a completely new leg had grown in its place. The soft hide looked a little cleaner and shorter than the rest of her, but her leg had very clearly grown back. It seemed impossible, but there it was.

A second later, my confusion was answered as my eyes landed on a rotting, pale green ghoul in a blood matted lab coat that was walking up behind Viscera. It was difficult to read from this distance, but I could still make out the faded letters on his name tag reading ‘Doctor Pestilence’.

I wanted to send a bullet through that bastard ghoul doctors head just by looking at him. That was the asshole that had done moral less experiments on ponies back before the war that drove them to suicide. The monster that had forcibly augmented Pyre despite her wishes. And the monster that had refused to help make Crank pony again.

“Viscera,” Pyre growled back, ignoring the presence of the ghoul doctor and bending her legs into a more battle ready stance. “I don’t have time to deal with you right now. We are-”

Viscera pounced at her before she could finish, her huge Hellhound claws digging deep into Pyre’s armour and slashing at the hide beneath. Pyre screamed, staggering back as Viscera lunged atop her and wrestled her down. One of Viscera’s hooves shot out, wrapping around Pyre’s neck and pulling her into a tight headlock.

“Pyre!” Mirra squeaked fearfully, rushing forwards, her blue eyes wide. One of Viscera’s hind hooves flashed out and lashed the changeling filly across the chest, sending her flying back and crashing to the ground with a thud.

“Give me a reason not to kill you now, cunt,” Viscera scowled, her claws digging deeper into Pyre’s armour. “I’ve been itching to sink my claws into your stomach and rip out your entrails!” I took a step forward to protect Pyre, only for Viscera to hiss viciously at me, making me take a nervous step back. Her gaze lingered on me for a second before her eyes widened with recognition and rage. “YOU!”

I gulped. “Oh shit…”

Viscera lunged off of Pyre, pouncing on me and pinning me to the ground. Her deadly claws sunk deep into my flesh, forcing a yell of pain out of me. “I’m going to eat you alive for what you did to me you bitch!” Oozing slavia dribbled from between her blood soaked lips and splattered across my face as she seethed. “Do you have any idea how painful it is to regrow limbs! Fucking Painful! I’m going to show you just how painful it fucking is!”

“Do try not to ruin my hard work again,” Doctor Pestilence drawled from behind her, pulling out a cigarette and taking a puff. “I’ve gotten tired of patching you up all the time Viscera.”

“Viscera, let them go!” Razor Blade ordered, his booming voice giving Viscera pause. I felt the sharp Hellhound claws sink into my hide a little deeper, and for a second, I thought Viscera might just decide to rip my head off then and there anyway. “Viscera, I said let them go!”

Viscera's expression temporarily brightened and she planted a quick kiss on my lips before pulling away and started stalking in a wide arch around us, her hellhound claws occasionally swiping at the ground as she resisted the urge to tear up apart.

I gasped for air as he weight was removed from me, bolting back up, wiping my lips with the back of my hoof and scuttling over to Xayah. I glared at Viscera for a second before shifting my gaze to Doctor Pestilence. "Why wouldn't you accept Crank's treatment," I growled at him.

Doctor Pestilence looked me over in confused interest for a second before shrugging. "I'm sorry. Who are you?" He took another puff from his cigarette, blowing out a large cloud of smoke between his peeled lips.

"A friend of his. I want to know why you didn't help him," I snarled back. I didn't know if I could truly call Crank a friend of mine, but it felt right to say anyway.

Pestilence though for a second. "Crank...? The cyborg freak? I'm afraid he simply didn't have enough caps for my services. Though I would have liked to dig around in that fascinating head of his. Truly, he was a cybernetic marvel. An example of what my... experiments... could have been had the bombs not fallen."

Viscera hissed, cutting off our conversation. "This is not the time Pestilence," She scowled, slashing one of her hoof claws a the ground. "You can return to your experiments later!" She paused as she looked us over for a second, her rump wiggled a little as her gaze passed over Pyre. Finally, Viscera smirked and turned back to Razor Blade. “Well? Do you mind telling me why you are sparing the traitor that Jinx very clearly ordered us to kill?”

Razor Blade hesitated at that remark. She had him there. If I had learned anything during my time in Las Pegasus, it was that you don’t go against Jinx’s wishes if you wanted to stay in charge of anything. Something told me Razor Blade had no interest in giving up his position as second in command in exchange for a deal with us.

“They know how to get us into the Institute,” Magazine finally said for him, taking a step towards Viscera, her cybernetic legs clanking and whirring as she moved. “We can’t pass up on that opportunity.”

Viscera rolled her eyes. “Well duh. I’m not deaf,” She tapped one of her ears with the side of her hoof. I was suddenly reminded that all of her senses had been enhanced. Of course she had heard the entire conversation. “Pyre said that the changeling filly has been inside, right. Just keep her and kill the rest. Pyre still dies, we all win.”

I felt my eyes go wide with fear at her comment. Pyre went rigid beside me, clearly she hadn’t expected that sudden turn of events. Razor Blade and Magazine glanced at each other for a second before nodding. “Fair enough. Works for me.”

I never saw the order get given, but suddenly all of the raiders lurched towards us in a mad frenzy of bashing teeth and blades. I jumped back, but it was too late. A large bat slammed down on my head, knocking me to the ground. The world seemed to spin as my head slammed against the platform, all of my senses being consumed by the overpowering ringing in my ears. Another raider slammed their hoof into my face, breaking my nose and causing blood to spurt across the ground and spill down my face.

I saw Brisk get slammed against the ground beside me as well, his forehead drizzling blood from a large wound that had stuck him across the face. A second later Xayah fell as well, her metal hooves being pinned to the ground as five raiders piled on top of her.

“No, wait! What about our deal!” Pyre screamed, fear flaring though her voice as she began backing up, her flamers roaring with fire. She was suddenly knocked back, a slash from one of Viscera’s hooves ripping through the front of her power armour. Blood spilled down Pyre’s front where the claws had rented into her armour and she gave a low moan as blood burbled up into her throat. She staggered for a moment before collapsing limp to her side.

Viscera leered at her, her sharp claws scratching at Pyre's now ruined power armour playfully. "Fuck your deal. Goodnight Blazy."

“Pyre! No!” Mirra’s wails sliced through the ringing in my ears as I tried to pull myself back up. I caught a quick, fuzzy glance of a group of raiders binding Mirra in chains and dragging her away as the small changeling thrashed and tried to get back to where Pyre had fallen. A raider clocked her over the head with the handle of his gun, knocking the thrashing filly unconscious.

I saw Star backing away as the raiders closed in on her, her eyes wide with fear. “S-star, run!” I shouted, my legs wobbling as I tried to stand. Another bash to the back of the head knocked me back down.

Star spun around, her wings flapping as she tried to take flight. She only made it about an inch off the ground when a beam of energy from Magazine’s gatling laser flashed through the air, slashing through one of her wings and dropping her back to the ground. Star screamed as the raiders surrounded her, their guns aiming down and pressing against her head.

“You know what to do with them,” I heard Viscera cooing gleefully. I heard Razor Blade give a grunt of agreement, but nothing more.

I rolled onto my back, blood spilling down my face and dripping into my eye. Through my spinning vision, I saw the cream, blood soaked visage of Viscera leering down at me. “You shouldn't have come here Amber, but I want to personally thank you anyway. Now I’m finally going to get to have my real fun.”

Viscera’s hoof rose, hovering over my face. I opened my mouth, panic flaring through me and blood dripping from my lips. “N-no… w-wait!” Viscera’s hoof fell, slamming down on my head. Then everything went dark.

I gave a loud groan as my eyes drifted open. I blinked, my vision slowly adjusting to the dim light as I tried to make sense of my surroundings. I was in some kind of room? A prison cell maybe?

Probably not a prison cell. There didn’t seem to be any bars, and the doorway out appeared to be unlocked.

Still stuck in a bit of a daze, I pulled myself up into a sitting position, grumbling as all the blood rushed to my already throbbing head. I winced, rubbing at my temple with a hoof to try and numb the pain. It didn’t work.

“Slow down, Amber. You took a nasty bump to the head. It’s going to sting a little.”

I glanced up at the voice, making out the shape of Pyre Blaze slumped against the far corner of the room. She looked terrible, with massive chunks of her armour missing and her exposed hide coated in a thick layer of drying blood. Even still, I was glad to see her. For a second I thought she had… had…

I gulped, not wanting to think about it. “Are you okay?” I finally grunted, dragging myself over and plopping myself down on the ground next to her.

Pyre nodded. “Yeah. I’ll be fine. Viscera left us with some healing potions. Not enough to heal the wounds completely, but I’ll live,” she gestured to four empty healing potions that now lay scattered across the floor. “Gave you one too. Your wounds weren’t that bad, just a broken nose by the looks of it.”

I raised my eyebrow at her in confusion. “Viscera left you… a healing potion? W-why?”

“Because she didn’t want to spoil her fun,” Pyre grimaced, her eyes drifting to the door leading out of the room. “Amber… I’m… I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry. I… I really thought that I might be able to get through to them… That I could help reform them… show them a better way, like you showed me a better way…” her head sagged and she stared down at her hooves. “I should never have taken all of you to Las Pegasus. Everypony was right. I was stupid. You should never have trusted me. I was fucking stupid and now you’re all going to die. Mirra is going to die... Just like all my other friends… and it’s all because of me.”

I felt my blood run cold. “P-Pyre, what do you mean by that? Why are we going to die?” I glanced around at the empty cement room around us, feeling a chill pass through me. “And where are we? Where is everypony else?”

“Gone… probably trapped deeper in.”

I could feel a sense of dread washing over me. “Deeper in? Pyre, What is going on! Deeper into what?! What is this place!”

Pyre looked back up, her gaze leveling with me. Even through her visor, I could see the clear fear displayed in her teary eyes. “Amber, the Las Pegasus gangs have sentenced us to death.”

There was a loud crackle of static, making us both look up at a small speaker and security camera at the top of the wall. The camera's lens was aimed at us, watching us. “Attention all my favourite undesirables out there in the Las Pegasus Strip, it looks like our little friends have finally all woken up,” Viscera’s voice sang from the speaker, her malicious sounding tone sending chills shooting down my spine. “In case you haven’t heard yet, we got ourselves some fresh meat! Welcome my little ponies… to the Gauntlet of Fire!”

Footnote: Maximum level reached

Author's Note

Sorry to anyone that read this chapter directly after it was uploaded. I just noticed the entire thing was uploaded in italics:facehoof: My apologies if you had to deal with that, I have no clue why that happened. Hopefully I fixed it all.

That aside, I hope you all have a great day.

Fallout: Equestrian belongs to Kkat

Chapter XXXVII: The Gauntlet of Fire

“And she's off. Let's see if our latest prey can draw any… Inspiration.. from our previous victims…”

Fucked

We were so unbelievably fucked.

Coming to Las Pegasus and trying to recruit the help of the Las Pegasus gangs had been a risky plan to begin with, but it wasn’t until that moment that I realized just how badly we might have fucked up.

“The Gauntlet of fire!” I exclaimed, pulling myself up to my hooves and staring wide eyed and Pyre. “What the fuck is the Gauntlet of Fire?!” The name sounded oddly familiar, and I seemed to recall reading an old, pre war book about dragons back in Stable 25 that mentioned something with a very similar title. Granted, that book had been pretty loose on its description. Something about no pony really knowing much about dragon culture.

“It was an old dragon tradition,” Pyre told me, grumbling to herself and climbing back up to her wobbly hooves. “Back in the days before the war, the dragon lord would make the dragons undergo an obstacle course of sorts for the position of dragon lord.”

“So… wait, what does that have to do with us?” I asked, cocking my head a little. “If we do this gauntlet, are we going to become the new dragon lord?”

Pyre chuckled at that. “I wish. Nah, there are no big promotions waiting for us at the end of this. That would be stupid. It’s just a name Viscera stole for her death maze.”

Her what! My jaw dropped open and I started glancing around the room frantically, looking for a way out. I had seen first hoof how fucked up and cruel Viscera could be. The last thing I wanted was to be in a death maze that she had designed.

Seeing no way out except for the unlocked door that Viscera clearly wanted us to go through, I glanced back at Pyre. “Any idea what we’re going to find out those doors?”

Pyre shook her head sadly. “Viscera changes the maze up every few months, she doesn't want it to get stale. The only thing I can guarantee is that there are going to be traps, lots of fucked up traps. Probably a few things meant to scare us or get under our skin…” She took a deep breath, her gaze transfixed on the door. “And the ending… if we make it that far… the end never changes…”

I shivered. “What’s at the end of the maze?”

Pyre gestured at the room around us. “We’re currently in the tunnel systems under the New Rome casino, a pre war building designed to look like an old gladiator arena from ancient Cloudsdale. The maze should lead right up to the large colosseum at the casinos centre,” She grimaced, stealing herself. “A few years back, Jinx managed to enslave a fully grown dragon… Let's just say that Viscera chose the name Gauntlet of Fire for a reason…”

I could feel my mouth go dry. “You think there’s a dragon waiting for us at the end of this? Any chance that's going to be different this time around?”

Pyre hesitated, but shook her head. “It's possible it's something else. There was one time Viscera unleashed an army of fire ants instead, but I wouldn’t put too much hope in that. One thing’s for sure, whatever awaits us at the end of this will be fire based. I doubt Viscera would pass up on the opportunity to kill me with anything less ironic.”

“And you think our friends are deeper into the maze?” I shivered at the idea of them trying to escape whatever Viscera had concocted.

Pyre gave a firm nod. “I’d be surprised if they aren’t. Viscera wants this to be a big show. She probably won’t let them die until we can watch it with our own two eyes.”

I took a deep breath. “Alright… then let's not leave them waiting. Are you ready?”

Pyre just looked at me in surprise. “Amber, you don’t get it, do you? We aren’t making it out of here. No pony has ever escaped the Gauntlet of Fire alive, and Viscera isn’t going to hold back this time. If you thought what Viscera did to us in the MWT hub was bad, this is going to be a hundred times worse…” She paused and looked away from me, trembling slightly. “She wants to make sure my death is poetic Amber, there’s probably going to be things in there… things about me I really don’t want to see.”

Cautiously, I trotted over to her and wrapped her in a tight hug. “Pyre, we’ve had this conversation before. I know your past is fucked up, but you’ve put an effort towards becoming a better pony, and you’ve helped me work towards making a better tomorrow. Whatever we find in there, we’ll face it together.”

“Ahhh, look at you two being all nice and sweet,” Viscera’s static filled voice mocked at us over the intercom. “Now hurry up and enter the fucking Gauntlet little ponies, we’re getting bored out here.”

Pyre gave me a nod before approaching the door. “Let me go first Amber, I can take more hits than you,” She reached the door and raised her hoof to it, slowly pushing it open with a loud creak.

The second the door cracked open, ten silvery spheres dropped from above, clattering down and around Pyre’s hooves. Instinctively, my horn flared to life and wrapped the ten apple grenades that had come tumbling through the door back out into the hallway beyond. “Pyre, get down!” I shouted, jumping back as the explosives detonated, fire and shrapnel flashing down the hallway and rocking the room.

Pyre staggered back, her armour getting scratched up as the shrapnel slashed at her, but the heavy power armour seemed to take the brunt of the damage for her.

“Looks like they set off the first trap! They’re going to need to be more careful if they don’t want to become like our last victims," Viscera’s voice cooed smugly.

I cast an angry glance up at the speaker. “Ugh... are you going to be rambling like that the whole time? I know you’re trying to torture us, but your annoying voice is a little more than I can handle. It’s like listening to a foal screeching.”

For a long second, there was silence on the other side of the speaker. “Oh, fuck you Amber Aura! I’m going to make sure you die slow, you bitch! I’m going to flay the flesh from your bones and dangle your corpse from the top of the Las Pegasus Strip!” Viscera roared, the sound of her voice warping over the speakers as she screamed into them. I felt myself smirk. That was probably going to bite me in the ass later, but I had at least gotten the satisfaction of pissing her off a little.

“Try not to make her want to kill us more than she already does,” Pyre grumbled, looking down the hallway and this time making sure there weren’t any traps. “It won’t make her kill us any faster, and it definitely won’t make her let us go. If anything, our deaths will just be more painful.”

Grimacing at that fact, I followed after her as Pyre started creeping down the hallway. The hallway was uncomfortably narrow, only just wide enough to fit Pyre’s large bulk. It would have been completely pitch black as well, had Pyre not turned on the lamp on her helmet.

Pyre paused for a moment as she rounded a corner in the hallway. She looked around the new area for a second before glancing back at me. “Amber, how good are you at disarming traps?”

I frowned. “I’ve never tried, but I don’t see why I can’t. What kind of traps?”

Pyre looked back down the hall, before shifting to let me past her. “Every kind.”

I gaped at the blood soaked room beyond her. It wasn’t overly large, maybe only about twenty feet by twenty feet. A steel door lay on the far side of the room, its metal surface soaked in blood from the brutalized corpse of a pony that had dropped dead only a few inches from reaching the far side. The room was filled with hundreds of tripwires, some of them stretched across the floor, while others reached through the air above. It reminded me of a massive spider web, only this web was made from silvery wire.

Following one of the tripwires with my eyes, I spotted what looked to be a massive flamethrower protruding from the wall, clearly rigged to activate if the trap were to be tripped. It was not the only one either. It seemed every inch of the walls were covered with some trap rigged weapon. I noticed shotguns, makeshift pistols, even a few rocket launchers to my growing horror. Even the roof and floor were not free of deadly traps, the floor housing a few open iron bear traps, and at least a dozen apple grenades dangled from the roof by string.

I gulped. “Uh… I mean, we can stand back and let me activate them all with my magic,” I suggested, taking a step back from the lethal killing room.

Pyre narrowed her eyes and glanced at the room. “Yeah… we could… seems too easy…”

I shrugged and stepped back, urging Pyre to step back with me. “Just stand back, something tells me things are going to get really messy,” As soon as we were both a safe distance away, I let my horn flare to life.

Ffwhoosh!

I staggered back, fire flashing before my vision and charring my hide. I collapsed to the floor with a scream, rolling around and frantically trying to bat out the flames. Pyre lunged over top of me, her body protecting me from the sudden surge of fire that seemed to burn away at the air around us. A few seconds later, and the fire dissipated.

“Did you really think I didn’t take magic into account?” Viscera howled with laughter from some unseen speaker above us. “I let you use it in the last trap, cause I thought it’d be fun, but not any more. The gauntlet is being flooded with a magic flammable gas. Harmless to you normally, or well, kind of harmless... but the second magic touches it, boom!”

I grit my teeth as I put out the last of the flames smouldering on my flesh. Fuck, I should have known Viscera wouldn’t make it that easy.

Pyre glanced down at me worriedly. “You alright?”

I gave her a grim nod and pulled myself back up, looking over at the deadly trap filled room. to my dismay, none of them seemed to have activated. “Yeah… looks like we’re going to need to disarm all of those manually though.”

“I could try just charging through them?” Pyre suggested hopefully. “I might be able to survive the hits with my armour.”

I shook my head. “No chance. You might survive some of it, but there is no way even you can survive all those grenades and a missile launcher,” Pyre grimaced at that, but nodded in agreement.

Working up my courage to approach the room, I slowly slinked over and began looking for the nearest tripwire. Spotting it, I followed it along until I found the trap it was activated to and began trying to disarm it. It was slow, but after a few seconds, I managed to disarm it and snap the tripwire to no effect.

“Awww, looks like our little victims have something against fun,” Viscera's voice scoffed. “Why don’t we try to make things a little more interesting while our vics play around in there? I did a little bit of digging in the Manehattan Gardens and I found a few audio recordings I think we should listen to… Think of this as my first little gift to you...”

“Plaga! Stop! Please!” Pyre flinched as the pre-recorded voice crackled through the speakers. I paused as I moved onto the next trap, glancing up at the speaker. That had been Pyre’s voice. A very young sounding Pyre, but still very clearly Pyre.

“*Slap!* The fuck did you just call me! Try that again! *Slap*!” Pyre cringed back as her fathers voice boomed over the speaker, visibly flinching at each and every slap that echoed over the recording.

“Dddd-dad! Please!” filly Pyre’s voice wailed, her screams being muffled by her sobs. Her voice hiccuped, and was quickly followed by another painful sounding slap and thud as Pyre's father threw the trembling filly across the room. “Maaamaaa!”

Pyre flinched again, cowering down as she listened to the old recording. I growled at the speaker. “Viscera, stop! We don’t need to listen to this!” Viscera ignored me, simply letting the recording play out.

“Just don’t fight him Pyre,” The cracked, dry sounding voice of a mare I assumed was Pyre’s mother urged. “Just let him do what he wants… it’s easier that way.”

“*Slap* you be quiet bitch! I’ll deal with you later!” Plaga Blaze roared, his yells of rage followed by the sound of both mares whimpering. I tried to zone out the noise as the screaming audio recording grew louder, trying my best to focus on the traps as I moved onto the next one.

“Mom! D-daddy, stop please! I j-just want to go home!” Pyre begged, her voice cracking. Another slap, this one sounding a little louder than the others. Heavy pounding hoof steps seemed to echo over the speakers as Plaga Blaze violently charged towards his collapsed daughter. “N-nonO! Dad! S-stop! STOP! NO!”

The recording went dead. An uncomfortable silence fell over the room, and when I looked back at Pyre, I saw she had collapsed against the floor, sobbing. Growling up at the speaker, I disarmed another trap before hauling myself over to Pyre and sitting down next to her.

“I c-can't do this Amber,” Pyre whimpered, glaring down at her hooves. “Viscera will have more… it's going to get some much worse the farther in we go.”

I wrapped my hooves around her metal armour in an attempt to comfort her. “Yes you can. You’re stronger than Viscera is. We can get through this together. Mirra is still in trouble. We need to get through this... for her, right?”

Pyre just sat there and trembled for a few moments, before giving me a thankful nod. “Yeah… A-alright… Mirra needs us... just… You’re going to hear some bad things about me in here… Please… Still be my friend if we get out of this?” She looked up at me pleadingly, tears glinting behind her visor.

I gave her as warm of a smile as I could. “The alternative was never an option. I’ve stuck around your psychotic ass this long, Viscera isn’t going to change that.”

Helping her back up to her shaking hooves, we trotted back towards the traps and continued disarming them.

I felt a bead of sweat drip down my brow as I disarmed one of the last traps. There were a few tripwires I had left untouched, deciding not to waste my time on all of them and simply step over them instead. On the bright side, I had managed to pocket ten rounds of buckshot from a few of the rigged shotgun traps and had gingerly placed a handful of the dangling frag and shock grenades into my saddlebags.

“Well well, looks like they made it through the slaughter room!” Viscera chirped gleefully. “Good. I was looking forward to these next few things. I’ve got another present waiting for you just ahead.”

I pushed open the metal door carefully and trotted into the next room. Almost instantly, my hoof skidded a little as I stepped in the thick layer of fresh blood that coated the floor of the room beyond. The smell of rot assaulted my nostrils and I had to take a step back and cover my muzzle to prevent myself from gagging.

We had entered into a large metal room with a large, wooden door on the far side. A massive metal gate took up the wall to one side while the other side was covered in a thick layer of rusting spikes dangling with assorted body parts and organs. Pony corpses lined the walls of the room, all of their throats slit and snapped, blood spilling from their mangled forms and sloshing across the floor. I noticed that a few of the corpses seemed to have flash ripped from their bones, as if some vicious beast had been feasting on them. The bodies looked relatively fresh, they couldn’t have been more than a few hours old. Viscera had been going on a killing spree.

“Do the wounds all look familiar? They should…” Viscera’s voice cooed maliciously. “I thought I’d give you both a little reminder of your good friend Heartbeat. Oh how I loved watching the life drain from his eyes as you snapped his neck. I felt you deserved to see it all again. Deserved to remember what it was like to take his neck in your hooves and twist...”

Pyre scowled, though it sounded more like a whimper as her eyes scanned the room of death. Her scowl stopped dead in her throat as her eyes landed on a charred mangle of bones in the middle of the room. I saw her take a small step back as what she was looking at finally registered in her mind.

The bones had been arranged in a gruesome display, shattered and patched back together with a bloody twin. They were suspended from the ceiling like a marionette, posed as if they were clawing at the air and begging for help.

“N-no…” Pyre muttered, her eyes wide behind her visor as she stared in horror at the bones. “I-it can’t be.”

“Like my little present?” Viscera chided. “I dug up the bones while in the Manehattan gardens looking for those audio recordings. Say hi to your mother for me…”

I gasped, realizing we were looking at the charred remains of Pyre’s mother. I glowered up at the speakers. “Viscera. Stop this!”

“How about we listen to another audio recording instead, hmm?” Viscera countered. “I found this one with the bones…”

“Pyre! What are you doing!” I heard the voice of Pyre’s mother cry out.

Pyre’s eyes went even wider as she heard the voice. “No! Not this one! Please, not this one!”

“I-I’m sorry mom…” The young voice of Pyre echoed out over the speaker. “I’m so, so sorry…”

“Fwoosh!” The sound of a flamer roaring to life flared over the speaker, followed quickly by Pyre’s mother’s frantic, pained wails as she was rapidly burned alive.

That was enough. We weren’t listening to this one any more. I raised Braeburn’s Liberator in my mouth and fired at the speaker. The powerful buckshot burst against the speaker, showering us in sparks and scrap metal. Thankfully, the recording cut out.

“So… you want to play like that, do you?” Viscera scowled, her voice coming to life over another speaker. “Fine… let’s let the real Gauntlet begin.”

The large metal gate to our right gave a loud groan and began to pull open, revealing a long, dark tunnel beyond. From deep within, the sound of scratching began. Pyre locked up as the sound reached her ears. “Oh fuck…”

I was about to ask her what that was, when Viscera’s voice once more crackled to life. “This is where things get fun my little toys… Run…”

Then the howling began. I felt every hair on my body shoot straight up with fear as I recognized the sound... Hellhounds!

“Run! Go!” Pyre urged, pushing me forwards with her head. “Go! NOW!”

I sprang forwards, my hooves skidding as they tried to find purchase on the blood soaked floor. I grappled onto the knob of the wooden door and yanked it open, revealing the dark hallway beyond it. Pyre moved up behind me, her helmet light illuminating the decaying, gore splattered hallway.

Together, we darted forwards, rushing madly though the hall as the scratching and howling grew louder. I felt tripwires snap around my hooves and I dashed forwards, the sound of a shotgun following as a rigged up trap fired and blasted a shot of buckshot past my ear. I stumbled, trying to stay upright as I felt a part of the deadly slug slash across my side.

“Red on my EFS ahead!” Pyre shouted, ducking as another round of buckshot flashed past us. “Lots of red!” Her declaration was accompanied by more howls as the sound of hellhounds charging at us started coming from in front of us now as well as behind.

I nodded fearfully, spotting an area ahead where the hallway split into three sections. “Which way!”

“Left!” Pyre shouted, powering ahead and turning down the indicated hall. I followed after her, glancing back just in time to see the first of ten hellhounds ripping down the hallway after us. I could hear more on their way.

“We got turrets incoming!” Pyre yelled back, bursting through an already broken wooden door and into a large room that looked like it had once been some sort of maintenance room. No sooner did she enter the room, than several turrets pop down from the ceiling and start spraying us with a stray stream of fire.

I ducked back, quickly moving behind the cover of a toppled wooden table as a torrent of bullets poured down at me. The wooden surface was ripped apart in second, bullets slashing through its surface and shooting past me. I gave a yell of pain as one of the shots lashed through my shoulder, soaking my hide in my own blood.

Wincing and applying pressure to my bleeding shoulder, I peaked my head out from around cover, looking for the exit. I quickly spotted it, a small, thick metal door on the far side of the room, only to find it surrounded by at least fifty turrets. How Viscera had gotten her hooves on so many turrets, I had no idea.

I quickly ducked back down as another round of bullets flashed above my head.

“Any plan on how to get through?” I shouted over the sound of gunfire as I watched Pyre take her own cover behind a massive stone column, shots from the turrets pinging off of her powerful armour. I quickly checked my ammo, counting only fourteen slugs left. “I don’t know if I have enough shots to take all the turrets out?”

“Don’t have enough time anyway!” Pyre shouted back, her flamers roaring and blasting one of the turrets apart. “Soon as those Hellhounds catch up, we’re dead!” Her head whipped around, searching for a way out. She spotted the same thing I did before her eyes landed on a metal security gate on the far side of the room. “We need to get to the other side of that security gate! There should be a terminal in there to shut off the turrets!” She gave me a smug look. “Assuming you are up for some hacking.”

I returned her smug look. “I always am.”

“Wonderful, I’ll cover you,” She shouted, jumping out from her hiding spot and sending a wave of fire washing over the wall, blasting apart any turrets that her fires touched.

I vaulted over the broken table, dashing towards the large security gate. One of the turrets locked onto me, its large barrel spinning as it whirred up to fire.

I rolled across the ground, ducking low as the turrets sent a steam of fire over me. One of the shots found my hind leg, slashing through it and forcing me to scramble forward or risk collapsing to the ground.

Staggering up against the security gate, I looked it over for a way to open it. There was a lock, but it was far too advanced for my pathetic lock picking abilities. I gave a frustrated yell, my body sagging against the door as my hind leg gave out from under me. “Pyre! We got a problem!”

“Oh no! Looks like our victims are having a little bit of trouble,” Viscera cackled, her chilling voice making me shiver. “What? Can’t pick a lock Amber Aura? Better think of something quick. You’re about to get company.”

Just as her words echoed over the speaker, Hellhounds started pouring into the room behind us. They paused only for a second in the doorway, snarling at the two of us before charging forwards, their razor sharp claws slashing at their air as they went to rip out our throats.

“Amber! Find a way in! Hurry!” Pyre screamed, backpedaling as five hellhounds rushed her. Her flamers roared louder as she covered them in waves of fire, but the hellhounds attacks didn’t relent.

I dodged another blast from one of the turrets, scrambling as I searched for a way to open the door. There had to be a way through all this. Viscera was trying to torture us, not kill us. Not kill us yet anyway. She wanted us to make it through.

My eyes landed on a small hole in the wall a few feet away. A baleful green glow seemed to ooze from the hole. Even if I had my pipbuck still, I wouldn’t have needed my geiger counter to tell me it was irradiated. I took a deep breath. Why did I get the feeling the key was in there.

Pyre was tossed to the side by one of the hellhounds, her heavy body slamming against the wall and the front of her armour being ripped apart by the deadly claws. She gave a howl of pain as she staggered back up to her hooves, her flamers once more sending out a blazing inferno as she tried to hold the Hellhounds back. One of the massive hellhounds pushed past her flamers assault, lunging towards me with slashing claws and snapping at my neck with its gaping maw.

Giving an eep of fear, I staggered back and lunged for the irradiated hole. A few shots from the spinning turrets blasted down around me, though I managed to evade them with relative ease. I was less lucky with the hellhound as their claws ripped at my hide as I scurried away, digging deep into my flesh and rending three massive slashing across my rump.

Crying out, I dove head first into the hole, the jagged sides of the wall scratching at my shoulders and sides. I winced as rusted nails that had been hammered into the wall sliced at my exposed flesh. My one bit of solace was that if the hole was trapped, that probably meant the key actually was in here and I hadn’t just thrown myself into an irradiated area for no reason.

Wiggling the rest of the way into the hole, I scampered back as the hellhound snarled and slashed at me, their massive bulk unable to reach me through the small opening.

Now on the other side of the jagged hole, I was able to see the source of the radiation. Tones of glowing yellow barrels of balefire waste were scattered across the small room, some knocked over onto their side and spilling their irradiated contents across the floor. I even spotted a few barrels of Taint, oozing their rainbow coloured slime.

Just being so close to all the deadly material made my flesh burn. I didn’t doubt that I was taking ten or twenty rads a second just being in here. I had to get out of here fast.

I stumbled forwards, my tired eyes sweeping the area for any signs of a key. It had to be here… please let it be here.

Pain flashed up my leg as a radroach scuttled out from one of the barrels, their pincher like mouth snapping at my exposed fetlock. I twisted around, stomping down hard on the large insect's head, crushing it flat. I could feel the bite wound sting painfully as the radioactive air filtered into the exposed wound.

My eyes landed on a glinting piece of metal lying in a puddle of taint. I grimaced, staring at the small object. Damn it. That was the key alright.

Biting my lip, I inched a little closer to the hole I had come through, and readied myself. I knew the horrors of what could happen if you even so much as touched taint. There was no way I was going to just reach in and grab it.

Stealing myself, I flared up my horn and flung the key from the taint, sending it skidding towards my hoof. As expected, the air around me burst with fire as my magic mingled with the magic sensitive toxins in the air. I was flung backwards, the hairs on the front of my face charred as the fire flashed across my muzzle.

I snagged the key, shuffling back and batting out the flames that raced up my coat as I dove back for the jagged hole. I bit back a scream as the rusted nails once more slashed at my hide and forced myself the rest of the way through, back into the chaos of the larger room beyond.

At once, my fore hoof was riddled with bullet holes as one of the turrets fired at me. I screamed, collapsing to the ground as the painful shots ripped through me.

I saw Pyre staggering around on the other side of the room, darting back and forth as she tried to dodge away from the hellhounds deadly attacks. One of the Hellhounds kicked at her with a hind claw, sending her stumbling back and crashing to the ground.

Gritting my teeth, I pulled myself towards the security gate, jabbing the key into the lock and watching with mild satisfaction as the door clicked open. Wasting no time, I dragged myself into the room and pulled myself up to the flickering terminal against the far wall. It was locked, but only a five letter password by the looks of it. Small mercies I suppose.

Within seconds, I was in.

>Standardized turret control firmware v8.13

>Status: Active, target: ponies

>Admin: Turret defence system

>Units connected: 92

>Please exercise caution around turrets, users should always assume that turrets are loaded and capable of live-fire.

[Deactivate?]

[Turret Options]

My hoof hovered over the deactivate option before another idea struck me and I clicked on turret options. Instantly, more flickering text appeared before me.

>Standardized turret control firmware v8.13

>Targets: Ponies

>Change targets?

[Yes]

[No]

I smirked and clicked yes, quickly changing the target parameters to fire on all non ponies. At once, the turrets shifted their fire from us to the hellhounds, forcing the Hellhounds to stagger away from us. The Hellhounds gave a roar of rage as they were forced to shift their attack to the turrets, ripping them to shreds and blasting them apart with their energy weapons.

Flipping through the other options on the terminal, I unlocked the door out. There was a loud click as the terminal disengaged the lock.

“Pyre! Now!” I shouted, stumbling out of the security gate and rushing for the exit. Pyre quickly scrambled after me, limping from a large gash one of the Hellhounds had ripped into her leg.

We quickly pushed our way to the exit, our movement being covered by the turrets as the Hellhounds tried to chase after us. One of the turrets managed to take down a raging hellhound, filling their skull full of lead. Even after their head had been pulped, it took a few moments before the hulking beast finally fell.

Staggering on my injured hooves, I grasped onto the door and flung it open, ushering Pyre in before slamming the door shut behind us. I quickly limped over to a small terminal and locked the door behind us as well. With any luck, the hellhounds weren’t able to use the terminal on the far side to unlock it again.

It didn’t take long for the muffled turret gunfire on the far side of the door to go quiet. I had no doubts that the Hellhounds had made very short work of the defences.

“Amber, you alright?” Pyre grumbled, slumping against the wall and trying to catch her breath.

I trembled, trying to keep myself upright despite the pounding in my skull and the shooting pains in my hooves. “I’ve been better. You think Viscera was nice enough to leave any healing potions or radaway down here?” I asked, only half joking.

Pyre grimaced. “Unlikely. If there are, they’ll be heavily trapped. We probably have a better chance of survival not trying to get those healing supplies,” I nodded, following her logic. Death while trying to get medicine was the kind of irony Viscera lived for.

“So, you made it through,” Viscera’s voice crackled, drawing our attention up to the speaker hovering over us. “Good. Let’s see if you can make it through what I’ve planned for you next.”

Pyre scowled. “You want to fight me Viscera. That’s not going to be very easy if I die here in your gauntlet!”

I heard the sound of Viscera chuckling. “Oh, I’m sure you’ll make it through to the colosseum. I doubt you’d let a couple of traps take you out… You’re friends on the other hoof… I need to make sure they all die before our big finale. I’ll see you at the finish line. You’ll be there.”

Pyre hissed up at the speaker. “And if I’m not?”

“You will be,” Viscera’s voice practically purred. “Because it would be very unfortunate for your little changeling if you are not… Say hi changeling.”

“Pyre, I’m okay! Don’t worry about me!” Mirra’s voice echoed out of the speaker. She sounded like she was trying her best to hold back tears, and I could hear a very distinct tremor in her voice. “I-I’ll be fine…”

There was a loud sounding slap, followed in quick order by Mirra’s pained whimpering before Viscera once again took over the speaker. “Tick tock Blazy. The longer you’re in there, the more likely I am to feed her to my hounds. Oh how they’re hungry… I might just feed bits and pieces of her to them now, and leave her head just for you...”

Pyre’s snarl quickly became a roar. “You leave her alone!” She slammed her bleeding hooves against the wall, making the whole hallway tremor. “If you touch her, I will kill you!”

Viscera cackled happily from the speaker. I could hear the sound of her clapping her fore hooves together gleefully at Pyre’s promise. “Oh, that’s what I’m counting on. Just imagine how poetic that would be. The great Pyre Blaze, too late to save the one she cared about most, slain in a final confrontation against her past lover and the killer of her surrogate daughter. It’s like fucking a fairytale.”

I pushed myself up to my hooves, wincing at the pain that shot through my legs and glaring at the speaker. “Pyre isn’t the only one that’s going to be making it out of here. If you hurt her, you’re going to have to deal with me too!”

Viscera just chuckled coolly. “I’d love to see you try filly, but you aren’t going to make it that far. I’ve ensured it… This next part is where things start to get very… deadl-”

Viscera’s voice cut out with a burst of static and was replaced by another voice, this one more cold and calculating, lacking the unhinged madness that oozed from Viscera's tone. “Alright, listen up. You want to survive this, you’re going to listen to everything I fucking tell you.”

My ears perked up in surprise. I knew that voice. “Wha- Magazine?”

“Yeah, I hacked into the speaker and camera systems. Viscera can’t hear or see anything that happens right now, but I only have about a minute, so listen the fuck up,” Magazine shot back. “Up ahead is a trap designed to kill you. It’s rigged. It’s not a puzzle, it's not made for you to make some sort of awesome daring escape like the last one. It’s straight up fuckin’ rigged. Get me? You keep going, you die. Got it?”

Pyre scowled. “And why should we trust you? Last time I checked, we weren’t in the Las Pegasus Operators good graces.”

“Because what other choice do you have?” Magazine retorted back with a huff. “Look, Razor Blade and I have been talking. We both want into the Institute, and right now Viscera is using our only way in as a means of entertainment. As long as Viscera is in the way, no pony is going anywhere near the Institute. Furthermore, Viscera is dangerous. The longer she stays in charge of the Pack, the more likely she is to destroy everything Razor Blade and I have got going here. We need her gone... So here’s what we’re thinking… I get you through this hellhole alive, you challenge and kill Viscera, then take her place as leader of the Las Pegasus Pack. Viscera dies, all three gangs choose to attack the Institute, Jinx is forced to join our cause, everypony wins.”

“And why don’t you just kill Viscera yourself if she’s such a problem?” I pushed, narrowing my eyes skeptically at the speaker. I trusted Magazine just about as far as I could throw her, and considering my rather pathetic strength, I couldn’t throw her very far.

“You don’t think we haven’t already considered that?” Magazine’s voice seethed. “The only thing keeping that psychotic bitch in line right now is Jinx. If we were to openly oppose or declare war on the Pack, we’d have whole armies of Hellhounds ripping apart Las Pegasus. And not just the Strip, either. I calculate it would probably only take an hour max before the Pack joins up with the Flesh Rippers and starts tearing apart Freeside and Tent Town. Seeing how we would have been the ones to start the bloodshed, Jinx would be forced to side with Viscera. You don’t want a Viscera run Las Pegasus, and neither do we. To these ends, we can’t directly attack Viscera… But you can...

You may have come here hoping to get help taking on the Institute, but just you being here has started a fucking civil war amoung the raider gangs, and no pony is going anywhere until this is resolved. We’ll likely still have to deal with the Enclave before any real action can be taken, but with Viscera gone, that will put us all one step closer to getting out of this alive. Now, are you ready to fucking listen to what I have to say? Or are you going to ignore me and charge into your fucking death bed?”

I glanced over at Pyre who simply gave me a shrug. Hesitantly, I turned back to face the speaker. “Alright, we’re listening. How do we get out of here?”

“In the next hallway, there are two room. The first room is the way out, it leads into the colosseum, but if you go in there, you’ll die,” Magazine informed us. “The second you enter that room, the doors are going to lock and it's going to start filling up with a deadly gas. Pyre’s armour is going to keep her safe, but the gas is going to kill Amber. Once the door closes, you have about a minute to live before you die, if not shorter considering your already extensive wounds. Just enough time for you to die in Pyre’s hooves like Viscera wants.”

I grimace. “Is there a terminal to shut the gas off?”

“No. Once the gas starts, there is no stopping it. There is, however, a terminal to reopen the door, but you won’t be able to hack it,” Magazine chided. I opened my mouth to tell her that I probably could hack it, only for her to cut me off. “The terminal, aside from being behind a locked security gate, is a cloud terminal, which means that it doesn’t matter how good you think you are at hacking terminals, you won’t even be able to fucking touch this one. You’re going to need a pegasus.”

“Fuck,” Pyre grunted, stomping her hoof on the ground. “So what do we do?”

“Ignore the first door, keep heading down the hall until you find the second. There’s a hoof full of smaller traps and a few Radscorpions in there you’ll need to fight, but if what I’ve heard about you two is true, they won’t be an issue,” The Raider boss said. “In the far room, you’ll find two of your friends. The green buck and the pegasus. Viscera is going to make you choose between them. She's expecting you to choose the stallion, you’ve known him longer. One of them will die. Make sure to save the pegasus. Tell her the password for the cloud terminal is ‘Blazy’. Then use her to get through the gas room.”

I shook my head sternly. “I won’t let one of my friends die, especially not Brisk. I’m getting all of us out of here and that’s final.”

“You’re not going to have a choice!” Magazine scolded. “You choose the pegasus and let the stallion die, or all of you die. That’s just how things are going to fucking play out.”

“We’ll find a way,” I said again, growling a little this time. “I won’t let Viscera take the life of another of my friends… not again…”

“Gah! Fine! Try to save them both! You’ll fail! Just make sure the pegasus is the priority!” Magazine snapped. She took a second to calm down before returning to her calmer demeanour. “Once you’re passed the gas room, you have one room left before the colosseum. Your zebra is in the final room. She isn’t important, but feel free to save her if you can. Once you reach the Colosseum, try to survive as long as possible. I’ll have my Operators working on a way to get you out of there ali-”

Magazine’s voice cut out, followed by the sound of Viscera’s frustrated scowls. “It would seem somepony is trying to interfere with my little game. I’ll find out who and deal with them accordingly in short order. Don’t worry though, I’m back for good. Now, how about we continue on with the gauntlet. I’ve got another audio recording to play… I think you’re going to love this one...”

Beckoning for Pyre to follow, we quickly started limping down the hall as a new audio recording crackled to life. I tried to zone it out, but I wasn’t very successful.

“Please, I… I don’t want to die,” A stallion's voice I didn’t recognize begged over the speaker. “I… I have a wife and kids… please… I’m just trying to get to Friendship City…”

There was silence for a few seconds as the voice ended, giving me a few minutes of peace and quiet as I slinked down the hall next to Pyre. We passed the room Magazine had warned us about, and continued onward. A few trap rigged tripwires filled the hallway, but they were easy to disable compared to the slaughter room we had seen at the beginning of the maze.

“Should we… Let him go?” That was Viscera’s voice. Surprisingly young and lacking a lot of the manic tone that I had come to expect from her, but still very clearly hers. “I don’t know if I feel right about doing this, I mean... Would the Manehattan Scourge’s reputation really take a dive if we let him walk?”

“He passed through our territory without paying the toll,” I heard a younger sounding Pyre respond, her voice sounded a little uncertain as well, but she seemed a little more confident that Viscera did. “If we let him go, ponies are going to think we don’t mean business… that we’re getting soft… If there was one thing daddy taught me, it was that if you show weakness, you don’t get far in the wasteland…”

I trembled as we passed a pair of mangled corpses in the middle of the hallway. They had been surgically ripped apart and arranged in disturbing ways. From the amount of needles that cluttered the hallway, I assumed Viscera and the rest of her raiders had drugged them up extensively before finally killing them.

I was going to have nightmares about this place for weeks.

The young sounding voice of Viscera sighed over the speakers. “Yeah… Yes, yes, you’re right… I’m just… I thought being a raider would help me get even with the wasteland… but it’s getting harder to- Well, you know about my nightmares.”

I heard Pyre’s voice grunt back. “You just need to get used to it… it gets easier after a bit… I promise… Here, why don’t you finish him off…”

“W-wait! St-stop! I'll tell every pony that I payed your toll! I'll tell them to fear you! Please!” The stallion wailed. I could hear him struggling as he tried to push himself away from the two raiders. “Please! No. No! NO!”

The sound of a knife sliding through flesh filled the halls, followed by a loud thud as the stallion's body hit the floor. I was surprised to hear the sound of Viscera sobbing. “I’m sorry…”

Pyre winced beside me and cast me a worried look. I attempted to give her a reassuring smile but it looked more like a grimace. “It’s okay… I know that isn’t you anymore…”

Pyre’s shoulder’s seemed to relax a little more at those words, but she still looked tense.

We passed a small nook in the hallway that led into a tight looking space, most likely a crawl space between the hotel walls. I paused as I passed it, my eyes catching on a yellow medical case adorned with three pink butterflies.

Pyre just shook her head at me. “Remember what I said. Viscera is trying to torture us. I don’t know what traps she has set up in there, but it’s not worth it.”

I gave a grim nod and continued moving down the hall, my heart sinking as I left the healing supplies behind.

After a few more moments of carefully stepping over and disarming traps, we came to a large wooden door that led to what looked like it had once been the hotel's swimming pool. Hesitantly, I pushed it open, waiting for some trap to be sprung. Thankfully, this door seemed to be safe to open.

I glanced back nervously at Pyre. “Reading anything on EFS?”

Pyre paused for a second, her eyes rolling over the EFS on her HUD. Finally she nodded. “Yeah, EFS is picking up four life signs. Two hostile and Two friendly.”

“Probably Star and Brisk,” I assumed, feeling a little more relief go through me. The relief was short lived as I remembered what Magazine had said was in store for us in there.

“Yes, and the Radscorpions,” Pyre agreed, stepping past me and into the room.

I followed after her slowly, my eyes darting back and forth to make sure I didn’t miss any traps that might be lying in wait for us. The room seemed to be the stallions changing room, with the far door leading out into the pool area proper. A large collection of rusting pikes had been set up on the far side of the room, each one displaying a severed pony head.

Pyre paused half way through the changing room. “The red marks are moving on my EFS. Ready yourself.”

I took a step back, raising Braeburn's Liberator with my mouth. My eyes darted back and forth as I waited for what I knew to be a Radscorpion to enter my vision. My eyes dropped to the ground as I spotted a small crack forming in the chipped, tiled floor beneath me. Pyre spotted it too and quickly aimed her flamers down at the floor.

A second later, there was a loud crack as a Radscorpion lunged out at us through the surface. I rolled to the side, narrowly dodging the snapping claw that slashed at my face. Braeburn’s Liberator fired; the explosive buckshot blowing off one of the Radscorpions legs and causing them to stumble back.

Pyre’s flamers roared to life, smothering the massive scorpion in a wave of dancing flames. The arachnids screeched, its body lashing back and forth as it tried to shake off the fire. It didn't take long for the large scorpion to flop onto its back, its legs curling in on each other as it died.

Then the second Radscorpion broke the surface. I felt my breath catch in my throat as I started to make out just how big the mutated scorpion was.

The second Radscorpion was massive, at least five times larger than any of the others I had seen prior. The walls of the changing room were ripped apart as it made way for the massive creatures impressive bulk. It’s huge stinger ripped huge gouges into the ceiling above as it flipped its armoured, segmented appendage over its body and poised it down to stab into us.

I slid backwards, scrambling to stay upright as the whole room tilted violently from the massive beast bursting up through the floor. The sharp edges of the ruined floor sliced at the back of my Fetlocks, drawing a drizzle of blood down my leg that stuck to my hide.

Pyre took a staggering step back as she shifted to train her flamers on the much larger scorpion. “Fucking shit! Where did Viscera get a Radscorpion Queen!”

I was in no place to answer her question as the looming Scorpion dove towards us, its jagged pinchers snapping at Pyre while its swaying tail dove at my neck. I flung myself back, the massive stinger skewering the air where my head had been only seconds prior.

Pyre ducked under a swing of one of the pinchers, her flamers blazing at full blast as she danced back and forth to avoid getting snapped in two. One of the pinchers managed to snag one of her hind hooves, the huge claws crushing her power armour and diggin deep into her leg. Pyre screamed, ramming her free fore hoof against the beasts bulging pincher in a desperate attempt to free herself from its grip.

I fired a shot from my shotgun into the scorpion queen's face, the powerful blast doing little more than scratch at the scorpion's tough exoskeleton. The Radscorpion queen screeched, releasing its death grip on Pyre before whipping around and glaring at me with its beady eyes. Its mandibles stretched open violently, giving me a clear view of its gnashing and mutated maw.

Gulping, I jumped back as the enraged scorpion dove towards me, its full attention now dedicated to trying to rip me apart. I smacked against the wall of the changing rooms, my escape impeded by the one and only still standing wall.

Pyre’s flamers roared to life, dousing the huge scorpion in fire, but the Radscorpion Queen all but ignored the assault as it dove at me again, its needle like stinger slashing at my neck.

Again, I jumped to the side, but not fast enough. The stinger slashed through my right side, its sharpened end bursting out my other side as it impaled me. I howled with pain, my whole barrel going numb as the massive stinger pumped a large does of some sort of poison into me.

I heard Pyre scream something, but I wasn’t able to make out what it was through the ringing in my ears. I felt the scorpion pull back, dislodging the stinger from my side. As soon as the huge appendage was ripped free of me, I slumped to the floor, my head throbbing and my whole body trembling with burning pains.

I saw Pyre rush at the Scorpion, launching herself forwards and onto the huge creatures back. Her flamers poured a stream of burning flames down upon the creatures head while her fore hooves wrapped tightly around its swinging tail and pulled. There was a loud slurping sounding pop as her powerful hooves ripped the deadly appendage right from the Radscorpions body.

The Radscorpion Queen lurched about, trying to shake Pyre from her back. Her pinchers stretched and clawed at Pyre’s armour as Pyre repositioned herself above the arachnids head and started slamming her hooves down, denting its thick armour and crushing its brain. With one last, violent lurch, the massive Radscorpion slumped to the ground, dead.

The second the massive scorpion stopped moving, Pyre rushed to my side, looking over my wound. “Oh fuck. Fuck fuck fuck… Amber, how are you feeling!”

“Not the best,” I croaked. I could feel my throat starting to swell up and run dry. I glanced down at the massive puncture wound where the scorpion's tail had skewered me. Blood spilled from the wound and the hide around it had started to peel away to show black, puss covered flesh beneath. I felt faint just looking at it. “Oh… That doesn’t look good…”

Pyre grit her teeth from behind her helmet. “Just hold on… We’ll get Star… She’ll be able to fix this… She has to be able to fix this…”

I gave a weak nod as Pyre hoisted me up onto her back. I flinched as the seeping wound brushed against her tough armour, but I forced myself to bite back a scream. No point making Pyre worry about me more than she already did. We were already in way over our heads at the moment as it was.

Rushing forwards, Pyre pushed her way through the rubble that remained of the changing rooms and moved out into the pool area proper. Through my hazy vision, I could see what remained of the old pool. The water inside had long since been drained, the huge cement hole having now been replaced with, to my horror, a massive pit of rainbow fluid… Taint.

A long, wooden catwalk had been built over top of the taint pit, leading out to two glass chambers that hung from the centre of the room by rusting chains. The glass chambers were hooked up to some sort of pulley device, wires running from each chamber to two seperate levers that rested on one side of the catwalk. Star Breeze lay in the chamber on the right, her hooves and wings bound tightly together by rope, while Brisk lay in the one on the left, his hooves tied in a very similar manner.

“Looks like you’ve both made it to the big choice! Oooh, I’ve been so excited for this part!” Viscera’s voice chirped happily from the speakers above us. “Time for you to both choose between your two friends. The lever on the right frees the pegasus bitch, while the other frees the stallion. But be warned, who you don’t save, dies. Try and save them both, and I’ll make sure they both die.”

“Brisk pushed himself up against the glass, looking at me with both a terrified and relieved face. “Amber, thank the goddesses you’re alright,” his face fell as he realized how bad of shape I was in. “Shit… What happened to you?”

“Radscorpion,” Pyre answered for me, trotting a little farther into the room and looking around. Her eyes continued to dart back and forth between the two glass chambers and the two levers. “Look, we don’t have a lot of time. We need to figure out a way to get you both out of there.”

Brisk shook his head, staring at the sloshing taint pit below him. “Not going to happen. I’ve been trying to figure out how to get us out of her for a bit now. The only way to get these chambers open is to pull a lever, and the second one of those levers gets pulled, one of us gets dropped into the taint,” His eyes darted back over to me, then to Star in the chamber beside him. “I-it’s fine. Save Star. You need her more than you need me.”

Star’s eyes went wide at his words. “W-what!” She glanced around herself, scanning the area for anything to help her. “Y-you can’t j-just… No, s-save him instead. I’ll b-be fine…”

“W-we’re saving both of you, and that’s final,” I managed to choke out, my continuously constricting throat making speaking far more painful than it should have been.

“Sis, we don’t have time,” Brisk shot back. “Just look at yourself. You’re dying! Star can help you, I can’t. Right Star!” He glanced over at her for a second, his eyes hopeful. “You can help her, right?”

Star grimaced, glancing away. “I… I can probably... yeah. I’ve treated Radscorpion poison before, but… But we can’t just let you die! I’ve seen what taint mutation does! We… we can’t just let you… we… fuck…”

Pyre stared at Brisk for a long moment, her eyes still darting around behind her helmet. Slowly, she shifted her gaze toward Star, her head lowering a little. “We need to save you anyway. We’re going to need a pegasus to escape the Gauntlet of Fire alive…”

Brisk took a shaky breath. I could tell he was terrified “Exactly. Thats w-”

“Stop!” I screamed, forcing myself to yell despite the pain. My friends couldn't really be considering this. We were getting both of them out… we had to… “What if we pull the levers at the same time?”

“Won’t work,” Pyre growled. “You heard Viscera, we try to save both of them and she’ll make sure they both die. There’s a good chance that she's watching right now with her hoof on her own personal kill switch. It’s one of them, or not at all.”

I shook my head, desperation starting to flare up in my mind. We couldn’t do this! We couldn't just let Viscera win. There had to be some other way. There was alway some other way.

Brisk took another shaky breath, letting his eyes lock with mine. “It’s fine Amber, really… I mean, I’ve been running on borrowed time for a while now… I never expected to live a full day outside the Stable.”

“That doesn't mean I can just let you die!” I screamed back. I tried to crawl off of Pyre’s back, but I only ended up falling to the floor with a painful thud. “I… I can’t…”

Brisk gave me a calm smile, one that I could tell he was trying to use to calm himself just as much as me. “Don’t worry about me. I mean, hey, what a fucking way to go right? Sacrificing myself so everypony else can live? That's gotta be up there on the list of cool ways to go out.”

“Brisk stop!” Star yelled back at him, her whole body trembling as she glanced down at the taint below. “You can’t do this. When we first woke up here, you promised me you’d get both of us out! You need to keep good on that promise!”

Brisk rounded on her, glaring at her through the glass. “You heard them, they need a pegasus to escape the Gauntlet. If they choose me, Amber dies from that poison and we all die later in the gauntlet. It has to be you,” He glanced back at me. “Besides, I’m just a hornless unicorn. I’m not as important as the rest of you.”

“You know full well that isn’t true,” Pyre growled back at him, though her eyes were fixed on the lever that would set Star free and send Brisk into the taint below. I could tell she had already made up her mind. Then, I saw her eyes widen a little under her visor and she glanced down at herself for a second. “Star, how fast do you think you can untie yourself after I pull the lever?”

Star gave her a worried look. “If I could untie myself, I would have. I’ll need a knife or something. There’s one in my saddlebags, but I can’t reach it with my hooves tied,” she paused as she thought it over. “If you need me to fly for some reason, you’re out of fucking luck. Magazine shot my wing pretty bad. I’m not going to be flying anywhere any time soon.”

Pyre Snarled at herself a little. “Damn…”

I blinked up at her, trying to put together wherever thoughts were going on inside her head. “You have a plan, don’t you?” I said, my foggy mind not working as fast as my words. “What are you thinking Pyre?”

Pyre opened her mouth to respond, but before she could, Viscera’s voice once more crackled to life over the speakers. “Fucking hell, what is taking so long! Who’s torturing who here?! Let's make this a little more interesting. You have five seconds until I drop them both! Five! ”

My eyes shot wide. Five seconds! That wasn't fair!

“No time, just trust me on this!” Pyre shouted back at me, spinning around to face the lever on the right.

“Four!”

“Wait! Pyre! What are you doing!” I screamed as she lunged towards the lever. Mindlessly, I started crawling across the catwalks over the taint, heading towards the chambers.

“Three!”

Star slammed her hooves against the sides of the chamber, making it rock dangerously in the air. “Pyre! Stop! Don’t let him die! Please”

“Two!”

Pyre pulled to a stop before the lever, her hoof resting on top of it. “Get ready to catch me if this backfires.”

Star’s eyes bulged. “Get ready to what?!”

“One!”

Pyre pulled down on the lever hard. Instantly, Star’s chamber burst open with a hiss of steam, allowing the trembling pegasus to scramble out onto the catwalk with me. From above, there was a loud crack, followed by the chain suspending Brisk’s chamber in the air abruptly losing slack. His whole chamber dropped downwards, crashing into the pool and submerging itself within the deep pool of taint, only the very top of the chamber being exposed above the surface as it slowly sunk into the thicker liquid. Smoke began to rise from where the chamber had fallen as the deadly substance began to quickly eat away at the chambers walls.

Without waiting a second, Pyre rushed forwards, bounding past me on the catwalk before leaping off the end, diving out over the sloshing taint and landing heavily atop the sinking chamber. The force of impact pushed the chamber deeper into the taint, the rainbow fluid bubbling as the metal top of the chamber began to sink into the murk.

“Pyre! What are you doing!” I screamed, watching helplessly as the chamber sank deeper and deeper into the taint, bringing both Brisk and Pyre with it. Frantically, I pulled the knife from Star’s bag and began cutting away at the ropes binding her wings and hooves.

“No! NONONONONONON!” Viscera howled over the speakers, her voice rising into a manic sounding wail. “Pull her up! Pull her up now!”

There was a loud clicking sound as the chain that had been suspending Brisk’s chamber from the roof lifted upwards and pulled taut. A second later, the chamber began to rise back up. I felt myself exhale as I made out the shaking form of Brisk inside. The glass walls were half melted by the taint, and it looked like had we waited a few seconds longer, it would have burnt through, but Brisk was still alive. A little bit of taint had managed to seep into the chamber, but he was making sure to keep as far away from it as possible in the little room he had inside.

Pyre gave me a quick wink as the chamber rose to a safer highest before shifting her gaze up at one of the cameras built into the roof above. “Sorry Viscera. You want that grand finale to the Manehattan Scourge? You’re going to have to let Brisk walk free. Drop him again, and I go with him.”

There was silence from the other end of the speakers for a second before a low sounding growl began echoing around us. “You are going to pay for this Pyre Blaze… Don’t think you’ve saved your ‘friends’. They’re all still going to die. The Gauntlet isn’t done yet…”

Pyre gave the camera a snarky looking salute as the door to Brisk’s chamber burst open, allowing Brisk to stumble out onto the catwalk. It wasn’t until Brisk had fully removed himself from the chamber, that Pyre dared herself to jump away to safety.

I managed to give them both a weak and thankful smile before Star lunged on top of me and began looking over my oozing wound. “Shit…” She mumbled to herself, prodding at the puncture hole in my side with a hoof. “Brisk! Pyre! I have a medic bag in my saddlebag! Get it! Now!”

The two quickly nodded before rushing over and pulling out her supplies as Star began working on me. As she worked, I glanced up at Brisk. “I’m so sorry,” I started, but he just cut me off with a wave of his hoof.

“Don’t worry about it. I’m alive. More importantly, Star is alive and you’re going to make it. Just hold tight,” He gave me a playful grin that I could tell he in no way felt.

Shifting my gaze to Pyre, I narrowed my eyes at her. “What the fuck were you doing? How did you even know that was going to work?”

Pyre gave a small roll of her eyes from behind her helmet. “I didn’t. But I figured Viscera wouldn’t want me dying here. You are all in a lot of danger, but Viscera wants to make sure I get to the colosseum. Once we get there, things are going to start getting bad…”

After a while of fussing, Star leaned back and looked my sides over. “Alright. That’s about the best I can do with what I have. It’s not perfect, but you’ll live.”

I gave her a weak smile. “Thanks. We really would be lost without you.”

Star just rolled her eyes at me. “Obviously. You owe me double now by the way,” She sighed and helped pull me back up. “I’d recommend not overexerting yourself for a day or two to let your wound heal fully, but I’m guessing that’s not really an option with you, is it?”

I smirked. “You know me so well.”

“Awe, look. She patched up your booboo,” Viscera’s voice sneered down at us. “Won’t matter though. The gauntlet gets them all in the end.”

Pyre scowled and turned to face the hallway we had first come down. “Come on. I think it's time we get out of the damn place.”

Cautiously, the four of us began traveling down the hallway to the gas room that Magazine had warned us off. I stayed alert for traps, though I knew that I had disarmed all of the ones here already.

Star instinctively went to go get the hidden stash of healing supplies as we passed them, but I quickly pulled her back with my hoof. “Not safe,” was all I bothered to say. She seemed to get the message.

Finally, Pyre came to a stop in front of the slightly ajar door that led deeper into the Gauntlet of Fire. It was made of a thick metal, and its surface had been painted in a thick layer of fresh blood. The words, ‘Fuck you Pyre,’ had been violently slashed into the thick metal with what I assumed were hellhound claws. Without thinking, I reached out and trailed my hoof across the bloody surface. It was still warm. One of Viscera’s most recent kills most likely.

I felt myself shiver. How many ponies had Viscera killed just today alone. The number seemed to be staggeringly high. It made me feel sick. Viscera needed to die.

I gulped as another thought hit me. If the blood was recent, that meant this trap was also probably one of the more recent addition to the gauntlet. Recent enough that it was probably tailor designed to kill us.

“Just long enough for us to die in Pyre’s hooves,” I grumbled to myself under my breath, repeating what Magazine had told us. I turned around, beckoning for the four of us to huddle together. They got the hint and moved in close. “Alright, here’s the plan,” I said, keeping my voice low so that Viscera hopefully couldn’t hear us. “The second we go in there, the doors are going to shut and the room’s going to start filling up with gas. We’ll have maybe a minute to get out of there before it kills us.”

Brisk gave me a wide eyed stare. “Do I even want to know how you found that out?’

We’ve been contacted by Magazine,” Pyre grunted in a low tone, answering his question. “Her and Razor Blade are in. They’re going to help us take out Viscera if we can.”

Star trembled. “And you’re just going to trust that fucking bitch? She fucking shot me!”

I gave a grim nod. “What other choice do we have? Behind a security gate in there, there is apparently a cloud terminal. That Password is ‘Blazy’. Star, do you think you can hack it?”

Star shrugged, giving me a flat glare. “I don’t need to hack it if I know the password, dingus.”

I gave a sheepish blush. “Uh… Right… Sorry, I’m not used to not needing to hack things.”

“And the security gate?” Brisk asked, glancing nervously at the blood soaked door. “How do we get through that?”

I cast a worried look at the door myself. “Not sure. Depends what’s locking it I suppose. With any luck, its a terminal and I can hack it myself. If not, do you think you’re up for some lock picking?”

Brisk shook his head. “Don’t have any lock picks. I checked my saddlebags as soon as I got out of the chamber. I think Viscera took them from me when we were first captured.”

Pyre growled. “That probably gives us good reason to believe we’re going to need to pick the lock. Double insurance that we don’t get you through this room alive.”

I peeked through the door a little, trying to catch a glimpse of the security gate inside. Unfortunately, it seemed like the room beyond curved at a strange angle, making seeing much of anything impossible.

“Oh my fuck, we aren’t getting any younger out here!” Viscera’s voice scowled at us. “Hurry up the fucking pace vics!”

I gulped. “I guess we’re just going to have to figure it out inside… Are you ready?” There was a moment of silence from all of us, but slowly, we all nodded. “Alright then… let's do this.”

I spun around, bucking the door open wide and rushing into the room, my three friends trailing quickly behind me. Just as Magazine had said, the second we were through the door, it slammed shut behind us. I heard a loud round of clicks as numerous locks bolted shut, ensuring we didn’t get back out.

Seconds later, my ears were assaulted by a loud hiss as a collection of large tubes around the room began pumping in some sort of gas. I could feel my eyes start to sting and water as the gas surrounded me. Brisk coughed beside me, clutching at his throat as he scrambled forwards in search of the security gate.

“Welcome to the home stretch my little ponies. Hope you said your goodbyes,” Viscera cooed, her voice sounding incredibly smug.

“Amber, the door is locked!” Brisk shouted, his hooves ramming against the security gate we had been talking about. “We need to find a key!”

I spun around, my head beginning to feel incredibly dizzy as my eyes scanned the area. It was a rather large room. Lots of places to hide things. “Key! Everypony, look for a key!”

“There isn’t going to be one,” Pyre said, her eyes wide. I could hear a distinct tremor in her voice. “This one is meant to kill you… there isn’t going to be a key…”

“Fuck fuck fuck fuck!” Star shouted, pounding on the security gate door. “Come on! We need to get through!”

“Stand back!” Pyre shouted, scrapping one armoured hoof against the ground as she crouched down into a lunging position. Star only had just enough time to jump out of the way when Pyre rushed the door, slamming against it with her bulky power armour at full force. The whole room tremored and the metal door dented, but it refused to give.

My lungs felt like they were on fire and I suddenly found it incredibly hard to breath. I staggered back, my head feeling dizzy. I took a gasping breath of air, trying to sooth my inflamed lungs. The action only made it so much worse as more of the toxic air flooded through my system.

Beside me, Brisk collapsed to the ground, his mouth opening and closing as he tried to pull air into his own lungs to no success.

“Brisk!” I tried to scream, though my voice came out as little more than a sad sounding croak. I rushed towards him, my legs stumbling as my vision began to spin.

There was another loud bang as Pyre once more slammed against the security gate. Again, the door dented, but refused to break down. Beside her, Star fell to the ground, her hooves grasping desperately at her throat. She coughed, blood dripping from her lips.

“No! NO!” Pyre screamed frantically as she watched Star collapse. She rammed herself against the door again, trying even harder to break it down. The door remained unmoving.

I managed to pull myself up beside Brisk, my body slumping down beside him as my legs gave out. I wrapped him in a tight hug, shaking him awake. “Brisk, come on! stay with me bro!”

He sputtered, blood spewing from his own mouth. He looked up at me with hazy eyes before collapsing back to the ground.

Again, Pyre rammed herself against the doorway, her impressive bulk this time making the now damaged looking door shake. She staggered back, spinning around and bucking the door for all she was worth. There was a tremendous bang, and the door burst inwards, sparks and bits of metal debris flying outwards and littering the already junk cluttered ground.

“Star! Go!” Pyre shouted, reaching down and hoisting Star back to her hooves. “Open the doors! Now!”

“I can’t see! I can’t fucking see!” Star wailed frantically, flapping her wounded wings aimlessly as she tried to stumble towards the door. I was beginning to have trouble seeing myself, dark black specks swimming before my eyes and the edges of my vision going dark.

Pyre rounded on her, slinging the small pegasus mare over her back and hauling her into the room herself. “Terminal! Now!”

The sound of turrets whirring to life made a jolt of fear shoot through me. My head bolted up, my eyes going wide as I stared towards the three turrets that popped down from the roof behind the security gate and aimed their sights at Star.

“Star, look out!” I shouted, waving a hoof at her to frantically get out of the way.

Star dove aside as the turrets fired, one of the shots grazed her hind leg, while the others merely bounced harmlessly off Pyre's thick armour.

Brisk raised his mini gun towards the turrets beside me and fired. His aim was off due to his weakened state, but he managed to rip two of the turrets apart, sending metal fragments shooting around us in all directions.

There was a clicking noise off to my right, diverting my attention again as I spotted a small cage on the far side of the room slide open. Immediately, a swarm of vile looking radroaches began pouring out, their mandibles snapping violently as they scuttled towards Brisk and I and their hundreds of clattering legs making a strange splashing noise as they raced through some shiny looking liquid that coated the floor. I tried to raise Braeburn’s Liberator, but I could feel my whole body going weak. I only had four shots in my gun before I would have to reload anyway, not nearly enough to take out that many of the vile insects.

I pulled Brisk back, trying to get away from the disgusting bugs as they skittered across the floor towards us. “Pyre!” I shouted, feeling even more of my energy drain just at the action.

Pyre smashed the last turret before charging back through the security gate, her flamers spewing fire towards the approaching radroaches. My vision flared with fire as Pyre’s flamers ignited the liquid the radroaches had been crawling through. Gasoline!

Brisk pushed me backwards, shielding me with his body as fire burst around us. I could smell the flesh on his back sizzling as we were surrounded by the raging inferno. With a pained wheeze, Brisk collapsed down atop me.

Panic flared through me and I tried to call out his name, but my throat refused to speak. I felt my own body start to go limp, slumping down to the ground as the gas filled air began to overtake me.

“Damn it! No!” I heard Pyre shouting, though her voice sounded distant. A second later, she was propping me up, clutching me close as she vainly tried to shield Brisk and I from the gas. “Damn it! Don’t die! Come on! Come on!”

Just long enough for us to die in her hooves, My thoughts taunted me. Just like Viscera wants... Magazine was right. Viscera had won.

There was a loud click, and the large metal door at the far side of the room screeched open. Immediately, Star stumbled out of the security gate, rushing for the now open door. “Doors open! go!”

Without waiting a second, Pyre flung Brisk and I onto her back and thundered towards the exit. I felt her hips buck as she threw us from her back and sent us flying the last few feet through the air to land heavily outside of the room. A second later, Star was sent sailing over our heads as Pyre tossed her the rest of the way out as well.

I gasped as I passed through the doorway, clean… uh, cleaner air flooding through me and filling my lungs. I coughed violently, my body doing its best to dispel the deadly toxins that had been pumping through me only seconds before. Brisk was retching beside me, his fore hoof cradling his head as he tried to suck in large mouthfuls of air.

“Damn it! How! How the fuck are you all still alive!” Viscera’s voice screeched from the speakers. Though I couldn’t see her, I could practically feel her enraged eyes glaring daggers at us through the camera monitors. I rolled onto my back and gave a small smirk at the camera, striking my tongue out and trying my best to look smug. I could hear Viscera growling for a long second. Then she paused as a thought hit her. “Actually. Wait. This is good. Oohohoh! Yes, this is going to be very good! You’re in the home stretch now my ponies. Just one more room… The colosseum awaits you.”

I grumbled as Pyre helped me up to my hooves. “I’m guessing that’s bad news for us?”

Pyre gave a sullom nod. “Viscera is going to find a way to make this last little stretch hell. We’ll need to tread very carefully.”

I grimaced. “Great. Because the gauntlet so far hasn’t been hell enough.”

“Amber!?” A voice crooked up from down the hallway.

My ears perked up immediately at the voice, a small bit of solace filling me. “Xayah?”

I went to charge down the hallway, but Pyre quickly cut me off. “Amber, remember. This next room is probably designed for you to kill her. We need to be cautious right now.”

Taking a deep breath, I turned back to face the hallway and the doorway leading into the room at the far end. “Xayah, what’s in that room with you?”

There was a second of shuffling, followed by the sound of Xayah moving up closer to the door. “Viscera put me in a bomb collar. I am no expert on how they work, but I do believe that it has been designed to explode if you open the door.”

I felt a wave of panic wash through me. I had just been about to rush over and pull that door open to get to her. Had Pyre not stopped me, Xayah would most likely be dead.

I shuffled over to the door and looked it over. Brisk, Star and Pyre followed behind me, looking the door over themselves. “Any idea how to disarm it?” I asked, not finding anything of use to me.

“No. So far I have been unable to find a way to disable it, and I fear any attempts to do so will most likely result in the collar exploding,” Xayah’s slightly muffled voice answered back.

Star moved forwards and pushed me aside a little. “How do you know it’s hooked up to the door?” She asked, her voice sounding strangely curious despite our dire situation.

“There is a small metal box at the top of the door with a blinking red light,” Xayah elaborated in response. “It seems to be blinking in time with the collar.”

“Syncing system,” Pyre grunted darkly. “I remember those from my time as a slave. Every time the light blinks, the system scans for anomalies. If something is different or the system fails to repeat, it activates the collar.”

“Any way around it?” Brisk asked, furrowing his eyebrows together in worry.

Pyre gave a quick nod. “It is our way around it. The system needs to recalibrate every few minutes or risk system failure. Usually that doesn’t mean much of anything, but the farther you are away from the system, the longer it takes to recalibrate. If recalibration takes longer than ten seconds, the collar explodes. That’s why those bomb collars detonate if slaves manage to run away from their masters.”

“And how exactly is that supposed to help us?” Brisk scowled, giving the door and angry glare.

“Up close, recalibration lasts only about a second. Get far enough away and it will take too long and detonate the collar. Somewhere in between is the sweet spot. If we open, go through, and close the door while it's recalibrating, we get through without activating the collar,” Pyre elaborated. She turned back to face the door. “Xayah, go stand on the far side of the room. If your collar starts beeping, come back.”

“Alright,” I heard Xayah answer, followed by some shuffling and the sound of her hooves trotting away.

“How the fuck do you know all of this?” Star mused, raising an eyebrow at Pyre.

Pyre just shrugged back. “I told you. I figured this out while I was a slave myself. Tried to use it to escape a few times. I got pretty good at it actually, though it never stopped me from getting caught again…” She looked back at the door. “You on the other side Xayah?”

“Mmhmm,” Xayah’s muffled tone answered.

Pyre took a deep breath. “Focus on the blinking lights. There should be a short lull in the blinking every few moments. Count the beeps between each lull.”

There was dead silence for a moment as we all waited. About a minute later, Xayah spoke up. “Seventeen blinks, then three seconds of nothing.”

Pyre scowled. “Damn. I was hoping for more time. She turned and faced Star and I. “Do either of you think you can disarm a bomb collar?”

I gave her a hesitant nod. “I-I can give it a try. I can probably figure it out if I can see it,” I was good with machines, I could do this…

Pyre nodded. “Alright then. You’re going to have three seconds to open the door, get in and close it again before the collar explodes. Don’t fuck that up.”

I gave a grim nod, moving up to the door and resting my shaking hooves on the door knob. “Alright, Xayah, cue me right as the blinking lulls.”

“A-alright. Wait for it,” I heard Xayah’s voice tremble. There was a moment of tense silence as I waited for her to cue me. I could feel beads of sweat dripping down my brow as I waited for the signal to open the door. “Now!”

I pushed forwards, reefing the door open and rushing through. The second my hoof entered the room, I spun around and slammed it behind me.

Beep!

A blinking red light beeped above me, then continued beeping in rapid succession. I let myself release a long sigh. Thank the goddesses.

I turned around, only for Xayah to tackle into me and wrap me in a tight hug. I smiled ear to ear as I embraced her. “Glad to see you too. Now, let's see about getting that collar off your neck.”

“Aww, aren’t you two just the cutest little things,” Viscera purred down at us. “Too bad I need to ruin such a beautiful reunion. Say bye bye to your zebra.”

Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep!

Both Xayah and I’s eyes widened in terror as her collar began emitting a high pitched beeping noise. Each beep seemed to come just a little faster than the one before it.

“No!” I screamed, my whole mind flaring with fear. Of course Viscera had her own kill switch. She had had one for Brisk and Star, why wouldn’t she have for Xayah?

Beep!Beep!Beep!Beep!

Xayah glanced up at me, terror displayed in her eyes. “A-amber… I love you…”

No. Nononononono. This couldn’t be happening. There had to be a way to stop this! My eyes darted around, looking for anything to save her. Anything at all.

Beepbeepbeepbeep!

The collar light was blinking faster and faster. I was out of time. With no time left, I shot my hoof back into my saddlebag.

Beeeeeeeeeep!

Boom!

I detonated the shock grenade while it was still inside of my saddlebags, not enough time left to pull it out. I was sent flying back as the massive pulse slammed into me, making all of my hairs stand on end. Beside me, Xayah collapsed to the ground, shivering, but still very much alive as the shock grenade short circuited the explosive collar.

I scrambled over to her frantically, ripping open the collar and pulling out as much wiring as I could and began quickly disarming the bomb, with a little more safety now that the whole device was temporarily disabled. I should never have waited so long to deactivate it.

Xayah looked up at me with her wide, emerald eyes, her whole body shaking as she realized just how close to death she had come.

“Th-thank you…”

I gave her a warm smile. “I’m getting all of us out of here. I’m definitely not letting Viscera take you away from me too.”

“A-amber! Are you all alright in there!” Brisk’s muffled voice called to me from behind the door. “Is she… Is Xayah…”

“She’s alright!” I called back, my hooves trembling as I cut through another wire. “She’s alive, thank the goddesses… It should be safe to come through the door. All the power in here is disabled for the moment.”

I heard a few sighs of relief on the other side, followed by Pyre pushing the door open and my three friends joining us in the centre of the room.

“We heard something explode and thought that… well, we’re just glad you are both alive,” Brisk exhaled with a smile, looking down at Xayah as I finally managed to remove the collar from her neck. “What exactly was that?”

I held up the ruined remains of the grenade. “Shock grenade. I picked it up off of one of the earlier traps in the Gauntlet. Disabled the collar before it could explode.”

Star gave a smug smirk. “Ha! Survived the maze with one of that bitches own traps. Fucking shows her.”

Pyre glanced up at a camera and speaker that still hung from the ceiling above us. “You think she can hear or see us right now?”

I shook my head. “This room is completely dead at the moment. She’ll probably have it up and running pretty fast, but right now, we’re alone.”

Pyre nodded, turning to face us. “Alright, then we need a plan. Any ideas?”

I frowned. “What about what Magazine said? Do you not trust her?”

Pyre gave a low chuckle. “No. Do you?” She had me there. “I don’t doubt that everything Magazine told us is true, but her and Razor Blade are in this for the long haul. Trust them too much and we’ll find a few knives in our back.”

“What other choice do we have though? We need to survive the gauntlet and kill Viscera. Magazine is offering to let you take control of the Pack. Isn’t that what we need anyway?”

Xayah raised her eyebrows in surprise. “Offering to let you control the Pack? When did all of this happen?”

“It’s a long story,” I admitted. “Right now, what’s important is surviving the gauntlet and killing Viscera.”

Pyre winced. “Amber, I don’t know if I can do that.”

I stared at her, my mouth a gape a little. “W-what is that supposed to mean? You can’t kill her? Pyre, what other choice do we have?”

Pyre took a step back. “I… It’s not that easy okay! Viscera and I go way back. We were friends, practically family... I can’t just kill her… It’s… It’s…”

I scowled at her. “Oh, so she’s your friend now? You can’t kill her because she’s your friend? You can’t kill her like you killed Heartbeat? Was he not your friend?”

Brisk quickly stepped between us and placed a hoof sternly on my chest. “Whoa, slow down there Amber. Calm down.”

Pyre scowled at my over Brisk’s shoulder. “I never said Heartbeat wasn’t my friend, Amber! I’ve been forced to kill all of my friends, and I’m fucking sick and tired of it!”

“Have you not been paying attention to all those corpses in the gauntlet? Viscera has been going on a killing spree! She’s a murderer, Pyre! She needs to die! After everything she has done! To us! To you! How can you just let her live!”

“You’re a murderer too! Or did you just forget about all those foals you keep sulking about!” Pyre snapped, pushing Brisk aside and looming over me. “Should I kill you too?! Huh?”

I felt myself inhale sharply, rage flaring though my gut. “Those foals were raiders! Raiders deserve to die! And Viscera, last time I checked, happens to be a raider! One of the worst!” I snarled.

“Both of you! Calm down! This isn’t getting us anywhere!” Star shouted, trying to move between us like Brisk had, only for me to push her aside.

Pyre glared down at me, her eyes narrowing into slits behind her visor. “I was a raider when you first met me. Should you have killed me then? If I kill her, how am I any better than she is?”

I scoffed at her. “Are you trying to take the fucking moral high ground right now? You? Really?” I stomped my hooves aggressively, pain flaring up my side as I stretched the area the scorpion had stung me. “Pyre, she’s a monster! You know that better than anypony! If we want to get into the Institute, then you need to get control of the Pack. So fucking kill her!”

Pyre paused, her eyes looking me over cautiously. When she finally spoke, her voice had a strange tremble to it. “Are you asking me to kill my friend Amber?”

“Yes. I am,” I grunted immediately.

Again, Pyre paused, her eyes locked with mine. Finally, she took a few steps back and turned away, stomping over to the wall of the room and ramming her hooves into the metal surface with a booming roar of rage. The walls dented and cracked where her hooves pounded into them.

After a long second of her facing away from me, heaving heavily, the implications of what I had just said finally hit me. I staggered back, slumping down and sitting on my rump. Xayah hesitantly limped over to me, cautiously sitting beside me, though making sure to keep her distance.

“P-pyre… I’m sorry,” I eventually muttered, my eyes downcast. “I don’t mean that… I’ll kill her. I shouldn’t have put this on you…”

Pyre’s shoulders heaved for a second before she turned back around and looked at me. “No. It’s fine. I know she’s a monster… I just… I need to do this… I just don’t know if I’m strong enough.”

“You are,” Brisk stated flatly from beside us. We both turned our heads to look at him, surprised by his sudden contribution. “Pyre, I’m kind of an idiot. I’m a slow learner and I’m definitely not as smart as Amber or Star, but my time in the wasteland has made one thing very apparent… You’re the strongest fucking pony in the wasteland. Ponies don’t mess with Pyre Blaze, and if Viscera thinks she can beat you, then she’s dead wrong.”

I saw Pyre tilt her head a little in surprise at his compliment. I remembered it wasn’t even all that long ago that Brisk had refused to work with her. How things had changed since then.

Slowly, Xayah pulled herself up and looked over at Pyre. “Viscera has Mirra right now, correct? Since when have you ever let ponies bring harm to her and get away with it?” she glanced down nervously at me before returning her attention to Pyre. “You can beat her. You faced your father. If you can do that, you can face her.”

With a sigh, I pulled myself up too and took a few steps towards Pyre. “Look. We’re your friends. You won’t face her alone. We have your back. We got this together.”

Pyre looked around at all of us for a long moment before letting out a long sigh. “I don’t know how I ended up with all of you as friends, but thank the goddesses that I did,” Slowly, she turned to face the door out. “The colosseum should be just beyond there. I don’t know what she has planned for us in there, but it’s going to be bad.”

“A dragon, right?” I gulped. I didn’t like the idea of that.

Pyre hesitated. “Maybe… I’m not sure. Whatever is waiting for us, Viscera plans to tear us apart before we die. Whatever happens, I just want to say that I’m thankful I got to know all of you… That you were all the best friends I could ask for.”

Brisk gave a nervous, but warm smile. “We’re glad to have gotten to travel with you too! You lead the way. We’ll follow your lead.”

Nodding, Pyre took a few steps towards the door. She raised her armoured hoof, pressing it against the doors cold surface. Slowly, she took a deep breath. “Alright Mirra. We’re coming…”

Cautiously, we moved out of the room and into the Colosseum.

“Death! Death! Death! Death! Death!”

The sound of booming chanting filled my ears as I marched out into the Colosseum after Pyre. Around me, the sounds of rattling cages and banging metal and drums assaulted us as the thousands of raiders and hellhounds that had accumulated in the seating area above called for bloodshed.

The Colosseum was a massive, circular chamber, the centre of which being the massive pit that we had walked into. Rows upon rows of seats lined the area above and the ceiling had long since collapsed, giving me a good view of the overcast sky above.

The floor of the arena was coated in a thick layer of dirt and dust and was littered with bloodied corpses and bones. The walls of the gladiator arena were lined with cages, each filled with starved, salivating, snapping hounds, clawing at the caged doors and howling for fresh meat. Directly across from us was a massive cage door inset into the walls of the pit and above that was a large viewing platform holding a jagged looking throne made out of what appeared to be hellhound bones.

Lazily flopped across the throne lay Viscera, leering down at us with her sharpened fangs. Mirra lay whimpering beside her, a drizzle of blood dripping from her muzzle where she had been struck by one of Viscera’s blows. One of Viscera’s fore hooves rest atop the shivering changeling's head, slowly petting her ridged scalp as if Mirra was another of her hounds.

At the sight of us, Viscera’s smile widened and she pushed herself up to her hooves, glaring down at us lavishly. “It looks like our friends have made it to the Colosseum! You all know what that means!”

“Death! Death! Death! Death! Death!” the chants of the raiders began to grow in volume, rapidly becoming faster and more sporadic. I spotted Magazine and Razor Blade amongst the crowds above, watching us with intense interest, though neither of them seemed overly interested in joining in on the chanting.

“Pyre!” Mirra shouted worriedly, trying to pull herself up from the ground and rush to us. Viscera violently lunged onto her, pinning her to the ground with her deadly claws and cutting deep into her flesh. Mirra could do little but whimper under the assault.

Viscera's jagged smile only broadened more as she saw Pyre flinch. She raised her fore hooves skyward, addressing the booming crowds. “Disciples! Are you ready for blood!”

The Disciples began to roar with anticipation, leaping from their seats and banging against the wire and bars that separated them from us.

Viscera turned, her insane eyes looking to another part of the arena. “Operators! Are you ready to see the Las Pegasus raiders notch another kill!”

More cheering, though this time it was admirably more half hearted than before.

Viscera rolled her eyes. “Always a tough crowd…” She smirked over at her hellhounds. “And the Pack! Are! You! Ready! For! Things! To! Get! Wild!”

The Colosseum was filled with blood thirsty howls as the Pack exploded with excitement. I saw one raider literally get torn apart as a group of raider hellhounds started working themselves up into a frenzy. The banging drumbeat quickened.

Viscera turned back to us, her vile sneer only growing. “And all of you… Are you ready to die?”

The massive gate on the far side of the colosseum began to rise, its rusting bars producing an ear piercing shriek as they pulled upwards. I crouched into a battle stance as I waited for the dragon to emerge. Beside me, I saw the ends of Pyre’s flamers flicker to life and Brisk’s mini gun begging to spin up.

There was a loud clang as the gate finally pulled to a stop. The chanting raiders grew louder and louder, calling for death and blood. I held my breath, every muscle in my body tense as I awaited the beast within to show itself.

Then, something began to emerge from behind the darkness of the chamber beyond. Something that glinted in the light. The crowd fell silent as they all saw what was being pushed into the arena.

A mirror.

I cocked my head to the side. The fuck was that supposed to mean? Beside me, I saw Brisk, Xayah and Star start looking around in confusion as well, unsure how to react to the sudden turn of events.

Pyre on the other hoof, took a step back, her eyes wide behind her helmet. “No… No no no no no no…”

“Oh, what’s this?” Viscera’s voice boomed in mock confusion, grinning down at us. “No dragon?” her hoof lowered, slowly petting the top of Mirra’s head once again. “I guess we’ll need something else to burn our vics alive…”

“Damn it Viscera! Stop!” Pyre growled, stomping towards her. “Let's fight this out, right now! You and me! End the legend of the Manehattan Scourge!”

Viscera rolled her eyes. “All in due time Pyre. But first, something needs to be done about your friends,” Her hoof suddenly pushed down, slamming Mirra’s face into the hard surface of the platform and making the small changeling cry out. I saw blood dripping down Mirra’s head as Viscera’s sharp claws dug deep into her flesh. “Kill you friends, or the changeling dies… What’s it going to be?”

As the raiders began to realize what Viscera was demanding of Pyre, the chanting once more began to rise, this time even louder than before. They didn’t just want to see bloodshed now. Now they wanted to see Pyre spill the blood of her friends. Our blood...

“Pyre, don’t worry about me! I’ll be-” Mirra started, but she was cut off and Viscera slapped her hoof across her face, reducing the changeling's brave proclamation to little more than whimpers. I could practically feel Pyre seething with rage beside me.

“Honestly Pyre, you must have seen this coming. The moment you managed to get your friends through the Gauntlet, you must have known things had to end this way,” Viscera cooed, baring her teeth. “Now. Make your choice. Your ‘friends’ lives, or the changelings!”

Slowly, Pyre turned to face us. Through her visor, I could see the confliction across her face. Nervously, Star took a step back. “P-pyre,” She shuttered, her wings twitching nervously at her sides. “What are you doing…?”

Pyre looked over at her for a second, before returning her gaze to me. “I think we all should have known this was going to happen…”

I took a small step back myself. “Pyre, we can figure this out. We can find a way to get all of us out of here together.”

“Tick tock Pyre!” Viscera called out, pressing down harder on Mirra’s head. “If I don’t see blood in the next few seconds, I’m going to start feeding bits to my hellhounds!”

Pyre trembled, her eyes darting around at all of us before shifting back to look at Mirra and Viscera. “We need to stall for time, Amber.”

I took a deep breath, my stomach clenching up on itself. She was right. Until Magazine and her Operators could find a way to get us out of here, we would just have to go along with whatever Viscera had planned. I just didn’t know if we had what it takes.

“Stall for time?!” Viscera’s voice called out mockingly, cutting over the booming chatter of the raiders. I felt my body go a ridged for a second at her words. “For what, might I ask? No pony is coming for you! You will all die here. All of you...” I cursed under my breath at her augmented hearing. We had to be more careful with what we said. Viscera’s hoof claws dug deeper into Mirra’s back, ripping long scars into her carapace. Mirra screamed, writhing as her back was ripped open. “Now choose Pyre Blaze! My hellhounds are getting hungry!”

Pyre Blaze trembled as she slowly looked back to me. “I’m sorry Amber… I need to protect her…”

Xayah’s eyes widened a little. “Pyre, what do you-”

Pyre lunged at us, her massive hooves slamming into my chest and sending me skidding backwards. Brisk gave a shout of alarm before swinging his own hooves at Pyre, only for her to easily step away and block his attack with a kick of her own. Brisk’s head snapped back at the hit, staggering back and collapsing to his side with a grunt of pain.

The raiders around us screamed manically as they watched us fight. The chanting grew and grew, until I could hear little more but a booming sound pounding in my brain. The drum beat quickened, faster and faster.

Xayah rolled away from a swing of Pyre’s hoof. She straightened herself up, her large anti-machine rifle quickly moving to level with Pyre. She hesitated for only a second as our massive power armoured friend barrelled towards her.

Bang!

Xayah fired off a shot, only for Pyre to dive out of the way, one of her fore hooves swiping out at Xayah’s legs and knocking her down to the ground.

It had been a long time since I had seen Xayah miss a shot. Sometimes I forgot just how strong Pyre Blaze really was.

I pulled myself back up, limping forwards and standing next to a trembling Star Breeze protectively as Pyre turned her impressive bulk to face us.

“Pyre, stop! We can work this out!” I urged her, holding out a hoof to try and calm her down.

Pyre shook her head. “We don’t have a choice Amber. This is how it has always been. I get close to my friends, and just when I fully accept them, I kill them…” She trembled again, staring me down. “It’s the only way to save her…”

She pounced forward, her flamers shooting off a burst of fire in our direction. Star and I dove apart, the ends of our tails catching flame as Pyre’s inferno seared where we had just been standing.

Star managed to spin around and fire a shot from her magical energy rifle before Pyre was upon her, its blazing red beam bouncing harmlessly off of Pyre’s power armour. Pyre’s hooves crashed into her head, pummelling her to the ground. Pyre reared up over the fallen pegasus, her massive hooves poised to crush Star’s skull.

Brisk tackled into Pyre from the side, making her stager slightly and giving Star just enough room to dart away. He glared Pyre down, his mouth clamped onto the firing bit of his mini gun. “Pyre, please! Let’s find another way!”

Pyre’s flamers pulled him up short as he was forced to jump away or risk having his face melted from his head. He spun around just in time to see Pyre’s hoof before she slammed it into him, sending him flying a half foot through the air. He landed with a heavy thud, groaning.

Xayah staggered forwards, one of her hooves swinging at Pyre’s head, only for Pyre to take the hit easily and counter with a hit of her own, knocking Xayah aggressively to the ground and knocking the wind out of her.

I rushed forwards, jumping between Pyre and Xayah as Pyre slammed down with her hooves. I took the full weight of the hit, crumpling to the ground as the powerful assault hit me like a balefire bomb.

Pyre scowled at me, reeling back a little. “Damn it Amber! I need to do this?”

I winced, trying to keep myself from collapsing fully on top of Xayah. “I can’t let you hurt her Pyre! Any of them! Just like you can’t let Viscera hurt Mirra!”

I rammed Braeburn’s Liberator into the side of Pyre’s head with my magic as hard as I could. Pyre gave a shout of surprise and pain, staggering back and reeling around to face me. I was surprised to see I had managed to dent her power armour.

Slowly, Xayah pulled herself up to stand beside me. Brisk and Star quickly joined her, staring Pyre down as she slowly began stalking in circles around us.

“Pyre, listen to us. We aren’t going to fight you!” I shouted, a sick feeling in my stomach. “We need to work this out!”

“We can’t just walk out of this!” Pyre snarled. “Not this time. We have to do this! We don’t have a choice!” She charged forward again, her flamers spewing fire towards us. We drove out of the way, a wave of heat washing over us as she powered past us. Star gave a yell of pain as Pyre slammed into her at full force, knocking her back down to the ground.

I twirled around, slamming my hooves into Pyre’s side while Brisk rounded on her and gave her a strong buck from behind. Pyre twisted about, evading Brisk’s attack and slamming into me herself. I staggered back as her weight pounded into me, my hooves skidding across the dirt floor of the Colosseum, kicking up clouds of dust.

Brisk’s mini gun began to spin up. Filling the air with a loud whirring sound even above the raiders constant cheering. Pyre spun around to face him, her eyes darting around as she made out the mini gun preparing to fire.

Blam! Blam! Blam! Blam!

Brisk’s gun fired, spewing a stream of bullets towards Pyre. A few bounced off her armour, but one lodged itself in her leg, making her give off a grunt of pain. She sprang forwards, her hooves reefing the large gun from Brisk’s side and swinging it in a wide arch before slamming the gun across his head.

Brisk gave a scream of pain as he was knocked to the floor, blood spilling from a large gash in his head.

I rushed forwards, my own shotgun firing off a shot into Pyre’s side. The explosive buckshot burst across her armour, forcing her to stumble to the side and struggle to keep her balance. She reeled around, her hooves swinging and bashing me across the side of the head.

I hit the ground hard, my head bouncing off the rough terrain as I collapsed painfully onto my back. I tried to pull myself back up, only for my spinning head to cause me to stagger and once more crumbled to the dusty floor.

Xayah rushed forwards, moving between Pyre and I as Pyre began to advance on me. Her rifle swung up, aiming and firing a shot into Pyre’s leg. Pyre gave a shout of pain, her leg buckling as the powerful rifle blasted straight through her amour and into her flesh.

Pyre snarled, flashing towards Xayah on her trembling legs and ramming into her, sending her staggering backwards. She reeled back again, her hind hooves swinging around and ramming roughly into Xayah’s chest. Xayah gave a loud wheeze of pain as Pyre’s huge hooves crashed into her and sent her collapsing to the ground.

I struggled to pull myself up and save her, my spinning vision made seeing anything straight near impossible. I staggered around, seemingly seeing double of everything as I tried to get my bearings.

Pyre loomed over Xayah, one of her fore hooves pinning Xayah down while the other was poised over her head, ready to crush her skull. As I tried to regain my senses, I saw her hesitate, her hoof trembling as she stared down at Xayah’s shaking form.

She couldn't do it. She wouldn’t...

“What are you waiting for!” Viscera howled gleefully from her viewing platform above. “Kill the Zebra or the changeling dies!” She pulled Mirra in close, pressing her blade like Hellhound claws against her throat. “Do it now Pyre Blaze!”

Trembling, Pyre lowered her head and whispered something in Xayah’s ear. I could feel my body go cold. I had seen Pyre do that once before. When she had killed Heartbeat back at the MWT hub. Xayah began thrashing helplessly as Pyre once more raised her head back up, her body shaking as she forced herself to look away from Xayah’s form, unable to look at her anymore.

“I’m sorry. I’m so so sorry,” Pyre moaned, just loud enough for me to hear, though I doubt many of the raiders could have heard it.

I felt myself lock up with fear. I rushed forwards, desperate to stop this. “Pyre! NO!”

Pyre’s hoof fell, slamming down upon Xayah’s head. I heard a loud crack of bones, I could see Xayah's legs spasm from behind Pyre's form. Then Xayah's whole body went limp.

My breath caught in my throat and my eyes bulged as I watched Pyre’s hoof once more rise, this time seeing her metal clad hoof soaked in blood. Panic and rage flashed through me, my senses finally returning.

Pyre had just killed Xayah… Just like that… How could she! How dare she!

I screamed, I’m not sure exactly what I screamed, but I know that I screamed. I rushed forwards, frantically pounding against Pyre’s sides with my hooves. I raised Braeburn's Liberator in my magic, ramming it against her again and again.

Pyre grunted as I smashed the grip of my gun against her head, forcing her off of Xayah. She stumbled back, flames flickering to life on the end of her flamers.

“How could you!” I screamed, rushing her again and slamming into her at full force. “I never should have trusted you! I should have just killed you when we first met!” She grabbed me with her fore hooves as I slammed into her and abruptly pulled me into a hug, holding me tight as I started to sob. I tried to push away from her, pounding against her chest with what little strength I had left, but I wasn’t as strong as she was. She just continued to hold me as I cried.

“This is the only way Amber. I’m sorry,” Pyre grunted as I slammed my hooves against her again. She suddenly pulled back, flipping me over and pinning me against the ground. I swung Braeburn's Liberator up to fire at her head, but she quickly knocked it aside, sending it skidding across the ground away from me. She leaned down, her muzzle only inches from my ear as she raised one of her hooves over my head. When she spoke, her voice came out in a hushed whisper that even I almost didn’t hear. “Play dead…”

My eyes widened. Immediately, my head snapped to my side, looking to where Xayah’s limp form lay. Her wide, lifeless eyes stared back at me. Then, one of those beautiful eyes winked at me.

I felt myself go limp with relief. Of course Pyre wouldn’t just kill her. We had to stall for time, and this was one hell of a way to do it. Pyre had been right, this is the only way. Not to save Mirra, but to save all of this.

I looked back up at where Pyre was looming over me and gave a grim nod. I thrashed my hooves, trying to push her off of me, but I wasn’t really trying to stop her any more.

Pyre’s hoof rose, its massive form casting a shadow over my head. Then it fell, slamming down towards me.

I flinched as the armoured hoof I had seen crush hundreds of skulls slammed down past my head, but it never landed on me. Pyre stomped down directly in front of my face, her hoof shattering one of the many bones that littered the ground around us, the loud sound of snapping, crunching bone filling my ears.

I let my own body spasm for a second before letting myself go still. I held my breath, trying to keep Viscera and the rest of the raiders from seeing my chest rising and falling.

Pyre pulled herself away from me, mumbling just loud enough for Viscera to hear her. “I’m sorry… I had to…”

Across from me, I could see Brisk and Star fretting over Xayah’s rigid body, though I could tell that they had quickly caught on with what was going on. Brisk glanced over at me nervously, his face softening slightly when he saw me wink back at him.

He whispered something I couldn’t hear to Star, before pulling himself up and scowling at Pyre. “You killed them!” He yelled, his faux rage, a rather impressive act. “They were your friends!”

Pyre lunged at them both, slamming both of them to the ground. I watched them fall as Pyre loomed over them, her hooves crashing down at their heads. Though this time, I noticed her blows didn’t fully land.

The raiders cheered wildly as Pyre finally ‘ended’ the last of her friends.

Panting heavily, Pyre leaned back, her shoulder shaking as she pulled herself around to face the viewing platform Viscera and Mirra were watching us from. “There! Now let her go!”

I couldn’t see Mirra from my spot on the ground, but I could hear the tremors in her voice as she sobbed. “P-pyre… How could you…”

“I don’t believe you,” Viscera sang. I could hear the clattering of her hellhound claws as she stalked to the edge of the platform. “I want to see your friends' corpses burn, Blazy! Make them burn for me!”

The raiders around us began roaring with excitement, pounding against the metal bars separating them from us. Their chanting grew even still, rising higher and higher.

“Burn them! Burn them! Burn them!”

I could see Pyre trembling as she stared up at the massive crowds calling for her to light us aflame. She slowly pulled herself over to me, dropping her head so that her muzzle was only inches away from mine. “Amber… What should I do…”

Our conversation was cut short as a Disciple raider burst into the viewing area of the Colosseum, bleeding heavily from a wound on their brow. “The city's defences have been shut down!” Raiders bolted to their hooves at his words, reaching for their weapons. I could feel waves of panic suddenly began rippling throughout the crowd of raiders. “The Enclave! They’re-”

Boom!

The whole arena shook as a massive beam of energy flashed through the Colosseum, a rainbow coloured explosion blasting apart a section of the seating the raiders had been sitting in. The raiders screamed as they were vaporized, debris and seared flesh raining down upon the rest of the Colosseum.

Jolted by surprise, I lifted my gaze to look up at the overcast sky above. Dark shapes were slowly moving into position above us, blotting out the sky. Enclave Raptors! The Enclave had made it into the strip!

Swarms of armoured pegasi began diving down towards us, the deadly energy weapons firing off beams of light into the crowds of raiders, rendering many of them to ash. A pegasus pulled war chariot flashed into the Colosseum, dropping a load of plasma grenades into the crowds of raiders before swooping back out.

“If that’s not the signal, I don’t know what is!” Brisk shouted, bolting to his hooves and rushing over to help me up.

Viscera’s eyes widened as she saw us suddenly start pulling ourselves from the ground. “What?! No! Nonononono!” She wailed manically, her eyes crazed and her hellhound hoof claws flailing around her frantically as she whipped herself up into a frenzy. Mirra scampered away from her, her eyes wide as the vile raider rounded on her. “Come here bitch! I’m going to eat your fucking heart!”

Boom!

Another blast from one of the Enclave Raptors massive guns flashed through the Colosseum, forcing Viscera to stagger away as her viewing platform abruptly slanted dangerously to the side.

Mirra’s elytra fluttered open, her wings buzzing as she dove from the platform. Viscera howled and lashed at her, her deadly claws ripping a large gash in Mirra’s hind leg as she swooped towards us.

Pyre rushed forwards, leaping into the air and catching Mirra as she fluttered down, holding her tight as yet another blast from an Enclave Raptor blasted apart a chunk of the Colosseum around us, causing flaming debris to crash down around us.

I staggered over to Xayah, helping her up to her hooves and giving her a hug of my own. “Thank the goddesses, I thought you were dead.”

Xayah gave me a warm smile. “I am glad that I’m not, though this is not the time. We need to get out of here.”

The raiders had begun fighting back against the Enclave, quickly taking stock of their surroundings and turning their extensive weaponry on the incoming pegasi forces. I saw massive beams of magical fire flashing up into the hoards of pegasi as the Operators began firing off their high tech weaponry and a few hellhounds leaping into the air, literally ripping pegasi down from the sky and tearing off their wings.

Two Enclave troopers dropped down from above us, landing heavily on the dusty ground, dust bursting in small clouds around them as their heavily armoured hooves touched down. They aimed their pulsing weaponry at us, one of them giving off an animalistic snarl while the other glared at Star, their rifle fixated on her head. “Star Breeze. You have been sentenced to death on order of Colonel Autumn Leaf.”

Star trembled, taking a nervous step back as she stared down the barrels of the rifles.

The gates to the Colosseum pit burst open, followed by the sound of bloodthirsty screams as dozens of Raider Disciples began pouring into the arena. The Enclave troopers whirled around, their weapons firing at the swarm of raiders, but it was too late. The crazed raiders were upon them in seconds, slicing through their power armour with their impossibly sharp knives and digging into their flesh with their sharpened fangs.

“That’s our cue to get out of her!” Pyre shouted to us, rushing across the arena, her flamers burning a Enclave pegasus alive as they dove towards her.

“NO! Stop them!” I heard Viscera scream as we began rushing towards the exit. I heard the loud screeching of metal on metal as all the cages around us burst open, the snarling of hounds filling my ears as hundreds of vicious dogs burst out of their cages and charged towards us. “Kill them!”

I jumped back, just barely avoiding my fore hoof being snapped off by one of the dogs deadly bites. I flipped around, kicking them in the muzzle with my hind hooves before darting after Pyre. Xayah fired off a shot from her rifle at another hound as they pounced at us, blowing the top half off its skull from its body and sending it limp to the ground.

Up ahead, I saw three raider Operators beckoning us towards the exit. The Raiders Magazine had sent to get us out no doubt. “Come on! Hurry your asses up!” A lovely reception on their part.

A massive roar rapidly drowned out all other sounds. My gaze was forced skywards, watching as yet another dark shadow flashed over the sky. I felt my legs tremble.

Ah, there was the dragon… Just my luck.

The huge dragon swooped into the Colosseum, its massive muscular legs pounding against the ground and making the whole arena shake. I heard Enclave troopers give loud shouts of fear as its claws and gnashing maw ripped them apart.

Brisk’s mini gun whirred, firing off a steady stream of bullets towards the massive lizard. The shots bounced harmlessly off its thick scales, drawing the dragons piercing gaze down to him.

“Well shit,” Brisk grunted, his mini gun whirring to a stop as he ran out of ammo and needed to reload.

With a roar, the dragon lunged, its huge claws lashing towards Brisk. I raced forwards, wrapping Brisk in my magic and throwing him out of the way as the dragon slashed through the air at him.

Hellhounds began slashing their way through the metal separating them from us, dropping down into the arena with us. Xayah scampered back as two massive hellhounds rushed her, claws slashing and arm mounted magical energy weapons blasting a plethora of lethal beams towards her.

The dragon reared up, its gaping maw widening as a burning inferno began to build in the back of its throat. The air around us began to grow hot as it charged up its fire breath.

An Enclave Raptor fired down at the dragon, its huge weaponry knocking it prone. The Dragon lurched upwards, its mouth snapping open and firing off a huge stream of flame skyward, filling the sky above with writhing fire. Pegasi screamed as the dragon's breath burned them alive.

“The exit, now!” Pyre shouted, taking advantage of the dragon's distraction and once more rushing forwards, slinging Mirra up onto her back. “Go go go!”

I dashed forwards, kicking a snarling hound aside and following after Pyre as she raced for the exit. Somewhere far behind me, I could hear Viscera howling with rage as she ripped Pegasi apart in an attempt to get after us.

The huge dragon swung its tail over us, the spiked appendage slashing pegasi from the ground. Ahead of me, Xayah ducked low to the ground, narrowly avoiding its jagged end from severing her head from her neck.

I burst through the exit of the Colosseum after Pyre and Mirra, rushing into the small hallway that led back out into the streets of Las Pegasus. Star, Brisk and Xayah quickly piling in after me, panting for breath. The three Operators waiting for us quickly pulled us inside and covered our escape with fire of their own.

I heaved as I stumbled away from the Colosseum. We were out. Now all we had to do was kill Viscera, take control of the Pack and confront Jinx… oh, and deal with the Enclave now… Fuck me.

Glancing up, I found myself face to face with a snarling Razor Blade. “Hurry the fuck up. We need to get you out of here,” The leader of the Disciples scowled, urging us to get a move on. One of his barbed wire wrapped fore hooves flashed out, ripping the neck out of an Enclave soldier that swept through the door after us, splattering his face in gore.

Pyre grunted, taking an advancing step towards him. “I was expecting Magazine.”

“Magazine is busy trying to get the city's defences back on,” Razor Blade snapped. “Now come on. We need to kill Viscera, and we need to kill her now! The second she finds out we helped you escape, we’re all going to be in a lot of shit.”

Another eardrum shattering roar shook the city. I could see fire spewing from the top of the open Colosseum as the dragon continued its assault on the assailing Raptors. A group of pegasi scattered in the air, their formation devastated by the dragons onslaught.

“What the hell happened to the city's defences?” I asked over the booming gunfire and screams, quickly following after Razor Blade. A thought suddenly struck me. “Wait! don’t tell me you let the Enclave in as a distraction?!”

Razor Blade snickered. “No. I had nothing to do with the Enclave attack. I just saw an opportunity to get you out of there and took it,” He snapped his jagged fangs at me viciously. “Not get a move on! We need to get to the Somnambula, now!”

A group of Operators and Disciples rushed ahead of us, pulling upon a large set of doors that lead out onto the Las Pegasus street proper. Without waiting for us, Razor Blade rushed forwards, moving out into the street. I quickly followed after him, the rest of my friends close behind.

The Las Pegasus Strip was in chaos. Raiders rushed to and fro across the streets, ducking for cover and firing skywards as teams of Pegasi swooped down at them. Massive canons that had been built into the tops of fortified casinos fired off consistent shots as three of the massive Raptors began making their way across the city to the looming SPP tower and Dashite City.

A ring of large turrets that had been built into the SPP tower had begun to open fire on the Enclave Raptors as they neared. Clearly the towers defences hadn’t gone down like the rest of the cities.

“If we need to kill Viscera, why are we heading for the Somnambula?” Brisk asked as we began rushing across the street towards the towering, glass pyramid a few blocks away. “Shouldn’t we be heading towards her?”

Razor Blade shook his head. “You want to take control of the Pack? You’re going to need a lot of witnesses for Viscera’s death. We had hoped that she would challenge you ponies in the Colosseum, but seeing how that isn’t an option now…”

“With the Enclave attacking, there is going to be a large raider force moving in on the Somnabula hotel to protect Jinx,” Pyre informed us, ducking low as a squadron of Enclave troopers zipped past, their deadly magical energy weapons strafing the street around us. “Unless we can get everypony back into the Colosseum to watch a rematch, we’ll need to confront her there.”

Behind us, the massive dragon broke through the top of the Colosseum, ramming itself into one of the Raptors. The Raptor shifted around in the air, its huge guns firing repeatedly at the beast.

The sound of howls began to fill the air. Razor Blade scowled at the noise. “Shit! Hellhounds are coming! We need to move!”

Pyre’s eyes narrowed behind her visor as she stared in the direction of the howls. She paused, listening to the hellhounds battlecries. “Ten hellhounds,” She deduced, quickening her step to move alongside us. “Her personal raiders… Viscera is coming…”

Razor Blade bared his vicious fangs. “Perfect. Then she will come right to us.”

Another blast from a Raptor sent one of the Hotels beside us bursting into flame. Debris rained down around us as we rushed forwards. The massive glass pyramid was getting closer and I was beginning to make out the shapes of hundreds of raiders gathering around its entrance.

We were almost there! But so were the hellhounds.

I glanced behind me, making out ten massive hellhounds charging down the street after us, their huge claws ripping apart anything that got between us and them. I couldn’t see Viscera, but I could hear her. Her claws scratching against metal and stone, her voice singing as she called after us.

A pegasus pulled war wagon swooped past us, a mounted mini gun on top spraying the ground around us. I dodged to the side, ducking behind a burning dumpster as it soared past before leaping back out and continuing my mad rush towards the Somnabula.

Ahead, I could see the large group of raiders quickly funnelling into the pyramid shaped hotel, their guns firing upwards as teams of pegasi descended upon them. I could see a blue light beginning to flicker to life around the hotel. The beginnings of a forcefield. Jinx had some serious defences.

I put on a burst of speed, rushing through the grand doors of the hotel and into the darkness of the Somnabula hotel beyond. My friends quickly rushed in after me, their guns firing at anypony that got in their way.

“Alright, what now!” I shouted back at them, pulling myself to a stop and looking around.

The Somnabula hotel had been hollowed out, having been converted into what appeared to be a massive throne room. Despite the structure itself being made of glass, it was almost completely pitch black inside, the walls having been covered in a thick layer of scrap metal and the only light to see by being a large pyre in the centre of the room. Raiders had formed a large circle around the outside of the room, all of their weapons aimed at us as we stumbled in. I could hear the forcefield around the Somnabula fully materialize, blocking out the booming noise of the Enclave's assault outside the hotel's walls.

“Now..” Razor Blade purred darkly, quickly slinking away from us to stand before a large group of assembled Disciple raiders. “Now you kill the beast…”

The doors once more burst open behind us, making way for Viscera and her hellhounds. She didn’t even wait a second before lunging, her deadly claws slamming against Pyre’s armour and knocking her to the ground.

“Pyre!” Mirra shrieked, fluttering forwards and attempting to rush Viscera.

Viscera easily batted her aside with a rear hoof, sending her skidding across the ground. “Hold her friends back! Pyre Blaze is mine!” Viscera ordered her hellhounds, her hooves flashing out and bashing Pyre across the face.

I scrambled to help her, but before I could, two hellhounds jumped towards me, their huge claws pinning me down to the ground. One of them leaned over me, snarling, saliva drooling from their jagged maw while the other pressed their deadly, arm mounted energy rifle against my head. Beside me, I saw the rest of the hellhounds do the same for Brisk, Xayah, Mirra and Star.

The raiders began to form a tighter circle around us, their weapons raised to ensure we didn’t escape. Razor Blade watched us calmly from in front of his personal guards, his cold eyes callously boring into us. I spotted the ghoul doctor, Pestilence, amongst the raiders as well, his eyes focused on the fight with disturbing interest.

“Did you really think you could fuck with me, and I would fuck you back!” Viscera screeched, lashing out and sending Pyre staggering across the room. Her voice seemed to be growing louder and louder, each word seeming to drive her into a more crazed frenzy. She had been crazy before, but she was clearly becoming even more unstable. She had gone completely unhinged. “Did you really think you could escape me! Cheat me!” she lunged again. Pyre tried to duck out of the way, but she was too slow. Viscera’s claws raked her side, forcing her back down. “You can’t get rid of me Pyre! Now we’re going to end this! You and me!”

Pyre shot a burst of flames from her side, searing Viscera’s flesh as the manic raider swung at her. Viscera reeled back, her hide scorched. Pyre bucked at her, only for Viscera to duck under her swing and wrap her claws around Pyre’s head, pulling downwards and forcing her face first into the ground.

I struggled against the Hellhounds pinning me down, but it was useless. They were just too strong. One of them pressed down harder, smushing my face against the cold floor, their claws digging into my scalp.

Viscera dodged another blast of fire from Pyre’s flamers, leaping over her and slashing at her back with her claws. Her hellhound claws cut through Pyre’s power armour like butter, ripping three more gashes into her already scarred hide.

Pyre bucked violently, finally landing a hit and forcing Viscera to stumble backwards. Viscera gave a hiss of pain, blood trickling from her muzzle before she launched herself back at Pyre, her whole body a whirlwind of slashing claws and gnashing fangs.

“It was supposed to just be you and me, Pyre! Us against the world!” Viscera howled, her hoof flashing out and kicking Pyre in the gut. Her claws slashed through her armour, digging deep into her flesh. “You betrayed me! You betrayed everything we did together! Like… like you didn’t love me anymore!” Another kick, this one sending Pyre skidding across the floor and slamming against the wall. “And now I’m going to take away everything you love! I’m going to rip apart everything you have ever tried to do!”

Pyre dove at her, her flamers roaring. Viscera twirled to the side, easily avoiding the burst of fire, one hoof slashing out and cutting deep into the fuel tank attached to Pyre’s side. Pyre’s left flamer exploded, bursting into flame and sending Pyre flying to her side, crashing once more against the ground.

“I know the Operators and the Disciples helped you! That they are plotting to kill me!” Viscera screeched, her claws scratching at the floor menacingly as she stalked towards Pyre. Her wide, bloodshot eyes darted around predatorily, daring any pony to deny her. I could see Razor Blade wince at her very accurate proclamation. “Once I’m done here with you and your friends, I’m going to show them their place! Yes, I’m going to teach all of them a lesson! Everypony!” Her blood soaked maw twisted into a gruesome smile, her jagged hellhound fangs dripping with blood. “I’m going to lead the Las Pegasus raiders to Manehattan. Rip the city apart limb for limb! Do what the Manehattan Scourge never could! What you never could!!”

Pyre pushed herself up, only for Viscera to grab onto her head with her claws and throw her across the room. Pyre slid across the floor, the rough ground scratching up her armour. Once again, Pyre tried to scramble up, but Viscera was just too fast. She was on her once again, her claws digging deep into Pyre’s side.

Viscera leered down at Pyre, trailing a clawed hoof across her armoured face. “The time for our apotheosis is here, Pyre Blaze,” She cooed, her jagged grin mere inches from Pyre’s own, blood oozing down from her lips and splattering across Pyre's visor. “Today you die. All of you. Everything you ever were. I will start with the Changeling!”

Two hellhounds rushed forwards, their claws wrapped tightly around Mirra’s struggling form. Mirra hissed, bearing her undeveloped fangs at the huge beasts. “Let me go! Let me go!”

Viscera pulled herself away from Pyre, ripping Mirra away from the hounds and holding her tight as she pressed her sharp claws up against the changeling's neck. “I’m going to kill her Pyre! I’m going to fucking kill her right now!” Viscera’s eyes had lost the strangely intelligent spark I had once seen in them. Now all that her dazzling blue eyes seemed to hold was a startling insanity.

Pyre pulled herself back to her hooves, her body stiff and her burning eyes glaring at Viscera through her cracked visor. Viscera’s grip tightened, her hellhound claws pressing tighter against Mirra’s neck and drawing a small drizzle of blood. “And last words to say to the Changeling bitch!”

“I’m sorry…” Pyre croaked out, her eyes still locked on Viscera. The apology was not directed at Mirra.

Viscera paused, taken aback. “Wh-what?”

“I’m sorry for turning you into this,” Pyre said back, her sharp tone strangely calm all of a sudden. “I should have stopped you. I should never have let you destroy yourself.”

Viscera stiffened, her claws digging just a little deeper into Mirra’s throat. Her muzzle twitched, but I couldn’t tell if she was seething or crying. “S-shut up! You can’t undo what is done!”

“I know,” Pyre soothed back, taking a daring step forward. To my surprise, Viscera took a step back as well. She looked afraid. For the first time, Viscera looked genuinely and truly afraid. “But I don’t want to kill you… Even after everything. Please Viscera… I know you don’t like killing… this is all just a giant lie... Let my daughter go...”

Mirra’s eyes widened a little at the remark, a small tear dripping down her face. She mouthed the words Pyre had said silently to herself, a half smile splayed across her face.

Tears had begun to seep from Viscera’s eyes as well. She took another step back, her whole body shaking. “You don’t get to do this to me! Not now! Not after everything you’ve done!” She screamed, more tears slipping down her face.

“After everything I’ve done?” Pyre asked, her voice sounding almost disbelieving. She took another step forward, finally coming face to face with Viscera, their faces practically pressed up against the other. Slowly, Pyre pulled off her helmet so she could look Viscera directly in the eye. They held eye contact for a moment before Viscera had to force her gaze away. “Look at yourself Viscera, you’re not even a pony anymore. How many ponies have you killed? For what? To get even with the Wasteland? To get revenge for what happened to you? When is it going to be enough?”

“I’ve gone too far Blazy…” Viscera sobbed, her hooves shaking. Then, at those words, the madness returned to her eyes and she gave a low, animalistic snarl. “There is no turning back!”

Pyre lunged forwards, her hooves slamming into Viscera’s face and sending her crashing to the ground, her grip on Mirra loosening, letting the changeling frantically scramble away. Pyre dove in front of Mirra as Viscera reared back up, her claws slashing at the changelings throat. The claws sunk deep into Pyre’s side, ripping through her armour and rending the muscles on her sides in half.

With a roar of pain, Pyre flung herself head first into Viscera, knocking the smaller raider to the floor and pinning her down with her massive fore hooves. Viscera swung up at Pyre with her claws, only for Pyre to bat her hooves aside, stomping them against the ground and shattering her bones. One of her hellhound claws shattered as Pyre rammed her armoured hooves against it.

Viscera howled like an animal as Pyre’s hooves rose and fell again, grinding the bones in her fore hooves to dust. Blood spilled down Pyre’s side as she let her lone flamer flare with fire, searing off the side of Viscera's face. One of Viscera’s eyes burst under the heat, the now empty socket oozing yellow fluids

Viscera sagged, her body trembling as Pyre loomed over her. “Kill me!” She screamed, blood and spittle flying from her mouth. “End it! Let the legacy of the Manehattan Scourge come to a close!” Pyre hesitated, her hoof poised over Visceras neck. “DO IT! KILL ME!”

There was a moment of silence as everypony in the room held their breath. We waited, expecting something to happen. Finally, after what felt like forever, Pyre pulled away, leaving Viscera to lay there gawking at her from the ground.

“W-wha- what are you doing!” Viscera screamed, her eyes wide as Pyre slowly dragged herself away.

Pyre didn’t even bother looking back at her. She just stared up into the darkness of the massive chamber, her body naturally still. Slowly, she picked her helmet back up and placed it over her head. “I’m ending the legacy of the Manehattan Scourge my way. You’re dead to me Viscera… I let you go…”

Viscera’s eyes widened even more, her expression one of terror and hatred. “No! No you can’t do this to me! It needs to end! It has to end! NO!” She lurched forwards, stumbling on her shattered fore hooves and trying to swipe at Pyre with her broken claws.

She never made it.

Blam! Blam! Blam!

Three shots fired from Mirra’s revolver, each one finding its mark. The first lashed through Viscera’s hind hoof, dropping her to the ground. The second punctured her stomach, forcing blood and bile to push its way past her lips as she screamed and thrashed in pain. The third slashed through her throat, missing her jugular by inches and causing waves of blood to pour down her front.

Viscera collapsed to her side, her once beautiful blue eyes bloodshot and wide. Her mouth aimlessly opened and closed as she tried to scream in pain, only to remain silent as more blood spurted from between her lips. her chest heaved as she rasped and coughed, her body twitching as she was racked with waves of pains after pains.

“That was for Heartbeat and Pyre,” Mirra scowled at Viscera, fluttering her wings and looming over the collapsed raider. Viscera trembled under Mirra’s incense glare, staring up at the small changeling in uncharacteristic fear, before coughing up more blood and falling unconscious.

Pyre turned to look down at Viscera for a few seconds before stepping past her and wrapping Mirra in a tight hug as the small filly trembled. “It’s alright now. Its over... We’re all going to be okay…”

“Did you mean it…” Mirra breathed, trying to wrap her arms around Pyre’s large neck. “I-I’m your daughter?”

Pyre nodded, standing back up and raising Mirra’s chin with a hoof so she could give her a warm smile. “I did. I'm a broken mare Mirra, but I'll give it everything I have, if you will have me?” Pyre didn’t need to hear Mirra’s excited ‘yes’ to know the answer as the small changeling tackled her into as big a hug as her small body could muster.

I could see all the raiders that had gathered around us looking around in confusion, not sure what to make of what had just happened. I felt the Hellhounds pinning me down loosen their grip a little in confusion, not sure what to do.

Pyre turned, staring at the raiders around us. She paused as her vision crossed the hellhounds holding me and the rest of my friends down. “My name is Pyre Blaze!” Pyre declared, boldly stepping towards the raiders. A few shrunk back at her approach. “Though I’m sure you are all well aware of that. I’m sure you’ve all heard a lot about me over the last couple of days. Some of you might even remember me, it was not all that long ago that I was one of you,” She paused, looking into the darkness of the chamber beyond. “But I am back now, and I don’t intend on going anywhere this time. Viscera is dead. I am the new leader of the Las Pegasus Pack! Any that oppose my rule will need to take it up with me and those that stand beside me…” I could see the smallest of smiles crack on her face from behind her broken visor. “Isn’t that right, Jinx?”

If the raiders hadn’t been silent before, they were now. They all turned their heads, looking into the darkness of the room themselves. I could feel everypony holding their breath, waiting. I could feel somepony staring back at us through the darkness. I couldn’t see them, but I could sure as hell feel them.

“I shall admit, you have made quite the comeback, Pyre Blaze, oh great and mighty leader of the Las Pegasus Pack,” A rhythmic voice echoed out at us sardonically from the thick veil of darkness. It was a strangely beautiful, melodious tone, if not an imposing one. A Zebra’s voice perhaps. “But Viscera isn’t exactly dead, is she?”

I could practically feel Pyre smirk. “She is as far as I’m concerned. Do you want to challenge that, Jinx, oh great and mighty Overboss?”

All the raiders around us inhaled, their muscles tensing as if waiting for the unseen Overboss to literally eat Pyre alive. I saw a few start slowly backing up, trying to make it to the exit before any bloodshed broke out. Razor Blade quickly stepped forwards, flanked by two heavily armed raiders. “The Disciples agree with the new leadership. I think you will find that Magazine and her Operators will say the same.”

“I don’t doubt she would,” Jinx’s booming voice nickered from the gloom, her voice dripping with sick amusement. “You both worked together to ensure Viscera was taken out of the picture no doubt. Do not think me blind to what goes on in this city, Razor Blade.”

Razor Blade gave a nervous sounding laugh, his eyes darting back and forth a little as he took a small step back. “Uh, yes, well, I can explain Jinx-”

“Worry not Razor Blade,” Jinx’s voice cooed back, cutting him off. “All is forgiven. Viscera… let us just say… Needed to be taken out of the picture. And I must say, I am rather curious as to what the new leader of the Pack will have to contribute to our little gang,” Jinx’s voice paused for a second, letting her words settle over us before she continued. “Pestilence, what is your prognosis on our lovely dear Viscera?”

I saw the pale ghoul doctor push his way through the crowd of raiders, a lit cigarette already smouldering away in his mouth. He leaned down, prodding roughly at Viscera’s bleeding throat. “She’ll live... probably,” He grunted, pulling himself back up to his rotting hooves. “The Changeling’s shot missed her jugular. An Ironic fate, admittedly. Perhaps by the changelings design,” He glanced over at Mirra and flashed his rotting teeth. “You have wonderful aim for a filly so small… How I would love to dissect you and see what makes you tick.”

Pyre snarled and stepped between Pestilence and Mirra. “Back off,” She hissed, letting her flamer flicker to life at the end.

Pestilence simply shrugged in response and turned back to the darkness concealing the great raider Overboss. “Viscera will likely be out of commission for the next few weeks, if not months, and most likely she will be in tremendous pain for the rest of her days, but she’ll likely live all the same. ”

A loud sounding laugh began to echo around the chamber. “Then it would appear that the new leader of the Pack is correct after all. Take her body Pestilence, experiment on it as you see fit. I do not need her any more. Consider it a gift for your contribution to my gang over these many years,” The ghoul gave a grateful nod in response, quickly ordering a few of his raiders to scoop the body up and carry it off for him before he himself scampered away.

“So, no challenge then?” Pyre urged, taking another step away from the firelight and towards the encroaching darkness.

Another laugh echoed around us, though this one sounded much more threatening than the one before. “No, I don’t believe that I will. You seem to have already gained the other gang's favours; an impressive feat in it of itself. Furthermore, you have proven to be a deadly combatant, taking out Viscera is nothing to be ignored... Welcome back to the Las Pegasus Raiders, Pyre Blaze.”

At her words, the hellhounds on top of me shifted and pulled away, letting my friends and I scrambled back to our hooves and stand behind Pyre. I gave Pyre a grateful nod as I stumbled over to stand by her.

Slowly, something began to emerge from the gloom before us, stalking its way into the flickering firelight in the centre of the chamber. My breath caught in my throat as my eyes finally landed on the creature looming over us.

She was massive, standing at least twelve feet above me. She was covered in a thick layer of rich purple fur, adorned with a mix of dazzling gemstone necklaces and jagged, metal raider armour. Where I had expected to see hooves were a set of sharp, deadly looking paws, and their head, feline in shape, looked down at us in amusement with golden, slitted eyes. Two massive wings protruded from their back, giving their already imposing figure a goddess-like appearance.

I felt my jaw drop open in shock and for a second I forgot to breath. The leader of the Las Pegasus raiders was a sphinx!

“So tell me, Pyre Blaze, mighty leader of the Pack...” Jinx grinned, showing off her rows of impressive, sharpened fangs. “What brings you back to Las Pegasus?”

Footnote: Maximum level reached

Author's Note

Fun Fact: When I first conceptualized this chapter back in 2019, I had initially planned for Pyre to actually kill Xayah in the Colosseum. Later drafts also included things like Viscera killing both Mirra and Pyre, Brisk killing Viscera and Star dying inside of the Gauntlet.

All in all, this chapter ended up having a lot less death in it than I had initially planned for it to have.

Fallout: Equestria belongs to Kkat

Chapter XXXVIII: Siege on Dashite City

“I’m intrigued, so I’ll go to this reunion. I’ll be handing things over to Calamity, so talk to her if anything comes up. Oh, you’ll need my word from the pass phrase to get into the bunker - “Friends.” Don’t forget it...”

Awe.

I had heard about the great leader of the Las Pegasus Raiders numerous times over my journey across the wastes. I had heard she was tough, powerful and intelligent and cunning enough to control an army of raiders for years at a time without insurgency or mutiny. I had come to expect that she was not the kind of pony to be messed with.

I had not, however, expected her to not be a pony at all.

I could feel my knees trembling a little as I stared up in horror at the massive sphinx that loomed over us, their golden, slitted eyes sweeping back and forth between us with lackluster amusement. I opened my mouth to try and say something, but I found myself without words to say.

The massive sphinx lowered herself down so that they were a little closer to our eye level, though they still towered over us by quite a few feet. “Well? I’m waiting? Don’t leave me waiting oh great Pyre Blaze?” Jinx’s silver voice oozed with sarcasm as she flashed us with another smile, showing off her knife like fangs. “I doubt you would come here simply for fun. You made that quite clear when you decided to turn you back on Las Pegasus… So what brings you back now? And to take control of the Pack no less. A bold move, Pyre Blaze.”

Clearing her throat, Pyre took a brave step forward. “We came hoping to make a deal. Taking control of the Pack was an unexpected, though not unwelcome turn of event we didn’t anticipate,” She admitted, gesturing with one of her armoured hooves to the large group of hellhounds that had gathered behind us. The hellhounds did not look happy. It looked like they were going to listen to Pyre’s commands for the moment, but I doubted they were very fond of the sudden change in leadership. “We have found a way into the Institute. We need an army to get through. We’re offering to let the Las Pegasus gangs take what they find inside in exchange.”

Jinx rolled onto her back lazily, looking down at Pyre with upside down eyes. “The Institute? No wonder Magazine wanted you to kill Viscera. She must be eccentric,” He eyes traveled to the large door leading back onto the Strip, inset into the far side of the dark chamber. “Though I’m afraid that you have caught me at a rather inopportune time. Shifts of power are rippling amongst the gangs on the Strip and Freeside, something I’m sure you and your friends have played quite the roll in. And, if you had not yet noticed, the Enclave is proving to be quite the large inconvenience. I cannot leave the city defenceless whilst they ravage the Strip.”

As if to prove her point, the muffled booming sound of an Enclave Raptor firing upon the shielded casino. The booming noise shook me from my awed reverie and I quickly shook my head. “Look, Jinx, this is important,” I started, abruptly stepping towards the massive sphinx. “Inside the Institute is-”

“Ah, and you must be Amber Aura,” Jinx soothed calmly, cutting me off as her intense gaze flickered over to me. I felt my whole body lock up as her piercing eyes seemed to cut straight though my soul. Assuming I even had a soul as a synth. “Also known by many as the pink menace. I admit, I expected you to come knocking on my door a long time ago.”

“Y-you did?” I stammered, thrown off guard by the huge beasts proclamation and blazing eyes.

“I did,” Jinx mussed smuggly, her whole body seemingly slithering across the floor to look down upon me. “And I know all about Pureblood and his plans for Utopia. I have seen it in visions.”

I shivered. “Your visions…? What, like seeing the future?”

Jinx shrugged casually, raising one of her humongous paws to look over her sharpened claws. “Sphinx’s have the ability to see future events, yes, though we rarely see clear glimpses of them. Only flickers and shadows of the things that have not yet been,” her eyes turned hard and she let out a loud hiss, baring her teeth. “But recently I have been actively seeing flashes of things in the days to come. Fire raining down from the sky, war rendered the city of Manehattan to smouldering ruins, a massive beast older than Equestria itself rising from the grave… And the Utopia program…” Her eyes flickered back to me, her feline pupils constricting. “You will not succeed in stopping it. It will activate...”

I took a step back at her words, inhaling a sharp breath. “I… I’m going to stop it. I will,” I insisted, snarling a little. I had to stop it. Failing wasn’t an option. I hadn't suffered what I had only to lose.

“So… is that like a prophecy, or whatever?” Brisk asked quizzically, stepping up beside me and daring to stare down the huge sphinx. “Or is that like… a changeable future or something?”

Jinx shrugged again, seeming to lose interest in the conversation all together. “Who can say. I only speak of what I have seen. But as I said, these are but small fragments of a much larger picture. The amount of ways all those events might play out is immeasurable,” Her eyes turned to once more look back at Pyre, ignoring the rest of us. “Very well. I have been convinced. If it is the desire of the three Las Pegasus gangs to storm the Institute, then we shall indeed storm it, however…” she lunged forwards, her massive claws snatching Pyre up and slamming her against the ground. I jumped back in surprise, startled by the sphinx’s sudden assault. “But first, a test. I cannot leave Las Pegasus undefended while the Enclave rips the city apart, until they have been dealt with, we aren’t going anywhere. You want the assistance of the Las Pegasus raiders? Then you’ll need to deal with the Enclave.”

Pyre writhed under her immense grip for a moment, glaring up at her. “You want us to take down an entire army and five Raptors?”

Jinx rolled her eyes, bored. “You have an entire raider gang of hellhounds now, don’t you? Get creative, oh great and mighty Pyre Blaze.”

The doors to the Somnambula burst open, making way for Magazine and a group of ten heavily armed Operator raiders as they swarmed into the building. Jinx raised her head curiously at their approach, though she didn’t seem overly surprised by Magazines appearance.

“Overboss, we have a problem,” Magazine scowled, gesturing for two of her raiders to take defensive positions at the door. “There is no getting the city's defenses back online. Somepony has sabotaged all of the generators from inside the city walls. It could take weeks to get all of them running again. I suspect a traitor.”

Jinx scowled, releasing Pyre and letting her eyes scan the crowd of assembled raiders. “Now, who I wondered would dare to betray the Las Pegasus raiders,” She mused, making sure that everypony present could clearly see her deadly fangs. Her tail swished back and forth behind her as she began stalking her way in a large arch around the raiders. “Any takers?”

“It was the Operators,” One of the hellhounds scowled, stepping forwards and pointing a deadly claw at Magazine. “That bitch probably used them as a distraction to help Pyre kill Viscera! We all know she wants into the Institute! Probably enough to betray us!”

“How dare you!” Magazine scowled, the huge gatling laser on her side beginning to charge up as she stared down the huge hellhound. “Five of my ponies have already died in the assault and you’re accusing me of treason?” Her lips curled back, baring her teeth. “Or should we all ignore how Viscera was planning to kill the changeling filly after making a deal with the other gangs to keep her alive?”

A Disciple raider in sharped, spiked metal armour snarled at Magazine, their hoof already reaching for a knife. “The Operators are in charge of keeping the cities defensive active. So either you let the Enclave in, or you failed at your job,” They raised their blade and pointed it at Magazine’s neck. “Either way, you and your gang are dead meat!”

Razor Blade stepped forwards, raising a hoof and urging his raider to stand down. “The Enclave was never part of any plan. Lower your weapon, Now! Magazine will get what’s coming to her soon, but not now.”

A loud stomping sound directed all of our attention back to Pyre, who was glaring down at the assembled raiders, her remaining flamer flickering with a small flame on the end of it. “Right now, blame is irrelevant. What we need is a plan. The Somnambula Casino is defensible, but that doesn’t help us much in the long run. If we want to push back the Enclave, we’re going to need to to think of something big.”

Jinx grinned widely at her. “Ah. I can tell I’m going to like you in charge already,” the huge sphinx circled around Pyre, her eyes sweeping the raiders below her. “Well? Anypony have any big ideas?”

“If I am not correct, the defences in Dashite City are still active, no? I saw them firing at the Enclave on my way here,” Xayah piped up, looking around. “And that is also the epicentre of the Enclave’s assault, is it not? Perhaps we would be best to direct our attention to defending the S.P.P. tower?”

Magazine gave a slow nod. “Dashinte city acts somewhat independently from the Strip. As such, they run off their own power grid. Whatever sabotage was done to the main cities defences would have had no effect on the tower,” she hesitated, her eyes darting quickly over to Jinx. “But… well… part of our deal with the pegasi there is that the majority of the city is off limits to raiders. There is a main market area on the first floor we are welcome in, but the rest of the tower…” She trailed off, letting us all dwell on that.

“I say we just let the Enclave burn down the tower and all those winged rats with it,” A disciple raider growled. “We don’t need those leeches anyway.”

Jinx’s eyes seemed to glow a little brighter as she turned to face the disciple raider. “Oh really?” she cooed, moving a little closer, her powerful paws almost gliding across the floor as she loomed over the raider. “Is that what you think? You don’t think that they are a valuable asset to us? You think you know better how to run this place?”

The raider took a step back, quivering, his eyes wide at the huge beasts accusation. “I… uh… Of c-course not Jinx… I’m just saying that it would be better to save ourselves than those-”

The raider didn’t have time to finish his sentence as Jinx’s claws lashed out, faster than my eyes could follow, and slit his throat. Her sharpened claws slid through the raiders flesh as if it were pre melted butter, sharper even than the deadly claws of a hellhound. The raider screamed, staggering back and clutching at his neck as blood spurted from the lash wound and across the floor. I felt myself jump back in fright, bits of blood flecks splashing across my face as the raider toppled over, writhing as more and more blood spilled from his body. After a long moment, he went still.

I gulped, daring myself to look back up from the limp raiders body and at Jinx. The looming Sphinx had taken to cleaning her claws, lapping up the dark blood with long licks of her tongue as if nothing had happened. Jinx spotted my horrified glare and gave me a quick smile and wink before addressing her raiders, finally satisfied with the cleanliness of her claws. “We will not be abandoning Dashite City to the Enclave. The Enclave have offended me personally, and Dashite city is mine,” She paused, her gaze flickering over the terrified raiders. “Anypony else want to question that?”

No pony dared to oppose her after that.

“Uh… what about the Strips defences? They weren’t all active, right?” Star stammered, stepping forwards a bit, her eyes still locked on the crumpled body of the raider.

Razor Blade rolled his eyes. “None of them are active. Or are you only now starting to pay attention featherbrain?”

Star Breeze scowled at him. “Yeah, no shit they aren’t active you tit sucking cuck. I’m talking about before they were shut down. I- uh… I remember Pyre saying that out of the hundred anti-dragon canons in the city, only about thirty remained online…” she glanced around at all the raiders that had turned to look at her, backing up nervously a bit. “Why weren’t the others online?”

“We didn’t have enough power,” Magazine told her, her expression curious. “It took us years to build and scavenge enough generators to get just the thirty we had up and running. The amount of power it would have taken us to get all of them working just isn’t possible.”

Star nodded, mauling that over in her head. “So, what did all those defences run on before the apocalypse?”

What Star was saying finally clicked in my head. I gave a small nod of understanding, my eyes lighting up a little. “There must be some sort of huge reactor somewhere that would completely power the Strip, or at least the defences,” I pranced on my hooves a little at the idea of getting to examine a generator of that scale. Brisk just rolled his eyes beside me at my excitement. “It probably went offline after the bombs fell. I might be able to get it up and running again if I could get access to it! We could turn on all the defences!”

I saw a bunch of the Operators grow excited at the proposed idea, most of the other raiders just looked confused though. Magazine gave a snort of annoyance. “You think we haven't already tried that?” She signed, rubbing the bridge of her muzzle with a hoof. “Yes, the Strip has a large reactor chamber beneath the city. If the terminals we have read across the Strip are to be believed, then it has the strength to fully supply power to both the Strip and Freeside below. But we’ve tried to get to it, it’s just not possible.”

“Why not?” Mirra asked timidly, raising an eyebrow at the raider boss from her spot atop Pyre’s back. “What’s stopping you?”

Razor Blade gave a grim laugh. “The reactor lies in a heavily guarded chamber far beneath the S.P.P. Tower, protected by the best security the Ministry of Awesome and Wartime Technology could whip up. Furthermore, it is located behind a huge stable door which we have yet to be able to get to, let alone get through.”

“And we still need to deal with the pegasi in Dashite city,” Magazine added. “They aren’t going to like us going against our deal and storming into their territory, especially with the Enclave attacking them.”

A thought slowly came to me. “Well, we aren’t raiders,” I stated, gesturing to my friends and I. “We could go in and convince them to let the raiders into the tower? Then while you all keep the Enclave at bay, I can try getting to the reactor room.”

Razor Blade and Magazine cast intrigued glances at each other. “It is possible,” Razor Blade grunted, his eyes narrowing slightly. He turned his gaze to address Pyre. “Well, you’re a part of this now? What does the leader of the Pack say about all this? You think this pink filly has what it takes to reach the reactor?”

Pyre gave me a cocky looking smirk. “If she can’t then no pony ever will,” She turned, looking over at Jinx who had retreated a little to watch us all in interest from the shadows. “Well Jinx? It seems like the raider gangs are in favor of this plan.”

Jinx gave a low purr, her maw twisting into a grin that showed far more teeth that I was comfortable with. Even in the dim lighting of the Somnambula, her teeth seemed to gint in the darkness. “Oh yes, I am quite interested on how this will all work out,” Her gaze dropped down to me, looking me over with interest. “Alright, Amber Aura. It looks like we have ourselves a deal…”

I had to scramble back as one of the huge Raptors fired down at us as we began charging out of the Somnambula.

The plan was simple. Get to the S.P.P. Tower and convince the pegasi there to let us in. Easy enough. Easy enough if not for the army of armed pegasi and looming Raptors that stood between me and it mind you…

In the distance I could see three of the Enclave Raptors hovering around the massive white spire that housed Dahsite city. Every few moments was punctuated by a loud bang as their massive energy cannons fired off devastating blast after devastating blast into the city. But the Enclave was having difficulty as well as the trapped pegai within the tower fought back with the tower's excessive defences.

Not far past that, I could see the remaining Raptor still engaged with the Las Pegasus Raiders monstrous Dragon. The huge beast was lurching back and forth in the air, its jaws snapping and massive bursts of fire spewing from its mouth and scorching the Raptors hull.

Unfortunately for us however, the dragon did not seem to be winning, and the Raptor’s massive weaponry had managed to score quite a few near lethal looking hits on the flying reptile.

Returning my gaze to the Raptor assailing me, I once more dove for cover as one of it’s huge cannons swivelled down to aim at the large crowd of raiders that had abruptly started pouring from the entrance of the Somnambula.

It did not, however, get a chance to fire, as the massive form of Jinx lurched from the casino herself and rammed into the ship's huge frame. The looming airship was quite literally sent spinning backwards through the air as the monolithic sphinx charged it in a frenzy of slashing claws and flapping wings.

“That’s our cue to go,” Pyre urged me, pushing me up to my hooves. “Get moving! Jinx can keep the Raptor at bay, but we’re about to get company in a second!”

Her words were only proven as twenty pegasus pulled war wagons swooped down towards us, roof mounted turrets spewing fire down around our charging hooves.

I tucked my tail between my legs as I darted from cover to cover, keeping small and moving fast. Around me, raiders were forming defensive circles, their guns raised skyward as they fired upon the sweeping pegasi, many of their shots dropping the Enclave soldiers to the ground.

“This way, follow me!” Magazine shouted from ahead of me, her gatling laser whirring and blasting a war wagon right from the sky. The wagon burst apart, rain and flaming shrapnel obscuring the sky above.

“Pack, to me!” Pyre shouted, bounding over a collapsed and burning garbage can. Mirra gave a frightened yelp form atop Pyre’s back as she ducked below a blast of energy aimed at her head. Several hulking hellhounds broke off from the larger group, surging towards Pyre and creating a protective formation around her. One of the hellhounds leapt into the air, their deadly claws ripping the wings off a pegasus that dared to get to close.

Beside me, Brisk’s minigun flared to life, filling my ears with the sound of gunfire. He jumped back a little as the magical energy blast of a lone Enclave trooper staffed the street in front of him.

Dashite City was getting closer. I was able to make out the tower's impressive defenses more closely. A large ring of massive turrets circled the landing docks built into the top of the structure and I could see quite a few missile turrets located higher still. Swarms of pegasi swooped and dove around the towers exterior, some of them clad in the Enclave’s dark power armour while others sported something that looked like silver painted combat armour. The inhabitants of Dashite city I assumed.

I had to scamper back a little as the huge form of Jinx crashed into the ground a few feet in front of me, sending up a massive cloud of smoke and debris. The snarling sphinx took maybe a second to shake off the pain before they once more launched themselves into the air, boring into the huge Raptor.

“Keep going!” Razor Blade shouted at us, his barbed wire wrapped hooves flashing out and slitting the throat of a pegasus that got to close. “Get us permission into the tower. We’ll try and hold the Enclave off!”

I saw Xayah give a nod from somewhere to my right, her anti-material rifle cracking off well aimed shot after well aimed shot. I spotted one Enclave soldier fall lifeless to the ground from one of her shots, their head blow apart by a scarily precise shot through their visor.

Magazine broke off from the group with her Operators, their deadly laser rifles driving back the Enclave and making a clear path for us to the looming tower. A few Operators fell to the Enclaves fire, dissolving away with a scream into piles of glittering ash.

Star managed to make it to the S.P.P. tower first, her wings flapping overtime as she barrelled across the street. An Enclave soldier dashed towards her, but dropped dead as Xayah sent a bullet slashing through their neck.

The entrance to the tower had been blockaded, five armoured pegasi guarding the door with their lives as teams of Enclave descended down around them. At Star’s approach, they swung their energy rifles to face her, snarling.

“Back off Enlcave! I’m not going to tell you twice!” One snarled, their energy rifle charging.

“Not Enlcave! Not Enclave!” Star insisted frantically, her hooves flailing and her wings beating as she dove to cower behind the wreckage of one of the crashed war wagons.

The guards hesitated, taking a moment to think as they fired on a dive bombing Enclave trooper that they were a little more certain on killing. “You sure as fuck look Enclave!”

“Not Enclave!” I answered for her, pulling to a stop beside Star and firing up at an Enclave trooper with a blast of my own. The targeted pegasus collapsed to the ground with a crunch, their head pulped form by shotguns' deadly buckshot.

“Raider?” Another guard said in surprise, their eyebrows rising. His eyes focused on the large group hellhounds we had trailing us. A look of worry crossed his face and he narrowed his eyes. “Damn it, Pack?”

Pyre skidded to a stop beside me, looming over the five pegasi guards. “Kind off. There’s been a bit of a change in management around here,” She spun around for a second, her flamers bursting with light as she torched a pegasus that dared to fire at her. “We need into the tower right now!”

One of the guards scowled at her. “You know the rules just as well as I do! We work for Jinx, but raiders are not allowed inside! We don’t need to deal with your kind while the Enclave is attacking!”

Pyre took a step forward, snarling down at the guards. “You want to survive this whole ordeal? None of us are going to make it through this if you don’t let us in,” I could see her smirk slightly from behind her visor. “Besides, I know the rules perfectly, and raiders are allowed into the main area of the tower.”

All the guards scowled at that. The scowls were wiped off their face as a war wagon raced by, dropping a load of pulse grenades down on a group of Dashite city guards that had taken the fight to the ground. The pegasi’s bodies were rented apart, limbs and gore flying everywhere as the deadly explosives detonated.

“F-fine! But your hellhounds stay outside until further notice,” the leading guard stammered, taking a few steps back. His face looked pale at the sight of the extensive violence. He had probably never seen death on this scale before.

Pyre gave a grim nod. “Fair enough,” She turned, addressing her hellhounds. “Create a perimeter around the outside of the tower. Kill any Enclave that gets too close!” She pointed to two particularly large looking hellhounds with extensive cybernetic augmentation. “You two, defend the entrance! I don’t want any Enclave entering the tower!”

The Hellhounds all nodded and darted off to do as instructed. Pyre gave me a smug grin. “I forgot how fun it is to run a raider gang.”

I gave her a warm yet worrisome smile. “I’m glad, just don’t go full raider on us again.”

Pyre’s smile faded. “Of course not, never again.”

Two of the guards moved backwards to open up the large doors into the tower as the other three crouched down into a more defensive formation. There was a loud creaking as the huge doors into Dashite City pulled open.

“Inside, now!” One of the guards shouted at us, their gun firing at a few Enclave troopers that tried to use the open door to their advantage.

I rushed forwards, my friends quick on my tail as we darted into the city. The second the last of us crossed the threshold, the guards slammed the doors shut behind us, locking us inside of the S.P.P. tower.

Both Brisk and Xayah let out a small gasp beside me, drawing my attention from the slammed door to the large room before us. And that was when I got my first good look at Dashite City.

The main atrium area that we had entered into had been turned into what appeared to be a massive market. Large wooden huts had been built up around the exterior of the circular chamber with a second level of structures suspended by precariously creaking supports built above them, each holding a different type of stall of some kind. I noticed a weapons and armour vendor to our right, while a food and general good vendor sat off to my left. At the far side of the room I could see an old room that had been converted into a hospital of sorts. The swinging sign above the hospital's door read, ‘Doctor Pestilences Clinic’. I wondered if the ghoul doctor had already made it into the tower or if he was still somewhere out on the Strip. The centre of the atrium held a large trading area where I assumed the pegasi of Dashite City traded with the Las Pegasus Raiders.

The whole setup reminded me a lot of Friendship City actually, only with wooden buildings instead of the wreckages of boats from the harbour.

“You Six! State who you are and what you want!” A pegasus mare in Enclave power armour demanded, strutting towards us with two pegasus guards on either side. I quickly noted that the Enclave insignia on the side of the power armour had been scratched out and replaced with a cloud and lightning bolt. The power armoured pegasus narrowed her eyes at Star Breeze. “And what is an Enclave Scientist doing here?”

I quickly put a hoof in front of Star protectivally. “She isn’t with the Enclave. She’s with us,” I insisted, narrowing my eyes at her in return.

The pegasus growled. “And who are you exactly? You don’t exactly look like raiders either…” Her eyes flicked over to Pyre. “Or most of you don’t… I didn’t expect to see you here Pyre Blaze. Last I heard, you were outlawed and dead.”

Pyre struck a dramatic pose. “It’s funny how things change, isn’t it. Currently I’m the acting leader of the Las Pegasus Pack,” She paused, looking over the guns that were aimed at us. “I am of course here on behalf of Jinx, but my friends here represent a third party that wishes for all of us to make it out of here alive. They are here to negotiate a truce between the pegasi of Dashite City and The Las pegasus Gangs. I think you’re going to want to listen to what they have to say.”

The mare grunted in return, her eyes darting back to Star. “Very well, what are the terms of this truce?”

I took a step forward, making the mare shift her gaze from Star to me. “We need access to the reactor Chamber beneath the tower and you need protection from the Enclave. The S.P.P. tower seems to be able to hold its own for now, but the attack is just getting started,” I began, trying my best to explain the plan. “The way I see it, there is only one way that we’re all getting out of this. You allow the Las Pegasus gangs into the tower and permit them to access the reactor chamber and we’ll help all of you defend the tower.”

The tower shook as the Raptors outside sent a beam of energy flashing though one of the walls. I stumbled a little as I tried to maintain my balance as the floor trembled below me. The power armoured pegasus flapped their wings, lifting from the ground for a second as the tower shook before dropping down to the floor. “And what makes you think that you can even get to the reactor chamber? Many have tried, but no pony has ever succeeded.”

“We are hoping to get the city's defences back on. From what I can tell, getting to that chamber is the only way to do that,” Brisk said for me, taking a step forward himself. “We’ll get to it because the only other alternative is surrender.”

The mare scowled a little at that before turning to her guards and exchanging a few words with them that I couldn’t hear. After a second, she turned back to us. “Very well. I’ll accept the help of the Las pegasus raiders, but that leaves us with a rather big issue,” She paused, gesturing over to the door we had come through. “That door is the only way into and out of the tower, save the loading docks on the top floor. There is no feasible way to get the raiders into the tower without them getting blown apart by the Enclave or expending far more resources than we are currently able to give.”

Xayah grimaced. “We will most likely need to create some form of ceasefire with the Enclave, else risk them destroying any chances we have at defending the tower.”

“The Enclave won’t agree to a ceasefire and you know it. We’ll need to temporarily push the Enclave back,” Pyre stated bluntly. “I’ve already got my hellhounds securing the perimeter of the tower, but that isn’t going to be enough,” She paused, glancing back at the door. “I doubt the Enclave was fully aware of what they were getting into when they attacked Las Pegasus. Likely they just expected a couple of raider pushovers and a few defences. With the Las Pegasus dragon and Jinx preoccupying two of their Raptors, They are already unable to apply as much force on Dashite city as they had likely planned. We might be able to force them back to a point where they deem it a tactical decision to retreat and regroup before they launch a larger assault on the tower.”

“You want us to let them leave and come back even more prepared than before! Are you insane!” The mare scowled, flapping her wings as swooping over to Pyre. “We’re already screwed enough as it is.”

“I’ve been all over the wasteland the last few days. The Enclave is spread thin and taking far more losses than they can probably keep up with. They won’t have many more troops left out in the wastes to bring back to Las pegasus. No, all they have is the army currently attacking you and those five Raptors,” Pyre grunted. “If we can drive off the three currently at the tower for long enough to get the raiders in, then it's the full might of the Las Pegasus raiders and Dashite city against their Raptors, and those are a hell of a lot better odds than us trying take them out while scattered across the whole of the Strip.”

“So a big final stand in the tower. Everything we have versus everything they have in one massive assault?” The mare scoffed. “Those bastards sent Canterlot Castle crashing to the ground in mere minutes, what makes you think they can’t do it again here? Who’s to say they don’t just ram the tower, killing all of us at once?”

“It isn’t ideal, but what other choice do we have?” Pyre turned, gesturing to me. “Besides, we don’t need to beat them, we’ll just need to hold them off until Amber and Star here can get the rest of the city's defences up and running.”

“Then it’s boom! Bye bye Enclave,” Star grunted, flaring her wings a little for dramatic effect.

“Alright, fine. I follow your logic,” The pegasus mare snorted. “But that leaves us with trying to figure out a way to force the Enclave into a temporary retreat. Something tells me they won’t just leave lightly.”

There was a long pause as we let all of that sink in. After a long moment, Star perked up. “Would blowing up one of their Raptors do the trick?”

We all exchanged a long glance.

“I want to put in on record that I think this is a bad idea,” Brisk stated flatly, glancing off the edge of the Dashite City sky dock and down at the three Raptor airships below him. “A very, very bad idea.”

I gave him a smile and a playful shove. “Oh come on, where is your sense of adventure? Isn’t that supposed to be what you’re all about?”

“Adventure and suicide are two very different things,” Brisk shot back, glancing back at me.

Star rolled her eyes from beside us. “Oh come on, you big foal. You afraid I’m going to drop you?”

Brisk cast her a nervous look. “We’re about to invade an Enclave Raptor from the top of a massive tower on an already really high cloud city. I think falling to my death is a valid fear right now.”

I gulped. I can't say that falling to my death was on my list of ways I wanted to go out. I could feel my legs trembling a little just from standing this high up. This was by far the highest I had ever been, and falling to death wasn’t exactly something that I had even considered back when I was living in Stable 25.

“Oh come on Brisk, you’ll do great,” Mirra chirped up, fluttering her wings a little.

“Easy for you to say, you have wings,” Brisk shot back.

“Don't worry, if you fall, I’ll catch you with my magic,” I told him reassuringly, tapping my horn with a hoof. Though I was pretty sure he could hear the tremor in my voice.

“If I fall? What about if you fall?” He countered. All I could do was bite my lip in response.

I heard the Loud thumping of Pyre's power armour behind me as she stomped over to us, Xayah trailing quickly behind her. “Alright, Try not to die in there,” She instructed us flatly, giving Brisk in particular a small grin.

Brisk gave an annoyed whinny. "Not helping!"

Mirra gave Pyre a small pout. “Are you sure you can’t come with us mom?”

Pyre gave Mirra a small smile at the remark. “Unless you can convince Star to carry me and my big suit of power armour down, that won’t be possible. She’ll probably end up dropping Brisk as it is. No point having her drop us both.”

“Still not helping!” Brisk yelped back, scowling at Pyre’s playful wink.

“Besides, I need to get word of the plan out to the rest of the Las Pegasus gangs. We probably won’t have a lot of time to prepare once you get the Enclave to draw back, so we need to be ready,” Pyre added, rolling her neck a little.

“And why can’t Xayah go in my place or whatever?” Brisk questioned, casting Xayah an accusatory glare. “She’s lighter than I am! And sneakier!”

“Pyre is going to need me to sneak out of the tower and inform the rest of the raiders, so unless you can turn invisible, this is simply the arrangements that will need to occur,” Xayah smiled at him. She trotted over to me quickly and planted a kiss on my cheek before backing up a step. “Though do follow Pyre’s advice and try not to die.”

I gave her a smug smirk I didn’t feel. “We’ll do our best.”

The pegasus mare in the scavenged enclave power armour flapped over to us, her eyes scanning us sceptically. “You four sure that you want to do this? This plan is risky.”

Star shrugged, tapping her saddlebags and making the things inside rattle. Don’t worry, we’ll be fine,” A blast from one of the Enlcave’s Raptors shook the tower, pulling us from our revere. Star quickly snapped back to attention. “Welp, time to fucking do this. Ready?” She asked, wrapping her hooves around Brisk’s midsection.

Brisk’s eyes widened. “Wh-what? No!”

“Here we go!” Was all Star said as she threw herself off the sky dock and hurtled herself towards one of the Raptors, bringing Brisk with her with a scream. A second later, Mirra jumped after her, her hooves wrapped tightly around me and her horn glowing overtime as she did her best to carry me down to the Raptor below. I could tell it was taking all her effort not to drop me, but thankfully I didn’t weigh very much.

Down below me, I saw Star’s wings flare open, catching the heavy wind as she started gliding towards the Raptor. She sagged a little with Brisk’s added weight, but she seemed to hold her own.

Instinctively, my hooves flailed a little in the air as I tried to take control of my situation. I didn’t seem to help much.

“Stop… squirming…” Mirra huffed, her whole body dropping through air a few feet as the small changeling tried to keep from dropping me. “You’re heavy enough as it is…”

“Sorry,” I stammered back, wincing as one of the Enclave Raptors fired another blast of energy into the tower, seemingly shaking my world even from outside. Thinking of an idea, I let my horn light up and wrapped my amber aura around my body. I wasn’t nearly good enough with magic to do anything crazy like self levitation, but I could at the very least lighten my load for Mirra.

A few seconds later, my hooves touched down on the roof of the Raptor. I gave a sigh of relief as Mirra’s hooves unclasped around me and I collapsed to the smooth surface, clutching it for dear life. My horn stopped glowing a second later, leaving me feeling oddly tired.

I looked up, making out the trembling form of Brisk as he clutched tightly to Star’s body. “Okay, okay! We’re on the Raptor! You can let go of me now!” Star grunted, trying to shake Brisk off of her. Brisk just continued to hug onto her tightly, afraid to let go.

“Shit! We got ponies on the roof of the Raptor!” I heard an Enclave soldier shout from somewhere above me. I grimaced, glancing up and spotting a group of five heavily armoured pegasi swooping down towards us, energy rifles firing.

I scampered back, the deadly beams searing the spot I had just lay. “We need to get inside now! We got company!” I shouted, scrambling across the roof in a direction that I hoped led inside. Seeing how Star was heading in the same direction, I assumed I was going the right way.

“Brisk! Hatch! Now!” Star ordered, directing the green buck towards a small hatch on the roof of the Raptor. Brisk quickly pulled himself over, a bobby pin already in his mouth and working away as he picked the lock on the ship's small escape exit hatch.

A heavy force rammed into me from the side, sending me skidding a little to my right. I straightened up just in time to see the assailing Enclave trooper before they slammed into me again, this time knocking me completely to my side.

I rolled across the Raptors roof, pushing myself out of the way as the Enclave soldier slammed down at me, their armoured hooves pounding against the Raptors metal surface. The pegasus went to attack again, only for Mirra to leap at them, her mouth spewing green mucus and blinding the pegasus.

Taking the opening, I leaped forwards, shoving Breaburn’s Liberators four barrels up against the side of the pegasus’ head. The pegasus gave a shout of alarm before the explosive buckshot ripped through their skull and sent their limp body tumbling off the side of the Raptor.

Mirra shivered, watching as the body fell out of sight. “Seeing that never gets any easier, does it?” I felt myself grimace a little at Mirra’s words. I found it just a little too easy.

“Door’s open! Get in!” Star shouted, shoving Brisk into the now open hatch and gesturing for us to follow before diving in herself. I hurried forwards, Mirra fluttering a few feet ahead of me and diving into the opening.

“They’re entering the Raptor!” An Enclave trooper shouted, their magical energy rifle blasting down beams of light towards me as I desperately scrambled across the weathered surface. “Contact Commander Vaporwave! She’s about to get company!”

I threw myself through the hatch and into the Raptor, a few lethal beams of energy searing my tail as the Enclave attempted to give pursuit. Star rushed past me, slamming the hatch shut and quickly locking it. “Hopefully they don’t have a key! Go, go!” She urged, spinning around and flapping down the long arching corridor we found ourselves inside.

We all sprinted after her, trying our best to keep up as Star expertly dove down different passages. "They know we’re in here. They'll likely send a welcome party pretty soon,” I informed them, panting heavily as my legs worked overtime to keep pushing myself forwards.

“Yeah, no shit!” Star grunted back, taking a sharp turn and heading down another hall. “But we should be fine as long as they done have any Tartar- ah fuck!”

Star pulled to a stop, dropping to the ground and ducking behind some cover as a massive wave of fire blasted down the hall towards us. Brisk and I both gave yelp of surprise and took cover ourselves as the inferno consumed the area we had just been. Behind us, Mirra dropped low to the ground, keeping down as the flames licked at the tops of her ears.

Two huge, power armoured pegasi charged down the hallway towards us, each one equipped with a massive looking flamer at least twice the size of Pyre’s. Like most Enclave power armour, theirs was a dark black in colour with a massive segmented, scorpion-like tail swishing back and forth behind them. Unlike most Enclave power armour however, their helmets look more akin to bulky gas masks and their scorpion tails bore large flaming blades.

“What the fuck are those!” Brisk shouted, jumping back again as a burst of fire tore apart his cover. He let his mingun whir to life, but before he could fire, he was forced to duck away from another wave of flames.

“Tartarusfire Troopers!” Star shouted back, peeking out and letting her magical energy rifle flash off a few beams of light towards the hulking Enclave troopers. The lasers did little but bounce off of their armour. “Enclave elite soldiers! Hope you packed a bigger gun!”

I jumped out from cover, Braeburn’s Liberator firing off a round into the side of one of the Tartarusfire Troopers as they started to turn their attention to Mirra who still lay quivering on the floor. The buckshot burst against their side, making the target of my attack stumble a little and spin around to face me. I gulped as the massive flamer leveled with my head. “I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. Where’s Pyre when you need her…”

The first blast of flame missed me by meer inches as I ducked and rolled across the floor of the Raptor. I sprang back up to my hooves, my magic conjuring a flimsy shield that only barely managed to deflect the second.

Star burst out from hiding, her magical energy rifle firing off several shots. Only one seemed to do any actual damage, searing the metal on one of the Tartarusfire Troopers legs and likely burning the flesh beneath. She quickly flapped her wings, ducking back from a blast of napalm induced flames as the elite Enclave troopers retaliated.

Brisk had managed to pull himself up as well, his minigun booming and filling the hallway with a cacophony of gunfire. One of the Tartarusfire troopers dove towards him, grappling him and tossing him across the room.

I managed to dodge another blast of flame, only for the other trooper to charge into me, slamming me to the ground with their powerful armoured hooves. I bat at their hooves helplessly, trying to push them off, but my strength was next to nothing compared to theirs.

Mirra buzzed directly into the face of the Tartarusfire Trooper pinning me down, her revolver firing off a shot into their side. The Tartarusfire Trooper didn’t even flinch, their segmented tail flashing out and swiping Mirra out of the air, the searing blade slicing a deep gash into the changeling's leg, burning her flesh and making her scream.

Taking advantage of Mirra’s distraction, I slipped out of the troopers grasp, spinning around and bucking them in the head for all I was worth. I heard the Tartarusfire Trooper give a shout of pain as my hind hooves collided with their jaw, sending them stumbling onto their back.

A wave of flame scorched the air above Brisk’s head as he slid across the floor, his minigun once more whirring up to fire as he tried to get a good shot in on the assailing Enclave soldier. His large gun began to fire, only for the Tartarusfire Trooper to give a powerful flap of their wings, rocketing above Brisk’s head and sending fire raining down from above us.

Star shot into the air as well, the downpouring flames licking at her tail as she tried to avoid being cooked alive. She spun in the air, divebombing towards the flying Tartarusfire Trooper and forcing them back to the ground.

The Tartarusfire Trooper I had knocked down managed to pull themself back to their hooves, their eyes murderous as they rounded on me. Fire flickered to life at the end of their flamer as they readied themselves to burn me to a crisp.

I threw myself to the side and began rushing around the hall as the Tartarusfire Trooper began spewing flames towards me, the wave of fire quickly flashing after me as the pegasus spun about, trying to catch me in their flamers impressive area of effect.

Mirra buzzed forward again, her mouth spewing slime like mucus at the Enclave soldier. The Tartarus Trooper staggered back as their visor was slathered in a thick layer of the gunk, obscuring their view and rendering them completely blind. They thrashed about, their flamer firing off every which way as they blindly tried to catch us all in their inferno.

I ducked low to the ground, rolling beneath the jet of flame and towards the staggering Tartarusfire Trooper. My horn blazed as I swung my quad-barrel shotgun up and placed it against the underside of the blinded pegasus’ jaw. The pegasus went rigid as they felt the large barrels bore into them.

Bang!

The Tartarusfire Troopers head burst open, skull fragments and bits of broken metal flying apart as my shotgun burst through them. Their body dropped limp to the ground, blood seeping from the gaping hole that had once been their head.

“You bitch!” The remaining trooper scowled, rounding on me and glaring at me with a surprising amount of rage. “You- You killed her!”

They never got time to attack as Brisk steadied himself and let his minigun fire. The Tartarusfire Troopers body spasmed as bullet after bullet lanced through their body. A few shots ricocheted off their powerful armour, but most lashed straight through into their flesh beneath. Their body gave a final jerk as a shot blasted through their visor, then their body collapsed to the ground.

Star took a deep breath, dropping back to the ground and looking over the two dead Enclave troopers. “Shit… That was close,” She shook her head, trying to reassert herself. She quickly pointed to a door a few steps down the hall. “Now come on! The engine room is right over-”

She was cut off as a beam of magical energy flashed down the hall and slashed through her back. Star Breeze screamed as the burning beam seared her flesh and sent her toppling to the ground. A little bit of blood oozed from the gaping wound, though the laser seemed to cauterize most of the injury for her.

Brisk and I spun around, making out three pegasi as they stormed down the hall towards us. The two on the sides seemed to just be normal soldiers, clad in a thick suit of Enclave power armour. The pegasus mare in the middle however, seemed to be some sort of enclave Officer, wearing what looked like an old, pre-war officer uniform. I remembered seeing a picture of a uniform very similar in an old book back in Stable 25.

“Star Breeze,” The Enclave officer growled, lowering her magical energy rifle slightly and glaring at us. “I heard rumors you went Dashite. I had hoped you were better than that.”

“Oh fuck… hey Vaporwave… How’s it been?” Star grunted, trying to pull herself up. Pain flared across her face and she quickly dropped back down to the ground.

“What are you thinking? Betraying the Enclave? Working alongside these wasteland savages?” Vaporwave spat on the ground and gave Star a look of unheld back disgust. “And after all those chances Colonel Autumn gave you! I’ll have you officially branded for your treason!”

Star opened her mouth to say something, probably something that involved a lot of swearing knowing Star, but Brisk quickly stepped between them. “Hey! Star is better and smarter and kinder than all of you Enclave fuckers combined. Don’t you dare talk to her that way!”

Commander Vaporwave narrowed her eyes at Brisk and scowled. “And what are you, her coltfriend? Star Breeze is an insubordinate traitor lowlife! Now step aside so we may take her into custody and have her branded appropriately,” she gave some sort of hoof signal to the two Enclave troopers beside her, causing both of them to raise and aim their magical energy rifles.

Brisk let loose and low growl. “I’ve see Star working her fucking ass off for the Enclave! She’s spent her entire life doing nothing but serve and follow your orders! The only thing Star ever did to betray the Enclave was refuse to kill a group of foals. How can you call that un-loyal!”

Vaporwave straightened her back a little and looked down at Brisk with a huff. “Star Breeze has been acting under the orders of Colonel Autumn. If he ordered the execution of foals, I am sure there was a very good reason. Now step aside before things get violent. I’m not going to ask nicely again.”

“Alright, and we’re done,” Star grunted, pain flaring up in her voice as she dragged herself out of the engine room and back into the hallway. I looked down at where she had been lying on the ground, then over at her in surprise, having not even noticed she'd left.

Vaporwave’s eyes darted back and forth from Brisk, to Star and then to the door to the engine room. She blinked a couple of times, trying to figure out what happened. “Wait, what’s done? What did you just do?!”

Star just shrugged. “As kind as the things Brisk was saying about me were, I wasn’t really interested in listening to you two bickering. So I decided to go deal with what we came for.”

Vaporwave just glared at her. “Which is what, might I ask?”

Star just gave her another casual shrug, though this one seemed a little more cocky. “Just hooked up a bomb to the Raptors engine. We have maybe thirty seconds before this whole ship explodes by the way.”

Commander Vaporwave’s eyes shot wide. “What! B-but you’d die too! You’re bluffing,” her head whipped back and forth between us as she tried to get a grasp on what Star had just said.

Star just smirked back. “No. Not really,” She turned her head to look at me. “Amber, that’s your cue by the way.”

I gave a small grimace, bracing myself. “This is going to hurt a fucking lot, isn’t it…”

I let my horn flare with light, wrapping Brisk, Mirra and Star in the Amber glow of my magic. For a second, pain flared across my forehead, then we all popped out of existence in a flash of light.

We materialized on the outhanging sky dock of Dahsite city just in time to watch as the Enclave Raptor we had just been inside of exploded. I could almost hear Vaporwave’s frantic scream get abruptly cut short from here as fire burst through the hallways of the Raptor, sending it careening down towards the ground far below.

I felt a strange sense of lethargy as I watched the Raptor crash into the streets of the Strip, fire and debris flying in every direction as the explosive Star had planted ripped the airship appart. We had just killed, what? Twenty ponies? Fifty? One hundred? It was hard to say. My earlier thought about how easy killing had become came back to me, though I quickly pushed it aside. I would have plenty of time to lose sleep over the mountain of bodies I had left in my wake when Pureblood was dead and the world was safe.

Then the lethargy was quickly washed away as pain flashed through my skull, forcing me to stagger to the ground, my whole world spinning. I clamped my hooves tightly around my cracked horn, trying to reduce some of the abrupt, pulsing pains. Brisk rushed up to me, propping me back up. “Amber, are you alright!”

I furrowed my brows, trying to ward off the painful throbbing in my skull. “I’ll be fine, but fuck did that hurt,” Wincing a little, I raised Braeburn’s Liberator a little in my magic. Thankfully, I had managed not to go completely into horn burnout, though the use of magic was definitely not comfortable at the moment. Nor was the booming sound of gunfire so close to my ears for that matter.

“Well, it looks like that worked,” I heard Star grunt beside me, looking down at the swooping pegasi and Enclave Raptors below. Fighting through the pain and daring myself to move closer to the edge, I looked down at what she was looking at.

Sure enough, the Raptors were quickly pulling back from the tower, pegasus pulled war wagons swarming around them to ensure that they didn’t lose another one. We had successfully forced them to temporarily retreat, now came the hard part.

“I owe you bunch an apology,” The power armoured pegasus mare that had initially met us at Dashite city said, her eyes sweeping back and forth as she watched the assortment of raiders pilling through the entrance of the tower. “That was some fine work out there, taking down that Raptor and all. Not many ponies can do that.”

I gave a small shrug, leaning against Brisk for support and trying my best not to grimace. My head was still in agonizing pain from teleporting all of us off the Raptor. “We have a tendency to come out on top despite impossible odds.”

“Let's hope that stays true. We’re going to need all the luck we can get in the battle to come,” She grunted in response. She held out her hoof for a hoof bump. “My name is Plasmafire, by the way. Acting leader and representative here at Dashite City. I don’t believe we managed to properly introduce ourselves when we first met.”

“Maybe because you were threatening to kill us at the time?” Star suggested, rolling her eyes a little.

I just waved off Star and smiled, reaching out a hoof to give hers a bump. “I'm Amber Aura. These are my friends, Brisk Spark, Mirra and Star Breeze. It’s a pleasure.”

“And you’re sure you’re alright with letting the Las Pegasus raiders entering into the city?” Brisk asked from beside me, his eyes looking over a group of Disciples as they scurried into Dashite city. “I know we came here to let them in, but I don’t trust them very much myself.”

Plasmafire scoffed. “No, but you were all right, what other choice do we have? There is no way we could drive back the Enclave while trying to defend the entire city,” She glanced over at the large door as the huge form of Jinx slinked her way in. “Besides, Jinx is usually reasonable.”

At the sound of her name, Jinx’s head turned to face us, her feline eyes seemingly inspecting our every inch as she loomed closer. “Ah, Plasmafire. A pity that I need to meet with you in such dire circumstances,” Jinx soothed, crawling over to us. The massive Sphinx literally had to duck to not scrape their head across the high roofed ceiling. “I assume these dear little ponies here have already filled you in on the plan.”

Plasmafire gave a grim nod. “They have. I can’t say I like it, but I accept the terms of your deal.”

Jinx gave a jagged smile, turning her piercing gaze down at us. “You ponies continue to impress. How I wish I could have a hundred of you. Just scatter you across the Neighvada. We could achieve so much together.”

Brisk gave a gruff shake of his head. “We aren’t raiders,” Was all he bothered to say in response.

“That explosion was quite the impressive show,” I heard Pyre exclaim. I turned to see her quickly approaching us, flanked by Xayah and five blood soaked Pack hellhounds. “Almost sad that I had to miss it.”

“Mom!” Mirra giggled happily, buzzing over to her and wrapping her hooves around Pyre’s neck. I could see Pyre smile from behind her visor at the reception. It was strange to see her genuinely happy for once.

“How are you feeling?” Xayah asked me, trotting up and giving me a quick kiss on the tip of my horn.

The pressure on my horn, however light, still made me wince. I gave a small groan before smiling back at her. “I feel like I’ve been shot in the head repeatedly, but I’ll be fine.”

“Good, because you don’t have time to rest yet,” Razor Blade stated, his voice alerting me of his presence as the gore soaked raider trotted over to us as well, the cybernetic form of Magazine close behind him. “I doubt we have long before the Enclave decides to come back and blow this tower to bits.”

Jinx shifted so that she was peering down at Magazine and Razor Blade. “How long until all of the raiders make it into the tower?”

Magazine only took a quick second before responding. “I estimate around twelve minutes. I have my operators ensuring that they all get in quickly.”

Jinx nodded. “Good. I doubt the Enclave will allow us any more than twenty at the most,” Her gaze shifted so that she could see Pyre as well, her normally sarcasting expression shifting into something much more stern and calculating. “Razor Blade, Pyre, you are to come with me. We need to have a plan of attack ready before the raiders are finished entering the tower. Plasmafire, Get any pegasus able to fight to secure a perimeter around the upper sections of the tower. The Enclave will likely use aerial strategy to their advantage. Be ready for them.”

“Brisk, Xayah, Mirra, I need you with me,” Pyre ordered, turning to us. “Not every pegasus in Dashite city is battle ready, and I don't trust the rest of the raiders to protect them properly. I need you to get them armed incase they must fight and somewhere safe in the tower so they hopefully never need to.”

Brisk gave a quick salute, before scampering off with Xayah and Mirra. “You got it boss.”

Pyre then turned to face me. “Amber, Star, you need to get the city's defences back on.”

Plasmafire gave a grim look. “It won't be easy. The generator chamber is guarded by the best security systems created before the war.”

“So we heard,” Star grumbled, scuffing her fore hoof on the ground a little. “Any idea what kind of things we’re going to face in there?”

Plasmafire shrugged. “Hard to say. No pony has made it very far in there before. Turrets, a few sentry bots. Past that, I couldn’t tell you,” She gestured over to one of the Dashite City guards in silver combat armour. “Lead them to the entrance to the lower chambers, then report back to me.”

Nodding, the guard began leading us through the marketplace of Dashite City and towards a large elevator door on the far side. We had almost made it to the elevator when I paused, my eyes once more catching on a swinging sign above the doorway to the room that had been converted into a hospital reading, ‘Doctor Pestilences Clinic’.

“Hold up, do you mind if I do something first?” I asked, drawing both Star Breeze and the Dashite City guard to a stop. I gestured towards the hospital with a hoof.

Star raised her eyebrow skeptically. “What, are you hurt?”

I shook my head. “There is somepony that I think having a conversation with is long overdue for.”

The Dashite city guard grunted. “Just be fast. We are on a bit of a tight schedule at the moment,” I gave the guard a quick nod before ducking into the hospital.

The second I entered, I had to resist the urge to vomit. The whole room was coated in a thick layer of blood and filth. A shelf against the far wall held a collection of jars, each holding a different organ, and a medical table in the middle of the room held the remains of a pony corpse, surgically sliced open with their insides scooped out and splattered across the floor.

My eyes darted around the gorey room, hoping to catch sight of the ghoul doctor. He didn’t seem to be present, but neither did a lot of things. Things had been haphazardly scattered around the room as if somepony had frantically dug through all of Pestilence’s belongings, looking for something, and quite a few places that looked to have once held stuff had been ransacked.

I furrowed my brow, glancing around. Even if I were to ignore the gratuitous amounts of blood, this didn't look good. “Pestilence? Are you in here?”

A loud, pained cough drew my attention to a medical screen on the far side of the room. Through the thin fabric I could see the silhouette of a pony lying weakly on a medical bed.

“Pestilence, is that you?” I asked, slowly creeping closer to the concealed pony. Taking a deep breath, I rounded the medical screen to behold the pony laying on the bed.

It most definitely wasn’t Pestilence.

The mare’s once cream coat had been peeled away in spots and what little hide remained was soaked in a dark crimson. Their shattered fore hooves twitched painfully at their sides and their left side bore a plethora of needle marks around a seeping bullet wound. A long plastic tube had been slid into the gaping hole in their throat and the flesh on the side of their face had burned away, making the right side of their mouth look like it was always in an impossibly wide, toothy smile.

“Viscera,” I breathed, taking in the deathly looking raider.

Viscera turned her head at my voice, her only remaining eye rolling up to look at me, its white now bloodshot and yellow. At the sight of me, her warped maw twisted into a real grin. “Aaaaberrr…” The raider soothed, her voice sounding strangely mechanical and raspy as it echoed out from the hole in her throat instead of her mouth like it should have. “Haaave you come to glooaat?”

I shook my head, stepping back a little and trying to calm my frantic breathing. “No. I was looking for Doctor Pestilence, where is he?”

Viscera snickered, her laugh sounding more akin to rocks in a blender. “The good doccctor is gooone. Finissshed experimenting on me quickly, then paaaacked his thingsssss and fled. You won't fiiind him.”

I narrowed my eyes at her. “Why? Where did he go?”

“Withhh the Enclaaaave… w-who do you thhhhink let them iiinnn?” Viscera’s smirk turned to a grimace and another cough forced its way from her throat, this time drawing a decent amount of blood that began to dribble down her front.

I felt like I had just walked face first into a brick wall. “Wait, Pestilence was the pony who took down the defences for the Enclave? Why? He seemed to have a good thing going here?”

Viscera began to make a low sounding choking noise that took me a long second to realize was supposed to be laugher. “He gooot bored. Jinx didnnn’t let him experimeeeent on the pegaaasi. Enclave offered moooore. He couldn’t help but ramble about what great thingsss they promised him while he dissected meeee….” her twitching hoof ran down a long incision in her stomach that looked as if it had been recently welded back together.

I grit my teeth. Damn, that was bad, but at least we knew who let the Enclave in now. No wonder Magazine couldn’t get the generators back up and running, they had been tampered with by somepony smarter than even she was.

Now certain the pony I had wanted to talk to was not here, I spun around and began stalking my way back out into the market area, having no reason to stick around and talk with the tortured raider before me.

“Waait…” Viscera hissed, pulling me up short. I glanced back, making out the vile mares mutilated form. “I wanntt to tell you sssomething…”

Biting back a growl, I turned and walked back to her, keeping my eyes on her hellhound like fangs. “What do you want?" I demanded. "I don’t have much interest in what you have to say, so make it quick.”

Viscera grimaced as she tried to make her lips twist into a sinister smile. “I jussst wanted you to know…” She leaned forwards, her jagged maw slowly inching closer to me. “That I ssstill think about maaaking Pyre snap that doctor friend of yoursss neck. That I still have long ssshowers thinking about the life draining from hisss eyes,” She licked at her lips, lapping up a little of the bloody drool that had slid down from her mouth. “I pleasure myself to the memory of ripping that zebra cuntsss legs frrrom her body... Pyre is a fool for letting me live. When I get out of here, I’m going to carve that changeling filly apart and feed you all her entrails.”

I had heard enough. Braeburn’s Liberator was out in a second, its four barrels moving forwards and pressing against Viscera’s head. Viscera seemed to only grin more as the cold metal pressed against her. She leaned in, as if begging me to fire.

“Shut up,” I growled between gritted teeth. “Pyre might have spared you, but I have no interest in letting a monster like you go,” I paused as I looked down at her. The touch of the gun to her head seemed to make her look almost blissful. I jerked the gun back in shocked disgust, a terrifying realization hit me. “But Pyre didn’t spare you, did she… You want to die…”

Viscera seemed to grow frantic as I reefed the gun away. “No.. No! Kill me! Do it! Pleassse!”

I shook my head, stepping away from her. “Fuck you Viscera. I hope you rot,” I turned around and started walking away from her, doing everything in my power not to change my mind and splatter the bitches brains across the wall.

“Has ssshhhe talked about meee…” Viscera rasped, her voice was so quiet now that I almost didn’t hear it.

I paused, glancing back at her again. “What was that?”

“Pyre…” Viscera croaked, her voice parched. “Hasss she said anything about me…?”

I shook my head, my gut clenching. “No. As far as she’s concerned, you’re dead. Pyre has moved on Viscera. You lost. If you ever want to live again, you’re going to need to move on too,” and with that, I left the hospital, leaving Viscera alone as she sobbed on the medical bed, her tears and bile mixed with her own blood.

“Alright, this is it,” the guard said, stepping out of the elevator and gesturing to the long, dark hallway before us. “You two sure you want to go down there? No pony has ever come back.”

I gave a grim nod, stepping out of the elevator myself and peering into the darkness. “We’re sure. This is the only way.”

The guard shrugged, letting Star Breeze pass him before he climbed back into the elevator shaft. “It’s your funeral. Not that I hope you don’t succeed mind you. Good luck.”

“You’ll tell Jinx what I told you about Pestilence, yes?” I asked, watching as the door slowly began to slide shut.

The guard visibly winced. “I’ll probably have my head bitten off, but yeah, I’ll tell her.”

I gave him a quick, thankful wave as the door to the elevator finally creaked shut and he began his ascent back to the marketplace above. I really hoped Jinx didn’t bite his head off for this, but who could really say with Jinx. A took a second to breath before looking over at Star. “You ready.”

“Should I be?” Star took a deep breath herself. “Let's do this.”

Slowly and cautiously, we began making our way down the lightless hall, the glow of my horn our only light to see by as we delved deeper into the S.P.P. towers depth. We made it maybe ten feet in before we began stumbling over corpses. There were dozens, littering the halls like trash. Most of their bodies had been rented apart with what appeared to be a hail of bullets, though I noticed a few bodies had been burnt to a crisp.

“Looks like these ponies dealt with the first hurdle for us,” Star gulped, looking from one body to the remains of a turret that looked to have been destroyed quite a few years ago. After a second, she glanced up at the ceiling, making out the lifeless lights that had long since gone dead. “Always wondered why defence systems managed to stay active after all these years when simple things like lights all went out hundreds of years ago.”

“Most defence systems run on their own power,” I informed her, looking over one of the turrets myself. “After the creation of fusion cores, they became pretty standard use in all robot and turret systems, so even if the main generators die, all the defences still have say… twenty years of use before they run out of juice.”

Star glanced over at me curiously. “Twenty years? Why are so many still active after a two hundred then?”

I gestured to the hunk of scrap metal that had once been a turret. “Most turrets and defence robots shut down when not in use, go into a power saving mode. If they ran 24/7 then they would all be dead, but that isn’t the case. Twenty years of power is plenty if they only use power when they’re shooting at you.”

“Where did you learn all this stuff anyway?” Star asked, turning away from all the corpses and back to the hallway as we continued downward. “I mean, you grew up in a Stable right? Not many defence systems you need to worry about down there.”

I shrugged, following behind her. “We did have turrets in Stable 25. I messed around with some of those a bit for fun when I could get my hooves on one. I also didn’t have many friends down there, and Shade was usually busy, so I just spent a lot of time reading. You’d be surprised how much you can learn from reading a home defence catalog.”

Star actually laughed at that. “Self taught then. Fuck, wish there were more ponies like you in the Enlcave. We have lots of smart ponies up there sure, but they all lack self reliance. Most pegasi can only really do what the Enclave tells them to do.”

I blushed a little. “I wouldn’t say I’m very self reliant. I need my friends to help me out usually.”

Star just rolled her eyes. “Sure sure. You got great friends.”

“We have great friends,” I corrected her, quickening my step a little so I could walk beside her. “They’re your friends now too.”

Star smirked. “Yeah, I guess they kind of are,” She paused, trying to think something over. “Amber, can I ask you something?”

I nodded. “Yeah, of course you can.”

Star bit her lip, trying to think of how to ask what she wanted to ask. “Back on the Raptor, Brisk was saying some pretty nice things about me… I uh… I mean maybe I’m just not used to ponies saying that sort of stuff and all but, well… Did he mean that? Like, actually mean that, or was it just part of the distraction?”

I smirked at her, remembering Mirra’s intuition of Brisk’s romantic feelings for Star. “I’m pretty sure he meant that. And he wasn’t wrong either, from what I’ve seen, you are better than the rest of the Enclave, not to mention smarter.”

“I don’t know about that. There are some intelligent ponies working for them up there. I mean, you’ve seen there fucking Raptors. Not just anypony can keep those running, not to mention build more of them.”

I paused, the idea almost too terrifying to think about. “Wait, the Enclave is building more Raptors?”

Star gave an amused grunt. “They’re trying. Takes a lot of work, time and materials though. Materials that they don’t have above the clouds. You aren’t going to need to worry about them having more Raptors now, but if they actually managed to win this war they’re waging at the moment, you can bet your pink ass they’re going to make more Raptors,” She quivered a little. “Fuck, they might even make another Thunderhead or two.”

We came to a large room at the end of the hallway. On the far side of the room I could see the entrance to what looked like a staircase leading deeper down and off to my right I saw a collection of different offices. Like the first area in the hall, the walls were splattered with blood and massive scorch marks and the floor was once more covered in corpses, these ones both blown apart, disintegrated and trampled over. We both paused, are eyes sweeping the area for dangers. That was a staggeringly large amount of corpses.

“I don’t see any broken turrets,” Star hissed, crouching back a little. “In fact, I don’t see any signs of what killed these ponies.”

“Sentry bots then,” I hissed back, looking at a set of dark treads tracks scuffed into the ground and remembering what Plasmafire had told us. Those were some really big looking tread tracks. I gestured over to the offices to our left. “Seeing how I don’t see any in this room proper, there's a good chance that they’re in there if there are any at all.”

“Think we can just sneak past?” Star questioned, her eyes darting from the office entrance to the stairway.

I hesitated, thinking that over. “If we could, why hasn’t any pony made it past this part yet?” My eyes glanced around, trying to figure out what was off about the room. When I didn't see anything, I sighed. “Well since the only other option is to give up, I guess we should give sneaking a shot at least. Just keep your eyes open.”

Star gave a quick nod of agreement before we began slinking into the room. My ears twitched back and forth as I listened for any signs of danger, but nothing seemed to pop up. Slowly, we inched closer and closer to the far side of the room. I felt my breath hitch as we reached the centre of the chamber.

And then I heard it.

“You are in a restricted area. Vacate immediately or you will be dealt with with lethal force!” A mechanical, synthesized voice demanded. Star and I reeled back in surprise as the floor around us seemed to split with a loud hiss of steam, making way for four elevated platforms to rise out of the ground, each one holding a massive sentry bot.

I gulped, the four sentry bots rolling off their platforms and looming over us, each one aiming their gargantuan rocket launchers at us with SATS enhanced accuracy. Each of the sentry bots were scored with scorch marks and scratches, most likely damage inflicted from the earlier groups of raiders that had been here before us. None of the damage seemed to be very bad though, more akin to blemishes than anything else.

The wall off to our right slowly pulled open, revealing a massive sentry bot at least double the size of the others, this one painted a pastel blue with rainbow streaks across its front. The huge sentry bots head, different from the rest of the robots, held a single glowing red eye in the centre that bore into us with extreme prejudice, its red illumination slicing through the thick gloom. I heard Star give a sharp intake of air as her eyes landed on the monstrous machine.

“You are to vacate immediately or you will be dealt with with lethal force!” The large sentry bot boomed again, its gatling laser wielding arms spinning up and aiming down towards us.

“They have a fucking Ultra Sentry bot! I thought those were a fucking myth!” Star shuddered, taking a step away from the looming death machine.

I grimaced. I did not like the sudden amount of firepower that was aimed at us. “Any idea how to deal with them?”

Star just gave me a wide eyed stare. “Deal with- are you crazy? You don’t just deal with an Ultra sentry bots?”

“You have five seconds to vacate or you will be exterminated!” The Ultra Sentry bot rumbled, its voice quite literally shaking the walls of the large chamber. Another large gun only a little smaller than I was popped out onto its bulky shoulder, this one looking like some sort of large missile launcher.

“Okay, okay, do you know how to hack a robot?” Star gulped, backing up into me as the Sentry bots rolled closer towards us on all sides.

I gave a hurried nod, feeling a little bit of panic rise up in me. I had faced a sentry bot before, but never more than one at once, and definitely not whatever this ultra variant was. “Yeah, but it’s usually not easy when they’re attacking you…”

“Well, looks like we’re going to have to figure it out because-”

Star was interrupted as the Ultra Sentry bot gave off a loud, aggressive beeping noise. “Intruders failed to vacate the vicinity! Lethal force engaged!”

Oh fuck! Fuck fuck fuck...

I grappled onto Star and threw both of us to the side as all five hulking robots opened fire. The centre of the chamber went up in a blinding explosion that rang in my ears as I crashed into the ground, landing heavily on top of Star as fire and shrapnel burst through the air above us. I felt bits of my hide smoulder as it was licked at by the flames.

“Do not resist, your death will only be more painful!” The Ultra Sentry bot ordered, its body rotating on its tank like legs to face us. Its twin gatling lasers span, firing off beams of deadly light that slashed at the area around us.

Star grabbed me around the waist, her wings flapping as she shot up into the air and pulled both of us out of its line of fire. One of the four normal sentry bots twisted, its rocket launcher sending a flaming projectile rocketing towards us.

Star careened in the air, narrowly avoiding the missile as it flashed past us and detonated against the roof, sending shrapnel shooting downwards. The other sentry bots began spinning to aim up at us, more rockets clicking into place as their SATS targeted in on us.

“Drop me on top of one of them!” I shouted over the sound of gunfire as the Ultra Sentry bot continued its barrage of deadly projectiles towards us.

“What! Are you insane!” Star shrieked, doing a small flip in the air to avoid another rocket. Her whole body sagged in the air a little as she tried to hold up my weight.

“Probably with the amount of times ponies ask me that,” I grumbled back, flailing my hooves a little as I struggled in Star's grasp. “Now just do it already.”

Star dodged another blast before zipping over to the nearest Sentry bot. “It was nice knowing you I guess.”

“You have such faith in my abilities.”

Star released her grip on me, letting me fall a few feet until I landed atop one of the sentry bots with a solid sounding thud. The air was forcefully pushed from my lungs as my body collided with the robot's heavy metal frame.

One of the sentry bots' large arms reached up, trying to shake me off as I clung to its back tightly. I ducked my head, its metal appendage swinging over me.

Dropping down a little, I began trying to pry open the casing on its back where I knew there was a fusion core powering the thing. If I could get to that, then maybe I could hack into it, or even better, shut the damn thing off.

“Damn it, open!” I grunted, ramming my hooves across the panel. Nothing happened.

The sentry bot lurched around, swiveling the upper part of its body so that I was facing towards the other robots. The Ultra sentry bot shifted to aim at me, its shoulder mounted rocket launcher popping open and aiming at me.

“Fuck me,” I grunted, watching as rocket burst out from the huge sentry bot and shot towards me. I leapt clear of the sentry bot I was clinging to, hoping to use the Ultra Sentry bots own attack to take a sentry bot out. Instead, the rocket changed direction mid air, narrowly avoiding the other sentry bot and once more careening towards me.

I felt my jaw drop open. “You have got to be kidding me! Those missiles are heat seeking!”

I dropped to the ground, the rocket shooting over my head. I could feel my mane whip around in the wind as the projectile flashed above me before crashing into the wall and exploding.

Star did a wide loop in the air, a minigun attached to one of the sentry bots forcing her to keep moving or risk being shredded apart. She shot up to the ceiling, her body flipping upside down so she could place her hind hooves firmly on the flat surface and kick off. She shot downwards, only just avoiding the devastating explosion of another rocket as she swooped down and scooped me back up.

“I told you that wasn’t going to work,” She berated as she tried to pull her magical energy rifle out with her mouth. “Any other bright ideas?”

I watched as the four sentry bots moved into a defensive position around the Ultra Sentry bot, their powerful weapons swivelling up to face us.

“We need to get the other four sentry bots offline somehow,” I grunted, my eyes narrowing in on the huge sentry bot in the middle. “We aren’t going to be able to do much against the Ultra if those other four keep protecting it.”

Star dipped in the air, another heat seeking rocket from the Ultra Sentry bot flashing through the air and tailing her. “Yeah right, that’s one thing to say! Quite another to do!”

“Well do you have any ideas!” I shot back, instinctively ducking my head as Star whipped past a wall, causing the pursuing rocket to slam into it and detonate across its metal surface.

“I already had one! Hack them!” She shot back, finally getting her rifle out and blasting a few shots at the sentry bots. Her lasers did little but bounce harmlessly off of their thick armour.

“Yeah, well I just tried that, but I can’t get into the wiring and fusion core in the back!” I retorted, pulling out my own weapon and firing a shot. My explosive buckshot was only slightly more effective than Star’s lasers, which was to say not at all. “They have a protective panel covering it?”

Another rocket shot out from the Ultra Sentry bots shoulder mounted launcher. Star dove mid air, trying her best to avoid it, but she was too slow. The rocket blasted against the wall right beside us, the tremendous shock wave pounding into us from the side and knocking Star right out from the air. I gave a loud grunt of pain as I was slammed into the ground, my head reeling.

The four sentry bots charged towards us, steam billowing from their backs as they raised their arms to slam down at us. I rolled to my right, one of the sentry bots huge arms crashing down next to me and indenting the floor.

I tried to scramble back to my hooves, but before I could, another sentry bot rammed into me. My breath caught as I was sent sailing through the air and crashing into the wall.

Across from me, Star dipped out of the way of a barrage of attacks herself, her eyes wide as she started dashing and swerving in the air, another heat seeking missile from the Ultra Sentry Bot once more on her tail.

She flashed downwards, landing on top of one of the sentry bots. The robot jerked about, trying to shake her. The heat seeking missile flashed towards her, fire streaking out its back as it rushed in for the kill. At the last second, Star kicked off from the sentry bot with her hind legs, shooting past the missile in a blur of lavender and mint.

Boom!

The missile collided with the head of the sentry bot, fire and smoke bursting from its form as its head was rendered into scrap metal. The sentry bot shuddered, sparking, before powering down in a burst of static.

I gave a loud cheer as I ducked away from a turrent of fire directed at me. “Yeah! Go Star!”

Star gave me a smuggish smirk at the praise. “Use its missiles to take out the other bots, we should be able to-”

“Sustaining casualties, switching tactics!” The Ultra Sentry bot chirped, its shoulder mounted missile launcher retracting into its back and its large, glowing red eye beginning to glow even brighter.

“Oh, daddy fucker!” Star shouted in frustration, ducking away from one of the Ultra Sentry Bots gatling laser blasts. “This thing can fucking adapt?”

I gave a yelp of surprise as the ultra Sentry Bots glowing eye blazed even brighter and a massive beam of blazing red light flashed out from its head. I scrambled back, just narrowly avoiding the beam as it slashed across the room, searing a straight black line through the floor and walls.

A Sentry bot charged me, its massive treads whirring as it moved in to crush me. I ducked and rolled beneath it, its large bulk barreling over me and crashing into the wall. I didn’t even get a full second before it swivelled around and dove at me again, rocket launchers firing.

I was slammed back by the explosion, my ears ringing painfully and the hide on my front slightly fried. I raised Braeburn’s Liberator up in my magic, blasting off a shot at the charging Sentry bot, but as expected, my shotgun had little effect on its powerful armour.

Star gave a yell of pain as one of the sentry bots managed to peg her in the leg with a shot from their minigun. Star collapsed to the ground, blood seeping from her body and across the floor as she scrambled backwards, trying to get clear of the approaching death machines.

“Prepare to be exterminated!” The Ultra Sentry bot rumbled, its treads spinning as it dove towards me. I gulped and jumped away, the huge machine plowing past me. As I jumped aside, I spotted the hatch on the back of the Ultra Sentry bots' back pop open to release a thick burst of steam, exposing the fusion core and wiring beneath.

“Now or never,” I grumbled to myself, rushing forwards and leaping at the large machine. I grappled onto it, my hooves frantically reaching for the exposed wiring. I just had to remember what Salt Water showed me back in the Hollow Shades… Just do what I did back at the Fluttershy Medical Centre… I could do this.

The Ultra Sentry bot lurched about trying to shake me from its back. I clung on for dear life, my hooves working as fast as I could. I felt a jolt of fear pass through me as the large hatch on its back began to slide closed again.

“Shit!” I shot my head forwards and got a big mouthful of wires before jerking my head back. A shock jolted through me as I ripped the wiring free, sparks flashing before my eyes.

“Initiating self destruct!” The Ultra Sentry bot blared, its treads slowly pulling it into the centre of the room.

My eyes went wide. Welp, I guess that did it.

I leapt from its back, scrambling over to Star as the other Sentry bots spun to fire at me. “Into the Office, now!” I shouted, wrapping my hooves around her bleeding form and pushing her towards the door leading into the office area.

Star seemed to get the idea pretty quickly, flapping her wings and shooting towards the doorway as fast as she could. I dove in after her, hunkering down behind a toppled desk.

Boom!

The Ultra Sentry bot exploded, fire and ruined metal flashing out across the central chamber in every direction. I ducked my head low and covered my neck with my fore hooves, debris and shrapnel shooting over my head.

Star whimpered across from me, cowering behind a desk herself. She quickly pulled a bunch of gauss from her saddlebag, hastily tying it tight around her bleeding leg.

The other three sentry bots were blasted apart in the explosion, tossed through the air and thrown violently against the walls. The head of one popped off, rolling across the floor to land in a smouldering heap by my hooves.

A second later, everything went still, the only sound being the occasional pop as the heated metal of the ruined sentry bots sizzled.

I gave a low grunt of pain, cautiously pulling myself out from behind cover and looking around. If the room hadn’t been a mess before, it definitely was now. “You alright?” I asked Star, trotting over and helping her up to her hooves.

Star paused, applying a little pressure to her wounded leg to try and gauge its condition. “You know, before I met you, I had never been in a fucking fight before,” Star grumbled, trotting out to look at the wreckages of the Sentry bots. “I just got to do my little Enclave science experiments and not worry about being shot dead all the time. Now, I think I’ve been shot at least four times in the last forty eight hours.”

I gave her a small smile. “Welcome to my world.”

Star just gave a disgruntled mumble in response. She looked around the chamber and towards the stairway leading deeper. “You think there are more security systems down there?”

I shrugged. “I sure as fuck hope not. We’re short on time and I don’t know how much more robots I can take.”

“Why do you think this generator room had so much security?” Star wondered allowed, poking at the smoldering remains of the Ultra Sentry bot. “I mean, you don’t just put an Ultra Sentry bot on guard for no reason.”

Curiously, my eyes scanned the office area. After a second, my gaze landed on the image of a cloud and lightning bolt inset into the far wall. “Maybe all of that isn’t guarding the generator. Maybe it's guarding this office.”

I slowly crept into the office, looking over the large desk that had once sat under the lightning bolt symbol. Star hesitated a second before following me. Her eyes widened a little as she saw the symbol as well. “Oh shit, this must be one of Rainbow Dash’s offices,” She breathed, looking around. “If the Enclave knew this was here, they’d probably burn this fucking place to the ground.”

I gave her a quick glance. “The Enclave is planning to burn this place to the ground anyway. I don’t think them finding out really matters at this point.”

Star gave a sheepish grin. “Oh… right…”

The large desks terminal had been badly shattered, rendering it completely unusable. Disappointed, I combed through the desk drawers, hoping to find anything of interest. The most I found was a bunch of ruined, badly faded documents that I had next to zero interest in reading.

“Looks like all this stuff has been pretty badly damaged,” I stated flatly, giving a disappointed huff. “Not much left for the Enclave to destroy,” I gave another annoyed grunted, giving the desk a small, frustrated kick.

Click.

My ears perked up at the almost timid sounding noise. Hesitantly, I pulled the drawers open again, pushing aside the damaged documents. Sure enough, hidden inside of a now open secret compartment, was a glowing memory orb.

“Absolutely not! You aren’t watching that right now,” Star stated bluntly, scooping it up and tossing it into her own saddlebag before I could use it. “We have a generator to turn on. No distractions.”

"But I wanna," I complained, but I gave her a glum nod anyway and followed her out as she headed back into the central chamber and down the flight of steps into the lower sections of the S.P.P. Tower.

“This looks like it,” Star said, stepping up to the massive steel door labeled as ‘Reactor Chamber’. The door wasn’t a Stable door, but it might as well have been with how large and thick it was. Just by looking at it, I could tell it must have been at least a meter thick.

The rest of the trip into the bottom floors of the S.P.P. tower had been fairly easy. There had been a few turret systems and a protectron robot, but nothing a few shots from Breaburn’s Liberator couldn’t fix. The brunt of the security had been outside of what had once been Rainbow Dash’s office, only confirming my belief that the office was the real reason for the extensive security.

“You think the Enclave has started attacking the tower yet?” I asked, glancing up at the ceiling as if it held the answers to my question.

Star glanced back at me with an ‘are you a fucking idiot’ kind of look. “I think we probably would have fucking heard them if those Raptors had decided to fire at the tower. No, we have a few minutes still at least,” She turned back to the door, looking for a way to get in.

“Do you think Plasmafire was right? That the Enclave might just ram the tower when they come back?” I asked. “I mean, that would probably spell death for all of the pegasi inside of the Raptor as well, wouldn’t it?”

Star gave a nonplus shrug. “I’m a scientist, not a war tactician or anything. How would I know? The only battle I ever played a role in with the Enclave was Friendship City. You saw how that turned out,” She gave a low, disapproving grunt. “But yeah, they might. Fucking cunts. I don’t think the Enclave really has much love for all the pegasi in their army, despite what they claim.”

I felt my brow furrow. “Never before Friendship City? What about Oasis?” I asked, feeling just a little sick at the thought.

Star gave a roll of her eyes and a small growl. “What about it? I don’t want anything to do with those slaving anus suckers,” After I failed to respond, she cautiously turned back to look at me, her previous growl now replaced by sudden worry. “Why did you just say that Amber...? What do you mean? What do I have to do with that shit hole of a town?”

I hesitated, backing up a little. “You… haven't heard?”

Star’s eyes darted around, trying to get a better grasp on what was going on. “N-no… Amber, what happened to Oasis?” There was a little bit of panic in her voice now. She genuinely had no idea.

I chewed my lip, trying to figure out the best way to proceed. “I uh… when I was in Filly, I heard that… well, I heard,” I took a deep breath, stealing myself. “I heard that the Enclave wiped the whole town off the map. Fire raining down, I think were the exact words used… That there was an Enclave scientist that told her higher ups the town had temporarily imprisoned her…” I paused again, trying to gage Star’s reaction by her suddenly very stoic expression. “I’m assuming that was you. Right?”

Star just stared at me for another long minute. After a long second of staring, she made a small croaking like sound in the back of her throat. “They… Killed everypony at Oasis…” Her lips curled a little into a snarl. “Fuck… I should have known they’d do that… I just never...” Her eyes widened a little and she glanced up at me, terrified. There was a sudden fear in her eyes I had never expected to see directed towards me. She hastily began backing away from me, her rump bumping up against the locked metal door to the generator chamber. “I had no idea they were going to do that Amber, I swear. You have to believe me, I never wanted any of that to happen!”

I raised my hoof to tell her to calm down, only to be surprised by her flinching at my movement. I quickly dropped my hoof back to the ground. “Star it’s okay, I figured you didn’t want them to do that. The Enclave is a bunch of crazy murderers. I’m not blaming you for anything.”

Star took a slow breath, but the fear didn’t seem to recede from her eyes much. “A-alright… Good. Just clearing that up… I don’t want to get on your bad side again.”

I raised an eyebrow at her. “Again?” What was she talking about?

Star’s fear dissipated slightly and she gave me a flat glare. “When you threatened to blow me up with a balefire bomb. You and Pyre can be damn terrifying when you want to be.”

“I… oh…” I had never really thought of myself as a terrifying pony. Pyre could probably make some of the braves raiders in the wastelands soil themselves if she tried hard enough, so there was no surprise there, but I was just some short pink unicorn that blushed a little too much and read way too many books. How was I supposed to be scary?

Star shook her head and turned back to the door. “The generator terminal is locked by a cloud terminal by the way. Might take me a few minutes to hack it. I’m not much of a hacking wiz like you I’m afraid. Not much reason to hack into terminals in the Enclave.”

I gave a nod of understanding, backing up a step and sitting myself down as Star got to work on the cloud terminal. Stupid cloud terminals and my inability to access them. “I don’t suppose I can watch that memory orb while you figure out the password?” I asked innocently, my eyes darting to her bag for a second. I gave her a glassy smile at the request.

Star just sighed and rolled the orb over to me before returning her attention to the wall mounted cloud.

Smirking, I picked up the memory orb and rolled it around in my hooves. “Alright, let's see what Rainbow Dash felt needed that much security.”

I was in the body of Rainbow Dash. That was made very apparent by the streaks of rainbow coloured mane that bobbed up and down at the top of my vision and the general sense of awesomeness that I seemed to have pulsing through me with every action I took.

I was sitting behind the large desk I had seen under the large lightning bolt insignia. Actually, sitting was the wrong word. Rainbow Dash was currently in the middle of doing impossibly impressive wing pushups, her senses strangely alert as she went about her physical activity.

The office area was very similar to how I remembered it, though in significantly better shape than I had seen it and left it in. The two smaller desks Star and I had taken cover behind had been placed near the doors and there was a large potted plant in each corner. A wonder bolts poster I hadn’t noticed before hung from the wall beside us.

The sound of voices drew Rainbow Dash’s attention from her wing ups to the door.

“I’m telling you Silver Ace, it is a bad idea,” The voice of Rarity soothed, though there was a sharp edge to her voice. “I don’t know how you found out about this, but I’m afraid it isn’t something I am interested in helping you in.”

A second later, both the elegant form of Rarity and the aged form of Silver Ace trotted into the office, the white ministry mare a few paces ahead of the older silver stallion. Rainbow Dash flapped her wings and shot up into a sitting position at her desk, giving them both a quick smile, through her eyes narrowed a bit when she turned to face Silver Ace.

“Rarity, what brings you to my awesome new tower?” Rainbow asked, with a smug quirk of her eyebrow. Her head tilted a little to point at Silver Ace. “And what’s with your company.”

Rarity almost looked relieved to see Rainbow. “Ah yes, your new office is quite lovely darling, though perhaps it could use a little more decor,” She hesitated for a second, her eyes darting to Silver Ace for a second. “Silver Ace and I were just having a bit of a disagreement. He was on his way out.”

Silver Ace cocked an eyebrow. “Rarity, we can’t just ignore this. This could be a massive breakthrough for…” He coughed a little, taping the talisman on his vest and letting a faux magic aura glow around something in his saddlebags. A second later, a file was drawn from his bag and placed down on the table. The file, I quickly noted, bore the Stable-Tec logo on the front, only its centre displayed the image of the mare on the moon. The Symbol for the Utopia Program, I thought to myself curiously.

“I’m not ignoring it Silver Ace, I am refusing to accept it,” Rarity stated. “I have had this discussion with Applejack and we both decided that this was not a path to go down.”

“Did ah here my name?” A southern voice announced. Every pony turned, making out Applejack at the doorway into the office.

Rarity smiled. “Indeed you did. Come on in. Silver Ace is just heading out,”

Silver Ace looked back and forth between the three mares for a second, before nodding and heading for the door. “As you wish. But we will be having this conversation later. At a time that conveniences you, of course.”

As soon as the silver buck was gone, Rainbow turned to Rarity. “What was that all about?”

Applejack nodded, trotting in to stand next to Rarity. “I’d like ta know myself. I reckon I’ve never seen Silver Ace that insistent ‘bout anything before.”

Rarity grimaced, turning to face Applejack more directly. “Do you remember that conversation we had about making… uh… Stronger power Armour.”

Applejack’s eyes narrowed. “Yes. I do.”

Rarity gave a sheepish smile. “It might have been about that…”

I was surprised to see Applejack actually growl a little. “I told ya to stop with that. No Soul Jars, ya hear me.”

Rainbow Dash glanced back and forth between them in confusion. “Soul Jars? What are those?” She smirked a little. “They sound awesome.”

“Now don’t you start worrying about those Rainbow. They aint awesome, and Rarity shouldn’t even be considerin’ them,” Applejack retorted. “I can’t believe I’m needin’ to hear about these again.”

“Well, I know that Darling,” Rarity said bluntly, flipping her mane a little. “And I assure you, there will continue to be no more-”

Applejack raised an eyebrow. “More?”

“There won’t be any,” Rarity amended. “Silver Ace on the other hoof has become somewhat fascinated with them. You know how he gets with magic.”

Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes. “Oh I know. That pony is worse than Twilight. I don’t think I’ve even seen him without his nose in a spell book.”

“Exactly my point,” Rarity nodded. “He wants to stick his nose in magic related things that he shouldn’t be knowing about. Apparently he already asked Luna about them and she turned him down.”

Rainbow Dash crossed her fore hooves in front of her, growling a little. “I don’t trust him. I know Twilight says he really is trying to help, but that pony gives me the creeps. Just can’t place my hoof on it.”

Applejack held up a hoof questioningly. “Hold up there partner. Now I’m not sayin’ I trust the buck, but I ain’t never seen him do somethin’ I don’t right agree with neither.”

Rainbow and Rarity exchanged a knowing look. After a long, uncomfortable second, they returned their gaze to Applejack. “Rainbow and I have had our suspicions for a while,” Rarity informed him. “We think he might have played a hoof in Zebras getting the Mega Spells.”

Applejack looked genuinely stunned. “Now what are you two goin’ on about? Y’all both know Fluttershy was behind that. Now I ain’t sayin’ I agree with what Fluttershy did, but Y’all know just as well as I that she did it for good reasons. Silver Ace got nothin’ to do with that.”

Again, Rarity and Rainbow exchanged a glance. “That’s what we thought too, but a report from Dazzling Souvenir over at Fluttershy’s medical centre gave us reason to believe that Silver Ace might have tossed the idea her way a couple times… planted the idea, you know.”

Applejack frowned. “You sayin’ Silver Ace coerced her?”

Rarity hesitated. “Well, not exactly. I feel Fluttershy would have done so anyway. We think Silver Ace might have just sped up the process,” she hesitated for another second, thinking things over. “You can’t say you don’t think it’s awfully suspicious. First he turns down a position as a teacher at Luna’s school only a day before it gets bombed, then he plays a theoretical hoof in zebra’s getting mega spells.”

“Not to mention Pinkie’s pinkie sense goes crazy around him,” Rainbow Dash added. “Since when has she ever been known to be wrong about these kinds of things?”

“I didn’t say it wasn’t suspicious,” Applejack firmed. “But that don’t mean he’s guilty of nothin’. Tensions were already pretty high at Luna’s school when he rejected that position and you know just as well as me that there ain’t no real evidence about his involvement in zebra’s gettin’ mega spells.”

“But what about-” Rainbow started, but Applejack quickly cut her off.

“And much as I’d love to arrest every folk Pinkie thinks is going to blow up the world, a twitchy tail ain’t going to hold up in any court. Pinkie already had Cheese Sandwich investigate him and he didn’t find anything,” She paused, looking back and forth from Rarity to Rainbow Dash. Applejack took a second to look behind her, making sure that no pony was there, before looking back. “Besides, yer going ta need some solid evidence if you want to place claims like this on the director of the Institute.”

I could feel a devious smile worm its way across Rainbow Dash’s features. “You sound like you have some sort of plan.

Applejack gave her a small smirk in return. “Ah do. You want to prove Silver Ace is up ta somethin’ he right shouldn’t be up to? I know where you can catch him.”

Rarity leaned in, smiling, as if eager to hear the latest piece of gossip. “Oh? Do tell?”

“Every five moons, Silver Ace sneaks out of the Institute through my MWT Hub. I didn’t think nothin’ of it at first, the pony needs to go home eventually after all. But then I find out he don’t arrive home for quite a few hours later. There is a two hour gap where no pony in the whole city knows where he is.”

I felt more than saw Rainbow furrowed her brows in thought. “Maybe he trots to his apartment instead of taking a wagon.”

Applejack smirked. “I figured that at first too, but I was curious. I don’t trust that buck just as much as y’all. One day, I chose to have a sprite bot follow him at a distance-”

Rarity gave a lady like gasp and put a mock hoof to her lips. “Applejack, how scandalous!” She smirked, batting her eyes a little.

“Yeah, and I feel right awful about it too,” Applejack said. From her tone, I didn’t doubt her for a second. “But you two want ta know what I found?” She paused, letting her rhetorical question hang in the air. “Silver Ace has been meetin’ up with somepony in that old abandoned building on Puddinghead Street. You know the one, with the big billboard of Fluttershy on top. He’s been meeting with some mystery pony there once a week.”

“Maybe it’s a secret lover?” Rarity said, snickering a little.

Rainbow Dash gave a low snicker as well. “A secret lover? That egghead? I don’t think so.”

“Well, if it is a lover, Silver Ace really doesn’t want them to be found out, meeting in dark places like that and such,” Applejack retorted. “But I’d put my bits in some sort of accomplice. For what, I don’t know, but if Silver Ace is hiding something, I reckon that’s where we’ll find it.”

Rarity gave a low purr. “Then how about we set up a little Stakeout? Find out what’s really going on, once and for all.”

They all exchanged worried looks for a second, then they all grinned. It was a plan.

I came out of the memory orb feeling very curious. I had just found a possible lead on Silver Ace’s true intentions. With any luck, and time permitting, I’d have to look into finding this abandoned building they were talking about. Of course, most every building in Manehattan looked abandoned these days, but it was a start.

I lifted my head to look around. Star had successfully hacked into the cloud terminal and unlocked the massive door into the generator Chamber. Through the now open door, I could see her typing away at another cloud terminal, this one attached to a massive looking machine.

I trotted into the room, my breath being taken away by how enormous the chamber was. The large generator in the centre of the chamber was far bigger than any generator I had ever seen, towering at least ten feet above my head.

Star glanced over at me as I moved into the room. “Finally out of that orb huh? I’m trying to get the generator up and running, but I can’t seem to figure out the problem. Everything seems to be in order. The Generator doesn’t seem to be broken in any way. It just won’t start.”

I gave her a smug smirk. “Have you tried turning it on and off again?”

Star glowered at me and rolled her eyes. “You’re hilarious. A real comedian, Amber Aura. Now help me figure out what the actual fucking problem is!”

I trotted around the outside of the generator, looking for issues. Star had been right, nothing looked particularly out of place.

“You don’t suppose it just ran out of power, do you?” Star asked, her eyes still glued to the terminal. “You know, like what we were talking about earlier with power system failure and all that?”

I shook my head. “I don’t think so. I read about this pretty extensively when I was a filly. Balefire reactors should have a five hundred year lifespan. There should be a good three hundred years left on this thing.”

Star smirked at me. “When you were a filly? What, were you reading the complete book of arcane tech when you were five just for fun?”

I blushed a little. “I was four and it was the complete books of advanced wartime technological advancements Volumes one through five… but yeah, it was pretty fun to read.”

Star just chuckled and shook her head, returning her gaze back to the cloud terminal. "And the ponies up in the Enclave called me an egghead."

I did another lap around the large reactor, my eyes scanning for issues. Again, I saw nothing. Then my eyes caught on a large cord, thicker than my hoof, trailing out across the floor. My eyes followed it for a second, finally landing on what I was pretty sure was the source of our issues.

Five seconds later, the generator crackled to life, arches of blazing blue energy leaping back and forth across the top of the massive machine as it powered up. Star jumped back a little, eyes wide and surprised. “What the- how did you-” She looked up, taking in my smug expression. “Don’t tell me you turned it on and off again and it just worked,” She groused.

I smiled and shook my head. “Nope, but I did try plugging it in.”

Star hoof planted. “You have got to be fucking joking me…”

A progress bar popped up on the cloud terminal. I huddled close to Star, looking it over as it slowly began powering up. “Thirty Minutes until Power is restored,” The flickering screen said.

“Thirty minutes,” I mused, reading it over. “Can’t it just load up nice and fast? Get it done with?”

Star rolled her eyes at me. “Brisk’s stupidity is rubbing off on you. You want to rush a balefire reactor? B A L E F I R E! You realize these can go fucking boom, right?” That hadn’t been mentioned in my readings, though I suppose it shouldn’t have surprised me. Typical ministry of image and censoring all the actually important facts.

Boom!

Speaking of things going boom... Star and I stumbled as the whole tower shook. I grasped onto the wall of the chamber, trying to keep my hoofing as a small chuck of the ceiling collapsed down beside me. “What the fuck was that!” I shouted, still feeling slightly shaken.

Star growled, glancing up at the ceiling above us, her wings flaring. “What do you think? The Enclave just started attacking the tower. We're out of time.”

I grimace. Shit, that was really bad. We still had thirty minutes until the Generator was able to get the city's defences back on. That was thirty minutes where we were likely going to be in a lot of trouble.

“We need to get up there, fast!” I shouted, moving towards the large doorway.

Star didn’t follow me immediately, still quickly typing away at the cloud terminal. “Give me just a second… where is it… there!” She exclaimed, tapping a few keys. She spun around, moving towards the door. “We’re good. I just set the city's defences to fire on the Enclave’s Raptors when they do get back online. When the generator boots up, the Enclave is going to be in for one hell of a surprise.”

We burst out into the main marketplace of Dashite City. The whole market area had burst into Chaos. Pegasi sporting the silver combat armour of Dashite city rushed back and forth alongside teams of bloody looking raiders, guns blazing towards the large entryway as swarms of Enclave soldiers tried to push their way into the city. I watched a few raiders dissolve into sparkling ash as a squadron of Enclave troopers swept through the doorway, magical energy rifles flaring with deadly light.

A group of screaming pegasi rushed past us, cowering for cover as three Enclave soldiers dashed over head. I quickly jumped in front of them, Braeburn's Liberator blasting off a round of buckshot and blowing the wing off of one of the assailing armoured pegasi.

The other two pegasi turned towards me, eyes enraged as their lethal weaponry charged to blast me to bits.

Blam! Blam! Blam!

A flurry of bullets slashed through the air past me, filling the two Enclave troopers with holes and sending them crashing to the ground. I could hear one of their necks snap as they thudded against the now bloodstained floor.

I turned around, spotting Brisk as she stumbled towards us, his minigun blazing as he warded off a group of Enclave troopers and gave the fleeing residence of Dashite City some cover. “I see you’re back!” Brisk shouted to Star and I over the booming gunfire. “Did you get the power back on!?”

I nodded, ducking down to avoid my head being blown apart by a blast of searing energy. “The reactor is back on, but it's going to take some time to charge up. How long do you think we will be able to defend the tower?”

A loud booming sound once more shook the tower, I glanced up, watching in terror as a huge beam of energy lanced through the massive spire. I heard screams as the blast from the Raptors enormous cannon vaporized countless ponies.

Brisk jumped out of the way as a large section of roof collapsed down above us. He rolled back to his hooves, grimacing. “Not long. Jinx and the las Pegasus Dragon are outside stalling two of the Raptors, but that still leaves us with two Raptors to deal with, and this tower wasn’t designed for an assault of that scale!”

Star swooped around in the air, dodging a blast of magical energy fire as a few Enclave ponies spotted her and began to give pursuit. “But how long!?”

Brisk let his minigun roar, tearing apart the Enclave chasing after Star. “Maybe ten minutes. Fifteen if we're lucky.”

I winced. That wasn’t enough time, not by a long shot. I whipped around, dodging another blast. “Where is Pyre and Xayah?” I fired off a blast from my shotgun, blasting apart the head of an Enclave soldier that shot through the doorway.

“Xayah is on the second floor helping get ponies to safety,” Brisk informed me, taking a few steps back as the Enlcave’s fire forced him to retreat a little. “Pyre is with Mirra and Razor Blade on the top floor. That’s where the real fight is!”

This wasn’t the real fight? Fuck me…

“Get those fucking doors closed!” I heard Magazine’s calculating voice shouting from off to my left. I looked over, spotting the leader of the Las Pegasus Operators as she and another large group of raiders began trying to push the large doors closed. A few Dashite City guards moved into a defensive position around her, their assault carbines firing as they tried to drive back the Enclave.

An Enclave soldier shot overhead, their magical energy rifle firing off a few shots towards Magazine. I heard the raider boss give a loud, angered shout of pain as the searing beam shot through her side, dropping her to the ground.

“Keep getting those ponies to safety!” I shouted to Brisk as I darted forwards, Star on my tail as we rushed forwards to help the raiders trying to close the door. My magic swept up an assault rifle off the ground from a fallen Dashite City guard and I spun it to face skyward, sending off a stream of bullets towards the encroaching Enclave. I heard a few yells of pain as the bullets ripped through a few of the pegasi’s bodies, dropping them to the ground.

Up ahead, I saw Magazine slowly pulling herself back to her hooves, her large, saddle mounted gatling laser flaring with life and shooting down the pegasi that had shot her. Her deadly lasers flashed through the air, pushing the Enclave back a little.

Star and I pulled up beside the Raider boss, adding our own bodies to the weight against the door as we worked to slam it shut. “Are you alright!?” I asked Magazine, raising my voice to be heard over the din.

Magazine just gave me a grim grunt. “I’ve been worse, admittedly,” Her lips twisted into a snarl and she blasted another Enclave soldier from the sky with a terrifyingly accurate shot from a side mounted sniper I hadn’t noticed she even had. “Now get the fucking door closed!”

We had almost got the door shut when a burst of flame shot through the entryway, washing over two Dashite City guards and making them go up in a frenzy of flames. Three Enclave Tartarusfire Troopers smashed their way into the marketplace, their deadly incinerators flaring and sending the wooden structures lining the walls of the marketplace up in flame.

I reeled back from the door, my new assault rifle blaring as I bore down on the Tartarusfire Troopers. The shots ricocheted off their thick armour, but left them otherwise unharmed. My assault rifle clicked on empty and I quickly tossed it aside, making room for five Dashite City guards that quickly took my place in the assault.

Two disciple Raiders rushed the Tartarusfire Troopers, their unbelievably sharp knives carving away at the impressive power armour. One of the Tartarusfire Troopers reared up, stomping one of the disciple ponies head flat.

A Pack hellhound leapt out from behind me, their huge claws tearing into one the Tartarusfire Trooper and ripping their armoured head straight from their body in a burst of gore. But it was too late. The damage was done.

Five Enclave pegasi shot into the market area, dozens of plasma grenades dropping from their saddlebags and clattering to the floor around our hooves. Magazine’s eyes shot wide. “Get away from the doorway! NOW!”

I grabbed onto a Dashite City guard and threw myself as far from the door as I could. I hadn’t yet hit the ground when the grenades exploded.

I was thrown across the room, slammed into by the massive force of the deadly plasma grenades explosive shockwave. My vision flared with green as the explosives burst apart, deadly energy and shrapnel blasting out at us from every direction. Ponies screamed, some of them jumping for safety while others had their bodies rent apart in the explosion, blood and tattered limbs flying through the air.

I rammed into the ground, my vision spinning and my already painful headache amplified by a piercing ringing sound in my ears. I coughed, blood splattering from my mouth as I took heaving breaths.

The Dashite City Guard I had tried to save screamed out in pain, their body riddled with burn marks and shrapnel wounds. I rolled off of them, my mind still spinning and foggy as I started trying desperately to tend to their wounds. But there was nothing I could do, there was just too much blood. A shot to the head from an Enclave energy blast put him out of his misery before I could do much.

More and more Enclave pegasi began dashing into the marketplace. I scrambled back on trembling legs as their weaponry rained down at us from above. I saw a mare that had had half her face blown off in the blast turned to ash as a shot from one of the Enlcave’s energy weapons lashed through her throat. A filly screamed as another blast from an assailing Raptor flashed through the building, their small body violently being ripped apart, their head rolling across the floor to stare up at me with glazed over eyes.

“Amber! Amber, we need to move!” Star shouted at me, her voice jolting me into action. I shook my head, pushing myself back up and turning to face the Enclave as they poured in through the door. There was no stopping them from entering the tower now.

“Fall back!” I heard Magazine shouting, her gatling laser blazing. I turned, seeing the cybernetic raider boss stumbling towards the stairs leading to the next level of the tower, one of her mechanical hind legs rendered to slag from the plasma grenade blast and blood dripping from a deep gash on her brow.

Raiders began pulling back from the doorway at her command, their hooves backpedaling furiously as they made their retreat while returning fire to the Enclave. A few more raiders fell to the Enclave’s fire, dissipating into glowing ash as the Enclave’s beams slashed through them.

Brisk stumbled over a few corpses to stand beside me, his minigun deterring any Enclave from getting to close. “The civilians are safe!” He shouted, his own gun almost drowning out his voice. “They have been evacuated to the second level! We need to get there too if we want to live through this!”

I nodded, dodging another blast as I used Brisk’s cover fire to get out of the Enclave’s lines of fire.

The doors into the city burst open further, making way for two pegasus pulled Enclave war wagons. The large turrets mounted to the tops of the wagons strafed across the marketplace, basting apart some of the few intact shops and riddling more raiders full of holes.

Magazine stumbled past her fleeing raiders towards the open doorway, her powerful sniper cracking off a few shots. One of her shots blew out the brains of one of the pegasi pulling the war wagons, sending the whole vessel crashing into the floor. Fire flared across my vision as the whole wagon burst apart, the pegasi inside screaming as their flesh was shredded and burned away.

I pushed forwards, moving towards the large staircase. A few hellhounds had already made it to the stairs, turning to give us all some cover fire as we raced to escape the Enclave’s onslaught. One of the hellhounds flashed out with its claws, ripping an Enclave soldier out of the air and tearing off their wings. The Enclave Soldier fell to the ground, screaming as another Hellhound bore down on them, massive claws ripping into their stomach and violently disemboweling them.

“Get up the stairs! Go go go!” I heard a Dashite City guard shouting from the stairway, frantically gesturing for us to follow him up with a hoof. His orders were cut short as another blast from the Enclave Raptor ripped through the building, falling debris crashing down and burying him under an immense pile of rubble.

I glanced behind me as I finally reached and started rushing up the steps, Star and Brisk only a few steps behind me. Magazine had stopped a few steps behind us and turned to face down the Enclave’s forces as they charged after us. Her gatling laser was at full charge, a flurry of deadly beams lancing out from her gun as she shot down pegasus after pegasus. “Magazine! What are you doing!” I shouted, “You’re going to get yourself killed!”

Magazine glanced back at me for a second before returning her gaze to the Enclave, growling. Her sniper shot down the second Enclave war wagon before she finally pushed herself back, hobbling towards the stairs as fast as she could.

An Enclave Tartarus Fire Trooper rushed her, their huge flamer blazing with flickering firelight. Magazine dodged out of the way, her sniper blowing a hole in the pegasus’ leg as they stumbled past them. The Tartarusfire Troopers tail slashed past her, the burning blade on its end searing the hide from Magazine's side and ripping a large gash through her body.

Magazine screamed, spinning around and bucking at the Tartarusfire Trooper. To my surprise, her powerful cybernetic fore hooves actually crushed the pegasus’ helmet, shattering the Enclave troopers skull inside.

Braeburn’s Liberator fired off a round of Buckshot, giving Magazine some cover as she stumbled the last little bit of the way to the stairs. I went to fire again as a squadron of Enclave soldiers swooped down at us, only to find my gun empty. I gulped, jumping back as magical energy slashed at the steps I had just been standing on.

“Move it! Go!” Magazine snapped at me, her damaged limbs carrying her up the steps with shocking speed. I spun on my hooves, racing up after her. More Enclave soldiers flew towards us, deadly beams of light slicing through the air and blasting at the ground around us as we raced up the steps.

I saw a large steel door a few steps away, the entryway onto the second level of Dashite City. I grit my teeth, putting on a quick burst of speed as I charged through the doorway. Magazine stumbled after me a second later, two Dashite City guards rushing to slam to doors closed the second she was through.

“I want all hooves defending those doors!” Magazine shouted, limping into the centre of the room, blood spilling down from the deep gash in her side. “We’re about to get company in a second!”

As if to prove her point, a strong force pounded against the thick steel doors, shaking the whole room. Raiders and security ponies rushed forwards, barricading the doors and raising their weapons to fire if the dam broke.

Another loud boom shook the building, one of the Enclave Raptors blasting a deadly beam of fuchsia light through the tower. A massive whole was ripped into the wall of Dashite City, letting the diffused sunlight stream in. Through the hole, I could see the Las Pegasus Raiders dragon engaged with one of the Raptors, every few seconds, the air would fill with huge jets of fire as the massive dragon opened its maw and unleashed its furry upon the large airship. Not far past the dragon, I could also see the immense form of Jinx flying circles around another Raptor, her claws occasionally slashing out and ripping chunks from its metal hull.

The Enclave were a force to be reckoned with, no doubt about that, but at the very least we had some pretty deadly allies of our own.

Outside, a few Enclave soldiers began flying for the gaping whole in the wall, but were quickly steered off as a large group of hellhounds blocked their path, arm mounted energy weapons blazing with light. I saw one Enclave trooper dissolve into a glowing pile of goo, sloshing down to the ground below as the other pegasi dove for cover.

“Magazine, reinforcements are on their way,” A disciple raider shouted, rushing towards the badly bleeding leader of the Operators. The Shackles and the Flesh rippers should be entering the Strip in a few minutes.”

“And the Queens?” Magazine pushed, whipping a drizzle of blood from her face. “Are they as I asked?”

The disciple nodded, though he snarled a little. “Yes. They have been put in charge of Freeside. They have sent a few Securitrons to help take out Enclave ground troops.”

Magazine finally nodded, looking a little relieved. “Good. We might just make it through this,” She turned, looking over at Star and I. “I see you are both back alive. Surprising, but not unwelcome. Report on the status of the city's defences?”

“The reactor is up and running, but we’re still going to need to hold out a few minutes while the defences boot up,” Star said, swooping over to the raider boss. She looked over her wounds, only looking a little worried. “Do… do you need medical help?”

Magazine smirked, tapping a metal hoof over her chest. “Healing talismans. I’ll be fine in a few minutes,” She answered. Her voice was pained, but she seemed fairly confident she would heal. Star nodded in response, though I could tell she was uncertain.

The steel door shook again as the Enclave soldiers on the floor below rammed against the blockade. I heard a few grunts of pain as the raiders put all they had into keeping the doors shut. “This isn’t going to hold them for long!” One of the Dashite City guards shouted, his gun trembling in his mouth as he put all his weight into keeping the doors shut.

“Hold steady!” Magazine retorted, huffing a little. “We just need to hold out a little longer!”

“More Enclave incoming!” A Disciple shouted, firing off a shot from an impressive looking bayoneted revolver.

I turned, spotting a team of Enclave Pegasi making a rush for the large hole the Raptor had rented into the wall. I heard civilians screaming as the Enclaves magical energy weapons blazed, forcing the Hellhounds that had formed a defensive line at the wall to dive for cover before they could return fire.

I dove for cover myself, beams of light flashing over my head as the Enclave’s fire strafed across the room. One of the Enclave Troopers flashed into the room, their hooves crashing down to the ground in front of me and their deadly weapons aimed at my head.

Blam!

I winced as a shot ripped through the Enclave ponies visor, blood spewing out a hole ripped into the back of their helmet. Their body crumpled to the ground with a thud, blood spilling across the floor towards me.

I grinned, looking in the direction that the shot had come from. There was only one zebra I knew that could make a shot like that.

Xayah bounded over to me, moving up beside me and ducking down as more beams of light slashed through the room. She planted a quick kiss on my cheek. “I see you are alive and well you foolish pony.”

I gave her a smug looking smirk in return. “Did you suspect otherwise? I hope I didn’t disappoint.”

Xayah matched my smirk. “As if you could disappoint.”

“Do you too always need to flirt in the middle of combat?” Brisk asked, pulling up beside us, his minigun whirring to a stop and smoke wafting from its red hot barrels. “I feel like there are better times for that.”

I stuck my tongue out at him. “You’re just jealous.”

Brisk flushed just a little. “I am not.”

Star dove into cover beside us as well, her magical energy rifle firing off a final shot before she ducked down and had to reload. “What’s Brisk jealous about?”

Brisk’s flush became a full on blush. “N-nothing! I'm not jealous! I'm not!”

I opened my mouth to give a snarky response when our cover was blasted away by the explosion of a plasma grenade. I stumbled forwards, trying to keep my balance as the whole area around me seemed to spin end over end. I landed with a thump on my head, groaning.

Xayah quickly rushed to me, her large anti-material rifle blasting off an Enclave Trooper that swooped in to attack me. She quickly moved to help me when another beam of light lanced out from one of the Enclave Raptors, fuchsia flames bursting across our vision and making the whole tower slant.

Brisk stumbled out from cover to stand next to a group of Dashite City guards, his large gun firing a barrage of bullets towards a few Enclave ponies that tried to take advantage of the Raptors attack. Two more guards fell as streaks of light sliced through them, turning them to glowing ash.

“Get the civilians to the next floor!” I heard Plasmafire shouting over the deafening onslaught. Until that point, I hadn’t even realized she had been fighting amongst us. “We need to get them to safety, now!”

“No!” Magazine roared back, her gatling laser spewing beams. “We defend this location. The Enclave will just trap us up there. The higher we go, the bigger the advantage they are going to have!”

“If we stay here then we’re all going to die!” Plasmafire shot back, her weapons blazing with light as she warded off a few Enclave troopers. “We can’t hold out against this kind of fire!”

Magazine gave off a loud scowl, audible even over the gunfire. “We stay here Plasmafire! Hold position! We’re dead either way, but we die faster up there! We need to stall for time!”

My gaze was ripped from the arguing mares to a booming roar that echoed across the Las Pegasus Strip. My eyes widened as I watched one of the Enclave Raptors blast a beam of energy point blank into the Las Pegasus Dragon’s chest. The Dragon roared as the beam slashed through it, blasting out organs and ripping its ribcage apart. It’s wings beat furiously as it tried futility to get in a final attack on the Raptor before it began crashing towards the ground. The dragon's large body collided into one of the casinos below, sending the structure up in a burst of fire and smoke.

“Shit,” I heard Magazine utter, her eyes transfixed on the broken form of the fallen dragon. “We’re in some serious shit now…”

The Raptor that had shot down the dragon began to turn, its massive guns shifting to lock onto the huge darting form of Jinx. Even from here, I could see the sphinx’s eyes widen as they were confronted by the massive amounts of firepower. The Raptors fired, blazing beams of fuchsia flame ripping through the air towards Jinx. Jinx began to dip and swerve in the air, doing all she could to keep from being blown to pieces.

I jumped back as an Enclave soldier rushed at me, their saddle mounted weapons flashing with light. I raised my quad-barrel shotgun in my magic, knocking aside a beam of deadly light frantically before ramming the firearm against the charging pegasus’ head. The pegasus staggered in the air, thrown off by the sudden beating. A second later, a well aimed shot from Xayah’s rifle dropped them dead to the ground.

“We aren’t going to be able to keep this door closed much longer!” I heard a raider shout from the far side of the room, their back pressed against the shuddering steel door as the Enclave soldiers on the far side continued to ram against it. “They’re going to break through any second!”

“Operators! Arm the entryway!” Magazine ordered, her gatling laser blasting a few more Enclave soldiers from the air. I noticed her wounds were now starting to patch themselves back together. A few Operator raiders began darting towards the doorway at her command, quickly beginning to plant explosives around the entryway. I wasn’t sure how much damage mines were going to do against flying assailants.

I shifted around, trying to dodge a few more blasts that were sent my way. I checked through my ammo reserves, wincing as I realized I was once again beginning to run rather low. Only five shots left, hardly enough to take out the swarms of enemies that were bursting into the tower.

My magic scooped up one of the Enclave’s fallen energy weapons and I quickly began blasting away as more Enclave soldiers descended down at me. In wasn’t used to the lack of recoil on these magical energy weapons, but I was pleasantly surprised by the damage it wrought upon those that got in front of its deadly barrel. One pegasus fizzled away to ash in the air as one of my shots lashed through them, their sparkling remains raining down around us like snow as we fought on.

“Bombs are set!” I heard an Operator raider shout. I glanced behind me, seeing the group of raiders that had boobytrapped the door quickly moving away from the armed explosives.

“Alight, form a defensive position in the middle! Around me!” Magazine shouted, quickly rushing to the centre of the room herself and shooting down another Tartarusfire Trooper that had flashed into the room before they could do much damage.

The raiders and Dashite City guards quickly obeyed, clumping into the centre of the chamber, their guns facing out in every direction as Pegasi began to swoop in from every side, though a few guards did stay behind to keep the doors shut. I moved in to join them, the rest of my friends rushing to stand on either side of me as we faced down the Enclave forces.

“Now! Away from the doors!” Magazine roared, her voice cutting over the sound of her blaring gatling laser. At her words, the last few guards maintaining the blockade leapt away from the door to join us. Not seconds after the door was clear, it burst open, making way for the huge swarm of Enclave soldiers that rushed through to meet us.

Just as the first pegasus shot through the door, the mines exploded, ripping apart the area with uncalled for firepower. I heard the Enclave pegasi scream as multiple detonations ripped them apart. Fire flared across the room, black smoke swirling through the air and filling the room with an impossibly thick haze. Even the light streaming through the massive hole in the wall went dark as the smoke blotted out all visibility. The Operators must have planted a few smoke bombs as well

“NOW!” Magazine yelled again. The air around us was suddenly filled with glowing beams of light slashing through the dark haze as Magazine and her Operators opened fire. I heard howls and roars as the Pack Hellhounds tore apart Enclave pegasus after Enclave pegasus, using their powerful sense of smell to navigate through the smoke.

I shot off a few beams of my own from my magical energy rifle. Blinded by the smoke, I couldn’t see much, but I heard a few screams as my weapons turned a few pegasi to ash. Beside me I could hear the loud cracks of Xayah firing her powerful rifle and the booming whir of Brisk’s minigun as his massive firearm barraged the shrouded air around us.

The thick fog only lasted for a minute, but when it finally cleared, most of the Enclave ponies in the tower lay dead. I looked around, watching as the last few Enclave pegasi either fled or were gunned down by the Las pegasus Raiders. A few Disciple raiders began trotting around the room, slitting the throats of any Enclave ponies that still seemed to be breathing. They seemed to be having a lot of fun all of a sudden.

An Enclave mare missing her two hind legs and half her face pulled herself towards me, tears streaking her blood soaked cheeks as she pulled herself along. “Please… I-I don’t want to die…” She sobbed at me, her voice tremouring with pain. “I d-didn’t have any other c-choice…”

I stared at the dying mare in horror, watching as she slowly broke down before me. Not all Enclave ponies were evil. I had known this… What was I doing? Helping raiders? Were the Enclave really all that much worse than the ponies I was fighting with?

A blast from Magazine’s sniper blew out the crying Enclave mares brains. I flinched as I watched the mare slump dead to the floor, blood seeping from the large bullethole in her forehead. I looked over at Magazine as she approached me, a grim look across her face.

“Fucking Enlcave,” She scowled, her hoof reaching up and whipping a drizzle of blood from her face. I couldn’t tell if the blood was hers or somepony else's. She turned her gaze to look at me, her eyes looking startlingly insane and bloodthirsty all of a sudden, not the cold calculating eyes I had come to expect from her. After a second, the calculating look returned, but now I had a sinking suspicion that it was more of a facade than anything else.

I turned my gaze to the fight in the distance between Jinx and the two Enclave Raptors. the massive sphinx was doing her best, but even she was starting to get worn down by the deadly assault. Her razor sharp claws ripped a long gash into the metal of one of the Raptors hulls before the huge cannons of the other forced her to retreat. She swerved in the air, dipping back and forth as both Raptors guns locked on her and fired off beams of fuschia light. One of the beams struck Jinx in the foreleg and blew a massive hole through her. I could hear her screams of pain and rage from here.

I watched in terror as both Enclave Raptors loomed closer to the flailing sphinx, their weapons once more shifting to finally put her down. There was nothing to be done. I couldn’t help her all the way out there. No pony could help out there.

Then there was a strange flicker of light and Jinx’s immense form seemed to go still, her whole body changing to a light beige in colour. The Raptors cannons fired, only for the huge beams of energy to blow Jinx’s form apart as if she had been nothing more than an impressive sand sculpture, grains of sand shooting out from where she had once been in every direction.

I blinked, not exactly sure what I had just witnessed. “What the fuck…” I breathed, watching as the two Enlcave Raptors turned and started heading back towards the S.P.P. Tower to join the siege. “What just… huh?”

I could practically feel Magazine smirking from beside me. “Sphinx’s. They’re masters of illusion magic,” She said simply, watching as the two Raptors drew closer.

I let my mouth fall open a little. “So… what did I just witness exactly? Is Jinx alive?”

Magazine just rolled her eyes. “You think that the greatest raider that ever lived is going to let themself get killed by a couple of Raptors? If Jinx was dead, you’d know,” she paused, her hoof going to a small intercom resting in her ear. “Shit, I just got word from Razor Blade. He wants you up on the roof.”

I hesitated a little. “Why?”

Magazine shrugged, turning away a little and firing off another shot into one of the Enclave pegasi that lay squirming on the ground. “He didn’t say. I find it probable that Pyre wants your assistance. You think the fight down here was bad. You haven’t seen anything yet,” She looked over at Brisk, Xayah and Star who were currently helping to get more civilians to safety. “Though I would like to request that your other friends remain here. We might have survived this attack, but the Enclave is going to come back. I need all hooves on deck and they have proved quite useful to me.”

I nodded, glancing over at my friends before looking to the staircase leading to the higher levels of the tower. I could hear the loud booming of the fourth Enclave Raptor far above as it lay waste to the higher levels of the tower. Goddesses I hated big battles like this...

I pulled myself up onto the roof of Dashite City. I had thought the city's sky dock was heigh, but that had been nothing compared to the breathtaking height of the top most level of the city. All around me I could see the thick white vapours of clouds and if I dared myself to look down I could see small dots that I assumed must have been Freeside and Tent City.

The Las Pegasus Raiders had created a defensive position in the centre of the rooftop, a large, purple magical energy bubble shield having been erected in the centre of the group to ward off the Enclaves attacks. Pegasi and war wagons flashed around in the air, some shooting down at the raiders in the bubble shield while others sparred and grappled with a large force of Dashite City guards that had formed a defensive circle around towers roof. Huge turrets had been set up in a perimeter around the bubble shield, blasting furiously away at any Enclave pegasus that got within range.

The huge Enclave Raptor wasn’t far from the tower either, every few moments was punctuated with a loud boom as its huge cannons fired at the raiders within the force field. Large swarms of Enclave soldiers flew around the dark airship, likely trying to make sure another Raptor didn't get blown from the sky.

To my surprise, Jinx herself was on the roof as well, bunkering under the protection of the shield as her wounds slowly patched themselves over. She was glaring up at the Enclave Raptor with malice, her lips twisted into a violent scowl. The large sphinx spotted me and gave me a smug little wink before returning her attention to the Enclave.

“Amber! Over here!” I heard Pyre shout, gesturing for me to get into the cover of the magical energy shield. I dashed forwards, pulling myself through and moving to stand next to Pyre. I felt a weird sensation pass through me as I rushed through the shield, a strange static shock shooting from the tips of my ears to the end of my tail and making my mane stand on end.

Mirra hopped off of Pyre's back as I got close, wrapping me in a big hug. I could feel her trembling a little as she held onto me. Clearly all this violence had been a little too much for the small changeling.

“What’s going on?” I asked, looking up at Pyre as my power armour friend let her flamers roar, sending jets of flame streaking through the sky.

“What’s it look like!?” She snarked back, glancing down at me. “We’re trying to occupy the Enclave as long as possible until you can get your job done. Why are the city's defences not back online?”

I grimaced. “The generator is up and running, but it’s going to take a few minutes before everything fully boots back up. We’re going to need to keep stalling for time.”

Pyre glanced behind her at the two Enclave Raptors that were slowly drawing closer and closer to the tower. “When you say minutes, do you mean one, ten, twenty? As soon as those Raptors get here we’re done. We can’t hold off against that many Raptors at once, not with the dragon dead and Jinx temporarily out of commission.”

“Don’t count me out of this fight yet, Pyre Blaze,” Jinx snapped, baring her fangs. “I’m not out of this fight until that traitor Pestilence is mincemeat,” I supposed that Dashite City guard had managed to get word of what Pestilence had done to Jinx then.

I tried to count how long it had been since the reactor got turned back on, but the battle had begun to all blur together. “I’m not sure. Less than half an hour, probably more than five minutes,” I said back, realizing that wasn’t the best answer ever.

“In a fight, that is a lot of time,” Razor Blade scowled, trotting over to us. His hide had been coated in a thick layer of blood and shredded pony flesh now dangled from the barbed wire around his hooves. “We’re going to need to think of something quick or those Raptors are going to rip us to shreds.”

His statement was only amplified as the Raptor looming over us fired a blast at our protective force field. The tower shook as the blast rammed into us and I saw jagged looking cracks spider web across the force field's magical surface.

“Amber, do you think you can help maintain the force field?” Pyre send, shifting to look at me. “We need to keep it running as long as possible.”

I hesitated, glancing over at a small device in the centre of the clump of raiders that seemed to be maintaining the huge shield. “I can try… But I’ve never used tech like this before, I wouldn’t know where to start!”

“It was designed by Stable-Tec,” Pyre stated flatly. “I don’t know the details, but I think it was a prototype to make Stables more immune to Balefire radiation or something?”

My ears perked up a little and I felt myself grin. “Oh! Stable-Tec made it!? Yeah, I can probably keep it running!”

I saw Pyre smirk behind her broken visor. “That’s about what I thought,” She gestured to Mirra who was still huggin my neck. “And keep Mirra safe for me. Things are about to get real deadly.”

“We have war wagons in coming!” A Disciples raider shouted, pointing out at three pegasus pulled wagons that were quickly darting towards our position.

Jinx snarled. “Shoot those wagons down!” Don’t let them get close!”

Teams of raiders whipped around, their weapons aiming towards the encroaching sky wagons. The already booming gunfire turned to a cacophony of gunshots as the Las Pegasus raiders opened fire. I heard pained screams as their bullets ripped through the bodies of two of the pegasi carrying the wagons. The third wagons swerve in the air, the raiders bullets pinging across its side and blowing hundreds of bullet holes into the metal walls. Then the wagon shot above us, a hatch on the bottom opening up and began raining grenades down upon us.

“Grenades!” Razor Blade shouted, his grey horn glowing a crimson red as he wrapped the tumbling grenades in his magic and flung about half of them skyward. I was shocked by Razor Blade's impressive magical prowess. Then again, I suppose he was the second in command for a reason.

A few other unicorn raiders grabbed onto grenades of their own with their magic and tried to throw them back out of the bubble shield, but not all of them were fast enough. Fire flared across my vision as the shield was filled with smoke and shrapnel. I was shoved to the ground as a raiders mangled corpse was sent flying into me. Mirra gave a startled eep as she scrambled to get out from under me.

The burst of grenades bombarded the walls of the shield, another collection of cracks shooting across its glowing surface. I pushed the bleeding corpse of the raider off of me and rushed towards the shield transmitter in the middle of the group, frantically trying to keep it running as it began to whirr and spark. Mirra raced over to help me where she could, a red screwdriver clamped tight in her mouth.

“They’re coming back! Get ready!” Pyre shouted from behind me, her flamer roaring and sending another diving pegasus up in flame. I glanced up, making out the shape of the war wagon once more diving towards us, this time with the large turret mounted on top ready to open fire.

Razor Blade rushed forwards, rushing past the safety of the shield and leaping into the air, his fore hooves flashing out and grappling the diving pegasus pulling the wagon. His hooves slashed at the Enclave troopers neck, ripping apart their throat and causing blood to rain down above us. The massive sky wagon swerved in the air as the pegasus flapped their wings furiously to keep aloft before it began to crash down. Razor Blade snarled, one of his hooves goring into the pegasus’ stomach, ripping through their tough armour before reefing out a long strand of intestines.

“Shit! It’s going to hit us!” A raider howled, staggering back and looking up at the careening sky wagon with wide eyed terror as it slanted dangerously towards our location.

“Amber, get the shield to full power, now!” Pyre shouted, stepping back as an Enclave trooper shot through the magical barrier and tackled her.

I winced, fiddling with the shield transmitters controls. “There isn’t enough power! I need a bigger power source!” If only I still had my pipbuck, that would have done the trick.

Razor Blade leapt from the plummeting sky wagon, landing beside me with a loud thump. He scowled, whipping around to face the sky wagon as it picked up velocity. I wasn’t going to be able to strengthen the shield in time.

Jinx flashed forwards, her huge claws racking through the sky wagon and splitting it in two. The pegasi inside screamed as the massive claws ripped them apart.

Half of the wagon fell away below the edge of the tower, dropping beyond my line of sight. The other continued to shoot towards us, its large metal side smashing into the cracked, flickering shield.

The shield exploded, shards of glowing magic shattered and flashed out, a massive shockwave of energy smashing into us as our cover was completely obliterated. I dove over top of Mirra, protecting her with my body as the Enclaves deadly assault started bearing down on us in full. I felt a blast from an Enclave magical energy rifle graze my side searing off a layer of flesh.

Boom!

The Enclave Raptor above fired a huge beam of light towards Jinx, slashing through the large sphinx’s side and sending her toppling to the rooftop with a scream. Jinx collapsed, dark red blood spilling down her side as she collapsed.

“Damn it! Amber! Get up the fucking sheilds!” Pyre shrieked, her flamer firing at full blast as the pegasi began to close in. Two hellhound raiders fell beside her, their brains blown out by the Enclave’s weaponry. “If that Raptor gets another shot, we’re done for!”

“I need a power source!” I shouted back, rolling off of Mirra and frantically working on the device. An idea popped into my mind. “Pyre! Get over here! I need your armour!”

Pyre backpedaled, another pegasus getting burned alive as her flamer washed over them. “Pack! Cover me!” She shouted, her hooves skidding across the roof as she quickly made her way to me. “Keep the Enclave occupied while we get the shield up.”

A few hellhounds gave howls of understanding, some moving into a protective circle around Pyre while the rest began firing back with greater vigour at the Enclave soldiers.

The second Pyre was within reach of me, I quickly began hooking up her armour to the device. “You wanna explain what you’re doing?” Pyre asked, ducking as a beam of energy flashed over her head.

“Your armour runs off of a standardized fusion core, A high grade, long term balefire battery. It was used by the military and some MWT companies way back when. I encountered some robots that used them as well below the S.P.P. Tower. If I can hook it up to the shield transmitters own drained standardized fusion core, I will be able to-”

“In ponish Amber!” Pyre shot back, her hind hoof bucking out and crushing an Enclave Troopers throat.

“In short, fusion cores are standardized, I should be able to power the shield off of your armour.”

Pyre winced. “This is going to hurt, isn’t it?”

I gave her a grim look. “Yeah, this is probably going to hurt.”

Jinx raised her head from the ground, her face a bloody mat of scars and burns as a group of Enclave ponies continued to barrage her with fire. “Just get it running!” She growled, her teeth snapping out and snaring a pegasus’ wing. Her gaze shifted to the massive Enclave Raptor above. Its huge cannon was beginning to charge up, shifting to face the assembled group of now unprotected raiders. She bared her teeth at it. “Otherwise, those defences you got online aren’t going to do us much good.”

“Good luck mommy,” Mirra grimaced, taking a step back as I hooked the final part of Pyre’s armour up.

Pyre gave her a warm smile. “Since when do I need good luck.”

“One last thing,” I said, my hoof hovering over the power button. “This might ruin your armour, so you’re going to need to get a new one after this.”

Pyre growled. “Just activate it Amber.”

I gulped, my eyes glancing up at the massive cannon on the Raptor that was now downturned to face us, it's barrel glowing a brilliant fuchsia. I hated to do this, but we were out of time. I activated the shield transmitter.

Boom!

The Enclave Raptor fired seconds after the shield burst to life. Fuchsia flame flashed across the surface of the newly powered shield, causing the tower to shake and cracks to form in its magical surface, but the shield held.

Pyre screamed as electricity raced across her armour, her body spasming as she was hit by jolt after jolt of power. I watched in horror as chunks of her armour were melted to her flesh as the energy surged through its metal frame.

“Mom!” Mirra shrieked, rushing forwards to try and comfort her. I quickly grabbed her before she could get to close, bolts of energy lashing out from Pyre’s body and striking at the ground around us.

There was a burst of light and Pyre was shot backwards, dark smoke billowing from her ruined armour. She lay on the ground, moaning and twitching as the last bits of energy flashed through her body.

“The other Raptors are here!” A raider shouted, their eyes wide as the two other Raptors moved into view, cresting the top of the tower and swinging their massive guns down to face us. The first Raptor fired, its huge cannon bursting against our shield and sending even more cracks splintering across its magical surface.

Then the second Raptor fired and the shield was once more blown away, once more leaving us completely defenceless. I felt my eyes shoot wide. There was no getting the shield up again.

There was a loud clunking sound as the Raptors cannons all locked on us, their ends glowing and readying to send the whole top of the tower up in flame.

Boom!

Crimson light burst upwards through one of the attacking Raptors, blowing it apart and sending hunks for steaming, blackened metal raining down upon us. The assailing pegasi whirled around in the air, their mouths agape as they watched yet another of their huge warships get completely decimated.

The raiders and Dashite city guards quickly took advantage of the Enclaves' panic, increasing their fire and forcing their forces back.

More beams of crimson began shooting out across the Las Pegasus strip, some blasts knocking whole squadrons of pegasi out of the air while others marred the sides of the remaining Enclave Raptors. I heard another boom and yells of victory as the Enclave Raptor attacking the floors below was blown apart as well, crashing down toward the Strip and Freeside below.

“The city's defenses are back up!” I heard a few raiders cheer.

“All of them! They’re all back up!” An Operator breathed, their eyes filled with wonder as the whole Strip began to glow with light. The reactor had turned on far more than just the city's defences, the whole of the Strip, and from this height, apparently even Freeside was suddenly bursting to life as glowing neon signs and city street lamps began to buzz.

Hundreds of massive cannons began to boot up below, only adding to the already deadly firepower that was suddenly being thrown the Enclave’s way. More beams of crimson flashed past us, forcing the two remaining Raptors to retreat a bit.

“The Shackles and Flesh Rippers are in the Strip!” Another raider cheered, their assault carbine roaring. “And the Queens Securitrons are here!”

Sure enough I could see teams of raiders and robots sweeping through the streets of the Strip, ripping apart any Enclave ground troops that the Enclave had deployed to assail the smaller casinos.

“They’re retreating!” More raiders cheered, their guns firing off shots at the fleeing Enclave ponies as they did all they could not to get eviscerated by the city's extensive weapons. But the raiders weren’t fighting for their life anymore, this had become sport.

I quickly pushed my way through the cheering crowds of raiders, rushing up to Pyre. Mirra quickly trailed beside me, her eyes fearful as she looked at the steaming pile of scrap metal that encased Pyre’s charred body.

“Oh my goddesses! Pyre? Are you alright?!” I gasped, quickly rushing to pull her out of her power armor. I managed to pull a few plates free, though a lot of her armour had welded to her flesh.

Mirra reefed her helmet off of her, giving Pyre a good, deep breath of air. Pyre gasped as the helmet was pulled off of her, her whole body still shuddering a little. She gave Mirra a somewhat pained, yet still relatively calming smile. “Hey kid. Don’t worry- I’m fine… Just a little dinged up.”

Jinx slinked over to us, a few of her wounds slowly patching back together as her strange magic began to work across her body. “That was a brave move, Pyre Blaze,” The large sphinx cooed, her slitted golden eyes leering down at her. “Consider yourself fully forgiven for your transgression against the Las Pegasus Raiders.”

Pyre growled up at Jinx for a second. “I didn’t come for your forgiveness, Jinx,” She coughed a little, blood trickling down her lips.

Jinx just rolled her eyes. “You are getting it anyway,” She snapped one of her paws, drawing over a group of raiders. “Get Pyre Blaze patched up and find her a new suit of Power Armour. Something more befitting of her rank as leader of the Las Pegasus Pack,” the raider quickly nodded and rushed off, lifting Pyre up and gently carrying her off with them. Mirra hastily fluttered behind them, careful not to let Pyre out of sight. Slowly, Jinx turned her gaze to me. “You have deeply impressed me, Amber Aura. Ready yourself, tomorrow morning we leave for the Institute.”

I gave a small sigh as I stared out across the far stretch of the Las Pegasus Strip. I sat atop the creaking sky dock of Dashite City, staring out at the far reaches of sand and ash beyond the borders of Las Pegasus as the last glints of the cloud shrouded sun set below the distant horizon.

Taking a deep breath, I glanced down at Xayah who had curled up against me. She had fallen asleep a few minutes ago, which was good. We were going to need all the rest we could get for whatever came tomorrow. I on the other hoof was unable to let sleep overtake me. There was too much on my mind.

“There is no sign of Pestilence,” Jinx’s oozing voice spoke up from behind me. I cast a quick glance behind me, making out her large form watching Xayah and I from the shadows. I planted a quick kiss on the top of Xayah’s head before standing up to face the large Sphinx. Jinx was looking a lot better already, her wounds having somehow managed to fully heal. “I've had the Pack sniffing out the dead and through the wreckages. It would seem the traitor made his escape on one of the Raptors.”

I grimaced. "How is Pyre doing?"

Jinx gave a lazy shrug. "Pyre is fine. She is with Mirra now. Asleep. You will be pleased to hear that her armour has undergone a rather extensive improvement," She paused, looking me over before letting her golden eyes shift over to look at Xayah's resting form. “You should sleep. We have a lot to do tomorrow.”

“Then why aren’t you asleep?” I said back, my eyes following her as she near silently stalked up to me, resting her body down on the edge of the sky dock beside us.

“I’m a creature from before Equestria was even called Equestria,” Jinx mocked back, arching an eyebrow and letting her lips twist into a mischievous smirk. “What makes you think something like me needs to sleep?”

I raised my eyebrows a little in surprise at that. “Wait… You’ve been around since before the war?”

Jinx smiled, showing off her jagged teeth. “Long before the war, yes. Not only am I the queen of raiders, I was also the first,” She sighed, seeming almost blissful and euphoric. “Those were the good old days. I used to conquer towns, demanding tribute,” She chuckled, recalling a better time. “Back in those days, if I wanted something to be done, I could just foalnap a prince or princess or something and ponies would bend over to my will.”

I felt myself actually chuckle. "What, like those dragons in old story books and stuff? Did you make ponies answer your riddles three as well?”

Jinx gave me an amused glare. “Of course. Who doesn't love a good riddle. There is always something so very satisfying about playing the villain. It's oh so much easier than playing nice.”

My face darkened. “I suppose the apocalypse made raiding a lot easier for you.”

Jinx gave a strangely sad smile. “It did. I spent the first few years of the apocalypse hiding away in a cave admittedly, but old habits die hard I suppose.”

“You know, I’m surprised I hadn’t heard about you before,” I said, sinking down to my haunches to rest beside the sphinx. “I read a lot of history books back in Stable 25. You’d have thought I’d read about a big sphinx going around raiding towns and villages.”

Jinx's sad smile twisted into a reminiscent one. “My reign over Equestria ended long before the princesses rose to power. Mentions of my existence lay only in fairy tales meant to read to foals before bed.”

My brows furrowed. “Why? What happened?”

“A mare named Somnabula,” Jinx cooed. “Chased me from my village. I crossed her a few more times over the years that followed. I would take over a town, she would drive me out. We were rivals to the end, though somewhere along the way we also became…” She hesitated, looking for the right word. “Not friends I suppose, but I had a strange respect for her.”

My eyes widened a little as a memory nagged at the back of my head. “Oh! Somnabula!” I explained, trying to picture the small book of bedtime stories my mom had once read to me before she left the Stable. “I remember that story. She was one of the… uh- Pillars of Equestria, I think…” I smirked up at her. “The casino that you use as a throne room was named after her.”

Jinx gave a smug, toothy smirk. “Guilty as charged. I’m still not sure how I came to respect her like I did, but after she disappeared, I decided to stop raiding for a while. It was a more peaceful time back then.”

“What happened to her?” I asked. I couldn’t remember anything about her disappearing in the old stories.

Jinx looked out at the horizon just in time to see the last of the sunlight fade away and the desert beyond get cast into shadow. “There are hundreds of different stories about what happened to the pillars of Equestria. Some say they all died, others say they left Equestria and became Stars. No pony knows for sure.”

I gave her a nonplus stare. “But You know?” She had to know. Jinx somehow knew everything.

Jinx returned my stare with a cocky look. “Of course I know. A spell the power of which they cast simply doesn't get cast without the ancient beings like myself noticing,” she looked skyward, her piercing eyes seemingly cutting through the cloud layer to look at the stars beyond. “A shadow passed over the Pillars of Equestria and they faded from even my line of sight, but before the end, I saw flashes, glimpses of a darkness. Of a creature older than even I am. A pony of shadows.”

I felt goosebumps rising underneath my hide and my mane stood on end. “I… I think I’ve heard of the Pony of Shadows before…”

For the first time since meeting her, Jinx seemed genuinely surprised. “You… Have heard of the Pony of Shadows?”

I gave a slow and hesitant nod. “I, uh… yeah. In a memory back in the Hollow Shades. Luna had said that… that…” I wracked my brain, trying to remember what I had heard Luna say. “She said Starswirl the Bearded went missing facing the Pony of Shadows. That a Pony named- uh... Stygian... I think... became this pony of Shadows while in the Hollow Shades.”

Jinx gave me an impressed nod. “That is more than most ponies know. Indeed, Stygian became the ponies of Shadows, only to be banished into limbo with the rest of the Pillars of Equestria,” Jinx gave me a crooked smile. “There are many varying tales of the Pony of Shadows. Zebra tribes say it was a monster from beyond the Stars, the hound of the twilight. Others say it was a fragment of Nightmare Moon's soul after she was banished to the moon.”

“What do you believe?” I asked, craning my neck to look up at her. “Do you think it was a part of Nightmare Moon?”

Jinx scoffed. “If a pony tells you that, they're an idiot. The pony of Shadows was banished hundreds of years before Nightmare Moon eclipsed the sun.”

“So a zebra star god then?” I continued to push, my curiosity peaking. Xayah had told me a little about the zebra’s beliefs, but she hadn’t really seemed that zealous of them herself. I didn’t really know what to think.

JInx nickered. “Tell me Amber Aura, are we not ourselves beyond the stars? Equestria is capable of great evils and atrocities all on its own, look no farther than the wasteland to see that. Is it so hard to believe that perhaps some great beasts are not from the great reaches of space, but from deep within the rocky depths of Equus already?”

I just sat in silence for a long time, not fully sure how to respond to that. After a long while, I sighed. “I guess not. Sphinxes, Dragons, bombs capable of wiping out whole cities, why not ancient shadow monsters.”

Jinx smiled. “Precisely,” Her smile faded a little bit and her eyes seemed to tense up around the edges. “Amber, tell me about the Utopia program.”

I gave her a coy look. “I thought you knew all about it? That you saw it in one of your visions?”

Jinx only continued to give a smug looking smile. “My visions are more like strange dreams. Flickers and flashes of things that have not yet come. Sometimes I see what will happen as clear as day, sometimes my visions are more abstract. And sometimes the memories of what I have seen are only fleeting.”

I ruminated on her question for a second, rolling it around in my head. “It’s a big memory orb… er… its six memory orbs that make up one big memory orb actually. The memories of the six ministry mares, from a time before the war, when Equestria wasn’t plagued by war and all this bad. It was supposed to be a way to save Equestria if the war ended like so many ponies feared,” a small chill passed through me. “It was a lie. A program dreamed up by Pureblood and Silver Ace to take complete control over everypony.”

“Silver Ace,” Jinx rolled the word around with her tongue, as if trying to taste it. “Why does that name sound familiar?”

I shrugged. “The pony has been all over the place. He had his hoof in a whole bunch of different ministry projects. He probably has some secrets hidden here in Las Pegasus too,” I paused for a second, thinking something over. “Jinx, if you can see bits of the future… I don’t suppose you have any idea of how all of this will end?”

Jinx cocked an eyebrow at me as she turned her feline eyes to face me. “Is that something you actually want to know? Will what I tell you change anything? Or will you just continue to fight tooth and hoof until the bitter end?”

That gave me pause. “I guess… I guess I just want to know if all the pain and suffering I’ve had to put my friends and I through will even be worth it in the end,” I looked over at Xayah sleeping beside me before I looked back up at the massive sphinx, my eyes a little more pleading this time. “I just want to know if we will get a happy ending when this is all done. I don’t want her to die… For any of them to die...”

Jinx sighed, looking away. “I can’t tell you if you win… but I can tell you what I have seen from your fate… If that's what you really want?”

I bit my lip, mauling the thought over. “I, uh… Sure…”

Jinx gave me a sad look. “Are you sure? You can’t take it back once you hear it,” I just gulped and gave a slow nod. Jinx just continued to look at me sadly. “I see you lost forever in stone,” She finally soothed, her eyes becoming strangely distant. “I see you watching over the world, forever condemned to listen to everything, but never again able to interact with it. I see you suffering great tragedy, but at the very least, you will not be trapped alone.”

I felt a chill pass through me. “I get… turned to stone?” I remembered the story of when the princesses had turned Discord to Stone. Would something like that happen to me? Could that even happen again?

Jinx gave a small shrug. “As I said, my visions are often made from abstractions. Perhaps you will be turned to stone, perhaps being turned to stone means something else entirely. That only time can tell.”

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. That had not been the answer I had wanted to hear. “Do we win at least?”

Jinx cocked her head a little to the side. “Win what?”

I had to pause to think about that question. “Stopping the Utopia Program?”

Again, Jinx’s eyes closed and a strange melancholy seemed to wash over her. “No. The Utopia Program will launch. This I have seen in my visions repeatedly. In the coming hours, a lot of ponies are going to die.”

“So then it was all for nothing after all,” I said, a small pit of despair slowly eating away at my stomach. “After all of this, we still lose.”

Jinx let her right eye crack open a bit so she could peer down at me. “I’ll ask what I asked before again. Does knowing that change anything? Are you going to simply give up and die, let the wasteland rip itself apart and spend your final moments of freedom wallowing in failure? Or are you going to keep fighting? Even though you know that in the end, you are doomed to fail?”

A deathly silence fell over us as I thought about that. On one hoof, it was suddenly feeling so very alluring to simply give it all up, spend my last twenty four hours care free with the ponies I loved. But on the other…

“You said when we first met that the events of the coming days might play out in hundreds of different ways,” I said, letting those few words resonate into me. “Is that true?”

Jinx smiled and nodded. “Indeed it is.”

I let myself give her a shaky smile. “They I guess I’ll keep fighting. Because if I don’t, then those futures will lose any chance of being better,” I looked down at my hooves, then to Xayah as she slumped against me. “So I might be dying soon. Or turning to stone or whatever the fuck that actually means. But I might still be able to save Xayah still… and Brisk… And the wasteland and…” I paused, looking up at Jinx. I felt my eyes widen a little when I realized the enormous sphinx had simply disappeared into the night. Smug bitch. I let myself trail off and simply snuggled in closer to Xayah’s warm body as I watched the sky change to twilight.

So this was it then. The final stretch and the terrifying calm before the storm. In just a few hours, the Utopia Program was going to launch. For better or worse, tomorrow was going to be a big day for all of us.

“Yeah, I’ll fight till the end,” I told no pony in particular. “I’ll fight because if I don't, then it all really would have been for nothing…” And with those words, I finally let myself fall asleep.

Footnote: Maximum level reached

Author's Note

Fallout: Equestria Belongs to Kkat

Chapter XXXVIX: The Eleventh Hour Part: 1

“Imagine two snarling dogs, fighting over a curved bone. Perhaps the rib of their master, long dead.”

Violence.

The Wasteland was full of violence. When I had first left Stable 25, it horrified me. I could still remember the first pony I had killed as clear as day. I could remember the serrated edge of the rusted knife as I drove it upwards into the raiders skull, blood and viscera spilling down atop me. I could remember the feelings that came after. The horror, the fear, the twisting of my gut, the slow, sinking realization that in killing another pony, I had somehow managed to kill a small part of myself as well. But after two months, that violence and constant need to kill to stay alive had quickly become little more than a numbness inside of me. I had stopped looking at the blood in horror, because I had seen it enough times that it had just become another part of the Wastelands' grizzly scenery.

After the death of the ponies in Stable 25, I had almost gone mad. Rage had coursed through me as if it were my blood and I had ceased caring about the death that I left in my wake. All that mattered was that I won, who cared about the growing pile of raider corpses that I left behind me. They all had to die anyway, right? The numbness inside me had only grown to the point where I could simply stand amongst mounds of bodies, my hooves sunk deep into a pool of blood, and all I could think about was what I was going to do next.

I didn’t like violence. I felt that deep down I could say that I still hated it, despite the numbness. But it had simply become a chore. Another task that needed to be carried out before I could finally lay down and rest. The Wasteland liked to make monsters out of heroes. It liked to twist them until nothing remained of what they had once fought for. It had done that to Crank, to Red Eye. Something told me I was next on the list.

I had fought in three large scale battles now. The Hollow Shades Massacre, the battle for Friendship City and now the siege on the S.P.P. Tower in Las Pegasus. They had been horrible. Death on a scale larger than anything I had ever seen before or even imagined could have been possible. I wished never to see violence like that again. But I’d have to. More fights were coming, I could feel it deep in my bones. And this time, I wasn’t just there to help keep more innocent ponies from dying. I was the one calling the shots. I was the one bringing violence down upon the Wasteland.

I hated violence, but I was going to bring it about anyway.

Boom!

The rocket streaked across the sky and slammed into the clump of Enclave soldiers as they scrambled to reach for their weapons. A few blasts of magical energy lanced out at us as we dove towards them, but the shots did little but bounce harmlessly off the sides of the armoured hull of our war wagons.

The Enclave had never expected us, and they definitely hadn't seen us coming.

We had made our way along the streets of Manehattan, flying low to the ground and below the Enclave’s line of sight before shooting over the tops of the buildings and raining fire down upon the unsuspecting Enclave convoy. The turrets mounted atop our numerous war wagons strafed across the rooftops, ripping through the pegasi’s wings as they tried desperately to take flight and return fire.

We hadn’t even bothered returning to our own sky wagon to return to Manehattan that morning. The pegasi of Dashite city had been in possession of plenty already, and the many wreckages left behind by the Enclave in their assault the previous day had been quickly repaired by the Las Pegasus Operators and Queens. By the time we had finally woken up, the Las Pegasus raiders had assembled a full fleet of war wagons, ready to storm across the wasteland and return us once more to Manehattan to finally lay siege to the Institute.

I would have been quite concerned by the amount of firepower that the Las pegasus Raiders now had, had they not currently been working with me.

But there was one thing that we had to deal with before we took the fight to the Institute. I had seen first hoof that Pureblood was able to flood the Institute with toxins if he wanted to kill us all, and I had no doubts he would be willing to sacrifice the lives of a few of his slavers if it meant that he could launch the Utopia program. And Star had given us the perfect solution.

Another rocket streaked out from one of our war wagons, blasting appart a group of pegasi that tried to charge at us. The pegasi were blown apart, limbs and scrapped power armour flying in all directions.

I saw three armoured Enclave soldiers take to the air and flash towards us. The two on the sides wore bulker suits of power armour, their sides adorned with a massive set of twin flamers. Tartarusfire Troopers, I remembered them being called. The one in the centre was a large pegasus with a massive looking tesla cannon mounted to their sides and a suit of dark armour with golden highlights.

I assumed they must have been some sort of high ranking general.

I say ‘must have’, because only a second later, Jinx flashed out from behind her cover, her huge claws ripping all three of the deadly pegasi apart with a single swipe. Blood splattered against the dirty glass of the window I was looking out as the las Pegasus raiders quickly decimated what little remained of the Enclave soldiers.

The fight was over before it had even begun.

“Get down there and salvage as much power armour, gas masks and radaway as you can!” I heard Pyre order, her voice raising to be heard over the sound of the excited raiders. The sound of hellhound howls answered her command, and a few seconds later I saw teams of hellhounds leaping from the war wagons to the rooftop below and foraging for anything of value, their impressive scent sniffing out any radiation medication easily and their huge claws ripping pegasi corpses from their power armour.

Star had been right, the Enclave had been stockpiling a lot of radiation supplies. For once, their paranoia was proving to be very useful to us.

I turned my head, making out the shape of Pyre Blaze as she ordered around her hellhounds. Mirra sat atop her back, grinning as she watched the raiders follow her new mothers every command. What Jinx had said the night before had held true, Pyre’s power armour had undergone a very impressive upgrade. Instead of her usual T-60 Power armour, she was now sporting a modified version of some Tartarusfire Power Armour. The bulky suit of armour had been modified around the sides where the pegasi’s wings would normally go to support a massive battle saddle with two twin flamers at least double the size of her original set. The insignia of the Las Pegasus Pack had been emblazoned on her right shoulder plate and, of course, she had gotten her new armour painted with her staple hotrod design, though this time the flickering red flame design had been highlighted with a golden outline.

With her army of hellhounds and suit of imposing armour, Pyre had really become quite a menacing terror to behold. I was beyond glad she was on my side.

“It looks like we have everything we need,” Magazine stated, trotting over to us and striking a line through something on a clipboard she held in front of her with one hoof. “There were more than enough supplies down there to get us through this fight, and then some.”

“I told you there’d be enough,” Star quipped smugly, sticking her tongue out at the raider boss.

Magazine narrowed her eyes at the pegasus. “Keep talking to me like that and I’ll have your tongue removed from your mouth,” a mechanical appendage bearing a razor sharp knife on the end popped out from her cybernetic foreleg and slashed the air in front of Star’s face, slicing off a strand of her mane before she could have proper time to react. Star gave a quick eep of surprise, sucking her tongue back into her mouth before ducking back and cowering away from the lethal raider.

“You will do no such thing,” Pyre grouses, giving Magazine a sharp look. Her hooves made loud stomping noises as she clomped over to us, bringing Mirra with her. “Any word from Razor Blade yet?”

Magazine gave Star one last scowl before putting on a false smile and turning to Pyre. “I just got word. His spies say the MWT Building is surrounded by a group of power armoured Steel Ranger renegades calling themselves the True Steels. They seem to be engaged in combat with a group of ponies in white armour. Institute synths I assume.”

I felt myself nod along to her words. All of that I had already known. It must be some battle though if the True Steels had been fighting for control of the building for going on three days now.

Magazine’s eyes scanned her clipboard for a second before looking back up at Pyre. “We have heard rumours as well of a group called the Friendship Express that is supposed to be trying to take control of the building as well, though we haven’t seen any signs of them yet.”

I pulled out the lamp shaped talisman that I had tucked away into my saddle bags. “We know the Friendship Express. We can probably work out a deal with them if they show up. They shouldn’t be a problem.”

“Even still, we will be keeping our eyes open and guns loaded,” Magazine hissed back. “I do not like unaccounted for variables. If they get in our way, we’re slitting their throats.”

The war wagon we were in dove down a little so that the hellhounds scouring the rooftop could climb back aboard. A few raiders quickly moved to grab the supplies from them and started distributing them amongst our ranks. I could see a few other war wagons do the same. A Disciple raider scurried up to me and tossed me a gas mask before rushing off to give one to another.

Magazine made a small grunt as she read over the notes she had scribbled onto her clipboards. “From the sounds of it, those True Steels have some pretty extensive firepower. It’s likely we can take them, but I would advise landing and approaching on hoof. I feel a surprise attack where they have the least amount of time to shoot at us is optimal.”

“I would have to agree with your sentiment,” Xayah stated, walking up behind me. “We have faced these True Steel’s before and their arsenal is not to be ignored.”

Pyre gave Xayah a nod of agreement before turning around to face the Dashite City Pegasi pulling the war wagons. “You heard the Zebra. Get us as close to the MTW Hub as you can without the True Steels seeing us, then land us down in a safe spot.”

“We need to make a quick stop at Friendship City,” I added quickly, drawing Pyre and Magazine’s attention. “Scarlet is going to want to be with us when we take on the Institute. And something tells me I’m going to need her to help Crank kick Inferno out of my mind once I get my body back.”

“I’ll send a few Dashite City guards to pick her up,” Magazine said flatly. “Las Pegasus raiders aren’t allowed into the city, but we have managed to make trade with Friendship City through the pegasi a few times.”

As the war wagons began to bank and once more fly along the streets of Manehattan, I looked over to see Star Breeze looking out the window of the wagon, her expression forlorn as she watched the smoking pyres that had once been the Enclave Convoy.

Slowly, I walked over to her. “Hey, you doing okay?”

Star hesitated a little, glancing behind her to look at me. “Yeah… I’m fine I guess… I suppose it’s just sinking in now that there really is no going back to the Enclave for me. I already kinda knew that I guess, but now that I’ve led an attack on them directly…. Fuck… Just kinda cements the fact my old life is gone, ya know.”

I nodded, watching with her as we left the smouldering top of the skyscraper behind. “I know what you mean. For the longest time I told myself that when everything was said and done I’d go back and live out the rest of my days with my father in Stable 25. But when Stable 25 was destroyed… It’s enough to drive a pony mad…”

Star sighed, her eyes distant. “It really is. I’m starting to understand what they say. That the wasteland likes to twist what you love most…” She glanced back at her rump, looking at her cutie mark of a wrench and syringe. “I guess I’m a Dashite now… I don’t have the brand, but that’s what I am… Funny, I don’t even look up to Rainbow Dash…”

“I don’t know if you need to,” I heard Brisk comment. We both looked over to see him a few steps away from us, looking out the window, his mane whipping around wildly as the strong breeze from outside flashed past him. “I don’t think being a Dashite is about looking up to Rainbow Dash. Dashites are Dashites because they stood up for other ponies like Rainbow Dash did, not because They want to be like her…”

Star raised an eyebrow at him. “And when did you become an expert on the subject?”

Brisk just shrugged, his eyes darting back and forth as he watched the ruined Manehattan skyscrapers whip by. “I’m not, just making an observation.”

With the conversation over, I stood beside Star and spent a long moment simply watching the city of Manhattan fly by. We flashed past a massive skyscraper, notably larger than all the others. I poked my head out the window, looking up at the towering structure and the huge figurehead of a pony on the top of it. My Pipbuck gave a small chip, notifying me that the location was called the Celestial States Building.

It was strange getting the chance to travel Manehattan this way. I got the chance to find so many new locations. A shame the world was ending in a few hours, I would have loved to get the chance to explore them. Another day perhaps, if another day ever came.

After a few minutes of flying, the war wagons touched down on the streets of Manehattan, the looming skyscrapers lining the roads beside us seeming to rise higher as we descended downwards. My eyes caught on a large billboard protruding from the top of a ruined building a few miles down the street, depicting the image of a near orgasmic looking Fluttershy sucking on a bottle of Sparkle~Cola.

My eyes narrowed in on the cracked and faded billboard. There it was, the marker for the building where Silver Ace had met with somepony in secret. My last stop before we stormed the Institute. One final secret to be uncovered before the end.

As we all began piling out of the war wagon, we were confronted by a small group of Las Pegasus Disciples that had formed a defensive perimeter around the area. Razor Blade trotted forward to greet us, his hide soaked in blood as he tossed the severed head of a True Steel across the street.

“What did he do to you?” Pyre nickered, glancing at the severed head before looking back to Razor Blade.

Razor Blade grinned, showing off his bloody fangs. “Spotted us. Something had to be done before he told his superiors,” He waved his barbed wire wrapped hoof at a Disciple mare behind him. “Honestly, I did the stallion a favour. I could’ve let Dixie have him.”

“Why y'all gotta ruin all my fun?” The raider mare snickered, sticking her tongue out at Razor Blade playfully. She had a strangely mesmerizing southern sounding accent, similar to Applejacks, though much, much smoother. I was surprised to see Razor Blade flinch at her playful jab.

“What is going on with the True Steels?” Magazine asked, pulling herself from the war wagon. Three Operators moved in behind her, making sure that no pony got within range. I found it quite interesting that even among their fellow raiders, the raider bosses needed to be on guard for would-be assassins.

“There is a large blockade of them down that street,” Razor Blade informed us, pointing in the direction of the MWT Hub. “It’s an easily winnable fight, but we would still suffer casualties and we need to keep as many raiders alive for the real fight in the Institute. I hate to say it, but I would recommend finding a peaceful solution past them. Perhaps a temporary alliance.”

I grimaced. The last thing I wanted to do ever was ally myself with the True Steel fanatics. After they had desecrated the ruins of Stable 25 and melted the ponies in there into fuel, I felt justified in believing the only good True Steel was a dead one.

Then again, I was already working with Raiders… How much farther could I really fall? Or had I already fallen as far as I could?

There was a soft thump as the huge form of Jinx landed down beside us, her sharpened claws digging deep grooves into the asphalt to give her purchase. “The True Steels firepower could be a large advantage over the Institute,” The sphinx cooed, her eyes watching the end of the road in interest. “See if you can contact their leader. I wish to speak with them.”

Magazine nodded. “It might take a bit, but I can probably get him to talk.”

“Do it,” Jinx purred, her slitted eyes dazzling with excitement. “I eagerly await his response.”

I looked up at the billboard of Fluttershy in the distance for a bit before moving forwards to walk alongside Magazine as she directed around a few of her Operators. “How long do you think it will take to get in contact with Iron Hock?”

Magazine raised an eyebrow at me. “Maybe half an hour… one hour at most. Why? You need to do something?” I gave her a quick nod in response. Magazine just groaned. “Just don’t take long. We are on a tight time limit here, you know that better than anypony.”

Giving the raider a thankful smile, I trotted over to where Brisk, Xayah, Mirra and Star were standing apart from the rest of the raiders, watching as the large force of deadly psychos readied themselves.

“I’m going to be heading out. I’ll be back in a bit,” I told them, quickly loading a few shots into Braeburn’s Liberator. The Las Pegasus Raiders had supplied me with twelve more rounds of Buckshot, but I was still feeling a little shot on ammo, especially knowing how large of a fight we had ahead. “There is something I need to take care of quickly.”

Xayah gave me a slightly worried look. “Do you need backup? It is not wise to go alone in the wasteland.”

I gave a quick shake of my head. “I’ll be fine. I’ll just be down the road. You four just keep an eye on the raiders. Make sure they don’t do anything stupid. And try not to let Scarlet kill them all when she arrives.”

“Assuming we don’t kill them first, you mean,” Brisk grunted, scowling at the large group of raiders around him.

Mirra gave me a quick salute. “You can count on us Amber!”

I gave the small changeling a smile. “Thanks. I won’t be long, promise.”

We all exchanged some quick hugs before I turned and started heading down the street towards the long abandoned skyscraper. The closer I drew, the more looming the Fluttershy billboard became. What was once just a harmless and overly happy looking advertisement slowly seemed to morph into a sinister monolithic destination.

The sounds of raiders milling about slowly faded away as I trotted alone down the desolate streets of Manehattan, soon replaced by nothing more than the whistling of wind as it ripped through the narrow city streets. Far off in the distance I could hear the sound of gunfire, likely the True Steels engaged in their seemingly endless combat with the Institute for control of the MWT hub.

As I walked, I passed the charred remains of a trader caravan, the goods inside now little more than smouldering heaps. Glowing blue piles of ash cluttered the area around the destroyed wagon, all that remained of the ponies that had once made up the caravan. The Institutes work no doubt. They left no pony alive.

I stopped as I reached the doorway to the abandoned skyscraper. Even from up so close, I could see the huge billboard protruding from the top of the structure. I took a deep breath, raising my hoof and placing it against the cold surface of the door leading into the building. A small chill passed through me. Something about this place felt very very wrong.

Beep.

I lurched around, the small sound jolting me from my trance like state as my eyes swept across the empty streets for any signs of life. Nothing… The only thing I could see was a lone Sprite Bot, bobbing up and down in the air, watching me.

I hesitated for a second, looking at the Sprite Bot curiously. “W-watcher? Is that you?”

There was a second of silence before the Sprite Bot responded. “I see you have been making friends Amber,” The synthesized voice of Watcher monotone, slowly bobbing closer to me. “I can’t say I approve of the friends that you’ve made though.”

I felt myself sigh a little. “Hey Watcher. It’s been a long time. Sorry about the raiders. They were the only ponies that would have been able to help me...” I tried to think of the last time I had talked to the mysterious pony behind the Sprite Bot. The last time I could recall was shortly after the death of the ponies in Stable 25. “Where have you been all this time? It’s been over a month.”

“Busy,” Watcher responded quickly. “There has been a lot going on in the Wasteland these days.”

I chuckled a little at that. “You don’t need to tell me twice.”

“I’m sure I don't,” Watcher responded, his synthesized voice making his emotions impossible to tell. “From what I’ve heard, you’ve been through a lot.”

“You don’t know the half of it,” I felt my laugh falter. “Even still, I would have liked to have heard at least a little bit from you. A simple ‘hi’ or something would have been nice. But you just kind of disappeared…”

Again, Watcher was silent for a second. “You weren’t the pony I was looking for,” He finally stated, his words coming out slower than usual. “The last time we spoke, you chose revenge over Friendship. You chose victory over morality. I didn’t think we had much else to discuss.”

I winced a little at his words, but he wasn’t wrong. The Wasteland had warped my soul long ago. “So then why talk to me now?”

Once more, Watcher seemed to hesitate to respond. “Littlepip is gathering ponies for a final assault against the Enclave in Navarro. We’re trying to clear the skies… for good. I’m trying to gather as many ponies as I can that are willing and able to join the fight. I figured I’d see if you were still around…”

I felt my eyes widen a little. “Littlepip is trying to clear the skies?” A memory tugged at the back of my mind. “The Single Pegasus Project… That’s what she’s going after, isn’t it?”

The Sprite Bot bobbed, signifying a nod. “It is. While the Enclave is distracted in their upcoming attack on Fillydelphia, Littlepip will be leading an assault against the Enclave.”

I grimaced. “And what about Red Eye? He’s not going to be a big fan of Littlepip going after the Single Pegasus Project before him.”

“Red Eye is dead,” Watcher responded coolly. “He died in his Cathedral a day ago. The Enclave burned the whole place to the ground.”

I felt my mouth drop open. Red Eye was dead? It seemed impossible. I felt my expression darken. “I guess that means Stern is in charge of Filly now…”

Another nod-like bob from the Sprite Bot. “She is, for as long as Fillydelphia has left to stand. So, are you in?”

I hesitated. I would have loved so badly to just jump on board and knock the damn Enclave from the sky. But I couldn’t. Not yet. There was still so much I had to do. “I’d love to help, really,” I finally said, looking back at the abandoned skyscraper behind me. “But I have big problems of my own. Pureblood, the Institute, Silver Ace. If I don’t stop them then there won’t be much point in clearing the sky. I’ll help you where I can, but you’re going to have to take on the Enclave without me.”

“Silver Ace?” Watcher rumbled, his synthesized voice coming out in a strange gurgling sound.

I nodded. “Yeah, he was a pony from before the war that-”

“I know who he is,” Watcher interrupted me sharply. “What does he have to do with all this?”

I paused, surprised by his comment. “I uh… he was the director of the Institute. He created something called the Utopia Program,” I narrowed my eyes at Watcher. “How do you know him?”

“I met him. A long time ago,” Watcher scowled back. “I never trusted him. Twilight did. I told her not to…”

I felt a small jolt of surprise. “You… You knew Twilight Sparkle? Are you like- a ghoul or something?”

"Something like that," Watcher turned to look at the building I had been about to enter, not bothering to give a solid answer to my question. “What exactly are you doing here Amber?”

I glanced back at the building myself. “I heard that Silver Ace met up with somepony in secret here before the war. I was going to look around and see if I could find anything.”

The Sprite Bot bobbed closer again. “Rarity told me that she followed him here with Rainbow Dash and Applejack a few months before the end of the war. She said she didn’t find anything. The building has no trace of him ever being here.”

I raised my hoof again and pushed the door open. It swung inwards with a loud clatter before completely falling from its hinges and crashing to the floor. “Well, I’m about to go investigate it anyway. You want to join me?”

Watcher didn’t respond, instead, his Sprite Bot slowly bobbed into the building, forcing me to quickly scramble after him to keep up. The interior was fairly empty and a thick layer of dust and cobwebs seemed to coat every surface. A few pieces of two century old furniture lay haphazardly around the room, most of it damaged or covered in ripped, age stained fabric. The floor was covered in a thick layer of dust. Clearly no pony had set hoof in this building since the bombs.

I noted a mannequin standing in the far corner, its head twisted unnaturally to look directly at the wall it stood against. Curiously, I walked over to it.

“Odd,” I grunted, tipping the mannequin over with a hoof. The mannequin clattered to the floor, its head popping off and rolling across the room. “The Institute uses these as cameras to keep tabs on the world above. To see its head turned away gives me the impression that somepony didn’t want anypony else to see what was going on in here.”

“There seems to be a locked off area over here,” Watcher monotone, drawing my attention over to him. His Sprite Bot was hovering by a rotting looking door on the far side of the room that looked to have seen better years. I trotted over to him and looked the impressive lock over. It wasn’t anything I would be able to pick, granted, I was really bad at picking locks, but it seemed advanced even by normal lock standards. I wouldn’t have been surprised if even Brisk would struggle to get that lock open.

Thankfully for us, the door hadn’t fared quite as well as the lock over the years.

Blam!

A single shot from Braebrun’s Liberator sent the whole door shooting off its hinges and crashing down the steep flight of cement stairs that lay beyond. There was a loud crash as the wooden door shattered to splinters at the bottom step, sending bits of broken wood scattering across the floor.

A small flashlight flickered to life on Watcher's Eye Bot, illuminating the narrow stairway that led down into the abandoned building's basement. Cautiously, I slowly began making my way down the steps. The whole building seemed to creak and groan with each step, as if threatening to collapse down on me if I dared to try and uncover its secrets.

I stopped at the bottom step and looked around. The basement was in worse condition than the floor above, with many of the wooden planks suspending the ceiling cracked and sagging. A small drizzle of water dripped from the corner, a dark stain of water damage seeping from where the water landed. Old, wood tables lined the walls, many of them covered in a mix of old tomes or stange jars. I grimaced when I realized a few of the tomes were bound in what appeared to be pony leather.

I trotted over to the desks and looked them over, my hoof brushing the dust off of an old looking beaker. “What the fuck is all this?” I wondered allowed, my eyes shifting from the strange beaker to another collection of dried up herbs and plants that had been stuffed into rusting jars. “Some kind of chemistry set?”

“Zebra Alchemy,” Watcher rumbled, his Sprite Bot looking over a table of his own. “I saw Pinkie bust a few zebra spies back during the war that dabbled in alchemy,” His Sprite bot made a thoughtful sounding humming noise. “It looks like whoever was behind this was making different types of poisons. There is a large collection of Poison Joke and Manticore glands.”

I stiffened. “Poisons…” I suddenly had a bad feeling about this. My eyes wandered up, looking over an array of star maps and demonic looking drawings that had been pinned up to the wall with rusting nails. I felt my breath quicken a little as my eyes spotted something blue beneath one of the drawings. I raised my hoof, pulling one of the pages off the wall to look at the drawing that hid beneath. My breath caught in my throat.

There, on the wall, was a drawing of a glowing blue dragon skeleton, its bones engraved with hundreds of strange glyphs. The huge skeletal dragon was mid roar, its body bursting from the surface of the ground, ripping apart the terrain around it and rending a massive crater into the earth. It’s glowing, eyeless sockets seemed to stare right into me, even through the weathered and aged sheet of paper. I had seen this bone dragon before… in the deep depths of the Hollow Shades...

“Luna Prime…” I breathed, taking a slow step back as I stared wide eyed at the picture.

“What is that?” Watcher buzzed, bobbing over to look the picture over himself. “Does this mean anything to you…? Amber?” he turned around, looking at me. “Amber, what is this?”

I shook my head, still staring at the horrific drawing. “It’s a megaspell… Something Luna and Twilight created before the war. Silver Ace helped to develop it too… I think…” My rear hoof bumped against one of the old desks as I backed up, knocking a small chest off its dusty surface and clattering to the floor. The chest hit the floor with a loud thud, smashing and sending its contents rolling around me hooves.

I looked down, seeing the lone, glowing memory orb that had fallen from the broken chest and come to a stop against my hoof. I reached down, picking the small sphere up and looking it over.

“You think you’ll find answers in there?” Watcher asked, his metal chassis moving closer to get a good look at the orb.

I shrugged. “Something was going on down here. There is a good chance that this orb has at least some of the answers,” I looked up at Watcher wearily. “Can you keep a lookout while I go into this orb? I don’t want some raider shooting me while I’m inside.”

Watcher gave a bob-like nod. “I think most of the raiders around her are on your side right now, but I will do my best. Though I’m not sure how much this Sprite Bot can do if we get into a fight, but I’ll keep a lookout at least.”

I gave him a small smile. “Thanks Watcher… Sorry I wasn’t the pony you were looking for.”

Watcher just looked at me for a second, before turning to look back up at the stairs. “Don’t worry about it Amber. No pony ever is.”

I gave a grim nod, before looking back down at the orb. I took a deep breath and let my magical aura reach out and wrap around the sphere.

I was standing in… the exact same spot?

Well, not quite, I was standing in the corner, watching the whole room with wide, careful eyes. The room looked pretty much the same, though I noticed that it was in much nicer condition. This memory was definitely from before the war then.

My host glanced down at themself for a second, or at least I thought they did. Instead, I found myself looking straight through their body and into the ground beneath. They were invisible? It didn’t feel like an invisibility spell. Even though I could tell they were a unicorn from the slightly heavier forehead, I couldn’t feel any indication they were casting a spell. They must have been wearing a stealth cloak then.

There was a small beep in my ear and I heard the hushed voice of Rainbow Dash Speak up. “Applejack just spotted Silver Ace. He’s almost to the building.”

I felt my host give a nod, bunkering down a little more, their eyes darting about. “Thank you for the warning Darling,” I heard Rarity voice whispered back through my hosts mouth, her legs tensing up a little as she waited in anticipation. So this was Rarity's memory. Yet another minor question answered.

There was a few seconds of silence as Rarity waited in the dark of the room. After a long while, I heard Rainbow Dash speak up again. “So like… what’s in there? Anything incriminating?”

I could feel Rarity smirk a little as her eyes sweaped over the large array of strange potions and old tomes. “Well, you would not believe wh-” She cut herself off as a loud sounding creaking noise echoed from above her, followed by the sound of hoofsteps thumping across the floor. “Hold that thought Darling. It sounds like I have company…”

There was another creak as the door at the top of the stairs slowly cracked open, letting light slowly filter into the dingy basement. The sound of hoof steps slowly echoed down into the basement as the pony at the top of the steps slowly descended into the depths.

Rarity’s body stiffened as the silhouetted shape of an earth pony reached the bottom steps, entering into her line of sight. The shadow shrouded pony looked around for a second, their head slowly moving about and checking every inch of the room as if sensing something was off. After a long moment, they finally seemed to relax, walking the rest of the way into the room.

The pony raised a silvery hoof, tapping it against a talisman attached to the front of their vest. A second later, a light silvery glow illuminated the room around them, giving Rarity, and by extension myself, a good look at Silver Ace.

Silver Ace came to a stop in front of one of the desks, pulling out a small book and flipping through it. Rarity craned her neck, trying to get a good look at what he was reading. I could practically feel her disappointment when it turned out to just be a big book of science. As she shifted, the wooden floor creaked below her.

Suddenly, Silver Ace’s head bolted upright, staring straight at Rarity. I could feel Rarity’s blood run cold as Silver Ace’s eyes bore right into her. She shifted her hoof, reaching for something in her saddlebag. Then Silver Ace looked away, looking to the door as another sound creaked from the floor above.

Rarity gave a silent sigh of relief as Silver Ace’s gaze moved away from her hiding spot.

Soft thumps slowly moved above them as another pony slowly began trotting down the steps into the basement. Swiftly, a cloaked pony sweeped into the room, their hooves almost seeming to glide across the floor as opposed to walking. The only indication they weren’t actually floating was the soft thumps of their hooves beneath their dark cloak as they moved gracefully across the room.

“Is it done?” Silver Ace asked as he looked at the cloaked pony, his brows knitting together and his voice sounding almost sad.

“It is,” The commanding voice of the cloaked figure spoke. I could feel a chill passing through my very soul as his voice reached my ears. I knew that voice.

A white hoof with swirling stripes reached out from below the dark cloak, pulling away the hood to reveal the zebra beneath and the dazzling blue eyes that I had only ever known as a baleful green in life. “Twilight has been dealt with. She is no longer a concern,” Kamari leered, his grin twisting into a vile and sickening smile.

Rarity froze, her eyes wide. Kamari’s words rang in her ears, echoing over and over again. Twilight was on longer a concern…

Even Silver Ace looked surprised. “Kamari… you… you didn’t… didn’t kill her did you?”

Kamari just rolled his eyes and began stalking around the room. “As much as I would have loved to… no. But I have extracted her memories and dumped them into the abyss below the Hollow Shades. She no longer has any recollection of anything that we are doing.”

I could feel Rarity relax a little, but her body was still stiff. At least Twilight was still alive.

Silver Ace’s eyes narrowed. “And did you find out anything about the security block she put on the Utopia Program in her memories?”

Kamari scowled. “No. It would appear our dear ministry mare erased all knowledge of it from even her own mind. Whatever it is she did, we will need to proceed with extreme caution.”

Silver Ace sighed, looking back down at his book for a second. “I tried digging through the program's database for anything different. It appears that one of the seven memory orbs has been dramatically increased. The amount of memory data that is currently being stored is almost too much for the program to handle. It would require a massive amount of power and time to properly boot up without exploding.”

Had I not been in Rarity’s body, my brows would have furrowed in confusion. Seven memory orbs? Last time I checked, the Utopia Program was only six memory orbs, one for each of the ministry mares. Who the fuck was the seventh?

Kamari didn’t seem to have much interest in questioning that little detail however. “Which orb?” He seethed, stalking a little closer to Silver Ace. I felt the air shift around me as he stalked only an inch past Rarity’s face. Rarity held her breath as to not have her breath rasp across the deadly zebra and alert him of her presence.

“Twilight’s own,” Silver Ace annotated. “It would seem that she has been adding a significant amount of her own memories into the program. For what, I’m not yet sure.”

“And Pureblood?” Kamari pushed, his body practically slithering around the room as he circled the older silver buck.

Silver Ace gave a small snort-like laugh. “He is unbearable as always, but he still remains oblivious to what is actually going on.”

Kamari’s smile grew. “Perhaps it would be best if we used him to sort out our little Twilight problem as well,” he nickered, finally coming to a stop in front of Silver Ace. “After all. He does want to go into the Utopia Program himself after all. Why not take out two birds with one stone?”

SIlver Ace gave a long, low sigh. “It’s risky, but I see your point.”

Kamari gave a quick, malice filled grin before turning and gracefully trotting back towards the stairway. “See that it gets done,” He paused, the edges of his lips twisting slightly into a vile sneer. “Before I go, I have one last question,” He turned his head, his piercing eyes looking back at Silver Ace with smug amusement. “What do you wish to do about Rarity?”

I felt Rarity’s heart jump in her chest at the words. She made a start to move and rushed for the exit, but before she could, a sharp stabbing pain shot up her leg and she fell limp to the ground. A fast spreading numbness pulsed up her body, sending her into a sudden paralysis. She tried to open her mouth to scream, but the numbness had already spread to her lips. She stared up in horror as Kamari stalked over to her, his spirally striped hoof reaching down and ripping away her stealth cloak to reveal the white unicorn mare underneath.

Silver Ace jumped back a little himself, surprised by the sudden action. He stared down at Rarity with wide eyes, his pupils pinpricks. “No… Damn it, no…” He whispered, his voice filled with Panic. “Damn it, not like this!”

Kamari gave Silver Ace a leering smile. “Worry not Silver Ace. I’ll make sure that she doesn’t leave this place with any of your precious little secrets,” He leaned down, giving Rarity a cold, mirthless smile. He unclipped the earpiece from Rarity’s ear and promptly deactivated it. “I know Rainbow Dash and Applejack are waiting for you outside,” He tapped a small earpiece that he had clamped over his own ear that I had neglected to notice previously. “I also know that they haven’t heard any of what we just said and that you haven’t told them anything. I’d like to keep it that way.”

Rarity tried to swipe at the earpiece, but Kamari easily kept it away from her while she was in her immobilized state. Rarity’s mouth twisted to say something, but again, no words came out.

“Grab that memory orb over there, would you my dear, dear Silver Ace,” Kamari demanded, his dazzling eyes never leaving Rarity. He leaned in even closer, his vile breath rasping across Rarity’s face. “When we’re done here, you aren’t going to remember any of this. In fact, you're going to remember finding nothing here at all.”

I felt another jolt of fear shoot down Rarity’s spine, then the world slowly swirled away from me.

When I opened my eyes, I found myself lying on the floor exactly where Rarity had been lying. It was almost surreal, to close my eyes and open them only to find that two hundred years had passed and the room had fallen into complete decay.

Groaning, I pulled myself back to my hooves and looked around. Not much had changed. I was thankful to see that no raiders had decided to fill me with holes while I was out. Watcher floated a few feet away from me, his Sprite Bot looking up at the flight of stairs. At the sound of me standing back up, he turned to look at me.

“Did you find anything in that orb?” Watcher asked, his synthesized voice crackling a little.

I hesitated, thinking the contents of the memory orb over. “I… I think so. There were a lot of things in there I didn’t understand, a few things I already knew…” I paused, thinking of what Silver Ace had said in the memory. “Watcher, have you ever heard of the Utopia Program?”

Watcher was silent for a long time. “Yes, loosely. Twilight mentioned it in passing once. I don’t know much more than that.”

I gave a grim nod. “It’s a collection of the six ministry mares' memories. But this orb gave me the distinct impression that there might be another orb in there?” I shook my head, still confused. “No idea who the seventh orb could be though.”

“Any indication on the Zebra alchemy?” Watcher pushed, his Sprite Bot swivelling in the air to look at the wide array of beakers and dark tomes.

I gave another nod. “Yes. Silver Ace was working with somepony- er… somezebra named Kamari. I met him before in the Hollow Shades.”

“You think Silver Ace is still working with this Kamari character?” Watcher asked. Even with the synthesized voice, I could tell he was curious.

I thought about that for a second before shaking my head. “Even if they continued working together after the war, I doubt it. Last time I saw Kamari, he took multiple rounds to the back of the head and was tossed off the top of a pit before getting blown apart with a couple hundred balefire bombs.”

“What a way to go,” Watcher joked, his voice lacking the inflection required to make his statement humorous.

I smirked. “But I don’t think they were working together, even then. Kamari underwent great lengths to try and get his hooves on the A.A.S.S. before Silver Ace could. Even offered Crank and his other Cyber Ponies extensive amounts of caps to get them to turn on Pureblood and Silver Ace.”

“So you think either Kamari or Silver Ace betrayed each other?”

I hummed a little at the thought. “Possible. Kamari wasn’t exactly the most trustworthy zebra in the world. Maybe Silver Ace found out that his intentions were more sinister than he had previously thought and broke ties with him.”

Before he could give any sort of response, Watcher’s Sprite Bot gave a loud beep and he quickly swivelled around in the air, his metal chassis turning to once more face the stairs. “I’m picking something up on my EFS. We have company. Non hostile by the looks of it.”

Cautiously, I pulled Breaburn’s Liberator out in my magic. “I doubt anypony has been in this building in over two hundred years,” I growled. “What do you think the chances are that somepony finally decides to come in here at the same time as us by coincidence?”

There was a loud creaking noise as the sound of hoofsteps began to cautiously descend the steps into the basement. I backed up a little, my shotgun aiming at the doorway. Watcher said they were non hostile, but that might have just meant that they didn’t know we were down here yet.

“Watcher, how many,” I hissed at him, keeping my voice low so as not to be heard.

Watcher swiveled around for a second, taking a moment to check his EFS more closely. “Only one inside the building, but we have a lot more outside.”

Slowly, a pony pulled themselves out from the stairway and into the pulsing amber light of my glowing horn. I felt myself almost drop my shotgun in surprise.

“Mom...?”

My mom took a second to take in the shotgun aimed at her head before looking past it and giving me a weary smile. “Hey honey… I think it’s about time we talk.”

I took a surprised step back, my eyes darting around. “What the hell are you doing here? How the hell did you even find me?”

“The Institute was taken over by the Director. Most of the Institute scientists managed to teleport out of the Institute safely, but… well.. We weren’t exactly prepared for the wasteland. It’s been a rather hard adjustment.”

“I’m guessing that's the rest of the Institute Scientists outside that we were picking up on EFS then?” I asked, my eyes narrowing in on her.

Mother’s eyes narrowed a little in turn. “We?” Her eyes glanced over at the Sprite Bot hovering beside me. After a second of confusion, her face lit up with interest. “Oh… You must be Watcher. The Institute has been trying to figure out where you’ve been broadcasting from for ages!”

The Sprite bot was silent for a long second, then, with a loud burst of static, it began floating away, playing it's silly little marching song. I groaned and rolled my eyes. Thanks for the backup Watcher. I wondered if I’d ever get the chance to talk to that mysterious pony again.

Realizing Watcher wasn’t going to respond, Mother turned to look back at me. “Er, yes. The bars you saw outside are the rest of the Institute Scientist. Glasswing sent me to go talk to you. He felt you would be more inclined to listen if I talked to you first.”

I felt my lips curl into a small snarl. So that’s what this was about. My mother had no real interest in talking to me, or even seeing me for that matter. She just wanted to make a deal for the Institute. Well, I wasn’t going to be having any of it.

“If Glasswing wants to talk to me, he can do it himself,” I scowled, finally lowering my shotgun. “I’m not interested in playing one of his mind games.”

Mother winced and took a small step back. “Very well. I can go get him for you,” Slowly, she trotted back to the stairs leading to the floor above. She paused at the bottom step, looking over to me. “I do think we should talk at some point though Amber. Just the two of us. I want to make things right.”

“You should have thought of that before you left me without a mom and made dad think you were killed by raiders,” I shot back, sitting down on my rump and crossing my forehooves. “Get Glasswing down here. Then we’ll talk.”

A few minutes later, I heard the sound of three sets of hooves striding down the creaking steps into the basement of the building. Glasswing stepped out first, looking around at the strange room curiously before turning to face me more directly. Mother walked into the room after him as well, followed shortly by an Institute scientist with an impressive looking magical energy rifle.

“Amber. It’s been a long time,” Glasswing said with a faux smile as if we were old friends, opening his gnarled black hooves to me in a friendly gesture.

I gave the changeling a flat glare. “Don’t try to act like we’re friends, Glasswing. I helped you regain control of the Institute because you were a better option than letting Queen Insecta and Azar enslave everypony, not because I like you. You threatened me with Xayah’s life to keep me in line. Or did you think I was just going to forget about that.”

Both Glasswing and Mother winced at my venom. Glasswing quickly covered his wince with another glassy smile. “I understand that we have had our differences in the past, Amber, but in the end, we are both after the same thing. A better tomorrow for the Wasteland. And right now, if I am not mistaken, both of our plans for the wasteland align in a very specific way,” His smile faltered and his face temporarily twisted into a snarl. “Taking the Institute back from the Director.”

I raised an eyebrow at him suspiciously. “How did you know that’s what I was doing here?”

Glasswing gave me a smug little grin. “You just flew into Manehattan on a fleet of war wagons, bringing with you the single largest army of raiders in the Equestrian Wasteland. You then proceed to decimate an entire convoy of Enclave soldiers in mere seconds with an amount of firepower that would make the True Steels blush. Word travels fast in Manehattan,” He raised his eyebrows and gave me a cocky tilt of his head. “We are a collection of some of the greatest minds Equestria has ever seen. Please, try not to insult our intelligence by assuming putting the clues together and tracking you down would be difficult for us.”

Alright, fair. He had me there. “So what exactly do you ponies want with me?” I asked, already having a pretty good idea of what the answer was going to be.

“We want to make an alliance,” Glasswing soothed, offering his twisted hoof to me in friendship. “You want to take on the Institute? So do we. You might have an army of raiders behind you, but I think you know just as well as I that even that won't be enough to take on the Institute. The Director likely has hundreds of synths and Coursers waiting for you in there, not to mention slavers, Talon mercs and Canterlot Ghouls. And if we could figure out that you were coming for him, don’t think for a second that the Director doesn’t know as well. Now, we might not be much of fighters, but we know the Institute better than anypony, even the Director. Together, we might actually stand a chance.”

“But I’m guessing you’re going to want something out of this when we’re done?” I said back flatly. “Something tells me you aren’t just going to help me for free.”

Glasswing’s smile widened. “Well of course, we will be requesting control of the Institute again once the Director has been dealt with.”

I gave him a small chuckle. “I hate to break it to you, but you're going to have to take that up with Jinx. I already offered control of the Institute over to the Las Pegasus Raiders.”

Glasswings smile dropped into a look of sheer horror. “Y-you did what!” He shouted, his eyes going wide. “You offered control of the largest, most technically advanced facility in Equestria to a group of ruthless, morales, savage raiders!” He balked, taking an enraged step towards me. “The Institute isn’t even yours to give! You don’t have that kind of say!”

I just gave him a smug little smirk of my own. “You had your chance to help the Wasteland with your technological advancements. Instead, you sat on them for over two hundred years without sharing like a dragon collecting a hoard. Now the Institute is lost to you. Maybe you should have actually tried to help ponies, instead of putting it off till tomorrow like the goddess damned Enclave.”

“Amber, what have you done…” Mother breathed, taking a small step back. “These Raiders you work with… they’re everything that's wrong with the wasteland. You can’t seriously just give everything over to them.”

I grimaced a little. To be honest, I wasn’t a big fan of the idea either. “Look, I’m not a fan of raiders, and even though I don’t like how you ponies deal with the wasteland, I can at least understand how you think you’re helping. Help me take Pureblood out, and I’ll see if I can cut some sort of the profit into the deal with the Las Pegasus Raiders.”

The loud clicking sound of a gun made all of us pause. I looked up, my eye locking on the large revolver encased in a glowing field of magic that had pressed itself against the back of Glasswings head. Glasswings eyes widened as he felt the tip of the gun pressing against his skull.

“Give me one good reason not to kill you, snake…” A voice hissed from the shadow of the room. I let my gaze wander a little, finally resting on a mare that had managed to sneak into the room with us undetected. She had a dusty brown coat and curly blond mane. Glinting in the darkness, I could see a lantern emblazoned talisman hanging around her neck.

She was not alone either. Two other ponies stood behind her, each one wearing the same talisman around their neck and a large minigun attached to their battle saddles.

I felt my panic subside and get replaced with relief as I recognized them. “Freedom?”

The leader of the Friendship Express shifted her gaze from Glasswing to look at me, her face still hard. “Amber? What are you doing with these monsters?”

“Glasswing and I were just trying to make out a deal in regards to the Institute,” I told her, feeling a little more trusting of this faction than I was of the Institute scientists. The Friendship Express had at least been nice before they threatened me. “We’re planning an attack on it.”

“We figured. Word around the city is that you came trotting back into Manehattan with an army of raiders,” Freedom said bluntly, her eyes once more darting to Glasswing who was beginning to look a little panicked. “Not a big fan of working with the Las Pegasus Raiders. You should have come to us first.”

“Didn’t know where you were,” I responded quickly. “You ponies were hard enough to find the first time. Besides, I don’t think the Friendship Express has enough firepower to take the Institute out on its own,” I took a moment to let my point sink in. After a few seconds of tense silence I gestured to Glasswing. “Do you mind lowering your gun? I think we can all talk this out.”

Freedom glared at Glasswing for a long second, her eyes narrowing as she tried to decide to lower her gun or blow his brains out then and there. Finally, with a grunt, she lowered her revolver. “You aren’t worth my bullets anyway.”

Glasswing gave a small cough and put back on his false looking smile, gently brushing a little dust off his lab coat and straightening his green sweater vest. “Thank you Amber Aura. Now, I believe you were so generously discussing our compensation for helping you?”

I just gave him a flat look. “I could still just have Freedom shoot you... You help us take on the Institute, I will see if I can convince Jinx to let you keep the facility itself, though you will likely lose many of the things inside to the raiders. I can’t make any real promises or offer much more than that, but it’s better than nothing, right?” I turned to Freedom before Glasswing had time to rebuke. “I’m guessing you want in on this as well?”

Freedom finally let herself crack a grin. “We do. The Friendship Express has been trying to get into the Institute for years, as you well know. Seems like the time has finally come.”

My expression faltered. “I’m assuming you aren’t going to want to do it for free either, are you?”

“No. The Friendship Express wants all the Institute files regarding synths and synth deployment as well as any synths that remain alive inside the Institute,” Freedom said sharply, her expression seeming to say she was leaving no room for argument.

“That's preposterous!” Glasswing shouted, spinning around to glare at her. “That is property of the Institute! You will not be taking all of our synths!”

“Synths should not be any ponies property!” Freedom scowled, her revolver once more rising. “They are alive, just like you or I! They are not to be treated as slaves by authoritarian monsters such as yourselves!”

“We made them!” Mother shouted back, her own horn glowing and reaching for her magical energy rifle. “They are just machines! No more alive than any protectron or Sprite Bot!”

The two Friendship Express operators wielding miniguns let their massive firearms begin whirring to life. Freedom took a threatening step forwards. “They think and feel and love and bleed! Seems pretty alive to me!”

“Do you not understand the concept of synths?” Glasswing rebutted, his curved horn glowing. “They’re made to look like ponies, not actually be ponies! A foal in a nightmare night costume does not make her an actual monster.”

“That’s enough!” I shouted, puffing out my chest a little and trying to look as big as I could despite being the shortest pony in the room, my voice rising above the sound of screaming ponies. Everypony froze, turning to look at me with wide eyed faces. I let my posture relax a little as I looked at them. “What are all of you? Foal? In maybe two hours tops, Pureblood is going to launch the Utopia Program. As soon as that happens, it's over for all of us. Do you understand that? So unless you all want to be fucking mind raped and forced to rebuild Equestria in Purebloods image while your mind and soul serve him eternally inside of a big world simulation also under his control, you’re all going to shut up, work together and help me fuck this asshole up. Are there any questions?”

There was a long second of silence as all the assembled ponies and changelings just looked at me. After what felt like an eternity, Freedom sighed. “Very well. We will work with these Institute scientists until the larger threat has been dealt with. But once this Utopia Program is out of the equation, we're going to discuss my terms.”

“Indeed,” Glasswing soothed, his eyes still glaring daggers at Freedom. “The remnants of the Institute agree to your temporary terms until a point where proper distribution of the Institute is applicable.”

I raised an eyebrow at him. Was he seriously trying to trick me by using larger words? “You will agree to the terms and gratefully take whatever I can give you when all is said and done,” I told him bluntly, trying my best to give him a death glare. From the way he backed up, I got the impression that it worked. “Is that understood?”

Glasswing’s faux smile weakened as he glared at me, but finally he let a look of defeat cross his features. “Very well. We accept your terms.”

I gave them all a wide smile. “Good. Now let's go talk to those raiders you hate so much and fuck Pureblood up.”

As we drew closer to the area the Las Pegasus Raiders had turned into a temporary camp, I could tell something was up. Ponies didn’t have their guns up and raised if things were normal.

The massive group of raiders had formed a large circle around a smaller group of heavily armed Earth Ponies in gold painted power armour. Every pony had drawn guns and was pointing them at the other. The very air itself seemed to have grown tense.

Jinx, who had been quite excited to speak with the leader of the True Steels the last time I had seen her, now lay flopped on her back in exasperation, a look of sheer boredom sprawled across her face. Standing before her, Iron Hock stood proudly, one hoof thrust towards the sky as he preached a never ending spew of impressively arrogant words at the huge sphinx.

“-The True Steels are the greatest, purest force Equestria has ever seen!” Iron Hock was booming. “We do not associate ourselves with scum raiders like you! We will crush you all beneath our hooves. The soil and ashes of the wastes will be drenched in your blood as we burn your savage tribes to the ground! I-”

Jinx’s eyes rolled up as he continued on. Her eyes restlessly looked around, spotting me slowly trotting towards the large group with a large group of Institute scientists and Friendship Express Operative behind me. At the sight of me, she seemed to take a deep breath.

“Alright Iron Hock, I have heard your case,” Jinx soothed, rising to her full height and looming over the leader of the True Steels. “Now you will hear mine. My raiders are going to storm the MWT Hub. We are going to rip apart the Institute and lay claim to the technology we find inside. You and your True Steels will join us and share in the spoils, or you will step aside. The choice is yours.”

I could practically feel Iron Hock seeth underneath his power armour helmet. “We do not negotiate with raiders!” He stomped his fore hoof down on the ground violently, making the whole area shake. “True Steels! Show these savages their-”

Before he could finish, Jinx’s paw flashed out, knocking the large stallion onto his back. A loud scream escaped his lips as he was suddenly reefed up into the air by a powerful surge of magic that swept across the street. A second later, Jinx’s mouth flashed forwards, her massive fangs flashing as her maw snapped shut around Iron Hock’s whole body.

There was a second of stillness as everypony stared up at Jinx in terror. I saw three True Steel Rangers take a horrified step back, their legs trembling as they stared up at the huge monster that had quite literally just eaten their leader alive.

Jinx gave us all a toothy grin before letting her eyes glow a dazzling gold. A moment later, Iron Hock reappeared on the street in a small burst of golden light, staggering and covered in a thick layer of saliva. He collapsed to his side, disorientated, looking up at Jinx in an expression of absolute fear.

“Be thankful I am merciful,” Jinx snickered, nudging the leader of the True Steels back to his hooves with a flick of her paw. “And that your armour isn’t very tasty.”

Iron Hock scrambled back up to his hooves and struck as heroic a pose as he could, trying his best to save face in front of his rangers. He gave a nervous cough, glancing around at all of us, though most of us were still looking at Jinx in shock and fear. “V-very well beast. We will work with you for now. But don’t think we will forget about this humiliation!”

Jinx just continued to grin down at him smugly. “Oh, I hope you don’t,” she raised her gaze to address me more directly. “Amber, I see that you have brought more friends with you.”

I gulped, still a little shaken from watching Jinx eat Iron Hock alive and then bring him back. “I uh… Yes. These are the Remnants of the Institute Scientist as well as the Friendship Express. They have agreed to help us take on the Institute.”

“It is a pleasure to meet you,” Jinx cooed, her whole body seeming to slither towards us as she looked over each and every new arrival with appraising eyes. “I assume my dearest Amber has informed you of the situation?” Her eyes seemed to bore into Glasswing the most, as if daring him to rebuttal the deal I had laid out for him.

“The Friendship Express will help you deal with the Institute how we can,” Freedom said, nervously stepping towards the massive sphinx. “In turn, we expect to be granted access to the Institute's Synths. The rest of what you find inside it is yours.”

Jinx looked at her in amusement for a moment before shrugging her gargantuan shoulders. “Fair enough. I have little interest in reclamation of the synths, though I will likely need to talk Magazine down,” Her gaze shifted to Glasswing. “And what do you and your scientists hope to gain from joining this fight my little changeling?”

Glasswing chewed his lower lip for a second, glancing over at Mother for a moment as he thought. Finally, he gave Jinx a glassy grin. “The Institute would like to join forces with the Las Pegasus Raiders indefinitely.”

I froze. They wanted to do what!

Jinx’s grin was near unbearable as she lowered her head to look over Glasswing more carefully. “Oh? And why would you wish to do that?”

“The Institute will remain under my control and fully operational,” Glasswing cooed, a smug look crossing his face. “This is the only way the Institute will maintain any of its productivity. In exchange, we can supply you with weapons and technological advancement that you could never have dreamt of before.”

I glared at Glasswing. That hadn’t been the deal! The idea of the Las Pegasus Raiders getting full control of the Institute Scientists like that was a terrifying one. “Glasswing, that’s not what we-”

Jinx raised a paw to me, silencing me before I could interject further. “And why would that be of any use to me?” Jinx purred in interest. “I can simply take what I want from the Institute. As far as I see, you are of no use to me.”

“The Institute doesn’t make many weapons, but under you, we can,” Glasswing soothed. “You let me take control of the Institute again, and I can make you weapons beyond your wildest dreams. I only demand that the Institute is left to carry out its experiments uninterrupted.”

“Jinx, this is a bad idea,” I hissed, glaring daggers at the lab coat clad changeling.

Freedom nodded, her own eyes narrowing at Glasswing. “I am of the same opinion. Glasswing and his scientists are not to be trusted.”

“Perhaps,” Jinx purred, once more rising up to full height to look us all over. “But I find the prospect to be rather enticing. With control of a fully functional Institute, the Las Pegasus Raiders could very well become the greatest force the wasteland has seen since the bombs. I could build a raider empire the likes of which I could have never dreamed before,” her gaze shifted back to Glasswing. “So no. There is no deal.”

Glasswing balked. “What! But you just said-”

Jinx gave him a threatening hiss before letting a twinkle of amusement cross her features. “Are you a creature of your word, Glasswing?” Jinx purred, her lips twisting into a venomous sneer. “My instincts tell me no. How does a simple changeling drone overtake the changeling queen and rise to a position of power such as you have? Through honesty? Unlikely...”

Glasswing took a fearful step back as Jinx suddenly began closing in on him. His blue eyes darted back and forth as if looking for a way to escape. “Look… I can promise that what I’ve said here is-”

“I have to ask, dearest Glasswing, what happened to the great Queen Insecta?” Jinx’s golden eyes flickered over to where Mother had begun backing up as well. “Something tells me that she wasn’t very pleased about what happened to her…”

Mother trembled a little under Jinx’s intense gaze. “How did you know about th-”

“If you could manipulate and outsmart the queen of the changelings and her general, the leaders of a race known for manipulation and trickery, what is to stop you from doing the same to me?” Jinx continued, once more turning her hungry gaze to Glasswing. “Or are you happy simply being my servant for the rest of eternity?”

Glasswing stumbled on his hooves and collapsed to the cracked road, landing heavily on his rump. “Please, you have to-”

“I will take what I want from the Institute. I will rip apart the walls of your precious facility and use them to build my empire. And when I am done, and only then, you may keep whatever scraps remain. You may continue your worthless little experiments alone, isolated from the rest of Equestria as you desire, but what we want, we will take, and you will not gain anything more,” Jinx scowled, her muzzle only inches from Glasswings face as she bared her fangs. “Or would you like to ask me to oh so generously give you everything else as well?”

Glasswing could do little but give a timid shake of his head. Chuckling to herself, Jinx finally pulled herself away. “Good. Be thankful I am willing to give you even that.”

I heard the clopping of hoofsteps behind me and turned to see my friends quickly approaching. Pyre and Mirra weren’t among them, but I felt myself smile when I saw that Scarlet was.

“Hey Scarlet,” I said, looking all my friends over. “Glad you could make it.”

Scarlet gave me a sad smile. “I am too. It’s good to see you alive and safe. The pegasi explained everything that's been happening on my ride here. Your friends have been filling me in on the finer details,” Her expression grew tense and she looked off in the direction of the MWT Hub. “You think we’re really going to be able to save Crank?”

I gave her as comforting a smile as I was able to give. “We’re going to do our best. I did make a promise, didn’t I?”

“And where exactly did you go, you foolish pony?” Xayah asked, trotting over to stand next to me. She gestured to the Institute scientists and Friendship Express Operators. “Do I even want to know where you found all these ponies?”

"They found me more than I found them,” I admitted sheepishly. “I got a lead on something Silver Ace was doing before the war back in Las Pegasus. I was just checking it out.”

Brisk raised an eyebrow at me. “And? Did you find anything helpful?”

“Maybe,” I responded, somewhat tentatively. “It looks like Silver Ace was working with Kamari back before the bombs.”

Xayah scowled. “Working with a worshiper of the stars? That is bad news.”

I gave a grim nod. “You don’t need to tell me twice.”

Star raised a hoof in the air, glaring at all of us and giving us a sarcastic smile. “Um, yeah, sorry to be an inconvenience, but who the fuck is Kamari?”

I opened my mouth to answer, but promptly closed it. “It’s, uh… a long story that we don’t really have time to get into right now. If we survive today, I’ll make sure to give you a rundown of everything.”

“Amber!” I turned at the sound of my voice, seeing Pyre waving to me from a group of raider hellhounds. Mirra gave me a smile from atop her back. “It’s time. Are you ready?”

Time? To finally take on the Institute? Had the moment really come? I felt myself shiver a little at the thought. I gave her a slow nod. “Yeah. Let's do this.”

I stared down the pair of binoculars at the MWT Hub across the street. As Pyre had told me on the walk here, there were quite a few guards. At least twenty mannequins stood sentinel at the front door of the crumbling structure, and up above I could see bits of movement on the collapsed section of the tower that bridged it to the Ironshod building across the street. Most of the mannequins just stood completely still. It was enough to make me think they were nothing more than spooky statues littering the wasteland, but every few seconds I would see one of their heads shift to look in a different direction.

I shivered a little, goosebumps rising on my flesh. Those things were spooky as fuck.

Standing in front of the group of mannequins at the front door stood a courser. They looked just about as all the others I had seen before looked. Dark black coat, with a matching dark leather trench coat. The glowing blue aura around their horn suspended a lethal looking institute rifle and their icy, piercing gaze swept back and forth, waiting for anypony who dared to approach the building.

“Tell me again why we don’t just launch an all out attack on the place?” Brisk grunted, looking over my shoulder at the building. “I mean, we outnumber them by a lot. We could easily take them down and make a rush for the secret passage to the Institute inside.”

“We aren’t doing that because we’re actually trying to win,” Pyre snarked back at him from behind us, crouching down in her impressive armour to stay out of sight. “The Institute already knows that the True Steels are in the area and want the building. An attack by them will likely cause a distraction that will benefit us. What the Institute doesn’t know, hopefully, is that there is an army of raiders waiting around the corner ready to attack. If we play our cards too early, we’re going to be in trouble. Or did you just forget the whole meeting we just had explaining that?”

“So what, the Las Pegasus Raiders are just going to sit back for a bit while we do the hard part?” I asked, shifting my binoculars to look at a different part of the building.

“The hard part is once we get inside,” Pyre grunted. “So unless you want the hard part to be getting inside as well, you’ll stick to Jinx and I’s plan,” She shifted so she could look at all of us. “You three clear on what you need to do.”

“Get into the secret tunnel, disable any security Pureblood has inside, and get the signal to you and your raiders without detection,” Xayah nodded curtly. “Yes, we know the plan.”

Pyre smirked. “Oh good, one of you can listen to instructions,” Both Brisk and I just stuck our tongue out at her.

“Good luck!” Mirra said cheerily from atop Pyre’s back, though I noticed there was a sliver of worry in her otherwise chipper tone. I gave the changeling a small smile in return.

“My True Steels are in position. We are ready to begin as soon as you are,” The voice of Iron Hock rumbled from behind us, making us all turn around to look at him. He was slowly approaching with two of his armoured rangers behind him. He gave us all a small scowl as he approached. His eyes flickered to me behind his visor. “I was wondering when we would cross paths again, Stable Dweller. Our fates seem to be leading us in very similar directions. Though I had thought even you and your striped accomplice above working with raiders," his voice seemed to ooze with hatred as he glared at Xayah and I.

I chose not to answer him. I had nothing to say to the murdering prick that had melted the corpses of Stable 25 into fuel.

“Good, then launch your attack when ready,” Pyre grunted, choosing to overlook his snider comment towards me. “Have you heard from Freedom or Glasswing.”

Iron Hock scowled. “The snake Glasswing has informed me that they are all in position as well. Freedom is leading them around the side.”

I nodded along as I digested the information. The admittedly short meeting we had done prior had laid out the plan in detail to me already, though I admittedly had had a fair amount of trouble focusing. My thoughts had been far too distracted with the events of the coming hour. Soon, for better or worse, things were going to end very, very soon.

The flapping of wings drew our gaze upwards as Star Breeze dropped down beside us, Scarlet wrapped tightly in her hooves. Once Star got closer to the ground, her legs released, letting Scarlet drop down to her own hooves.

“The war wagons are in position. As soon as Amber gets us the signal, they will be ready to bombard the building,” Star told Pyre, landing on the ground beside us herself.

Pyre nodded. “Thank you. You five ready?”

I gulped and nodded, bracing my legs, a bad feeling twisting in my gut. “Ready as I’ll get.”

“Good, then let's do this,” Pyre grunted, gesturing to Iron Hock. The large ranger gave a nod in response before rushing off with his True Steels. Pyre turned back to us, looking us all over with weary eyes. “And be careful. Please.”

Brisk gave a shaky smile. “I’m the wrong person to ask that of, but we will.”

I gave Pyre and Mirra a quick hug before letting the two of them pull away and join up with the squadron of Raiders that had taken cover around the corner of the street. I crouched down, my eyes returning to gazing down my binoculars as I watched the entrance of the MTW Hub. The Courser standing guard at the front had gone unnaturally still, stiller even than the statue like mannequins that surrounded him. I didn’t doubt that they knew something was wrong, I could only hope that they didn’t know the full extent.

We sat there in silence, waiting for our que to move. After what felt like fifteen minutes, nothing happened. I could feel my heart rate quicken. I could practically hear a clock ticking as each and every second passed by. My eyes glanced up at the sky, making out the pinprick of diffused light beyond the dark cloudlayer that signified the location of the sun. Just passed noon by the look of it. I gulped, that gave me maybe an hour or two before the Utopia program launched, it was hard to be exactly sure. We didn’t have time to just sit around.

“What is taking them so long,” I grunted, shifting my gaze to where the True Steels were supposed to begin their attack.

“Maybe something went wrong?” Scarlet suggested nervously, following my gaze, though her eyes couldn’t see as far as my binoculars.

Our conversation was cut short as a loud booming sound, followed by a missile streaking across the street and blasting towards the group of synths standing sentinel, flared up and filled the street with an earth shaking explosion. Faster than I could blink, the synths vanished in a blast of blue light, disappearing just long enough for the lethal explosive to detonate before re-materializing in the now smouldering wreckage of the doorway, their guns drawn and blazing with blue light as they fired upon the large swarm of True Steel Knights that suddenly burst out of hiding and started charging towards them.

“That would be the signal to go,” Xayah stated factually, pushing herself out from cover and rushing towards the building. I sprang out after her, my legs pounding against the cracked road as I sprinted towards the collapsing tower and into the fray.

Blasts of blue light and explosive projectiles flashed past me as I weaved back and forth in the firefight. I felt the ground trembling as blast after blast of the True Steels assault shook the tower and the surrounding area. Behind me, I saw Brisk and Scarlet darting back and forth as they pushed forwards behind me, Star shooting above our heads and making a desperate dash to a window higher up on the tower.

The True Steels clearly had the Institute synths outmatched in raw firepower. Even the deadly, disintegration beams of the Institute magical energy rifles were little match against the overkill that was Iron Hock’s battle saddle. Unfortunately, what they lacked in firepower, they made up with in sheer numbers. I saw flashes of blue lights flicker across the top of the tower's makeshift overpass, signalling the appearance of at least fifty more mannequin-like synths as they materialized above. Not long after, the street was filled with blazing blasts of energy as the synths rained death down upon us. I saw three True Steel knights drop to the ground, the corpse inside their armour sizzling away into dust.

“Push them back!” I heard Iron Hock roaring over the sound of gunfire. His voice was accompanied by another boom as his battle saddle mounted rocket launcher fired off an explosive blast into the swarm of synths. A courser lunged at him, their hooves flashing out and knocking him backwards where I lost sight of him amongst the charging True Steels.

I swerved as another blast of energy slashed at the ground around me. I dared a glance up, spotting a group of synths perched atop the building, their deadly guns aimed and firing at my position.

Gritting my teeth, I let my magic surge to life, creating a small shield of magic above my head. I felt my magic waver as five more beams of energy pounded against the magical construct only seconds later. The small crack in my horn throbbed, but I pushed through the pain, continuing my mad dash through the firefight.

Xayah reared up onto her hind hooves in front of me, her two mechanical legs flashing out and bucking at a synth that dove into her path. The synth's head was smashed open, metal clashing against metal as Xayah’s cybernetics crushed downwards.

Past Xayah, I saw Star dart through a shattered window, disappearing into the tower beyond. I put on a burst of speed myself, darting around a synth and True Steel that had engaged in a lethal hoof to hoof.

Xayah made it to the tower next, her right hoof flashing forwards and smashing one of the lower windows. A second later, she leapt forwards, sailing through the window and out of sight.

I ducked as an energy blast flashed over my head. I scowled, keeping low as more beams of light trailed me. A loud whirring sound started up behind me, accompanied by a hail of bullets as Brisk’s minigun opened fire. Moments later, the synth assailing me was ripped apart, their metal body riddled with bullets.

Scarlet raced up to me, helping me back to my hooves and urgently pushing me forwards. I gave both her and Brisk a thankful look before rushing the last few feet to the building, bracing my legs and leaping upwards through the window Xayah had shattered. Bits of broken glass scratched at my underside, but I all but ignored it as my hooves reached out and touched down on the cold floor of the building inside.

“Alright, what way?” Xayah asked me, her eyes moving from me to Brisk and Scarlet as the two quickly jumped through the window after me.

“Basement,” I stated, taking the lead as we began moving into the building. “The secret entrance is in the Ministry Mare Applejack’s office.”

Brisk nodded, his head low as he moved and peaked out around the corner of the conjoining hallway. A second later, he pulled back, the muscles in his hooves tensing. “We got seven synths at the end of the hall,” He told us, quickly feeding more rounds into his large gun.

“Probably more on their way as well,” Scarlet added grimly. “I doubt they want anypony getting into the Institute, least of all us.”

I nodded. “Any Coursers?”

Brisk shook his head. “Not that I saw.”

That was a relief at the very least. “Well, there are four of us. Five once Star meets back up with us. We can take them.”

Brisk gave me a grin. “Then let's not leave them waiting.”

The first synth went down in a flurry of bullets as Brisk stepped out from cover, his minigun roaring. The other six synths quickly dove for cover, their Institute rifles blazing.

I let my horn flare up, a protective shield surrounding Brisk as the synths attacks bore down on him. The synth's fire paused, only for another to fall as Xayah darted out, her anti-material rifle snapping off a single, precise shot to the head before she once more ducked behind cover.

Dropping the shield around Brisk and raising my one weapon with my magic, I jumped out from around the corner, rushing forwards with Brisk and letting loose two explosive rounds into the nearest synth. The synth collapsed backwards, their chest a broken collection of scrap metal and sparking circuitry.

I took a step back and took cover behind a topple filing cabinet in the middle of the hall as the synths once more returned fire. Sparks flashed around me as the synth's beams lashed against the filing cabinets' metal surface. I flinched back, one blast coming scarily close to taking off the right side of my head.

More beams of deadly light began flashing down the hallway, this time from behind us. I grimaced, looking up and spotting five more synths rushing down a flight of stairs behind us and charging down the hallway towards us before quickly arranging themselves into a more defensive position and taking cover behind a few of the buildings blasted open doorways.

I jumped to the side, the newly arrived synths fire driving me out of my cover. I saw Scarlet poke her head out, her own Institute rifle blasting off a few rounds into the synths as they began firing at us from all sides.

Fzzzzzat! Fzzzzzat!

I winced as a beam of red energy lanced overhead. I glanced up, making out the shape of Star Breeze as she flashed down the flight of stairs herself, her magical energy rifle firing off a steady stream of fire.

“What took you so long!” Brisk called out, pulling himself to his hooves and letting his minigun spin up.

“What took me so long? I’ve been here a good minute longer than you!” Star shot back, twisting in the air to avoid being turned to glittering ash by the synths' rifles.

“Yeah, on the wrong floor!”

“How was I supposed to fucking know you weren’t going to follow me?”

“None of us have wings!”

Star paused, hovering for a second. “You’re not wrong, and that’s not my fault.”

I bucked at a synth that rushed at me with a sparking baton, my hooves crashing against their metal chest and sending them staggering back a few paces. A second later, the synth collapsed, their head blown clean off by yet another impressively accurate shot from Xayah’s sniper.

Scarlet pulled up next to me, the end of her rifle smoking as she fired off a few more shots into the encroaching synths. “Amber, what's the plan?”

I hesitated, ducking back a little as another blast of energy shot over my head. “Not sure. We don’t have time to deal with these synths. Pureblood doesn’t need to kill us. He just needs to wait us out.”

Scarlet nodded. “Alright, you go ahead. Get the entrance open, clear the way. Star and I will hold the synths off.”

Alarm shot through me. “Wait, what!” I fired off a shot from Braeburn’s Liberator, blasting apart another synth before turning to her. “Are you crazy! There is going to be more coming! A lot more! You guys can’t handle all of this off on your own!”

“More reason for you to go on ahead. You don’t have time to deal with all these synths. You said so yourself, Pureblood doesn’t need you dead, he just needs to wait you out.”

I grit my teeth. “That’s suicide. You’ll die! Both of you!”

Star swooped down, her magical energy rifle blasting a hole through the chest of a synth. “As much as I’m not a fan of Scarlet here volunteering me, she’s right. If you have to stop and fight every fucking synth Pureblood throws at you, the Utopia program will launch long before you even reach the secret entrance.”

“But what about you two!” I shot back, staring at both of them wide eyed.

“We have reinforcements coming,” Scarlet smiled. “So long as you can get the way clear and get the signal back to Pyre. We’ll be fine.”

I hesitated a second longer, looking back and forth between them. Finally, I gave a small scowl of annoyance. “Alright, fine. You two win!” jumped out of hiding for a second, rushing over to where Brisk and Xayah had taken shelter. “Come on! We’re making a run for the basement!”

They both gave quick nods, clearly taking stock of the situation. I sprang over our cover, my quad barrel shotgun clearing the way for us as we shot past the group of synths blocking our path. A synth readied their weapon to fire, only to be blasted apart by a round of fire from Scarlet's rifle.

I put all my strength into running, darting down the hall and around the corner at the end. A few beams of deadly light flashed past me as the synths tried to shoot me down, but not a single shot made its mark as I darted out of their line of fire, Brisk and Xayah only a few steps behind.

“Do you think Scarlet and Star will be alright?” Xayah asked, casting a nervous glance behind us as we rushed along, her metal fore hooves clanging loudly against the ground as she ran. “I do not like leaving them alone against such adversity.”

I felt myself frown. “Neither do I… I hope they’ll be alright,” Please goddesses let them be alright…

I turned another corner and began rushing down a steep flight of steps to the lower levels of the tower. I could feel the floor beneath me shake as the True Steels continued their deadly onslaught against the synths outside. I prayed they didn’t collapse the tower down on top of us. Hopefully Iron Hock had more control than that.

We reached the bottom step and darted around the final corner leading to Applejack’s office. No sooner had I rounded the corner than I had to duck aside as two synths standing guard opened fire at me. One of the burning blue beams slashed at my side, making me yell out in pain. I dropped to the ground, clutching at the cauterized wound. Thankfully, I didn’t dissolve into ash right then and there, it just hurt like a bitch.

Blam!

A shot from Xayah’s anti-material rifle sent the first synth crashing to the ground, a bullet hole right between its synthetic eyes. Xayah went to fire again, only to be forced into cover as the other synth focused its fire onto her.

The synth advanced, its electronic eyes sweeping back and forth from the wall Brisk and I cowered behind to the mound of rubble that Xayah had used to take cover behind. It’s deadly energy rifle shifted, blasting away at bits of the wall, coating my mane in a thin layer of exploding drywall and ripping deep grooves into the corner.

I snatched up a piece of rubble off the ground with my magic and chucked it down the hall. There was a loud zapping sound as the synth instinctively fired at it, turning it to ash long before it had a chance to hit it. Unfortunately for the synth, that gave Brisk enough time to step out, his minigun already whirring to life. The hallway filled with blaring gunfire for all of two seconds before the whirring died to a small hum and the synth's mangled frame crashed to the floor.

“Alright, let’s go,” I grunted, pulling myself back up and swiftly moving into Applejacks’ office, my friends close behind. The office looked exactly as I left it, a large office room with a big desk in the center housing a terminal and a long since rusted and dust coated nametag. I quickly pulled myself up to the computer, typing the password ‘apples’ in before letting the lines of code flicker to life before my eyes.

“You would think that Pureblood would put more security in here,” Xayah muttered, glancing around the office. “Two synths hardly seems like enough.”

I glanced around wearily for a second before turning my gaze back to the terminal. “I won’t look a gift horse in the mouth.”

Brisk snickered. “That is still the weirdest expression ever. Who came up with that.”

Xayah shrugged. “Slavers probably.”

The expression was suddenly less funny.

“Ah, here it is,” I exclaimed at last, tapping a few keys on the terminal. A second later, the wall behind me slid open with a creak, revealing the secret entrance and long, dark tunnel into the Institute.

Brisk whistled, peering into the darkness of the tunnel. “Big tunnel. Shouldn’t give us any issue getting our army down there.”

I smiled. “My thoughts exactly,” I clambered back out of the chair and started on down the tunnel. “Now come on, we have work to do."

The three of us quickly trotted into the tunnel, the booming sounds fo gunfire slowly fading away as we ventured deeper into the tunnels depths.

We walked in darkness for most of the trip down the tunnel, not wanting to alert any possible guards further down of our approach. Granted, if Pureblood didn’t know we were coming by now, then I wasn't sure if a few guards finding out was going to make that much of a difference at this point.

The tunnel felt a lot longer than I remembered, and after a long while, my hooves were beginning to ache from trotting for so long. That said, I supposed this tunnel did travel all the way from the ruins of the MWT hub to the main Institute facility below Tenpony Tower. That was no short walk.

After a few more minutes of walking in complete silence, I heard Brisk chuckle slightly from behind me. I flicked my ear in his direction, curious. “What’s got you laughing?” I asked, my head shifting slightly to see him in the gloom.

Brisk just shook his head. “It’s nothing, just… It’s been a long time since it was just the three of us. I missed this.”

I paused a little at his words, thinking back. How long had it been since it had just been Brisk, Xayah and myself. Probably well over a month at this point. Reaching back as far as I could in my memories, I realized it hadn’t been since our first trip to Fetlock, when we had confronted the cyberpony Trip Wire and stolen the A.A.S.S. back for the very first time. That seemed like a lifetime ago.

Despite everything, I found myself laughing a little as well. Those had been the good old days. Well, good by comparison anyway. I had still felt like I had something to fight for back then. “Don’t get me wrong, I love Pyre and Mirra and Star and everypony, but yeah, I missed this too,” I agreed, giving both of my oldest friends a warm smile.

Xayah brushed up against me a little, making me aware of her exact location in the darkness. A small nicker escaped her lips. “A lot has changed in that time. I feel none of us are the same ponies we were back then.”

Brisk gave another shake of his head. “I’ve said it before, but it's honestly crazy. How far the three of us have come. Where did we all go wrong?”

Xayah snickered. “We thought it was a good idea to let Amber lead us.”

I gave her a playful scowl. “I never told any of you to follow me.”

Brisk just stuck his tongue out. “For what it’s worth, I’m glad we followed you. I don’t know what’s going to happen to all of us before the end of this, but I’m glad that I got to make a difference in the wasteland. I’m gladder still that I got to make that difference with you two or whatever.”

I smiled and pulled them both into a hug. “I feel the same way bro.”

I hugged them for a few more moments before Brisk finally pulled away and started trotting down the tunnel again. “Alright, that's enough mushy stuff. We do have a world to save after all, and not a lot of time to do it.”

I nodded, slowly following after him, Xayah at my side. As we walked, I realized I was smiling.

As we neared the end of the tunnel, we quickly found that our lack of light had been unnecessary. No amount of stealth was going to keep us from being undetected. Two large spotlights had been set up at the end of the tunnel, blinding us as we neared. Through the light, I could make out the shape of three figures, two black and one white. I felt myself shiver as I realized the two dark figures on either side were coursers.

I squinted, trying to make out the pony standing in the middle. It took a moment, the blinding lights washing out most of her features, but after a few seconds I my eyes widened a little. “Fleur?” I heard both Brisk and Xayah snarl from behind me at the mention of the Canterlot ghoul, their legs bending and their weapons readying for action.

“Damn it Amber,” I heard Fleur De Lis’ sad voice whisper, her pale eyes slowly watching us as we trotted towards her and into the near blinding light of the spotlights. She took a deep breath, pink vapours spilling from between her lips and oozing into a weird cloud around her hooves. “The Director told me you would show up here… I had hoped that you… ugh… I told you not to come back here.”

“And I told you I was going to stop Pureblood no matter what,” I stated back factually, raising a hoof to try and block some of the blinding light flooding my vision. “We can’t let him activate the Utopia Program.”

“You aren’t going to be able to stop him,” Fleur said back, her voice steady but tired. “It’s impossible. And even if it wasn’t, there isn’t enough time anymore…”

“This conversation is irrelevant,” One of the coursers cut in, their voice a chilling and icy monotone. Their horn glowed a dazzling blue, a lethal looking Institute rifle raising up to aim at me. “By order of the Director, you are to be eradicated on sight.”

Both Brisk and Xayah crouched down behind me further, their eyes darting back and forth between the two Coursers as they slowly began closing in on us. It had taken seven of us to take out just one Courser, and we had had the assistance of Pyre Blaze back then, something told me that we weren’t going to stand much of a chance against these two.

“Fleur, please,” I said, taking a small step back as the two Coursers stalked towards us. “There’s still time to fix all of this.”

Fleur shook her head again, her sad eyes unfocused as she watched the Coursers. She almost seemed unable to look at me. I couldn’t tell if it was regret or fear displayed in her eyes. “You’re wrong Amber. You are so unbelievably wrong.”

With her words, the Coursers rushed forwards, deadly energy rifles blazing. I threw myself to the side, a fizzling blast of blue energy flashing past my face. My shotgun raised up in my magic, deflecting another blast before shifting to aim at one of the rushing Courser’s heads.

Before I had the chance to fire, one of the Coursers slammed into me from the side, sending me sprawling across the floor. I raised my head just in time to see the very same Courser swing at my head with their hoof. The force hammered into me, sending me once more sprawling onto my face. I lost my grip on Braeburn’s Liberator, watching helplessly as it spun across the cold floor away from me.

On the far side of the tunnel, I saw Brisk and Xayah ducking away from well aimed blast after well aimed blast as the other Courser relentlessly assailed them. Brisk took a few steps back, his minigun spinning up as he prepared to fire at the Courser, only to be forced to stumble away as the Courser sent a flurry of searing energy blasts his way.

I felt my vision spin as another powerful strike from the Courser crashed into my head, slamming me against the wall. I gave a loud growl as I tried to pull myself back up, only for the Courser to wrap my neck in their icy teleconetic grip. I was reefed upwards, dangling from my neck as their powerful magic began to constrict, choking the air from my lungs.

I swung about desperately, trying vainly to free myself from their constrictive grasp. My flailing hooves ramming into the Coursers side, forcing a small grunt from their lips. The stepped back slightly, their magical grip only tightening more as they removed themselves from my hooves rather pathetic range. The movement forced their magic to release slightly, not enough to let me go, but enough for me to allow a small breath to rush into my lungs.

With a gasp, I let my horn flare up and wrap my fallen shotgun in my magic. It swung through the air towards me, levelling with the back of the Courser's head. The Courser scowled, fully releasing its grip on me as it was forced to jump away from the deadly shotgun blast that ripped through the air where their head had just been.

I dropped to the ground, gasping for breath as my airways reopened. My eyes darted up, narrowing at the deadly Courser as they began circling me, their faux smile twisting into something sinister. I saw it’s mouth crack open, it’s chilling blue gaze seeming smug. “X23-”

I slammed my shotgun against their head before they had time to finish the string of letters and numbers, giving them as threatening of a scowl as I could. “Oh no, not this time!” I groused, lunging towards them. The Courser danced aside, easily avoiding my attack as I bucked at them.

Across from me, I heard a yell as Xayah was knocked to the ground by the other Courser. I glanced up, seeing the Courser loom over her, their weapon raised to turn her to glittering ash. Before they had the chance, Brisk knocked them aside, forcing them to lunge to the side as he sent a steady stream of bullets their way.

The Courser attacking me spun around, their hooves flashing back and bucking at my chest. I hoped back, the attack missing by mear inches as I skidded across the smooth floor. I stumbled, trying to keep from collapsing and spun back around to the face the Courser, fury in my eyes.

Fzzzzzat!

No sooner had I managed to regain my balance than a sharp pain flashed through my chest, forcing me to once more take a staggering step back.

I looked down, eyes wide as I saw the large hole that had been blasted into my chest. I stared at the gaping wound for a second in surprise, shock almost numbing my body as I looked at the glistening wound. Blood began spilling down my front from where the energy damage had failed to cauterize.

With a moan of pain, I glanced back up, my suddenly spinning vision locking on the glowing end of the Institute energy rifle hovering a few feet in front of me, suspended by the vile Courser's blue magic. The Courser grinned at me, watching with amusement as I took a shaky step towards him. I grit my teeth, trying to raise my shotgun with my magic, only for a spike of pain to shoot through me once again and drop me to the ground with a moan. I tried to raise my shotgun again with my magic, only for my magic to fizzle out and letting me do little more than clutch to the weapon desperately with my hooves.

“Amber!” I heard Xayah scream, but her voice was suddenly sounding very far away.

I tried to look around, but my hazy vision made everything just seem like strange blobby shapes as opposed to ponies. I saw the shadowy form of what I assumed to be the Courser, knocking Brisk to the ground, looming over him and pinning him to the floor with an impossibly strong hoof.

I saw a striped shape, likely Xayah, rushing towards me, only for her form to give a yell of pain as one of the Coursers shot a blast of energy through her leg. Xayah collapsed to the ground, trembling as waves of pain washed through her.

A shadow passed over me, drawing my attention to the Courser that now towered above me. They grinned down at me, their piercing gaze sending shivers shooting down my trembling spine. “Did you really think you could just waltz into the Institute?” The Courser hissed, their magic slowly raising their energy rifle. “Did you really think the Director would simply let you get back in the same way you got out? There are hundreds of us in the Institute, and you couldn’t even kill two of us.”

Spat a wad of blood from my mouth and gave the Courser a grin of my own. “Actually, I managed to kill one of the two of you? See ya...”

The Coursers' eyes widened as they realized their mistake too late. My hoof abruptly tightened around the mouth trigger of Breaburn’s Liberator, sending all four rounds of buckshot straight into the Courser’s face. Their head exploded, bits of viscera and cybernetics shooting in all directions as their body dropped to the ground beside me with a thud.

My grin of satisfaction was washed away moments later as the Courser's corpse started to rise up from the ground beside me, wire tendrils slithering out from its brutalized neck and slowly pulling its pulped head back together. Fear flashed through me, followed shortly by a spike of pain that once more lanced through my chest. My head dropped back to the ground, my breath coming out in heavy gasps as it suddenly became hard to breath.

"Wha- how?" I gasped, staring in horror as the Courser pulled itself back up into a fully standing position. The last Courser I had fought had been many things, but it hadn't been able to regenerate, and it defiantly hadn't been able to survive its head being blasted off.

The Courser simply smiled at me, its magical energy rifle raising and gently resting the end of its barrel against my head. "The Director was quite put out when you managed to kill that last Courser he sent your way," The Courser cooed, his words filling me with dread. "He was determined to make sure that such a mistake does not happen again. Killing us is not going to be so easy anymore."

With those words, I knew it was over.

The Courser pinning Brisk to the ground gave me an almost impressed look before pressing the barrel of his rifle against Brisk’s head. “Regardless of your attempts to neutralize us, you have accomplished nothing here,” The Courser cooed. “You are all still going to die.”

And with that, both of Courser’s magic began to tighten around the triggers of their guns.

“Wait!” My breath caught in my throat as Fleur’s raspy voice called out, causing the Coursers to pause.

Both Coursers glanced up at the Canterlot Ghoul, who had until this point, been watching the fight in silence from the closed doorway. “There is nothing to wait for,” The Courser holding Brisk down replied flatly, their eyes returning to Brisk. “The Director has ordered their execution.”

“Let me talk to them for a moment,” Fleur demanded, taking a step forward. “They only have half an hour before Utopia activates anyway. It doesn’t matter anymore. They’ve lost...”

The Coursers just shook their head, the triggers of their energy rifle still only mere inches away from firing. “Delaying their death is only risking the probability of our failure and is a direct contradiction to the Director's orders.”

“Just one moment. Please,” Fleur practically seemed to be begging now, her hazy eyes taking on a strangely desperate look.

After a few moments of silence, the Coursers both took a synchronized step back, their energy rifles raising away and letting Brisk and I release a sigh of relief. “You have one minute,” The Courser above me scowled, his icy gaze narrowing on Fleur. “Your actions will however be reported to the Director and if any of them try anything in the next minute, they will be shot on sight.”

Fleur nodded, giving the Courser a thin smile before trotting over to me and slowly sinking down to my level. I was grateful that she chose to not get too close, or risk burning me with the pink vapours that wafted around her body.

“W-what are you doing,” I croaked, my unfocused eyes trying their hardest to look up at the Canterlot ghoul.

Fleur looked at me for a long moment before drawing her head a little closer, her eyes narrowing. “I think I want to ask you the same thing.”

I just stared at her in confusion for a long second. “I’m… trying to stop the Utopia Program…” I finally grunted, pushing through the pain that the effort of speaking wrought.

“Why?”

The words sunk into me like a knife. Why was I trying to stop the Utopia program? It was a question that had plagued me for a while. Truthfully, this had all stopped being my fight when Azar flooded Stable 25 with pink cloud.

However, the answer came to me much faster than I expected.

“Because it's wrong,” I said at last, choking on my own words. “Because Pureblood is wrong…”

Fleur raised a rotting eyebrow at me. “Is it really wrong to want to return Equestria to its former glory? To make it as beautiful as it once was? You haven’t seen the Equestria that I once knew. If you had, perhaps you would be on a different side.”

The answer spilled from my lips before I had the proper amount of time to think my words through. “It is wrong to want that when the cost is a hundred generations of slavery and mental torture, yeah,” I coughed, pain flaring up my side and blood dripping from my lips. “Besides, Pureblood isn’t returning Equestria to the way it once was. He’s returning it to the Equestria that he wishes it used to be. He’s own Utopia. I don’t think that’s the kind of Utopia that most of us want to live in… even you… Definitely not Fancy Pants...”

Fleur's expression hardened for a second before letting a softer expression cross her face. “You realize that you never could have won here, right? You can’t beat him.”

I felt myself shiver, though my conviction didn’t waver. “So I’ve been told. But If we just let him win, then there really wouldn’t be a chance for any of us.”

“You’re minute is up,” One of the Courser above Brisk ordered, their rifle once again levelling at Brisk's head.

Fluer gave the Courser a nod and began to move away, but I quickly reached out with my hooves, grabbing onto her leg before she could get too far away. I winced as I felt the oozing pink mist around her burn at my flesh. “Fancy Pants once told you that civilization needs balance,” I said desperately, fear starting to creep into my voice.

Fluer nodded and pulled her leg away. “I know. You’ve tried to sway me with this before Amber. I spared you once because I know that's what he would have wanted, but I’m sorry, that fact isn’t going to change anything anymore. Fancy Pants is gone. He’s not here anymore. Just because he believed that there might be hope for a better world doesn’t mean there is one.”

“But you aren’t gone, are you,” I said back flatly, trying and failing to suppress the pain in my chest. “Do you believe there is a chance for a better world?”

Fleur paused, finally looking back at me with a cocked eyebrow. “What does it matter what I believe? I can’t change anything.”

I shook my head, looking to where Xayah and Brisk were watching me from their spot on the ground a few feet away. “There’s always something we can do. Fancy Pants knew that standing up to Pureblood would lead to his own ruin, but he stood up to him anyway, and because of that, there are hundreds of ponies that weren’t subjected to Purebloods whims.”

“And now all of those ponies are dead,” Fleur retorted, taking another step away. “In the end, everything was meaningless anyway.”

“But it wasn’t meaningless,” I said back, grimacing as I pressed my hoof against my chest to try and slow the bleeding. “Not if we let all those ponies he tried to help mean something to us. If we let Pureblood win, then Fancy Pants’ death really will have been for nothing-”

“Silence,” The Courser above me shouted, his eyes narrowing at me as if trying to blast me apart with their gaze alone. “This conversation is of no relevance. Continuing it is illogical,” Again, their magic levelled their gun at my head and tightened around the trigger. I saw the other Courser's magical grasp tighten around its trigger as well. “Your minute is long since over. They die now.”

Blam!

The Courser above me jumped back with surprise as Fleur raised an elegant looking revolver up in her magic and fired at him. The shot missed, the Courser easily managing to dodge, but he was forced to jerk himself away, his own shot going wide and missing my head by inches, leaving a black sear mark on the ground next to my face. I flinched away, my eyes clenching tight as I expected the shot to vaporize my skull.

The Courser looming over Brisk raised their head in surprise, their own weapon raising to face Fleur as the Canterlot ghoul spun their revolver around in their magic to face them. The Courser ducked back, Fleurs shot gazing the side of the head as she tried to put a bullet through their brain, the shot slashing a thin strip of hide from the Courser's face and drawing blood.

The Courser glared at Fleur, his piercing eyes narrowed to slits. “You would disobey the Director?”

Fleur took a hesitant step back, her breath coming out in panicked pants as both of the Coursers began to stalk towards her, their monotone expression unreadable. “I… I don’t… I mean… I should…" She fumbled with her words for a second, panic beginning to flare up in her eyes as the Coursers drew closer and closer. After a second, she too a deep breath and stood up taller, taking on an elegant, headstrong pose. One surely fitting of her stature. "I am. I think I should have a long time ago.”

Both of the Courser’s lips twisted into a sinister grins that in no way reached their eyes. “Then by order of the Director, you are to be executed as well.”

Before Fleur could react, both Courses lashed at her, their hooves slamming into the side of the Canterlot ghouls head and sending her slamming into the ground. Their institute energy rifles fired, blasting three holes into Fleur’s side. Fleur screamed, her hooves flailing as she tried to ward off the Courser’s deadly assault. Fleur let out a shaky breath, the pink mist oozing from her body slowly patching the wounds back together.

She raised her head, glaring daggers at the Courser's. "Do your worst..."

The Courser's rifles raised, both barrels pressing firmly against her decaying head. "As you wish."

“Excuse me! What is it with you ponies and not waiting for me before starting the party!” A booming voice called out, causing both of the Coursers to freeze in place. My ears perked up at the sound of the voice, a small smile touching my lips. I lifted my head, looking down the hallway at the imposing power armoured form of Pyre, grinning at all of us through her helmet. “I mean seriously, you think you’d have learned to at least wait for me at this point.”

Pyre was not standing alone. Behind her stood a group of at least sixty hellhounds, each one armed to the teeth and giving the Courser a toothy grin. Behind even them, I could make out the shadowy shape of Jinx looming into the darkness of the tunnel, her glowing gaze cutting through the gloom and hundreds upon hundreds of Las Pegasus Raiders rushing into position around her huge paws. I caught sight of the Institute scientist remnants and the Friendship Express moving into position amongst them, Mother, Glasswing, Freedom and even Sprocket leading the raiders onwards. The stomping of hooves signalled the arrival of a squadron of fully armed True Steels, each one moving into a defensive position and levelling their explosive weaponry down the hallway.

Magazine trotted forwards as well, her smile need unbearable as she went to stand a step behind Pyre, her gatling laser glowing as it readied to send a rain of death upon the two Coursers. Two Securitrons rolled up behind her, metal plates on their bulky shoulders popping open to show rows upon rows of missiles primed and ready to fire.

I saw Mirra climb up atop of Pyre’s head and give me a friendly wave and smile before turning her sights on the Coursers and giving a threatening hissing, bearing her small little fangs.

The Coursers glanced down at me for a second, their smug grin all but gone. “You called for reinforcements?”

Brisk pulled himself up to his hooves with a small grunt before tapping a hoof against his pipbuck. “Of course we called for reinforcements. We gave the signal the second we opened up the tunnel. Did you think we were idiots?”

Both of the Courser’s eyes darted from Brisk to the army that had made its way into the tunnel. After a long second, the one closest to me let a grim smile settle across their lips. “Well, fuck me...” The Courser had hardly finished their sentence before teams of Hellhounds flashed forwards, their huge claws ripping the Courser to shreds. screams filled the tunnel as chunks of flesh and cybernetics were ripped from its body and sent flying away in every direction.

The other Courser stumbled back, their magical energy rifle managing to turn a single hellhound to sizzling ash before Pyre lurched forwards and slammed into him, sending him toppling to the ground. The Courser reeled back, preparing to strike Pyre back, only for a rocket to flash out from one of the True Steels, the massive explosive detonating against their chest and ripping the front of their body apart.

The Courser dropped to their haunches, pain scrawled across their face. Glasswing stepped forwards, eyeing the Courser with clear distaste. "The Institute really has gone to the dogs, as they say, hasn't it?"

The Courser didn't get to respond as Glasswing sent a beam of energy out of his rifle and lancing through the Coursers face. Their body glowed blue for a second, before they fizzled away into a pile of sparkling ash.

The sound of flapping wings pulled my attention from the dying Courser to the roof above, making out the form of Star as she darted towards me, a healing potion tight in her grip. I gratefully took it, letting its healing abilities patch my wounds back together. My chest still hurt, but I at least didn’t feel like I was about to die. I hated fighting Coursers.

After I had drank the rest potions contents, I looked up, giving Star a thankful smile. I saw Scarlet walking towards me as well, only making my smile widen. “I’m glad to see you are both alive,” I said truthfully, stretching my legs and pulling myself up to my hooves.

“And we’re thankful to be alive,” Scarlet said back, her voice sounding just as thankful as I felt.

Star just snorted and gave Scarlet a grumpy glare. “Okay, yay, your plan worked. Now don’t fucking volunteer me for a death mission next time.”

Across from us, I saw Pyre trot over to Xayah and Brisk, Mirra hopping off her back and giving each of them a healing potion of their own. “I’m glad you’re alright,” Pyre said, turning to me.

I puffed my chest out a little and grinned. “And you thought I wouldn’t be?”

“Well you did fail to get through the tunnel undetected, and I did have to save your sorry pink ass,” Pyre nickered back, her metal clad hoof gesturing to the broken forms of the Coursers on the ground beside us.

I just gave her a playful roll of my eyes. “I didn’t want to steal all the fun from you.”

Pyre snickered at me through her helmet. “Right, let's go with that.”

I heard Jinx approach before I saw her, turning to face the huge sphinx as she stalked through the tunnel towards us, her head bowed to keep from scraping across the ceiling. Ten fully armoured raiders moved in a defensive position around her, keeping her covered from all sides, though I doubted the raider queen needed much protection.

Jinx’s eyes seemed to glitter in the dark, their glowing slitted pupils landing on the shaking form of Fleur De Lis. Her eyes seemed to glow brighter for a second as she stared at the Canterlot ghoul before giving her a toothy grin. “It is good to have you on our side, Fleur De Lis.”

Fleur just shuffled back a little, her eyes wide with fear. “H-how did you…”

Ignoring her, Jinx turned to me. “Iron Hock and Razor Blade are taking care of the synths outside. They will be joining us shortly. Are you ready?” At her question, all the raiders seemed to quiet down, turning to me and waiting for me to give the order to at long last storm into the Institute.

And there it was, the final question. I turned and looked towards the large door that I knew led into the Institute. What had Fleur said? Half an hour until Pureblood launched the Utopia program? If that was true, then there wasn’t much time to waste. The eleventh hour was here and the clock was soon to strike twelve.

Brisk seemed to notice my hesitation and quickly trotted over to me, placing a hoof on my withers. “We got this,” He said, his eyes looking far more determined than I felt. “Since when has the wasteland ever been able to hold us down for long?”

Xayah trotted over next, giving me a warm smile of her own. “Once upon a time, I told you I would follow you wherever this journey you're taking us on would lead,” Xayah said, leaning in a little to nuzzle me. “Now is as good a time as any to finish it.”

I turned, looking at Star and Scarlet who both gave me reassuring nods. "I've got your back in there Amber," Scarlet reassured. "We'll stop all of this. We'll get your body back, and maybe we'll even save Crank somehow too..."

Mirra quickly fluttered over, perching atop me and lounging lazily across my back. I twisted my head to look at her as she gave me a fang filled grin. “I think it’s about time we give Pureblood what’s coming for him, don’t you? Besides, we have my mysterious friend to save in there too!” she added with a happy chirp.

With a small laugh, I turned to finally look at Pyre. She stared back at me for a long moment, her posture headstrong as if she were a soldier waiting for my command. After a moment, her shoulders relaxed. “Don’t look at me,” she finally said. I could see the smallest of smiles splay across her face from behind her visor. “I’d follow you into hell if you asked me. The Institute ain’t nothing compared to that.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Fleur staring at me intently. I slowly sifted my head to look at her, my amber eyes locking with her hazy, pale ones. “You know you still won’t be able to win this fight,” she told me, taking a step away and clearing the way for me to approach the terminal locking the doorway.

“Is that going to stop us from trying though?” I asked her back, slowly making my way past her and towards the terminal. I raised my hoof, steeling myself for what came next.

“It should,” She replied, her eyes transfixed on my hoof hovering inches above the terminal's controls. She let a small sigh escape her lips. “But it won’t.”

I nodded, giving her a smile. A real one for once. “Exactly. Because otherwise we will lose regardless,” and with that I turned to face Jinx and the rest of the ponies and Hellhounds that now stood at attention. “So yeah. I’m ready. Let's give them hell.”

My hoof pressed down on the terminal. There was a second of silence as we all waited for something to happen, the only sound that of our hearts beating rapidly in our chests. Then, with a loud screech, the massive doors into the Institute began to slide open. Blinding light flooded into the tunnel, and with a mighty roar, our army began to pour into the Institute.

I hated violence, but I was going to bring it about anyway.

End of Part One

Author's Note

Sorry this chapter took so long to get out. You would not believe how busy these past two months have been.

Originally, this chapter wasn't supposed to be split into two parts, but due to how long it was getting and the fact I hadn't added a new chapter in over two months (The longest this story has ever gone without a new chapter) I decided to split it up. Besides, I figured y'all probably didn't want another 30k+ chapter.

Chapter XXXVIX: The Eleventh Hour Part: 2

My ears were filled with the sounds of screams and billowing war cries. The air around me seemed to surge forwards, whipping my mane about as the army of raiders poured past me and charged head first into the glowing lights of the Institute. Shouts began to rise up from in front of me as well, power armoured slavers and Canterlot ghouls rushing for cover and firing towards us as they retaliated against my armies sudden assault.

Glasswing strode past me, his deadly laser rifle cracking off shots as he led his group of Institute scientist remnants back into the Institute. Every few moments, I would hear him shout out an order or direction, pointing the Las Pegasus raiders towards where the Institute’s defences were weakest.

I took a deep breath, my shotgun rising in the amber glow of my magic as I strode forwards into the Institute, stepping into the now ruined remains of Glasswings old office. A let a single shot flash out, blasting the head off a synth that dared rush me. My friends moved into an attack formation behind me, their weapons firing blast after blast over my shoulder as we advanced.

Jinx flashed past me, her huge claws smashing into the massive window overseeing the main atrium of the Institute beyond. Cracks rippled across the glass' surface for only a second before the sounds of screams and gunfire were drowned out by the booming sound of shattering glass. Dagger-like shards shot out in every direction as Jinx rammed her way through the glass, making way for the teams of raiders and hellhounds who trailed after her, guns blazing and claws slashing at anything that moved.

Beside me, I could hear Pyre shouting orders to her hellhounds, her flamers spewing streams of lethal napalm. Mirra cowered atop her back, her wings fidgeting anxiously at her sides as she watched the bloodshed unfold. A wad of green mucus shot from her mouth, blinding a heavily armoured slaver before Pyre flashed out, finishing the job and crushing the slaver's head under her armoured hoof.

I continued forwards, my legs taking me to the precipice overlooking the Institute's main chamber beyond. I gingerly stepped around the broken shards of glass that littered the floor, staring out the gaping hole that Jinx had smashed into the wall. All around me, raiders began to pour past, pushing further and further into the Institute.

It was a shame really. The institute really did have the potential to make the world a better place. If only things had been different. Perhaps if they hadn’t just hoarded their tech, none of this would have had to happen.

Something that Glasswing and my mother had said came back to me. They had said that had they simply shared their wealth and technology with the wasteland above, then the wasteland would have corrupted it. Ponies, like the raiders I had brought with me now, would have twisted it into dark shadows of its former self, warping good intentions into vile weapons and only furthering the wastelands suffering. I had thought them fools and cowards at the time, but now… now I wondered if they had been right.

It didn’t matter in the end, I supposed. It was too late now...

As quickly as the booming gunfire and roaring screams had come, they came to a sudden and almost deafening silence. My eyes glanced up, the sudden silence reefing me from my thoughts. My eyes darted about, making out the forms of all the ponies that had charged into the Institute with me. They were all standing dead still, their weapons raised as they stared in horror at what lay beyond.

Steeling myself, I turned my attention back to the Institute's main room, taking it all in for the first time since I had made my escape just a little under five days ago. As my eyes at last adjusted to the Institute’s blinding lights, I felt myself freeze as well.

The Institute looked mostly the same, a massive near-cylindrical room with sloping ramps leading up to higher levels and large, arching doorways branching off into different science divisions. Glass tube-like tunnels circled the top of the huge chamber, creating enclosed walkways that connected a large collection of balconies far above us. Balconies that I now noted held synth snipers. The floor around the central spire was still a beautiful botanical garden, filled with truly leafy trees and fluttering butterflies.

The massive white spire of the Institutes' Mark II Crusader maneframe stood tall and proud in the centre of the abyss-like chamber, the ominous symbols of the Stable-Tec logo surrounding the dark visage of the mare on the moon emblazoned across its surface. To my horror, a flashing timer was counting down to the Utopia programs launch on a large screen that had protruded from the maneframe. Every second, the timer raced closer and closer to zero.

What had changed from my last visit however, was just how many synths were inside. While the Institute had always been far from empty during my last two visits, Nothing could have compared to the sprawling army that now lay before us. The floor below was packed full with synths, each one standing shoulder to shoulder and clad in a full suit of heavy, white Institute armour, deadly looking Institute rifles suspended in their mechanical grips. Teams of Coursers stood bravely in front of them, each one staring up at us with their deadly, calculating expressions.

The stomping of hooves drew my attention to the far side of the chamber, allowing me to make out the forms of dozens of power armoured slavers as they marched into the room, their battesaddles equipped with a wide array of firearms. To my right, I saw a group of Canterlot ghouls standing back, watching us with amusement as the Institute's vast armies moved to surround us.

My eyes swept back and forth from the synths, to the slavers, to the Canterlot ghouls, my mind racing as I tried to calculate just how many of them there were. Had I still had my pipbuck, I knew for certain that it would have gone completely red. There must have been thousands of ponies in here. With a tremor, I realized we were outnumbered at least ten to one.

I felt myself take a staggering step back. I had known we were going to be in for a fight, but this was beyond anything I had ever seen. This was suicide! Even when Azar had rallied the synths to overthrow Glasswing, that army had been nothing in comparison to the legion that Pureblood had managed to concoct in my absence.

Finally, my eyes made their way up to the looming, monolithic maneframe in the centre of the chamber, and there, hovering in front of the flashing countdown and staring straight at me with the most unbearably smug grin, was Pureblood. His metal chassis body bobbed up and down in the air, the three flickering screens making up his face seemed to crackle as his dry, split lips grew tight into an even wider smile.

I heard Brisk let out a loud gasp from behind me, his minigun slowly rumbling to a halt as he took in the army. “Shit…”

I couldn’t have agreed with him more.

“Amber Aura,” The Brain bot cooed, his nasally voice sending jolts of disgust shooting down my spine. Just looking at him made my mind flash with images of being strapped down to a medical table, my stomach surgically sliced upon as vile tubes were inserted below my flesh. I forced myself to shake the thoughts free from my mind, returning my thoughts to the present. I needed to stay focused. “I will confess, you have outdone yourself,” his bulbous, flickering screen eyes swept back and forth, looking over the assembled army I had before me. “Pulling together raiders and wasteland savages. A difficult task, to organize such barbarians, but effective, in most situations,” His voice practically oozed with disdain.

I opened my mouth to respond, but found my throat dry and parched. I swallowed hard, my eyes once more glancing down at the impossibly large army before us. “I see you’ve been busy making synths,” I finally managed to choke out.

Purebloods digital grin widened, almost triumphantly. Damn him, he knew we were terribly outmatched. “Well, I’ve had nothing to do but wait for the Utopia program to finish and for your ‘triumphant’ return to the Institute,” he declared simply, his eyes practically dazzling with excitement. “I wasn’t sure what you were going to do, but I figured I should at the very least be prepared.”

Before I could respond, Jinx took a step forward, her huge paws digging groves into the Institute’s once pristine floors. I could see Glasswing flinch with discomfort as her claws raked up his once beautiful flooring. “You must be Pureblood then,” Jinx soothed, her wings splaying out slightly as she looked up at the hovering brain bot. She had seemed surprised by the size of the Institute’s army at first, though she had quickly hidden that surprise behind a seemingly sweet, albeit toothy, smile. “I am Jinx, Overboss of the Las Pegasus raiders. Though you likely know who I am. I will keep my piece short,” She gestured to the raiders behind her with her forepaw. “We are here to destroy everything you are doing and take control of the Institute. Am I correct in assuming you will not surrender peacefully?”

Pureblood, for once, looked genuinely surprised at Jinx’s bluntness. His surprise, much like the sphinx herself, was quickly hidden behind a new mask of emotions, his however, was rage. “You would dare threaten and ask for my surender, beast!” Pureblood roared, claw tipped appendages unhinging from his metal chassis and slashed wildly at the air around him. “Do you have any idea who I am!? I am Pureblood! Rightful ruler of the new Equestria! You should be treating me with the respect I deserve!”

Jinx looked back at me and rolled her eyes. “What is it with you, Amber, and finding all the most intolerable characters? First Iron Hock, and now this,” Jinx lazily gestured to the floating brain bot before returned her gaze to Pureblood and smiling, showing off her deadly fangs. “So that’s a no then?”

Pureblood just seethed, his metal claws snapping at the air in agitation. “I will never surrender to vile wasteland savages like you!”

The massive sphinx just shrugged. “Very well. I am glad we could reach that conclusion in a timely manner and get on with what is important,” She cast the army of raiders behind her a sideways glance. “Give ‘em hell boys!”

At her words and with another roar, our army surged forwards, their guns blazing and knives flashing as they tore into the synths. The sudden cacophony of raider gunfire was deafening as it ripped apart the eerie silence that had fallen over the Institute, but even it was drowned out by the sudden roar of Institute weaponry as the synths below let loose an endless stream of fire.

With a loud, rumbling buzz, a swarm of metallic bugs burst out from behind the maneframe, swarming towards us in an angry flurry. I saw spinning saw blades detach from their tiny chassis and beams of searing red light began to flash out, striking down raider after raider as they poured towards us. I felt myself grit my teeth. I hated Sprites.

Pureblood bobbed backwards in the air, a large laser turret popping out from his metal form and unleashing a slur of beams at us. A few shots hit their mark, turning a handful of True Steels to glittering ash before he flew back, whipping inside the maneframe and out of sight. A second later, the door into the maneframe slid shut behind him.

I fired a shot from my shotgun, the explosive buckshot blasting the chest off a synth that rushed at me with a sparking shock baton. The synth collapsed to the ground, the front of its chest ripped open and sparking. I shifted my gaze to fire at the next synth, only for the one that had fallen to spring back up and lunge at me again, this time reaching out to strangle my neck with their mangled metal hooves.

I felt the cold embrace of their hooves for only a second before a shot from Xayah’s anti-material rifle nailed them between the eyes, dropping them to the ground.

The lights above us began to shift from their blinding white to a flashing, ominous red. An alarm rang out, the noise sending chills down my spine. I knew that alarm.

“Gas masks on! Gas masks on now!” I shouted, my hooves backpedaling and pulling me out of range of a few shots as my amber magic probed around in my bag for my mask. A second later, I slammed the enclave gas mask down over my head, the air filtering into my lungs suddenly feeling stale, but clear.

Not a minute passed before my vision began to fog with green, irradiated clouds suddenly spilling out from the ventilation systems around us. I saw a few raiders that had heard my warning continue firing off blasts into the encroaching army, their masks already pulled tight over their faces. Others less fortunate stumbled about, hooves reaching for their masks as they tried desperately to protect themself from the suddenly very choking air. A few managed to get their mask over their face, but I saw a dozen raiders fall to the ground dead, their bodies dissolving into ash as their momentary lull in fire gave the synths the opportunity to strike them down dead.

I ducked back, bunkering behind cover as beams of blue light blazing past me as the synths fired upon my position. Two blasts lashed at my side, thankfully doing little more than singe my worn down barding. A few steps away, I saw Fleur de Lis do the same, her revolver firing off a few shots into the approaching synths before she hid behind cover.

“Fuck! What’s the plan!?” Brisk asked, ducking behind cover with me, the end of his minigun a burning red from its constant stream of fire and a gas mask of his own now obscuring his face.

I gave him a wide eyed stare, gulping. “Fuck should I know!? I wasn’t expecting him to have an army this size!”

A second later, Star dropped down from the air above me, scowling at the synths firing at us. “Well, we were expecting a fight. Maybe not this fuckin’ big, but we were expecting it,” She popped out from cover for a second, her magical energy rifle blasting off two shots before she was once more forced to duck down. “Something the Enclave taught me was that no plan ever survives contact with the enemy. So adapt and figure out how we’re going to get through this shit!”

I bit down on my lip, my eyes darting back and forth as I tried to work out some semblance of a plan. Nothing I could think of was even remotely good enough to get us out of this death trap.

The hulking form of Jinx came barreling back into the ruins of Glasswings office, her purple hide scored with slashes and burning bullet wounds. One of her wings was bent at a weird angle, already damaged from the deadly assault. She growled, lapping a little blood from her claws, her eyes staring daggers at the assailing army.

“Jinx! I need time to think of a plan!” I shouted, waving my hoof at the huge sphinx to catch her attention. “How much time do you think you can give me?”

Jinx glanced over at me for a second, her eyes thoughtful. Then, as if finally understanding the request, her eyes sparkled a dazzling gold and a huge golden shield fazed into existence around us. The overwhelming roar of gunfire faded as the sound was blocked by the shield, though I could still hear it echoing about as if it were a far off firefight in a vast canyon. Jinx gave me a smug look. “Will this do?” her grin cracked as the Institute's bombardment began slamming harder against the shield, the force causing Jinx to stagger and for cracks to shoot across its magical surface. The shield was slammed against again, this time from a swarm of angry Sprites as their rapidly whirling sawblades repeatedly battered against the magical construct. “But hurry. I won’t be able to hold this for long.”

I nodded, pulling myself to my hooves and staring out at the Institute beyond the force field. Outside, I could see our raider forces ripping into the synths, slowly trying to overcome an unbeatable army. It was a losing battle, and it had only just begun.

“Amber?” I looked over, spotting Xayah as she readied her anti-material rifle. She gave me a stern look, though her eyes reflected her fear. “Remember what is important,” She told me, her metal forehoof pointing out at the looming maneframe in the centre of the Institute. “Pureblood doesn’t need to kill us. It’s all about the Utopia program. It always has been.”

I nodded, letting that sink in. We could kill every last synth, slaver and ghoul in here, and it still wouldn’t matter. The second that ominously flashing clock hit zero, it was over.

A memory nagged at the back of my mind. A memory from the first time I had been in the Institute. Whoever controls the synths, controls the Institute. I suddenly snapped up straight, my chest puffing out and my brow knitting together. My eyes began darting back and forth, a plan quickly formulating in my mind.

“And here we go. Amber’s got a plan,” Pyre grinned from across from me, directing her hellhound with a point of her hoof. I was surprised to find her voice lacked any fear or trepidation. She had full faith in me it seemed. I wish I could feel the same.

“Magazine!” I called out, whipping around to face the cybernetic raider. “How long until Iron Hock and Razor Blade are down here with reinforcements?”

Magazine’s eyes darted about for a bit, unsaid calculations flashing through her mind. “Twenty minutes, tops,” She finally grunted, her eyes narrowing slightly. “But they will be here. Razor Blade isn’t going to want to miss out on this.”

I nodded, taking the information in. “Alright, we need to divide and conquer! This is all just a distraction to keep us from stopping the Utopia program!” I spun about pointing my hoof from one pony to the next. “Magazine, Freedom, Star Breeze! You need to take your raiders and operatives and take control of the Synth creation wing. Whoever controls the synths controls the Institute! With any luck, we can neutralize half of Purebloods army,” They all gave off quick salutes, their expressions dower. I quickly turned, addressing Scarlet. “You go with them. You know the way to get there and how to override synth controls better than any of us.”

Scarlet gave me a grim nod, shifting slightly to stand closer to Star.

A small cough drew my attention over to Glasswing as the lab coat clad changeling gave me a glassy smile. “Would I not be best for this? I do believe that it is actually I that knows the Institute's overrides better than anyone.”

I shook my head. “I don’t trust you with control of the synths. That, and I have another job for you to do,” I turned back to Scarlet, my expression shifting to match hers. “Plus, I need you to get my body back. Crank is still in my mind somewhere, assuming Inferno hasn’t killed him yet.”

Scarlet’s expression softened a little. “I’ll get him back. Don’t worry.”

I spun back around, facing Glasswing once more. “As for you, I need you to deal with the Sprite bots. I’ve dealt with them before and I do not want to again. Do you know how to disable them?”

Glasswing shifted uncomfortably. “I do, yes. But their controls are on the far side of the Institute. I’m going to need a lot of protection.”

I nodded my head before quickly turning to Pyre. “Send a squadron of Hellhounds to protect the Institute scientists. Meanwhile, I need you, Xayah, Brisk, Fleur, Mother and Mirra with me. We’re going to make a dash for the maneframe. We need to cut the head off the snake, the sooner, the better.”

There was a loud whooshing sound, followed by a massive explosion that rocked the whole room as a sudden bombardment of missiles streaked out and burst against Jinx’s shield. More glowing cracks spiderwebbed out across the magic surface, the whole thing looking like it was ready to collapse.

“Amber! I can only hold this thing up for a few more seconds!” Jinx shouted, her whole body seeming to crouch down low as if she were holding up the whole building from collapsing. “So wrap up quick!”

I felt my heartbeat quicken, turning to face the sphinx more directly. “Jinx, once you drop this shield, I’m going to need you to lead your raiders and the True Steels into a full frontal assault on the Institute. We need to dwindle their forces down as much as possible and keep them from taking out the rest of us.”

Jinx gave me a sly smile. “Oh good. Nothing like a good suicide mission to kick off the morning.”

I let my eyes shift to rest on the wall of the ruined office, my eyes narrowed into slits as I stared at it. “Fleur, what happened to the bomb?” I suddenly asked, causing the Canterlot ghoul to look up at me from where she was standing.

Fleur raised a rotting eyebrow at me curiously. “Bomb?”

I nodded, pointing at the wall. “Last time I was here, there was a Balefire bomb right there. Where is it?” I turned from the wall to face her, my expression grim. “If this really is a fight we can’t win, then I want a backup plan.”

“What? Are you insane!” Magazine snapped, taking a threatening step towards me, her teeth baring. “You are not going to set off any balefire bombs in here! You’ll kill us all!”

I whirled on the cybernetic raider, growling. “That’s the last thing I want to do, trust me. But if it comes down to either blowing up the Institute with us inside, or letting Pureblood launch the Utopia program, then what other choice are we going to have?” I turned back to Fleur. “So where did the bomb go?”

Fleur opened her mouth to respond, but Magazine quickly cut her off, her metal forehooves slamming down hard on the ground in front of us. “No! Don’t fucking answer that. We are not blowing this place up while I’m still fucking inside of it!”

“It doesn’t matter anyway. I gave it to Pureblood,” Fleur groused, her eyes narrowing. “It’s likely in his office, which if you recall, happens to be on the exact opposite side of all that,” she gestured with a hoof to the raging bloodshed tearing apart the Institute on the other side of Jinx’s force field.

Damn, that was going to be an issue. Magazine just growled at me again. “I swear Amber, if you dare try and blow this place up, I’ll cut you down myself!”

“Magazine, that’s enough!” Jinx roared, her teeth glinting in the flashing red lights of the Institute. “I would rather we die in balefire than spend eternity as that aristocrat’s slaves,” Her huge head lowered, her muzzle only inches away from the now cowering leader of the Las Pegasus Operators. “And even if we do not blow this place up, I’d rather we were in possession of the balefire bomb than them.”

All Magazine could do was give a timid nod and take a fearful step away from the huge Sphinx.

Another missle flashed out from one of the power armoured slavers battle saddles, detonating against the golden force field and making us all flinch back. A loud crack rang out, the flickering magical shield looking as if it were on the brink of collapsing around us.

After a few seconds of thought, I took a deep breath, long and shaky. There was so much to do, and even with our army, we didn’t have nearly enough ponies to do it all. But right now, we were out of time, I’d have to figure out how to deal with the balefire bomb later. “Alright, everypony ready?” There was a round of incredibly nervous nods. “Then let's do this!”

With an exhale of breath, Jinx’s glowing eyes returned to normal and the shield fell. All at once, the roaring sound of battle slammed into us like a wall, making me wince back, one hoof clamping tight over my ear. With a shout of determination, I leapt forwards, my friends trailing behind me.

Then all hell broke loose.

My senses were bombarded with flaring lights, explosions and the loud ringing of gunfire as I dove headfirst into the frey. A grenade went off a few feet from me, sending a group of synths and an unlucky raider flying through the air in a burst of fire and shrapnel, their bodies ripped apart by the deadly blast. A Courser rushed out through the clearing smoke of the explosion, their magical energy rifle turning five raiders to ash before two hellhounds managed to rip its head from its neck.

A swarm of sprites buzzed over me, their deadly saws cutting deep into the armour of a True Steel, ripping his now mangled corpse from his damaged armour. A few Operator raiders began firing up at the sky, their bullets taking down a few of the sprites before the sprites managed to return fire and render them too little more than glowing ash.

“Pack, to me!” I heard Pyre shout, her flamers spewing streams of fire into Purebloods forces. One power armoured slaver collapsed to the ground before her, their flesh cooked alive inside their armour and smoke billowing from their shattered visor. Mirra gave a frightened eep as she watched the slavers' eyes melt into their sockets behind the now shattered glass of their visor.

Hellhounds began ripping back through the synths, rallying around Pyre. Pyre quickly pointed at a small hoof full of them. “Help me clear a path to the maneframe in the centre. Kill everything in your way!” Pyre ordered, her hooves thundering against the ground as she rushed past me. “The rest of you, follow Glasswing! Keep him alive as long as possible!”

Her Hellhounds gave a loud, blood curdling howl as they scattered, rushing to follow their pack leader's command.

Jinx flashed through the air above me, her flying unsteady by her damaged wing. She crashed downwards into the swarm of synths, the ground shaking under the force of her impact, her paws ripping appart anything that got close. Teams of raiders and True Steels rushed in with her, bashing and blasting at anything that moved.

“Stay safe!” Scarlet told me, her voice rising over the din as her and Star rushed off after Magazine and Freedom as they began making a desperate dash for the synth creation wing. Her rifle fired off a beam of blue light, disintegrating a Canterlot ghouls head.

I didn’t have time to respond as I had to roll across the ground to avoid a deadly blast of light as a synth assailed me. Another synth rushed at me from the opposite side, their hooves flashing out to send me sprawling across the ground. Before their attack could land, I pulled myself away, Breaburn’s Liberator snapping out and sending an explosive round of buckshot point blank into their head. The synth reeled back, the front of their head now a mess of damaged circuitry and scrap.

The sound of Xayah’s sniper drew my attention back up. I caught sight of her a few paces ahead of me, her rifle blasting shot after well aimed shot into the synths while Brisk covered her, the barrels of his minigun spinning and blazing with fire and smoke. Fleur and Mother stood a few steps beyond even them, their firearms echoing loudly as they tried to bring down a group of charging slavers.

Blam!

Another blast from my shotgun dropped another synth to the ground. I whipped around, steadying myself and aiming at the head of the next synth, only for a clattering sound to draw my attention down to my hooves. I managed to make out the shape of a magical plasma apple grenade rolling to a stop in front of me with just enough time to throw myself backwards before it exploded. My vision flared with blazing green light as the explosive detonated, magical energy searing the front of my hide and bits of shrapnel cutting deep into my flesh. The raider beside me wasn’t as lucky, the blast blowing off the front half of his body and sending viscera raining down around us.

I landed on my side with a heavy thud, my vision spinning. I staggered to my hooves, narrowly avoiding a synth that slammed down at me with a sparking shock baton. I put pressure on my forehooves and bucked back, ramming the synth back with as much force as I could. I felt metal crunch under my hooves.

“Amber! Come on!” Pyre shouted at me, her massive form rushing forwards and barreling through a squad of synths, clearing the deadly path. “We need to move! Now!”

Biting down on my lip to the bleeding point, I powered forward, my hooves pushing me towards the looming maneframe in the centre of the Institute and after my friends. Up ahead, I saw Pyre’s hellhounds continue ripping through the synths, their claws tearing a path for us through the carnage. I swerved, jumping over a raider that collapsed to the ground, their head blown apart by a magical energy rifle.

Jinx smashed through the crowd of synths ahead of me, forcing me to duck low as a bunch of synths were sent flying over my head, their bodies sparking and crashing against the ground behind me. One synth landed a few inches from me. They glared up at me with sparking eyes before pulling themselves up and lunging. Their attack never landed as Xayah sent a bullet lancing through their chest, sending them once more crashing to the ground.

I stumbled up to Pyre, my shotgun flaring as I blasted foe after foe. My hoof skidded against the slick layer of blood that was beginning to seep across the floor as I tried to reload, forcing me to try and keep my balance. Beside me, Pyre Blaze gave a loud roar and slammed her hooves into the chest of a Canterlot ghoul, crushing their ribs flat before letting her flamers finish the job.

Mangled bodies were rapidly piling up around us. A few times I had to force myself to keep my eyes open and keep fighting as my reeling mind begged for me to look away from the horrors. I had seen death before. I’d seen death enough to become desensitized to it even. But this was something different. Every second, five more ponies would drop dead to the ground, their lives snuffed out as if they were nothing. It felt truly wrong. How could so many lives be lost in such a short amount of time. I wondered how many of the ponies dying around me would actually be remembered, or if they were soon to become just another statistic.

“Almost there!” Pyre shouted at me, her flamers filling the air before her in a whirlwind of flames. At her words, I raised my gaze, turning it once more to the towering, spire-like maneframe and the rapidly ticking timer. We had made it more than halfway to the structure. Just a few more desperate seconds of rushing forwards and we would be there.

“We have Sprites in coming!” Mother shouted from ahead of me, her voice flaring with panic and her magical energy rifle swinging up in her magic to blast at the deadly swarm of tiny bots that had indeed begun to dive bomb towards us.

Beside me, Pyre shifted so that her flamers were aimed upwards, letting loose a huge stream of flame into the encroaching swarm. Sprites burst apart as the searing heat, but it wasn’t enough. More and more kept buzzing towards us, their saw-like blades swinging out to rip into our hides.

I jumped back, my horn flaring as I erected a flimsy magic shield around my body. Not a second later, I felt the swarm of sprites slam into it, knocking me onto my back with a grunt as I struggled to maintain the amber barrier between myself and the killer bots. The blaring buzzing of saws assaulted my ears as hundreds of tiny blades rammed repeatedly against my shield.

Through the amber force field, I saw Brisk staggering back, his minigun roaring as he sent volley after volley into the swarm. One hellhound dropped dead beside him, the flesh on their face ripped to shreds and revealing the scratched, bloody skull beneath. Fleur was shrieking wildly as a few beams of burning crimson light flashed through her, sending jolts of pain surging up her body.

I saw a raider turn their weapons towards the swarm of sprites, only for a Courser to take advantage of the distraction and smash their hoof across the front of their gas mask. The front of the mask shattered, letting the toxic air around us surge into the raiders mouth. With a scream of fear, the raider collapsed to the ground, clutching at their throat as more and more of the deadly vapours swirled into their lungs.

With a loud yell of frustration, I sent as much magic as my cracked horn would allow surging up into the shield around me. A massive shock of pain reverberated up my body as if I had been struck by lightning for only a second before the built up energy burst from my horn and into my shield, sending the assailing sprites shooting back in every direction, bolts of electricity surging through their metal forms, rending a few of them to slag.

I grimaced, toppling to the floor as a wave of fatigue washed over me, my horn throbbing and sending spikes of pain shooting through my skull.

I looked up, making out the shape of a synth rushing at my collapsed form with a drawn magical energy rifle, only for them to be blasted apart by a blast of Xayah’s sniper. Pyre lunged over me, her heavily armoured body protecting me as more and more synths closed in.

“Since when have you been able to do that?” Pyre grunted at me over the sound of her flamers as she let loose another jet of fire.

I gave her a weak smile. “Don’t expect me to start doing it more often,” I gripped my forehead painfully as another spike of pain stabbed into me. “Actually, don’t expect me to do it again at all. Ow…”

Pyre just nickered, her forehoof crushing a rushing slaver before reaching down and throwing my limp form across her back. Mirra fluttered above me, her eyes darting around worriedly as she tried to keep me steady atop her foster mothers back. “That's a shame. That could have proved very useful. Come on ya lunatic, let's get all this over with,” With a loud shout to her hellhounds, Pyre began rushing forwards once more, taking me with her. Her hellhounds scampered to keep pace, their claws and arm mounted weaponry ripping apart anything that got close.

Up ahead, Fleur and Mother reached the doorway into the maneframe. They spun around, their weapons blazing as they tried their best to clear the area. A few seconds later, Brisk and Xayah rushed to a stop beside them, their faces splattered with blood as they took up a defensive position by the door.

A Canterlot ghoul jumped at Pyre, an expensive looking revolver held high in their magic. Pyre swerved, her body dropping down for a second to avoid the revolvers first shot from piercing her visor. She swung around, her heavy, power armoured hooves bucking back and slamming into their chest. The Canterlot ghoul’s chest caved, their body crumbling to the ground with a thud.

Pyre spun to continue racing toward the maneframe, only for a burst of pink mist to erupt from the fallen ghouls body, the sickening vapours stinging at my flesh where my hide was exposed. The ghoul jolted back to life, their pale eyes manic as they once more flung themselves at us.

The ghouls body rammed into me, knocking both me and Mirra from Pyre’s back and sending us stumbling across the floor. I grunted, rolling up to my shaking and unsteady hooves. Mirra came to a stop beside me, her face fearful as the ghoul advanced on us. The pink mist shrouded ghoul snarled at me, their revolver once more rising. “Why do you want Equestria to be a wasteland!” The ghoul hissed venomously at me, pink ooze-like smoke wafting from their orifices. “What makes you think you have the right to take away our utopia!”

I didn’t have time to answer as the ghoul once more lunged at me. To be fair, I didn’t really have a solid answer for him. I ducked to the side, one of the ghoul’s shots flashing past my head and slicing a few hairs from my mane. Mirra dodged to the other side, a glob of green mucus spewing from her mouth, only for the ghoul to easily sidestep. I swung back around, my shotgun slamming into their rotting side with as much force as my aching horn could muster. Bones cracked, the Canterlot ghoul staggered, scowling at me with vile yellow and black teeth, only for Pyre to lunge at them from behind, crushing their decaying head beneath her strong hoof. The ghoul managed to give off a single scream that was cut short before their twitching body went limp, blood and brain matter seeping across the once clinically clean floor.

“I fucking hate Canterlot ghouls,” Pyre grunted, her body whipping around so that she could send another wave of fire into the approaching army. “Now go! Get to the maneframe!”

I nodded, scampering back up and pulling Mirra with me as we rushed the last few feet to the looming white spire in the centre of the Institute. Pyre took a second to crush another synth with a powerful strike from her hoof before twirling on her hind hooves and dashing after us.

“Sis! You alright?” Brisk asked worriedly as I stumbled up to him. A trickle of blood dripped down his face from an oozing cut above his forehead, but otherwise he seemed alright.

I saw mother’s face scrunch up a little in confusion, her lips moving to silently mouth Brisk’s works. “Sis?” her brow furrowed more as she glanced back and forth between Brisk and I. “Wait… What?”

I ignored her, instead choosing to give Brisk a nod and a shaky smile. “I’ll be fine bro,” A small part of me reveled in seeing Mothers face grow even more confused. I turned to face the doorway into the maneframe, my hooves trembling as I reached for the terminal control that would allow us entry. “Alright, here we go.”

Not waiting a second, I pulled up the terminal and began typing in the password. I had typed it in before. I knew it by heart.

>Luna Prime

I smiled smugly, waiting for the telltale beep that would confirm I had logged in correctly and open up the door for us.

>Password Incorrect

>Unauthorized user detected

>Initiating defence systems

>You have 1 more attempt until terminal lockdown

I felt my smug grin get wiped away and get replaced by panic. “What! But I got it right-”

With a jolt, the terminal sparked and a powerful blast of electricity surged through me. I screamed as the sudden surge of energy sent me flying back, my body spasming as wave after wave of electricity pulsed through me. I slammed into the ground, my body convulsing and the wind getting violently knocked from my lungs.

“Amber!” I heard Xayah scream, though my ears were having trouble hearing much else other than the sporadic thumping of my own heartbeat and a loud, all encompassing ringing.

I glanced up, my vision spinning and seeing triple of everything. My confused gaze landed on the sleek wall of the maneframe, my eyes growing wide as I saw rows upon rows of turrets popping from the smooth surface and buzzing to life.

“Behind you!” I shouted, my own voice sounding more like a croak and being drained out by the booming gunfire. I pointed a hoof weakly up, a few jolts of electricity still flickering through my spasming body.

Xayah glanced up just in time to see the turrets before they opened fire. She dove to the side, bullets riddling the ground where she had once stood. Brisk jumped back as well, the turrets above firing on his position. One of the shots grazed Brisk’s side, forcing a yelp of pain from his lips and a drizzle of blood to race down his side.

Pyre jumped in front of me as the turrets swiveled and fired at me, their shots ricocheting off her armour. Pyre staggered, wincing as the shots slammed into her. Thankfully, her armour protected her from most of the damage.

“Amber, what the fuck happened!” Pyre shouted over the gunfire, twisting around to fire off a jet of flames at the turrets. One of the turrets burst apart under her assault. "I thought you knew how to get in!?"

“I-I don’t know… The password- it didn’t work…” I gulped, pulling myself back to my hooves and ducking away as the turrets sent another round of bullets whizzing my way. “I could have sworn I had it right…”

“Pureblood changed it!” Fleur shouted at me, her revolver sending a bullet slashing through another turret and blasting it apart, pieces of shrapnel shooting out from its now mangled form. “Did you really think he would just leave it the same, seeing as he knows you knew the password yourself?”

Brisk gave a loud grunt, taking a staggering step back before letting his minigun roar to life and spray the turrets with his gunfire. “And you didn’t think to tell us this before we ran through a fucking army to get here!?”

Fleur winced. “It uh…” Her eyes darted around, making out the carnage around her. I wondered if she had ever even seen a fight like this before. “It slipped my mind…” Her voice sounded almost pitiful.

I rolled to my right, the spot I had been standing bursting apart as the turrets fired upon me. I rolled back to my hooves, my body aching. My horn flared with light as I swung Braeburn’s Liberator up and blasted apart the turret that had been firing at me. “I don’t suppose you have any idea what he changed it to?” I sighed as Fleur shook her head. I turned to look at Pyre, my brow furrowing. “Pyre! I’m going to need to look at the terminal for a second! Cover me!”

Pyre gave an affirmative nod, crouching down into an even more battle ready stance and sending waves of fire racing up at the turrets. A synth dove at her from the side, staggering her, only for Pyre to crush it with a quick buck from her armoured, hind legs. “Xayah! Take down anything that gets close! Pack! Defend Amber at all costs! Brisk! Help me take out the turrets!”

I rushed forwards, pulling myself back up to the terminal. The turrets spun to fire at me, only for both Pyre and Brisk’s heavy weapons to rip into them. Pyre’s hellhounds swarmed around me, using their bodies as living shields as their claws ripped into approaching enemies. Every few seconds, I heard the loud bang of Xayah’s rifle as she took down opponent after opponent from a distance.

“We got more synths coming!” Mother shouted, her magical energy rifle blazing. I glanced behind me, making out a squadron of synths rushing towards us, headed by a large griffon in power armour. I saw one synth fall to a shot from Fleurs revolver.

“Shit! Brisk!” I heard Pyre shout, her flamers still blazing with light. Brisk spun around, his minigun booming as he sent a stream of bullets spew towards the approaching synths.

The heavily armoured griffon launched forwards with a powerful flap of their wings, rocketing towards us and slamming head first into Pyre. Their claws flashed out, digging groves into Pyre’s immense power armour. Mirra was thrown from Pyre’s back, her insectoid wings buzzing as she tried to regain her composure mid air.

I scrambled up to the terminal, Pyre’s raider hellhounds still in a protective formation around me as my eyes darted across the scrolling text as I pulled up the metadata on the screen. I grimaced as I looked over the lines of flickering green data. Pureblood had changed the password to something exceedingly long by the looks of it. Twenty letters. I gulped, panic rushing through me. There was no way that I would be able to figure out the proper password with only one guess left.

My eyes darted up to the ominous timer flickering above me. I could feel my heart beating faster and faster in my heaving chest.

Bang!

I jumped as two large shapes slammed against the wall next to me. I glanced up, making out the shapes of both Mother and Fleur as the two of them pulled themselves back to their hooves, their weapons up and firing before they were.

“Mother! Do you know any sort of override to the maneframe! Anything to get inside!” I shouted, pleaded more accurately. I could feel each second filling my mind with more and more dread.

Mother’s head bolted up, looking at me with concern. “There is none. The Crusader Maneframe mark II is the single most vital part of the Institute. Extensive security measures were put in place to ensure that no outsider or unauthorized personnel could get inside. You would need to get the password directly, and the only pony that knows it is inside the maneframe...”

I saw Fleur’s face constrict in thought beside her. “...But there might be another pony that knows it,” Fleur muttered, her eyes darting about.

I felt my heart jump a little at that. “What? Who?”

“Silver Ace,” Fleur said back, her voice sounding uncertain. “He would have been the one to change the password for Pureblood, he’d know it.”

I felt my shoulders tense. Of course Silver Ace would know. Silver Ace always knew. He had been at the centre of everything since the very beginning, why wouldn’t he be now. I gave a grim nod. “Alright, where can we find him?”

To my surprise, a tremor of fear traveled down Fleur’s spine. “When Pureblood talked with you through the Steel Ranger’s database in Fillydelphia, he told me that you informed him that SIlver Ace had been trying to activate something called Project Redirect. He called Silver Ace a traitor… he… h-he took him somewhere. Below the Institute. Pureblood did t-things to him there… terrible things... Goddesses, I didn’t know that brain bots like him could scream like that… I didn’t even know they could feel pain... The screams went on for hours.”

My brow scrunched up as I put meaning to her words. “Below the Institute? Where?”

Fleur just shook, her eyes wide. “I… I don’t know…”

“Synth Interrogation Wing,” Mother said softly, her voice suddenly sounding both incredibly dower and embarrassed. A small chill seemed to pass through her. “The Director has him locked in the Synth Interrogation Wing.”

I raised an eyebrow at her. “How do you know?”

Mother glanced down at her hooves, her expression shameful. “Because we have things down there… Things the Institute isn’t proud of...”

I felt a little lightbulb go off in the back of my mind. “...Things that can make even robots feel pain…” I felt my expression darken and a loud scowl escape my lips. “You have a torture chamber,” Mother could do little else but avoid looking me in the eyes and slowly nod. I growled again. “Do you know the way?”

Again, she nodded. “Yes… We kept Insecta there before transferring my mind into her…”

I bit back a growl of anger before spinning around to face Pyre. “Pyre! Have your hellhounds secure this area. I need to go do something. I will need to make a dash for the maneframe door when I get back! Make sure this place is as free of hostiles as you can!”

Pyre gave me a quick salute, her flamers roaring as she finally bucked the power armoured griffin off of her and doused him in a wave of burning napalm. “You got it boss!” She shouted back, finally returning her gaze to the turrets before blasting them apart with her flamers. One of her eyes darted back to me under her visor. “Amber, take Mirra! She shouldn’t be in the middle of all of this.”

I could see Mirra open her mouth to protest as she fluttered over to us, but her body was shivering in fight as the bloodshed raged on. After a second of confliction, she nodded and dropped down beside me. “You stay safe, mom, got it?” The small changeling groused, sidestepping a blast of energy that lanced at her.

Pyre just gave the small filly a quick nuzzle through her armour. “I’m the wrong pony to ask that off.”

“Brisk! Xayah! Keep Pyre safe! Take out as many of Purebloods' forces as you can!” I shouted over the gunfire at where the two of them were fighting back to back, their weapons cracking off shots every second. Multiple shots every second in Brisk’s case.

Xayah gave me a frown. “Where are you going, you foolish pony?”

“No time to explain! Just try to stay alive while I’m gone!” I begged them, taking a few steps away. When Xayah gave me a worried nod, I turned to face Fleur and Mother. “Alright, lead the way!”

Mother nodded, her expression more grim than I’ve ever seen it. She turned to face the battle raging around us, her eyes distant. “It’s this way. Follow me.”

Nodding, I rushed after her, head first back into the fray. An apple grenade exploded a few feet away from me, filling my vision with smoke and my ears with manic screams as ponies bodies were rent appart. Mirra and Fleur rushed after us, frantically jumping about to avoid stray blasts of discharged energy from turning them to ash. I saw blood spilling down Mirra’s side, a nasty laceration from the explosives burst of flying shrapnel.

Up ahead, I saw Jinx slashing at a group of synths with her huge claws. A few synths fell to the powerful strike, but more were quickly rushing in to take their place. Jinx’s hide was already marred with hundreds of blistering burn marks, her once beautiful, violet coat now covered in oozing scars. Piles of raiders and synths alike were piled around her, both the crumpled bodies of her enemies and her fallen comrades.

I swerved as another explosive detonated a few feet in front of me, the shockwave sending me staggering back a few steps. My forehooves reached out and protectively grasped Mirra close to my chest, holding her close and shielding her to the best of my ability from the blast. The changeling filly shivered in my grasp, a fearful whimper escaping her lips.

Fleur pulled to a stop beside us, her revolver blowing the head off a Canterlot Ghoul as Mirra and I once more got our bearings. “Come on! We’re running out of time!” She shouted at us, sinister pink vapours bursting from her lips as she heaved.

I grimaced, letting go of Mirra and once more rushing after Mother who had gotten a good few feet ahead of us. I had to squint to make out her frantically dashing form amongst the dense, hectic crowd of combatants.

Pushing through exhaustion, I dashed forwards, Mirra and Fleur close behind. I let my magic guide Braebrun’s Liberator as I swung it through the air and smashed it against a charging mannequin-like synth. The metal of the synth's head dented, the circuitry inside getting crushed by the powerful blow. The synth collapsed to the ground, spasming, jolts of energy flashing through its body.

“Amber Aura has been detected,” A chilling voice rose over the cacophony of violence. My ears twitched, my gaze shifting to spot a dark Courser rushing towards us.

I felt my heart sinking. “Fuck, we’re about to get company!” I pushed against the ground with my hooves harder, forcing myself into an even faster sprint. I raced past the last part of the Institutes botanical garden, rushing out into the more spacious expanse of the main atrium's outer sections.

“We’re almost there!” Mother shouted back, her magical energy rifle blasting a path for her as she continued onwards. “Just a few more steps!”

A beam of energy lanced out from the Courser’s horn, the deadly streak of light blasting through Fleur’s side. Blood and pink vapours spilled across the floor as Fleur de Lis fell, her screams prominent even above the booming sound of eternal gunfire.

“Fleur!” I shouted, my voice sounding coarse in my throat, my hooves skidding across the smooth, blood-slicked floor as I came to a halt and spun around to help her. Mirra did a quick loop in the air beside me, her fanged mouth scowling at the Courser, her pupil less eyes narrowing.

To my surprise, Fleur pulled herself back up, the pink mist around her healing up the gaping wound. Her revolver snapped off two shots, forcing the Courser to swerve out of the way. One of the shots blasted off the head of a synth, dropping them to the ground.

I rushed forwards, helping her back to her hooves. “How are you not- you should be dead,” I breathed, wincing as another flash of light from the Courser’s horn forced me to duck low.

“Perks of being a Canterlot Ghoul,” Fleur grumbled, stumbling back, her revolver firing as the Courser once more advanced. "We are kind of hard to kill," She spun back around, snapping at me to force me onwards. “Now go!”

As I turned to run, the Courser lunged at me. I had just enough time to roll away from the attack before their hoof slammed down against the spot I had been standing. I saw cracks shoot out across the metal ground where his hoof collided with it.

I spun around to aim my gun, only for the Courser to leap at me again, this time, their hooves grappling around my neck and pulling me to the ground. I gave a loud shout of panic as I was roughly slammed against the ground, the Courser’s strong hooves rapidly choking the air from my lungs. I let my horn flare and raised Breaburn’s Liberator up to fire at him, only for the Courser to violently ram his head against mine, slamming my head against the ground and making my horn go out in a sudden burst of sparks. Mirra fluttered towards him aggressively, only for one of the Courser’s hind legs to shoot out and buck into her, sending her toppling to the ground.

“You will never get to the Utopia Program!” The Courser sneered, his cold, pale eyes boring into me. I felt his grip constrict, making me choke even more. Dark, black specks began to swim across my vision, the edges of my sight going hazy. His horn began to glow a deadly, sizzling blue as he glared down at me. “You were never going to...”

“Let go of my daughter!” I heard the muffled, rage filled scream of my mother shout. With bleary eyes, I looked up and saw Mother rushing back across the battlefield, her hoof swinging wildly to slam into the Courser. The Courser smirked at her, I could feel the muscles in his hooves tensing as he prepared himself to easily dodge out of the way while maintaining his chokehold.

To both the Courser and my surprise, Mother’s swinging hoof dropped back to the ground at the last second, her horn suddenly flaring and her magical energy rifle abruptly swinging up and ramming against the Courser’s skull. I saw the Courser’s eyes widen seconds before her gun fired, sending five bolts of searing blue energy lancing through the synth hunter's synthetic skull. The Courser’s head was blown open, skull fragments, brain matter and the occasional chunk of cybernetics raining down atop me as his body went limp and toppled to the floor.

With a groan, I rolled his corpse off of me and pulled myself back up, rubbing at my throat. “Th-thank you,” I said breathlessly, looking wide eyed at Mother as she stood trembling over the Courser’s bleeding form.

“You can thank me later, we need to move!” Mother groused, taking a shaky step away from the Courser’s body. Already, the Courser’s slumped form was beginning to twitch, his head slowly stitching itself back together.

I gave a grim nod of agreement. “Agreed. Let's get out of here… Mirra! You alright?!” A small fluttering sound, followed by a small thud on my back as Mirra landed on top of me gave me my answer.

“Come on! We’re almost there!” Spinning back around, Mother bagan once more dashing towards the edges of the battleground. This time I could see what I assumed was our destination, a large sloping, tunnel-like pathway that branched out of the Institute’s main atrium and led to the levels below.

“Amber! That Courser is getting back up!” Mirra squeaked fearfully, her eyes wide as she watched the Courser slowly begin pulling itself back to its hooves, its head almost fully reformed. Growling, I raised my quad-barrel shotgun and sent an explosive slug through the Courser’s side before turning and rushing after Mother with Fleur.

I heard the Courser give a loud yell of frustration as they collapsed to the ground, but the scream was quickly lost amongst the booming gunfire as we raced away. I took deep breaths as I tried to gather as much air into my lungs as I could as I pushed onwards, slowly making my way closer and closer to the tunnel.

Fleur rushed past me, catching up with Mother as she darted into the tunnel. I lowered my head and barreled after them, my hooves aching as I rushed along. I was almost there! I was so close!

“Amber! Watch out!” Mirra shrieked, her wings buzzing with agitation atop my back. I glanced behind me, making out the Courser once more charging towards me, their head and body now patched back to normal. The only traces of the damage Mother and I had inflicted upon it was the tattered hole on the side of their thick, black trench coat.

I wrapped an aura of amber magic around Mirra and lifted her from my back, throwing her as far as I could. The changeling gave an eep of surprise, her wings buzzing as she flew the last little bit of the way into the tunnel. Not one second past after I threw Mirra from my back, then the Courser once more slammed into me, sending me sprawling across my front. I rolled across the floor, my hooves flailing as I tried to pull myself back up. A searing pain shot through my leg as a beam of energy from the Courser’s horn flashed through my hoof.

“You are very capable and persistent,” The Courser hissed, looming over me. “Imagine our surprise when we found out that not only one, but four Coursers have been slain in your presence. Perhaps you are yet to be responsible for one of our deaths directly, but your perseverance has not gone without notice.”

I grit my teeth and spat at him. “Well then allow me to finally add a Courser to my own personal kill count.”

The Courser actually laughed at that, though the laugh was admittedly rather stiff and fake sounding. “Unlikely,” Their hoof shot out faster than I had time to react. I was sent tumbling head over hoof as their powerful strike rammed into me. I rolled to a stop, groaning, blood trickling down my forehead and dripping into my eye.

I glanced up, my horn glowing as I cast a thin amber shield between myself and the Courser’s next strike. The powerful blow slammed against the magical surface, cracking it and making me flinch in pain as agony shot up the crack Viscera had wrought upon my horn. A second later, the shield shattered as the Courser slashed it apart with a beam of powerful ice blue magic.

Jumping to my hooves, I let a second spell charge up on my horn. The Courser growled, his eyes darting up to glare at my glowing horn for only a second before he lunged forwards to attack me. Seconds before his blow landed, my body flickered out of view, my invisibility spell cast. The Courser’s hoof met open air as I sidestepped, their eyes darting around as they tried to pinpoint me in the smoke filled, hectic battleground.

“Where are you!” The Courser roared, spinning around, a deadly beam of light slashing out from his horn in all directions as he spun. “Don’t think I need to see you to kill you!”

I slammed my invisible hoof as hard as I could into his face, knocking him to the ground. His cheek quite literally caved under the sudden impact as I flickered back into view. Not waiting for him to pull himself back up, I spun around and practically threw myself the last few feet into the tunnel, landing heavily next to Mirra and painfully rolling a few feet across the cold floor.

I stumbled back up, my vision doing somersaults as I tried to straighten up and look at my three companions. “We need to move! That Courser is going to be on us again any second!”

“One second, I’m almost done!” Mother shouted back at me, drawing my attention to where she was typing furiously at a flickering terminal inset into the pristine wall. As for what she was trying to do, I had no idea.

A loud yell of rage drew my attention back to the tunnel entrance, where the Courser was slowly stalking towards us, this time with a squadron of at least ten synths marching beside him. I could feel my heart rate quicken as I met his murderous glare. “Well hurry up, because I don’t think we can take these synths on!”

Mirra and Fleur backed up until they stood side by side with me. I could feel Mirra’s small frame trembling as she pressed herself up against my side, cowering away from the looming Courser. Fleur’s Revolver raised, only for the Courser’s magic to flash out and send the weapon flying from her magical grasp and skidding across the floor, the Canterlot Ghouls shot going wide.

Then, as silent as a knife in the night, the Courser lunged, their glowing horn aimed to pierce my heart. I braced myself, readying myself for the attack.

The attack that never came…

The Courser roared with pain as they slammed into the thick metal door that suddenly lurched out and slammed shut across the entrance of the tunnel, separating us from the raging synth hunter. With a loud crunching sound, a thick stream of blood splattered across the tunnel from the now closed doorway, spraying my face with blood splatter. I glanced down, making out the shattered remains of the Coursers horn that had been violently snapped off by the slamming door. I took a deep breath, taking a small step away from the horn and watching as the metal door shuddered over and over again as the Courser rammed himself against it on the far side.

I glanced over at Mother, who gave me a weary smile from her spot by the flickering terminal. A terminal I now recognized as the door controls. “Figured it would be easier than fighting it,” She said simply, slowly pulling herself away from the wall and down the long tunnel. “Now come on. Silver Ace is this way, and that door wont hold that Courser forever.”

I glanced behind me as we quickly trotted down the long hallway. I kept expecting to see the Courser pop up behind us, their vile grin the last thing I see before they utter my deactivation code and send me into that horrific immobilized state. Beside me, I could see Fleur doing the same, her revolver swiveling back and forth in the air, ready to be fired at a moment's notice. Not that a shot from any of our weapons were going to be able to do much against those synth death machines.

Stealing myself, I glanced over at Mother as she led the way. Taking a long, deep breath, I took a few quick steps until I was beside her. “So…” I started, an awkward tremble in my voice. “How much farther till we get to the Institutes torture chamber?”

Mother winced at the remark. “It’s not a torture chamber… It’s an interrogation room,” She corrected, though her voice betrayed that even she didn’t believe what she was saying. “And it’s not far. A few minutes of walking tops.”

I narrowed my eyes at her. “Seriously? You aren’t even willing to admit that the Institute has a torture chamber?” I felt my mouth make some sort of sound that was half way between a sigh and a groan. “What the fuck happened to you? Why do you believe in the Institute so much that you would just pretend like all the fucked up shit it does doesn’t happen?” Another tremor passed through me, this time feeling exceptionally cold. “That you would abandon your family for them…”

“I- I didn’t turn my back on my family Amber… I’m sorry I couldn’t be there for you growing up, but I made a choice to help the wasteland… I had hoped that one day, maybe, I could make a world that you could live in without needing to spend every second of your life fighting for survival,” She retorted, her face downcast. “I believe in the Institute wholeheartedly, because they are the only ponies in Equestria that truly had a chance of ever achieving that.”

“How is that now abandoning your family!” I burst, frustration flaring up inside me. I took a second, burying my face in my hoof and letting loose a built up sigh. “Sure, you wanted to save the wasteland, who doesn’t…? But the things you’ve had to do for that… the evil things you’ve seen the Institute commit… how do their intentions justify any of that?” I pushed in a softer voice, once again glancing behind us to make sure the Courser hadn’t finally caught up. Thankfully, they were still nowhere in sight.

“Sometimes, terrible things need to be done to save ponies, Amber. You should know that by now, after everything that you’ve been through…” Mother looked away from me and down the hallway. “Glasswing knows what’s best for the wasteland. Everything we’ve done, we’ve done for the betterment of ponies that would do us harm, hate us, or don’t even know we exist. If that isn’t noble, then what is?’

“You took away Mirra’s mom,” I hissed at her, my glare practically cutting her down. “That wasn’t for the betterment of pony kind. That was an experiment and a way to deal with somepony that stood in your way.”

Mother flinched and glanced back at Mirra who was slowly trotting along beside Fleur. I glanced back as well, noticing for the first time that she had been avidly listening in on our hushed conversation. The small changeling quickly glanced away as she met my gaze.

“Insecta was a monster, Amber,” Mother finally sighed in a quiet voice, looking back at me. “She had to be stopped one way or another. We simply saw a chance to do so while maintaining order and furthering our production on Gen 3 synths. Do not think that I take any pride in taking away that fillies mother...”

“And what about what you did to Azar?” I shot back, countering her argument. “You dropped a bomb on him, manipulated him and lied to him so that he wouldn’t rise up against you for what you did to Insecta.”

Mother raised an eyebrow at me in surprise. “Really? You’re defending Azar? He was a monster, just like Insecta was. Possibly even worse.”

“I’m not defending Azar,” I growled. “Celestia knows I would never defend him. But what the Institute did to him, even if he was as evil as you can get, was wrong. You have to see that?”

Amber…” Mother said softly, shaking her head a little. “Azar is the one that killed Stable 25?”

“Killed Stable 25 under orders from the Institute,” I added with an angry snort.

“Under orders from Kamari,” Mother corrected, glaring at me. “When you told me what happened, I immediately looked into the Institutes files on the massacre at Stable 25. Azar had been acting as a double agent in Kamari’s forces for us for almost seven years. He had to wipe out the Stable to keep his cover. The Institute was unaware of what he was going to do until after the fact. Had Glasswing known, I’m sure he would have called him off immediately.”

“But you aren’t sure,” I said flatly, finally managing to make eye contact with her.

Mother took a long moment, holding my gaze with nervous eyes before tearing her eyes away from mine once more. “No… I suppose I’m not sure,” An uncomfortable silence fell over us as we continued walking, neither of us knowing what else to say. After what felt like hours, though I’m sure it wasn’t any longer than a minute at most, Mother sighed. “I suppose I really messed up as a mom, didn’t I?”

I just grunted, suddenly not really wanting to be a part of this conversation anymore. “Yeah. You did.”

Mother’s face fell. “Then I’m sorry for what I’ve put you through. If it means anything, after all that I’ve done... I’m very proud of the pony you became. Even if I had no part in raising you.”

I froze, my legs seeming to turn to ice beneath me. I opened my mouth to speak, but all that came out was a strange sounding croak. There it was, the one sentence I had always wanted to hear from my parents, just like that. I had spent a lifetime trying to make my father proud, and the cost of him finally saying it had been his life. Hearing my father say that had filled me with such warmth, but it had been fleeting. Something about it had felt empty, unfinished. But now I suddenly realized that it had been because I hadn’t heard the whole thing… Now I had.

Slowly, painfully, I turned my head to face Mother who had stopped to see why I had frozen in place, her face suddenly filled with worry. I felt a wetness on my cheeks, and I knew even before my vision began to blur that I was crying.

“Amber… Are you okay?” I heard Mirra ask, her wings buzzing as she moved forward to land beside me. Her small, gnarled hooves wrapped around one of my forehooves, her big blue eyes looking up at my face in worry, begging for me to be okay.

I gave the changeling filly a small smile. “Yeah… yes. I think I’m going to be just fine,” I glanced back up at Mother, quickly wiping away the tears on my face. “I don’t think you know how much that means for me to hear… And I don’t think I knew how much I wanted to hear that… even after everything.”

Mother gave me a gentle smile in return. “Amber… when this is all done… If you want me to leave the Institute behind… I… I can. If you need me,” her face contorted a little bit at that last part of her proposition, the words sounding almost painful in her mouth. “We… We could try to be a family again. If it’s what you really want. I know I haven’t been the greatest mother, but I can try to be what you deserved if you give me another chance… Give you a family like you’ve always wanted.”

I glanced down at Mirra who was looking up at me curiously. I took a long second, thinking over her words. After a moment, I shook my head and wrapped my free hoof around Mirra pulling her a little closer to me. “If you want to leave the Institute behind and become my family again, that’s up to you. But I’ve already got that family you claim I’ve always wanted. The wasteland hasn’t been kind to me, but it did one thing right. It gave me a family. A brother, a lover,” My mind filled with images of Brisk and Xayah, my two oldest friends who had been with me from the beginning. I felt my heart warm a little. The images in my mind's eye began to shift, changing to memories of Pyre, Mirra and Star. “I made a family that has always been there for me. It might not be the family I was born into, but it's one that loves me. And that I love back with all my heart,” I thought to my real body resting within a pod inside the Synth creation wing, Purebloods unborn fetus still resting within. “Hell, if I manage to survive all this, I might even end up with a son. Not something I ever expected to have, honestly.”

Mother gave a slow nod, but her face seemed sad. “Well, then I’m glad you could find happiness where I failed you.”

“Okay, this is moment is nice and all...” Fleur said, quickly butting in between us. “But we really need to get a move on. Need I remind you we have maybe ten minutes before the end of the world?”

My mind did a quick jump at her words. “Fuck. Right…” I glanced at Mother, this time with a more serious look. “How much further to the Synth interrogation room?”

Mother gave a shaky breath. “The Institute’s torture chamber is just around the bend. Quick, follow me.”

Not waiting any more time, Mother led us forward. I could feel my heart rate quicken with each step. I had talked to Silver Ace once before, but this time, I wasn’t going to be the one behind bars. My racing heart suddenly went from nervousness to excitement. It was time to get some real answers.

Mother led us to a large sliding door just around the corner. She pulled herself up to a flickering terminal inset into the wall beside it and tapped a few buttons. A second later, the white, metal door slid open with a near silent clang.

Stealing myself, I took a step into the room, my eyes taking in the clinical looking chamber. Rows of blinking computers lined the walls, each one connected to wires trailing out to a central device in the middle of the room. I let my eyes roll over the collection of machines before turning my gaze to the central device.

It was relatively tall, reaching up from the floor and connecting to the ceiling at its highest points. The large metal sides of the machine bore metal clamps, clearly designed to restrain a pony shape, though the whole device had clearly been adjusted to fit something much larger. My eyes landed on the smoking, metal form of the brain bot that had been clamped tightly into the machine.

“Amber…” Silver Ace spoke slowly, his flickering screen eyes rolling over me as I trotted towards him. His voice sounded incredibly strained. A bolt of energy traveled up the machine and through his body, sending his metallic form into a painful spasm. I flinched back as my ears were suddenly assaulted by his pained screams. It took a long minute before his agony filled shrieks finally died down. For a long moment, Silver Ace just lay slumped against the torturous device, his speakers making little more than strained breathing sounds. Finally, he looked back up at me. “Believe me when I say that I am glad to see you.”

“What the fuck did Pureblood do to you…” I breathed, my eyes wide as I watched another spark of energy flash through his metal chassis, once more sending Silver Ace into a painful spasm.

When Silver Ace finally gained the ability to speak again, his eyes bore into me with disdain. “You dug up something I had put quite a lot of work into keeping hidden,” his aching voice growled. “And then you decided to let Pureblood in on my plans for Project Redirect.”

My brows furrowed a little. “And what exactly is Project Redirect?” I looked at the machine that Pureblood had hooked Silver Ace up to. “What in Equestria could be so bad that Pureblood would do… this… to you?”

For another long moment, Silver Ace just stared at me in awe. Eventually, a pained laugh escaped his lips. “You don’t even know?” His laugh was cut short by another wave of painful energy. “Over two hundred years of planning, utterly destroyed by a pony that didn’t even realize what she was actually uncovering. Who would have thought?”

“You didn’t answer my question,” I stated flatly, taking a small step towards him. “What exactly does Project Redirect do? And what’s its connection to the Utopia Program and Stable 25?”

A sudden look of interest crossed Silver Ace’s digital eyes as he looked at me over. “That is irrelevant. At least at the current moment. What interests me more is why you would bother coming all this way to talk to me when you should be dealing with Pureblood,” His eyes flickered over to Fleur de Lis, another wave of understanding suddenly coming over him. “Ah, of course. You need the code to get into the Institute's Crusader maneframe. Without me, Pureblood has as good as won.”

I nodded, a little surprised by how fast he had deduced that. “Exactly. And seeing how I doubt you like Pureblood very much at the moment, how about you tell us what we need to know so that we can stop him before it’s too late.”

Silver Ace gave me a flat look. “Of course. Though I think you know what I want in return.”

I nodded. “Tell us the code and we’ll let you out of there.”

“No,” Silver Ace cooed, the cracked lips on the bottom most screen slowly twisted into a small smile. “I can’t risk you taking the information and leaving me here. You let me go first, then I’ll tell you.”

I nodded, trotting over to the terminal controlling the machine. I raised a hoof, readying to deactivate it. A sudden thought rushed through my brain, and I took a step away from the terminal. “Actually, while you’re here and I have some leverage… I think I’d like to ask a few other questions.”

Silver Ace’s eyes narrowed. “What do you want?”

I smiled a little smugly at him. “I know that you were working with Kamari before the war. I want to know why?”

Silver Ace’s narrowed eyes widened and filled with a look that was somewhere between shock and fear. “What!? How did you know about that?”

“I did a little bit of digging. I found an old memory orb of Rarity in you and Kamari’s secret meeting spot,” I told him, moving further away from the terminal. “Now I want some answers.”

His screen eyes darted around a little desperately at my request. “Let me out of this first. Then we’ll talk.”

I raised an eyebrow at him sceptically. “I could just leave you here,” I snarled, leaning in a little so that I was staring into his eyes directly. A second after I did, another bolt of energy slashed through Silver Ace’s body, making him jerk violently against his restraints, screams of pain ringing in our ears.

“No… You… won’t…” Silver Ace wheezed, his voice losing much of its conviction as his metal form jerked in its bindings. “You need that code or you lose all hope of ever stopping the Utopia program. Now let me out of this!”

I took a step back, my expression hard. “First tell me why you were working with Kamari,” I leaned in again, my eyes digging daggers into his. “Kamari is the one who gave the order to have my Stable slaughtered. It was under his order that my oldest friend Shade was murdered in cold blood. And it was his actions that led Crank to his death. I want to know why you were working with somezebra like that, and I’m not letting you out until I know.”

“Amber, just let him out,” Mother hushed, stepping up beside me. “He wants to help us. Let's not waste any time.”

I shook my head, pushing her back a little. “No. I want answers first. He isn’t going anywhere until I have those. I’m tired of running around the wasteland, learning little scraps of info at a time that could have helped me save lives weeks ago. Right now I have the pony with all the answers before me, and we aren’t going to be done here till he spills what he knows.”

There was a loud zap as yet another jolt of energy surged through Silver Ace's body. This time, it lasted for minutes. Silver Ace screamed, the image of his cracked mouth twisted into horrific shapes as his body was flooded with bolt after bolt of agony. I stepped towards him, my eyes blazing with the light of his seizing form as blinding sparks flew from his body and lashed across the steel floor. “Now talk. Why were you working with Kamari? What is Project Redirect? And what is the code to the Maneframe?!”

“This is enough! I’m shutting that machine off!” Fleur shouted, almost frantically, moving to reach the control terminal.

My horn lit up, grabbing onto her tail and yanking her away from the terminal and back to the doorway. “We don’t let him go until he talks!” I shouted, raising my voice to be heard over Silver Ace’s manic screams.

“Amber!” I froze, Mirra’s voice snapping my attention to her. The small changeling was glaring up at me, her blue eyes narrowed. “Let him go now.”

I took a moment, letting her words wash over me. I don’t think I had ever seen Mirra so angry with me. I looked back at Silver Ace as he jerked about in his bindings, his metal body practically crackling with energy as he howled with pain. I felt myself blink. What the fuck was I doing.

Slowly, I trotted back over to the terminal and shut it down. There was a final jolt of energy, then silence as the machine came to a stop. A second later, the metal bonds holding Silver Ace down popped open and the brain bot hesitantly floated back to it’s normal height.

“Thank you,” Silver Ace cooed, his large, bulbous eyes looking Mirra over. His body quickly bobbed over to a table next to him, a metal claw detaching from his chassis and picking up a strange looking, glowing talisman that had been set aside. After a moment of attaching the talisman to his body, his screens swiveled to face me, his expression stern. “Now… about our agreement-”

“Amber! We’ve got trouble!” Fleur shouted, her revolver raising as she spun around to face the door.

I turned, my eyes making out the form of the Courser as they silently stalked into the room. A second later, a squadron of ten synths rounded the corner and began moving into the room, blocking any chance of escape. Blood matted the dark hair on the Courser’s face from their horn being snapped off, though their horn itself had been reattached to their head with no real signs of it ever having been destroyed.

I let my magic wrap around Braeburn’s Liberator as I raised it up to face the deadly synths. The muscles in my legs tensed, preparing for the Courser to lunge. Beside me, I could see Mirra and Mother do the same.

“Hello again Amber,” The Courser hissed, bearing his teeth menacingly. “On order of the Director, you are-”

Before he could finish his sentence, Silver Ace tapped his metal claw against his glowing talisman. An aura of white magic flashed out from the talisman, wrapping around the synths and slamming them back against the wall. The synths bodys shuddered, their metal frames crumpling under the force of being rammed into the wall. The Courser lurched back, a look of surprise flashing across their face as the white glow of magic lashed out and surrounded them as well. Their sinister horn began to glow a dazzling blue, charging up for a counter attack, only for the white glow of Silver Ace’s talisman to constrict around the Courser’s head, crushing it flat, brain matter shooting out in all directions.

The Courser’s body dropped limp to the floor, the bleeding stump of its neck already beginning to stitch its head back together. It didn’t manage to rebuild much of its head however, as a few seconds later, Silver Ace cast a second aura of magic around them, this time lifting their headless body up into the air. There was a loud pop of magic as Silver Ace poured another steam of energy into them, then the Courser dissolved into a glowing pile of ash, slipping out of the magic field and fluttering into a small pile across the floor.

I stared up at Silver Ace in horror, my mouth falling open. “I- how- you- what!?” I baulked, taking a step back. My eyes darted to the talisman still clinging tightly to Silver Ace’s side. “What the fuck is that thing.”

“A simple magic talisman,” Silver Ace cooed, floating over to the middle of the room. “It acts as a sort of horn for non unicorns. Less effective as a horn, but just as capable with the right training. I designed it myself.”

I just nodded dumbly, my eyes still locked on the glowing device. “I’m starting to understand why ponies kept calling you a magic expert.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” Silver Ace chuckled smuggly, once more turning back to me. “Now, about the code to the maneframe- You'll be happy to know coming to me truly was your only option. you wouldn’t have been able to hack the terminal, even if the maneframe’s security systems would have allowed you. The password is always changing, being randomly generated every five seconds, making hacking it impossible. You will need to pre download the code's datafile into your pipbuck and log your pipbuck into the maneframe itself to open the door.”

I gave the hovering brain bot a small scowl. “I don’t exactly have my pipbuck anymore though, now do I. If memory serves, some brain bot took it from me.”

Silver Ace bobbed up and down in the air, signifying a nod. Another claw detached from his body, this time holding my pipbuck tight in its clutches. “Consider this a gift for getting me out of that rather dreadful situation… Regardless of how uncivilized you handled the situation. I’ve already downloaded the file for the Maneframe onto it for you.”

I let my magic reach out and wrap around my old pipbuck, extracting it from Silver Ace’s gasp and slowly floating it over to me. “You’re- giving it back?” I asked, a little surprised. "Just like that? I thought you said I'd never be getting it back?"

Silver Ace gave another bob-like nod. “Indeed. But it is of no use to me anymore. I have secured everything off of it that I need.”

I let my brows furrow as I reattached the pipbuck to my leg. It felt weird to have it back after so long. On one hoof, it felt like I was getting reconnected with a part of myself that had been taken away. On another, I suddenly realized how heavy it felt on my hoof, and how tightly it seemed to constrict around my matted hide. “And what exactly did you even need on it?”

Silver Ace’s cracked lips simply smiled. “I’m sure you will figure that out soon enough.”

Another thought hit me, and I glanced down at my pipbuck sceptically. “Wait… why did you already have the maneframe code’s datafile pre downloaded onto the pipbuck? What good would that have done you?”

Silver Ace smirked. “Perhaps I had been planning to enter the maneframe myself…?” He leaned in a little closer to me, his expression unbelievably smug and his screen face almost fully filling my vision. “Perhaps you showing up here was something I had already anticipated and planned for…” He slowly swirled back around in the air, moving towards the exit. “Now, if you will excuse me. I have some things to prepare for.”

I growled, raising my shotgun up in my magic. It felt amazing to see SATS lock onto Silver Ace’s body and the little green blips that signified my friends pop up on my EFS. “Hold up. You aren’t going anywhere until you answer my questions!” Beside me, Fleur and Mother raised their own weapons at the hovering brain bot as well. Mirra just barred her fangs.

Silver Ace paused, only turning back enough to glance at the four of us out of the corner of one of his eyes. “Sorry Amber, but you are getting a little too close to uncovering things I don't want you knowing. I think those are a few secrets I’d like to keep for just a little longer... And I’m afraid that you don’t have enough time to force them out of me.”

Fleur’s brows squished together as she silently mouthed Silver Ace’s words. “What do you mean by that? Not enough time?”

Silver Ace just gave another smug grin. “Aside from only having about eight minutes before Pureblood launches the Utopia Program, you mean?” He turned back around fully, looking us all over with his large monitor eyes. “Pureblood is well aware that I was the only other pony with the means to enter the Maneframe. When you released me, you sent a warning signal right to him. As we speak, half the Courser’s in the Institute are abandoning the fight against your raider forces and are on their way here. You have maybe a minute before this whole section of the Institute is overrun.

I saw Mother’s eyes widen in fear. “Wh-what! But that is a tactical suicide! He would be giving up his victory over the rest of the Institute to do that!”

“And why would that matter?” Mirra pointed out to her, giving her a flat look, her long ears folding flat against her head. “We already know Pureblood doesn’t need to win this fight. He just needs to last long enough to activate the Utopia Program.”

“Exactly,” Silver Ace monotone, once more slowly moving towards the door. “And since none of the rest of your forces are going to be able to make so much as a dent in the maneframe while it’s being protected by the B.S.S.G. force field. If he kills you, here and now, he wins.”

I felt my eyes narrow in on him again, frustration bubbling up inside me. “You planned this! That’s why you wanted me to release you first! You weren’t trying to escape the pain, you just wanted to make sure that I wouldn’t have enough time to question you!”

Though I couldn’t see Silver Ace’s face as he floated out the doorway, I could practically feel his smug smile. “And it worked, didn’t it. I think you’d be surprised by just how much of all of this was a part of my plan, Amber,” He turned back to face me one last time. “Now if I were you four, I would get moving. You don’t have any time left.”

My eyes widened as I watched a metal claw detach from his body and swing down to hover over his glowing talisman. I took a few quick strides forward, my hoof reaching out to stop him. “Wait! But how do we-” His claw tapped against his talisman and he disappeared in a flash of light. I pulled to an abrupt stop, staring at the spot the brain bot had just been floating. “-stop the Utopia Program…” I finished lamely.

“A-Amber, we need to get out of here…” Mother said, pulling up next to the door and glancing down the hallway. “I helped to design Courser’s, I know how they work. Assuming they started pursuing us the moment Silver Ace was freed, we have maybe one minute until they’re on us.”

“Then let's get out of here,” Mirra stammered, peeking out around the corner herself. “I don’t want to be around when those freaks show up.”

“So which direction? Back the way we came I guess?” I asked, quickly trotting out of the room and heading the direction we had come. We had to get out of here and fast.

Mother paused, her face stricken with fear. she reached out, grabbing onto me and pulling me away from the hallway. “NO! We can’t go that way!” I turned and looked at her with confusion for a second before realizing what had gotten her in such a panic.

The second I realized the issue, I slapped my hoof across my face. “Fuck, shit, balls… That’s the direction the Courser’s are going to be, isn’t it…” I felt my heart sink as Mothers gave me a fearful nod. “So what! We’re trapped!” I started glancing around, a sudden feel of panic washing over me. There had to be another way out of here that didn’t involve us fighting an army of Coursers by ourselves. I was pretty sure that that was a fight we were not going to be able to win.

Mother took a nervous step back, her eyes locked on the door. “I… I don’t… I can’t think of any other way back into the atrium.”

“What about the vents?” Mirra suggested, her translucent wings buzzing as she fluttered nervously over to me. “We used those to get around the Institute undetected before. Perhaps we can again?”

Fleur shook her head. “The vents won't do us any good. The radiation pools in there. They’d be far too full of ambient radiation after Pureblood flooded the place. Even your gas masks aren’t going to be able to stop it from seeping into your skin.”

I felt a tremor race down my legs. “So then what…? There has to be something…”

Suddenly, Fleur’s body went stiff as a thought passed through her. “Actually, there might be…”

I could see Mother’s eyebrows raise in surprise. “I know the Institute like the back of my hoof. Each sector only has one entrance into the main atrium each. What other way is there?”

Fleur turned to look at her, her expression deep with thought. “You know the layout of the Institute well, of course, but how well do you know the layout of the Directors office?”

Mother froze, her face stricken with surprise. “The Director's office? But no pony or changeling has been inside of there since before the bombs!”

My face lit up as a little piece of what Fleur was saying clicked in my head. “But that isn’t exactly true, is it?” I said, forcing a smile I didn't really feel. “I’ve been in there, and Pureblood,” I turned, giving Fleur a smirk. “And so have you.”

Mother’s face still held little else but confusion. “Okay… but how exactly does that help us? We’re nowhere near the Director's office.”

“We don’t need to be,” Fleur groused, standing up a little taller. “Because there is more than one entrance.

Suddenly, I understood. I looked back at Mother, my grin growing. “Back in the MAS Tower in the Hollow Shades, Luna had a secret passage placed into Twilight's office that led further into the building as a means of escape and to allow her greater access to the rest of the facility,” I told her. I glanced back at Fleur. “That passageway was hiding behind a large painting, and if my memory is correct, there’s a large picture of Canterlot Castle in the Director’s office. It’s about the same size too… And seeing how the MAS tower and the Institute were both developed by the same ponies…”

Fleur gave me a quick nod, telling me I was on the right track. “Shortly after you escaped the Institute, Pureblood showed us a secret tunnel that leads into the Directors office, yes. It branched off into a few tunnels, allowing access to almost every wing of the facility.”

“And the director's office leads right back into the Atrium!” Mirra squealed excitedly. Her wings fluttered at her side as she finally caught up with our train of thought. “That’s perfect!”

“Alright...” Mother said slowly, rolling the news around in her head. “Where exactly does this secret entrance open up at?”

Fleur paused for a second, thinking that over. Wafts of pink mist swirled around her lips as she took slow, deep breaths. “I believe it was in the Institute's archive section…”

Mother’s eyes lit up. “The archive wing? That’s not far from here! We could probably make it there in time!”

The loud pounding of hoofsteps drew our attention down the hall. From around the corner at the far end of the hall, I could see the dark shadows of countless Coursers writhing across the smooth white walls as they drew nearer.

“Well we don’t have any time! We need to go, now!” I urged, my hooves spinning mother around and pushing her forwards. She gave a quick whinny of surprise before galloping off at full speed away from the oncoming Coursers. I reached down with my mouth and tossed Mirra onto my back before sprinting after her, Fleur hot on my tail.

Mother darted down another hallway, quickly moving out of sight. As I moved to rush after her, I heard a loud, chilling shout echo down the hallway towards us. “There they are! Eradicate them!”

Fuck.

I whipped around the corner just as the first few blasts from the Courser’s deadly magical energy guns flashed towards us. I felt the hairs in my tail get singed as a few beams lanced through it, the rest of the beams leaving dark black burn marks on the once pristine walls.

“How much farther!” Fleur shouted, a few beams slicing into her rotting hide as she careened after us, only narrowly avoiding being turned to ash herself.

“I said not far!” Mother shouted back, panic flaring up in her voice. Her horn serged as she raised her magical energy rifle above her head and fired wildly behind her. I heard one of the Courser’s give a small grunt annoyance as they were forced to sidestep the lethal beam.

I glanced behind me, my eyes widening as I caught sight of the swarm of dark black ponies rushing after us. There must have been at least a hundred, each one staring into me with their cold, chilling eyes.

I heard Mirra give a loud scream from atop my back as she looked back herself, her body trembling as she took in the army of powerful synths. “We aren’t going to make it!” She shrieked, her gnarled hooves wrapping tighter around me as she held on for dear life, choking the air from my lungs.

“No! We’re going to be fine!” I reassured her, though my frantic tone wasn’t very convincing. I was beginning to feel the death-like breath of the Courser’s breathing down my neck. I knew full well Mirra was right. We couldn’t outrun Coursers. No pony could.

“Amber! Slide!” Mother’s words reached my ears, even over the booming of hoofsteps and blaring lasers of the Coursers behind me. Instinctively, I did as she commanded, flinging Mirra down the tunnel with my magic before dropping to the ground, my momentum carrying my forwards. I gave a sharp yell as my hide slid against the cold surface, my flesh underneath red from friction burn.

Not a second after I dropped to the ground, a large metal door slammed down from the roof. I winced, the door crashing violently against the floor inches past my head. Had I not slid across the floor like Mother suggested, the slamming door would have likely taken my head clean off.

“Come on! That won't hold them long!” Mother shouted, rushing over and pulling me back to my hooves. She was right. Already, the door was starting to fall away as hundreds of deadly lasers from the Courser’s weaponry rapidly melted it too slag. Each second was punctuated by a loud bang as the Coursers rammed them self against the door in unison again and again, each slam denting the door in more and more.

“Quick! This way!” Fleur shouted, her hooves pulling aside a section of the wall to reveal a hidden terminal beneath. “This is it…” She tapped frantically on the terminal for a few seconds, trying to find the right password.

“Here, let me,” I urged, gently pushing her aside and scrolling through the terminals metadata. After a few failed attempts, there was a loud beep, and a large section of the wall beside us slid open with a loud hiss of steam, revealing a relatively narrow, dark tunnel beyond.

“All these years, and I never knew this was here,” Mother breathed in awe, briskly trotting into the hidden passageway. “And there are more of these?”

“Maybe fifty or so,” Fleur nodded, quickly scampering after her. “I can’t be sure.”

“Incredible,” was all Mother had to say. “Truly incredible…”

As soon as we were all into the tunnel, I tapped a few buttons on a terminal just inside the doorway and sealed the tunnel off behind us. Not a second later, I heard the large door holding back the Courser’s burst inward, followed by the sound of pounding hooves as the Courser’s flooded into the chamber. “You think those Courser’s know this tunnel exists?” I asked, turning around and quickly moving farther into the dark passageway. After a few seconds, I clicked the flashlight on my pipbuck on, remembering that I actually had it once again.

“They shouldn’t,” Fleur answered, trotting a few paces ahead of me. “But that doesn’t mean they won't find it, or that Pureblood didn’t decide to program its location into them.”

“Do you think he would do that?” Mirra asked, her wings fluttering as she tried to keep pace with us.

Fleur thought about that for a second, before finally shaking her head. “Unlikely. Pureblood likely would have had too much pride to program in secrets he felt only he should know. Besides…” She paused, glancing down at herself. “Why should he even suspect that anypony else would find this tunnel?”

We trotted on in silence for a bit, quickly weaving our way through the long passage. I took the lead, my pipbuck lighting our way with it’s eerie green glow. It didn’t take long before we came to another sealed door. I reached out, tapping a few buttons on the attached terminal. A second later, the metal door slid open, revealing a wall of canvas.

Unceremoniously, Mother stepped forwards and pushed the canvas aside, sending the large portrait of Canterlot that had obscured the hidden passage crashing to the floor. The frame shattered as it hit the ground, sending splinters of wood skidding across the floor in all directions.

“A shame you had to ruin such a nice art piece,” Fleur sighed sadly, looking over the damaged frame and stained portrait it had once contained. “It was such a lovely work…”

“So this is the Director's office?” Mother said, looking around the dark room. Like the last time I had been in here, it was almost pitch black, lit only by the sickly light of my pipbuck. “Not what I expected…” Her eyes landed on the large machine that took up the center of the room. “What is this?”

“Teleportation device,” I said quickly, giving it a small kick with my hoof. “It’s what Pureblood used to move back and forth from Red Eyes Cathedral to the Institute.”

Mother gave a small snort of disapproval. “Then it’s a very old model. The Institute has been using a much more advanced and refined devices for years now.”

“We had to build it without the rest of the Institute knowing,” Fleur told her, looking the device over herself. “Believe me, it drove Pureblood crazy that he could only get a few charges out of this thing. It takes almost a month to charge up.”

“That explains why Crank and his cyber ponies had to take the long way back after they broke into my Stable,” I grunted, turning away from the machine and facing the large black doorway out of the office. “Now come on, we need to…” I paused, suddenly glancing behind me, my eyes darting back and forth across the dark office.

Mirra fluttered over and looked up at me, confusion slayed across her face. “Amber? What is it?” Instead of responding, I let my eyes sweep across the room. Finally, I spotted what I was looking for. A large metal safe inset into the wall on the far side of the room. I quickly turned and started walking towards it. At my lack of response, Mirra’s confusion only grew. “Amber? What are you doing?”

I tapped a hoof on the safe, looking it over. I growled a little when I saw it was locked. I turned back, my face annoyed. “Are any of you any good at picking locks?” In response, Mother raised her magical energy rifle and blasted a beam of blue light through the safe’s lock. I flinched, terrified that the shot was going to hit what lay inside, thankfully, nothing seemed to happen.

Giving mother a shaky, but thankful nod, I bent down and swung the now broken door of the safe open. As soon as I did, a new pulsating light began to fill the dark chamber, this time emanating from the safe’s deadly contents.

I heard Mother take a terrified breath as she stared at what lay beyond. “I-Is that a… a…”

“Yup,” I grunted as I pulled out the glowing orb, holding it up in my hooves and inspecting it. I didn’t dare hold it up in my magic, not knowing how easy it was to set off. “This is a balefire bomb.”

Mother took a trembling step back. “You- you can’t be thinking about actually using that… c-can you?”

I took a deep sigh and nodded. “If we can’t stop Pureblood from launching the Utopia program in time, then yes,” Gingerly, I placed the balefire bomb into my saddlebags, its eerie glow disappearing as I gently placed the flap of my saddlebag over it. “But I’ll only use it as a last resort, I promise,” I glanced at the teleportation machine beside us. “Mother, I want you to stay here. See if you can get this machine up and running. I want you to get as many ponies out of this place at a moment's notice if I actually need to set this bomb off.”

“Wh-what?! No!” She growled, stomping her hoof across the ground. “I’m going with you! You need me!”

I shook my head. “No, I don’t. You aren’t a fighter, you’re a scientist, and right now probably our only hope of not killing every last pony in this place if the worst comes to pass,” I looked down at Mirra, a small tremor racing through me. “You stay with her, Mirra. Keep her alive.”

“Amber, are you sure?” Mirra gulped, her eyes wide. “I-I can help.”

I nodded. “I need you to keep everypony alive. I don’t trust anypony else to do this.”

I turned to look at Fleur. I opened my mouth, only for her to cut me off. “I’m going with you Amber. And there is nothing you can do or say to change that,” She gave me a weary smile, showing off her rotting teeth. “I’m the one that took the A.A.S.S. from you and gave it to Pureblood. All of this is on me, and I’ll be damned if I just stand by and let you face him alone.”

I paused, trying to think of something to convince her otherwise. Once I realized I had literally no grounds in which to do so, I simply nodded. “Alright then. Let's do this.”

Mother stepped forward, looking me over for a second. I took a small step back hesitantly, not sure what she was doing. After a long moment, she reached forwards and hugged me. “I’m sorry I haven’t been the best mother,” She said, and from the shake in her voice, I knew she was crying. “But I love you.”

A painful sigh escaped my lips. I didn’t really know what else to say. So instead of saying anything, I just hugged her back and cried.

“Amber! You’re back!” Pyre shouted, her flamers blazing as she melted a charging synth too slag.

I ducked low, a volley of deadly beams flashing over my head as I charged towards the looming white spire of the Institute maneframe with all I was worth. Behind me, Fleur de Lis’ revolver cracked off shot after shot, each blast dropping another synth to the ground.

Jinx darted overhead, her powerful wings causing ripples of winds to slam down around us. Hundreds of gaping, bloody holes dotted her body and I could see new wounds appearing each second as more and more synths turned to fire upon her. She wobbled in the air for a second before crashing down to the ground, once more ripping into her foes with her deadly teeth and claws.

“Pyre! How is everything going!?” I shouted, my magic swinging Breaburn’s Liberator up and blowing the head off a slaver. My voice was muffled from the gas mask I had once more pulled over my face, but Pyre seemed to hear me fine.

“Peachy. I was in need of some good relaxation!” She shouted back, her sarcastic tone somewhat lost on me over the endless gunfire. “But seriously, we’re fucked. Things are not going w-” Her sentence was cut off as two Canterlot ghouls rammed into her, knocking her off balance. She whirled around, her flamers roaring and her hooves crushing the assaulting ghouls' spines. “-Not going well. Razor Blade and Iron hock showed up a few minutes ago with reinforcements, but even with them, they’re killing us a lot faster than we’re killing them. Razor Blade is already dead and there is no word from Glasswing, Magazine, Star or Scarlet,” Her eyes darted around behind her visor, looking for something. When she spoke again, her voice was panicked. “Wait, where’s Mirra!?!”

“She’s safe! Don’t worry!” I shouted back, once more dodging a blast of deadly energy. I pulled up beside my power armoured friend and let Breaburn’s Liberator slam against an approaching synth like a baton before swinging it around and blowing their head off. “I have a plan! How much longer do you think we’re going to be able to hold the Institute's forces off?”

I could practically hear Pyre grimace under her armour. “Right now Jinx is practically the only thing keeping us in the fight, and I don't know how much longer she is going to be able to hold out. We can keep this up for maybe two minutes max?” She glanced up at the ticking timer looming over all of us. I followed her gaze and felt my blood run cold.

Pyre glanced back at me, her eyes hard. “Not long enough to live through this though.”

I nodded, my thoughts racing a hundred miles an hour. “You won’t have to. As soon as I enter the Maneframe, start getting everypony to retreat to the Directors office! I have Mother and Mirra there waiting to teleport everypony out of the Institute at a moment's notice!”

Pyre’s eyebrows furrowed behind her visor. She turned around, her flamers sending a Canterlot ghoul up in flame before she turned back to me. “What? Why?” After a second of silence, I heard her breath catch in her throat. “You got the Balefire bomb from the Director's office, didn’t you…?” At my sheepish smile, she gave a loud sigh. “Fuckin’ shit Amber! You have the worst habit of throwing yourself into the jaws of death out of every pony I have ever seen… Xayah is going to be furious.”

I gave a grim nod. “I know, but this is more important. If I can’t stop Pureblood then I’ll need to destroy the Utopia Program, no matter the cost.”

Pyre gave me a grim nod. “I know…” I gestured to Fleur and started to move away towards the doorway into the Maneframe, when Pyre called out. “And Amber!” I came to an abrupt halt, glancing back at her. “I know it’s kind of hard with a balefire bomb and all, but if you really do need to set that thing off… don’t miss.”

I gave her a final nod, my expression grim. “You won’t have to worry about that,” And without another word, I darted away, Fleur right behind me.

“You know you’re probably never going to see the rest of your friends again,” Fleur said, the loud banging of her revolver firing obscuring half of her words.

I gave her a sad smile. “I know.”

Fleur looked off to our right, her pale eyes landing on where Brisk and Xayah were fighting against the swarms of synths, back to back, their weapons blazing with light. “Do you… Want to say goodbye… or… I don’t know, I was never good at this sort of thing…”

I sighed and shook my head. “I think I’d like to keep this as painless as possible. Besides, unlike Pyre, they’ll try and stop us. We don’t have time for that.”

Fleur returned her attention to the rapidly approaching maneframe entrance. “It’s just… unlike me, you have a chance to say goodbye. Tell the ponies you care about that you love them… before they get taken away forever…”

I let my lips curl into the smallest of smiles. “That’s okay. They already know.”

We pulled to a stop in front of the metal door. Without waiting a second, I plugged my pipbuck into the terminal, quickly scrolling through my different files on my pipbuck until I found the new file that Silver Ace had given me. Something seemed off, and I was pretty sure a file was missing, but I didn’t have time to dwell on that.

There was a loud beep as the maneframe’s terminal accepted the password, followed by a hiss of steam as the reinforced door lurched open.

“Come on!” Fleur shouted, rushing through the door and into the maneframe beyond. “We’re almost there!”

I glanced up, taking a second to take in the looming face of the mare on the moon, encircled by the ever so familiar image of the Stable-Tec logo. I took a deep breath, before rushing past the threshold and into the Institute's massive Crusader Maneframe.

The moment I was through the doorway, the large metal door slammed shut, the impact vibrating the metal catwalk that extended over the radiating sphere of light below us. I glanced down at the blinding orb, taking in the Utopia Program in all its glory. Unlike when I had confronted Azar and Queen Insecta, the glowing sphere seemed relatively stable, slowly pulsing at an even rate. its stability didn't seem to change the heat it was exiting though. The air inside the maneframe was warm, but I knew that before long it was going to start getting very hot.

I let my eyes wander and take in the rest of the Maneframe. The catwalks leading up to the top level of the Maneframe that had been destroyed during my fight with Azar had been masterfully rebuilt, this time having a much more grand and almost cerimonial look. It was as if pureblood had had them specifically crafted to feel as if his rising of the steps was a literal, if not metaphorical, transcendence. Up above, the flashing red lights of the ever present countdown loomed.

“Fleur de Lis… I had expected more from you,” I heard Pureblood's nasally voice coo from above us. I glanced up, making out his golden, metallic form as he slowly hovered down to face us. “You once represented the pinnacle of what the upper class once was. Now look at you. Dealing with wasteland savages and degenerates. Impure ponies. Ponies not worthy of our very breath.”

To my surprise, Fleur scowled at him with unexpected venom. “These ponies are more worthy than you ever were, Pureblood. These are the kinds of ponies that Fancy Pants strived to protect?”

“These ponies?” Pureblood almost seemed surprised. “Even the common rabble of the old Equestria were more worthy than the horde of barbarians that my degenerate, great great grandchild has wrought upon our haven. I doubt even a wannabe like Fancy Pants would have approved of such savages,” His cracked, digital lips twisted into a snide sneer. “But then again, who can say what Fancy Pants would have wanted. He is dead. Long dead.”

“After you killed him,” Fleur spat, her hazy eyes narrowing.

Pureblood seemed to find a great amount of amusement in that, his eyes dancing with excitement. “Oh, so Amber did tell you! I had hoped she would, otherwise I would never have given her those memory orbs to begin with.”

I felt my eyes widen a little with surprise. “Wait… you wanted me to tell Fleur that?”

“Of course,” Pureblood sneered, floating down a little closer. He once more turned from me and smiled at Fleur. “I wanted to see how strong your loyalty to me really was. As I can see, I was right to do so.”

“Pureblood, this has to stop!” I demanded, taking a bold step forward. “What you’re doing is madness! You have to see that!”

“Madness?” Pureblood looked almost offended at the statement. “Everything I have done is to return Equestria to its former glory. To raise it and all the ponies that call it home out of the festering cesspool it has become and into the brilliance of my new world. The wasteland is vile and lawless, filled will vices such as rape and bloodshed. But I am going to make it into something so much greater.”

Fleur raised her revolver in her magic, aiming it at the glass dome that held Purebloods brain. “Your idea of a utopia is a sick mockery of the old world. I wish to see Equestria returned to what it once was as well, but not like this,” her gun lowered a little and her eyes looked almost pleading. “Please Pureblood.”

The digital images of Pureblood’s eyes narrowed to slits as they loomed closer to us. “Amber corrupted you far more than I had anticipated you traitorous little bitch. Are you so blind to think there is a better way than this? Without ponies like us to rule, the lesser ponies are nothing but savages. Equestria needs the aristocracy, or it will never heal.”

Fleur paused, her eyes wide. “Of course there is a better way. But you don’t get it Pureblood, you never did. What is the point of aristocracy, if all we do is control? What is the point of power, if used for selfishness and greed,” As Fleur talked, I nervously glanced up at the flashing counter. Only four minutes till the Utopia program launched. We were almost out of time. “There needs to be balance. We need to rebuild Equestria to better the lives of others, not to enslave it, and definitely not to rule it.”

Pureblood just stared at her with a bored look across his digital face. “You truly are insane,” He finally drawled, his nasally voice sounding more snobby than normal. A feat I didn’t even realize was possible until just then. “You radical fools would see the world ruled by lesser beings. Ponies not worthy of dirt. I’ll show you what a Utopia really is. You’ll all see…”

Before I could fire off a shot, Pureblood lunged, his huge metal chassis surging towards us. Dozens of metal, pincher tipped appendages flashed out from his body, some pinning me to the ground while others clamped tight around Fleur’s neck, reefing her up into the air. Fleur choked out, her hooves flailing as she tried to break free from the constricting grip.

“Let her go!” I shouted, anger flaring through my body as I sent my shotgun swinging up and blasting at the looming brain bot. The shot seemed to do very little as the buckshot ricocheted harmlessly across his metal form, but the force of the blast made Pureblood reeled back, fire flashing across his form and turning his metallic side to thermite. His claws released, dropping Fleur back to the ground with a gasp.

I pulled myself up, my shotgun swivelling in the air to fire upon him again, SATS activating and locking onto his metal form faster than my eyes could move. But before I could fire, one of his claws lashed out, this one wielding a massive saw blade. I ducked low, the spinning blade sailing over my head and shaving a few hairs off the top of my mane.

“You would dare attack me!” Pureblood roared, his bladed appendage swinging out again, this time making the blade spin across the catwalk, slashing away at the metal and causing sparks to shoot out in every direction. I rolled to the side, narrowly avoiding the deadly attack. “You will be punished for your insolence!”

Fleur scrambled back to her decrepit hooves, the magic around her horn blazing as she raised her revolver and fired a few rounds into the back of Pureblood’s robotic form. Pureblood gave a loud roar of rage as one of the shots bounded against the glass dome, a small crack shooting across its surface.

Pureblood swung around, a second bladed appendage flashing out and lashing at Fleur, intending to sever her head from her withered neck. Fleur jumped back, pink vapours spilling from her lips and corroding the edges of the spinning blade.

I rolled across the ground, another swipe from Purebloods saw blade missing me by inches. As soon as I managed to get back to my hooves, I lunged at him, my horn erecting a small magical shield that deflected a swinging claw as he swiped at me. I leapt forward, my forehooves wrapping tight around his metal body as I clung tight to his thrashing form. I slammed a hoof against the cracked dome holding his brain, hoping to shatter it. Pain spiked up my leg when I found the glass was a lot stronger than it looked.

"The fuck is this stuff made of!?"

Pureblood lurched around in the air, trying to throw me off. I gave a loud scream, my hooves clutching tighter to his body as I was whipped around wildly in the air. I felt the metal beneath me shift and looked down to see the metal arms holding up the two large screens comprising his eyes swelling around to face me. He glared up at me in rage for a moment, before one of his claws arms lashed out and slammed shut around my hind hoof. With a strong thrust, he tossed me aside, sending me careening through the air towards the edge of the catwalk.

“Amber!” Fleur shouted, her horn glowing and wrapping my body in a thin field of her pink magic. I felt my fall slow, giving me enough time to reach out and grasp desperately to the side of the catwalk’s rails, my hooves dangling freely over the edge. I glanced down, my vision temporarily flaring golden whit by the massive, blinding, pulsating sphere below.

I fumbled, my hooves almost losing their grip on the rail as I tried to pull myself back onto the catwalk. I managed to put one hoof back onto the solid platform before Pureblood was once more on me, his saw blade’s spinning and slicing at my neck. I gave a loud eep, desperately craning my neck back to avoid having my head cut clean from my body.

The buzzing blades dug deep into my right forehoof, slicing a deep cut through the hide and flesh to reveal the white bone beneath. I screamed, blood pouring from the gaping wound and spilling down my leg, staining my fur a crimson red. My hoof slipped, my grip slick from the blood that poured across the metal rail, my right forehoof swinging free. The muscles in my left leg strained, my hoof wrapping tighter around the blood soaked bar.

Fleur rushed to help pull me back up, only for Pureblood to move between us, both his bladed arms now swinging at Fleur. Fleur stumbled back, a deep, jagged gash slashed across her face from where one of the saw blades managed to slice into her. Pink clouds oozed from the wound, slowly patching it back together.

I pulled with all I could against the bar, trying to get my bleeding forehoof above my head to help pull me back up. My actions prove fruitless, my grip slipping even more. I felt panic flaring up in my mind, my left fore hoof working overtime as I tried desperately to pull myself up just a little higher.

Pureblood lurched back as Fleur fired a shot at him, this shot only barely missing as he smashed her across the face with one of his metal claws, making the shot go wide. Fleur staggered back, more pink vapors spilling out of her body from the plethora of cuts inflicted by Purebloods deadly blades. She dove to the side, avoiding another attack as Pureblood dove at her. She landed hard against the catwalk, the impact sending tremors racing across the whole platform, making keeping my grip near impossible.

Fleur rolled back to her hooves, her revolver blaring and sending three powerful shots slamming into Purebloods body. One of the shots blasted into the screen making up his left eye, shattering the glass and sending jagged shards skidding across the catwalk.

Pureblood reeled back, his clawed appendages frantically banging the large screen to try and get it back on. “You ungrateful whelp!” Pureblood seethed, his one remaining eye blazing with anger. “After everything I did for you! You would dare attack me as you have!” a claw shot out from his body, knocking Fleur back to the ground again. “I’m the only reason you’re not still a mindless feral ghoul roaming the ruins of Canterlot! If not for me, you would have been slaughtered like a dog when the Enclave brought our once great city crashing to the ground. I gave your meaningless life meaning! I gave you hope and a chance at sharing in my utopia! Me! I did! ME!”

He lunged again, this time grabbing onto Fleur’s prone body and throwing her as hard as he could across the platform. Fleur screamed as she was sent sailing through the air. She hit the floor of the platform with a heavy thud, her body skidding across the rough surface until she came to a painful sounding stop against the rail beside me.

“I should have just let your mind rot!” Pureblood growled, his metallic body slowly floating back over to us. One of the saw blades retracted from his metal appendage, only to be replaced by a long, deadly looking magical energy rifle. He raised the rifle, taking aim at the both of us. “Neither of you have any place in my utopia!”

With my last burst of strength, my horn flared and sent Breabrun’s Liberator flashing forwards like a bullet. The large shotgun collided like a battering ram against Pureblood's only remaining eye, shattering that screen's glass as well.

Pureblood gave an animalistic howl of rage, the damaged screen flickering and blipping with blue light as it tried to retain any form of optic function. His deadly looking rifle fired wildly, blasting the walls and floor around us as he tried to blindly gun us down. One of the shots blasted against the railing, burning sparks bursting around my hoof. I gave a shout of pain and surprise and reeled back, my hoof losing its grip on the railing and the sudden, rushing feeling of freefall overtaking me.

My body jerked as Fleur's rotting hooves reached out and wrapped around me. I felt my skin burn at the touch, pink vapours seeping from her flesh as her hooves rubbed against mine. Fleur gave a loud grunt as she hauled me back up. I grit my teeth, trying not to scream as she pulled me roughly back onto the platform.

I took a deep breath, looking up from my spot on the ground and giving her a weak smile. “Thank-”

Fzzzzzat!

Fleur and I flinched back, a burning beam from Purebloods rifle blasting across the floor of the catwalk between us. I looked up, making out Pureblood slowly swirling back around to face us, the cracked screen of his right eye still a flickering mess as he glared at us with unparalleled hatred.

Stealing myself, I pulled myself up to my hooves and stared him down, my amber eyes locking with his lone, glitching one. Fleur stood up beside me, raising her revolver and once more levelling it with him, her face a stoic mask.

Pureblood growled. “You really are the most annoyingly persistent pony in the wasteland, aren’t you Amber?”

I gave him a smug grin, my magic retrieving Breaburn’s Liberator from the ground and bringing it back up to float beside me. “I’ve been told I have a nasty habit of ruining the days of assholes like you, yes.”

There was a loud beep from above us, drawing all of our attention up to the flashing timer looming over us. A second later, the crackling, pre-recorded voice of Twilight Sparkle rang out. “Launching Utopia Program in T-Minus 2 minutes.”

The screen showing Pureblood’s mouth twisted into a smirk. “At last, our apotheosis is here,” he said chillingly, multiple saw ended metal limbs flicking out from his body and posing menacingly around him. “Now, I have a program to take control of...”

With a flurry of movement, Pureblood flung himself forwards. I leapt back, expecting the whirling blades to swing at my neck. Pureblood’s attack however, was not aimed at us. The saws dug deep into the metal catwalks supports, rending the metal to scrap. I staggered back, trying desperately to keep my balance as the whole catwalk shuddered before abruptly jerking downwards and dangling at an impossible steep angle.

Fleur let loose a scream of surprise, her hooves flailing as she tried to find purchase on the sloping floor as she was sent tumbling towards the glowing sphere below. I once more grasped onto the rail, biting my lip and wrapping my bleeding hoof around it before frantically reaching out and wrapping my free hoof around Fleurs.

“Hold on!” I shouted, my face strained as I tried to pull her higher up.

“Yeah, no shit!” Fleur grunted, her hind hooves kicking at the slanting catwalk floor to try and push her upwards.

There was a loud sound of metal slashing against metal as Purebloods blades dug deep into the catwalks remaining support. There was a loud ripping sound as the metal rivets suspending the platform tore away from the wall.

“Shit shit shit shit!” I wrapped my magic around Fleur and threw her upwards with all I had. She gave a loud eep of surprise as she was violently thrust upwards, before crashing into the stable section of the floor.

Fleur panted, achingly turning around and extending her hoof out to me. “Amber! Jump!”

I glanced down at the pit and blinding orb below me. I gulped, a cold sweat breaking out across my body. I clamped my eyes tight, my heart pounding in my chest and threatening to smash straight through my ribs. I took a deep breath, and leapt.

I stretched my hooves out, flailing desperately as I tried to find Fleur’s. Behind me, I could hear the sound of the catwalk breaking away and falling down into the pit below. After a second of the terrifying feeling of free fall, I felt Fleur's hoof wrap tightly against my own. All the air in my lungs exploded out of my mouth in a violent exhale as I roughly slammed against the edge of the catwalk, my hind legs waving freely above the blinding abyss as I struggled to pull myself the rest of the way onto the ledge.

Fleur bent over, her hooves still wrapped around mine as she helped to haul me up. “I’ve got you Amber! I’ve got you!” she looked down at me, trying to give me her best reassuring smile. I held her gaze for a moment, trying to give her my best smile in return.

Then Fleur's head was severed from her neck, a stream of blood bursting from the decapitated stump as one of Pureblood’s whirring blades slashed through her neck. I felt myself scream as her warm blood splattered across my face, Fleur’s grip on me going ridged before her hooves went limp entirely and she let go of me all together. Fleur’s body toppled over, falling first to the ground, then spiralling into the glowing void of light below.

I watched in horror, my body still only halfway onto the catwalk, as her body fell out of sigh, swallowed up by the brilliant, practically strobing lights of the Utopia Program. I looked back up, my eyes locking with the hollow, empty ones inset into Fleur’s decapitated head.

“There is no room for traitors in my utopia,” Pureblood cooed simply, floating back over and picking up Fleur’s head with one of his vile claws. He rolled the head around in his claw for a second before squeezing tight and crushing the skull, a small burst of gore and brain matter splattering across his flickering, cracked eye. He carelessly tossed the head away, letting it fall into the glowing lights of utopia to be reunited with its body. “Goodbye, Fleur de Lis. You served me well.”

“Nooo!” I bellowed, pure rage pouring through me as I scrambled the rest of the way onto the platform and charged at Pureblood, my shotgun raised. Pureblood glanced over at me for only a second, one of his claws flashing out and slamming me against the side of the head. I was sent sailing sideways through the air until I collided roughly with the cold wall. I slumped to the floor, pain racing through my whole body. I could feel blood dripping down my face and into my eye.

Weakly, I tried to raise Breaburn’s Liberator, by Pureblood simply ripped it from my grasp with his claws, holding it before him as if appraising it. “This is a nice weapon. Brutish, but nice,” His claws twisted and with a tremendous amount of force, he snapped my shotgun in two. He tossed the broken pieces of my weapon down at my hooves, letting them clatter across the creaking floor.

"T-minus one minute till launch. Beginning mind transfer for -Pureblood-"

I glanced up from my ruined weapon to the flashing red timer. I was almost out of time. Jinx had been right, there was no stopping the Utopia program. At least… Not while alive.

I pulled myself back to my hooves, the ringing in my head threatening to topple me over as I tried to stand strong before the hovering brain bot.

“Oh please Amber, just stay down,” Pureblood scoffed, the blood soaked saw he had sliced Fleur’s head off with raising and aiming at me, its jagged blade buzzing. “Just lay down and die with what little dignity you have left.”

"T-minus fifty-five seconds till launch."

Without saying a word, I reached into my saddlebag and pulled out the balefire bomb. I looked it over before slowly holding it up between us.

For the first time, I saw genuine horror flicker across Purebloods face. “Wait… How did you get- What are you doing?”

I just looked up at him, too tired to give him a smug smile or snide remark. “I’m going to blow this place up. Boom. No more Institute, no more Pureblood, no more Utopia Program.”

Pureblood stared at me, his glitching eye wide with horror. “Y-you wouldn’t! You don’t have the balls! You’d just be killing yourself too!”

“You want to try that theory?” I grunted, slowly letting my magic wrap around the pulsating balefire bomb. The moment my magic made contact with it, I could feel its energy racing up and through my aura, filling my horn. It felt cold, as if my magic was wrapping around the withered form of a long dead corpse. “I can’t let you activate the Utopia Program. If this is what it takes to save Equestria, then so be it.”

"T-minus fifty seconds till launch."

The terror on Purebloods face melted away as he looked at me. Slowly, he floated a little closer, his cracked lips giving me the smugest of smiles. “And you call me a monster, Amber Aura. Do you have any idea how many ponies setting off that bomb would kill?”

I hesitated. “A lot, probably. But some ponies would make it out. As soon as I entered the Institutes maneframe, my forces started pulling back. We’re getting as many ponies out of here as we can with your personal teleporter.”

"T-minus forty-five seconds till launch."

There was a moment of silence as Pureblood stared at me. Finally, after a painstakingly long moment, he laughed. “With that teleporter? Even if you could get more than one use out of it, I had it sabotaged the moment I heard you had returned to Manehattan. Did you think I would just leave a functional teleporter in the heart of the Institute? Knowing full well that you knew of its existence? It’s rigged to explode the moment somepony tries to use it,” I took a step back at his words, my breath catching in my throat. “You set that bomb off, and you kill every single pony, changeling, synth and hellhound that you dragged into this fight.”

I could feel my hoof trembling as I held the balefire bomb out in front of me as if it were a shield. “I-It doesn’t matter… You need to be stopped. I’ll just be taking the Las Pegasus raiders out with me.”

“And your friends,” Pureblood cooed. “Including that vile stripe you call a lover and that green buck you call a brother.”

"T-minus forty seconds till launch."

“Th-they’d understand,” I stuttered, backing up further. I backed up against the wall, suddenly feeling very tiny before the looming brain bot, like a rat captured in a wire cage being circled by cats. I tried to mentally block out his words and focus only on the glowing balefire bomb in my hooves, but I could feel my resolve rapidly wavering.

“I’m sure they would understand,” Pureblood agreed, his blood soaked, metal chassis bobbing up and down in the air in front of me. “But would they understand you destroying the whole of Manehattan, I wonder?”

I froze. “W-what does that mean?”

"T-minus thirty-five seconds till launch."

Pureblood’s grin widened. “You do know where the Institute is located? Yes?”

I could feel a new wave of tremors start racing through my body as I began to understand what Pureblood was saying. “It's... It's directly under Tenpony Tower…”

“Exactly…” Pureblood’s nasally voice oozed. “A balefire detonation, right here, in the centre of the Institute, would cause the entire Institute to collapse in on itself. Bringing Tenpony tower down with it. The ponies who managed to miraculously survive the collapse would not survive the coinciding balefire,” He turned from me, looking down at the glowing light of the Utopia Program. “But I doubt it would stop there. The resulting explosion would likely travel out through the whole of the Institute, causing quakes and likely weakening the base of the city, sinking the whole Island of Manehattan into the Celestial sea.”

"T-minus thirty seconds till launch."

“N-no… That wouldn’t… I…” I stared at the balefire bomb in my hooves, the glowing orb suddenly giving me an overwhelming sense of unease.

“Then assuming it doesn't sink the island,” Pureblood sighed, his gaze still turned away from me. “If by some miracle the city still exists as anything more than a crater, the ambient radiation from the impending fallout would flood through the Manehattan sewer and metro systems, before creeping up into the city. Any survivors would be instantly ghoulified, or worse…” Finally, he turned back to face me. “Do you really, truly, value stopping me over the lives of every pony that fights for you in your foolish war against me here in the Institute and the lives of every pony that lives in the city above?”

“I… I…” I stared back and forth between Pureblood and the glowing balefire bomb. Could I? Could I really kill thousands, if not millions of ponies and zebras, just like that. How many ponies would have their lives suddenly blink out in a flash of green flame? How many would have to suffer for hours, if not weeks until the third degree burns and lethal doses of radiation finally finished them off? How many would suffer for longer still, unable to achieve the mercy of death and cursed to walk the face of Equestrian eternally as a feral, mindless corpse?

"T-minus twenty-five seconds till launch."

Pureblood smiled at me, his crackled lips pulling back to show his rotting, chipped teeth. “Checkmate, Amber Aura. The lives of every pony in Manehattan? Or the destruction of Utopia? What’s it going to be?”

I looked down at the glowing ball of light far below us. If I let Pureblood win, I’d be dooming the lives of every pony in Equestria to eternal servitude under Purebloods, fascist, tyrannical rule. I had worked so hard and lost so much to stop that from ever happening. I couldn’t let that happen. Not now, and not ever. No matter the cost…

With a deep breath, I focused my magic again, channeling it into the balefire bomb. I felt the chilling, death like grip of the bomb start flowing through me once again. A shudder ran down my spine as I felt the spell start to charge up. Magic the likes of which I had never felt began coursing through me, and my horn seemed to tingle and spark with more and more power with each and every second.

Pureblood’s eye went wide as he saw my magic once more begin channeling into the bomb. “What are you doing! No! NO!” He lurched forwards, each and every one of his clawed appendages flashing out to knock the balefire bomb from my hooves. A layer of over glow wrapped around my horn as I quickly created a magical barrier between me and the brain bot. Pureblood's strikes bounced harmlessly off my shield, forcing him to stagger back in the air. "Stop! But your friends! The ponies of Manehattan!"

"T-minus twenty seconds till launch."

I felt my last bit of magic pour into the balefire bomb, making it glow almost as bright as the massive sphere below us. And then the spell was done, and all I had to do was activate it. It seemed so easy all of a sudden. All I had to do was cast that last little bit of magic and it would all be over.

It was almost surreal, really, how such a powerful and devastating spell was so easy to cast. At that moment, a foal could have activated the balefire bomb by accident.

I stood there, staring at the glowing balefire bomb. This was it, the end of my long journey. The cost had been higher than I had ever expected, but I suppose that at the very least, my story will end in victory. No matter how bittersweet that victory was.

“Well?” Pureblood’s voice purred. I looked up to see him staring at me though the smooth surface of my magical, amber shield. He looked defeated, his lone, broken eye distant and resigned. “What are you waiting for? You've won...”

"T-minus fifteen seconds till launch."

I kept his gaze for a long moment before returning my sights to the balefire bomb. I took a deep breath and held…

And held…

And held...

“I can’t do it,” I finally breathed, the light of my horn slowly dying down. As the glow of my horn faded away, so too did the glow of the balefire bomb. “I just… I can’t do it…” Damn my morality. It truly was the cruelest virtue.

Pureblood gave me an almost sweet looking smile. “I know.”

One of his claws lashed out, knocking the balefire bomb from my grasp and sending it rolling across the broken catwalk. I gasped, staggering back, only for another claw to lurch out and snap tightly around my neck.

I gagged, my forehooves pounding against the metal appendage, trying to break free from the mechanical grip. Pureblood spun, slamming me down hard against the grated catwalk floor. The whole catwalk shook as I was rammed against it. I heard a loud snap, followed by a sharp pain shooting up my hoof as I landed heavily on my hind leg, snapping it at the join.

“Brain transfer complete. Starting Utopia Program,” Twilights monotone voice echoed out. “T-minus ten seconds till launch.”

Pureblood looked up at the terminal, his smile the widest I had ever seen it. “At last, after over two hundred years, the time has finally come,” He looked down at me, his eye filled with uncharacteristic glee. “Goodbye, Amber Aura,” The flickering, cracked screens on Pureblood's body went dead and his metal chassis crashed to the floor unceremoniously as his mind was fully uploaded into the Utopia Program.

“T-minus nine seconds till launch.”

I looked around frantically, looking for something, anything that could help me. There was nothing. It was over. Mere seconds till the end of the world and there was nothing I could do about it.

“T-minus eight seconds till launch.”

I pulled myself up, limping on my broken hoof as I strode forwards, standing at the precipice of the broken catwalk, my amber eyes were flooded with golden light as I stared down at the glowing orb below. It was beginning to strobe faster and faster, each pulse of light seeming to increase the room's temperature exponentially. The air was so hot now, it was getting hard to breath.

“T-minus seven seconds till launch.”

Funny. It felt like I had been in this exact position before. Ironically, even the voice of the pony counting down the seconds to my death was the same. Unlike in the dark cistern far below the Hollow Shades however, I was helpless to do anything but watch.

“T-minus six seconds till launch.”

I took a long, deep breath as the smallest of ideas formed in my head. I took a step away from the edge, wincing as I applied pressure to my snapped hoof and closing my eyes, letting myself enjoy a quick moment of darkness. For a single second of time, I felt peaceful.

“T-minus five seconds till launch.”

Then my eyes shot open and the peaceful darkness was dashed apart by blinding golden light. I pushed off with my hind legs, ignoring the pain that surged through them, and ran forwards, my hooves pounding hard against the catwalk as I pushed myself closer and closer to the jagged fringe. Then, with a mighty leap, I threw myself over the edge.

“T-Minus four seconds till launch.”

And then I was falling. Down down down into the glowing light below. The air around me seemed to burn at the touch as I grew closer and closer to the pulsating light.

“T-Minus three seconds till launch.”

The light grew until it obscured my full vision. I could feel bits of my hide burning away as the searing heat became unbearable. My mouth twisted into a silent scream as agony raced up my battered and broken body. Flames seemed to lick at my sides, my insides boiling just as much as my outsides.

“T-Minus two seconds till launch.”

The flesh and hide on my body finally, fully, caught aflame, searing the tattered remains of my skin from my charring bones. I could feel my flesh peeling away from my face, leaving little more than a blackened, screaming, skull.

“T-Minus one seconds till launch.”

What little remained of what I once was plunged head first into the glowing orb, and my fading vision exploded with light.

An image flashed before my sizzling, melting eyes. The dark visage of the mare on the moon, once more surrounded by the Stable-Tec logo. My gaze met that off mare on the moons, and to my surprise, the mare on the moon turned and looked back at me. But their face was wrong, twisted and vile, their muzzle filled with rows of jagged, curving fangs and their horn was distorted and warped.

The shadowy ponies piercing eyes flashed a pale white and an inky blackness oozed out of them, overpowering the blinding light and swallowing me in shadow. I felt myself sink into that darkness, my consciousness fizzling away into oblivion.

"Welcome, my little pony, to my prison and my salvation..."

“All preparations completed. Launching Utopia Program-”

Footnote: Maximum level reached

Author's Note

Sorry for the Long wait between chapters yet again. University is back in session and finding time to write 20k+ word chapters is incredibly difficult. Also, fight scenes with multiple characters like the ones found in this chapter takes forever to write.

Hope you enjoyed the chapter, and have a great day. :twilightsmile:

Chapter XXXX: Once Upon a Time...

“Do you realize what you’ve done? You’ve triggered the failsafe! Ruined everything! The subjects will die, and I’ll be stuck here in this hell! Alone!”

Calm.

For whatever reason, I felt strangely calm. That was the first thing I noticed. The second thing I noticed was a soft, yet strangely prickly surface pressed up against my face. It was unfamiliar, slightly moist and oddly tingly, yet still strangely comfortable and relaxing to lay against; like nothing I had ever felt before. I just wanted to lay there and curl up into this strange material forever. Slowly, I lifted my head, my eyes blinking as they tried to adjust to the strangely bright light of the overhead sun.

I was laying on a field of grass. Grass far greener and more vibrant than anything I had ever seen in the- the- wherever it was that I came from. It almost seemed surreal, like an ocean of flowing green hairs.

I leaned down a little, giving the grass a small sniff. I was surprised that it smelt both sweet and sharp at the same time, almost lemon-like in a strange way. Hesitantly, I took a small bite. It tasted good. Really good actually.

Finally, turning my enraptured gaze from the grass, I glanced around the large field. A few trees dotted the grassy expanse, their twisting branches practically dancing with vibrant leaves as they swayed elegantly in the wind. Not all that far away, I saw what looked to be a collection of quaint looking cottages with yellow, thatch roofs, probably some sort of town or village.

I picked myself the rest of the way up off the ground, taking a moment to soak in the area around me. I glanced up, staring in awe at the near blinding blue sky above me. Some strange glowing sphere was hovering far above me, shining warm light down across my face. It took me a very long moment to realize I was squinting up at the sun. It was a perfect day, not a single cloud in sight.

“What is this place?” I muttered to myself, my vision once more dropping down to the village a short trot away. I paused as I thought over my own question. Shouldn’t that answer be easy? I was in Equestria, of course. Where else would I be?

I took a deep breath, filling my lungs with the clear air around me. The air was refreshing, like water after a long hike, rejuvenating me. I took another deep breath just for the fun of it before slowly exhaling and continuing on my way.

As I slowly got closer to the small, backwater town, my eyes caught on a humble looking sign sticking out from a small flower patch. ‘Ponyville’ the sign read. I smiled. Obviously I was in Ponyville, how had I forgotten that?

Come to think of it actually, I was having trouble remembering much of anything. I knew I was in Equestria, of course, but past that, I couldn’t remember much. What had I been doing in a field? Why did the beautiful clear sky seem so strange and alien to me? Surely it had always been like that? Hadn’t it?

“I must have had too much apple cider last night,” I grumbled to myself, knowing full well that I didn’t usually drink very much. Yes, that must have been right. Just had a little too much to drink and passed out in the field. That must be why I’m so out of it right now.

Ponyville was surprisingly quiet today; not a single pony was out and about. I glanced up at the sun, curious if it was simply too early, but the blinding sun seemed to be directly overhead. Odd, there should have been a lot more ponies outside.

“Hello?” I called out, lonely trotting down the large, dirt path through the centre of town. There was no answer to my call. “Is anypony here?” Again, no response.

I spotted a large bakery across the street and made my way over to it. It was a fairly patchwork looking building, a strange collage between pre-equestrian architecture and a gingerbread house. Multiple chimneys protruded from its slanted, candy covered roof, each one billowing smoke. a wonderful smell wafted from the bakery's windows, making me salivate. Whatever smelled so good in there, I wanted some.

I gave a quick knock on the front door, hoping for somepony to answer. When no pony did, I pushed the door open, clearing the way for me to walk the rest of the way in. I took a second to question why the door hadn’t been locked, only to quickly realize that to do so would have been pointless anyway. It wasn’t like anypony would ever try to steal something here.

The bakery was completely empty. Not a single pony filled its interior. A large stone oven smouldered on the far side of the room, a tray of cookies resting inside, completely unattended, but still perfectly cooked.

“Anypony in here?” I called out, my head glancing around. A waited for at least a minute, before deciding there wasn’t going to be a response. Seeing how there was nopony around to talk to, I waltzed over to the oven and picked one of the cookies up off of the tray with my magic. I looked it over for a second before taking a bite. It really was a perfect cookie.

Leisurely trotting back out into the streets of Ponyville, I let my eyes travel from one house to the next, scanning the windows for any signs of movement or life beyond. Outside a few curtains flowing in the breeze, I saw nothing.

A specific house caught my attention, though house might have been the wrong word. It was more like a large tree, with a house built inside of it. A red door was inset into the tree's front, and a couple of circular windows proved the existence of an upper level higher up. A small, wooden sign beside the front door announced the building's name in whimsical calligraphy. ‘The Golden Oak Library.’

Instantly, my eyes grew wide with excitement. A library! That meant books! I love books!

I paused. Why was there being a library in Ponyville surprising to me? I had lived here my whole life, right? Surely I had stopped by once or twice?

Hesitantly, but with no lack of excitement, I made my way over to the wooden, red painted door that led into the library. Feeling slightly giddy, I raised my hoof and gave the sturdy surface a quick knock.

To my surprise, I heard shuffling on the far side of the door. There was the sound of toppling books followed by a small squeak of surprise, before the door clicked open, giving me a clear view of the room beyond. The walls were lined with inset, wooden bookshelves, completely filled with row after row of old, well read books. But those were far from the only books that cluttered the library's interior. Piles of books spilled across a large, circular table in the centre of the room and piles of books had been stacked in almost every spot I looked, forming a sort of labyrinth of pages within the confines of the library's walls.

And I was loving it!

“I… I've never seen so many books!” I exclaimed, rushing in and staring in awe at the mounds of tomes, completely ignoring the pony who had pulled open the door for me. “There must be hundreds in here! Even thousands!” I started picking books up and flipping through their pages, my eyes rolling over words, but not bothering to actually read through any of the text.

“I, uh… who are you?” The pony that had opened the door for me asked, her voice a mix of surprise and hesitation. I glanced back at them, making out their purple coat and multi toned bangs.

I squinted at the pony, trying to remember where I had seen her before. “Do I know you? You look really familiar…” Before the pony could answer, I gave a small squeak of glee and returned to digging through the books again. “I must have seen you the last time I came to this library. Sorry, I’m a little forgetful today.”

The purple, unicorn mare continued to just stare at me. “Uh, yeah. Me too,” She glanced around, looking suspiciously at her books. “But I’m pretty sure you haven’t been to the library before. I would definitely have remembered that.”

I paused, something suddenly seeming very wrong. I looked back at her, my brows furrowing. “I haven't?”

The mare shook her head. “Not in the last five days at least,” That timeframe seemed significant somehow, but I couldn’t place my hoof on it. “Actually, I haven’t seen anypony in the last five days.”

I turned fully away from the books and faced the mare, now fully aware that something was seriously not right. “I couldn’t find anypony in town either. Which is weird, cause I’m pretty sure somepony was baking cookies in that bakery across the way only moments before I arrived.”

“Arrived?” The mare asked, her ears flopping to the side as she tried to figure out what I was saying. “Where were you before?” Suddenly her eyes widened with excitement and she bounced up and down on her hooves a little. “Wait, are you from Canterlot! I’ve been sending messages to Princess Celestia since I woke up and she hasn’t been answering any of them! Did she send you!?”

The mare was suddenly far too close to me for comfort, her large, pleading eyes looking into mine for answers. I sadly had to shake my head in response to her question. It pained me to see the excitement drain from her eyes. “No, sorry. I’m from… Well, I don’t really know where I’m from... Around here, I guess.”

The mare took a step back and sat down on her rump, her eyes still fixated on me quizzically. “Okay then… you still haven’t answered my question. Who are you?”

I raised an eyebrow at the question. “What do you mean? I’m just me?” I suddenly felt incredibly nervous, but I wasn’t sure why.

The mare’s brows furrowed. “Your name then? I’m Twilight Sparkle? What’s your name?”

I froze. My name? I knew what my name was, right? I glanced across the room, spotting a mirror hanging on the wall. I trotted over to it, looking over my reflection. I had a soft pink mane with a couple of light blue swirls in it, a matching pink coat; pristine and lacking any blemishes from dirt, and a pair of large amber eyes. “I’m, uh…” I shook the cobwebs from my head, roughly banging my hoof against my noggin in an attempt to shove my suddenly scattered thoughts back into my brain. “I’m A- Amb- Ambe- rrr,” I choked out, my head suddenly throbbing. “Ambe-r Au-ra…”

The second I said my name, a wave of pain flashed through me, dropping me to my knees. I screamed, agony flaring across my mind. I felt fire searing at my bones and for a fraction of a second, I felt my pulse go still.

“Sweet Celestia! Are you alright!?” The mare called Twilight gasped, rushing over to me and helping me back up to my hooves. I gave a loud shout of pain as the motion caused another wave of pain to surge through me, sending me once more stumbling, this time crashing into a pile of books, scattering them across the floor. Twilight backed up nervously, unsure what to do as I thrashed wildly.

After a few more moments of agony, the pain subsided and I managed to slow my breathing enough that I didn’t feel like I was about to explode. I slowly staggered back to my hooves, my head whipping around as if trying to find the answer to my troubles. I glanced over at Twilight, my eyes fearful. “What the heck is happening to me!?”

Twilight raised a hoof, gently laying it against my shoulder in a comforting gesture. “Why don’t we sit down. We can figure this out together. I have questions I want answered as well…”

I nodded, sniveling a little and letting Twilight lead me over to a small seating area on the far side of the room next to a crackling fireplace. She left my side just long enough to pour us each a cup of tea before returning and sitting down opposite to me.

“Alright, tell me everything that’s happened to you,” Twilight told me, her voice soothing. “Start from the beginning. You said that you didn’t know where you came from?”

I nodded, taking the tea in my magic and taking a sip. It tasted wonderful! “I, uh… There isn’t much to tell,” I told her, sitting back a little, closing my eyes and trying to shake the memory of the pains that had wracked my body only moments before. “I was out in the grassy fields outside Ponyville, then I came here. I couldn’t find anypony else in town and I like books, so I knocked on your door and you opened up.”

Twilight smiled a little at my mention of liking books, then she frowned. “Okay… so what happened before that?” When I failed to respond, she gave a small nod of understanding. “I’m guessing you don’t remember anything before that then?”

I frowned, but nodded. I sifted through my memories, trying to think of a time before I woke up on that grass field. I didn’t feel like I had amnesia, so why couldn’t I recall anything. “I… no, I can’t. It’s strange. I don’t remember anything, but I feel like this is all just normal.”

Twilight gave a grim nod. “I know. That’s exactly what I felt when I woke up five days ago too. It took me almost two days before I realized something was wrong. But like you, I can’t remember anything from before then. I mean, I have memories of my friends, and my studies with princess Celestia, and my brother and my family, but those memories feel like they were many years ago. I’m not sure how long I’ve been in this town alone, or where everypony else is. And there are other strange things too. I never get hungry, and the bakery and market it always stalked, even though there is no pony around to make the food.”

I licked my lips thoughtfully, piecing together the information. I wasn’t getting very far with it and kept slamming against mental brick walls. “Do you think there are other ponies like us out there?” I questioned, cocking my head to the side a little. “Ponies that woke up with no memory of anything?”

Twilight shook her head. “Not in Ponyville, you’re the first pony that I’ve seen in days, but I haven’t checked outside of Ponyville yet. There might still be some ponies in Canterlot. I thought I saw some flashes of light coming from up the mountain a few hours ago.”

I bit at my lip, my mind racing. “Canterlot? It’s still standing?”

Twilight gave me the most confused expression I had ever seen cross another ponies face. “Uh, yes. Of course it’s still standing. Why wouldn’t it be?”

I opened my mouth to answer, only to realize I didn’t have any reason to think it might be gone. “I- don’t know…” I mumbled, glancing down at my hooves. “I’m… I’m not quite sure why I said that…” I shook my head, trying to keep my mind on track. “So What do you think happened to everypony else?”

Twilight’s face contorted slightly in concentration. “It’s hard to say. When I first realized everypony was missing, I figured that I was the only pony left. But as the days went on, I started to go a little crazy,” She pulled out a notebook and started flipping through the pages, pointing at notes she had been scribbling down over the last few days. “I started to question bigger things, like what if everypony is there, and something happened to me, or if I was even real at all or if I had just lost my mind.”

“You don’t look too crazy to me,” I said, flashing a small smile.

Twilight grinned. “That’s because I remembered an old quote from a philosopher named René Descolt, back in ancient Cloudsdale, during the time of Flash Magnus and the Pegasus Legion.”

I raised an eyebrow at her, curious. “Oh? What’s that?”

“I think, therefore, I am,” Twilight said simply, flipping through her notes before showing off a page that had been completely dedicated to the one phrase. “Essentially, it means that while we cannot prove the existence of anything else in this life, we can, in fact know that we are real, because we think-”

“Therefore, we are,” I nodded, suddenly recalling the quote. “Yeah, I read about that in a book back in my Stable.”

For the second time, a look of sheer confusion passed over Twilight's face. “A Stable? You lived in a barn? Like ponies in the pre-Equestrian era?”

I opened my mouth to correct her when a stab of searing pain shot through my skull. Not nearly as much pain as before, but enough to make me double over, my hooves clutching at my head. “I- I don’t think I should talk about it-” I gasped, clenching my eyes together tight. “Thinking about that hurts my head.”

Twilight’s eyes narrowed in thought. “Interesting. Memory of your past seems to have some sort of painful impact on you. That’s a new variable.”

I glanced up at her. “A new variable? What do you mean?”

“I mean that whatever is going on, there is something different happening between you and I,” She explained, tapping her chin with a lavender hoof. “At first glance, we seem to have ended up in the same situation, but for whatever reason, your lack of memory seems to be total and results in physical pain, while I only seem to be missing a smaller chunk of time and have not yet experienced any discomfort,” She tapped her chin again, her eyes darting back and forth. After a second, she stood up, gesturing for me to follow her as she started heading for a set of stairs that led to the floor below. “Come on. I want to test something out.”

“Uhhhhhhh… Are you really sure this is necessary?” I asked, staring at the metal clamps that had been fastened tightly around my hooves and the large, blinking headpiece that has been strapped to my head. “This seems a little extreme.”

“I’m positive,” Twilight assured me, plugging a curly green wire into the headpiece that trailed across the room to connect with a large, blinking device. “This device should monitor your brain waves. It seems clear to me that whatever is going on, our memory seems to be at the centre of it. So now, we can hopefully figure something out.”

I just looked at her blankly for a second before glancing at the machine. “Ooookay… So what does the machine say about my brain?”

Twilight went silent for a moment, reading over the large extent of squiggly lines that the machine seemed to produce. I tried to look over her shoulder at the readings, but none of them were making any sense to me, which was odd, because I was always so good at machines.

The sudden burst of pain that shot through my head almost made me black out. I screamed, slumping against the machine and desperately reefing against the restraints to try and free my hooves. I could feel more than see Twilight frantically rushing over to me, trying to figure out the source of the problem. A second later, the pain subsided.

“Amber? What happened? Did you do something?” Twilight gasped, her magic pulling a quill up into the air as she began furiously writing notes on the readings on the machine's graphs.

“I was just thinking about how it’s strange that I can’t understand that machine,” I grunted, wishing my hooves were free so I could rub my throbbing noggin. “I was always good with-” I stopped, a smaller jolt of pain flashing through me. “I think I should stop thinking about this now…”

Twilight gave me a concerned look before glancing back at the machine's readings. “These readings are strange. I’ve never seen anything like them befo-” Then she froze, her eyes widening as something clicked in her head. “Wait! Actually, I have seen these sorts of readings before… they’re- Sweet Celestia-”

“What? What is it?” I urged, craning my neck to try and make out the gibberish readings. I wasn’t able to get a clear look at them. “Where have you seen those before?”

Twilight was practically trembling as she took a step away from the machine. “But I was so certain… It can’t be…I-”

I groaned. “It can’t be what? What is going on?”

Taking a deep breath, Twilight turned to face me, a weary look across her face. “I-It’s just that… well…”

Knock, knock, knock…

We both froze, glancing up at the ceiling above us. We waited, expecting the sound to have just been a figment of our imagination, but after a few more seconds of waiting, the sound rang out again, louder this time.

Knock, knock, knock…

“Is that…” I said slowly, thinking it almost too good to be true.

Twilight nodded. “There’s somepony at the door,” She took a moment to steady her breathing before trotting over and unclamping my hooves. “Come on! Before they leave.”

Not waiting for me to answer, Twilight spun around and darted up the stairs. Still feeling a little dizzy from the burst of pain, I staggered up the stairs after her, trying my best to keep pace as the purple unicorn rushed to the door and flung it open. I slowed to a stop when I saw the two ponies standing on the other side.

They were two tall, large stallions with shining white coats and adorned in a clanking set of golden royal guard armour. Each one of them held a large, pointed spear and golden helmets rested atop each of their heads, though the apparel seemed more ceremonial than practical.

“Amber Aura,” One of the royal guards spoke, their eyes boring into me as they took an advancing step forwards into the large library. He pulled out an old looking scroll and unrolled it, reading the hoof fool of words that had been written across its surface. “You have been placed under arrest by order of his majesty. You are both to come with us willingly, or we will have to take you by force.”

I blinked, taking a step back in confusion. “Under Arrest?”

Twilight cocked her head to the side, looking back and forth between me and the two, looming guards, her face even more confused than mine. “His majesty?” She gave a loud huff and pointed an accusing hoof at the guard that had spoken. “What about Princess Celestia?”

“We are not authorized to give any information,” The guard replied flatly, both of them lowering their spears in a shockingly insync unison and aiming them at our throats. “Now, you will come with us.”

Twilight and I exchanged a worried glance, a sliver of fear passing through us as we faced off against the deadly looking, golden spears. After a moment of hesitation, we both backed down and lowered our gaze. “Where are you going to take us?”

“We are not authorized to give any information,” The guard repeated, his words echoing from his mouth with the same inflection as when they had spoken them before. “Now follow, or we will use force.”

Not knowing what else to do, I hesitantly trotted forwards, walking alongside Twilight as the two guards led us out of the library, one leading the way while the other took up a defensive position behind us.

“What do you think they’re going to do?” I whispered to Twilight as they pushed us forwards.

Twilight just gave me a calm look. “Hopefully take us to whomever this his majesty pony they spoke of is,” she glanced back at the guard who was trailing closely behind us, their spear ready to stab into us at a moments notice if we tried to run. “Something tells me this pony might have the answers we’re looking for.”

“So everypony but us has gone missing, but there is still a royal guard?” I questioned, trying to make sense of what was happening in my head. “How does that make any sense?”

Twilight shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe they have something to do with it?”

“Do you think we should ask the guards about it?” I asked, gesturing to the guards.

“Do you think they’ll give us an answer that isn’t them being unauthorized to give us information?”

I shrugged. “It’s worth a shot,” I glanced back at the guard following behind us. “Do you know what happened to everypony and where they all went?”

“We are not authorized to give any information,” The guard replied back in their icy monotone, pushing us ever forward with a small shake of their spear.

“I should have seen that coming,” I grunted. Twilight’s lips smirked slightly. “Oh, don’t give me that look…”

The guards led us through the empty streets of the town. It should have been eerie, seeing such a lively, beautiful town so devoid of life, but the whole area seemed to have a strange sense of calmness to it. It was like walking through a dream where everything was perfect.

Eventually, the two guards had us round a corner, taking us down a dirt road that led to the very centre of town. Ahead of us, I could see a large, circular building in the middle of the village, its pointed, red roof towering high above all the other buildings. In front of the building stood two rows of royal guards, each one adorned in a matching set of the golden, ceremonial armor. A large platform had been erected before the building, its flat surface holding what appeared to be a tall wooden contraption of some kind.

“What the heck is that?” I asked, squinting my eyes as I tried to make out the shape of the large contraption.

Beside me, I could see Twilight start to squirm uncomfortably. “A-Amber… that’s a… a…” She glanced nervously at the guard, her eyes narrowing. “What is going on here?! Guillotines have been illegal in Equestria for over a hundred years?”

“We are not authoriz-”

“Oh dear Celestia, I get it!” I grumbled, cutting the guard off. “You can’t tell us anything… we know! Fuck!” Twilight looked shocked at my language, wincing away slightly.

“Amber… That was a bad word…”

I just gave Twilight a flat look. “Really?” I pointed at the big Guillotine. “They have a big head cutting off device over there and you’re getting at me for bad language?”

“I’ve just- I’ve never heard another pony say words like that before…” Twilight admitted, almost sheepishly as the guards finally pulled us to a stop before the large platform.

I continued to give her a blank stare. “Really? Never? Not once?” I blinked, trying to figure out why that statement made such little sense in my head. “What are you? From Pre-war Equestria?”

Twilight scrunched up her muzzle at the remark. “Pre-war Equestria? Amber? What are you talking about? What war?”

“How do you not know about the-” My mind blanked and I dropped to the ground, a wave of agony flaring up in my mind. I screamed, my hooves thrashing wildly as I tried desperately to put an end to the searing pain. It felt like my very head had caught fire.

“Amber!” my ringing ears heard Twilight screech. She dropped down beside me, trying to help me back to my hooves. “Please! You need to help her!” She shouted frantically, trying to get the guards assistance. “I don’t know what’s been happening to her!”

“Step up onto the platform,” was all the guard said in response, gesturing to a small ramp that led up the the top of the platform.

Twilight stared up at him in horror, her eyes wide and her hooves stilling. “Wait… You want us too… to go up…” She glanced up at the looming guillotine. “Oh Celestia… That’s for us... You’re going to kill us…”

“You have been sentenced to death by order of his royal majesty,” The guard stated bluntly. “Now pull her up and step up onto the platform.”

Wincing through the pain, I crawled back up to my hooves. I glanced nervously at Twilight, making out her two terrified eyes as they looked back at me. I felt myself trembling a little. “What should we do?”

Twilight glanced up at the guillotine. I could practically see a hundred different thoughts flashing through her mind. “I have an idea, but…” She paused, glaring at the guard for a second before looking back at me. “How good are you at running?”

I grimaced. “Uh, I don't know... Kinda fast? I guess? I can’t really remember...”

“If you try to run, you will be killed on sight,” The guard beside us grunted, lowering and aiming their spear. “Now step up onto the platform.”

Twilight gulped as the spear poised itself inches from her neck. She glanced over at me. “Get ready to run.”

I opened my mouth to respond, but the next thing I knew, Twilight’s horn flared with magic and I was surrounded by a blinding flash of light.

I hit the ground hard, my head reeling and all my senses disorientated. I glanced up, seeing the guillotine platform now a few yards away from me. I looked over at Twilight as she staggered a little, trying to keep her balance after the dizziness induced from teleporting.

“Run!” She shouted at me, shaking the dizziness from her head and pushing me forward with a hoof. “Run now!”

I glanced back at the platform, making out the sight of all of the guards rushing across the village towards us at full speed. One of them threw their spear like a javelin, the long, pointed stick flashing past my head and embedding itself in the wall of the cottage beside me.

I gave a quick nod of agreement. “Yup, time to run.”

I spun around, my hooves kicking up clouds of dirt as I dashed away down the road beside Twilight. We ran as fast as we could, the quaint cottages making up the small town blurring past us as we raced forwards. Twilight took a sharp turn, leading me down a narrow side alley between two houses before rushing out once more into what I think was some kind of garden. It was hard to be sure with the speed in which we raced by it.

Behind us, I could hear the guards shouting at us, ordering for us to stop in their steady and monotone voice. I was rather put out to find that not a single one of them sounded even remotely winded.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t say the same for myself. We had been running for, what? Ten seconds, and already I could feel my breath running short and my hooves starting to ache.

“I… am not… built for… running… apparently…” I gasped out, whipping around a corner after Twilight. One of my hooves tripped on a rock, sending me stumbling forwards a bit before I managed to catch myself and keep running.

“Me… neither…” Twilight gasped, turning only enough to glance at the guards behind us. They were gaining on us fast. Far faster than I would have liked. “Come on! We need to lose these guys!”

“But how!” I wheeze, once again darting around another corner after the speeding unicorn.

Twilight looked around, her head whipping back and forth as she looked for anything to help us. Even from a few steps behind her, I saw her grimace. “I have a plan, but I don’t like it!”

“Anything is better than this!” I shouted back, ducking a little to the side as another spear was sent hurtling past my head.

Twilight gulped, her hooves suddenly shifting direction and taking her another direction. “Then follow me! We’ll lose them inside the forest!”

I nodded, shifting my momentum to shoot after her without losing speed. I heard one of the guards give a shout of annoyance as they had to swerve to avoid crashing into a building and keep following us.

Not far ahead, I saw the forest that Twilight was talking about. A massive, sprawling wall of twisting vines and dense bramble had burst from the ground around the edges of the town. A deep stream of raging rapids separated us from the massive forest, a small bridge nearby to a cozy looking, leaf topped cottage, being the only thing connecting us to the far side.

Biting down hard on my lip, I put on a burst of speed, finally falling in step with Twilight. I could feel my energy draining fast with each pounding step of my hoof as I powered head first towards the bridge.

“Stop them! Don’t let them get into the woods!” I heard a lead guard shouting, another spear flashing past us.

Damn, so they had already caught onto our plan.

Twilight and I reached the bridge, neither of us daring to wait a single second before climbing up onto it and rushing for the far side. I only got about half way when I heard a loud shout, followed by a pair of strong hooves reaching out and wrapping tightly around my hind hooves.

I crashed to the ground, twisting around to make out the guard that had leapt forwards and tackled into me. I flailed my hooves, kicking at him and trying to pull myself free. My efforts were in vain as the guard pulled themself back up to loom over me, their grip tightening.

Twilight spun around, her horn glowing and wrapping the guard assiling me in a field of magic. The guard gave a shout of surprise, their hooves loosening on me as they instinctively reached for their spear.

With a loud shout, Twilight sent the guard flying backwards through the air, his body clearing the bridge and slamming into another guard. She rushed over to me, quickly helping me back to my hooves.

“Thanks,” I said, breathing heavily as I tried to force air back into my lungs.

Twilight gave me a small grin. “Don’t mention it.”

A spear flashed through the air towards us, its razor sharp end jabbing into Twilight’s forehoof. Twilight screamed, dropping to the bridge's cobblestone surface with a loud thud, blood spilling down her leg from the wound and seeping out across the floor.

Gritting my teeth, I wrapped the purple unicorn up in my magic and threw her over my back, my legs aching as I tried rushing across the rest of the bridge while carrying her weight. I staggered to the side, trying to avoid another flying spear that was sent my way.

“Almost… there…” I grunted, my whole body trembling under the mental and physical exertion.

Behind me, I heard the pounding of hooves as three more guards rushed up onto the bridge after us. I didn’t bother looking back at them, my chest heaving as I dove for the far side of the bridge, Twilight bumping painfully up and down on my back.

I heard the telltale sound of magic as Twilight charged up her horn. I was going to ask what she was doing, but the second I stepped off the bridge, she gave me my answer. A massive beam of purple light lanced out from the tip of Twilight’s horn, slamming into the bridge and sending huge cracks shooting across its stone surface. The guards on the bridge reeled back, trying to move to safety as a large section of the bridge started to fall away.

“Get off the bridge! Now!” I heard a guard shouting, followed by the clopping of hooves as the frantic guards quickly stumbled back to safety. A second later, there was a tremendous crash as the bridge collapsed, large chunks of stone crashing down into the churning water below.

I let a loud whooping sound escape my lips as I watched the surging waves consume the crumbling bridge. “Hell yeah Twilight! That was awesome!”

Twilight gave me a weak grin from atop my back. “Thanks…”

One of the guards launched their spear at us, the long, pointed rod sailing clear over the stream and embedding itself deep into the ground right beside my hoof. I flinched back, the deadly weapon coming close to impaling me.

“We should probably get moving, shouldn’t we,” I gulped, pushing through the pain and continuing the last little stretch of the way to the forest. “Come on. We need to find something to patch you up.”

I gave a loud grunt as I finally slowed to a stop and set Twilight down against a large tree. Wincing at my sore hooves, I crouched down and looked Twilight’s bleeding hoof over. There was a lot of blood.

“That looks like it hurts,” I grimaced, applying a bit of pressure to the wound. The blood seeped over my hooves, soaking my pink coat crimson.

Twilight bit her lip, trying to bite back a whine of pain. “I-I’ll be okay. Really. I think I know a spell for this sort of thing anyway,” her horn glowed for a second before abruptly tapering out. She looked up in surprise as the last bits of glow around her horn died away. “Or… not? I guess I overexerted myself with that last spell more than I thought...”

“You’re probably going into shock,” I said in as soothing a voice as I could muster, trying my best to stay calm. It was shockingly difficult and I could feel my whole body trembling. “You just hold tight. I’m going to find something to wrap your hoof in.”

“I have a friend out here,” Twilight said quickly, reaching out to stop me before I could pull away. “She’s a healer. She can help us.”

I raised an eyebrow at her suspiciously. “Do you think she’s still around? What makes you think she hasn’t gone missing like everypony else?”

Twilight frowned. “I don’t know. I hope she’s still there. If not, there should still be plenty of healing supplies in there. I’m sure she won’t mind us borrowing them.”

I felt the smallest of grins sneak onto my face. “Scavenging for supplies. I can do that,” I leaned back down and hoisted her back onto my back, gritting my teeth a little as her weight bore down on my weary hooves. “Lead the way.”

Twilight glanced up at the sky for a second, before pointing to our right. Nodding, I began trotting in the direction she was leading me. For a few moments, we walked in silence, neither one of us really knowing what to say. After a moment of awkwardness, I spoke up. “Twi… you said you didn’t like the plan of hiding in the woods. Dare I ask why?”

I could feel Twilight's body stiffen across my back. “This is the Everfree forest. This place is dangerous.”

Oh perfect, a dangerous forest. Just my luck. I gulped, glancing around. “What kind of dangers are we talking about?”

“Timberwolves, Manticors, deadly plants, uncontrollable weather,” Twilight summarized, pointing me another direction as I weaved my way through the dense foliage. “Essentially, there are a lot of things in here that want to eat us for supper.”

I nodded, though I could feel my confusion growing. “Wild animals, huh?” I slowed my pace a little, my ears swiveling as I tried to hear the telltale signs of anything approaching us in the thick woods. I heard nothing. Now howls, no snapping twigs, not even the chirp of birds. The forest was dead silent. “It doesn’t sound like there are any strange creatures in the woods with us…”

Twilight let her ears perk up as well, listening carefully to the woods around us. She heard little else but wind whistling through the branches. She gave me a skeptical look. “Maybe they are gone like everypony else.”

I nodded. “For once, I sure hope so.”

I had only gotten a few more steps when Twilight spoke up again. “Amber, can I ask you a question? And uh… it might sound a little odd.”

I gave her a small nod. “Sure, shoot?”

Twilight bit her lip for a second, rolling her question around in her head. “Back with those guards… you mentioned a war… Specifically the words pre-war, as in one that happened in the past... What did you mean by that?”

I paused, slowing to a complete stop in the middle of the woods. “I, um… I don’t know…” I furrowed my brows, suddenly finding it strangely hard to even remember the conversation Twilight was referring to. “I think… the one between… uh…” I blinked again, trying to make sense of the jumbled thoughts in my head. “The one between ponies and zebras.”

Twilight gave me a worried look. “Amber… There is no war between ponies and zebras. At least not one that I am aware of.”

I ruminate on that for a second, trying to think of more details of this supposed war I was referring too. “I, uh… I guess I’m just feeling weird today,” I finally said, continuing my trot forwards. “Maybe this whole forgetfulness thing is making me have weird thoughts as well.”

Twilight shook her head. “Maybe… But those brain scans… I think you might be thinking more clearly than me…”

I turned my head back to look back at Twilight from over my shoulder. “What do you mean? What did those scans even say?”

Twilight paused, trying to think of the best way to phrase what she was about to. “I’ve only seen readings like those once before, and it was in a study on brian activity while in a state of REM. Your scan was almost exactly the same.”

“A state of REM?” I questioned, rolling those words around in my head. “As in like… I’m dreaming right now?”

Twilight gave a hesitant nod. “It would seem so. But unless you are the most coherent sleepwalker in Equestria, that doesn’t make any sense, unless…”

“...Unless this is all just my dream,” I finished for her, coming to the obvious conclusion myself. I looked back at her again. “So then… what? Are you not real either?”

Twilight trembled a little on my back. “I- I don’t…” She closed her eyes and took a long, deep breath. “I was so certain that I was real. I can think, feel things… I did a scan of my own brain yesterday and everything seemed fine…”

“But now you don’t know,” I concluded, frowning a little. “Because nothing makes sense and the only logical solution is that this is all just inside of my head.”

Twilight gave a slow nod. “You keep saying these things that don't make sense. You live in a stable, there was a war between ponies and zebras. None of that is like anything that I can remember seeing or even reading about,” She shook her head a little, glancing up at the sky. “But there are things that don’t make sense about that theory either. Why the loss of memory? And if this is all your dream, why would I have shown up here five days before you did? Wouldn’t all aspects of a dream start at the same time?”

“Well I’m pretty sure that I’m real, so...” I let my thoughts taper off slowly. “Sorry, Twi. Never mind.”

“Amber, listen to me,” Twilight said, her voice sounding strangely commanding, yet with no lack of fear. “I am real. You have to believe me.”

I took a slow breath and nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, I believe you. Something tells me that there is more to all this than just my brain being weird.”

Twilight gave me a small smile. “Thank you… If you didn’t believe me, I think I might have lost it… It’s been- well, it’s been hard trying to keep sane in a world where you’re the only pony.”

I opened my mouth to respond, only for my eyes to spot two dark shapes flashing towards us from above. I gave a startled yelp and ducked behind a tree, moving behind cover as quickly as I could. Twilight gave a surprised “eep”, her hooves clamping down over her mouth to keep from screaming as I abruptly jerked her about.

Slowly, I peaked my head out from behind the large tree trunk, my amber eyes sweeping the sky. I spotted the shapes almost at once, their forms rapidly drawing closer and closer to us. They were two of the royal guards, these ones pegasi clad in heavy gold armour. Each one was carrying some sort of magically enhanced lance.

I quickly pulled my head back as the two armoured pegasi came in for landing. I hear the loud clunk of their metal clad hooves as they touched down. I held my breath, not daring to make a noise as the two guards began fanning out, undoubtedly searching for us. Beside me, I saw Twilight do the same. Her whole body was trembling against me as she tried to curl up and make herself look as small as possible.

The sound of hoofsteps grew closer. Each stomp of the approaching pegasus guards hoof seemed to thunder around us, their rhythm seemingly mechanical. I saw the tip of a spear out of the corner of my eye as one of the guards walked up beside the tree we were cowering behind. I could practically feel the guards' chilling breath as their icy gaze swept the forest.

After a second, the guard withdrew, the sound of wings flapping being the only indication that they had taken to the air. I felt myself curse under my breath, realizing that meant I would have no way of telling where they were.

Goddesses, winged enemies were so unfair.

Seconds passed, maybe minutes. Each passing moment I could feel myself going into a deeper state of paranoia. Were the guards gone? Or were they still waiting for us right outside of our line of sight? Finally, I managed to work up enough courage to slowly peak back out and look around. Both guards were gone.

I let myself exhale, the tense muscles in my neck releasing. “Okay, they’re gone,” I told Twilight, slowly pulling her back onto my back.

“You think they were looking for us?” She asked, pushing with her hind legs to help me pull her up.

I gave her a flat look. “What do you think?”

“Sorry, dumb question.”

With Twilight once more on my back, I began trotting forward. “Alright, which way now?”

Twilight pointed off to our left. “That way. We’re almost there. It should be just over that hill.”

Nodding, I trotted in the direction she suggested, using my magic to brush aside the overgrown bramble that moved to block my path. After a few moments, I heard Twilight give a sigh of relief. I looked up, my eyes making out the large hollowed out tree in the middle of a small clearing. Strange lanterns and multicoloured masks hung from the tree branches and a large door had been carved into the tree's front, creating a small entrance into the building beyond.

“Your friend is a… zebra?” I asked, my eyes lingering on the coloured, wooden masks.

I felt Twilight stiffen atop my back at that remark. “She is… yes. I know that you think there was some sort of war between ponies and zebras, and maybe there is, but Zecora is nice. And if you are going to hate her simply for being a zebra, we are going to have to have some stern words.”

I didn’t know why, but something about that statement I found to be incredibly amusing. “Don't worry. I don’t hate zebras,” I replied with a small chuckle. For some other reason that I didn’t fully understand, I felt myself blush. “I think they’re stripes are kinda pretty actually.”

Twilight’s muscles relaxed at that. “Oh, good. I’m glad.”

As we got closer to the hollowed tree, I spotted a small farm of some kind being grown a few feet away from the cottage. It was small, clearly not intended to feed any more than one pony.

“That’s new,” Twilight remarked, her eyes fixated on the small area of crops.

“How so?” I questioned, following her gaze. “I’d imagine that this Zecora would want to grow food, right? I mean, there isn’t really a grocery store out in the woods, is there?”

Twilight shook her head. “Well that’s just it. Zecora usually came into town to get food. I asked her about it once, and she told me it was her way of keeping in touch with the ponies of Ponyville. Why would she start growing food now?”

“Maybe it’s a sign she’s still here, and she had to grow food because everypony else is gone?” I suggested. It was a rather lame answer, but it was all I could think of.

“Maybe,” Was all Twilight had to say in response.

We slowly moved up to the wooden door. I stole myself for a moment, before lifting my hoof and giving the door a quick rap.

Silence.

I sighed. I suppose it was too much to hope they weren’t missing too. I guess that ruled out my crop theory then. I knocked once more just for good measure, before gently pushing the door open with my magic and moving into the hollowed tree.

The inside of the tree was just about what I had expected considering its appearance on the outside. The large room was lit solely by candles and lanterns, giving the whole area a cozy, warm glow. The curved walls held more colourful masks and rows of shelves, each one holding up collections of potions, ingredients and old scrolls. A large cauldron bubbled in the middle of the room, its contents emitting an eerie looking green glow.

“Was this zecora some kind of witch?” I questioned, my eyes rolling over the ritualistic contents of the room. “I’m pretty sure most zebra’s aren’t this… uh… mystical.”

Twilight giggled a little. “Zecora is a little strange and not like a lot of other zebra tribes that I have read about, but she is really nice,” Her face fell. “Or she was. It looks like she isn’t here either.”

Laying Twilight down on a bed on the far side of the room, I began skimming the shelves for something to patch her leg up with. I found most of the potion bottles unlabeled, making gauging their contents to be incredibly difficult. Seriously, one could very easily mix up potions in this place if they weren't careful. To my relief, I found a large wad of gauze, which I quickly swiped off the shelf before returning to Twilight’s side.

“Hold still, I’m going to wrap up the wound,” I told her, stating the obvious. Twilight gave me a small nod, her teeth biting down on her lower lip as she tried to keep quiet as I began wrapping the thick gauze tightly around the gaping hole. “It doesn’t seem broken,” I said, only somewhat cheerfully. “So that’s a bonus. Give it a day and your leg should be fine.”

“You seem to know a fair bit about medicine,” Twilight remarked, watching over my work as I began triple wrapping her leg. “I was going to instruct you, but you seem to know it fairly well already.”

I shrugged. “I know the basics. I’ve had lots of practice, I guess,” a small throbbing in the back of my skull warned me not to dive down that train of thought any further. I pulled tight on the gauze, getting a small whinny of pain out of Twilight before biting it in half and sitting back. “That should do it.”

“Zecora usually kept some healing potions around,” Twilight told me, stretching her leg out a little. She winced as she bent her joint. “Most ponies that she would meet in the Everfree usually needed some.”

I gave a quick nod. “Healing potions, got it,” I stood up, my gaze once more scanning the cluttered shelves. “Just rest your leg. I’ll see if I can find anything.”

The shelves seemed to have been very methodically organized. Unfortunately for me, all the labels, what few there were anyway, appeared to all be written in zebra glyphs. I groaned, squinting as I tried to make sense of the runic like figures that had been carved into one of the shelves. “Damn. I wish I had asked Xayah to teach me zebra,” I muttered, not really knowing who this Xayah I was talking about was. Probably another one of my weird past things that would make me feel like I was on fire if I thought too deeply into it.

My eyes landed on a hat that was resting on a shelf a few rows down from me. I narrowed my eyes at it, something about the article of clothing feeling wrong. “Hey Twilight?!” I called back, trotting over to the hat and lifting it up. “Did this zecora ever wear a hat like this? It looks kind of out of place with all the mystic masks and potions and stuff.”

Twilight squinted at the hat from across the room. It was a battered looking, wide brimmed fedora with two small holes on one side of the brim that appeared to be bullet holes. “I don’t think so,” She responded, clearly wanting to walk over and look the hat over more closely. “I’ve never seen her wear anything other than her jewelry… And that kind of hat is a little out of fashion. Rarity would be devastated,” Twilight paused. “Or maybe she would appreciate it as a throwback to fashion history. Always hard to tell with her. Either way, not many ponies wear a hat like that. Not unless they’re in Manehattan. I think it’s still fashionable over there.”

I raised an eyebrow at her. “You don’t keep up much with fashion, do you?”

Twilight gave a coy smile. “Not in the slightest.”

Bang!

We both practically jumped out of our skin as the front door was violently slammed open, two pegasus guards barging into the room, their sparking lances already aimed at our throats. “Twilight Sparkle and Amber Aura, you are to surrender immediately or you will be executed!” The leading guard pony ordered, planting their hooves firmly down on the ground in front of them and standing stoic before us. “Resistance will be met with extreme force!”

I nervously glanced back at Twilight, my knees trembling. Shit, I hadn’t expected them to find us so fast. I backed up, my hind fetlocks bumping up against the back wall of the cottage.

“A-Amber… do you have a plan,” I heard Twilight squeak nervously as she tried to pull herself up to her hooves. Her wounded fore hoof gave out from under her and she staggered back onto the bed.

My eyes darted back and forth, looking for some way out. My eyes landed on the window, only to see another guard standing guard outside of it.

“Surrender now, or be executed!” The guard ordered again, this time stomping towards us. The guard beside them taking an advancing step of their own.

My gaze landed on the large stirring stick that was protruding from the glowing cauldron in the centre of the room. Not daring to second guess myself, I wrapped my magic around the large stick and flung it forwards, ramming the end of it into the leading guard's head.

The guard stumbled back with a roar of pain, only for them to quickly regain their balance and lunge forwards, their magically enhanced lance flashing towards my chest. I gave a yelp of fear and dove back, the armoured guards attack sailing over my head and shattering a bunch of the potion vials on the shelf behind me, causing glass and multi-coloured fluids to go flying in every direction.

The other guard rushed forwards, their own lance aimed at Twilight. Twilight’s horn flared, quickly erecting a magical shield between herself and the assailing guard. The lance bounced off the magical barrier, leaving Twilight herself unharmed, but the magical shield itself exploded, the guards magically enhanced weapon sending magical sparks of its own flashing across the magical constructs surface.

I jumped back again, only narrowly avoiding having a sparking lance stabbed straight through my face. I spun around and bucked back, my hind hooves kicking out and pounding heavily against the attacking pegasus’ chest. My kick did little but annoy the guard as my hooves bounced harmlessly off their thick armour, knocking me to the ground.

“Wow, you’re like… strong, huh,” I grunted, rubbing my head with a hoof as I looked up at the looming guard. The guard’s only response was to lunge again, their wings beating rapidly at their sides as they flashed towards me with unparalleled speed. I gave a yelp of fear and scrambled out of the way, their lance skewering the spot I had been only seconds before.

Twilight rolled across the floor, the gauze wrapped around her leg already red from the blood seeping through the bandages. The armoured pegasus rushed after her, moving far faster than Twilight was able to dodge.

Twilight’s leg faltered, sending her sprawling across the floor. She rolled over, looking up just in time to see the armoured guard rear up above her, lance poised to spear her heart.

Bang!

Blood burst from the bullet hole between the rearing guards eyes as a loud gunshot rang out. Twilight screamed, her whole body flinching as her face was splattered with the guards blood.

The guard attacking me looked up in surprise, only for another shot to ring out. The bullet once more pierced the guard between the eyes with near impossible accuracy, blood and brain matter spewing out the back of their head and coating the walls and floor in crimson. But the bullet didn’t stop. It carried through the guards head, shattering the window behind them. A second later, the guard dropped to the ground, dead.

I took a deep breath, my chest heaving as I rolled back up onto my hooves. I glanced at the broken window first, making out the blood splattered glass shards and the now dead guard that had been shot down outside. Whomever our savior was, they were a damn good shot.

Shaking a little, I turned to face the doorway where a shadowed figure stood. They were a beige stallion, only a little taller than average, dressed in a long brown trench coat that hung around their mud soaked hooves. His dusty brown mane was unkempt and a smoking .44 revolver was held tight in his mouth.

Slowly stepping into the warm light of the cottage, he spat his revolver into a holser secured to his left forehoof and trotted over to the large mess of broken potion bottles against the far wall. He paused, looking the shattered potions over for a moment before leaning down and scooping the wide brimmed fedora off the ground and tossing it lazily onto his head.

He turned, his eyes looking Twilight and I up and down as if questioning if he should shoot us as well. For a very uncomfortable amount of time, we all just stood there, not quite sure what to do.

Finally, Twilight was the one to break the silence. “Uh, thank you for saving us.”

“You’re welcome,” The mysterious pony answered bluntly, still looking us over with an appraising eye. “How did you find me?”

Twilight and I exchanged a confused glance. “We were hiding in the forest from those royal guards,” Twilight eventually answered honestly. “We didn’t think any other ponies would be out here. We were hoping to find Zecora, but it seemed she has gone missing too.”

The mysterious stranger cocked an eyebrow. “Missing?”

“You know, vanished. Disappeared,” I tried to explain, waving my fore hooves in exasperation. “Like how everypony in Ponyville is mysteriously missing save from these crazy killer guards!”

“I understand what the word means, but to say everypony is missing is to imply they were ever, or should ever have been here,” The mysterious Stranger said stoically. After a moment, he took a step towards me, his eyes suspicious. “Surely, you understand where we are, Amber? What all of this is?”

I took a surprised step back. “Y-you… you know my name?”

Again, the mysterious stranger seemed surprised. “Did you expect me not too?”

“You seem to have a pretty good idea of what is going on here,” Twilight butted in, her voice almost accusing. “Why don’t you try to fill us in?”

The stranger nodded. “I have had a decent amount of time to figure things out, yes,” his gaze turned to stare at Twilight directly. He glanced down at her bleeding leg for a second before turning and starting to comb through the shattered potion vials on the floor. “What I do not know, however, is what you are doing here, Twilight Sparkle.”

Now it was Twilights turn to take a surprised step back. “You know who I am too?”

For the first time since appearing, the mysterious stranger cracked a small smile, and with no lack of amusement, he replied, “Who doesn’t?” He picked an only slightly cracked potion bottle off the floor and hoofed it over to Twilight. “Here, this will help with your leg.”

Twilight gingerly took the healing potion, looking it over skeptically before gulping down it’s contents. “Uh… thanks.”

The stranger nodded before turning back to face me. “So you do not recognize me, or know how you got to this place?”

I shook my head, still feeling a little unsettled that this complete (seemingly complete) stranger knew so much about us. “I just woke up. Don’t remember a thing about what happened before.”

The mysterious Stranger nodded. “Curious. Perhaps the Utopia program is trying to protect you from remembering what happened to you.”

I furrowed my brow at that response. “The Utopia program? What happened to me?”

In response, the mysterious stranger turned and started walking out of Zecora’s hut. “Follow me. I will do my best to explain everything while I tend to my crops.”

“So those crops were yours then?” Twilight asked, limping beside me as we followed the stranger out.

“Indeed,” The mysterious pony replied simply. “We don’t need to eat in this place, but it helps me pass the time. It can get lonely here without others,” he picked up a watering can that rested against the side of the cottage. “Now… where to begin. It all began with a pony named Silver Ace…”

I stared at the water seeping into the fertile soil for a long moment as I tried to let all of the information the mysterious stranger had bestowed upon us sink in. I furrowed my brow as I tried to piece all the information together in my head. I wasn’t doing a very good job.

“Okay, so let me try and get this straight,” I finally started, rubbing my forehead tiredly with a hoof. “A pony named Silver Ace was working for a stuck-up aristocrat named Pureblood to create a giant world simulation inside of a massive memory orb made up of the memories of six ministry mares so that he could recreate Equestria in his own, deranged, purist vision? And to do all that, they had to manipulate a secret government organization consisting of changelings called the Institute that was run by Twilight here and some business executive named Scootaloo? And now, two hundred years later, I, for reasons you refuse to tell me, was trying to stop Pureblood, who’s now a brain robot thing, from launching the Utopia Program, failed, then jumped into the Utopia Program myself and this is all some sort of memory inside said program?”

The mysterious stranger just stoically nodded and continued to water his plants.

“That’s insane!” Twilight blurted, waving her hoof at the stranger insistently. The stranger didn’t even look up at her. “Ignoring the fact that technology is not even remotely advanced enough to create memory orbs that last longer than a minute at the most, let alone hold an entire virtual, growing existence, I think I’d remember doing something as absurd as that, or if I was in charge of a secret government organization with changelings,” she stomped her hooves a couple times in agitation. “And and and, I don’t know! None of this makes sense… what you’re suggesting… This- this apocalypse! Something like that could never happen to Equestria! Princess Celestia wouldn’t let it!”

At that, the mysterious Stranger jerked his head up and glared at Twilight, almost venomously. “Celestia would,” the stranger spat. “When Equestria needed her most, Celestia stepped down! When Equestria was on fire and balefire rained from the skies, where was the great Celestia? No where! She fled! She let Equestria burn!”

Twilight scowled. “No! You’re… you’re wrong! She wouldn't do that!”

“Twi, I- I think he might be telling the truth,” I said softly, a strange, hollow feeling opening up in my gut.

Twilight spun on me faster than I expected. “What would you know! You don’t even remember past an hour ago!”

I took a step back, surprised by her sudden hostility. “I- I don’t know… It just… it feels right. Like I already knew all of this… somehow…”

Twilight scowled. “Feels right?! Nothing about this feels right!” She took a step back, closing her eyes and putting a hoof to her chest. Slowly, Twilight exhaled, her enraged expression softening. When she opened her eyes, she seemed a lot calmer. “I-I’m sorry. This is all just so much. Five days ago I was having a picnic with my friends, now… Now I’m being told that that was over two hundred years ago and that the world I love has been rendered to a wasteland…” She sat down hard on her rump, staring forlornly at the rich soil. “It can’t be true… It just can't…”

A bit of the venom in the strangers' eyes subsided. “My apologies for my outburst,” He said, his tone hardly fitting for an apology. “I came to terms with this many, many years ago. This must all be very strange and upsetting for both of you.”

“Okay, so you’ve told us about the Utopia program,” I stated, trying to drag our derailed conversation back on track. “But you refused to tell us anything about why I was trying to stop this Pureblood character. You seemed to suggest you knew why my memories are gone, but you refused to say anything about it.”

The stranger was silent for a bit as they thought that over. “I refused to say anything because I do not know the full nature of why your memory is gone,” He finally answered, turning back to his crops as he began watering them again. “But I have my suspicions.”

“Okay… can you elaborate upon those?” I pushed, feeling a little put out by his avoidance of the topic.

The stranger nodded. “I can. You see, a pony shouldn’t lose their memory when entering the Utopia program. Not unless the pony in control of the program wanted you to lose it. So I have reason to suspect that your lack of memory is from something else. Tell me Amber, do you remember how you entered the Utopia program?”

I scrunched up my muzzle in thought as I tried to remember. It was like trying to remember an event that you weren’t present for. I was very much unsuccessful. “No. I don’t.”

“And that’s probably for the best,” The stranger grunted. “Normally, entering the Utopia program is a perfectly safe and painless process. Robots can download themselves into it, ponies can put themselves into stasis pods in the Institute that will transfer their minds into it. Certain tech such as the Enclave’s hellhound headpieces can lock onto Utopia’s frequencies. Most commonly, the pony in control of the Utopia program can bring the consciousness of anypony they want into the Utopia program at will. You did none of those things.”

“What did I do?” I asked, almost afraid to hear the answer.

“You threw yourself head first into the Utopia program itself,” the stranger grunted bluntly.

I glanced around, expecting the significance of that to make sense at any second. It never did. “Oookay… Well that doesn’t sound so bad.”

The mysterious stranger just stared at me with a flat, almost disbelieving look. “The Utopia program generates an unbelievable amount of heat. You practically threw yourself into a miniature sun.”

I felt myself wilt a little. “Oh…”

The stranger whinnied. “Oh, is correct. I doubt that outside of this simulation, you exist as anything more than a charred pile of bones. The mere fact that you managed to survive long enough to trap your mind in the Utopia Program is a miracle. Your lack of memory is likely the Utopia Program doing its best to keep your mind from completely fracturing apart. How it managed to do so on its own fruition however, I don't know.”

“Oh…” I breathed again, this time with a little more fear in my voice. I could feel a shudder running down my spine. “So when I try to remember my past and everything starts hurting and I feel like I’m on fire…”

“You’re likely reliving the pain of what happened to you when you dove into the Utopia Program, yes,” The stranger finished for me.

“Wait, but how do we know this Pureblood didn’t just wipe Amber's memory instead?” Twilight asked, finally looking up from the ground to join in on the conversation. “You said that whoever controls the Utopia Program would be able to wipe the memory of anypony that enters it. What if that was why Amber is missing her memory?”

“It’s possible, I suppose,” The mysterious stranger grumbled. “The pony who controls the Utopia Program is granted near unlimited control over a ponies' minds, and not just the ponies inside the Utopia Program either. They have control over every creature's mind that is within the Programs range of effect. Wiping memories, implanting memories, creating false memories, even mind control.”

“And just how big is the Utopia Programs range?” I dared myself to ask.

The stranger gave me a grim look. “It was designed to reach as far as the zebra lands, so no pony in Equestria is safe from its influence.”

I gulped. That was bad. Really, really bad.

“Well, if what you say is true, then Pureblood would have known that Amber was coming after him. So maybe he wiped her mind to try and stop her?” Twilight pushed. “That means there’s still hope Amber is alive outside of the program,” Something in her words sounded desperate. As if she needed for me to be alive. It hit me that Twilight was likely realizing she was in a very similar situation to me, except she was long dead outside of this program. There was no hope for her once all of this was over.

Unfortunately, the mysterious stranger shook his head. “As I said, that is a possibility, but I find it to be an incredibly unlikely one.”

“And why is that?” Twilight pushed, sounding a little defensive again.

“For the same reason the Utopia Program isn’t currently filled with life,” the stranger shot back, watering his last plant and placing his watering can by his hooves. “Pureblood wants to control the minds of everypony in the wasteland. He wants them to serve him eternally, here, in his own personal utopia…”

What the stranger was saying finally caught up with me. “Which means this Pureblood doesn’t actually have control of the Utopia Program yet! Otherwise, he would have just pulled everypony into here with us,” I blurted. Then I hesitated, remembering the guards that had chased us in the name of ‘his majesty’ or whatever they had said. “Or at least, he only has a little bit of control.”

The stranger nodded. “Indeed. Something is blocking him from taking complete control of Utopia, even now. He likely has a moderate amount of control over the program’s more basic functions, but if he was in complete control, we would know by now.”

“Then there’s still time to stop him!” I exclaimed, feeling a rush of excitement. “We still have time to fix all of this!”

Without thinking, I reached forwards, moving to give the stranger a friendly punch on the shoulder. Faster than I could react, the mysterious stranger leapt back, their revolver flashing up and aiming at me before I could do so much as touch them. I took a surprised step back, cringing away as I came face to face with the barrel of the deadly firearm.

“Do not touch me,” The stranger scowled around the grip of his gun, his eyes narrowed into slits. “There are things about me I do not wish for you to see,” I gave a quick couple of nods, taking another step away from the loaded gun. After a long moment, the stranger holstered his revolver again.

“Don’t want us to see?” Twilight echoed questioningly, her eyes lingering on the tucked away revolver. “How would touching you show us things about you?”

“We are inside of a memory,” The stranger answered flatly, his voice strangely defensive. “Touching another pony will… Show you things… like viewing a memory orb. I don’t know what it will show you if you were to touch me, and I’d like to keep it that way.”

“And who exactly are you?” Twilight pushed, crawling back to her hooves and glaring at the stranger. “You’ve told us an awful lot about this so-called Utopia Program, and you’ve told us some stuff about Amber and myself. But we don’t even know your name, or how you know who we are?”

“I know you because everypony knows who Twilight Sparkle is,” He said flatly. “You’re Princess Celestia’s protege. You are the pony who stopped Nightmare Moon and defeated Discord. You’re the leader of the Ministry of Arcane Science, even if you do not remember it. There isn’t a pony in Equestria, before or after the war, who doesn’t know who Twilight Sparkle is,” He frowned. “But like I said, I have no idea how you ended up in the Utopia Program. I’ve been in this place for years, and I’ve never seen you here before.”

“And me? How do you know me?” I asked, stepping forwards.

“You do not remember, but we have met many times in the past,” the stranger answered. “I have a synthetic body inside of the Institute. It took time, and a lot of energy, but for a while I was able to temporarily transfer my consciousness from the Utopia Program into that synth body for a few minutes at a time before the Utopia program would pull my mind back in again. I would use the teleporters in the Institute to teleport around the wasteland. For a while, I followed another companion of yours. Mirra. A small changeling that I saw a lot of myself in. Then she told me to look out for you, so I did.”

“For a while? What happened?”

“You got yourself into a very rough situation with a group that calls themselves the True Steels,” the stranger informed me, glancing up at the blue sky above us. “I was able to use the Institute's teleporters to get you and your friends out of there, but to transport so many of you such a distance cost more power than I was able to give. When my synthetic body returned to the Institute, I was too weak to avoid capture. The snake, Glasswing, had my body placed into stasis and my mind was once more stuck inside of the Utopia Program, this time more permanently.”

“You sacrificed yourself to save me and my… my friends? Why?” I asked, feeling a little hollow that I would have allowed him to sacrifice himself for me in such a way.

“What else was I to do?” He smirked, finally dropping his stoic demeanor. “Grow potatoes that I don’t even need to eat? Wander an empty world with nothing but my thoughts? Practice my aim eternally on targets that will never exist? I promised Mirra that I would keep you safe. In doing that, I managed to keep both of you safe.”

Twilight nodded, a lot of the suspicion that had been held in her eyes now gone at his words, though I could still see a mix of uncertainty and panic. “And your name?”

“You don’t need to know my name,” the stranger responded, once more switching to his low monotone. “I haven’t used it in almost two hundred years. And my name comes with memories, memories that I deem are best left forgotten.”

Twilight rolled her eyes a little. “Well we need to call you something. Unless you would like us to call you the mysterious stranger.”

The stranger chuckled. “I suppose that wouldn’t do, would it. Very well. Call me Farmer. That is all that I have done for the past two hundred years, so I find it fitting.”

I nodded, accepting the name. “Alright Farmer. One last question. What were you doing out here at Zecora’s hut?”

Farmer glared at me. “You ponies really do have some strange obsession with making me talk about things I would rather not talk about, don’t you?”

I gave him a smirk and a shrug. “Would you not be asking questions in our position?”

“I suppose you are correct…” Farmer sighed. “If you must know, I was a detective for the MOM back before the war. I had been assigned to investigate a group of supposed zebra sympathizers that called themselves Four Star. For the first few years I spent in the Utopia Program, I tried to carry out my mission. It was all I could do to keep sane. I had heard of a zebra living in the Everfree forest that had ties with the MOM and theoretical ties with Four Star, so I came here. Eventually, I started living here. Out here in the woods, it's easier to forget you’re the only pony in the world.”

After that, we were all silent. None of us really knowing where to continue from there. Finally, I decided that we had waited long enough. “Alright then. So we still have time to stop Pureblood. How do we stop him?”

“It won’t be easy,” Farmer drawled. “I am unsure how much power he has over this world, but considering the guards, I would imagine that he does indeed have some amount of control. I doubt we would be able to just go up and shoot him. You can’t kill a memory.”

“And we would have to find him first,” Twilight noted, looking out at the swaying trees around us. “If this Utopia program is as advanced as you claim, he could be anywhere in all of Equestria.”

I exchanged a quick glance with Farmer. “Actually. I think I know exactly where he is,” I said, lifting my gaze to look past the thick canopy of leaves.

Twilight raised an eyebrow at me in surprise. “You do? Really? Where?”

“Right there,” I raised my hoof, pointing out in the distance at the looming mountain that towered even above the towering trees. “Where else would somepony like Pureblood go? Canterlot Castle.”

I gave a loud grunt as I pulled myself up onto the icy ledge. Knife-like wind battered at my face as I pushed myself up as close to the rocky mountainside as possible.

Behind me, Twilight struggled frantically with her hind hooves to push herself up onto the ledge with me, her muzzle red from the cold and her multi toned mane frazzled from the whipping winds. She gave a small grunt of her own, the muscles in her forehooves tensing as she hauled herself a little bit higher onto the outcrop.

Bracing one fore hoof against a snowbank, I leaned forwards, extending my free hoof for Twilight to grab. With a huff, she reached forwards, her hoof curling around mine as she allowed me to yank her the rest of the way up.

“Thanks,” Twilight breathed, shivering a little as another freezing gust of wind ripped through us. She took another deep breath, this time letting her horn glow a little. I felt her magic aura surround the two of us and a little bit of the freezing cold get dispelled. “There. That should help with the cold a little,” Twilight soothed with a small grimace. “Sorry I can’t do more. My horn still seems to be on the fritz since the bridge.”

I gave her a quick smile. “Don’t worry about it. It helped.”

“Come on. There is no time to stand around talking,” Farmer’s voice echoed down from above us. I glanced up to see his beige head peering down at us from a rocky ledge a few feet above. “Every minute we waste gives Pureblood another minute to take full control of Utopia.”

I gave a low scowl and turned to face the icy rock face behind me, reaching out and finding the first hoof hold in the rough surface. “If we were in such a rush, maybe we should have taken the train. Or, you know, a path instead of scaling the side of Canterlot mountain.”

“If we had taken the normal route, Pureblood’s royal guards would have found us in seconds and you know it,” Farmer snarled back, ducking back out of sight. “Besides, I know a secret entrance into the city.”

“And you know about this entrance, how?” Twilight asked skeptically, slowly scaling the wall behind me as the two of us began to climb.

“I’ve been stuck in the Utopia Program for over two hundred years,” Farmer snapped back, not bothering to look down at us this time. Amazingly, his voice was still audible over the howling wind.

I reached for another hoof hold above me, only for the rock to chip and crumble away from the wall. A panicked scream escaped my lips as I felt my body fall backwards, my grip on the cliff face slipping. I thrashed frantically with my hooves, trying to find purchase on the steep rock wall, but my hooves came up empty. Then I was falling. The disorienting feeling of free fall lasted all of one second before Twilight’s horn wrapped me in a violet glow and hoisted me back up into the air, laying me down on the outcropping ledge above.

I lay on my back with panting breath, trying to calm down from the sensation of plummeting to my death. A second later, Twilight pulled herself up next to me and dropped to the ground like a brick that had just been thrown off of a building, exhausted.

“Th-thanks,” I stuttered, unsure if the stutter was from the shock of nearly dying or the biting cold.

“Don’t… Don’t mention it,” Twilight breathed, her chest rising and falling as she tried to pull more air into her overexerted lungs. She lay there for a few more seconds, trying to regain her strength. After a second, she looked over at me, her voice lowering into a bit of a whisper as she spoke. I could barely hear her over the whipping winds. “Amber, can I ask you a question?”

I glanced over at her, my brows furrowed. “Yeah, of course?” I kept my voice low as well, not quite sure why we were whispering.

Twilight glanced back upwards at the ledge far above that Farmer had already managed to scaled too. “Do you trust this Farmer pony?” Before I could respond she elaborated. “I mean, we don’t know much of anything about him, or even his real name. What if he just made all that crazy stuff up to get us to trust him? What if he’s working with this Pureblood pony?”

I let those ideas float around in my brain a little bit before responding. “If he was working for Pureblood, it would seem weird to tell us about Pureblood and his plan, not to mention save us from his guards. Plus, if Pureblood is real, wouldn’t that mean that all the other stuff is too?”

Twilight bit her lip, her eyes darting around a little as she processed that. “Maybe. It just seems… I- There has to… I think..." She paused, her breath catching in her throat. "I think my friends are all d-dead Amber… and Equestria… Spike… me… This can’t all be real…”

I put a hoof on her shoulder, rolling over in the snow to face her. “We’ll figure this out, alright. We’ll see what’s up with this Pureblood and then once we've dealt with him, we’ll figure this all out.”

Twilight nodded, pulling herself back to her hooves and glancing up at where Farmer was standing far above. “Farmer knows things he’s not telling us. And not just stuff he’s worried will destroy your mind because of that weird, Utopia Program mind wipe. There’s something bigger he doesn’t want us to know…”

“I mean, who doesn’t have secrets,” I groused, wincing as I pulled my own self back up to my hooves.

“And what was with that whole no touching thing?” Twilight continued, her eyebrows furrowing. “That part doesn’t make any sense.”

“He said it was because he didn’t want us to see his past,” I replied slowly, restating what Farmer had told us just an hour earlier.

“Yeah, he said that, but it doesn't make sense,” Twilight mused, her gaze still locked on Farmer far above. I opened my mouth to question her on that, only for Twilight to reach out and place her hoof on my chest. “Nothing. We’ve been in physical contact multiple times. Not once have we seen a weird flashback thing.”

I paused, glancing down at her hoof on my chest. “Oh… Yeah. you’re right,” I glanced back up. “Maybe our lack of memoir is stopping it from happening?”

“Maybe,” Twilight muttered. “I hope so…”

“What is taking you two?” I heard Farmer snap, his head once more poking out from above us, urging us to keep moving. “Come on.”

Taking a deep breath, I shuffled over to the rockface and once more began to climb. “As I said, we’ll figure all this out,” I assured her, not feeling very sure myself. “With any luck, this Farmer guy really is on our side.”

“Yeah,” Twilight sighed, pulling herself up next to me on the wall. “I really hope so too.”

A few moments later, the three of us found ourselves standing before the mouth of a small cave inset into the mountain face. Upon seeing it, I quickly ducked inside to get away from the cutting wind, Twilight fast on my heels. Farmer trotted in slowly behind us, seemingly unfazed by the biting cold.

“I lived and explored all over Canterlot as a filly,” Twilight said, looking around the cavern. Bits of snow that had been blown in by the wind covered the rocky floor and large icicles hung menacingly from the ceiling. Large crystal formations jutted from the walls, giving the cavern a jagged feel. “This looks to be connected to the closed off crystal caverns below Canterlot. How have I never even heard of this before?”

“The area isn’t somewhere I’d suspect fillies would have been allowed to go,” Farmer grunted. “Besides, last time I was here, I recall finding signs that this location was the home of a dragon. Naturally, there’s no dragon here now, like all other living things, but back in your Equestria, I doubt Celestia wanted anypony to simply stumble across them.”

Twilight gave him a confused look. “A dragon? Not knowing about a cave is one thing. But if there was a dragon living right underneath Canterlot, I think I would have definitely known that.”

“I think you’ll find that there was a lot Princess Celestia never told you,” Farmer told her, trotting farther into the cave. “Now hurry. I don’t know how much time we have.”

Following behind Farmer, we made our way through the cave. What started out as a freezing cold cave, quickly changed to that of a much warmer one as we navigate our way deeper into the cavern. The once huge icicles the size of my whole body at the caves entrance began to melt away the farther in we got, subtly at first, though quickly changing to one's much smaller in size. The area around us was filled with the sound of a slow and methodical dripping the seemed to echo from every direction all at once.

I also began to notice that what Farmer had said seemed to be true. The farther we walked, the more signes I saw of a dragon having once lived here. Claw shaped grooves in the rough floor, mounds of gold coins, even a large area that looked like it was intended for laying particularly large eggs.

Eventually, Farmer led us up a large rocky ramp that lead to what appeared to be a wall of smooth white marble protruding from the rock wall.

“This looks like it,” Twilight muttered, running her hoof across the smooth surface. “I’d know these walls anywhere. We’re likely somewhere below the Canterlot Library,” She turned to glance at Farmer who was currently running his hoof along the cave's stone wall. “How do we get in?”

Instead of answering, Farmer’s hoof collided with something hidden amongst the rocks and he gave it a quick tug. The loud sound of gears grinding against each other filled the cavern and very slowly the marble wall began to slide away.

Twilight and I took a step back, looking up at the massive secret entrance as it pulled aside, letting the flickering firelight from the vast room on the other side seep into the cavern.

“Rainbow would have loved this,” Twilight breathed, her eyes traveling along the frame of the sliding door. She glanced back at Farmer. “How did you know all this was here?”

“I told you,” Farmer groused, walking past us and through the large doorway. “Two hundred years is a long time when you have nothing to do.”

Stealing myself for just a moment, I trotted after Farmer, following him into the room. As my eyes quickly adjusted to the new light, I began to take in the area around us. As Twilight had suggested, we were in the Canterlot Library. I could feel my eyes go wide as I took in the rows upon rows of beautiful books that lined the walls. Looking up, I could see a massive dome ceiling made of glass, giving me a clear view of the blue, sunny sky above. My mouth dropped open as I practically salivated at the innumerable amount of tomes.

“Wonderful, isn’t it,” Twilight grinned, seeing my reaction. “I spent most of my life in this place. I’ve read almost all of them.”

I didn’t really have much else to say to that except. “I really like books.”

Twilight’s grin widened. “When this is all over, we should read together sometime.”

I allowed myself to look away from the books long enough to give her a smile of my own. “Yeah. Yeah, that would be nice.”

Across the room from us, I saw Farmer pull out his revolver with his muzzle and peak out the doorway of the library into the street beyond. A second later he pulled back, ducking behind the wall. “We got a problem,” He grunted, gesturing us over with a hoof.

Feeling a sense of urgency from his words, I slinked over to him and glanced out the door myself. I grimaced as I saw the five guards standing guard outside. “Shit. Is there a way to get past them?” I asked, glancing over at Farmer.

Farmer shrugged. “Maybe. The city is likely crawling with those guards. If we need to sneak past all of them, we could be at this for hours.”

“Can you just… you know…” I gestured grimly to his revolver. “...Shoot them?”

“Amber!” Twilight gasped, giving me a sharp look that was somewhere between horror and outrage. “We can’t just go killing other ponies!”

Farmer turned to her sternly. “We aren’t in your perfect Equestria anymore, Twilight. It may look like it inside the Utopia Program, but this world is not the one you claim you know. If we let every pony that tries to kill us live, then we’re going to end up dead really fast.”

“Well, maybe if we showed a little bit of kindness then we would still be in my perfect Equestria,” Twilight snarled back, furrowing her brows a little.

Farmer’s frown became a snarl of his own. “You haven’t seen the things Amber and I have gone through, girl. There are ponies and zebras out there that are not worth your mercy. Besides, those guards out there aren’t ponies. They’re constructs. Fabrications of a vile, twisted ponies fantasies,” Twilight seethed a little in turn, though she didn’t have an immediate response to that. Before she could say anything else, Farmer turned back to me. “And unfortunately, no. I can’t just kill them. If I fire off a shot, it will likely alert all them to our presence. The last thing we want is to have hundreds of those armoured freaks breathing down our necks.”

“So then what’s the game plan?” I asked, looking back out at the five guards patrolling the area.

Farmer grimaced. “Knowing Pureblood, he’s likely holed up in the throne room. I doubt he would opt for anything less to be his command station,” his eyes darted around, as if trying to spot something. “But I’m not sure how to get there. Not past all those guards.”

Twilight glared at Farmer for a few more seconds before taking a deep breath and standing up a little straighter. “Thankfully, I know the Canterlot Library like the back of my hoof. There’s an exit that I used to take to get in when I was grounded from the library. It won't take us right to the throne room, but it should lead us into the main castle.”

“Your parents grounded you from the library?” I asked, raising one eyebrow.

Twilight blushed a little, glancing down at her hooves awkwardly. “Yeah. They kept telling me I should try making a friend that wasn’t a book.”

Farmer gave her an emotionless chuckle and a small nod. “Alright then. Lead the way.”

Nodding in return, Twilight turned and led us up to the second level of the library. She trotted quickly over to a bookcase against the far wall and glanced up at the glass dome ceiling just a few short feet above us. After a second, she glanced back at me. “Amber, can you give me a lift?”

I quickly moved up beside her, crouching my forelegs so that Twilight could more easily step up onto my back. I grit my teeth a little as her weight was applied to my back, but I managed to hold her up as she climbed the rest of the way on. Wobbling on my back for a moment, Twilight stood up on her hind legs and reached up, wrapping her fore hooves around the top of the bookshelf before heaving herself up with a small huff. Once on top of the shelf, she tapped on one of the glass panels making up the roof for a second, checking to make sure it was the right one, before pushing against it and lifting it from its spot, allowing her a small hole in which she could climb up on out and onto the roof.

She turned back around, careful to not lose her hoofing while atop the shelf and extended a hoof to us. “Come on, I’ll help you up.”

Moving up to the shelf, I stood up on my hind legs and reached up, wrapping my hooves around her outstretched ones. She quickly hauled me up, placing a hoof over my withers to help balance me. A few seconds later, I turned around and reached out with Twilight to help hoist Farmer up with us as well. Farmer instead just cast a hollow look at our outstretched hooves before ignoring them all together and climbing up himself. Without our assistance, it took him a little longer to scale the shelf, but he didn’t seem to have too much difficulty.

“Come on,” Twilight urged, gesturing us onwards with a hoof and keeping low as she crawled her way out of the hole in the glass ceiling and onto the roof. “The castle isn’t far from here.”

I squeezed out behind her, ducking down and creeping over to the edge of the roof. I glanced down at the streets below us, my eyes flicking back and forth as I tried to spot potential dangers. With a gulp, I realized that it had been a very good idea not to just go guns blazing to get past the guards.

From up here on the roof, I could make out a lot more than just the five guards stationed outside the library. There were hundreds of them, at least five at every entrance around the city. Some of the larger buildings had upwards of ten guards all standing stoically at attention and I could see small squadrons traversing the streets in a robotic, militaristic fashion.

There was a small popping sound as Farmer finally managed to wiggle his way through the hole, his larger size making squeezing through a little harder. I cast a glance back at him as he quickly brushed off his trench coat and adjusted his hat.

Twilight led us across the rooftop to the far ledge. Upon reaching the edge of the roof, Twilight waited less than a second before hopping the small gap between the library and the building beside it. Touching down on the far side, she turned around and waved us across.

“You did this as a filly you said?” Farmer monotone, following behind her as he too jumped to the next roof, me jumping shortly after him. At Twilight's nod, he whistled. “My respect for you is growing.”

Twilight gave him a small smile before continuing to lead us onwards. We jumped across two more roofs until I finally saw it. Canterlot Castle was massive, towering well over all of the other buildings, which were all already massive in their own right. It was a massive white spire, topped with curved purple roofs and conjoining golden towers. Gold archways extended from its sides, connecting the castle to smaller structures of similar design. Large windows, gold themselves, line the marble walls and three large arching doors stood proudly from the second floor, two massive sets of curving stairs reaching up from the beautiful courtyard below to allow access to the interior of the massive building.

“Pureblood is definitely inside,” Farmer stated, his eyes looking down at the flowery courtyard. I followed his gaze, making out the forms of hundreds of guards standing sentinel below. Farmer cast a worried look at Twilight. “Please tell me this entrance of yours doesn’t involve us going through all of that?”

Twilight gave a small grin and a shake of her head. “Nope, we’re going through the Starswirl the bearded wing,” She answered smugly, pointing over at one of the conjoined towers only two rooftops away. She gave me a smile. “If you thought there were a lot of books in the Canterlot Library, wait until you see the castle library.”

Farmer glanced at the tower for a second before his whole face went pale. “No. Not in there. We need to find a different way in.”

I glanced up at him in confusion. “What? What is it?” I looked at the smaller tower Twilight had pointed at, my eyes scanning the area looking for any dangers Farmer had spotted. I saw nothing.

“Farmer, I’ve been in there hundreds of times,” Twilight assured him. “It’s perfectly safe.”

Farmer just stared at the tower for a long moment, his body trembling. “No. There has to be another way in… The last time I was here. When I entered that place… I saw things in that tower… We need to go somewhere else.”

I felt my heart rate quicken and my eyebrows scrunched together in concern. “Things like what? Farmer? What’s in that tower?”

After another long moment, Farmer just shook his head. “I… I don’t know… But I don’t want to see it again… whatever it was.”

“Well then what other options do we have?” Twilight pushed, her gaze darting down to the guards below. “We can’t fight or sneak our way through all of those.”

We were all silent for a moment, trying to come up with a different plan. None came to us. After a long pause, I sighed. “Well we can’t just wait here. If that’s the only way in, that’s where we’re going to have to go.”

Twilight nodded in agreement. “You said so yourself, Farmer. The longer we wait, the more time this Pureblood has to get full control over the Utopia program. This is the only way that we’re getting past all those guards.”

Farmer snorted. “Fine. But don’t touch anything, and if I say run, we run.”

Both Twilight and I gave him grim nods, neither of us having any idea of what horrors Farmer spoke of from within the walls of the tower. But whatever it was, I knew it must be bad. Farmer didn't seem like the kind of pony to get spooked easily.

We began making our way across the rooftops, still keeping as low as we could to avoid detection from the guards below. We made it halfway there before Twilight gave a small eep of surprise and shoved Farmer and I back behind a large chimney stack with a quick burst of her magic. She ducked back with us, her head ducked as low to the ground as she could. I didn't need to ask her what it was, as a second later, three small shadows passed over us as a small squadron of pegasus guards flew overhead. A few moments passed before we dared to move again and shuffle the last few feet to the tower.

Twilight moved up to the tower first, silently pulling the closest window open with her hooves and shimmying inside. I followed closely behind her, a small grunt escaping my lips as I shoved my way through the window and into the pitch black room beyond.

I landed on the floor of the room with a small thud. I took a second to catch my breath before I stood up and glanced out the window at Farmer who was still crouched down on the rooftop outside, staring at the tower with disdain. “Come on, Farmer, it’s fine,” I assured him, beckoning him on with a hoof.

Farmer just looked at the tower for a long second before sighing and squirming his way through the doorway after us. “We need to get moving,” He ushered us in a hushed tone as soon as he was through the window. “I don’t want to be in this tower any longer than I need to be,” He glanced around again, trying to spot any dangers in the gloom. “Be as quiet as possible, and no sudden moves. I don’t want to attract any attention to us.”

Twilight and I nodded, keeping our mouths shut. It was strangely eerie in here for some reason, not to mention dark. Everywhere I had seen so far within the Utopia Program had been so cheerful and full of life. Even the crystal cave had been strangely well lit with the sun strewing through the large entrance and the sparkling crystals on the cavern walls.

We began following Twilight as she began making her way around the outside of the dark room. The room was a large circular chamber, with towering walls of bookshelves creating an almost labyrinth-like layout in the centre of the room. On the walls hung massive ancient tapestries that seemed to date back to times far before the castle was even constructed.

I paused for a second before one tapestry, my eyes squinting to make out its details in the darkness. It seemed to depict a light scarlet, almost beige coated pegasus mare with a blue and turquoise mane. The mare seemed to be wearing a strange blindfold over her eyes and held a long wooden pole in her forehooves. What really caught my attention though was the massive beast the mare was facing off against. Before her stood what appeared to be a massive purple sphinx, with leering fangs and feathered wings splayed out before the light of a streaming red sun.

“Amber, get moving,” Farmer scowled between clenched teeth as he saw me stop. “Now…”

“That sphinx... She looks familiar,” I whispered back in a hushed tone, my eyes still transfixed on the image. A sudden bolt of burning pain shot through my body, making me stagger back. I dug my teeth deep into my tongue, drawing blood and biting back the pressing urge to scream. My hooves beat frantically at my head, trying to beat the pain from my mind. It didn’t work.

“Shit. Calm down,” Farmer hissed, his eyes darting nervously around the gloom. He took a step back, his whole body trembling in anticipation as he waited for something to lunge at him from the darkness.

Twilight rushed to my side, pulling me into a tight embrace as the burning pains slowly subsided. I shivered for a moment, trying to forget the feeling of fire racing across my body. Twilight ran her hoof through my mane reassuringly as I shook, doing her best to calm me down.

Alright, no more talking or thinking about sphinxes. Apparently that was part of my forgotten past too.

After letting myself calm down, I lifted my head from Twilight's shoulder and glanced around. Farmer still stood stone still a few feet away, his eyes darting about for danger, but other than that, I still saw nothing amongst the gloom.

Hesitantly, I stood back up, leaning a little against Twilight for support. “Are you sure this place is dangerous? I still don’t see anything. Maybe the thing you saw left? Or it’s a different tower?”

Farmer just shook his head. “I know what I saw,” He hissed back, his tail flicking in agitation. He paused again, looking around. “But I don’t see anything either… Just… Let's still be cautious, alright.”

I nodded. Turning back to Twilight, I gestured for her to continue leading the way. With a hesitant glance up at the sphinx tapestry, Twilight once more began leading us around the edge of the chamber before coming to a stop before a set of massive double doors. Twilight reached out, wrapping her hoof against the ornate door knobs and giving them a hard tug.

Nothing. The doors remained unmoving.

Frowning, Twilight tried again, arching her back a little as she reefed on the golden knob. Again, the door didn’t budge.

“Locked,” Twilight grunted, taking a small step away from the door. She shook her head for a second, deep in though, before gesturing for us to follow her. “Don’t worry. I know where Celestia leaves the keys.”

“You don’t have an unlocking spell?” Farmer snarked, though there was a tremor in his tone.

Twilight gave him a scolding look. “I do, actually,” She rebutled. “However, aside from unlocking spells being incredibly immoral, Celestia put a powerful spell on all of the doors in the castle as a security measure. So the spell won't work.”

“Figures,” Farmer grumbled. Taking his revolver into his mouth, Farmer followed after us, his head whipping back and forth for trouble.

Slowly, Twilight led us deeper into the labyrinth of bookshelves, bringing us closer and closer to the centre of the room. The farther through we went, the older the books became. I even noticed one tome dating all the way back to the pre-Celestia era, an ominous looking green bell depicted on its chained up cover.

“She usually leaves them in a locked chest just over here,” Twilight stated, finally trotting out of the bookcases and into a circular clearing in the center of the chamber. She pointed at a chest on the far side of the clearing. “Here we are, just as I-” She paused, her eyes glancing around. “W-wait? This isn’t right?”

Farmer’s body went rigid. “What? What’s wrong?”

Twilight continued glancing around, her ears folding back against her head as she tried to place the issue. “The room is wrong… There should be a large hourglass in the centre there,” She pointed a fore hoof at the very centre of the chamber where I could make out a strange looking symbol engraved on the floor through the darkness.

I took a step forward, narrowing my eyes as I tried to make sense of the large glyph-like shape Twilight was pointing at. The symbol looked somewhat like a horseshoe, with three, spike-like lines protruding from each side at various lengths. The horseshoe itself surrounded a central circle that housed what appeared to be the sinister looking face of a unicorn with a long horn and white eyes.

I felt a stab of pain stab through me as I looked upon the symbol, though I quickly shook it off, daring myself to take another step closer. “I’ve… I’ve seen that symbol before,” I muttered, my words sounding strangely distant in my mouth. I took another step forwards, my motions feeling almost trance-like, as if I was no longer in control of my own body. It was a strangely calming feeling.

“Amber, get back,” I heard Farmer hissing, though his voice sounded like he was a hundred miles away. I took another step forward, unable to fully register what Farmer was saying. “Twilight, get the key, now! Amber! Get away from that!” I could hear panic starting to rise in Farmer’s voice. I tried to look back at him, but my gaze was transfixed on the strange symbol on the floor.

A new whisper started filling my ears, slow and chant-like, calling, beckoning me closer. I raised my hoof, slowly reaching forwards to touch the symbol. The painted white eye of the pony in the centre began to glow and pulse with an odd light.

Farmer stepped in front of me, blocking my view of the symbol. “Amber, stop! Get back! Move!” I hardly heard him. Slowly, I took another step forwards, my hoof reaching closer to the symbol. Farmer moved aside, doing his best to block me without letting my hoof touch him. “Amber, look at me! Amber!”

Painfully, I managed to rip my gaze away from the symbol, looking over at him with a confused look. “Wha-what’s happening?”

Farmer stared at me with wide eyes, his revolver trembling in his mouth. “Take a step back,” He begged me, urging me to move away. “Take a step away right now!”

I suddenly felt panic grip me as I realized I couldn’t. I tensed my muscles, doing all I could to pull myself away from the now glowing symbol. It wasn’t working. My whole body started trembling as I put everything I had into trying to move away. But I couldn’t. It wouldn’t let me. Whatever it was…

The strange chanting in my ear began to grow, becoming almost overpowering. Urging me to take one more step. To place my hoof upon the symbols surface. I could feel my hoof shaking, threatening to just plunge down towards the cool surface.

I glanced up fearfully at Farmer, my whole body shaking with fear. “I… I can’t move… Farmer… Help me!”

“I got the key!” Twilight called out. I glanced over at her, seeing her holding the key up from where she stood beside the now open chest. Apparently Celestia hadn’t put any spells protecting the chest from being opened.

A stab of pain shot through my hoof, forcing it a little closer to the glowing symbol. I let out a scream, unable to hold back as the flesh on my hoof began to sizzle and burn.

Farmer flinched at the sound of the scream, his head bolting back and forth as he wildly aimed his revolver at the darkness around us. To my horror, I could feel the darkness shifting, swirling and closing in on us. The darkness held weight, and it began to push down on my hoof, once more bringing it closer. It was so close now. Just an inch more and I would be touching it.

I shut my eyes tight, trying to fight through the pain. It didn’t work. I could hear both Farmer and Twilight now as they screamed for me to back away. It was no use.

My hoof touched the cold surface.

A shiver passed through me, up my hoof and down my body. My hair stood on end, a gripping cold wrapping itself around my heart. I stumbled back, falling to my rump as I clutched at my burned hoof as the burning pain was replaced by the feeling of creeping ice.

The large circle in the centre of the symbol began to shift, sinking deeper and deeper into the floor, revealing a long, dark pit that descended far past our line of sight. I craned my neck, trying to get a clear view of the pit. I saw something slowly rising from it’s depth, small and round, but glowing with a pulsing light that matched what the image of the black ponies eyes had done only a moment before.

The small orb slowly emerged from the pit, hovering before us in the air ominously. The pulsing light illuminated the area around us, slowly pushing back the darkness for a brief moment.

I pulled myself up to my hooves, my wide eyed gaze locked on the glowing orb. I had never seen anything like it in my short amount of time in this Utopia program thing, but my mind instantly put a name to the alien object. It was a memory orb.

A very strange, very haunting memory orb.

I saw strange images flashing inside of the orb, likely the memories that lay within. I saw rocks and darkness, then the sky being blotted out by dark clouds. I saw a circle of stones, each one looming behind six strange ponies holding assorted items up before them and towards the darkened sky. For a fraction of a second, I saw the dusty bones of an ancient dragon, glowing blue glyphs carved into its thick periosteum, break free from the surface of the earth, rocks and debris raining down around it.

Then, tendrils of inky blackness surged from the depths of the pit and consumed the dim light of the orb, casting us all into complete, unnatural darkness. I heard Twilight scream, though I couldn’t pinpoint where she was in the supernatural gloom.

A pulsing white orb blinked open right in front of my face. I could feel it staring into me, scanning me over. Then another white orb opened, completing the glowing set of pale white eyes.

I staggered back, fear gripping me. My body froze, locked in a sudden, fear induced paralysis. I opened my mouth to scream, but no sound came out. I tried to ignite my horn, to blast away the iniquitous creature, but my horn failed to do so, much as make a spark.

The monster loomed closer to me, its pearl-like eyes boring into me. I saw a maw of twisting fangs open wide, oozing with sludgy black filth. The dark tendrils wrapped around me, dragging me to the ground and holding me still before the monolithic beast.

“Kamari…” The beast hissed, it’s voice echoing around inside my head. The word sent another wave of pain burning through me, threatening to send me into another fit of spasms. “Are you Kamari…?”

I lay frozen, paralized by fear and immobilized by its squirming, black tendrils. I tried to respond, but I had no answer to give. It loomed closer to me, its ragged, putrid breath rasping across my trembling form. “I… W-who is K-Kamari?” I stuttered, my hooves trying helplessly to pull myself free from the creature's grip.

“My most faithful acolyte… The one who found me… Who took me from the wretched place…” The monster hissed, bearing twisted, dagger-like fangs. Darkness drooled from its maw, pooling in puddles of blackness around me. “The one who put me in this place. Helped me regain my strength. He said he would be here. That he would free me in three moons from tonight… When the stars align and the night is set free from its chains…” The beast moved even closer, its shadow-like body slithering across the floor towards me like a snake. “Are you him? Am I finally free?”

A dark form lunged between me and the vile creature. I flinched back, only to make out the silhouette of Farmer standing shaking before the shining, pale light of the beast's pearl eyes. His revolver was up in a flash, its muzzle flaring with blooms of fire as he sent six rounds directly into the created face. The shadow monster recoiled, its shifting, incorporeal form swallowing the bullets as if Farmer were shooting into a pool of dark, murky water. The monster howled, its jagged maw stretching far wider than what should be possible as it let loose an ear piercing scream. I could feel blood dripping from my ears as the chilling noise ruptured my ear drums.

I felt the writhing, inky black tendrils loosen ever so slightly, letting me wiggle free from its vice-like grip. I stumbled back, desperate to get away from the terrifying creature. Farmer stumbled back with me, already trying to desperately reload bullets into his gun.

“Run Amber! Run!” Farmer shouted, his voice flaring with panic. He snapped the chamber of his gun closed and fired six more shots into the creature's face. Again, the creature’s form swallowed up the shots, doing nothing as the beast flashed towards us, maw outstretched. “Amber! I said run!”

But again, I was frozen, unable to move as I stared into the creature's eyes. It’s pupil-less white orbs flickered back to face me, and for a second, it almost looked like it was pleading with me. “Please… Please tell me that I’m finally free…”

With a shout, Farmer threw me across his trenchcoat covered back, his hooves pounding hard against the ground as he rushed for the exit. Up ahead, I heard Twilight yelling something, though I couldn’t hear what she was saying.

Farmer staggered, his side slamming against one of the bookshelves as he rushed around a sharp turn in his desperate dash towards the outside of the room. The dark creature drew closer, it’s hollow eyes never leaving me. It's dark tendrils reached out, clawing at the air as it tried to drag us back into its darkness. Farmer stumbled out of the labyrinth of books, rushing as fast as he could to the doorway out. I saw Twilight a few feet ahead of us, fumbling with the key as she tried to insert it into the door’s lock with shaking hooves.

“Twilight! Get that door open! Now!” Farmer screamed, his voice catching in his throat as he forced himself to hold back his abject terror.

“I’m trying! I’m trying!” Twilight shrieked, her trembling hooves finally inserting the key into the lock and twisting. The door creaked open a bit, allowing a little bit of light to seep into the room. No sooner had the light entered than it was quickly extinguished, going dark against the inky blackness as if the light from the hallway outside had been nothing more than a candle that had been caught in a windstorm.

“Get out! Get out now!” Farmer urged, trying to push Twilight onwards.

I glanced back, making out the looming beast behind us. It reared up, the top of its warped horn scraping across the top of the ceiling. It’s maw opened, its black tongue lolling from its vile mouth. The darkness around us began to pull into him, forming grotesque wings that seemed to sear themselves into my very vision.

I felt my trembling body scream as I looked upon the horrific pony of shadows. I forced my gaze away, burying my face into Farmers shoulder in fear, my hooves wrapping tight around his neck in terror.

Farmer’s muscles tensed up at the touch, panic flashing through him. “No Amber! Don’t touc-”

Then I was swirling away, my mind spiralling into memories that didn’t belong to me.

I felt myself turn my head to look at the pony that was sitting across from me, a large blue buck dressed in a suit of clean, pre-war combat armour. I seemed to be in some office-like room. From the large window leading outside, I could tell that I was in Canterlot somewhere. A large sign hung above the window reading ‘Ministry of Moral - detective offices’.

“-and she’s positioning you where?” The buck chuckled, propping his hooves up on the table and looking at a pair of two cards that he was holding in his hoof.

“That new Four Star Apartment building,” I heard myself state. I was surprised to find my voice was Farmer’s voice, less stoic and much younger sounding, but still very clearly his voice. I suppose Farmer hadn’t been lying after all. I would indeed see his memories if I touched him.

The blue buck shook his head in response before tossing a blue poker chip onto the table. “I’m telling you, Pinkie’s losing it. Your bet.”

“You don’t need to tell me,” Farmer snorted sarcastically, tossing a blue chip of his own down. “I’m tired of going out to the middle of fucking nowhere to follow up on Pinkie’s wild theories.”

“On the bright side, she’s always right,” The buck noted, flipping one of the cards in the middle of the table over and placing it next to an already flipped card before tossing another chip of his own onto the table. “I don’t know how she does it, but if Pinkie says there are zebra sympathizers somewhere, there probably are.”

Farmer scoffed, matching the bucks bet. “She can’t be right all the time.”

The buck gave a wide, leering grin. “Why? You want to bet on that again?”

Farmer growled at him. “What, like the last five times? Everytime I bet that one of Pinkie’s hunches is wrong, they always end up being correct. I’m not falling for it this time.”

“Oh come on, fifty bits says she's right,” The buck smirked back. “You said yourself, Four Star seems clean. You could do with some extra bits, eh?” He flipped three more cards over next to the first two before betting again. “Your bet.”

I could feel Farmer grit his teeth for a second before sighing. “Fine,” He raised the buck by a chip and leaned back into his chair. “Raise and deal. Fifty bucks says nothing is going on at this new Four Star Apartment building.”

The buck smirked at him, matching the bet. “You’re on,” He splayed his cards out on the table for all to see. “Flush by the way.”

Farmer grimaced. “Fuck me.”

“Inspector Saddles?” A chipper voice piped up. “Are you in here?”

I expected the blue buck to respond, but instead, Farmer lifted his gaze to face the doorway. “Yeah? Is it time?”

In the door stood a taller, lanky looking light orange stallion with a curly brown mane and a bright yellow shirt. He gave Farmer a contagious looking smile, but I could feel a little hollowness underneath it. This was not a happy meeting. “Are you ready?”

“Cheese? Yeah, are we leaving already?” Farmer- er… Detective Saddles groused, pulling himself up from his seat as his friend started counting his earnings.

“Yup indeedy,” Cheese Sandwich said in a surprisingly chipper tone. “Pink wants me ta do some sleuthing of my own out in Manehattan, so I’m going to be joining you on the trip there. We’re both gonna be there for a while.”

“Don’t need to remind me,” The pony formerly known as Farmer grumbled, turning back to look at his buddy. “Looks like I’m off. See you around mate.”

The blue buck only gave him a sly smile. “You bet I will. You and fifty bits.”

Then the world swirled away again, ripping my mind from Farmers and into a temporary oblivion. I had hoped that I was being sent back into my body, but instead, I found myself once more looking through Farmers eyes, this time I was inside some sort of apartment building. It was a small room with an even smaller gray bed pushed up against one side. The room looked familiar for some reason. No doubt I had seen it before, before I had lost my memory.

Farmer was in the middle of typing something into a terminal sitting on a desk in front of him. His hooves moved slowly, typing each word in methodically as if his life depended on making sure each and every letter was right. After a moment, he pushed his seat back with a groan, looking up at the boarded up window above him.

“Fuck, I need air,” he grunted after a moment, his eyes watching as a small piece of dust floated through the air, visible only through the thin beam of sunlight that shone through a crack in the boarded window.

He stood up from his chair, spinning around and stalking towards the door of his room. His hoof reached out and swiped his coat off his bed before draping it over his shoulders. A second later, he picked his hat up off the bed as well and adorned his head with it.

Reaching now for the door, he let the door swing open, revealing the dull hallway on the other side. He stepped through the door, letting it swing shut behind him before he carefully locked it.

Giving another long sigh, he began trotting down the hallway to a steep set of stairs at the end of it. He had almost reached the steps when a cloaked figure stalked their way up the steps before them, their hood pulled over their head in a way that it complete obscured their face.

Farmer stopped, their eyes lingering on the cloaked pony, before he glanced down at their hooves. Notably, their white and black striped hooves.

The cloaked pony stopped as well, noticing Farmer’s gaze. The two just stood there for a long moment, eyeing the other up, unsure who should dare make the first move if any at all. Finally, the cloaked figure spoke first in a terrible, commanding voice that sent shivers down my spine. “I do not believe that we have met. Who are you?”

Farmer glanced up from their striped hooves for a second before glared at them. “Doesn’t matter. Who are you?”

The cloaked figure glanced down, seeing their exposed hooves. They glanced back up at Farmer, this time leaning a little forwards so that their face could be seen just slightly through the shadow of their hood, revealing a set of dazzling blue eyes and strange spiral stripes more akin to star maps than zebra stripes. “My name is Kamari, and I have business with an associate of mine here. Is that a problem?”

Farmer gulped, his eyes following along the strange stripes on the sinister zebra's face. “No. I suppose not… As you were.”

Kamari gave Farmer a snide grin. “Indeed. Enjoy your day,” and with that, Kamari swept off down the hall, seemingly gliding save for the sound of clopping hooves.

As Farmer turned to once more face the stairs, my mind was sent spinning away again, once more getting ripped from the memory and placed into another. When my vision reformed, I was once more sitting in Farmer’s apartment, clicking away at his terminal.

“-Said something about Steel Rangers in balloons. Won’t that just be grand,” Farmer mumbled to himself as he typed the corresponding words into his terminal entry. “This is Inspector Saddles, signing off for the last time.”

He ended the sentence on a period and leaned back, taking a deep breath. “Can’t say I’m going to miss this place,” he slid his hoof along the top of his desk, as if giving it a loving stroke. “It’ll be nice to be back in Canterlot for-”

There was a loud knock on the door. Farmer groaned. “Yeah yeah! I’m coming,” He pulled himself out of his chair with a slow grunt and trotted over to the doorway. As he got closer, there was another loud knock, this time more akin to a pounding. “I said I’m coming, calm down…”

Slowly, Farmer pulled the door open, only for something heavy to lash out and slam across his forehead. Pain shot through his head as Farmer collapsed to the floor with a scream, blood dripping down his forehead from where he had been struck.

Farmer quickly rolled onto his back, pushing away from his attacker desperately as the intruder stomped their way into the room. They were a bright red unicorn stallion with a short cropped blue mane. They glared down hatefully at Farmer, one hoof quickly cleaning the blood that now stained the grip of their revolver.

“W-what are you-” Farmer stammered, only to be cut off as the red buck brought the grip of his revolver down hard on his head again, knocking him back fully to the floor. Farmer recoiled, kicking with his hooves to try and get away. He reached out with a fore hoof, grasping for a revolver he had tucked away under his bed.

The unicorn was on him in seconds, knocking Farmers gun away before pinning him down and pressing his own gun against Farmers chest. “Did you really think we didn’t know you were onto us?” The buck hissed, bearing his teeth and giving Farmer a scowl. “Did you really think we would just let you walk, knowing what you do about Four Star?”

Blam!

A bullet ripped through Farmer's stomach. Farmer screamed, blood burbling into his mouth and tears streaming down his face as he thrashed helplessly to try and break free from his attacker's grip.

Farmer reached desperately for his gun again, only for the assailing unicorn to fire two more bullets into Farmers gut.

“Help! Help!” Farmer wailed, his hooves desperately beating at his attacker's side.

“No pony is coming you fuck,” The unicorn leered, his hoof flashing out and smacking Farmer across the face. “Everypony in this tower works for Four Star. You were set the fuck up.”

The pony pulled out a strange headpiece looking device from his saddlebag and forced it down atop Farmers head. Farmer swung at the device to bat it aside, but the pony simply knocked him back down with a rough kick to the jaw.

Farmer screamed again as he saw the ponies horn begin glowing. The pony continued to pin him down, his magic slowly pulling a glowing memory orb out of his saddlebags as well. Farmer panicked, bucking backwards with his hooves and knocking the memory orb out of the pony's grip and sending it skidding across the floor.

“You bitch!” The pony roared, one hoof reaching for the fallen orb while his other continued to try and hold Farmer’s flailing form down. Farmer took his chance and bit down hard on the bucks hoof, his teeth ripping hair and flesh from his lower leg. The pony howled, reeling back in pain and surprise.

Frantically, Farmer rushed forwards, reaching out and wrapping his forehooves around his gun. He spun around, one hoof clutching his bleeding stomach while his mouth tightened around the grip of his trigger.

A white aura of magic wrapped itself around his gun before Farmer had the chance to fire. The gun was ripped from his mouth and sent spinning away, skidding across the floor where it came to a stop at the hooves of an older looking earth pony that had just trotted into the room.

The Earth pony tapped a talisman that had been clipped to his vest, a magical aura glowing around it before it shot out and surrounded Farmer. Farmer squirmed, suddenly finding himself immobilized by the powerful magic.

“I do hope all this is necessary,” The silver stallion stated sadly, his eyes never leaving Farmer.

“Don’t worry Silver Ace, it is,” The red buck responded, straightening back up and holding out the memory orb. He glanced over at Farmer with a scowl before letting his horn glow and surround the memory orb.

There was a strange jolt, and suddenly I was being ripped away from Farmer's body. But this wasn’t like the other times I had shifted memories. It felt more real. As if the shift in reality was a part of the memory itself.

When my vision began to clear, I found myself surrounded by glowing lights. Was I… inside the memory orb? I couldn’t think of any other explanation. I could still hear Silver Ace and the red buck talking back and forth, though their voices sounded muffled.

“Good. Take his memories back to the Institute. See what he knew and what he let slip to Pinkie Pie,” I heard Silver Ace’s voice order.

“Of course, I’ll-” The red buck started, but he was cut off as a strange, haunting sound began to echo around us. “What the fuck is… is that… Goddesses… Is that the Balefire siren!”

The blaring siren began to fill with the sounds of distant screams. A tinny voice boomed out, clearly audibly even from within the memory orb. “Please get to the safety of your designated Stable! This is not a drill! Repeat, this is not a drill!”

“They’re early… This wasn’t the plan!” I heard Silver Ace gasp, his calm demeanor shattered by the abrupt threat of total balefire annihilation. “Get to the Institute! Now!”

“What about you?”

I could practically hear Silver Ace grimace. “I have a quick meeting with Pureblood on the upper floor. I’ll be right behind you. Now go!”

With those words, I heard a loud sounding zap, followed by the already swirling lights around me to merge with strobing blue ones. Then once more, I was swirling away, my mind dissolving into nothingness.

I jolted up in surprise, my hide coated in a thick layer of sweat. My head darted about, trying to make sense of the area around me.

I was propped up in the corner of a small room. The marble walls covered in ornate golden and purple designs gave me clear evidence that I was still somewhere inside of Canterlot Castle. Across from me, I saw Twilight and Farmer bickering back and forth as they each peaked out the door and into the hallway beyond.

At the sound of me waking up, they both turned to look at me, both with relieved looks across their faces, though Farmer seemed a little nervous as well. Twilight quickly rushed over to me, helping me back to my hooves.

“Amber, you’re alright,” She grinned, giving me a quick hug.

“I told you she would be,” Farmer monotone, trotting up behind us and looking me over with an appraising eye. “What did you see?” He asked me bluntly, his voice low and stoic.

I glanced up at him, trying to register the memories that had just flashed through my mind. “I saw… uh… parts of your life. You got stationed somewhere called Four Star apartments. Somepony named Pinkie had you investigating for Zebra sympathizers?” I paused, trying to remember the finer details before looking back up at him. “Inspector Saddles?”

Farmer visibly flinched at the mention of his old name. “Yes, that’s what I was called once,” He groused, his eyes looking sad and distant. “But if you would humor me, I’d like it if you kept calling me Farmer. Inspector Saddles died in the Four Star apartment building two hundred years ago,” he sat down on his rump, staring at his hooves forlornly. “There was a time, twenty years ago, when I built up enough courage to teleport my synth self to my old apartment building. I thought it might help me deal with my problems… I found myself, or at least what was left of me. A charred pile of bones, curled up in some corner below the words, ‘I can’t remember anything’ written before me in dried blood. My blood... I would rather imagine I was someone else.”

I gave a hesitant nod, letting that sink into my mind. After a second, I glanced up at him, my eyebrows raised. “That Silver Ace pony you mentioned. The one that designed the Utopia Program… He was working with Four Star?”

Farmer frowned, his expression distant and forlorn. “Ah… You saw that memory…” He paused for a long moment, deep in thought. “I don’t know. This Silver Ace, he’s at the centre of everything. Like a spider in a web. Twilight thought he was loyal to the princesses. Pureblood thought he was loyal to him. My investigation showed that he had ties with Four Star and that Four Star had ties to the Institute. It’s like trying to put together a puzzle with pieces from a hundred different types of puzzles all at once.”

“But… Wasn’t the whole point of the Institute to fight against zebras?” Twilight muttered slowly, looking a little confused. She scrunched up her muzzle in distaste, as if the words themselves tasted disgusting in her mouth. “In that big war you mentioned, I mean.”

Farmer nodded, his gaze still locked with mine. “Indeed. Which only makes things all the more confusing," He took a step closer to me, his eyes narrowing. "How much of what is happening do you really think you understand? About the Institute? The Utopia Program? Silver Ace? I assure you, by the end of this, everything we think we know will have been proven to be wrong.”

Neither Twilight or I dared say anything for a few moments after that. We just sat there, not sure how to properly respond. After a moment, I looked around again, not able to bear the silence and uneasy feeling that had formed in my gut. “So… uh… Where exactly are we? What happened? I mean, Canterlot Castle, obviously, but…” I trailed off, my eyes rolling across the ornate roof.

Twilight grimaced at the question. “We managed to drag you out of the Starswirl the bearded wing and away from that… that thing…” Twilight paused, a shiver rushing down her spine at the mention of the horrific shadow pony. “Whatever that was, it didn’t seem able to leave the castle library.”

“Unfortunately, Purebloods guard constructs heard the commotion,” Farmer picked up for Twilight after a second of silence. “We carried you for a while and hid in here. They don’t know where we are at the moment, but now the Castle is on full alert. More and more guards keep pouring in through the front doors. Pureblood knows that we’re here now. I doubt he’s going to make it very easy for us to make it to the throne room.”

“So what’s the plan?” I asked, turning my vision to the closed door across from us. “We can’t leave the castle and wait this out. That… thing… is blocking our only clear way out of here…”

Farmer opened his mouth to respond, only for the door to abruptly slam open. I staggered back as several armoured guards stormed into the room, their deadly spears already drawn. The second their eyes landed on us, one of them spun around, calling to somepony down the hallway. "They're in here!" The turned back to face us, scowled etched across their faces. “Amber Aura, you are-”

The guard speaking was cut off as Farmer's revolver flashed up into his mouth and fired off six shots, each one striking down one of the charging guards. Six guards fell, blood spilling from the deadly shot that had pierced them between the eyes. But it wasn’t enough. Five more had already rushed into the room, their focused gaze burning into us as they pulled their spears back to attack.

Twilight's horn light up as Farmer stepped back to reload, forming a magical, violet shield around us. The first wave of guards slammed against the shield, their spears pounding against the magical barrier. Twilight winced, her horn sparking as she tried to repeal the lethal attacks.

“Damn it! Twilight, how long can you keep the shield up?” Farmer spat, clicking the chamber of his revolver back into place and re-aiming. “Can you move while keeping it up?”

Twilight flinched as another spear stabbed at the magic shield. “Not long. And no. I’m not going anywhere like this.”

Four more guards rushed into the room, their weapons drawn as they approached us. One guard in exceptionally extravagant looking armour stalked in behind them, a large, impressive looking sword held aloft before him in the golden glow of his magic.

“Well we got to come up with something fast,” I noted lamely, cowering behind Farmer as the guards quickly moved to surround us. I saw two more guards rushing in to block off the door. There would be no getting out that way. I glanced behind me, making out a narrow window inset into the wall about a foot above our heads. I hastily pointed to it. “Think we can get out there?”

My question was quickly answered as the sound of wings signalled the arrival of several pegasus guards that swooped towards the window to block that off too.

“Fuck. We’re going to have to fight our way through it,” Farmer scowled, the muscles in his legs tensing in anticipation. I could see his mouth trembling as he prepared to bite down on his guns trigger. “You two ready?”

I balked at him. “Wh-what? Fight through it?!” I glanced around, my eyes wide with terror as I took in the guards. “I don’t have a weapon! I’ve never been in a gunfight before!”

Farmer cast me a cool, amused look. “Not one you remember. But the Amber Aura back in the wasteland has killed hundreds.”

I bit back the urge to snarl at him. “I… I don’t want to be like that though.”

“Trust me, neither does she,” Farmer smirked. “Twilight, you ready?”

Twilight shivered. “No…” She took a deep breath, closing her eyes. “Get ready…”

I took a small step back, my whole body tense as I awaited Twilight's shield to fall. In front of me, I could see Farmer's tail swishing back and forth as he looked back and forth between the guards, his eyes narrowing as he picked out his targets. I could see one of his hooves already resting in his coat pocket, no doubt readying to reload the second his gun runs dry. Beside me, I could hear Twilight grit her teeth.

When Twilight spoke, her voice was so quiet that only Farmer and I could hear her. “Now.”

The shield fell.

Blam! Blam! Blam! Blam!

Farmer’s revolver boomed as he fired shot after shot into the wave of guards that suddenly pushed in on us like water from a broken dam. I side stepped, narrowly avoiding a hurtling spear before spinning around and bucking an approaching guard with my hind hooves. Beside me, Twilight fired off a beam of magic from her horn, sending two guards tumbling to the ground, unconscious.

The large, armoured guard swung their sword at me, the massive blade missing my neck by mear inches as I staggered back. No sooner had I evaded his first strike, than I was forced to roll to the side, his sword once more slashing at my chest.

The clattering of bullet shells on the ground signaled Farmer’s gun clicking on empty. He backpedaled, his hooves working frantically as he reloaded his gun. A guard struck out at him, their spear poised to skewer his heart. Farmer clicked his gun's chamber back into place just in time to splatter the guard's brain across the wall behind him, but not before the guard sent their spear through their leg.

Farmer screamed, collapsing to three knees as his right fore hoof went limp below him, the guard's huge spear piercing through one side of his leg and out the other. Twilight moved over to help him, only for three guards to move between them.

I ducked low to avoid another swipe of the huge guards sharpened sword. The guard gave an annoyed grunt as his attack once more sailed over my head. Gasping for breath, I rolled forwards, my magic reaching out to wrap around the spear of one of the fallen guards. I rolled onto my back, the spear lancing up with a swift thrust of my magic as the large guard rounded on me.

The spear flashed upwards, it’s sharpened point piercing the underside of the guard's jaw and slicing up into his brain. The guard screamed, his mouth only able to open fully as the strong spear held his upper and lower jaws together. Blood and viscera dripped down his front, staining his white coat and golden armour crimson red.

I lay there, shaking as I watched the drizzle of blood pour down upon me like a shower. The guard toppled to his side, more blood pooling around his fallen corpse and soaking my hooves. I opened my mouth, wanting to scream just as the guard had. I had just killed a pony.

I shut my eyes tight, trying to ward off the image. “It’s not a real pony… It’s not a real pony…”

Two pegasi guards swooped down, their hooves grappling onto me and holding me in place as I shook. My eyes flashed open, panic flaring through me as I saw a guard readying to skewer my immobilized body with their spear.

Across the room, I could see Twilight and Farmer pinned down as well, multiple spears aimed at their necks. I could see a large gash across Twilight's forehead that poured hot blood down into her eyes.

The guard aiming their spear at me narrowed their eyes, their fore hooves pounding at the ground as they prepared to lunge. I twisted in the pegasi’s grip, trying to break free, but to no avail.

With a grunt, the guard leapt forwards, spear positioned to lance through my heart. My eyes clenched tight, my mouth finally able to produce a scream of terror.

Then everything went still.

I cracked an eye open, looking around the room. Every guard had frozen in place, their spears only inches away from our necks and hearts. I saw Twilight and Farmer looking around as well, their faces filled with confusion as they tried to figure out what exactly was going on.

“Amber Aura,” I almost jumped out of my skin as the nasally voice filled the air, raspy and cold, echoing around us and down the hallway outside. “I should have known that you would find your way in here somehow. That even in failure you would persist.”

The two pegasi holding me dropped me to the ground, allowing me to stand on my own accord. “You must be… Pureblood…” I stumbled, putting the only name I could imagine to the vile voice.

The voice gave a loud snort of disdain. “Who else? Do not bore me with stupidity, Amber Aura. We have both come far too far for that now,” His voice dropped to a slightly lower octave. “As I’m sure you have figured out, I do not yet have full control over the Utopia program like I had planned. Worry not, this is soon to be rectified. Until then, we have business, you and I. My guards are standing down. Let’s talk…”

At that, the guards pulled away from us, standing at attention in a robotic and militaristic fashion. Their spears raised, pointing skywards and away from us, giving us a moment to catch our breaths. Their eyes never left us though.

I cast a nervous glance across the room at Twilight as she helped Farmer back to his hooves. “What do we do?”

Farmer gave us both a grim look. “Well, we were trying to get to Pureblood, right?” he slotted six more bullets into his revolver and snapped it shut. “I say it’s about time we meet with Pureblood.”

Together, we slowly pulled our way out of the small room and into the hallway beyond. To my horror, the unbelievably long hallway was lined with fully armoured guards all the way down, each one wielding a sharpened spear and standing at attention. The only signs of life they gave were the slow rise and fall of their chests and their eyes as they slowly watched us trot down the hall.

Cautiously, we made our way down the hall, past the guards. Twilight and I led the way while Farmer slowly trotted behind us, limping painfully on his wounded leg. I offered to give him some support, but he just shook me off. “Last thing we need is you getting stuck inside my head because you were stupid enough to touch me,” was all he said.

After a few moments of walking, we came to a large ornate door. It towered far above my head, nearly standing twenty feet in height. It was covered in golden designs and large sapphires, each jem seeming to glitter with unnatural light. The door to my left held a golden engraving of a shining sun, while the other held a glistening full moon.

I took a long moment to steal myself before I reached forwards, my fore hoof reaching out to push the grand door open. Before I could, however, there was a loud creak, and the massive doors began to swing open on their own accord, giving us a clear view of the huge chamber beyond.

The throne room was a massive, rectangular chamber, with a massive curving roof that appeared to have been painted to resemble a twinkling night sky. The pristine walls, lined with marble pillars hanging golden baskets of fresh lavender, held dozens of awe inspiring stained glass windows, each one depicting a different major events from all across Equestria’s history. A red, velvet carpet ran down the centre of the room leading to a set of marble steps ascending to an elevated podium holding a massive golden throne. Small fountains adorned the large throne, water cascading down meticulously placed ramps along the steps, and atop the throne's velvet pillow sat Pureblood.

The second I saw Pureblood, I kneeled over and broke out laughing. I rolled onto my back, clutching at my stomach with my hooves as I did all I could to try and contain my giggles. Twilight and Farmer stared down at me in shock, their eyebrows raised as if questioning if I had completely lost my mind. But I couldn’t help myself. I laughed like I had never laughed before. Pureblood looked absolutely ridiculous!

Pureblood stormed to his hooves, glaring down at me from across the room with so much disdain I felt like he might melt me with his stare alone. “How dare you laugh in my presence! How dare you!”

I let my giggles subside a little, wiping a small tear from my cheek as I rose to face him again. I opened my mouth to respond, only for another wave of giggles to rush through me. I clamped my hoof over my mouth, doing all I could to keep my composure. “Sorry, sorry… It’s just that… I thought you were a unicorn before you were a brain in a jar. Not… well…” I gestured to his body with my hoof. “Not whatever you call that!”

Pureblood was a tall, gold coloured stallion, clad in a royal blue robe that held what I could only assume was an attempt to look godly. His hooves, each one clad in golden royal horseshoes, glimmered as if polished and a gaudy looking necklace adorned with rubies and emeralds hung around his longer neck. His head was a whole other thing to behold entrily. A curled mustache rested upon his upper lip and his horn, almost comical in length, protruded from between flowing gold hair that matched his coat. A crown, fully and ludicrously bedazzled like the rest of his ensemble, rested atop his head. What caught my attention the most however, were the two massive wings that he had flared out at his sides, slightly larger than they had any right to be.

“You’re an alicorn?” Twilight said, her mouth opening wide to allow her astounded gasp to escape her lips.

“You’re an alicorn?” Farmer groaned, one eyebrow raising in disbelief.

“Pffft- You’re an alicorn,” I affirmed with a thoughtful nod of my head, my mouth twisted into a goofy grin. “Of course you’re a fucking alicorn. Because why the fuck not at this point…”

Pureblood regally strode from his place atop his throne, approaching us with his chin held high. “Of course I’m an alicorn! When I entered the Utopia program, I made certain that my appearance was one befitting of the ruler of all pony kind.”

I snickered. “Oh wait… so you actually chose to look like that?” I bit down on my lip, fighting back another wave of giggles. “Please tell me you’re at least a little aware of how silly you look?”

Pureblood scowled, his teeth morphing into fangs. “You will treat me with respect, Amber Aura. In this place, you don’t want to be on my bad side.”

“You do look like a bad fictional character a foal would make up,” Twilight noted factually. A second later she clamped a hoof over her mouth. “Oh my gosh. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for that to come out…”

Pureblood’s gaze shifted to Twilight, his expression changing to one of surprise. “Twil- What are- How are you even here? The last I heard you were fused into the goddess and blown apart by the Lightbringer out in Maripony.”

“I’ve been asking myself that since I found her,” Farmer stated glumly, still staring up at Pureblood in disbelief.

I took a deep breath, pushing aside the last of my giggles and taking a step forward. “Well Pureblood. You wanted to talk. We’re here to talk. What do you want?”

Pureblood stared at Twilight in confusion for a second longer before letting his gaze move back to me. His fangs returned back to normal teeth as he gave me a charismatic smile. “I need assistance taking full control of the Utopia program, and you are going to give it to me.”

I raised an eyebrow at him, still trying not to laugh. “First of all, what the hell do you need me for? I don’t even understand how the Utopia program works. Second of all, why the fuck would I help you take control of it? I think we’ve made it pretty clear at this point that we’re trying to stop you.”

Pureblood sneered. “I have ways of making you comply. In this place, I am a god. I could have you and your friends ripped apart, piece by piece, atom by atom, before putting you back together and starting all over again, but I have learned that you are not to be underestimated. The fact that you have made it this far, to stand before me defiantly even at the end of all things, you have proven that you are a greater asset than foe. So, I bring an offering.”

Pureblood stepped back, sweeping one of his hooves grandly to gesture to a large doorway to our left. The door pushed open, making way for two royal guards to walk in, pulling a strange looking changeling behind them by chains.

The changeling was a dark gray, almost black in colour with a set of deep violet eyes that glared at all of us with a seething hatred. His tattered insectoid wings buzzed helpless at his sides and his curved horn had been shattered. I felt a spike of burning pain as I looked at the changeling. I forced myself to look away, not wanting to feel the pain any longer.

“Well?” Pureblood asked expectantly, giving me a smug smirk. “What do you think?”

I gave a quick shake of my head to dispel the burning pain before giving him a confused look. “I don’t get it?”

Pureblood blinked, as if expecting me to confess to having just made a really bad joke. “What do you mean you don’t get it?” He seethed once he realized I very much was not joking. “It’s Azar! Your enemy? The changeling that slaughtered your people in Stable 25!?”

I just kept staring at him in confusion. “I, uh… Sorry. You’re going to have to give me more than just that.”

Pureblood was practically raving with annoyance. “What else is there to get!?”

Farmer stepped forwards, his expression displaying his amusement. “You’ll have to excuse Amber if she’s not quite how you remember her. She lost all her memories, you see. I think it has to do with the Utopia Program trying to keep her mind from remembering how she died.”

“Fascinating,” Pureblood soothed, his more frantic, hostile tone dropping to a calmer hiss. “I gave the Utopia Program no such order to do that… Unless-”

I furrowed my brows in anticipation. “Unless what?”

“Unless the Utopia program is somehow making decisions independently,” Pureblood thought aloud, starting to pace back and forth before us. “Now that is interesting. Just when I think I understand what Silver Ace and Twilight have done, they continue to surprise me,” he turned back to look at me, his smug grin once more prevalent on his face. “Azar was my first gift to you, but perhaps allow me to give you a second one.”

Purebloods elongated horn glowed a blinding gold before a beam of light shot out and wrapped around me. I was sent flying back, my hooves grasping at my head as pain suddenly flared across my whole body.

I heard screams, they might have been my own. Then I was falling down a dark pit and towards a blazing ball of flaming light. Searing heat scorched my body, my flesh sizzling and burning away. Fire spread across my form, burning away my hide and melting my flesh from my charing bones.

Agony raced through my body, each passing second growing more and more painful the closer I got to the blazing orb. Then my shriveled corpse plunged into the blinding light and my vision began flaring with other things as well. My life in Stable 25, meeting Brisk, my journey across the wasteland. Everything flashed before my eyes, filling my memories full of every experience I had ever undergone.

The process lasted only a few seconds, but in those seconds I relived my whole lifetime.

My vision cleared and I found myself lying curled up on the floor of the throne room, my whole body trembling as waves of burning pain washed over me. I screamed, my hooves clawing at my hide as I desperately tried to rid myself from my flesh in the hopes to escape the feel of being consumed by fire.

Twilight was standing over me, frantically doing her best to comfort me as I writhed. “Amber! Amber, what’s happening! Are you alright!” Her voice was rising with panic.

“Are you insane! Do you have any idea what giving her her memories back is going to do to her!” I heard Farmer screaming, his eyes glaring daggers into Pureblood. “The amount of pain it’s going to put her in! She’ll die!”

Pureblood stared down at me coldly, a small grin etched across his face. “Amber Aura is of no use to me without her memoirs,” Pureblood cooed, not bothering to look back at Farmer. “If she wishes to live she will do as I tell her,” After a long moment, he let his horn glow, wrapping me in his magical aura. A second later and the pain slowly faded away to an unpleasant hum. It felt like my whole body had pins and needles, but the pain was at least bearable.

I let my head raise up from the ground, looking up at Pureblood with wide, tear filled eyes. “What the fuck was that?”

Pureblood smirked. “I gave you back your memories. I think you’ll find that things are a lot easier to remember now.”

I slowly pulled myself back to my hooves, letting Twilight give me a support to lean on as I rose. He was right, I suddenly could remember everything, as if this whole ordeal within the Utopia Program was just a bad dream and I was finally waking up. I let my mind wander through my newly regained thoughts for a moment before snarling at Pureblood. “You killed Fluer.”

Pureblood nickered. “I’ve killed many ponies. She was far from the first. And she was far from the least deserving.”

I growled, taking a threatening step towards Pureblood. Before I could get far however, the magical glow around Pureblood’s horn pulsed and a sudden wave of pain flashed through me, sending me staggering a few steps back.

Pureblood gave a snide smile at my pain. He tapped his horn mockingly with a hoof. “I told you, Amber Aura. In this place, I am a god. Right now, I am the only thing keeping your mind from fracturing apart into a million pieces. You are at my mercy, so if you want to keep breathing, you will do what I say,” At his words, I stepped back, though I didn’t stop glaring at him. “Now, onto the real business,” Pureblood restarted, gesturing to where the two guards held Azar. “This is my gift to you. Do you remember him now?”

I looked over at where the Changeling general stood shivering, the metal chains around his neck looking tight enough to squeeze the very life out of him. Just looking at the changeling made my insides twist with rage. “Yes,” was all I could manage to get out.

“You could imagine my surprise when I found him inside the Utopia program,” Pureblood said, trotting over to Azar. “Like you, he was thrown directly into Utopia, though he did not have the good fortune of having his memory erased. He’s completely mindless now, just a shell of his former self.”

“So what does he have to do with us?” Twilight asked, her eyes wandering over Azar’s trembling body mournfully.

Pureblood gave her a kind looking smile. “This changeling killed all the ponies that Amber Aura grew up with. I figured as a show of good faith, I would give this traitorous wretch his just rewards.”

Before any of us could say anything, the two guards threw the trembling changeling down before us into the centre of the chamber before Pureblood. Pureblood loomed over him, his wings flared and his horn glowing. A beam of light shot from Purebloods horn, enveloping Azar in a ghastly red light.

Azar began to thrash, un-pony-like screams bursting from his lips as he clawed desperately at the chains that had been wrapped tight around his neck. Tendrils of red magic pried his dark carapace shell from his back, pulling with it bloody flesh and muscle sinew. I saw the metal clamp around his neck grow red hot, burning away at his thick shell and flesh beneath.

“Wha- What do you think you’re doing!” Twilight screamed, her eyes wide with horror as she watched the torture ensue. “Stop it! You’re hurting him!”

“Hurting him no less than he deserves,” Pureblood smirked, his intense gaze never leaving the thrashing changeling. “Ask Amber. She will tell you just how much this traitor deserves this.”

Twilight spun around to face me, her eyes wide. “Amber, tell him to stop this! Please!”

I stared back at her for a moment, letting myself cast small glances at Azar’s writhing form. “I, uh… He wasn’t very nice, Twi.”

Twilight just stared at me in disbelief, her jaw slack. “So you’re… just going to let Pureblood torture him?” Her voice was so quiet that I could hardly hear it over Azar’s screams. “You’re just going to stand back and watch?”

“Perhaps you didn’t get the chance to meet Amber Aura as she really is,” Pureblood snickered, his powerful magic slowly peeling back a layer of muscle tissue to reveal the bloody bones beneath. “Perhaps without her memories, without all the things that shaped her, Amber is different. But this Amber? She has walked the wasteland. She has killed more ponies than I could ever dream of. She understands that sometimes great horrors are needed to bring about victory. Even here, without the memories that shape her, she has resorted to killing another to make her ends meet, even if that pony was simply a mental construct.”

Twilight glared back and forth between Pureblood and I, her eyes a mix of hurt and shock. Finally her gaze settled back on me. “Amber, stop this right now. This isn’t you.”

Those words stug. I furrowed my brow, the words cutting into me like a knife. Wasn’t this me? I had sat back and watched Silver Ace get tortured at the hooves of Pureblood not all that long ago. I had sided with raiders to get what I wanted. I had even made the decision to let Fleur kill foals by fire so that I could keep the A.A.S.S. out of her and Purebloods grasp. This was me. I knew it was.

But that wasn’t what stung the most. Perhaps it was because I could suddenly so starkly contrast who I am with who I was, but I suddenly felt an unbelievable pang of guilt. The pony that had woken up in the Utopia program without her memories had scaled a mountain and fought against armoured guards and horrific shadow beasts. She had never even dreamed of hurting a fly. That had been me once too. A long time ago, before the wasteland twisted me into a monster.

I had fallen so far, been twisted so much from what I had once been, that I had forgotten just what I was all about. Morality. The hardest of virtues. How does one gauge morality? Through doing the nice thing? The heroic thing? Or is it just doing what must be done to make things better, no matter the cost?

But the worst part was that I realized that the Amber Aura that had awoken within the Utopia Program had come so far anyway. I had been twisted and diluted, forced to march down a path that had never been meant for me to trod. And I should have stayed true to myself the whole time.

“Stop,” I finally growled, stepping past Twilight and glaring at Pureblood. “I think Azar has suffered enough,” I could practically feel Twilight smile at me with relief.

Pureblood growled. “You would have me release him? After everything he’s done?” Another surge of magic traveled through his horn, yanking an inch of Azar's intestines from his lashed upon stomach.

“I said stop,” I asserted, more forcefully this time. I stomped my hoof down in front of me, my eyes narrowing. “He has suffered all he needs.”

With a sigh, Pureblood let go of his magical grip on Azar. The changeling general slumped to the ground, blood spilling from his body as he went limp. Weakly, Azar lifted his gaze, his whole body trembling as he tried to hold up his head. He squinted his eyes at me, as if trying to recognize a face he had seen a long time ago.

“Thank you…” Azar breathed, his voice coming out in a slow, pained rasp. His body shuttered and he collapsed to his side, his violet eyes rolling back slightly as he died.

“Hmmf,” Pureblood huffed, his guards marching past him and dragging Azar’s body away. Twilight watched with a pale face as his mangled corpse was dragged out of sight. “There. His torture is done and he has been given relife. Are you satisfied?”

“Very,” I nodded, glaring up at him. “Now, how about you do what you said you wanted to do from the beginning, hmm?”

Pureblood scowled. “Very well, Amber Aura. Let’s talk,” His horn pulsed and suddenly both Twilight and Farmer collapsed to the ground, magical chains shooting up from the ground and wrapping around their bodies. They gave shouts of surprise as the golden chains hoisted them up into the air, magical clamps slammed tight around their muzzles, muffling their startled cries.

I took a step back, too stunned to jump into action. “What do you think you’re doing!” I shouted, my own horn charging up to attack.

Pureblood just smirked at me. “I said that we should talk. Your friends are of no use to me.”

“If they die, I will never help you,” I pointed out, glowering at him.

“Kill them?” Pureblood practically looked repulsed at the idea. “I have no intention to kill them. At least for now, anyway. But cross me, disobey me, and you’ll find their necks snapped,” The magical chains coiled around Twilight and Farmer’s throats, constricting tightly around them and making them choke. A chain lashed out, knocking Farmer’s revolver away from him and across the floor.

“What ever happened to talking!” I blurted, my eyes going wide as I watched Purebloods magic strangle them.

“Like you have any intention of listening to reason,” The golden alicorn scowled, looming over me and glaring down with dagger-like eyes. “Do you truly expect me to believe that you would sit down and listen to my side of the argument? Give what I have to say even the smallest benefit of the doubt? My instinct tells me no. You are far too far gone for that now.”

I had to admit, he was right about that. I had come here to stop him. I doubted anything could change my mind at this point. But then again…

“And could you say the same about yourself?” I blurted, my words clearly catching Pureblood by surprise. The magical chains around my friends' necks loosened slightly as Pureblood paused.

“I beg your pardon?” Pureblood growled, his head arching down so that he was eye level with me. “Choose your next words very carefully.”

I gulped, taking a small step back. “Do you have any intentions of listening to reason? Or are you yourself just everything you accused me of?”

Pureblood paused, thinking that over. “Why should I need to consider what you have to say?” He pointed out, his large wings flaring out a little bit. “I have Equestria’s best interests at heart. It is only through me that Equestria and the ponies that live in it have any chance of salvation. Why should I listen to you who would do everything in their power to stop this?”

“Because I’m trying to do the exact same thing,” I smirked, suddenly feeling a little more sure of where I was going with this. “So clearly, somewhere there is a contradiction. If you are so noble and truly doing what needs to be done for a better future, why am I here trying to stop you?”

“Because you are short sighted,” Pureblood quipped. “You lack my great understanding of the Utopia Program and jumped to brash delusions of heroism.”

I only smirked in response. “Prove it.”

Pureblood hesitated, suddenly unsure how to proceed. After a long second, he stepped back, looking me over with cold, calculated eyes. “Very well. We will talk as you desire,” His horn glimmered and a mahogany table shimmered into view, holding rows upon rows of foods the likes of which I had never seen. Pureblood trotted over to the table, taking a seat at a large throne sitting at it’s head. He lifted a glass of what appeared to be very, very expensive whiskey up and gestured for me to take a seat beside him. “Come now. There is much to discuss between us.”

Casting one last look up at where Twilight and Farmer still dangled helplessly above us, I moved and sat down at the table. My rump sank deep into the velvet seat cushion and I let out an involuntary sigh. It was a very comfy chair.

Pureblood levitated another glass of whiskey over to me. I shook the glass off with a hoof. “I, uh… I don’t drink that stuff,” Pureblood glowered at me for a second before his horn pulsed and the glass morphed into a wine glass, full of a dark red liquid. I grimaced, remembering my drunken experience in Friendship city. “Can I just have a Sparkle~Cola?”

Pureblood gave a low groan and roll of his eyes. “For my great descendant, you truly are lacking in class,” the wine glass shifted, this time becoming a glowing bottle of Sparkle~Cole Rad. I gratefully took the bottle, popping off the cap and taking a sip. Well fuck me, that tasted a lot better than just normal Sparkle~Cola.

“Alright, so…” Pureblood started, taking a small sip of his whiskey. “You've gotten me to talk. Where do we begin?”

I thought about that for a second. Where did we begin? I had finally gotten Pureblood to sit down with me, but I had no idea where to go from there? “Alright, I guess I’ll start by asking what Project Redirect is,” I finally started. “That project that Silver Ace was trying to access out in the Steel Ranger base in Fillydelphia. You seemed pretty upset about it. What does it do?”

Pureblood scowled. “Project Redirect was a failsafe Silver Ace and I started designing shortly before the zebra’s destroyed Equestria. Until you brought it to my attention, I had not realized that Silver Ace, or Leaden Excellent as he was calling himself, had completed it.”

“But what exactly was its function?” I pushed, unsatisfied with the answer.

“It did as the name proposed,” Pureblood cooed. “It Redirects. If activated, Silver Ace or I could use the Utopia Program from a designated remote location outside the Institute. Silver Ace no doubt intended to take control of the Utopia Program from behind my back.”

“A designated location?” I raised an eyebrow at him. “Where?”

Pureblood smirked at me. “Oh, you will love this. Why in a secret chamber in the Overstallions office of Stable 25, of course. Why else do you think that Stable was Scootaloo's first choice to hide the A.A.S.S.” Pureblood watched my shocked face with satisfaction before taking a sip from his glass. “But this is all irrelevant now. So long as I am in control of Utopia, Silver Ace can do nothing. We are here to talk reason, are we not? Not to ask pointless questions.”

“Alright then, I suppose I’ll point out how stupid your plan is then,” I finally said, a small realization passing through me. Pureblood arched an eyebrow at me, prompting me to continue. “Your plan is to bring everypony’s mind into the Utopia Program, where their minds will live in here while they’re bodies, under your control, rebuild Equestria from the ground up. But that’s stupid. If everyponies mind is in here, how the fuck are they supposed to eat? Everypony will just starve to death.”

Pureblood smirked at the question. “You forget about the A.A.S.S. The very thing you spent so long trying to keep from me,” He twirled his glass in his magic, watching as the Amber liquid swirled around. “I wouldn’t have dared activate the Utopia Program otherwise.”

“Sure the A.A.S.S. will keep you alive inside of the Utopia Program, but not the rest of Equestria,” I rebutted, pointing a hoof at him. “The A.A.S.S. was only designed to keep a Stable full of ponies alive, and Stable 25 had a whole ventilation system designed specifically to dispense the A.A.S.S.’ vapours through the Stable. It’s not even remotely strong enough to feed the entire wasteland, let alone even reach the whole wasteland.”

“And that is where the Institute comes in,” Pureblood soothed, sitting up a little straighter. “Now that the A.A.S.S. is in my control in the Institute, the vapours that it produces can be mass produced and distributed-”

“But then you just run into the other problem,” I said, cutting him off. “How are you supposed to get those vapors to everypo-”

Purebloods' hoof slammed down violently on the table, making me jump. He snarled at me, his teeth once more shifting to fangs. “Don’t you dare interrupt me again!” His horn pulsed and waves of burning agony shot across my body. I dropped my drink, pushing back in my chair as I spasmed. After a second, his horn glowed again, and the pain subsided. “Had you let me finish, you would have received the answer to your question. Now shut up you ungrateful bitch!”

Whipping tears from my eyes, I gave him a fearful nod and promptly shut up, not wanting to risk another wave of pain to surge over me.

Taking a second to compose himself, Pureblood sat back into a more relaxed position. “You have seen the Sprites in the Institute, yes? Millions of tiny drones that can be deployed anywhere that I wish. While everypony's mind is in the Utopia Program, my Sprites will be sent out to distribute the A.A.S.S.’ vapours to every corner of the wastes.”

I hesitated for a moment. I hadn’t been expecting that response. “Sooo, you can cure hunger? Just like that?” I said slowly. Until then, that fact had never dawned on me. “If you take control of Utopia, then no pony in the wasteland will ever go hungry again.”

Pureblood smiled. “Of course. That alone is a noble enough goal, is it not? Do you really consider yourself to be the hero so much, you would stand between the Wasteland and that?”

I had to admit, that despite everything, that specific aspect of Pureblood’s plan sounded good. “Alright, then what about what happens to their minds?” I asked, suddenly feeling a little less sure of myself. “Once you bring them into the Utopia Program, what happens to their minds then?”

“Then they would get to live out the rest of their days in Equestria as it should be,” Pureblood replied smugly. “You have now walked both the wasteland and the plane of the Utopia Program. This is a world without crime, without rape and violence. Free of radiation and wasteland horrors like hellhounds and alicorns. No pony would ever need to suffer again.”

Admittedly, this world did feel more alluring than the wasteland. “But they would all still serve you? And only ponies?” I questioned. “What about all the other races? Like zebras and griffons. Even hellhounds and Alicorns for that matter. Not all of them are bad.”

“Of course they would serve me? I would take Celestia’s place as the new ruler of Equestria. The divine king of all ponies. And yes, Equestria was always a land intended for ponies,” Pureblood said calmly, though I noticed a sharp edge in his voice. “The other races will be put to work, made to aid in Equestria’s reconstruction, though they will not be given a place in Utopia,” I opened my mouth, but Pureblood cut me off before I could respond. “I am aware that you have found some fondness in that zebra companion of yours, as well as in a small changeling filly. I, of course, could be persuaded to let them join us in Utopia, if you do what I ask.”

I held up a hoof. “Not yet. We still have things to talk about,” Pureblood scowled at me, but remained silent. “And all the bodies of ponies that you have dragged into the Utopia Program that are left in the real world, you would have them rebuilding Equestria?”

“Indeed,” Pureblood nodded, taking another sip of his whiskey. “For the first time since the bombs fell, every pony and creatrue would play their part to rebuild our once great nation to its former glory. Earth ponies will rebuild infrastructure and re-till the land, while pegasi and unicorns work to clear away radiation and taint. Many of the mares will of course be designated to breeding, to ensure that we maintain the population while inside the Utopia Program. The work will be long and hard, and many ponies' lives will unfortunately be lost in the process, but you have seen first hoof how much progress is being made out in Fillydelphia. Imagine that, spread across every inch of Equestria. It might take another hundred years, but perhaps our grandchildren would be able to see Equestria as it once was once again.”

And there it was. I sat back, letting all of that sink in. I understood where he was coming from, but still... “I have seen Fillydelphia,” I nodded, my voice lowering to a quieter hush. “And if you truly think that a world like that is one I would want to see, then you’re more mad than Red Eye was.”

Pureblood gave me a ghastly looking smile. “Ah yes, Red Eye. Of course he factors into this greatly as well. You see, Red Eye is the true mastermind behind all of this. My great benefactor. Even when he found me as a young colt in Stable 101, he was a visionary. While I control over the minds of ponies in Utopia, he will control the real Equestria as a god through his control over the Single Pegasus Project. Under his leadership, the sky will be cleared, the Enclave eradicated, and the sun will once more be returned to pony kind.”

I felt myself smirk. “I hate to break it to you, but Red Eye is dead.”

Pureblood’s face went pale at my words instantly, his smug expression changing to one of disbelief. “What… He’s… dead…” Pureblood suddenly recoiled as if he had been struck in the face. “Impossible! You lie! Where did you hear this information!?”

“The Enclave got him,” I grinned, leaning back in my chair and folding my fore hooves in front of me. “They burned him and his Cathedral to the ground.”

Pureblood glowered at me, seething. “How dare you lie to me! I- I-”

“If you’re all powerful in here, why don’t you just check for yourself?” I smirked. “Surely you have some way of seeing into the real world.”

Pureblood stared at me for a little longer before leaning back. His horn pulsed and for just a second, his eyes flashed a pale white. When his eyes returned to normal, he looked back at me with a stoic expression. “So. You spoke the truth. Red Eye is gone…” He shook his head slowly, his voice so quiet I had to strain my ears to make out his words. “It doesn’t matter. Once I take control of the Utopia Program, I will have control over every pony in the wasteland. I can continue IMP experimentation, find a new way to get into the SPP,” His eyes locked with mine. I held back a sudden gasp as I saw a strange madness creeping into his expression. But it was more than just madness I saw, there was something else twinkling in his eye as well. Was it excitement? “Why not you? Hmm? I could do it to you?”

Pureblood suddenly pulled himself up to his hooves, stalking towards me. Startled, I stumbled from my seat, backing away from him. “W-what about me, what are you talking about?” I could feel a bit of panic rising up inside me as I saw his manic gaze start rolling over my body.

“You have a strong will, maybe just as strong as Red Eyes was. I studied your time across the wasteland. I know you survived taint experimentation at the hooves of an alicorn drone down in the Manehattan metro system,” His horn flared and a wave of agony washed over me, dropping me to the ground. I looked up, making out Purebloods' menacing form as he loomed over me. His head bent down, glaring into my eyes with a strange madness I had never seen from him. “This is good. Yes, this is very good. With Red Eye gone, at last it is my time to be the true ascendant. Not him! Me! I will complete Red Eye’s unity with you! Then, once you have become like the goddess, I will use Utopia to control you. I will live as a god, both inside of Utopia and in Equestria.

I tried to pull away from him, but his magic pinned me to the ground. “Get away from me!” I shrieked, thrashing as golden chains hoisted me from the ground. I glanced back, looking up at where Twilight and Farmer were watching in horror from above us, still tied up in chains of their own. I reached out, trying to push him back, my hoof barley reached him, only lightly brushing across his face.

The instant my hoof made contact however, a strange shock traveled through my hoof and down my body, my vision swirling away as I was suddenly swept into Purebloods memories. The last thing I saw was Pureblood eyes go wide, fear shooting across his features.

I found myself standing in a grand looking living room. The marble walls, a clear indication we were somewhere in Canterlot, were covered in expensive looking paintings and portraits. A massive chandelier hung above my head, dangling hundreds of tiny crystal shards, and a huge fireplace rested before me, the wood inside slowly burning away and filling the otherwise cold chamber with a small warmth.

I noticed that I seemed to be in the body of a foal, everything in the room seeming to be notably larger than it would have looked normally. My host glanced down at their hooves, letting me get a quick glance at their golden hide. I was in Pureblood body no doubt, some memory from his childhood by the looks of it.

An ornate door on the far side of the room cracked open and a stallion with a thick moustache and dressed in a black tuxedo stepped out, quietly closing the door behind him and standing almost motionless before me. "Master Pureblood," The butler started, bowing his head slightly. "Your father is here to see you."

I could feel a slight tremble run down Pureblood leg at the mention of his father. I could feel fear clutching at his gut, though his mouth forced itself into a gentle smile. "My Father? He is back from Manehattan already?" I was surprised to find that he voice wasn't as nasally and raspy as I had come to expect from him.

The butler nodded. "Indeed he is. And he is quite adamant that you see him at once. I would not recommend keeping him waiting."

Nodding in return, Pureblood quickly trotted over to the large door, pausing just at its threshold as if dreading what he was going to see on the far side. Taking a deep breath, he reached out and pushed open the door, stepping into the large room beyond.

The room we entered was a massive looking dining room, with a long table that looked large enough to seat a small army. A bronze coated unicorn sat at the head of the massive table, taking slow sips of an expensive looking whiskey. The stallion didn't bother looking up at Pureblood, seeming far more interested in his drink.

"Father, I was not expecting you to be back so soon," Pureblood stated curtly, not daring to step any further into the room. "How was your trip?"

"Successful," The bronze stallion grunted flatly, still not looking up. He raised a hoof, beckoning for Pureblood to approach. "Come closer."

Pureblood took a long, deep breath, before taking a step forward, then another. I could feel the developing muscles in his withers tensing more and more with each step. At last he came to stand only a few feet away from the much larger stallion.

"You wanted to talk to me father?"

Slap!

Pureblood was sent flying backwards, his head flaring with pain as it was slammed roughly against the cool floor beneath him. His father loomed out of his seat, his stoic expression filled with anger. "You disobedient shit!" His father boomed, his fore hoof swinging out and knocking Pureblood across the back of the head again.

Pureblood scrambled back, clutching at his head. "W-hat... No father... Please!" He bit back tears, his cheeks already wet. "I have done nothing to disobey you!"

"You've been hanging out with that lower class wench again, haven't you," his father seethed, his hooves reaching down and wrapping tightly around Pureblood neck. Pureblood choked, gasping as he tried to get a breath of air. "I can smell her vile filth all over you! You were with her! Weren't you!"

"N-no..." Pureblood wheezed, his face going blue as his fathers chokehold tightened. "Please! I-I-I..."

"Stop lying!" The large stallion scowled, finally releasing Pureblood and letting the small colt drop to the floor. His father took a few steps back, looking the whimpering colt over with distain. "This is the last straw, Pureblood. I'm going to need to teach you a lesson..."

Slowly, his father trotted over to a small side desk and picked a large sock up off the table top. A second later, he was rummaging around inside the desks drawers, pulling out a sharp looking paper weight. He gave Pureblood a sly smile, slipping the heavy object into the sock. "Come here boy," He soothed, raising the sock in his magic and slowly giving it a few fast spins. Pureblood cringed away, his eyes locked on the homemade flail mace. "You need to be punished..."

The world shifted and I found myself standing on a large balcony, overlooking the city of Canterlot far below me. I was still inhabiting Pureblood body, that much was obvious, though now I seemed to be quite a few years older and dressed in a dark blue suit. The sound of hoof steps echoed out from behind us and he turned his head to see a smaller mint green earth pony mare with a charcoal mane trotting out onto the balcony towards him.

"Pureblood?" The mare asked, her voice sounding uncertain. "I... I didn't think I would ever see you again..."

Pureblood sighed, his younger voice having an almost beautiful, deep sounding hum to it. "Belle, I'm sorry. I was afraid that I would never get the chance to see you again either."

Belle trotted up beside him, looking out at the city below. After a few seconds of awkward silence, she dared to speak up. "Why then, after all this time have you chosen to meet with me?"

"Because..." Pureblood had to bite the inside of his lip to stop from smiling. "I left you because my father never would have allowed us. I mean, you are a baker from Ponyville, it is hardly orthodox for somepony of my standing to fall in love with somepony like you," Belle recoiled a little at the comment, only for Pureblood to take her in his hooves and stare deep into her eyes. "But that doesn't matter anymore. My father has passed away. He cannot get between us anymore. And despite everything, despite our class and the ponies that would see us apart forever, I would fight to be with you," He paused, giving her a kind smile. "Because I love you."

Belle blinked at him, as if trying to figure out if the words she was hearing were real. "I am sorry to hear about your father," she said, her tone cautions. She kept her face stoic, making reading her expression very hard.

"Don't be," Pureblood soothed, finally releasing his teeth from the inside of his jaw and letting himself smile. "He was terrible to me as a child. To me, his passing means nothing but that I can be with you again."

"Pureblood... It's been years since- I mean... I don't-"

Pureblood put a hoof to her lips, silencing her. "Please. Just give me a chance."

After a second, Belles lips twisted to match his smile. "Alright..." She paused, blushing slightly. "I missed you."

"I missed you too."

Again, I was ripped away from the memory, my mind swirling up above the streets of Canterlot before flashing many years forward in time. This time I found myself in a hospital room. Belle, quite a few years older now, lay still on the hospital bed, her chest slowly rising and falling with pained breaths.

I looked down, my hoof stroking the mane of a small white colt with a blond mane that I appeared to be cradling in my hoof. Blueblood as a foal, I quickly presumed.

A small knock on the door drew my attention upwards, where I spotted a doctor standing sadly in the doorway. "Master Pureblood. I'm afraid there is little else we can do for her," The doctor said, slowly trotting in and resting his hoof at the base of the bed. "Her family simply cannot afford the treatment, and even if they could, her blood type is very rare, the cost to buy a new lung would be very-"

"I'll pay for the treatment," Pureblood scowled, pacing the young Blueblood down on the chair behind him and standing up to loom over the doctor. "I'll pay for the treatment and donate my own lung if I must. We share blood type. It would work."

The doctor took a step back, raising an eyebrow in surprise. "Master Pureblood, are you certain? It is very costly, even for you... and the procedure is risky. There's a good chance that you would have to live the rest of your life with-"

I said I'll do it!" Pureblood practically howled, glaring down at the doctor. "Now do the surgery! She has to get better! She simply has too!" He turned, looking down at Belle's frail looking form on the bed. Behind him, Blueblood began to cry. "Please... she has to get better..."

My vision shifted again, ripping me from the memory before violently throwing me into the next. The moment my vision began to form, pain seared up my front and I found myself bolting up from a hospital bed, blood soaked blankets falling from me and scattering across the floor. My ears rang and a loud beeping blared from a nearby machine. A doctor rushed to me, gently trying to push me back into the bed.

"Pureblood, lie back down!" They ordered, their hooves drenched in blood. "There's been an accident with the procedure, you need to stay calm."

Pureblood glanced down, his eyes locking on the massive incision in his chest. Through his opened flesh, he could see his bloody ribcage and his now singular lung working away frantically, leaking blood from a small slit that clearly wasn't supposed to be there.

"Belle! What happened to Belle!?" Pureblood wheezed frantically, his voice coming out in a dry, raspy voice. When the doctor failed to answer, Pureblood lunged forwards, wrapping his hooves around the doctors throat. "Is she alright!"

"I... I'm sorry Pureblood," The doctor soothed, pushing him back and running a hoof through Pureblood sweaty mane. "There... The surgery didn't work..."

before the doctor could react, Pureblood pulled himself from the hospital bed, blood spilling down his front as the few stitches that had been poorly holding his chest together ripped open. He screamed, staggering around as he placed a hoof to his chest, trying to keep his insides from spilling across the floor.

"Pureblood, please!" The doctor shouted in surprise, rushing forward to lead him back to the bed. "You aren't well, you need to-"

A burst of magic shot from Pureblood horn, sending the doctor slamming back into the wall. Their head cracked against a desk, their body falling limp and blood spilling across the floor.

Gasping for breath, Pureblood staggered forward, leaning heavily against the wall as the flaring pain threatened to knock him over. He screamed, blood surging up his throat and burbling from his lips. He stumbled out into the hallway, his open chest leaving a trail of blood behind him as he desperately limped onwards.

He heard some pony scream behind him and the sound of hooves rushing around frantically. "Somepony get a doctor! Hurry!"

Pureblood ignored their screams, using his little amount of strength to reach the door at the far end of the hall. His horn glowed, yanking the door open violently.

The words reached his ears before his blurring eyes made out the scene beyond. "-time of death 2:34 am, Belle Blood, deceased," The doctor looked up sadly from his recording device, his eyes locking with Purebloods. After a short second, his eyes widened. "P-pureblood... What are you doing here! Security! I need security in here right now!"

I felt strong hooves grab onto Pureblood shoulders and begin pulling him away. Pureblood didn't resist, simply staring in horror at the limp figure of his beloved on the bed. Then I was sent spiralling away again, pulled away from that horrid nightmare and into another.

I was sitting in the large living room again, staring stoically into the flickering firelight of the large fireplace. One of my hosts wrinkled, golden hooves raised, shakily tracing along the silver scar that raced down the front of their chest.

Pureblood let his horn flicker to life, a field of his magic raising a small picture of him and Belle. The photo was old, stained by time and showing them as young foals. His eyes lingered on the photo for a while, his gaze resting on Belles form. Then, as if possessed by rage, his magic ripped the small picture in half, tearing the two lovers apart. He cast the pieces into the fire, watching emotionlessly as they shrivelled up and burned, firelight glinting off his emotionless, hollow eyes.

The door behind him swung open, making way for a much older looking Blueblood as he stalked into the room. Through the now open doors, I could hear the sound of a foal wailing. "Father, somepony is requesting your-"

Pureblood swung around, his hoof slapping Blueblood roughly across the face. Blueblood staggered back, clutching at the rapidly forming bruise. "What have I told you about knocking!" Pureblood seethed, his voice raspy and nasally, like nails on a chalkboard. He coughed, hacking as his lungs flared with pain. His hoof flashed out again, once more sending Blueblood staggering back. "How many times do I need to tell you to do things before you listen!?"

"I-I'm sorry father," Blueblood gasped, taking a few steps back. "I-It won't happen again."

"See that it doesn't," Pureblood growled, his eyes never leaving Bluebloods. "You should be thankful you know. My father would have done much worse that that."

Blueblood bowed his head, the corners of his eyes moist from tears. "Of course, thank you father..." He looked up a little, his pupils trembling. "Th-there is a pony here to see you. He said he was from Celestia's school for gifted Unicorns."

Pureblood scoffed. "I have planned for no such meeting. Tell him he can wait like every pony else."

"He, uh..." Blueblood glanced around, his jaw clenching as he built up the courage to talk. "He is very insistent. And he has the royal seal with him. Celestia ordered this meeting..." He winced, as if expecting Pureblood to strike him again.

Instead, Pureblood let a small smile form across his lips. "Celestia sent somepony? Why didn't you say so. I will see what they want at once," He trotted past the still cowering Blueblood, heading towards the front door. Pureblood ear twitched at the high pitched sheiks of the foal in the far room. "And shut Goldenblood up. I tire of his constant wailing."

Making his way to the front door, Pureblood gestured for an elderly looking butler to pull the door open for him. Standing on the other side of the door, stood a tall silver earth pony, seemingly a few years older than Pureblood, dressed in a nice looking vest and tie. A strange talisman was clipped to his vest and his cutie mark seemed to be a singular black spade.

"I was told I was meeting somepony from Celestia's school for Gifted Unicorns?" Pureblood stated in a grunt like tone, his eyes lingering on the stallions notably hornless head. "Excuse me as I confess to having been expecting a unicorn."

The silver Stallion smiled. "Yes, I get that a lot," He extended a hoof, which Pureblood promptly shook. "My name is Silver Ace, and I am here on behalf of Celestia to negotiate funding for an expedition to the Zebra Homelands."

My mind flashed back to reality, just in time to see Pureblood blink back at me with a confused expression. "What just-" He muttered, his expression a little distant. "What happened?"

I looked him over for a moment, uncertain how to proceed. "You... Lost some pony very dear to you," I said cautiously, uncertain of what old scars I was about to rip open. "I, uh... I'm really sorry about Belle..."

Pureblood expression hardened, his eyes flashing with anger. "Don't mention her name... I... I don't know how you know about her, but mention her again, and I will flay your flesh from your bones before putting you back together."

I grasped at Pureblood magical chains that were still suspending me, trying to break myself free form them. "Pureblood, you weren't always like this... There was a time... A time when you risked your own life to save somepony else... It's admirable."

Pureblood hissed, his face inching closer to mine. “I stuck my neck out for another and look what that got me! Nothing! A missing lung and a son without a mother!" the chains tightened, making me yelp out with pain. "Now enough of all of this. We have been dancing around the inevitable for long enough! You will help me access the Utopia program right now, or your friends will die!”

“I don’t even know how to access the Utopia Program!” I shouted back, struggling against his powerful chains. It didn’t matter what I did, I was unable to break free. "I don't even know why you think I might have even the smallest idea of where to begin activating it!"

“LIAR!” Pureblood howled, his magic flaring and causing another wave of searing pain to burst through me. I screamed, the magical chains constricting around me suddenly feeling like they were scolding hot metal. My hooves flailed, bits of my hide being burned away. “When we replaced you with a synth, I wanted to simply have you permanently frozen, but Silver Ace insisted we give you a synth body. Silver Ace was plotting against me! Planning to use the Utopia Program for his own purposes behind my back! He must have needed you alive for something! I don’t know how or why, but you know the key to activating Utopia! You have too!”

The chains twisted and sent me violently crashing across the room. I heard Twilight and Farmer give out muffled cries of alarm as they watched me get brutally thrown against one of the marble walls.

“I don’t know!” I shouted at him, blood dripping down my face from a large gash where my head had collided with the hard surface. “I don’t fucking know how it works!”

The chains coiled around me again, reefing me back to float before Pureblood. Pureblood’s hoof struck out, slapping me roughly across the face. My head snapped to the side, a large bruise already forming.

“Stop lying to me!” He struck me again, knocking me back to the floor with a loud thud. He loomed over me, his horn blazing with light. “The Utopia Program requires you to take control of all six of the memory orbs comprising it! But I’ve done that already! it isn’t working!” His horn shimmered and six floating memory orbs materialized around us, filling the room with a strange, multicoloured light. Each memory orb was a different colour, purple, pink, blue, orange, yellow and white, no doubt colours belonging to the ponies that the memories within had once belonged to. Pureblood glared at them loathfully for a second before letting his murderous gaze shift up to look at where Twilight was wriggling helplessly, suspended by his magical chains. “But that bitch Twilight did something! She put some sort of security measure on the Utopia Program, and I can’t get fucking through it!”

The chains around Twilight shifted, pulling her away from Farmer and down to our level. Pureblood glowered at her, his magic releasing the metal clamp around her mouth. Once the metal clamp fell away, Twilight let out a loud gasp, blinking back tears. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she sputtered, clearly on the verge of some sort of panic attack. “I’ve never even heard of the Utopia Program until today.”

Pureblood’s upper lip trembled for a moment, his face drawing only inches away from Twilights trembling one. “So you are like Amber? Loss of memory?” Twilight tried to respond, but the chains tightened around her neck, choking her and letting her do little more than nod. Another chain shot from the ground, this one bearing a jagged looking hook on the end. The hook dug deep into Twilight's flesh, hot blood spilling down her side.

I pushed against the chains, trying to lunge at Pureblood. “Don’t hurt her!” A flick of Purebloods horn sent me crashing across the room, skidding across the floor where I came to an abrupt stop against the base of the large thrones staircase.

Not bothering to look back at me, Pureblood gave Twilight a sinister looking grin. “Then allow me to jog your memory as well. Perhaps then you will be more able to tell me what it is you have done!” his horn pulsed and wrapped Twilight in its golden glow.

Nothing happened.

Pureblood brow furrowed, his eyes darting back and forth. He leaned in closer, his muzzle twisting into a scowl. “Why didn’t it work. What are you?”

“I don’t- I don’t know what you want!” Twilight cried, struggling harder against the chains. “I don’t know what I’m doing here!”

Pureblood scowled. “If you are unable to tell me what you have done, then you are of no use to me,” The chains around her neck tightened, snapping upwards into an impromptu noose. Twilight gasped, the last bit of air in her lungs being forced out as she was stung up, her hooves desperately scratching at her neck as the chains coiled ever tighter. Pureblood smiled at her almost sweetly. “Oh how I have wanted to do this for so long.”

“Wait!” The words escaped my mouth before I could think them through. “Don’t kill her. I’ll help you activate the Utopia Program.”

Pureblood glanced back at me, Twilight still struggling in the air above him. A second later, his horn pulsed and Twilight dropped to the ground with a loud gasp. Pureblood turned, slowly stalking over to me, his metal horseshoes clanking against the pristine floor.

“And once again, you have only proven me right, Amber Aura,” Pureblood soothed, his nasally voice making my skin crawl. “You never would have listened to reason. It is only through your friends, when you will lose something of great value to you, that you finally comply.”

“I listened to you,” I shot back, slowly climbing back to my shaking hooves and glaring him down. “You attacked me.”

Pureblood nickered. “Irrelevant now. You have seen what I am capable of and that you are helpless to stop me. Now you will help me access the Utopia Program, or your friends will die. First the bitch Twilight, then the pony in the hat.”

“Amber, don’t! We ca-” Twilight was cut off as the metal clamp flew through the air towards her and once more slammed shut around her mouth. The chains snapped back, pulling her back into the air beside a still struggling Farmer.

Gulping, I trotted across the room and looked the six memory orbs over. One orb for each of the six ministry mares. Twilight, Pinkie, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, Rarity. “And all you need to do is control all the orbs to control Utopia?” I asked, rephrasing what Pureblood had told me as a question.

Pureblood nodded. “Indeed. This entire world is composed of the massive amounts of memories that exist within these orbs. Every book Twilight has read, ever food Pinkie’s tasted, every party she has thrown, every town and trail Applejack has traveled in her deliveries, every blade of grass, cloud and tree Rainbow has seen as she soared across Equestria, every bit of flora known by Fluttershy. And, of course, every cranny of high society learned by lady Rarity,” his horn shone, igniting each orb as he mentioned them. “These memories create every aspect of this reality. Control the memories, control reality. It’s honestly quite a simple, elegant design really.”

I stared at the six orbs for a long second before I let out a laugh. Of course Pureblood hadn’t been able to take control of the Utopia Program. He had been right. There was something that I knew. Something only three beings in existence had ever known. Myself, Kamari, and of course, Silver Ace.

“I don’t know what security measure Twilight placed on the Utopia Program, but whatever it is, it isn’t your problem,” I laughed, looking up smugly at the glowing orbs around me. “You don’t have control of Utopia because you don't control all of the orbs. There’s a seventh.”

Pureblood stared at me, his expression twisted into one of confusion. “A seventh? Seven memory orbs? How? Whose? Who else had their mind placed within Utopia? Silver Ace?!” He had to spit Silver Aces name out with venom.

I felt my heartbeat quicken. I had seen what kind of monster the seventh orb contained. “I… I don’t know its name… or if it even has one…” I said, a shiver racing down my spine. “But there was something… some being that Kamari unburied in the depths the Hollow Shades...”

“Kamari?” Pureblood snarled, his lips curling back to reveal his teeth. “What does that vile wretch have to do with all of this?”

“Kamari was working with Silver Ace. They put a seventh memory orb into the Utopia Program in secret. I think I saw it. In the Starswirl the Bearded wing of the Castle,” I could practically feel the huge shadow ponies insidious, inky tendrils wrapping around me and pulling me into its blackness as I spoke. “I don’t know what they were doing, but that thing is-”

“The Starswirl the Bearded wing?” Pureblood soothed thoughtfully, cutting me off. His horn once again glowed and his eyes flashed white. “Yes, I can feel it there. You speak the truth,” His lips twisted into a smile that sent a chill through my whole body. “Thank you Amber Aura. That was all that I needed from you.”

A strong wall of magical force burst from Purebloods horn and slammed into me, sending me crashing backwards through the air. I heard Twilight scream, her own body getting flung back as the massive surge of power exploded from Purebloods horn. Above us, the magical force rippled through the air, ramming into Farmer, knocking him down next to us.

With a smirk, the glow around Pureblood horn faded, and I felt his field of magic around me fade, letting the tidal wave of burning agony once more rush through me. I screamed, thrashing back and forth as I tried to lessen the unbearable pain. I could feel fire racing through my body, burning me up from the inside out. Pureblood smirk only widened as he watched me thrash about. "You are no longer of use to me, Amber."

Pureblood’s horn shone, light streaming out of it in all directions. The whole room began to shake, the beautiful stained glass windows around us shattering, their broken shards scattering across the floor.

Before me, in the centre of the circle of memory orbs, a blinding light began to rise out of the floor, white at first, but rapidly changing to a sinister looking black. The strewning lights from the shattered windows seemed to get absorbed into the new dark light, making the edges of the room go dark with shadows. A memory orb slowly floated out of the shroud like light, hovering before Pureblood.

Pureblood stepped back, taking in the pulsing, dark orb with wide eyes. A smile crept across his lips and a look of determination crossed his face. Slowly, he reached out, his hoof extending towards the ominous sphere inch by inch.

“Pureblood! Don’t do this!” I screamed between gritted teeth, trying to fight back the searing pains. Tears streaked my face from the sheer effort it took not to just throw myself out the window and off of Canterlot Mountain to put an end to the pain. “The thing in that orb! It’s evil!”

But Pureblood ignored me, his hoof growing ever closer to the ball of dark light. The shadowy light flickered across his face as he got closer, the whites of his eyes slowly turning pitch black. “At last, after all this time!” He chuckled, his voice echoing around the large chamber. “Utopia is finally mine!”

“Amber! What do we do!” Twilight shrieked, her expression filled with horror. “There has to be something we can do?!”

I looked back at her hopelessly, tears still streaking down my face. “I… I don’t-” I muttered helplessly, a surge of pain lashing through my skull. I fell backwards, my hooves clutching desperately at my head. “There’s nothing we can do…”

I saw something slithering around inside the central orb, slamming against the memory orb's inner walls as if trying desperately to break out. Two pairs of pearl white eyes glared out at me from the orbs dark surface, staring straight through me and into my very soul.

My eyes shifted from the dark orb to locked on the glowing purple memory orb. Twilight’s memory orb. For just a second, I felt the searing pain fade away as a memory tugged at the back of my mind. “Five days,” I breathed, my words so quiet that I hardly even heard them.

“What was that?” Twilight frowned, her eyes perking up at my voice.

I glanced back to Purebloods hoof, so close now to the memory orb. “When I first met you, you said that you woke up without memories only five days ago. That specific amount of time seemed important even then, but I didn’t have the proper memoires at the time to put my hoof on its significance. But now I do. That would have been close to around the same time Pureblood launched the Utopia Program,” I rolled over to face her. I could feel the burning pain rapidly washing back over me with each second. “But that wasn’t the only thing that happened five days ago. Five days ago was the day Littlepip destroyed the Goddess,” my thoughts clicked together in my mind, and I let out a small gasp. “Pureblood said you were a part of the goddess! Twilight, what is your mind doing in here!”

Purebloods smile twisted, becoming more and more deranged. His pupils went dark completely, swallowed up by the inky darkness of the orb entrily. His hoof drew ever closer. It was so close now that an inch further and his gold clad hoof would reach it.

The strange writhing within the dark orb increased, rapidly becoming a violent thrash. The orb began to shake, threatening to smash upon at the slightest touch as the creature within slammed against its inner walls.

Twilight stared back at me, her expression confused and fearful. “I… I don’t under-”

“The Utopia Program erased my memory to keep me alive!” I shouted back, now certain of what was going on. “It’s acting independently! Pureblood thought that the security measures you put on the Utopia Program two hundred years ago were what was keeping him out, but it wasn’t! We haven’t even seen those security measures yet!” Fighting through the pain that threatened to throw me into unconsciousness, I pulled myself to my hooves and rushed to Twilight. “Don’t you get it! The Utopia Program pulled your mind into here as soon as you were free from the goddess! It thought that in doing so would make your mind whole for some reason… Why?”

Twilight shook her head, tears forming in her eyes. “I… I don't…

Pureblood hoof dove into the memory orb, dark light twisting from the orb and wrapping around his outstretched hoof. Pureblood laughed, the strange energy swirling around him and seeping into his flesh.

I placed my hooves on Twilight’s shoulders, staring deep into her eyes with my own. “Twilight… Do you trust me?” Twilight stared at me for a long second, unsure. Finally she nodded. I sighed. “Good. Sorry…”

Gritting my teeth, I shoved Twilight backwards, sending her toppling into the glowing purple memory orb. Twilight gave a shout of surprise, her eyes wide as she fell backwards. She collided with the glowing sphere, purple light shooting out in all directions. I covered my eyes with a hoof, shielding myself from the blinding lights.

I heard Pureblood scream in rage. A powerful field of violet magic shot out around the black memory orb, sending Pureblood stumbling back a step. The violet magic flashed out, lashing at the dark tendrils of energy that had grown from the orb, forcefully absorbing them back into the seventh memory orb. Pureblood screamed, angrily slamming his hoof against the magical barrier, only for the shield to repel him again, this time sending him staggering back a few feet with a powerful burst of sparks.

“No! What is happening!” Pureblood roared, his face flaring with rage. His wings flared out, his horn crackling with energy. “Why can’t I activate it! Why! Why! Why!” he rushed forwards, his wings flapping rapidly as he lunged at the glowing orb. Seconds before he made contact with it, the violet light flashed up again, once more sending the golden alicorn staggering back.

The violet light around the central orb seemed to grow brighter, swirling up into the air and flowed back into the memory orb belonging to Twilight Sparkle. The light pulsed, then flashed, strobing faster and faster before our eyes. Then, as if being drawn in by a magnet, it shot towards Twilights collapsed form, seeping deep into her skin.

Farmer and I were sent tumbling back, knocked back as a powerful blast of energy rippled out of Twilight's body. Slowly, Twilight began to pull herself to her hooves, her body suddenly sparkling and pulsing with a strange light. I looked up at her, squinting as I tried to see through the blinding lights that were flashing across the room. “Twilight?” I toppled over, blood and bile spilling from my lips as another wave of pain flared through me. The sensation of the hide on my face burning away filled my mind, an animal-like scream bursting from my lips.

A hoof gently laid itself across my shoulder. I looked up, the pain in my body suddenly going null. Twilight stood above me, her glowing body almost blinding. “Be at peace,” Twilight soothed, her voice sending a strange feeling of calm through me.

“What is happening! What are you doing!” Pureblood screamed, slamming his hooves down on the ground. The whole chamber shook as his armoured hooves shattered the thick marble beneath him.

Twilight all but ignored him, trotting over to Farmer and placing a hoof on his shoulder as well. Purebloods magical chains fizzled away, allowing Farmer to scamper back to his hooves and let out a gasp of breath.

“No! How are you doing this!? That isn’t possible!” Pureblood shouted, backing away as Twilight’s glowing form finally rounded on him and slowly began trotting towards him. “You can’t dispel my magic here! I control the Utopia Program! I do! Me!” his horn flared and fired a beam of light towards Twight. Twilight's own horn glowed violet, her magic easily deflecting Purebloods blast.

“I remember now,” Twilight said coldly, his voice taking on the strange echo that Purebloods had held only moments before. “I remember everything.”

Pureblood backed up, another blast of energy lancing from his horn towards Twilight desperately. Again Twilight deflected it. “Stop! Stay back!” he screamed, his hind hoof bumping up against the bottom step to his throne. “Stay away from me!”

“Twilight… I… Put a security measure on the Utopia Program to ensure that no pony could use it for their own gain, not even me,” Twilight said, her own horn shone with light as her magical aura ripped Pureblood off his hooves and pulled him up in the air before her. “I knew that no simple security measure would be enough. Not against ponies like Silver Ace. All codes can be hacked, all passwords can be guessed or learned. I needed something no pony could predict...”

Pureblood struggled in the air, his eyes wide with panic. “What- What did you do?!”

“I created an AI,” Twilight soothed, her eyes beginning to glow with light. “I put as many memories of my own into the Utopia program, enough to create a complete copy of my mind. However, I did not succeed. I never completed the project… Until…”

I pulled myself up, Farmer quickly moving to retrieve his revolver behind me. “Until Littlepip destroyed the goddess,” I said, slowly taking a step towards where Twilight and Pureblood were facing off. “Five days ago was when Maripony exploded. The memories you placed within the program could sense it. You dragged whatever fractured part of your mind that still existed within the goddess into the Utopia Program… You were trying to make yourself whole again. A complete collection of memories.”

Twilight nodded, looking back at me. Her glowing eyes dimmed for a second as she smiled at me. Then they began to once more glow with light and her smile faded away. She turned back to Pureblood, her magic constricting around him tighter. “The memories I had put into the Utopia Program two hundred year ago weren’t enough to create any true security measures. Had it been, I would have stopped you the moment you entered Utopia. But when I felt my mind get freed from the goddess, I reached out, dragging my scattered mind here, into the Utopia Program. With all of my memories, now freed of the Goddess and together, my security measure is finally complete.”

“So, you actually understand what’s happening right now?” Farmer grunted to me in a hushed whisper, his revolver once more loaded and in his grasp.

I gave a hesitant nod of my head. “I think so. Twilight put a whole bunch of her memories into the Utopia Program to create a living, thinking security system,” I responded back, not bothering to take my eyes away from Twilight's glowing form. “But she wasn’t able to finish it until Littlepip killed the Goddess and set the rest of her consciousness free.

Farmer sighed sarcastically. “Of course she did. How silly of me for not realizing that sooner.”

“But you were without memoires! It doesn’t make sense!” Pureblood scowled, his hooves still failing desperately as he tried to free himself. “If the memories Twilight placed in the Utopia program pulled you in here, why did they not merge with you then?”

“Because I am here to stop more than just Silver Ace and you from taking control of Utopia,” Twilight declared, taking another step closer to Pureblood. “I am here to prevent anyone that would use it for evil. Even myself. I couldn’t allow my mind to take full control of the Utopia Program. If I had, then I might have tried to save Equestria as you have tried myself. Who knows what would have happened then. Perhaps, had Amber not brought me here before you, where I could bear witness to your intentions, I would have been unable to stop you, even now. Thankfully for everypony, she has.”

Pureblood’s face twisted into a growl, his horn glowing as he tried to ward off Twilight's powerful magic. “So then, what now, Twilight Sparkle?” He seethed, finally letting his legs go limp in her magical grasp. “You have clearly defeated me. Are you going to kill me?”

Twilight paused, looking him over with a cocked head and raised eyebrow. “A good question. No. It is not in my design to kill. I am, in fact, unable to do such and action. My purpose is to maintain Utopia. Killing you would be counterproductive.”

Pureblood let a small smirk from across his face, his wings rustling at his sides. “Then release me at once. I demand you to obey me!”

Again, Twilight shook her head. “No. I cannot risk you taking control of the Utopia Program. You will be ejected from the Program, and returned to your reality.”

I could see Pureblood smirk widen from here at that. “Of course. You are too kind,” He rasped, his face twisting into a smile. “But… If you do that? How will you ever protect the ponies of Equestria?”

Twilight frowned, narrowing her eyes at Pureblood. “What are you talking about?”

Pureblood simply shrugged, raising his chin a little to look down upon Twilight. “You see, our dear dear Amber Aura has presented me with an ultimatum. Eject me from the Utopia Program, and I will detonate the Balefire bomb she so carelessly decided to leave a few feet from my body. I will activate it in the heart of the Institute, eradicating the city of Manehattan and everypony that lives there,” He finally pulled himself from Twilight's magical grasp to stand before us all defiantly. “Then, with the Institute's synths still at my control, I will sweep across the wasteland, killing everypony else until there is nothing left!”

“But why!” I screamed at him. “What would even be the point!”

“Proof!” Pureblood retaliated, his voice raising to a booming octave that shook the entire chamber. “Proof that I am not to be denied! The Utopia Program cannot be destroyed. You would all be forced to watch helplessly as everypony you care for is executed!” His neck snapped to the side to glare at Twilight, his mouth twisted into a hateful snarl. “Would you wish to stop me from saving Equestria so much that you would allow me to destroy it? What would Twilight Sparkle do? Not this AI fake, but the real Twilight. I think you’d find she would step aside and give me access to Utopia.”

Twilight took a step back, her eyes darting back and forth. “I… I will not let you kill everypony in Equestria. I am here to prevent as many deaths as possible.”

“Then…” Pureblood advanced towards her, looming over her and staring down at her with vengeful eyes. His voice dropped down to a low, rumbling purr that clashed terribly with his nasally voice. “...I would advise that you step the fuck aside, cunt.”

Hesitantly, Twilight took another step back, not getting out of his way, but giving him enough room to advance a little closer. She glanced back at me, confliction prevalent across her face. She was asking me for advice. She didn’t say it, but I could practically hear the question in my mind. “What do I do?”

My gaze dropped to a pool of blood on the floor. Not all that long ago, Azar had lain there, his insides being ripped apart by Pureblood for the sick bastard's amusement. Something Pureblood said echoed in the back of my mind. “Like you, he was thrown directly into Utopia, though he did not have the good fortune of having his memory erased. He’s completely mindless now, just a shell of his former self.”

My head shot up, a small smile on my face. “Twilight, the Utopia Program already erased Azar's mind on it's own, right? So I figure that Twilight probably didn’t design you to be unable to simply erase his mind, did she?”

Pureblood’s face went pale. He looked over at me, a look of sheer horror scrawled across his face. Then, his expression turned to burning rage. “You little bitch! How dare you suggest such a thing!” His wings beat at his sides as he lunged at me, his fore hooves reaching for my throat.

He didn’t make it a full foot before Twilight’s magic flashed out, ensnaring him in the violet glow of her magic. She looked over at me, her expression sad but determined. “No. I am perfectly capable of doing such an action.”

Purebloods' hooves flailed, trying to break free of the magical grip. “No! NO! You can’t do this to me! I am the rightful ruler and savior of Equestria! Head of the Canterlot High Council and second in line for the Throne of Equestria!” His horn blazed with light and beams of deadly energy lanced out across the room. I jumped to the side, narrowly avoiding a blast that scorched the ground beside me. “I will not be taken down this way! You can’t do this to me!”

Twilight's horn grew brighter, I could feel the very air around us getting hotter as more and more power began to build up in her horn. Her pupils dilated, then disappeared, obscured by the blinding white lights that shone from her eyes.

Farmer and I staggered backwards, both of us covering our eyes as the strewning lights became near unbearable. Farmer pulled his hat down a little over his face, obscuring his eyes.

“As Director of the Institute, I order you to stop!” Pureblood howled, the dancing lights of Twilight's horn flashing across his features. “You are dooming Equestria to forever be a wasteland! Dooming it to forever be run by raiders and rapists! I can make Equestria beautiful once again! Restore it to the perfect utopia it is meant to be! You are making a grave mistake!”

Squinting my eyes against the light, I strode towards him, a growl across my face. “It’s ponies like you that keep the world a wasteland, Pureblood. Slavery and violence is not the answer to salvation. We already tried that, and it ended in balefire. You aren't thinking right. Just use your head. What would Belle have thought of all this? Of what you're doing...”

Pureblood scowled at me, his blazing eyes staring at me with murderous intent. “She would have been able to love me! In my Utopia I can make a world where no pony needs to watch their loved ones die again!" He spat at me, his spittle splattering across the floor between us. "You stand there so certain, so arrogant and full of your own grander. A part of me dares to think you actually believe that you are truly helping the Wasteland. But don’t be so certain, Amber Aura. The wasteland remains a wasteland because ponies will never agree. You may fight to your dying breath to make the wasteland a better place, but so long as ponies fight against you, you will never succeed,” He let the light of his horn die down as he stared at me, his muzzle twisted upwards in disgust. “You aren’t the solution, Amber Aura. You never were. You’re just another murderer. A raider. You call your quest just, but you’ve killed far more ponies than I ever will.”

I stuck my muzzle in his face, anger flashing across my eyes. “I am not a raider.”

Pureblood smirked at me, his nasally voice dripping with sarcasm. “Of course not killer... See you in hell,” he wheezed, a loud cough escaping his lips as, his body spasmed, wracked with pain as the intense power choked his damaged lung. He turned his head, glaring at Twilight defiantly. "Very well. You have chosen to let your world fall to ruin. But I will not go in shame. Keep your world, your kingdom of ash and desolation! I am Pureblood, head of the Canterlot High Council and Director of the Institute of Arcane Technology, and I release you all from my glorious protection!"

Light flared from Twilight's horn and Pureblood fell to the ground limp, sprawling before us like a sack of bricks. A small drizzle of droll rolled down his golden chin, his expressionless eyes staring emptily at the world around him. His chest rose and fell in slow, wheezing, pained breaths.

I took a step back, suddenly feeling a little sick as I stared at his motionless body. “Did you… Is he…?”

Twilight nodded, looking his limp form over with her glowing eyes. “Yes. I have erased his mind. He will live eternally here in Utopia, but he will remember nothing. He will spend the rest of his days like this. A shell of himself,” she blinked a couple times, the glowing light fading from her eyes. Suddenly, she looked a little ill herself. “I, uh… What happened? I mean… I remember what happened, but…” She put a hoof to her forehead, her body wobbling a little as if dizzy. “Whoa… I don’t think I want to do that again.”

“So is that it?” Farmer asked, trotting up to us and holstering his revolver. “We actually did it. Pureblood is finished and the Utopia Program is safe?”

I opened my mouth to respond, only for another voice to echo out around us. “I wish I could say that it was. Unfortunately, that is not the case.”

I spun around, trying to pinpoint the location of the speaker. I knew that voice anywhere. “Silver Ace! Where are you?”

“Far enough away, don’t worry,” Silver Ace's voice chided. “I wouldn’t dare get so close to Twilight Sparkle right now.”

Farmer’s eyes narrowed as he glanced around the room. “What do you want? What are you even doing in here?”

“Observing,” Silver Ace’s voice replied simply. “That was, after all, the whole point of letting Pureblood come so close to achieving victory. The same reason I let Amber live when Pureblood would have had her cryogenically frozen.”

My ears perked up and I scowled. “Wait, all of this… Everything I have gone through to stop Pureblood… Was just so you could figure out what kind of Security measures Twilight put on Utopia?”

“Of course,” Silver Ace cooed. “And I am glad that I did. Thank you, Amber. Really. I couldn’t have done this without you.”

Silver magic flashed around the room, sending all of us skidding back. I looked up just in time to see the silver magic surround the purple Twilight Memory orb. Twilight screamed, purple energy being ripped away from her body and being violently pulled back into the memory orb. My eyes shot wide as I realized just what Silver Ace was doing.

A magical silver barrier formed around the Twilight orb, blocking all of us off from reaching it. I rushed forwards, slamming my hooves against the barrier, praying to Celestia that I could get through. Instead, a bolt of energy lanced out, shocking me across the hoof and sending me crashing back to the floor.

Twilight lit up her horn, only for her magic to go dead. “My magic! It’s gone!?” She shrieked, stumbling back as she tried to get her horn to light up again to no success.

A silver flash of light drew my attention to the far side of the room, as Silver Ace materialized, slowly trotting into the room, his eyes darting back and forth as he scanned for any potential threats. Now in the Utopia Program, I saw Silver Ace as he had been before the war, not the looming silver Brainbot I had come to know him as. He was an older looking earth pony, admittedly a little younger than I remember him being in the many memory orbs I had seen of him, with a silver coat and matching mane. His magical talisman was clipped to his vest and the dark bags that had formed under his gray eyes seemed to have lessened somewhat. “So this is the Utopia Program,” he breathed, his eyes widening a little with wonder. “I have always dreamed of one day getting the chance to be in this place…”

I glowered at him, taking an imposing step forward. “What are you doing?” I gestured to the glowing magic around the Twilight memory orb. “How are you even doing this?”

Silver Ace took a long moment to look at me, his gaze fixed on the majestic castle walls of the throne room around us. “The plan was Kamari’s admittedly. We were well aware Twilight had put some sort of system in place to prevent us from activating the Utopia Program, but we had no way of figuring out what it was and how to negate it without going into the Utopia Program ourselves,” He gestured to where Pureblood still lay limply on the ground. “Naturally, Pureblood was our solution. Had his own ambitions and reasons to enter the Utopia Program, but was arrogant enough to not know we were setting him up for a trap.”

Farmer stepped forwards, staring at Silver Ace with an unbelievable amount of hate. “But why. Why do you need the Utopia Program?” His eyes narrowed even more. “And why are you working for Four Stars?”

Silver Ace flinched at the remark, his gaze honing in on Farmer. “Where did you hear that? Whomever told you, lied.”

“You’re lying,” Farmer scowled, taking a step forward. “I suppose you forgot about me after two hundred years then? Forgotten what I have seen.”

Silver Ace just continued to stare at him in confusion. “I’m afraid that I do not remember you, no. Though considering where you are, I’d assume you caused me a fair amount of trouble,” He took a step forwards, taking in the seven floating memory orbs. “Regardless, I will not take up any more of your time. There is much to do.”

Silver light flashed out, magical clamps pinning us to the walls as Silver Ace rushed forward, heading towards the memory orbs. I squirmed against my bindings, trying to break free. Across from me, I saw Twilight and Farmer trying to do the same.

Silver Ace didn’t wait, he tapped his magic talisman, all seven of the orbs being wrapped in his magic. A bolt of energy flashed through him, sending him staggering back a foot. Slowly, he straightened up, turning to look at me with glowing eyes. “I’m sorry, Amber. If I didn’t know you would try to stop me, I would let you live. Forgive me for what I need to do.”

A beam of silver energy lanced out from his talisman, slashing straight into my chest. I screamed, pain searing my front as the deadly beam corroded away at my hide. I could feel my body start dissolving, bits of flesh peeling from my form and crumbling away in clumps of ash.

Silver Ace stared at me sadly, his eyes cold, but with no lack of regret. “I wish I could believe you would do otherwise,” He said, giving me a sad, parting smile. “But I know you far too well for that.”

“NO!” I heard Twilight scream. I saw violet light burst out from where she had been suspended on the wall. Twilight's magic washed over us, and I felt what was left of my body shift and warp, swirling upwards in the tight grip of a teleportation spell.

A second later I crashed to the floor, half my body already rendered to ash. I glanced up, Making out the forms of both Twilight and Farmer standing beside me, the open door of the throne room only a foot away. Through the door, I saw Silver Ace turning towards us, a look of surprise across his features.

“Farmer, shut the door! Shut it now!” Twilight ordered frantically, rushing over and propping me up. Farmer complied, rushing over and slamming it shut. “Amber, are you alright?”

I groaned, my whole body feeling weirdly numb. I looked over at my right forehoof, finding that it had been completely turned to ash. I shook my head, feeling a little dizzy. “I don't… Silver Ace planned all of this. Far better than I could have expected. I don’t know how to stop him. Fuck, I don’t even know what he’s trying to do!”

The door to the throne room trembled, a powerful blast of Silver Ace’s magic basting a large hole in its centre. Farmer gave a loud grunt, bracing his back up against the door to keep it from flying open under the pressure.

Twilight placed a hoof on my chest, feeling my slowing heartbeat through my skin. “I don’t know either, but you have to find out. But you won’t be able to do that here. Not with Silver Ace in control of the Utopia Program.”

“But it won't matter!” I protested, the severity of everything suddenly catching up to me. “If Silver Ace controls Utopia, how am I supposed to stop him? He can just pull everyone into Utopia, or wipe their minds, or-”

I was cut off as Twilight put a hoof to my lips. “But he doesn’t control Utopia yet. He can’t gain access without taking control of my memory orb.”

I blinked in surprise. “Wait, he doesn’t have control of…” I trailed off as I saw Twilight slowly nodded. My eyes widened a little as I realized what she was saying. “He had to block all access to it to keep you from your power, didn’t he.”

Twilight gave a grim nod. “So long as I am here in the Utopia Program, he can’t take control. But you can’t stay here. You need to find a way to stop this. With your real friends.”

“But what about you and Farmer?” I could feel more and more panic flaring up inside me.

The door shook again, knocking Farmer to the ground, another large chunk of the door being blasted away. Farmer pulled himself back up, shoving his shoulder against the door. “We’ll be fine! I’ve been in the Utopia Program for a long time, I can make it a little while longer,” He grunted, trying his best to keep the door shut.

I looked from Farmer back to Twilight, my cheeks glistening with tears. “But… I don’t even have a body to go back to. It was destroyed when I entered utopia. If I leave here, I’ll just die!”

Twilight closed her eyes, her horn glowing as a strange calm seemed to pass over her. After a second, she opened her eyes again and looked down at me calmingly. “That's not fully true. We’ll meet again Amber. Goodbye.”

There was a blinding flash as the doors burst open, sending Farmer flying backwards, crashing into the wall behind us. Silver Ace strode out, his talisman already glowing as he prepared to blast us apart. Twilight looked up at him for a moment, before letting her horn glow, wrapping her magic around me.

I locked my gaze with Silver Ace, my Amber eyes hardening. “I’m going to be back, Silver Ace. This isn’t over.”

“It never is with you, is it?” He replied, a sad frown across his face. "I'll see you soon."

Then my vision flared with violet light as Twilight cast her spell, and I was sent swirling away into oblivion. Just before my vision fully faded to black, I once more saw the image of the dark horn pony, surrounded by the image of the Stable-Tec Logo. The shadow ponies glowing eyes turned to look at me, its pearl eyes digging deep into my soul.

“Kamari promised…” It hissed, its long tongue slithering between its jagged fangs. “In three days time, he will free me…”

“Kamari’s dead,” I shot back, my body dissolving into nothingness. “I killed him.”

The shadow pony just stared at me, before opening its jagged maw and grinning. “And yet nothing will change. What has been put into motion, cannot be undone.”

Then I was spiralling away, my mind consumed by the darkness around me as I was cast from Utopia.

I jolted awake, or at least I thought I did. I looked around, trying to make sense of my surroundings. It was still dark, a black mist so thick surrounding me that I could hardly see my hoof in front of my own face. I climbed back to my hooves, my eyes sweeping back and forth across the dark expanse.

“Where the hell?” I muttered, taking a small step forward. The floor felt strange, clearly solid, but paired with the strange sensation of floating. It felt oddly familiar, as if I had been here many times before, in a dream. But why was I here? Where even was here?

“Hello? Is anyone there?”

I spotted something in the gloom. A large shape, seemingly metal in texture, crouching over top of something. Uncertain, I drew closer, lighting up my horn as I tried to make out what it was.

Another light flickered out of the hunched over shape, illuminating a little bit of the darkness around it. I felt myself gasp, taking a quick step back as the sudden burst of firelight gave me a clear glimpse of what stood before me. I suddenly had a very good idea of where I was.

The monster before me pulled themselves up to their full height, a vile sneer etched across their metallic face. Their glassy eyes blinked to life, casting beams of ominous red light streaking through the thick darkness. They took an imposing step forward, their bladed tale sweeping across the mangled form of the cyber alicorn beneath them.

“Hello, Amber Aura,” Inferno chuckled, his huge flamers flickering with life at their ends. “I was wondering when you would be back.”

Footnote: Maximum level reached

Author's Note

Holy smokes. I feel like my authors notes are turning into broken records at this point, but sorry for the long wait between chapters yet again. Life has been crazy busy and obviously this was a really long chapter. Also sorry the chapter is so long, that's just becoming a running theme in this fic. Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed, and have a great day!

Fallout: Equestria belongs to the wonderful Kkat

Chapter XXXXI: The Calm Before the Storm

“You got lives in you, hard to kill. Storm, bullets, sand and wind, yet still you walk. For now.”

Enemies.

I'd faced off against lots of enemies over the last few months. Some had only been short scuffles, firefights with raiders, skirmishes with the Enclave. Others had been more impactful, my battle with Kamari below the Hollow Shades, My fight with Azar in the heart of the Institute, and most recently, my confrontation with Pureblood within the Utopia Program itself. Many of my foes had died at my hooves, though some still persisted, continuing to spread their violence across the wasteland. Iron Hock, The Las Pegasus Raiders, Pestilence and Silver Ace had so far managed to evade or one up me at every turn, always staying enough steps ahead that taking them out became a much harder task.

But there was one opponent, one foe that managed to find themself in both categories. An enemy that I had simultaneously managed to kill, yet still managed to endure long after. At one point in life, he had been a scourge, a monster of the wasteland. In death, he had taken on a much more sinister, more metaphorical, role in my mind. I had come to think of him as the wastelands horror incarnate. The embodiment of just how vile and twisted the wasteland could warp you.

And I think, in a strange way, he understood that too. But more than that, he had embraced it. He had decided that if he were to be a monster, he would be the monster. The epitome of rage, violence and hatred. The metal harbinger of death.

And isn’t that just like the wastelands evil? Insurmountable. To longlasting to die, even in death. The wasteland was full of so much bad, that no matter what good was done, cruelty always seemed to find a way to take hold. The wasteland had sunk its teeth deep into Equestria. No one act could ever cleanse it. It brings to mind an old saying, one that had been echoed across the wasteland since long before I had ever even crawled out of the dull depths of Stable 25. It’s that war, war never changes… Not fully.

It were these chilling thoughts that echoed through my mind as I stared upon the metal behemoth of fire and death. Inferno’s blood red eyes locked with mine, his expression seeming to suggest he could hear every single one of these thoughts as if I had spoken them aloud. His metal jaw twisted backwards into a sickening grin, unveiling rows of jagged, metal teeth. He took a step closer, the ends of his flamers flickering with warm, glowing light.

“Well, Amber Aura?” the psychotic cyber pony sneered, taking another slow step towards me through the darkness. I could see Crank’s broken form lying behind him, his body seemingly lifeless, though I did notice the smallest spark of life in his glass eyes. “How did it feel? To escape me for so long, only to once more find yourself back at my mercy?”

I took a stumbling step back, trying to get away from the looming cyber pony. The shrouded floor beneath me seemed to shift, dragging me closer to where Inferno stood instead. In this place, in the depths of my mind, he was in control.

“Admittedly, the week’s been hell,” I told him snarky, trying my best to keep the tremor of fear out of my voice. I didn’t do a very good job. “Though, I will confess, your lack of presence was a very pleasant treat.”

Inferno hissed, his vile, slug-like tongue visible between his jagged teeth. He lunged at me, his bladed tail sweeping at my throat. I ducked low, curling my fore hooves up against my chest as I did a quick roll across the floor, his tail flashing above my head. I rolled back up to my hooves, my muscles tense and my legs bent into a battle ready stance.

I could see a moment of surprise cross Inferno’s face as I dogged him. A second later, the surprise was replaced with anger. “What? Do you think you can fight me, Amber? Think you can best me? Escape my retribution?” the ends of his flamers burst to life, sending a searing jet of flame lancing out at me from across the dark void. I leapt to the side, only narrowly avoiding being turned into a pile of cinders. “You couldn’t beat me in a fair fight back in your Stable. You couldn’t beat me inside your own mind, even with Crank to protect you! What makes you think you can do so now?”

I dodged another blast of his flamers, only to look up too late as his tail flashed out and struck me across the face. I was sent tumbling back, blood dripping down my brow where the sharp blade had nicked me. Inferno pounced forwards, the bottoms of his hooves shooting off a burst of flame as he tried to crush my skull. He’s hoof hit empty air as I rolled sideways across the dark floor, pulling myself back up to my hooves.

“Because last time we fought, I was weak,” I berated him, my eyes burning into his. I had just gone through hell and back inside of the Utopia Program. I wasn’t going to let this monster drag me back into hell now that I was almost free. “But a lot has changed since you last faced me. I’m not letting you hurt me any more! Never again! Now get the fuck out of my head!”

Inferno bared his fangs. “Enough has changed that you think you have what it takes to beat me?” His voice oozed with sarcasm. He lunged forwards again, his powerful fore hooves slamming into my chest before I had time to react. He loomed over me, his hooves pinning me to the ground as he glared down at me with a vile sneer. “Remember what I told you, Amber Aura. The wasteland has beaten you! You lost your friends to Fillydelphia, your lover to your own folly, your mind to me, even your own body was taken at the hooves of the director,” He leaned in closer, black sludge dribbling from his jagged maw and dripping across my face. “At what point do you just give up and die? Accept your fate. Every hero falls. Your time has come.”

Despite the disgust of the sludgy drool on my face, I gave him a smug grin. “You haven’t been kept up to date with what’s been going on in the wasteland, have you?” My horn glowed and sent a bolt of energy flashing outwards, knocking Inferno a few steps back. He scowled as he saw me pull myself back up to my hooves before him defiantly. “I rescued my friends from Fillydelphia. I fixed my mistakes and saved Xayah. I defeated Pureblood and, considering that we’re probably inside my mind right now, my real mind, not the synthetic one Pureblood gave me, I got my body back,” I crouched down a little, narrowing my eyes at him. “As far as I can tell, there’s only one thing left on that list of yours for me to do, and that’s get my mind back from you. Pureblood couldn’t stop me, So what makes you think that you can?”

Inferno snorted, a burst of steam puffing from his metallic nostrils as he stomped one of his powerful fore hooves on the shrouded floor. “Irrelevant. So the wasteland hasn’t broken you yet… It will. It breaks every pony eventually. Heroes break the fastest. It ravaged me when I was only a foal. You won’t last much longer. Your story is very quickly coming to its close, Amber Aura. How much longer do you really think you can survive the wastelands grasp?” His metal jaw warped into a smile. “Allow me to help speed up the process.”

He took another step toward me, his flamers once more beginning to build up as he prepared to douse me in fire. I quickly pushed myself away from him, whipping to my side just in time to avoid the searing blast of fire. I felt the heat lick at my side, singeing the ends of my mane. I skidded across the floor, my hooves bumping up against Crank’s broken form.

“Oh yeah, there was one other thing that I did while I was gone,” I said simply, giving Inferno a smug grin. I turned and placed my hoof on Crank’s withers, leaning down so that my muzzle was closer to his cybernetically enhanced ears. “I saved Scarlet from the Institute.”

Inferno charged, his bladed tail whipping at my neck. I jumped back, forced to retreat from where I stood beside Crank. “No! Your mind belongs to me now!” Inferno howled, his huge flamers letting loose a massive burst of fire that spewed out across the darkness at me. I dropped to the floor, my hooves frantically batting at my mane to try and put out the small fires that began smouldering in my hair. “You will not take that from me! I survived death! I defeated the great Cyber Alicorn Crank! I took control of your mind! You belong to me! ME! And I will have my justice!”

I tried to dodge out of the way again, only for his tail to coil around my neck and send me crashing to the floor. The sharp blade swung up, positioning itself over my face, its sharp point inches from my eye. “You will not escape me by cowering behind your precious Crank again! No! You’re mine! And I’m going to make you burn for what you did!”

The darkness around us shifted. At first I thought it was the glowing firelight beginning to form at the ends of Inferno’s flamers, but then Inferno noticed it too, his head lifting up from me to look at the darkness around him. “What in the-”

Blam!

Blue light flared across the darkness, slamming into Inferno’s chest and sending him flying backwards. Inferno screamed, his metal chest getting violently ripped open as the blast shot through him. I felt every hair on my coat stand on end as the huge beam of Tesla energy rippled through the darkness.

I raised my head, making out the large, metal shaped stalking towards us through the gloom. Despite everything, I felt myself smile.

“Inferno,” Crank growled, his gaze locked on Inferno as the psychotic cyber pony slowly pulled himself back to his hooves, the gaping hole in his chest slowly pulling itself back together. Crank’s own body was slowly shifting back into place, his broken glass eyes reforming and the numerous holes that pitted his body patching themselves back up. There was a loud clunking sound as both of Crank’s fore legs popped back into place.

“No… NO!” Inferno howled, his glassy eyes wide with hate and fear. He scampered back up to his hooves, his flamers puffing small bursts of flame. “You’re supposed to be gone! You can’t do this! It’s not fair!”

Instead of responding, Crank launched himself forwards, his bladed wings pushing him through the air at lighting speed. His tail flashed out, slashing through Inferno’s neck and sending black blood spilling down Inferno’s front. Inferno gagged, his hooves clutching at his throat as his body melded the wound back together. No sooner had Inferno’s throat reformed, than Crank was upon him again, this time blowing out one of his legs with another deadly blast of his twin Tesla Canons.

Inferno screamed, staggering back. He glared up, fear prevalent in his eyes as Crank rounded on him again. His flamers burst with light, only for Crank to rush straight through the flames, his metal hide wreathed in fire and his hooves rearing up to bashing Inferno across the head, denting his face in. Inferno collapsed to the ground, his body laying prone before the mighty cyber alicorn.

Crank paused, his wings splayed out at his sides and his jagged horn glowing a blinding blue. His eyes narrowed at Inferno, his mouth twisting into a hateful scowl. “Go. Leave Amber in peace.”

Inferno hissed, staggering away and pulling himself up before Crank. Inferno's right fore hoof dangled from a wire, one of his glass eyes shattered. He looked up into Cranks eyes for a moment before letting his gaze shift to look at me. For a long moment we all stood there, our eyes locked on the other. Inferno’s eyes bore into mine, as if he were reading my very thoughts as his body painfully stitched itself back together. Then, after a long moment, Inferno grinned. “No… You think you’ve beaten me, but you’re wrong. I know what Jinx told you. I know where this is headed. What awaits you in your final hours…” he took a step back, his grin widening even more. “You think you’ve been through hell, Amber Aura? You have seen nothing compared to what is to come.”

Crank stomped his hoof down, the darkness of the void itself seeming to vibrate at the powerful thud. “Leave. Now!”

Inferno returned his gaze to Crank, his grin unbearable. “You think you’ll get to see your Scarlet again? Not in this life. You’re far too late for that.”

“All I care about is that she is safe,” Crank monotone back with a growl, his Tesla cannons growing brighter with each second. “Now go!”

Inferno took a step towards Crank, his hooves scratching at the dark floor. “Why should I? What are you going to do? Kill me? You know you can’t. None of us can die here. Had we, then I would have killed you at the first chance I got,” I took a step back at Inferno’s approach. Crank quickly put one of his bladed wings out, blocking Inferno from me. “And you would have killed me too. Face it Crank. You can’t protect her from me forever. Eventually, the past will repeat itself, and I’ll become stronger than you again. You can only delay the inevitable.”

Crank snorted. “Then I’ll give Amber as long as I can,” At those words, his cannons fired again, ramming into Inferno with a crackling energy and blasting him backwards, sending the psychotic cyber pony sprawling back into the shadows. Crank spun, turning to look at me with an intense look in his eyes. “Go, Amber. I’ll hold Inferno off as long as I can. Perhaps we will meet again, but for now, this is goodbye.”

My eyes widened. “What? What are you talking about?”

Crank turned, glaring into the darkness where Inferno’s body was slowly pulling itself back together. “I’m going to fight him. Hold him off for as long as I can. As long as I am fighting him, Inferno won’t be able to hurt you. If you see us again, it will mean that I’ve failed.”

I shook my head in disbelief. “There has to be something else we can do! I won't just leave you alone to fight him in here forever!”

“It doesn’t matter, Inferno is right. I’ll never see Scarlet again. Life has taken me too far away for that… All that matters now is that she stays safe,” He turned his eyes, looking back at me with half an eye. “You saved her from the Institute. That’s more than I could have ever asked of you. Just promise me you'll keep her safe. That she lives a happy life. Free of the wastelands evil.”

I nodded, taking a slow step back. “I-I promise… But I also promised that I would see you two together again. I still intend to stay true to that promise.”

Crank sighed, once more returning his gaze to Inferno as the flamer wielding cyber pony began to stalk back towards us through the darkness. “No Amber. That was always a hollow promise and you know it…” I looked down for a moment, and for a single second, I could have sworn I saw sorrow etch its way across his stoic features. When he raised his head again, his face was once more a mask of icy steel. “Go. Keep Scarlet safe and happy… Like I never could… Goodbye…”

Crank charged forwards, his hooves pummeling into Inferno and sending both of them rolling into the darkness beyond. The gloom around me shifted, sucking me up into its inky darkness and sweeping me away. I reached out, for the first time wishing I could stay in the dark void just a little longer, that I could help Crank, that I could save him from this fate. But it was all in vain. My mind swirled away, taking me away from the nightmare.

Then I felt cold. As if the blackness around me was made of a blanket of ice. I sunk deep into that freezing darkness, my senses dissolving into nothingness.

“Damn it! She’s not breathing! What’s happening!”

“Fuck! We need a doctor in here! Right now!”

“Come on Amber, you’re going to make it!”

“What if she doesn’t wake up… Can she even wake up!?”

“Don’t say that, she is going to be fine you foolish pony…”

“Amber's mind was transferred into a synth body… The probability of her mind still being active inside her old body is-”

“Star, just shut up! She’s going to be fine… she has to be fine!”

“Out of my way! Where’s my daughter! Where is- Damn it! I demand that you… Goddesses… no…”

“Hold her back!”

“That’s my daughter! Why won't she wake up! Tell me, right now!”

"I said hold her the fuck back!"

"Let go of me! Let go! I want to see my daughter!"

“Her mind is gone… Likely destroyed when she fell into the Utopia Program.”

“What about her old body!? Can we transfer her mind back in from the-”

“You saw what happened to her… she’s… goddesses, there was nothing but bones…”

“If Amber doesn’t wake, we’ll have to start without her. The whole of Manehattan cannot wait on the life of a single pony.”

“Just pull the plug. Save us all the trouble-”

“Back off, Dixie! Touch her and I’ll burn you myself! We aren’t killing her! She’ll make it… She will!”

“You want to start a war with the Disciples, Pyre? We have Jinx’s favour and you know it!”

“I said, back off. Now!”

"Oh my Goddesses... She's- She's pregnant!"

"Damn it! She isn't going to make it!"

"We need to put her on life support, right now!"

“Come on sis… please… you need to be okay...”

“Hey Amber… it’s me, Brisk… Your brother… I don’t know if you can hear me right now, but if you can… You can… Of course you can. You’re the toughest filly in the wasteland… You’ll wake up… We all know it, despite what those Institute scientists keep saying… You’ll wake up and somehow pull some crazy plan out of nowhere and save the day like always. You’re amazing like that…

“I just thought I’d try to keep you updated about everything that’s happening. A lot has been going on in a short amount of time and no pony is really sure what to do yet. We won, in the Institute anyway, synths are still a problem all over Manehattan, but we’ll get more into that when you wake up. But tension is still pretty high right now. The True Steels are causing a lot of trouble and Pyre is doing everything she can to keep the Las Pegasus raiders from tearing out each other's throats. I, uh… I don’t know if she’s going to be able to do it… I have faith in her, but… This new mare, Dixie, she’s in charge of the Disciples right now and… well, she seems to have it out for us…

“Xayah’s okay by the way. She made it through the fight. Mirra and Star too. Scarlet got hit pretty badly, but Star says she’ll recover after a little rest and some surgery. Just like you… Your mother is worried sick. Honestly, I was surprised how worried she was after everything you’d said about her, but she seems to really care about you. Threatened to kill all of us if you didn’t make it… Which you will. Of course you will…

“Then there’s- well… There’s a lot honestly. Jinx is gathering the leaders of all the factions around Manehattan to the Institute… We’re going to have a big meeting or whatever. They keep calling it a peace meeting, like they’re planning to agree to some kind of ceasefire, but we all know what’s really happening. We’re gearing up for a war right now. A big one. All of Manehattan is going to feel it I think… We’re just waiting on you… As soon as you’re up and okay and smiling again we’ll… Damn it, you don’t smile much anymore, do you… I wish you smiled more… I miss your smile. Xayah told me she misses it too… You had a nice smile, nicer than that sad look you always have nowadays… I don’t think there’s been anything harder for me these past few months more than watching the wasteland break you down…”

“Brisk…? Are you alright?”

“Huh wha- uh, yeah, I’m fine Xayah, Thanks. Just talking to Amber. Keeping her up to date. So she’ll know what’s happening when she wakes up… How long have you been standing there?”

“Not long. I did not hear what you were saying to her, worry not… She will get better, you know.”

“I know… she has to… She will. When has Amber ever let us down?”

“Exactly. Amber is too stubborn to die on us…”

“Yeah… d-did you need anything?”

“Pyre wants to see you in Glasswings office… The Outcasts are here.”

“Oh, uh… I don’t want to leave Amber alone.”

“I will watch over her. No pony will harm her while I am here, fret not you foolish pony.”

“O-okay… I’ll go help Pyre then… Come on Amber. Wake up. I believe in you…”

Slowly, my eyes drifted open, letting the clinical lights of the Institute flood my vision. I winced, desperately holding up a hoof to stop the lights from burning my eyes. I groaned, slowly sitting up, my head throbbing with a splitting headache and my whole body feeling weirdly blotted. Instinctively, I placed my free hoof over my stomach, feeling at a small, strange bulge there that I was not used to. I didn’t know how long I had been asleep, with my mind sunken into that strange darkness, but from the nasty cramp in my back, I could guess it had been a fair while.

“She’s waking up! Everypony! She’s- She’s waking up!” I heard a voice shout excitedly. They sounded distant and muffled, I couldn’t immediately recognize the voice, but I could still make the words out clearly. I could hear the sound of hooves frantically scampering across the floor as the ponies that had seen me assumable rushed to my side.

Blinking, I slowly pulled my hoof away, taking in the whole room. I was in some sort of medical ward, and after a few seconds of looking around, I realized it was the very same one I had broken into while trying to escape the Institute with Scarlet. There were a few other medical beds around me, each one containing the curled up bodies of ponies that had been severely wounded in the battle for the Institute.

I shifted my gaze again, turning my head to look up at the five ponies that now clustered around me, looking down at me with wide, gleeful eyes. Their forms appeared blurry at first, my hazy eyes unable to make out their silhouetted faces. I blinked away the haziness, my eyes squinting to try and make the ponies out.

When their faces finally made their way into my vision, I felt a little bit of relief flood into me. “H-hey,” I said slowly, looking up at Brisk, Xayah, Pyre, Mirra and Star as they all stood around me with excited but worried expressions. “What did I miss?”

As if my words had broken a dam, three of the five shapes lunged at me, wrapping me up in tight hugs. I gasped, falling back to the bed as Xayah, Brisk and Mirra all tackled into me. “Amber! You’re okay!” Mirra shrieked happily, curling up a little against my chest.

I grimaced, my whole body aching from the spine crushing hugs. “Y-yeah. When am I not.”

“We… We were not sure if you were going to wake up,” Xayah breathed thankfully, her hooves still wrapped tightly around me, her muzzle nuzzling at my neck. “Everypony said it was impossible.”

“It is impossible,” Star grunted from behind her, though she seemed to look relieved at my recovery herself.

“I knew you’d get better,” Brisk said flatly, pulling back from the hug a little to look me over. “You always do.”

I raised an eyebrow at all of them, suddenly feeling a little worried. “Wait… how long have I been out? You’re acting like it’s been months.”

“Your coma was only a few hours,” Pyre snorted, smirking at me from behind her power armoured visor. “But the probability of you waking up was… Well let's just say that I don’t think you’ve ever been this close to death.”

I grimaced. “Not even when I blew up the MAS Tower in the Hollow Shades?”

Pyre shook her head. “Not even then. Your synthetic body was completely destroyed… We were all a little unsettled when we blasted the Maneframe door open and found your charred skeleton curled up on the floor,” I could feel both Xayah and Brisk shiver against me at the memory.

I felt my heartbeat skip a beat in my chest at that statement. “So then… I’m guessing I’m currently in my normal body…” I glanced down at my hooves, craning my neck to try and see myself over Brisk and Xayah’s body as they continued to hug me. “I’m not a synth anymore.”

“You’re as pony as you were when you crawled your way out of Stable 25, sans a few mutations you picked up along the way probably," Star grunted, sitting down and crossing her fore hooves in front of her. "Not quite sure how though. Your mind transferring back to your original body after your synth body got destroyed is… well, it’s unheard of. You being alive right now is a scientific impossibility!”

There were a few more seconds of silence where no one spoke as Xayah, Brisk and Mirra continued to squeeze the life out of me, before Pyre let out a slightly forced sounding chuckle. “Alright, alright, let off of her. Amber could probably do with a full breath of air.”

Reluctantly, my friends released their crushing grip on me and pulled away, ironically enough, letting a good breath of air fill my lungs. I took a second to breathe in deep before looking back at them. The air in the institute was so much nicer than the wasteland, though it notably reeked of death and blood at the moment. “Alright, what did I miss?”

“Not so fast,” Star interrupted, leaning in close and staring at me with skeptical eyes. “What exactly do you remember? I don’t want us to need to explain everything, only to find out your last memory was when you got replaced with a synth and need to explain everything to you all fucking over again.”

I shook my head. “I think I remember everything. Rescuing you all from Filly, the Las Pegasus raiders, taking the fight to the Institute, the Utopia program…” I glanced up at them, my eyes looking back and forth to see if I had forgotten something. “Am I forgetting anything?”

“Only the stuff you were unconscious for,” Pyre nickered darkly. “Which, admittedly, is a lot of shit. The wasteland’s gone to hell in a hoofbasket while you’ve been out. So far we’ve been able to hold everypony together, but I’m not sure how much longer we can keep it up.”

“What exactly happened? In the Utopia Program, I mean?” Brisk butted in, his voice filled with curiosity. “When we found your body in the Institutes Maneframe, well… We thought you had died.”

I sat back against my pillow, looking up at the roof. Where did I even begin explaining what I had just been through? “Well… I suppose it all starts with a mare named Twilight Sparkle…”

Everypony was silent as I finished explaining what had happened within the Utopia Program. I didn’t blame them. I wouldn't have known what to say to a wild story like that myself. Finally, Star just gave a loud snort. “Well that explains it.”

Brisk looked over at her, his mouth hanging open slightly. “Explains it? I just feel more confused.”

“If what Amber says is true, and I’ve learned not to doubt Amber when she says crazy shit no pony would believe, The Utopia program can take minds out of ponies anywhere in the wasteland and bring them into Utopia. It’s only logical that Twilight could have just as easily sent Amber's mind back to her old body,” Star whistled. “Fuck Amber. I have never known anypony to evade death as much as you.”

“So you really met Twilight Sparkle then? As in ministry mare Twilight Sparkle?” Brisk said, his eyes raising in disbelief. “I mean, I didn’t listen much to history class back in school, but even I know who she is. She’s like, the most famous pony in Equestria, save for the princesses themselves.”

“I once heard there was a tribe of ponies up in the frozen north that worship Twilight Sparkle. They believe she became an alicorn princess after completing an ancient wizard's unfinished spell,” Xayah nodded factually.

Brisk pointed his hoof at her and gave an exaggerated nod. “My point exactly. You met that Twilight Sparkle?”

“Well, not that Twilight. She wasn’t an alicorn. And I only met a memory of her, but yes, Twilight as in Twilight Sparkle Twilight,” I said, nodding and rolling my eyes a little. “But I think the real Twilight died a long time ago… or when the Goddess exploded, or whatever. I admit I’m a little fuzzy on the details of all that.”

“And Farmer?” Mirra asked curiously from atop her perch on Pyre’s head. “Our mysterious friend? He was actually there? And you talked to him?”

I gave her a slow nod. “I… I think so. My memory was a little fractured at the time, so I didn’t really recognize him at first, but I’m pretty sure it was him. I wouldn’t have been able to even get to Pureblood without him. He spoke highly of you by the way.”

Mirra practically beamed at that. “We’re going to try and save him right? Him and Twilight?” to my confused look, the small changeling elaborated. “We can’t just leave them in the Utopia program. We've got to get them out of there somehow.”

I gave a slow nod. “Of course. I don’t know how yet, but I’m not going to let-” My eyes shot wide as a thought struck me and I bolted up out of bed. “Farmers body! What happened to it! I sent Scarlet to retrieve it along with my body! Do you have it! Is it-”

Pyre put one of her metal clad hooves to my mouth, shutting me up. “Calm down Amber. Your body has been on ice for a full week. You need to regain your strength,” she shifted her hoof so that it was over my chest and slowly pushed me back to the bed. “And no. We’re sorry Amber, but now it’s our turn to talk, and we’ve got bad news.”

I stilled, not wanting to miss a single word they said. “What… what happened?”

“Star, you were there. You want to tell her?” Pyre asked, turning her head slightly to look at the small pegasus.

Star grimaced. “Our attack on the Synth Creation wing didn’t go well. Pureblood had the whole place crawling with more Coursers than we had troops. I doubt we would have lasted very long if Iron Hock, Razor Blade and his Disciples hadn’t shown up. Razor Blade and Iron Hock stayed behind to buy us a few minutes to escape, but even they couldn’t last very long against that kind of fire power… Razor Blade didn't make it out. It was a bloody massacre in there…” Star paused, her hoof trailing down a long, new scar on her neck. After a second, she sighed. “Scarlet retrieved your body from the stasis pod. I tried to get her to leave with us when we made for the exit, but she insisted to go back for your frozen friend, Farmer, you called him. A Courser threw a pulse grenade at her… The stasis pod and Farmer inside were obliterated. Scarlet managed to jump clear, but… well, she hasn’t woken up yet either. I have full faith she’ll make it through though. I’ve seen weaker ponies survive worse.”

I nodded, my whole body suddenly feeling heavy. I had sent them on that death mission. I should have known that Pureblood would have had the Synth Creation wing heavily guarded. Scarlet, Farmer and Razor Blade were all on me.

“But Farmer is still okay, right?” Mirra asked, her face pale from worry. “He’s still alive inside the Utopia Program, right?”

I nodded. “Yeah. He should be. Just like I was still alive inside the program after burning myself up,” I glanced at all my friends as if waiting for them to give me confirmation, but no pony really knew for sure. My only solace was the fact that I had likely been talking to him when all of this was going on, logically implying that his mind was still fine.

“Can I see Scarlet?” I asked cautiously, looking up at them.

Star shook her head. “No. Not yet. Both of you need to stay in bed. At least for a few more hours. Don’t worry, she’ll be okay.”

I was having a very hard time not worrying. Especially after what I had just promised Crank. “Alright, so what else have I missed?” I asked, pushing the conversation along. I furrowed my eyebrows together, trying to remember details from what felt like a rapidly fading dream. “There was something about a… a peace meeting?” Where had I even heard that?

Brisk abruptly stood up a little straighter, his ears perking right up in interest. “So you heard me? When I was talking to you?”

I paused for a second, trying to remember. All I could really make out were strange, vague muffled sounds. “I think… maybe. I’m not sure if-” A certain memory played out in my mind and I froze. Slowly, I turned and gave Brisk a smile. It was a little forced, and he knew it too, but from the way his expression brightened, I figured he got the message. “Yeah. I did. Thank you.”

“Well, you heard right,” Pyre said, drawing my attention back to her. “We may have taken control of the Institute and defeated Pureblood, but right now we have another massive problem on our hooves. Nine massive problems actually. To take on the Institute, you brought almost every major faction into one location, and most of these factions don't exactly see eye to eye. The Institute has just become a powder keg full of the most powerful ponies in the Wasteland and right now, even one wrong move is going to make it explode.”

“The Institute remnants and the Friendship Express have been debating who should take control of the Institute. The Las Pegasus Raiders have been trying to stake their own claim on the place as well, but so far the scientist and the Friendship Express Operatives have been unwilling to negotiate,” Xayah told me, resting her body down and lying her head on the mattress of the bed. “I am surprised that they have not yet turned violent.”

“They will turn violent,” Pyre confirmed ominously. “The only thing keeping them in line is Jinx, but she’s got a whole other mountain of issues to deal with?”

I felt my gut twist. “What kind of issues?”

“Well the Las Pegasus Raiders for one,” Pyre growled. “With Razor Blade dead, his second in command, Dixie, has taken charge of the Disciples. Let’s just say I almost wish the role had gone to Viscera instead. Dixie is charming, has a smooth tongue that’ll convince you into doing pretty much anything, is cunning enough that no pony can get one up on her and she’s about as deadly as a Hellhound pumped up on Dash. Not to mention she’s one of the most blood thirsty ponies from here to Hoofington. With her causing trouble, Magazine trying to claim the Institute for the Operators and the Pack about ready to turn on me any chance they get, the Las Pegasus Raiders are currently readying themselves for a civil war. Jinx and I have our hooves full trying to keep them from starting an all out bloodbath.”

“Aren’t the Las Pegasus Raiders like, always a small push away from having a civil war?” I asked innocently, trying to figure out exactly what made now so much worse than it already was. "Isn't that in part how Jinx keeps them all in line?"

“Not like this,” Pyre grunted. “Two raider bosses getting replaced in the span of two days is already enough to cause some tension, but we just dropped all of them into Equestrias single most advanced technological facility in the centre of Manehattan. Worse, we’ve shown them just what Manehattan is like. A massive fortress of unclaimed potential. For almost two hundred years, Manehattan has been a no ponies land. Over the years, lots of factions have tried to take control of the city like Red Eye took Filly, but no pony has been successful. Manehattan’s always been just too damn big. But right now, pretty much every faction in the wastes is realizing that that’s about to change. Ponies are eyeing up chunks of the city, carving out territory, readying troops, securing battlements. Manehattan is currently preparing for the biggest battle it’s ever seen, and with the Enclave invasion still in full swing, things are going to get messy really fast.”

“And it’s not just the Las Pegasus Raiders,” Brisk scowled, glancing behind him at what appeared to be a True Steel scribe that lay unconscious on one of the other medical beds. “The True Steels are taking ground all over Manehattan. Already they’re making pushes out of their base Fort Strong in Fetlock and towards the centre of the city. The Steel Rangers and the Applejack Rangers have been trying to hold them off, but with the True Steels overwhelming firepower and both ranger factions needing to fend off the other at the same time, things aren’t going great.”

As if our mentioning of them had summoned them, the sliding door to the Institutes medical wing slid open, making way for two fully power armoured Steel rangers. They trotted in, marching across the room to stand over the body of a wounded True Steel knight that was resting on a medical bed a few feet away from us.

I narrowed my eyes at the two rangers, but they seemed to have little interest in me. “Wait, what hell are Steel Rangers doing here?” I asked, my voice just low enough that the rangers couldn’t hear me. I had dragged a lot of different ponies with me to fight Pureblood forces in the Institute, but the last time I checked, the Steel Rangers weren't one of them.

Pyre glanced over at the two rangers as well before shaking her head. “With Iron Hock and his True Steels causing the amount of trouble that they are, and Jinx and I doing our best to stop a blood bath from starting, we sent a few messengers out to inform the Steel Rangers and the Applejack Rangers about what we're planning. Both factions sent a small squad out to the Manehattan MWT Hub, each with a representative to represent them at the peace council.”

I raised my eyebrows at her in surprise. “Wait. Hold up! To stop an all out war that got caused by having too many factions that hate each other all in one place, you and Jinx thought it would be a good idea to bring in two more factions that also hate each other and everypony else? Am I missing something?”

“It’s less crazy than it sounds,” Brisk smirked. “I admittedly didn’t get it either at first, but not including the Steel Rangers and the Applejack Rangers would practically be a declaration of war in itself.”

Pyre nodded. “It doesn’t matter if this war council ends peacefully or in violence. No matter what happens after today, Manehattan is going to undergo massive changes, territory is going to get divided up and many ponies are going to walk away with less than they started with. If we were to start handing territory over to other factions without the knowledge of the Rangers, we would practically be holding a massive sign above our heads that reads ‘fuck you rangers, you aren’t our allies’, which trust me, we don’t want. Or, worse still, we might accidentally assign territory that one of the rangers groups already occupies to another faction. Not only would that piss off the faction we gave the territory to, but it would be considered an invasion to the Rangers which naturally would start a war in its own right. Best we weather the heat and deal with every faction at once, then risk accidentally starting a war with some really powerful ponies.”

I grumbled, my eyes looking over the two Steel Rangers as they spoke in low voices to the wounded True Steel. They seemed to be having some form of heated debate, though they kept their voices hushed enough that I couldn't make out anything they said. “Fuck, this war shit is complicated,” I groaned as I watched the two Steel Rangers finally storm off with a huff. Clearly they hadn’t gotten the response that they’d wanted for the True Steel. “I suddenly have a newfound respect for Jinx. It’s a tough balancing act to do.”

“One of the toughest,” Pyre grimaced. “One wrong move, or we make it look like we’re favouring one faction over the other, and thing will go to hell really fucking fast."

I raised an eyebrow, glancing around the pristine walls of the Institute. “And what about the synths? Now that we have control of the Institute and Pureblood is gone, who controls all the synths? I’d imagine that whichever faction has control over them is going to be getting a lot of heat from the other factions.”

All my friends cast nervous glances at each other at that question. I could feel a small spike of panic as they all went dead silent. Finally, Xayah let out a long sigh. “Right now, we do not know. Shortly after you entered the Utopia Program, the Synths began withdrawing. Accounts from some of the Applejack Rangers have told us that they have been gathering on the outskirts of settlements like Tenpony Tower and that a large group of them were seen appearing in the Ponypalooza Hotel.”

I felt more and more panic rising up inside me. I had seen first hoof many times now that whoever was in control of the Institute’s synths, was not to be ignored. “And we don’t know who’s controlling them? They’re just doing all of that on their own?!” That didn’t sound right. Could a whole army of synths just mobilize itself like that?

Star shrugged. “We thought Pureblood was controlling them at first, but when it became clear he was out of the picture, everypony started blaming each other. Freedom accuses Glasswing of taking control of the synths when he took over the Institute’s sprite bots system. Glasswing accuses Freedom of taking control of them in our raid on the Synth creation wing. Dixie is blaming Magazine and her Operators for the same thing. The only pony that doesn’t seem to care is Iron Hock, who just seems to be utilizing the chaos the synths are creating to grab more territory around Manehattan.”

“But we have control over the Institute! Shouldn’t we be able to override the synths ourselves?” I asked. “Or at the very least, it should be obvious who does have control over them.”

Brisk shook his head. “I mean, I don’t get how any of the science works, but from what your mom kept saying, the whole synth control system was redirected to another location shortly after you entered the Utopia Program. Whoever is controlling the synths somehow managed to override all of the Institutes security measures. Glasswing was able to decrypt the username of the pony that system controls were sent to, but whoever this pony was seemed to have used an alias, which brings us all back to square one.”

I cocked my head to the side. “An alias? What alias?”

Star gave a loud snort. “They called themself Leaden Excellent. Pretty stupid name, huh?”

I froze, exchanging a worried glance with Xayah, whose face had taken on a very similar one to that of my own. That was indeed an alias, but one that I very much recognized. I knew exactly who it belonged to. “Silver Ace,” I growled, once more trying to pull myself out of bed, only for Pyre to once more push me back down. “Silver Ace must have overridden the synth control as soon as Pureblood was inside the Utopie Program,” Suddenly, everything made sense. “He planned all of this, of course he would have been waiting to take control. He’s going to use the synths to keep all of us busy while he enacts his plans in the Utopia Program!”

“Which are what, exactly?” Pyre asked quizzically, her voice practically cutting me down. “I don’t remember you telling us what he was even trying to achieve.”

I paused, mostly because I didn’t have a solid answer for her. “He’s, uh…” I scowled, and shook my head. “Does it matter? All the bloodshed and death we’ve had to deal with was because of whatever crazy plan he has! He tried to kill me just because he said he knew I’d try to stop him if I wasn’t taken out of the picture! He was working with Kamari for crying out loud!”

“Okay, okay! I get it. Silver Ace is trouble. I wasn’t doubting you on that,” Pyre rebutled, waving a hoof at me to calm me down. “What I was more trying to ask, is what he is up to. It’s hard to stop a pony when we don’t know what their plan is.”

Again, I paused, trying to think that all through. “I… I don’t know. He was working with Four Star before the war, apparently. That might have something to do with it. But I can’t for the life of me figure out what.”

Xayah raised her eyebrows. “Zebra sympathizers? What did he have to do with them?”

I shook my head. “No clue. Maybe he was one? Maybe he was just using them? He seemed to be pretty adamant when I first met him that the war between ponies and zebras was still happening. Either way, that group seems to be at the centre of all of this.”

Star Breeze tapped a hoof to her chin. “Four Star? As in the old pre-war company that built that apartment building that my team and I set up shop in back when I was with the Enclave?”

I nodded. “Same one, yeah. They specialized in building the monorail that surrounds Manehattan, but they built that place as a front for secret meetings and stuff. Silver Ace had an apartment there.”

“Admittedly, we never bothered to go through any of the dusty old terminals lying around that building back when we were there. They didn’t really have any value to our Hellhound research. But maybe if that was where he had been staying back in the war, there might be a clue or something as to what he’s planning?” Star suggested.

“Silver Ace was the kind of pony that seemed to like covering his tracks though,” Brisk pointed out. “If there was anything there, there’s a good chance he destroyed it years ago.”

I felt a small jolt of excitement flash through me. “But maybe not. When we were first there, I found a terminal in his old apartment. The next time we visited I managed to hack it open and get a whole bunch of information on him. That was where I first learned about the Utopia Program to begin with. Silver Ace had to leave in a hurry because of the bombs back before the war, and then he spent the next two hundred years trapped inside Stable 101. Chances are, he never had a chance to go back and clear it out.”

“So there’s still a chance he left some sort of clue there for us!” Mirra chirped happily, fluttering her insectoid wings a little and doing a silly looking dance atop Pyre’s back.

Pyre glanced back at the small changeling with amusement before letting out a long sigh. “Now let's all just slow down for a second. We’re a long way away from the Four Star apartment building. The complete other side of Manehattan to be exact,” She interjected, turning her gaze to face all of us again. “And we still have big problems of our own here in the Institute. Need I remind you that we are standing at the brink of an all out civil war? Probably the biggest battle Equestria has ever seen since the great war itself? We can’t just go galloping across Manehattan to dig through the ruins of some old apartment building for some big secret that may or may not even exist.”

I frowned, trying to come up with a counter to that. Pyre was right, of course. She often was. If we ran off to go secret hunting right now, that would put the Las Pegasus raiders in complete control of war delegations. And if there was one group of ponies that I definitely did not trust being put in charge of preventing mass carnage, it was the Las Pegasus raiders.

“Alright, so we try to deal with this war first,” I agreed, feeling a little put out that for once I couldn’t just go tromping off to do my own thing. “We try to keep all the factions in line, at least until the larger threat is out of the way. Then, when things have calmed down, we’ll try and get out to the apartment building and see what we can find.”

“And what about the Utopia Program? What are we going to do about that?” Brisk asked, glancing behind him as if he could see the looming white spire of the Institute’s maneframe through the white, metal walls. “With Silver Ace in control of it, could that cause us issues? Like, might he try to erase our minds or something?”

I shook my head. “Not while Twilight is keeping him from taking full control. Unfortunately, I don’t know how long that gives us. A few days, a couple hours? Depends how clever Twilight and Farmer are.”

“Furthermore, there isn’t anything that we can do about the Utopia Program at the moment,” Pyre added with a nicker. “Magazine took a bunch of her Operators into the maneframe to try and take control of it a few hours ago. She liked the idea of a massive memory orb that could mind control the whole of Equestria. Imagine her face when she found all of the terminals inside the Maneframe completely fried and the Utopia Program surrounded by a massive force field.”

For the third time since waking up, my eyes shot wide and I shot straight up, trying to climb out of the bed as fast as possible. Once again, like the last two times before, Pyre pushed me back down. “What are you talking about? What force field?”

Pyre cocked her head to look down at me. “Oh? You didn’t know? I thought it was just how the Utopia Program usually was. The whole big, glowy ball of light thing has some sort of impenetrable force field around it. The A.A.S.S. does as well. Doesn’t matter what we try, missiles, grenades, Jinx’s magic. Nothing can get through. That and no pony seems to be able to control it through the maneframes control terminals either. All of the Maneframes power was redirected to another location somehow. Pretty much exactly like how the synth controls were,” She frowned, a realization passing over her. “And there’s no sign of Silver Ace’s body. We found your corpse in there, and the hollow shell that used to be Pureblood, but Silver Ace is nowhere to be found. If he’s in the Utopia Program, we have no clue where he’s hidden his body.”

I shiver raced through me at her words. “Project Redirect,” I breathed, my voice practically a whisper.

Xayah’s ears folded flat against her head. “The project Silver Ace was trying to access in the Steel Ranger’s base in Fillydelphia?”

I nodded. “It was a failsafe for the Utopia Program. When activated, it would allow Silver Ace or Pureblood to control the Utopia Program remotely for a select location outside of the Institute. Silver Ace must have known we were going to take control of the Institute. That’s where he must have teleported after we freed him in the synth interrogation wing. That’s where he’s hiding and controlling everything!”

Brisk frowned. “And… you know where this location is?”

I gulped, a small part of me not wanting to say the answer out loud. “If what Pureblood told me inside the Utopia Program is true, then yes…” I took a deep breath, my heart thumping heavily in my chest. “He’s in Stable 25.”

The next hour was the epitome of boring. After Pyre was called away to deal with some Las Pegasus raider issue that she didn’t think was important enough to bother me with, supposedly one of the Pack hellhounds had gone awol, Star Breeze had me go through a bunch of stretches that made my limbs feel like they were one fire.

“Your body has been cryogenically frozen for a full week,” She scowled at me when I complained about doing the stretches for the fifth time. I never had been the most physical pony in the world. “And being frozen for a fucking weak means you haven’t moved your body for a fucking weak. Do you know what that means?”

I slowly opened and closed my mouth. Admittedly, I had no clue what that implied. I was good at machines, not ponies, and that included pony biology. “Uhhh. That I have a really bad back cramp?”

Star groaned and slapped a hoof across her face. “It means you have muscle atrophy. Your body's lack of physical activity results in muscles wasting away. So if you ever want to be in fighting shape again, you’ll do the fucking stretches.”

What was there to do after that but follow her lead as she ran me through another collection of painful stretches. I sure as hell didn’t want my muscles wasting away. Assuming I had muscles to begin with. I wasn’t a strong pony either.

When we were finally finished, Star insisted that I needed to get a good rest before I was in any shape to move around more, and from how much my body ached, I believed her. That didn’t change the simple fact that I wasn't tired though. My body had been in a coma for a week, I had gotten plenty of rest.

And so it happened that I was wide awake when the door silently slid open and the sounds of metal clad hooves gently clopping across the floor filtered into my ears. I moved to shift my head to look at who had entered when a commanding voice whispered. “Make sure they’re all asleep?”

I knew that voice. Iron Hock.

Not knowing what he was here for, I shut my eyes, pretending to sleep as I listened to the sounds of a few True Steels trotting back and forth between the isles, checking to make sure none of the injured ponies were awake. One of the Rangers stopped in front of me, I could hear their muffled breath through their helmet's ventilator and I could see the lights through my eyelids shift as they waved a hoof in front of my face. A second later, they silently trotted away.

“Everypony is asleep,” I heard one of the True Steel report as they trotted back to stand before Iron Hock.

I cracked an eye open slightly, watching as Iron Hock trotted down the rows of medical beds, his gaze sweeping back and forth. “Good. Point me towards the pony.”

I felt myself internally wince. Damn it, please don’t be after me. Please don't be after me. I was in no position to fight a bunch of fully armoured True Steels right now. Instinctively, I shifted my hoof to grab my quad barrel shotgun, only to remember that Pureblood had snapped it in half.

Fuck, I had liked that gun too.

To my relief, they didn’t seem to have much interest in me, instead coming to a stop in front of the bed holding the wounded True Steel knight I had spotted earlier. A moment later, one of the True Steels moved forwards and shook him awake, while another clamped their hoof over their mouth. The True Steel jerked awake, thrashing as they found the metal hoof clamped tight over their mouth. They stilled as their eyes locked on Iron Hock looming above them.

“Silence,” Iron Hock breathed, his helmeted gaze leaning down to glare at the bed bound True Steel. “We don’t want to wake any of these ponies. Obey.”

The True Steel on the bed gave a slow nod, his eyes looking a little fearful. I didn’t blame him. Iron Hock might have been an arrogant, self absorbed fanatic, but he was also incredibly imposing. And after having fought him, I could confirm that he was a deadly combatant as well.

The True Steels pinning their wounded comrade down pulled away, releasing their grip on his muzzle to allow him to speak and get a good breath of air.

“What did you tell them?” Iron Hock ordered, his voice low and scathing.

The True Steel knight’s eyes widened, more fear creeping into them. “Wh- I don’t know what you’re talking ab-”

“Don’t lie to me soldier,” Iron Hock snarled, the back of his power armour silently opening up and a deadly looking energy blaster popping out to aim at the wounded True Steel. “I know the Steel Rangers came in here to talk to you. What did they ask? And what did you tell them?” His voice was filled with so much malice that even I wanted to crawl away and hide from the looming True Steel Elder.

“I-I didn’t tell them anything, h-honest,” The True Steel gasped. “They wanted to know about our battle plans for Manehattan. How we’ve been taking so much territory so fast.”

Iron Hock scowled, the deadly energy weapon on his back glowing brighter with every second. “How do I know you haven’t lied to me?” His voice practically oozed with disdain. I got the distinct impression that he had no interest in listening to the soldiers' response.

“I… I would never betray the True Steels. The Steel Rangers are weak,” The True Steel stammered pitifully. I noticed a very distinct lack of proof in his claim. After a long second, Iron Hock grunted, finally taking a step back. The True Steel seemed to let the muscles in his shoulder relax as Iron Hock's impressive bulk moved away from him. “Thank you. I promise, I would never betray you like that.”

Iron Hock turned, facing one of the True Steels beside him. “As we planned,” He said simply, his voice coming out in a low grunt. The True Steel he spoke to gave a curt nod before stepping towards the wounded soldier on the bed. His hoof flashed out, slashing a strange bone like knife across the soldier's throat. The soldier’s eyes shot wide, blood spraying from his slit open throat. His mouth twisted into a scream, but no sound came out as he drowned in his own blood.

I flinched, clamping a hoof over my mouth to stop from letting out a loud gasp. I don’t know what I had been expecting, but I hadn't imagined that Iron Hock would have one of his own soldiers executed like that so mercilessly. Then again, knowing Iron Hock, maybe I should have.

Once the wounded soldier finally stopped moving and lay still on their bed, blood seeping over their corpse and dripping onto the floor, the True Steels moved away. “Dispose of that weapon,” Iron Hock ordered. I snapped my eyes shut as I realized he was moving in my direction. “Let everypony think he was murdered by one of that flamer wielding raider bitches hellhounds.”

I grit my teeth. He was trying to frame Pyre Blaze and the Pack raiders? Iron Hock probably intended to use his now dead soldier as a martyr. I had no intention of letting that happen.

The quiet stomping of hooves slowed to a stop. I felt a shiver of fear pass over me as I realized that Iron Hock must have stopped at the end of my bed. I didn’t dare crack an eye open to check.

“Who would have thought, Stable Dweller, that when I met you all those days ago on the edge of Manehattan, that you would become what you have,” My heart hammered in my chest as I heard him speak, his voice coming out in a low rumble. Did he know I was awake? My leg muscles tensed, preparing to jump into action if he attacked. “I should have killed you when we first met. It certainly would have saved me a lot of trouble… How easy it would be for me to kill you now. Slit your throat while you sleep… Such a pathetic way for the great Amber Aura to die. I could so easily tear the Las Pegasus Raiders apart with you. Lash you apart with one of Dixie’s blades. The bitch Pyre would declare war on the Disciples on the spot…”

I bit down on my lip, trying everything I could to not jump from the bed and strangle him. But I didn’t dare. Something told me I’d lose that fight.

“But not yet,” Iron Hock sighed, taking a small step away from me. I could hear the magical energy weapon on his back retract back into his armour. “Your little coma is the only thing holding up the council, and I need time. Your time will come though, just as sure as the war for Manehattan.”

So news that I had woken up hadn't reached his ears yet. Perhaps my friends were keeping that bit of information close to their chests? If so, I'd have to thank them for it.

“The coast is clear, High Elder Iron Hock,” one of the True Steels informed him as they stepped up to us.

“Good. I want you to send a message to Fort Strong,” Iron Hock said bluntly. I let a long breath escape through my muzzle as I heard the sounds of him trotting away.

“Do you want us to launch an all out attack on the institute? With our weaponry we might be able to-”

Iron Hock stomped a hoof on the ground, silencing him. “No. The Las Pegasus raiders are too strong. With that stupid Sphinx leading them, any attack that we launch would be far to costly. Something needs to be done about that. I want you to get our ponies out in Fort Strong to get our weapon ready. Once we’re done here, Jinx needs to be taken care of.”

A moment later, I heard the door to the medical wing slide open and the sound of metal clad hooves trotting out. I waited there for a long moment, still pretending to be asleep. Finally, once I was sure they were gone, I pulled myself up, biting down hard on my tongue as my weary, atrophied muscles flared with pain. I slid to the floor, my legs trembling as I tried to pull myself across the room.

I stumbled over to the bed where the murdered True Steel lay, blood still rolling down his slashed open throat and dripping into a dark puddle on the floor beneath him. I place a hoof over his muzzle, not expecting to find any breath. A small sigh escaped my lips. He was very definitely dead.

“I’m sorry,” I muttered softly, shutting the slaughtered soldier's eyes with a shaky hoof. I wanted to say his name, but the truth was, I had no idea who they had been. “I just sat by and let them kill you… But I won’t let them get away with it. I promise,” I told him, pulling away and half limping, half crawling towards the medical centre's exit. I wasn’t going to let Iron Hock and his band of fanatics frame my friend for a murder they didn't commit.

I had almost reached the door when it slid open once again, making way this time for a slightly taller mare with a very similar coloured coat as myself. She had a large bag slung over her shoulder and she was dressed in her usual white lab coat. I paused, my eyes locking with hers.

“A-Amber…” my mother breathed, her eyes looking me over in shock. “You’re… awake?”

I gave a gulp and a nod, not having expected this sudden confrontation. “Th-” My voice caught in my throat and I quickly cleared it with a cough. “Iron Hock was just here. He killed a pony and made it look like one of the Pack did it.”

Mother looked past me, her eyes locking on the bloody form of the deceased True Steel soldier. “Damn…” She muttered, turning from me for a moment and calling out into the hallway. “We have a dead pony in here. We need a doctor, ASAP!”

A few Institute Scientists, along with a small hoofful of Las Pegasus Operators and a very overtired looking Star Breeze came rushing in a few seconds later, clearing up the blood and whisking the dead stallion away. Both Star and Mother convinced me to get back into my bed, assuring me that there were plenty of other ponies that could deal with the issue of the Ture Steels right now. Apparently, my recovery was more important to them than making sure Pyre didn’t get framed and starting a war.

“Pyre is a smart pony and knows what she’s doing,” Star assured me, stepping back to stand beside mother as she crossed her fore hooves together. “Now stay in bed before I need to strap you down.”

I nickered at that. “Don’t do that, Brisk’ll get jealous.”

Star raised an eyebrow at me. “What? Why the fuck would-” Her eyes shot wide. “What the ball-licking-fuck Amber!? You and Xayah are a thing and you and Brisk are like siblings! That’s just all kinds of wrong!”

I felt myself flush. “No, wait! That wasn’t what I-” I stopped myself when I realized that explaining this joke would probably involve telling Star about feelings Brisk had for her that he probably didn’t want me sharing. “Uhhh- Sorry. Bad joke.”

“I’ll say,” Star grunted, though I noticed that ironically, there seemed to be a little bit of jealousy in her own tone. “Now, on to what’s important. You saw Iron Hock and a few True Steels kill him with a Hellhound claw and claim they wanted to frame the Pack for it?”

I nodded. “Yes. What should we do?”

“You, nothing. I’ll get the information to Pyre. She’ll know more about how to handle this. Maybe she’ll even get Jinx involved. I don’t know,” Star grunted. She turned and pointed at Mother. “You keep an eye on her for a bit. I don’t want Amber trying to do any crazy heroics right now and my gut tells me she’s going to try.”

Mother nodded, sitting down beside my bed. “Don’t worry. I had no intention of not doing so.”

Star just huffed and flew out, leaving Mother and I alone in the medical centre save for the last of the Institute scientists that were still filtering out and the unconscious bodies of wounded ponies.

“That Star Breeze is quite the character,” Mother pointed out, clearly trying to lessen the tension between us. “Quite the mouth on her two. Haven’t heard a pony swear like she does in a long time.”

“She’s not that bad once you get to know her,” I countered with a sigh. “And you get used to the swearing.”

The two of us were silent for a long time, not really knowing what to say to each other. Finally, Mother broke the silence. “Your friends didn’t inform me you had woken up.”

“Admittedly, they don’t know you very well,” I responded harshly. I had no reason to be mad at her right now, and from what I had heard, she had been quite upset that I had been stuck in a coma. I let my gaze soften a little. “And they’re probably really busy. Keeping ponies from fighting each other and all that.”

Mothers own gaze softened. “Yes. Your friend… Pyre Blaze, was it? I remembered seeing her name on one of our synth recon lists…” She scratched the back of her head awkwardly, probably realizing that mentioning she had a hoof in having Pyre replaced by a synth wasn’t the best thing to bring up in my presence. “She’s got a lot of work cut out for her, and things aren’t looking good, but she’s doing a good job, all things considered.”

I forced a small smile. “She’s rough around the edges, but Pyre is one of the best ponies I know. Definitely one of the strongest.”

“I noticed Mirra is referring to her as her mom now,” Mother noted. She smiled at that, though there was a sadness in her eyes.

I let a smile of my own settle across my face. “Yeah. That was a long time coming. I’m glad to see the two of them finding happiness in each other. Mirra deserves that much and… Well, I think Pyre’s needed it for a long time too,” I paused when I saw Mothers face grow just a little sadder, her features almost becoming heavier. “You’re thinking about your role in taking Mirra’s mother away from her?”

Mother nodded. “I never thought, all those years ago when we swapped Insecta’s mind with my own, that I’d need to face consequences for those actions.”

“She’s not angry at you, if that helps,” I said slowly. “She was a little confused when we first found out of course, but she doesn’t hate you. She knows Insecta was a monster.”

“Was she?” Mother asked, looking up at me with wide, questioning eyes. I couldn’t tell if she was looking to me for an answer, or if the question was rhetorical. “Of the two of us, was Insecta really the monster? Because as far as I can tell, I was the one who stole someponies body without their consent and robbed a filly of her mother.”

“Robbed a filly of a mother who also happened to be a homicidal maniac that wanted to mind rape the whole of Equestria,” I pointed out. “Look, I’m not defending you. What you and Glasswing did to Insecta and Azar was wrong, but that doesn’t make Insecta any less of a monster.”

Mother was silent again for a moment, trying to figure out what to say. "I... I'll be honest, I don't really know how to bring this up, but..." She hesitated again, her eyes lowering to look at where my stomach lay below the thin, white blanket over my body. "When you were in your coma, we did a CT scan on you... and we found, well..." She looked up at me, her eyes looking for answers. "You're pregnant?"

I turned my head away, not really wanting to talk about that. Anything but that. "I... Yeah. Not a happy story."

I wasn't looking at her, but I could feel Mother practically wilt beside me. "Oh... I see. I'm... I'm sorry to hear that. Truly... I won't push the topic any further if you don't want me to."

My eyes were starting to feel awfully wet all of a sudden. I let out a shaky sigh, too afraid to look back at her. "It's Pureblood's child... Or rather it's his his... I don't fucking know... His vessel... He wanted to grow a living pony that he could put his mind into so he wouldn't be a brain bot forever..." I bit my lip, my memories flaring with the horrific images of being surgically sliced open, tubes being expertly slid beneath my flesh and into my stomach. "He place this... This fetus in me... Surgically... Just thinking about it makes me feel sick and wrong, I-"

I had to stop as an overwhelming sense of guilt flooded through me, choking the words in my throat.

Mother gave a shuddering breath, leaning forwards slightly. I turned my head a little, catching her extending one hoof out to me gently out of the corner of my eye, silently offering to give me a hug. After a moment, I gave her a slow nod. Not a second later, I felt her hooves wrap around me in a tight hug.

"I th-thought about killing myself when he did that," I moaned, a tear dripping from my face and soaking into her shoulder. To my surprise, I found tears leaking from her own eyes as well. "But not because I wanted to die... I... I wanted to hurt Pureblood for what he did to me! I wanted to kill the baby"

I felt mothers hoof slowly stroking my mane as I sobbed. "It's okay. Pureblood can't hurt you anymore... You're safe now," I didn't think that any pony was safe right now, not with Silver Ace still out there with his army of synths and every pony readying themselves for war, but I understood her sentiment.

"Am... Am I a bad pony?" I asked, my voice coming out more like a silent gasp. "For wanting that? For wanting to kill my baby simply out of spite?"

"No... No of course not," Mother soothed, her hoof pulling out a thick knot in my mane. "What Pureblood did to you was evil. You have nothing to feel sorry for."

"But it was more than just that!" I insisted, almost desperately trying to make her see what I was talking about. "I've killed so many ponies! And I keep doing it! Sometimes I forget just how many ponies I have killed!" I pulled away from her, looking down at my hooves. "It was so hard to kill ponies when I left the Sable, but now... It's getting too easy. I takes me wanting to kill an unborn foal just to realize that. What the fuck is wrong with me!?"

Mother looked me over, her eyes lingering on the tears that streaked my face. "I think your actions speak volumes about who you are as a pony, Amber. And I think you know deep down, just as well as I, that you are far more than just a good pony... You're one of the best."

I snivelled, whipping some of the tears from my face. I probably looked pretty gross right now, all snotty, cheeks damp. But I didn't care. "Thank... I still feel kinda shit, but... I don't know... Maybe that's just proof that I am a good pony after all."

"You know, the Institute is capable of preforming abortions, if you want," Mother said slowly. It wasn't a suggestion, she just seemed to be making me aware of the fact. "We usually need to keep a pretty tight population limit down here, so child control was crucial. It's part of the main reason the Institute began bioengineering Changeling reproduction."

I looked down at my stomach, rubbing my hoof slowly over the small bulge. It was hardly noticeable at this point, I doubted I would look noticeably pregnant for another two months at least. I felt something twitch under my hoof. A small kick perhaps? Unlikely, the foals legs likely hadn't formed yet, but the shift in movement made me smile anyway.

"No... I... I think I want to keep it," I looked up at Mother again, this time my eyes were free of tears. "You're right, Pureblood can't hurt me anymore. He's gone. His mind erased forever. This baby, I won't let it grow up to be what he wanted it to become. It's just proof that I won," I gave a sly looking smirk. "And who knows. Maybe I'll be a good mommy one day."

Mother smiled. "I think you'd be a great mommy."

I let my smirk grow a little. "And I bet you could probably be a pretty good old grandmare."

"I'm suddenly feeling remarkably older," Mother smirked back, though there was a flat tone to her voice. After a second longer of silence, Mother turned, reaching her hooves into her saddlebag. “I, uh… I brought you something by the way. A gift,” She pulled out some sort of gun from her bag and placed it on the bed before me. “I saw that your shotgun got destroyed. I thought that… Well, this gun isn’t as nice as your old one, and it’s probably a little different than you’re used to, it’s a prototype, but I thought that you might, er… that is to say I felt you should have it.”

I picked the weapon up gingerly in my hooves, looking it over. It appeared to be some kind of shotgun, though I had never seen one like it. It was made of some sort of pristine, white metal, clearly Institute in design, and had a singular barrel with a muzzle that looked half way between a combat shotgun and a magical energy rifle. It had a large drum magazine built into it that appeared to hold standard 12 gauge shotgun shells, but I could feel my confusion growing as I noticed a second slot of ammo on the side that I couldn’t recognize an ammo type for.

“What… exactly is it?” I asked, rolling it around a few more times in my hooves, trying my best to leave the more depressing thoughts of the previous conversation behind and properly appreciate the gift. “I’ve never seen a shotgun like it before.”

“I doubt you would have,” Mother said, her voice a mix of nervousness and excitement, her eyes looking me over more than the gun. “It was developed here in the Institute. It was intended to be wielded by Coursers, but the cost to manufacture the weapon was too high for mass production,” she pointed at the different ammo slots on the gun. “It fires typical shotgun shells, but it also uses Fusion Cores. When it fires, it melds the two ammo types together.”

I furrowed my brow. “Wait, so it’s a ballistic, magical energy weapon?”

Mother nodded, taking the shotgun from me and pulling a fusion core out of her saddle bag. She slotted the large yellow canister into the side of the gun before aiming the weapon at the wall. Her magic pulled at the trigger, firing the weapon, a bloom of red fire bursting from its muzzle as a spray of buckshot burst out, each individual pellet blazing with crimson light. The blast flared across the white wall, burning the surface black.

I looked over the weapon with wide, excited eyes. “Woah…” I muttered, taking the shotgun back from Mother. “That is… woah… That’s wild!”

“It’s extra effective against robots,” Mother noted. “It was designed to incapacity rouge synths easily, but a Sentry Bot or Sprite bot will go down with just a shot or two from this as well.”

“And you said it was less good than my last weapon?” I snickered, sticking my tongue out at her playfully. “This is pretty damn good.”

Mother smiled. “I recognized your weapon when you first came to the Institute, actually. The Institute had a few files on different weapons developed during the war. Braeburn’s Liberator. One of a kind, manufactured by Ironshod Firearms. Equipped with a targeting talisman, fire talisman and practically unbreakable… well, clearly breakable I suppose, but hard to break at the very least. This gun doesn’t have any fancy features like that, and while its magical energy bonus is nice, it’s not nearly as good at ignoring armour like most shotguns are, so taking out metal armour or Celestia forbid power armour is going to be a bitch.”

I rolled the weapon over in my hoof again. My eyes widened as I noticed that the red Institute insignia that had once adorned the side of the weapon had been burned off and replaced with a drawn on image of a red screwdriver in front of a Stable-Tec Logo.

“Did you draw this?” I asked, rotating the weapon around to show Mother and pointing to the symbol.

Mother smiled. “I, uh… Well I know that you aren’t a big fan of the Institute, so I… I burned it off and… well… I don’t know, maybe I’m just being silly, but I figured it looked dumb with a large burn mark on the side, so I drew on something I felt you might like,” She hesitated, her eyes looking me over nervously for a second. “It’s a- a picture of both of our cutie marks and I thought that-”

“I know what it is,” I said flatly, turning the weapon back around to look at the drawn on symbol again. “It’s pretty hard not to figure that out.”

Mother shuffled her hooves a little. “So… uh… do you like it… the weapon… not the symbol on it, but like, the symbol too I guess and-”

“The symbol is perfect,” I answered softly, cutting her rambling off and reaching out to give her a quick hug. “And the weapon is a nice bonus as well. Thank you.”

Mothers body stiffened at the hug, clearly not sure how to react. “I-I’m sorry. I’m terrible at his whole mom thing,” She chuckled, albeit very awkwardly. “I always thought running away to the Institute was the best thing for you… I still think it might have been… but I don’t really know anymore… I don’t even know where to begin.”

I smiled. “Being here for me and burning of a symbol that means a lot to you because you know I don’t like it is a pretty good start. It, uh… It says a lot I think.”

“Amber!” A charismatic voice drew my attention up from mother. I spotted the Changeling, Glasswing, trotting towards us, his usual glassy smile plastered across his face. “I am pleased to see you have woken up,” He soothed, his gnarled back hoof straightening his green sweater vest. “I was hoping to talk to you for a moment. Alone, if we may, Shining Aura.”

My mother pulled herself back to her hooves, instinctively following Glasswings commands as per usual. Or so I had thought. Instead, she planted her hooves in front of her firmly. “I am currently watching over Amber. Whatever you have to say to her, you can say to me as well.”

Both Glasswing and I stared at her with awed, slack jawed expressions. Mother had never, not once in the small amount of time I had known her, ever opposed one of Glasswings orders, or even suggested the Institute might not be perfect all the time. To see her suddenly do so… I think for a second I actually felt proud of one of my parents.

“Shining Aura, that was an order,” Glasswing responded sweetly, his smile cracking slightly, but never fading. “Please. This is important.”

Mother took a slow breath. “No.”

I couldn’t help but laugh a little at the sheer look of shock that crossed Glasswings face. His glassy smile faded and he just stood there lamely, mouth open, clearly at a loss for words, his translucent wings dangling limp at his sides. He glanced over at me pleadingly, as if trying to beg for me to have my mother stand down. That just made me laugh more.

“It’s okay mom,” I finally chuckled. “I won’t be going anywhere and Glasswing won’t hurt me. Not his style. Besides, even if he did hurt me, he would have the whole of the Las Pegasus Raiders to answer to.”

Glasswing looked a little pale at the idea, but quickly nodded. I really didn’t expect him to attack me anyway. Glasswing was never one for doing the dirty work himself. He was a snake, good at getting what he wanted through words. Violence wasn’t his style.

“Yes, thank you Amber,” Glasswing said, awkwardly straightening his sweater vest again and letting his charismatic smile settle back onto his face as his elytras once more folded up against his back. “I won’t be but a moment.”

Mother took a quick second to stare Glasswing down before stepping back. “I’ll be outside if either of you need me,” she turned, trotting away and out the door.

Slowly, I turned my head to face Glasswing. “Alright, what do you want?”

“She’s never done that before,” Glasswing breathed instead of answering, his eyes locked on the doorway Mother had just exited.

“And it probably won't be the last time,” I told him smugly. “Without the Institute, you have a lot less influence than you used to, I'm afraid.”

“Trust me, I know that all too well,” Glasswing sighed. He trotted over, sitting down next to me. “How are you feeling Amber? You must feel awful after everything you’ve been through.”

“I’ve had enough ponies ask me that already. Just jump to the point. You clearly want something,” I scowled. I was in no mood to deal with Glasswings psychological games at the moment, especially after having an emotional breakdown only moments before. But then again, when was I ever in the mood to deal with the two faced changeling.

Glasswing huffed. “Very well. I’m sure you’ve heard at this point that in a few hours, Jinx is going to be holding a peace meeting over the fate of Manehattan. Pretty much every faction in the Wasteland is going to be there. True Steels, Applejack Rangers, Steel Rangers, The Las Pegasus Raiders, The Friendship Express, The Institute of Course,” he tapped a hoof to his chest as he mentioned the Institute.

I nodded, following along. “Yes, I know who’s all going to be there. We’re trying to keep from starting an all out war, apparently. If you want to know more about it, I’m probably the last pony you want to ask. I was asleep for most of all this.”

Glasswing smirked. “Oh, I don’t need information. I am well aware of all the factions and their desires. Having changelings spies as your allies makes learning such things rather easy and trite,” He paused, glancing around to make sure no pony was listening in. “No, I'm here for something else. See, when the council starts, I want you to help me get reinstated as head of the Institute.”

I gave him a flat gare. “And why in Equestria would I do something like that? You asked this of me before, and I said no.”

“Actually, I believe you said you can try and cut some sort of the profit into the deal. Your words, I believe. And this was before civil war hung in the balance,” He let his fanged mouth twist into a sweet looking smile. “Imagine the repercussions of giving the Institute over to somepony that wasn’t its current acting head? It would be a clear demonstration of favoritism. Naturally it would be an act of war against the Institute remnants, and it would put into question other things as well. If you are picking favorites, ponies will start wondering if they are being screwed over,” He pulled himself back up to his hooves, quickly trotting away from me. “Food for thought, Amber. The choice is yours, of course. I understand that regardless of your choices, the Institute will likely be changed forever after today, but just make sure your choices are the right ones for the wasteland. We’re all walking on thin ice here. Step wisely…”

The next hour passed just as boringly as the first hour I had woken up had. Mother had returned to my side, which was nice, though we didn’t have much to talk about save what our lives had been like. Mother seemed happy to hear that my grades had been good back in school, which seemed ridiculous to me. I had spent the last chunk of my life fighting for survival and trying to stop the literal end of all pony kind. The last thing I had cared about recently were my school grades, but here I was telling my mom I had A’s all across the board. I didn’t bother telling her I had only gotten a high B in history.

What?! My specialty was machines, not pre-war Equestrian literature! I wasn’t even sure why they taught that in Stables!

Brisk had also stopped by for a few minutes to give me a few quick updates on what was going on. Apparently, according to Brisk anyway, they had cleared Pyre’s name, but there was not nearly enough evidence to accuse Iron Hock of the murder that I had witnessed only an hour before. He had covered his tracks far too carefully. The official story was that a rogue member of the Pack had killed the True Steel in their sleep, a story that most beloved as one of the Packs hellhounds had indeed gone missing a few hours ago and no pony could find them amongst the dead. The whole situation was apparently putting some bad heat on the Pack, but it was nothing Pyre didn’t seem to be able to deal with. The Pack's Hellhounds were notorious for going on rampages anyway, and most ponies were already aware that the Pack was becoming restless under Pyre’s leadership.

After having run out of things to talk about with my mother and having taken to staring up at the roof and counting the near blinding clinical lights that I saw up there, Xayah trotted into the medical ward, pushing along a wheelchair with her two cybernetic fore legs. I sat up as she approached, eyeing the wheel chair.

“I’m guessing that’s for me and it means the peace meeting is about to start?” I asked as Xayah pulled up next to me.

Xayah shook her head. “No, that is still an hour away, though the wheelchair is for you. Star suggested that we get you moving a bit. She does not recommend walking much yet, but she said I can push you around in this,” Her striped face flushed slightly. “Besides, I had no desire to turn down an opportunity to be with you.”

I gave a small nod and let Xayah and mother help me climb into the chair. I didn’t really need help, at this point I felt like I could walk fine, but I figured there wasn’t much point arguing with my friends. They were all trying to help me out the best they could, and I was not unopposed to getting better as fast as possible.

“I’ll leave you two alone,” Mother told us as Xayah began pushing me out of the medical centre. “I figure the Institute remnants are going to want my help trying to sort all of their stuff out.”

I gave her a nod and small smile. “Alright. I’ll see you around mom,” For the first time, I genuinely looked forward to seeing her again. "Thank you... For being there for me when I need it."

“You and your mother seem to be doing better,” Xayah noted as we walked down one of the many halls of the Institute. “I am glad to see that something good has come from you both reuniting.”

“Well, there’s still a little bit of awkwardness between us,” I sighed, leaning back in my chair a little. “I doubt there ever won’t be, not after what she did. But I can tell that she’s genuinely trying to do better, and I can appreciate that for what it is.”

Xayah nodded. “Hold onto your family. Even when you sometimes wish you could give up on them. One day they won't be there for you to give up on.”

I glanced back at her, making out the melancholy look across her pretty face. She was thinking of her own mother and daughter, killed at the hooves of raiders. I reached a hoof back and squeezed one of her cybernetic ones. She couldn’t have felt the touch, her hooves being made of metal and all, but she smiled at the thought. “I won’t. But that of course goes for you as well.”

Xayah smiled. It was slightly pained, but the smile was still genuine. “Thank you, and I am aware. I would still be imprisoned in Filly otherwise.”

I glanced back around, my eyes roaming over the white Institute walls. A group of Applejack rangers marched past us as we walked. I hadn’t seen them around yet, though I had already been made acutely aware of their presence in the Institute. Finally, I glanced back at Xayah. “Where are we going by the way?”

Xayah gave a small shrug. “I had no destination in mind. I figured you would enjoy anywhere that wasn’t that medical centre,” she paused, looking down at me with her emerald eyes. “Is there somewhere specific you want to go?”

I hesitated. There was a place actually, but it just felt strange to say it outloud. “I uh… I was hoping we could go to the Institute’s Maneframe.”

Xayah came to a slow stop. “Why in Equestria would you want to go there you foolish pony?” Her eyes narrowed slightly at me. “Star said no heroics.”

I waved my hooves frantically. “No no! Nothing heroic, I just…” I raised my bare fore hoof to show her. Getting my old body back meant I got my old Stable barding back, complete with the ballistic weave Coco Pommel had sewn into it during our stop at Tenpony tower. But it also means that I was without something as well. "I had only just gotten my pipbuck back. It’s still in there. On my, uh… synth's corpse…”

Xayah’s narrowed eyes softened, though her voice was still filled with trepidation. “You want to go see… your corpse?” At my nod, she sighed. “You are a strange pony, Amber Aura.”

“And you love me for it,” I nickered back. Xayah just smiled in response. Matching her grin, I pointed down the hallway dramatically with a hood. “Now onwards!”

“The Maneframe is the other way,” Xayah soothed with a small roll of her eyes as she spun the wheelchair around and began pushing me the opposite direction.

I blushed a little. “Oh… I knew that.”

“I do not like this place,” Xayah commented, looking around the dark interior of the Institutes Mark II Crusader Maneframe.

“Neither do I,” I admitted, my gaze locked on the massive pulsing sphere of light below me. True to Pyre’s words, the massive memory orb was surrounded by a glowing silver force field. “I have nothing but bad memories of this place,” If that wasn’t the understatement of the year. I’d lost two friends inside of this place. First Rubber Band, and then Fleur De Lis. Could I call Fleur a friend? Not to mention I'd also lost my shotgun here, though I admittedly cared less about that than I did the first two things.

“We found your body at the bottom of the Maneframe,” Xayah told me, slowly pushing me down a ramp along the steep, metal walls that lead down to the bottom. I felt the uncomfortable heat of the Utopia Program washing over me as we passed, but whatever strange forcefield Silver Ace had placed around it seemed to be keeping most of the intense heat in. Enough that it wasn’t just burning our flesh from our bones on the spot anyway. “We were all very… discouraged… when we found your body like that.”

A few seconds later, Xayah pushed me out onto the bottom most level of the maneframe. I glanced up, making out the glowing Utopia Program hovering above me. It was almost beautiful to look at. Godly even. I might have liked to look at it more had its existence not made my life a living hell.

Stealing myself, I glanced down at the floor where a small, charred skeleton lay curled up. The bones were blackened and burned and what little bits of hide and flesh remained looked more like overcooked steak than pony flesh. Their broken jaw was twisted open in an eternal scream, their left and right fore hooves shattered from the impact of hitting the ground. Their horn, broken as well, lay a few feet away, its tip rendered completely to ash.

“Yikes,” I said, my voice trying to sound sarcastic to give the grim scene some levity. I tried to force a laugh. It sounded more like a chicken choking. “I confess to having never thought I’d get to see myself like this.”

“Just get your pipbuck and let's get out of here,” Xayah said hastily, her voice filled with sadness. “I do not like seeing your body like this.”

Getting out of my wheelchair for a second, I trotted over to where my synth body had fallen and looked it over. I reached down, pulling a small piece of cybernetics out of my charred skull. I looked it over; some sort of synth component by the looks of it.

I slid the magically still intact pipbuck off of my synth's skeleton and clamped it back over my own hoof, looking it over. When Stable-Ten made stuff, they clearly made it to last. It felt kinda good, finally having my body, stable barding and pipbuck all back together. It was as if I was finally whole again for the first time in a week.

“Alright, let us get out of here,” Xayah pleaded, her eyes averted to not look at my corpse on the floor. “I do not know how much longer I can bear this.”

I nodded, turning to return to my wheelchair, when something else caught the corner of my eye. I turned, my amber gaze fixating on the small pulsing sphere that had landed in the corner of the room. I limped over to it, picking the device up slowly in my hooves.

“Is that…?” Xayah started to ask, but she cut herself off as she stared at the orb. We both knew exactly what it was. There was no mistaking it.

“Yup. Balefire bomb,” I said grimly, tucking it carefully into my saddlebags. I knew it wouldn’t explode that easily, but one doesn’t just toss a city leveling bomb in their bag without being a little cautious. “I was going to use it to take out Pureblood. Maybe my stupidest plan yet.”

“You hadn’t been planning on coming back then, were you?” Xayah asked, her voice barely a whisper. Her gaze couldn't meet my eyes.

I glanced at her for a second before looking down at the withered pile of bones on the floor that had once upon a time been me. “Does it look like I had any intention of coming back?” Neither of us said anything else as I climbed back into the wheelchair and allowed Xayah to begin pushing me back out into the Institute.

“It’s fine, really!” The sound of the voice reached my ears even before Xayah pushed me into the room.

I felt a smile cross my face as we entered into the synth creation wing, where we found Scarlet standing on a small pedestal in the middle of the room before Glasswing and a couple other of his Institute scientists. I smiled because Scarlet was alive, awake and standing up on her own. I was not, however, smiling at the state she was in.

The hide on Scarlet’s left side had been completely burned off by the deadly blast of the pulse grenade she had been hit by, leaving her burned flesh exposed. Her left eye, bloodshot and bruised, seemed to be set into a broken socket and her left fore hoof, which she held raised to keep from applying pressure to it, was clearly broken.

“Are you certain? It would give you quite the tactical advantage,” Glasswing smiled at her.

Scarlet shook her head at him. “Nono. No Cyber alicorn. I have no desire to be a cyborg. I just want to be myself. Normal old pretty me.”

Glasswing nodded. “If that’s what you want. But you would be more… synthetic alicorn. No cybernetics invo-”

“No!” Scarlet snapped. “I don’t like alicorns! Synthetic or real!... And Cyber alicorns are…” Scarlet paused, looked up and finally spotted Xayah and I in the doorway. She gave me a warm smile, clearly just as glad to see me awake as I was glad to see her. “There’s a lot of baggage attached to cyber alicorns.”

Glasswing nodded, passing the clipboard he'd been writing on over to the scientist beside him. “You heard her. Exactly as she wants. No deviation,” the scientist nodded in response, rushing off to a control panel beside him.

“What exactly is happening here?” I asked as Xayah pushed me forwards to greet them.

Glasswing turned, noticing me for the first time. “Ah, Amber. I was not expecting you out of bed so early.”

“I’m pretty much at full health already,” I admitted, standing up from my wheelchair just to prove to everypony that I could before I sat back down. “My friends just want to make sure I don't over exert myself.”

“Glasswing has agreed to repair my body,” Scarlet told me, stepping down from the podium and limping up to me. She ran a hoof over her burned off hide, wincing a little at the pain. “Perks to being a synth I suppose. All my parts can be replaced while I’m in the Institute.”

“Your friend Scarlet is lucky,” Glasswing confessed. “Had she had this injury inflicted upon her anywhere else in the wasteland, it would have been permanent. Here, though? She will be good as new by the end of the hour.”

I raised an eyebrow at Glasswing suspiciously. “I don’t suppose this is an attempt to try and sway me to help you regain the Institute, is it?”

Glasswing looked almost offended. “I would hope you don't think so low of me that you would assume every kind act of mine has political implications,” At my silence and arched eyebrow he gave a small cough and adjusted his collar. “Alright, it was your mother who told me to do this. As soon as you were no longer under her care, she came to me and insisted I aid in Scarlet's recovery. I had no objections to doing so,” he let a small smile rest across his fanged muzzle. “That said, I do hope the demonstration can prove to you just how valuable the Institute can be.”

I gave a small snort, though I really did appreciate what he was doing. I made a mental note to thank Mother for doing this the next time I saw her. Furthermore, Glasswing had a point. The ability to grow ponies new synthetic limbs or organs at will was a giddy inducing idea, and no doubt would be a huge breakthrough for modern medicine.

“Glasswing, we need you over here,” One of the scientists spoke up, calling Glasswing over. The charismatic changeling gave us all one last sheepish grin before excusing himself, leaving us alone with Scarlet.

I stood up from my wheelchair, gesturing for Scarlet to take the seat instead. Xayah looked about to protest, but it was very clear that Scarlet was in much more dire need of it than I was.

“Brisk and Mirra came by and told me everything that happened,” Scarlet started, slowly sinking herself down into the seat. It wasn’t the most comfortable chair in the world, but from the expression of bliss that crossed her face, I guessed that it must have felt leagues better than standing with her broken leg. “You really met Twilight Sparkle? In that Utopia Program?” I nodded, not sure why she seemed to find that important. A second later, she gave me an answer as she pulled a small, purple figurine out to show me. “I found this during the battle for the Institute. It was sitting in an old office collecting dust. I figured that since you actually met her, you might want it.”

I slowly took the small figurine into my hooves, looking it over. It was indeed a small statuette of Twilight Sparkle, incredibly similar to the one of Rarity I had found and given to Coco Pommel so long ago. Just holding the thing made me feel, I don’t know… Smarter, somehow. I rolled it over, reading the inscription that had been emblazoned on its base. ‘Be Smart’. Fitting.

I gave a small smile and hugged the statuette closely to my chest. “Thank you. I love it,” I really did, too. Just having the small figurine in my possession made me feel closer to Twilight somehow. I pulled it away from my chest and looked it over again. “This was just sitting on a random desk?”

Scarlet shrugged. “I don’t know if it was random. The office might have belonged to anypony before the war. There was a nametag on the desk though, I think. I didn’t really get a great look during all the chaos… Scootaloo… it said, maybe.”

I smiled again. Of course it had belonged to Scootaloo. Who else would have been in possession of it but the Stable-Tec founder that had sent me on this wild quest to begin with two hundred years ago?

“I also heard that… that you managed to get your mind back into your old body,” Scarlet asked, looking my body over curiously.

I gave a small smile. “Yeah. Thanks for getting it back. I heard the fight to get it was pretty brutal. I really appreciate that you went back to get Farmer’s body, even if it didn't work out. I’m sorry you got hurt so badly because of me.”

But thanks was not the reason Scarlet had brought it up. “And is… Is Crank in there with you?” She asked, making a small stab of guilt pass through me for not bringing that up with her sooner. The last thing she had heard of Crank, he had been beaten by Inferno, practically on the brink of death. Fear and anxiety must have been eating away at her from the inside this whole time. “Or… is he still… Is Inferno…”

“Yes, Crank is with me… And Inferno has been dealt with for the time being,” I said, forcing a small smile.

Scarlet face light up a little and she tapped her hooves together sheepishly. “I don’t… that is to say… I don’t suppose there’s any way I could talk to him…”

With a heavy heart, I had to shake my head. “Crank is managing to hold back Inferno for now, but he told me I likely wouldn’t see him again, not while Inferno is still inside my mind… I’m sorry…” At Scarlet’s disheartened expression, I reached out a hoof and lifted her chin up a little. “But I’m not going back on my promise to you both. I’ll find a way to get you back together. I swear. I owe you both that much.”

“You don’t owe us anything,” Scarlet said slowly, her expression still downcast. Before I could respond, she pointed to my pipbuck, clearly wanting to change the subject. “I see you got your pipbuck back as well?”

I glanced down, raising my hoof to look my pipbuck over. “I, uh… Yeah. It feels good to finally have it back. I don’t know how you ponies all cope without this thing. It makes life so much easier!”

“So you… went and saw your body too then?” She asked hesitantly, her eyes looking me up and down as if expecting me to suddenly collapse.

Xayah flinched at the question. “We did. I did not like seeing it again…”

“And you’re holding up okay?” Scarlet asked, giving me a worried look. “I know that finding out you died can be… uncomfortable…”

I gave her a small nod. “I mean, yeah. It’s not like it was my actual body. Just a synth, right?”

Scarlet gave me a sad look. “Yeah. Just a synth,” she shook her head quickly, that train of thought seeming to make her uncomfortable. “Did you ever figure out what Silver Ace wanted your Pipbuck for?”

I shook my head, clicking the small pipbuck screen on. “No clue. He said there was some important asset on it that he needed, but he never said what.”

“Is there any way to check what files he might have taken off?” Scarlet asked, raising her eyebrow at me. “I don’t really know much about Pipbucks so, I wouldn’t know, but Crank taught me a bit about terminals back in the day. There might be some sort of file recovery…”

Xayah smirked. “If there was a pony that would know how to work with Stable-Tec tech, it is Amber.”

My eyebrows knit together as I thought about that. “There wouldn’t be any sort of data recovery. If he removed the file, it would be gone, but it might have saved the file name in its metadata at the very least.”

Curiously, I tapped a few buttons on the pipbuck, pulling up the device's metadata. I scrolled through the lines of code, my eyes sweeping over numerous file names I had downloaded over the years. At last I found one file that had recently been redirected to another device. I felt my whole body go cold.

“Amber? What is wrong?” Xayah asked, clearly noticing the worry that crossed my face.

I let my pipbuck leg drop back to the ground, my eyes looking up at her with concern. “I think we might have a really, really big problem.”

Everything had happened so fast back in the Hollow Shades that I had completely forgotten the file was even on my pipbuck to begin with. I don’t think I had ever really realized what downloading it onto my pipbuck had even implied. The sudden realization that I had been carrying it around for all these weeks made my legs want to collapse out from under me. All this time, and I had been carrying around the single biggest weapon in the wasteland on my hoof like it was nothing.

The file Silver Ace had taken was titled simply, ‘Luna Prime: Activation’.

I lay with my back pressed up against the hard surface of my bed, my eyes fixated on the clinical lights embedded into the ceiling of the Institutes medical centre above me. My thoughts raced through my head faster than I had any hope of keeping up with, making me feel more overwhelmed than I already was. There was so much I didn't know. What was Silver Ace planning? Why did he need Luna Prime? What did it have to do with Kamari? Was there some answer to my questions hidden in the depths of the Four Star apartment building? I wanted to scream. So much to solve and not enough time to do any of it, and that was only if we could stop a full on war from breaking out.

Yeah, right. No pressure.

I groaned, reaching up as far as I could into the air with all four of my hooves, feeling the tense muscles in my legs stretch to try and accommodate my movement. I was already feeling about back to full health, but my hooves and joints all still felt sore. I hoped that would go away soon. I wasn't sure how much longer I was going to be able to just lie around in bed and regain my strength. Something told me that that time was rapidly drawing to a close. Something big was going to happen, and it was going to happen soon. I could feel it.

Besides, I was sick of this hospital bed. I wanted to get back out there, rejoin the fray. Maybe that was a bit of Brisk rubbing off on me. Despite everything, that thought made me smile a little.

The sound of metal clad hooves against the floor drew my attention up to the doorway, my eyes needing to adjust for a second after having stared into the bright light on the ceiling for so long. When my blurring vision finally managed to focus, I saw Pyre standing in the doorway, Mirra sitting happily atop her back. Her helmet was currently off, giving me the first good look at her scared face and tired eyes in a long time. The dark bags that had formed under Pyres eyes were a testament to her stress and lack of sleep.

"You ready?" She asked me, not bothering to pass the doors threshold.

I slowly pulled myself out of bed, taking a second to steady myself on my hooves as all the blood rushed to my head. "Ready for what?"

Pyre gave me a grim look. "The war council. Everypony is ready. All we need now is you..."

I could feel my heart thump heavily in my chest at the thought. Had the time really come? I gave a slow nod, trotting over to stand beside her. "I, uh... Yeah. I'm as ready as I'll ever be."

Pyre gave me a small smirk before raising up her power armour helmet and slipping it back over her head, obscuring her face once more. She turned slightly to look at me one last time, her red tinted visor seemingly glowing in the light of the Institute. "Good. Then come on. We've got a lot of work to do."

Footnote: Maximum level reached

Author's Note

Sorry about how much exposition was in this chapter; It had to happen at some point. Big things are coming, it's only a matter of time...

Fallout: Equestrian belongs to Kkat

I hope you all have a great day!

Chapter XXXXIII: Combat and Contention

“But the scars left by the war have not yet healed. And the Earth has not forgotten.”

Allies.

Since I had first emerged from the depths of Stable 25, I had made a lot of enemies, that much was obvious, but I had made a lot of allies as well. There were ponies that I had met along my journey, lots of them, that would fight by my side until the bitter end. Far more than I had ever even realized. It wasn’t until this very moment that I realized just how many allies I had actually made.

I was standing atop a large outcrop of metal and slag, looking down at the street below me as all my allies mobilized and began branching apart in synchronized groups, marching deeper into the ruins of Manehattan. Raiders, Steel rangers, Applejack Rangers, Friendship Express Operatives and Institute scientists, all marching in synchronised formations as a singular, powerful unit. The sound of stomping hooves and war drums filled the streets, my heart thundering in beat with each pound.

A small fleet of war wagons pulled by a squadron of Dashite City guards flashed above my head, their intense speed whipping at my mane. The two wagons on either sides broke off from the group, diving down and swooping off towards the looming Enclave airships in the distance.

The largest of the marching groups below, a massive coalition of Las pegasus raiders and Steel Rangers, strode boldly down the central street, their weapons upturned as they strode towards the battle at the heart of the city, head bound for the huge, looming tower of the Celestial States building. I saw Pyre at the front leading the charge, Mirra sitting atop her back as they trotted alongside the immense form of Jinx and the other two Las Pegasus leaders. I prayed to the goddesses that they would make it out okay. Pyre had insisted that I take Mirra with me, to keep her out of the fray they were sure to face in the centre of the city as long as possible, but Mirra had been adamant that she went with her. They had been apart for too long after Pyre learned she was a synth for them to be apart again.

I wondered, not for the first time in my life, if I would ever see any of the ponies marching into battle again, or if they would die violently on the battlefield, for many of them, me never having known their name.

The thought made me sad.

In the distance, I could see burning pyres of fire and smoke rising above the crumbling Manehattan ruins, filling the already overcast sky into a shroud of black smoke. Every few moments was punctuated with a distant rumble of explosions and machine gun fire as Iron Hock’s True Steel army lay siege to the sprawling city.

But Iron Hock’s forces were not alone. Blood curdling screams were rising from the depths of Manehattan’s concrete labyrinth, clear signs that Silver Ace’s synth invasion was in full swing as they slaughtered anypony that stood in their way. I saw blips of blue light flickering atop the ruined remains of a skyscraper not all that far away, likely synth scouts reporting our movements to their master. No doubt that signalled the beginning of the attack on Tenpony Tower soon.

I lifted my gaze up ever further, my eyes catching the dark shapes of dozens of Enclave Raptors as they scoured the city, raining beams of fuchsia death upon the ponies of Manehattan. The massive form of the Enclave Thunderhead loomed over the towering structure of the Celestial States building, casting the streets below into shadow as it practically blotted out the overcast sun. Swarms of armoured pegasi swirled around the huge ship, their saddle mounted novasurge rifles blasting at enemies I couldn’t see from this distance.

I could feel my heart sinking. So much death, and the real fight had hardly even begun. I could only imagine the destruction Manehattan and Fillydelphia were going to be facing in the coming hours.

Turning away from the army below, I turned my gaze to the large group of ponies that had gathered in the building behind me. Brisk, Xayah, Star and Scarlet stood at the ready, their expressions stern as they awaited orders. Naturally, Pyre and Mirra were absent. Behind them stood a larger group, this one comprised of Applejack Rangers, Friendship Express Operatives and what remained of the Institute scientists. Glasswing and Freedom stood as far apart from each other as they possibly could, while Mother and Blueberry stood closer together in the centre of the group.

I looked at all of them for a long moment, trying my best to filter the sounds of stomping hooves out of my ears as all the ponies below marched towards their deaths.

Taking a deep breath, I addressed all of them. “Alright. We’ve got things to do…”

“How long do you think they all have?” Sprocket spoke up, drawing my attention over to her as we trod our way through the empty streets of Manehattan. I had been so busy over the last few days that I hadn’t really had a moment to talk to the eccentric Friendship Express Operative, though I had seen her fighting in the Institute and standing behind Freedom in the war meeting.

We were walking along the crumbling remains of one of Manehattan’s huge monorails, one of the city's cracked streets far below us, our direction bound for the towering structure of Tenpony Tower, when Sprocket had finally spoken up. Crusader Blueberry had taken the lead of the group, both Freedom and Glasswing only a few paces behind him. My friends had scattered themselves amongst the group, looking out at the wasteland around us sadly.

The farther through Manehattan we got, the more death and carnage we seemed to come across. Once proud standing skyscrapers now lay in crumbling ruins, blasted apart by True Steel weaponry or the deadly beams of low flying Enclave Raptors. Small fires smouldered along the streets and mounds of charred bodies had begun to pile up. Mostly ponies, but I spotted a few griffons amongst the dead as well. To my surprise, even a changeling body lay amongst the corpses, their head blown apart and their blood now soaking the cracked street.

I pulled my gaze away from the corpses and returned it to Sprocket. “I, uh… Who has left?” I asked, a little thrown off by the wide eyed ponies sudden question. I felt a little stupid not understanding right away, but my mind was a little preoccupied with the staggering amount of death around me. Not to mention the creeping feeling that all of it was my fault.

“The ponies of Tenpony?” Sprocket elaborated quickly. “Now that we’ve made a move towards the Celestial States Building, how long till this Silver Ace sends his synths in to attack the tower?”

I grimaced. “Not long, probably. Assuming they haven’t started an attack already,” That was the issue with synths. They could attack anywhere at any time. Chances were, there were already synths integrated into the tower, just waiting for Silver Ace to send them an order to kill. I felt my pace quicken slightly at that thought. “I would be surprised if Silver Ace hasn’t found out we’ve made a move for the Celestial States Building yet.”

Sprocket gave a grim nod, quickening her step to keep up with me. “Do you really think we can win this war? Against the True Steels and the Synths?” She asked, a nervous shutter in her voice. “The Friendship Express has always tried to oppose the Institute, but we were never prepared for a war like this, especially not against that kind of firepower.”

I didn’t dare look back at her, fearing my eyes would give away my apprehension and fear. “We have to win,” was all I bothered to say. “Besides, Pyre Blaze is currently leading the charge against the tower in central Manehattan. If there was anypony that was tough enough to fend off against all of this, it would be her.”

“You’re not worried about her?” Sprocket asked, her large eyes going a little wider. “You really think everything will be fine?”

I flinched. “I’d be lying if I said that,” I grimaced. “I worry about her and Mirra every second I’m not with them,” my head had begun to feel uncomfortably heavy and I forced myself to look down at my hooves. “All of this terrifies me, Sprocket… All this violence… I’m terrified that every time I look at my friends, it’ll be the last time. I’m even more scared that I might not get the chance to look at them again.”

Sprocket looked me over for a long moment with understanding eyes. “I get that too. Every time we sent an operative out into the field on a mission to help a synth, I wondered if I’d ever see them again, or if this was finally the time the Institute found them and had them executed… It was always a gamble, but it was one we always needed to take… Never did get easier when they didn't come back though,” She looked down at her own hooves for a second before quickly glancing back up at me. “Give me your pipbuck.”

Pausing my step, I turned and gave her a confused look before raising my pipbuck hoof up for her to inspect. Sprocket looked it over for a moment, before pulling out a screwdriver and some sort of strange looking, homemade transmission device and beginning to fiddle with the wiring in the back of the pipbuck.

I flinched, startled by her sudden movement. “Whoah, what are you doing?”

Sprocket gave me a flat look. “Would you relax? I’m giving you a radio transmitter so you can communicate with Pyre. I made one for all the Las pegasus gang leaders so they can better communicate in the battle ahead.”

I blinked. “Wait… you can do that?”

“I literally built teleportation devices for you and Mirra to get into the Institute a few weeks ago. You really think I can’t do this?” Sprocket smirked. “Now hold still. This’ll only take a second.”

True to her word, she took a step back a second later, gesturing for us to keep walking after the rest of our friends. “There you go. Give it a shot.”

Curious, I clicked on my pipbuck and scrolled through my radio frequencies. Finding the one I wanted, I turned it on.

A second later, I heard the static filled voice of Pyre Blaze pipe up. “Hello? Who the fuck is this? This is an encrypted frequency.”

I felt myself give a loud sigh of relief. I cast Sprocket a thankful look before returning my gaze to my pipbuck. “Hey Pyre, it’s me. Sprocket gave me a transmitter for us to communicate.”

I noticed Brisk trotting up beside me, looking over my shoulder at my pipbuck. “Well that’s nifty. What channel is that?” He smirked, reaching out and tapping the device. “Channel 7, huh. I’ll keep that in mind if I need a pizza delivery. Hey Pyre. How are you hanging?”

“Amber? Brisk? It’s good to hear your voices. I’m sorry to say I’m in no position to make a pizza delivery, but make sure you both give Sprocket a big ol’ smooch for this,” Pyre quipped back at us. I don’t think I had ever seen Sprocket’s eyes grow quite that wide before. They practically looked like saucers.

Brisk nickered at the comment, and a second later I heard somepony else join in on the snickering from the other side of the radio, followed in short order by Mirra’s muffled voice piping up. “Don’t tell Amber that, mom! You’ll give her ideas and then Ms Xayah will get jealous.”

I smirked a little at the small changelings remark, though my cheeks did flush. It was nice to hear her voice too. “Hey kid, how are you doing?”

There was no replay on the other side of the radio for a second. When the two did respond, Mirra’s voice was a lot clearer. Clearly, she had moved closer to Pyre’s transmitter. “We’re… we’re fine. Things could be better,” Mirra said slowly, though despite her words, I could hear a distinct tremble in her voice.

“There’s a lot of bodies out here Amber,” Pyre added slowly. “The True Steels and the synths aren’t just making a move for the Celestial States Building. They’re launching a full on extermination of the ponies in Manehattan. Things aren’t looking good.”

I nodded despite myself. That lined up with everything I was seeing as well. I just wish I knew why Silver Ace was doing all this. He didn’t seem to be one to enjoy violence. “We’re seeing the same things out our way. There are so many-” I paused, my breath catching in my throat as my eyes caught sight of a thick cloud of black smoke billowing up over the tops of the jagged skyscrapers. Eyes wide, I quickened my pace, rushing a little faster along the crumbling monorail. That smoke could only be coming from one place…

Beside me, I heard Brisk curse under his breath, his own hooves picking up the pace. “Oh shit…”

“Amber? Amber, what’s wrong?” I heard Pyre’s static filled voice speak up over the transmitter, worry creeping into her usually more stoic tone. “What’s happened?”

As I slowly rounded the corner of the monorail, the towering spire of Tenpony finally made its way into my vision, its rooftop peeking over the crumbling city ruins. I felt my gut sink at the sight of fires burning around the building and the large craters pitting its once majestic walls. What truly worried me though was how eerily silent the tower seemed to be. No screams, no cries, just silence.

“Pyre, I’m going to need to call you back,” I muttered, my gaze locked on the smouldering tower. “I’ll be in touch…”

“Amber? Wait! What’s going on? What is it?” Pyre started, but I quickly shut off the transmitter, taking a few more steps towards the tower.

“Fuck. Looks like the tower’s already been hit,” I heard Blueberry swear from in front of me. Both Glasswing and Freedom raised their weapons beside him, their eyes sweeping the monorail for danger. They saw none.

My heart racing, I rushed forwards to catch up with the armoured Ranger. “Do you think there’s anypony still alive?” I asked fearfully, my eyes locked on the smoking tower. My gaze dropped back to the monorail where my eyes caught sight of five Tenpony guards laying dead ahead of us, their bodies blasted apart by scores of sizzling wounds.

Blueberry grimaced, advancing towards Tenpony tower, his eyes landing on the pony corpses as well. “Only one way to find out.”

Scarlet nervously approached one of the bodies, looking over their oozing wounds. “The wounds cauterised,” She grimaced, looking back at me. She took a deep breath, trying to steady her breathing. “This is definitely the work of synths.”

Brisk gave a low growl. “Note there aren’t any synth bodies though.”

Xayah shivered. “Coursers then…”

Before we could get any close to the tower, one of the Friendship Express operatives gave out a warning call. “We got Enclave Raptors incoming!”

I looked up, my eyes catching on two looming Raptor airships shooting through the sky above us. The muscles in my legs tensed, my shotgun swinging up to ready myself for the impending attack. Beside me, I saw all my friends crouch down into similar stances.

One of the two Raptors slowed, one of its huge guns swivelling to face down at us. No doubt the pegasi inside were looking down at us, waiting to attack. Instead however, the gun swung back up to a front facing position and the two Raptors flew off.

“What the hell? Why aren’t they attacking?” I heard Mother scowl, her eyes focussed on the two airships as they soared over the burning streets.

“Looks like they’re heading in the direction of the Celestial States Building,” Freedom answered, her own eyes trailing after the ships. “Chances are Iron Hock has started his assault on the tower, meaning Silver Ace’s synths and our forces won't be far behind. They have bigger fish than us to fry right now.”

Quickly re-mobilizing, we started hurrying towards the tower again. I felt my heavy heart lighten just a little as we finally began to approach Tenpony tower, my eyes catching on six pony guards standing in front of the huge, ornate door, their weapons raised and aimed at us as we approached. The guards, however, looked worse for wear. They all looked tired with dark bags under their eyes, their bodies covered in cuts and burns. One guard's leg was in a cast, clearly broken in a recent fight.

But at least everypony wasn’t already dead. That was a good sign at least.

“State who you are and what you want!” One of the guards shouted at us, their rifle blasting off a warning shot that pinged off the metal monorail in front of our hooves. Xayah had to take a step back as the warning shot ricoheted close to her hooves. So much for good signs I supposed.

“Don’t worry, we’re here to help!” I shouted back, taking a step forward. I jumped back with a startled eep as they fired off another warning shot at me. “Hey! I said that we’re here to help!”

“How the fuck do we know you aren’t one of those synth freaks!” Another guard shouted, their eyes boring into us. Their eyes shifted to look behind me, making out the shapes of Glasswing and his scientists. The guard's eyes grew wider at the sight of them. “What the- Oh fuckin’ Shit! Changelings! Give us one reason we shouldn’t shoot all of you right now on the spot!”

“What seems to be the issue out there?” A sturdy sounding voice piped up from the intercom beside the door, making one of the guards jump. “Please report!”

One of the guards turned to address the intercom, the other five remained glaring at us, guns raised. “There’s a large group of ponies here claiming to be here to help us,” The guard responded. “There seem to be a collection of Applejack rangers, wastelanders and… and changelings amongst them.”

There was silence from the other side of the intercom for a second. “Who seems to be leading them?” The guard glanced back at us hesitantly, unsure how to answer. He glanced back and forth between all of us, first looking at me, then at Crusader Blueberry and Glasswing. He opened and closed his mouth, trying to figure out who looked the most in charge. Instead, the voice on the other side of the intercom answered for him. “Pink Stable mare? Blue streaks in her mane?”

I blinked in surprise. Was he talking about me? How the hell did this pony know who I was?

The guard glanced back at me for a second before giving a hesitant nod that the pony on the other side of the intercom likely couldn’t see. “Uh, yes. A mare of that description does seem to be among the group.”

Another short pause ensued. “Keep them there for a moment. I wish to talk to this mare myself at once.”

“Sir?” The guard asked, their eyebrows raising in surprise. “Are you sure?”

“I’m certain. Now keep them there. Do not let them leave,” The voice retorted. A second later, the intercom went dead. We all glanced at each other for a moment, uncertain about what that was all about. With any luck, it spelt good knews.

A few moments later, the large ornate doors cracked open, making way for a large unicorn buck in a hefty suit of Tenpony security armour. He strode towards us, his blue eyes looking us over before he finally came to a stop. “You must be the pony I’ve heard talk about. The one known by many as the Pink Menace,” The pony asked me in his headstrong tone.

I furrowed my brows together. “Not the name I came up with, but I heard a few slavers called me that once.”

The large stallion chuckled. “Excuse me for not knowing your actual name, I’m afraid I scarcely leave Tenpony, though I have heard of your exploits. I am Chief Steadyhoof. Head of security here at Tenpony tower since the death of Grim Star,” He extended his hoof to me as he introduced himself.

“I, uh. I’m Amber Aura,” I stated quickly, a little caught off guard. “And these are my friends, Brisk Spark, Xayah, Star Breeze and Scarlet Dusk.”

“Amber Aura. Not the name I expected, considering your coat and nickname, but it is a pleasure to finally learn the name of the pony that’s been cleaning up a lot of Manehattan,” His face darkened a little. “Though I’m taking it you’re not here for pleasantries. I’m guessing your appearance here is of no coincidence with the recent attack.”

I shook my head, still a little off put by the warm welcome. “I doubt it is. Tell us what happened.”

“Rumours began filtering into the tower some five hours ago that the fanatic group that call themselves the True Steels have begun making a push for the centre of Manehattan. Not an hour later, all our trade roots got cut off and we saw that massive Enclave airship fly over the city. An hour after that ponies in the tower started going crazy. You remember that whole synth crisis that started six days ago, well it just escalated tenfold. Ponies turned on their friends and families, store owners began strangling clients. Shooting them full of holes revealed the wiring inside,” Steadyhoof shuttered. “But that was only the beginning. Synths started teleporting straight into the tower, not pony looking ones, these ones looked more like machines, metal skeletal abominations. We managed to defend the tower and drive them off, but we suffered a lot of casualties. And then there are those dark stallions we need to worry about.”

I shivered, a bolt of fear travellight through my body. “Coursers…”

“I don’t care what the fuck their called,” Cheif Steadyhoof growled. “Three of those bastards showed up. They killed a lot of good ponies.”

“You managed to kill three coursers?” Xayah asked in a breathy tone. “That is most impressive…”

Glasswing snorted at Xayah’s remark. “Those units were likely defective if all three of them could be so easily taken down while together.”

Steadyhoof shook his head, a spark of anger in his eyes. “Nay. They made a tactical retreat after we took out the rest of their forces. All three of them got away,” He sighed, gesturing to the tower and the guards beside him. “But now we’re weak, ponies are panicking and we’re anticipating a second attack at any moment. If those freaks come back for round two, we’re done for.”

“They will come back, and soon,” I affirmed, taking a step towards him. “That’s why we’re here. To help. But we need to get access to the tower. You saw with your own eyes that those synths can teleport anywhere they damn well want. We could stand outside and secure the front door, but that isn’t going to do much against an army that can bypass your walls and materialize in your homes.”

“But how do we know we can trust you,” One of the guards spat, bringing up the earlier question. He glowered at Glasswing. “I would never trust changelings, even if this synth threat wasn’t happening.”

“What other choice do you have?” Crusader Blueberry replied simply, his eyes fixed on the guard. “You said so yourself that if the synths come back, the tower will fall. Well the synths will come back. You need help, and we’re here to give it. You don’t really have any choice.”

Steadyhoof thought on that for a moment before nodding. “Very well. Let them through. All of them!”

“Ready the troops!” Steadyhoof ordered, marching down the hallway of Tenpony Tower urgently, Crusader Blueberry and two of his Applejack Rangers marching alongside him. “I want at least two guards posted in every major area! Keep ponies together. Don’t let your loved ones out of sight! Synths spies could be anywhere!”

I rushed after him, my new shotgun already drawn. Beside me, Glasswing and his changelings had shifted into pony disguises to avoid any more hostile situations towards them. We already had to deal with an army of synths, we didn’t need the ponies of Tenpony tower panicking any more than they already were.

“When do you think Silver Ace is going to launch the second attack?” Brisk asked, skipping a little to keep up. “Or if he’s going to launch it at all?”

“He’ll launch it, and soon,” Star Breeze shot back with a growl. “Tenpony tower is already weakened. Silver Ace would be a fool if he let this opportunity to hit us where it hurts pass by.”

We marched into the main marketplace where I saw a large group of Tenpony citizens cowering in the centre of the room, surrounded by a large group of guards. Most of them seemed badly wounded, burn marks from Institute energy weapons marring their hides. A few doctors and nurses rushed back and forth, doing their best to help the injured, but there were just too many ponies that needed help. Freedom pushed past us, four of her Friendship Express heavy operatives moving with her to protect the crowd.

“Is this everypony left in the tower?” I asked, my eyes sweeping over the group of ponies. There were roughly a hundred of them, far less ponies than what inhabited Tenpony on my last visit. If this was all that was left then… I didn’t even want to think about how many innocent lives had been lost already.

To my relief, Chief Steadyhoof shook his head. “Nay. There are at least a hundred more on the floor above,” My relief died with what he said next. “When the Synths attacked, we hid all the foals in a bunker on the top floor. But roughly an hour ago, those Courser fucks blew up the hallway leading to the bunker, buring the door under a half foot of rubble. Hopefully that means they’re safe from the synths, but they only have so much air in there. We don’t know how long they have left. We have ponies up there trying to clear it now.”

Feeling a little sick at the idea of a bunch of foals slowly running out of air, I turned to Glasswing, pointing a hoof at him and his scientists. “Glasswing, do your scientists have medical training?”

Glasswing frowned at me. “Most have basic training. Only a few are doctors in medicine though.”

“That’ll have to do,” I gestured over to the group of cowering ponies. “Do your best to help as many ponies as possible.”

Glasswing gave a nod in response, signalling for his scientists to follow him as he rushed after Freedom into the circle of terrified ponies. A few ponies panicked and pushed themselves away at the sight of the large group advancing on them, but most welcomed them and gladly took their aid.

Goddesses, all the ponies were so scared. I wondered if the ponies of Tenpony had ever seen death on this scale before. I felt myself grimace as that thought travelled through my mind. I wonder if anypony in the wasteland had seen death like what was happening before.

A pony dressed in Tenpony security army scurried up to Steadyhoof, a worried look on his face. “Chief, I’ve got bad news.”

Chief Steadyhoof gave a long sigh. “What news isn’t bad news right now?”

“Our ponies posted on the roof just spotted Enclave Raptors heading this way. They seem to only be a few hours out,” The security pony informed him, his legs trembling slightly. “A few armoured Enclave scouts flew by a few seconds later. They seemed to be scouting us out.”

“Enclave?” I asked, looking over to them. “I thought all the Enclave were heading to the centre of the city and Fillydelphia?”

The sound of flapping of wings alerted me to Star Breeze fluttering over from where she had been helping a few ponies. “The Enclave is getting desperate. In the last few days, they’ve lost a lot more fights than they’ve won, and if what I’ve been hearing is true, a lot of the Enclave high command has been taken out, including my old boss, Colonel Autumn. Right now, the Enclave is out of options. They’re going to need to strike everywhere, and strike everywhere hard.”

Steadyhoof turned to face Star more directly. “You seem very confident in your knowledge of the Enclaves operations.”

Star gave him a snooty looking smirk and a small snort. “I’d sure fucking hope so,” She fluffed her wings up a little for him to see. “Until recently, I was Enclave. Respected too, kind of.”

Steadyhoof’s eyes narrowed, but he didn’t push it further. “Should we be worried about this oncoming Enclave fleet? Should we be expecting an attack?”

“Uh, duh,” Star drawled at him, rolling her eyes. “Did you not listen to what I just fucking said? The Enclave needs a big win, and not just against Fillydelphia. They’re going to want to take Tenpony Tower while it’s weak.”

Steadyhoof’s lips twisted into a growl. “Damn it. We can hardly deal with these damn synths as it is. We aren’t in a position to hold off a full fledged Enclave attack,” he turned back to the security pony that had informed him of the Enclave fleet. “I want you to double the defences on the roof. Prepare for an aerial attack.”

The guard gave a salute and rushed off back in the direction he had come.

“Amber,” Steadyhoof started, turning back to me. “Do you think you and your ponies will be able to help fend off an Enclave attack as well? This could get really messy.”

I gave a grim shake of my head. “We can try, but most of our forces are on their way to the Celestial States building. We don’t have the kind of force you’d need to fend off an army of synths and the Enclave,” I glanced around at all the cowering ponies around me. “Besides, fending off that kind of force while needing to protect all these ponies would be almost impossible.”

Steadyhoof nodded, glancing at the ponies around us as well. “Understood. I will do my best to keep them out of the way of the fight,” He turned, addressing as many ponies as he could. “Everypony, please stay calm!” Chief Steadyhoof ordered, doing his best to prevent an all out panic. “These ponies are here to help us! But we need to get all of you to safety! We don’t know when the synths will be back and our lookouts have spotted a group of Enclave Raptors coming this way!”

A few ponies froze in horror at the mention of the approaching Raptors. Likely many of them had heard of the destruction such airships had brought to other settlements like Oasis and Friendship City.

“What if they’re synths as well!” A mare screamed, pushing through the circle of guards and glaring at all of us with wide, manic eyes. Her eyes darted around, looking at the armed guards all around her. “You could all be synths! You’re herding us to our deaths! They’re here to stop us from saving our foals!”

“Calm down! We are not synths!” Steadyhoof ordered, commanding the mare to get back in line. “These ponies are here to help! They’re here to protect us from the Institute’s weapon! And we’re going to make damn sure no pony hurts the foals. We’re doing everything we can to dig them out as we speak! But you all need to listen! If we don’t act now, the Institute won’t be the only thing we need to deal with!”

“What if she’s right!?” Another pony shouted, their own voice filled with panic. “What if you just let a bunch of synths in power armour into the tower! How would you even know!?”

Beside them, another pony began freaking out, their magic yanking a gun out of the hooves of one of the guards and swinging it around to face a young mare standing next to him. “Fuck! You’re a synth! I saw you look at me! You’re planning to gun me down! Well I won’t let you!” The stallion howled, his pupils darting back and forth frantically.

The guards swung their weapons around, aiming at the panicking buck. “Put the gun down! Now!” One of the guards shouted, a loud click ringing out as they cocked their own gun back. The stallion glanced back and forth from the guards to his gun, then back up to the cowering mare, his eyes frantic and his magic slowly beginning to pull down on the trigger of the gun. “I said put the gun down now!”

“Please… You know me!” The mare was wailing, cringing away from the barrel of the gun aimed at her head. “I would never hurt anypony! Please!”

I pushed forwards, trying my best to get between the stallion and the mare. “Stop this! All of you!” I shouted, trying to defuse the situation. “Fighting amongst ourselves is just going to make the situation worse!”

The stallion was backing up slowly, his whole body trembling as he struggled to pull down fully on the trigger. “I can’t! I don’t kn- Fuck… I’m sorry!”

A mare leapt at the stallion from the side, knocking into his gun and pushing the muzzle down. The gun fired, a plumb of fire and smoke bursting from the tip of its muzzle as his shot went wide. Everypony flinched as the resounding bang rang out, some ponies screaming and scampering over one another to get away, thinking a firefight had started.

I flashed out with my magic, sweeping the gun away from the stallion as the mare held him down. Two guards rushed forwards, helping to secure the thrashing pony.

The stallion looked up as he was dragged away, his gaze locking on the mare he had been prepared to shoot not a second before, tears in his eyes. “Goddesses, I’m sorry… I’m so, so sorry…”

The mare that had tackled the stallion slowly pulled herself up, staggering a little and doing her best to whip the dust off of her ragged looking collar. I felt my eyes widen slightly as I recognized her. “Coco?”

Coco Pommel turned around, spotting me for the first time. The ghoul gave me a small, though albeit nervous looking smile. “Oh! Amber! It’s been so long!”

Despite knowing the uncomfortable, squishy feeling that would come of it, I reached out and gave the small ghoul a quick hug. “It’s good to see you. I never did get to thank you for that ballistic weave lining you did on my Stable barding. How have you been?” The words had hardly left my mouth when I realized how stupid they were. Of course she hadn’t been well. The tower had just been under attack and she had probably just watched a bunch of ponies die. “Sorry, that’s a dumb question.”

To my surprise, however, the ghoul’s smile only widened. “It took a while for the ponies here to get used to a ghoul in Tenpony tower, but things are actually looking up. I’ve got a few ponies helping me with my business now and I’m actually thinking of expanding-”

“Amber,” I looked over at Scarlet who had quickly trotted up beside me, worry etched into her face. “Do you have a moment?.”

I looked back at Coco apologetically. “Sorry, we’ll need to catch up later. It was good seeing you though.”

Coco Pommel nodded, glancing around nervously at the cowering ponies around us. “Of course, this is hardly a good time for small talk.”

Turning away from Coco, I followed close behind Scarlet as she dragged me away from the crowd of ponies until we were far enough away that only I could hear her. After a second of looking around, she turned back to me, her eyes wide. “Something’s wrong Amber. Seriously wrong.”

Great. Because I needed more difficulties right now. “That much is obvious. What’s the problem?”

“Why would Silver Ace let the ponies of Tenpony Tower regroup and ready themselves like this? It doesn’t make sense,” Scarlet scowled, casting a glance back at the group of ponies behind us. At my confused expression, she elaborated. “You’ve seen how massive the synth army is. If they wanted the tower to fall, it would. Besides, they can teleport whole armies into the tower in an eyeblink, they don’t need to retreat to regroup. So why did they?”

I felt my heart rate rapidly increase. I had a pretty damn good idea. “Because if they destroyed the tower, then we would have had no reason to come here,” I could feel my insides practically turn to ice at the thought. “Silver Ace doesn't care about Tenpony Tower… He cares about us. This is a trap!”

The words had only just left my mouth when the ceiling lights went out, casting the whole room into complete darkness. Ponies screamed as they were cast into complete blackness, their heads darting back and forth as they tried to spot anything in the thick gloom. A few of the guards flipped flashlights on, their thin, flickering beams sweeping the area.

I stumbled slightly in the dark, my hoof frantically reaching for my pipbuck. “Shit, shit, shit, shit…” I could feel fear gripping me with each and every passing second. It took a moment, but I managed to switch on the pipbucks flashlight function, casting the area around me in an eerie green light. A light that illuminated the looming silhouette of the Courser standing right in front of me.

I barely had time to duck low to the ground as a blast from the Coursers gun slashed over my head, singeing the top of my mane. I heard loud screams from the crowd of ponies behind me as blips of blue light flashed throughout the darkness, signalling the arrival of dozens of synth troopers. Beams of light slashed out across the room from the syths weapons, striking ponies down and rendering their thrashing bodies to ash.

“Fire at will! Protect as many ponies as you can!” I heard Chief Steadyhoof roaring, his own rifle cracking off shots into the darkness, each flash of his muzzle briefly illuminating the dark area around him. “Tenpony tower has stood since before the great war! It will not fall today!”

I rolled across the ground, narrowly avoiding a swing from the Coursers hoof as they lunged at my head. Gritting my teeth, I swung my new shotgun up, blasting a round of magically enhanced buckshot at the Courser’s head. The Courser easily dodged out of the way, their body whipping around and knocking the shotgun from my grip with a strong kick of their hind hoof.

Scarlet gave a loud scream, rushing at the Courser and ramming all of her weight into them. The Courser hardly even flinched as they swung around again and slammed their fore hooves into Scarlet’s side, knocking her to the ground. She hit the ground with a painful sounding thud, blood oozing from the gash where the Courser had struck her.

More gunshots lit up the darkness as the Tenpony guards retaliated. A streak of light flashed across the room as Crusader Blueberry fired a rocket down a hallway, fire and shrapnel flaring across the walls and chunks of synths flying in every direction. I saw Brisk pull himself to his hooves from a blast that had knocked him over, his minigun whirring up and spewing a hail of lead towards the synths around them. Star dropped down to land behind him, pressing her rump against his and firing off beams of light as they fought back to back.

I dove forwards, my hooves wrapping around the grip of my new shotgun. Before I could spin back around to fire, I had to somersault to the side, another blast from the Courser's deadly energy rifle slashing at the spot my head had just been.

Lifting my shotgun up in my magic, I fired off three magically enhanced blasts in the Courser’s direction. The dark form of the Courser danced out of the way of each blast, weaving between the crimson buckshot with ease.

I gave a low growl and moved to fire again, only for a hoof to lash out from behind me and knock me back to the floor. I rolled over, looking up just in time to see a second Courser reer up behind me, grinning at me with a cold grin that did not reflect in their ice cold eyes.

Blam! Blam!

Two shots rang out from Xayah’s anti-material rifle, blowing large holes into the rearing Courser’s chest. The Courser staggered, hot blood spilling down their front. They snarled, glaring at Xayah as the zebra was forced to once more return her attention to the attacking synths.

Taking my chance, I scurried to my hooves, raising my shotgun up and blasting a round of buckshot straight into the Courser’s face. The Courser gave a shout of rage, their face ripped open by the deadly blast, blasting open flesh and sending bits of gore and circuitry splattering across the floor.

Before I had a chance to do any more damage, the second Courser wrapped a field of their blue magic around my neck. I gasped out, the strong magical grip feeling as cold as ice as it reefed me up into the air, strangling me. I thrashed my legs, trying my best to break free.

“Funny. You have caused us all so much trouble,” The Courser sneered, taking a step towards me, their leering face inches from my own as I gasped. “And yet you still fell for our trap so easily.”

I tried to give them a snide remark in response, but the magical grip only tightened, forcing me to gasp and sputter.

“Let her go!” Scarlet shouted, staggering back up and blasting at the Courser with her magical energy rifle. “Let her go right now!”

The Courser hardly even winced as two of the shots blasted into their back, ripping holes in their dark, leather jacket. They spun around, their hoof lashing out and wrapping tight around Scarlet’s throat. Scarlet gasped, her own throat now being violently choked.

“We should have laid this trap for you days ago,” The second Courser smirked, the hide of their face slowly patching back together. “But it doesn’t matter now. Now that Pureblood is out of the picture, Silver Ace no longer has any use for you.”

Another pony fell to the swarm of synth's constant fire, the left side of their face being blown off from a deadly blast of energy and their body dissolving into glowing ash. Two Tenpony guards quickly rushed forwards to avenge them, only for another volley of blasts to drop them too to the ground, dead.

Channelling as much power into my horn as I could, I sent a large shockwave flashing out, ramming into the two Coursers. The Courser holding Scarlet and I staggered, but their grip didn’t lessen.

Taking advantage of the Courser being off balance, Scarlet swung her hoof at his head, slamming the blunt of her horseshoe into his horn with as much force as she could muster. The Courser scowled, his magical grip on my neck releasing.

I dropped to the ground with a gasp, immediately sweeping up my shotgun and sending a blast of buckshot into the Courser’s hoof that was choking Scarlet’s neck. The blast decimated the hoof, ripping the limb from its socket and sending it skidding across the floor.

Ducking below a swing from the second Courser, I dashed forwards, pushing a gasping Scarlet forwards and back towards the circle of ponies. I could hear the Courser’s behind me give chase, their weapons firing blasts of blazing light. I weaved from side to side, each blast from their rifle coming scarily close to turning me to dust.

“Blueberry! Coursers on your left!” I shouted, tossing Scarlet into the crowd and flipping around to fire a slug at the charging Coursers.

Blueberry smashed a synths head in with his power armoured hoof before shifting his body weight to face the Coursers and letting two rockets streak out from his battle saddle. His aim was off a little in the darkness, but the huge explosion and corresponding shockwave was enough to force the Courser’s back.

I ducked my head between my forehooves, shielding my neck as explosive shrapnel blasted over me. I felt a few bits of shrapnel cut at my hide, drawing blood.

Staggering up to my hooves, I looked back at where the Courser’s had been, only just being able to make out their silhouettes through the clearing smoke of the blast. They strode forwards, their wounds already pulling themselves back together.

I let my horn flare up and created a thin magical shield between me and them, only for one of them to lash out with a hoof, instantly shattering the shield. I stumbled back, the magical feedback causing a spike of pain to shoot through my cracked horn.

“Very well. We shall do this the easy way,” One of the Coursers leered, advancing on me. “X23762Z!” He gave me a smug smirk, expecting me to drop to the ground, deactivated. When nothing happened, he frowned. “Wait… How are you doing that?”

I gave the Courser’s as smug a look as I could muster. “Oh? Didn’t you hear? I got my old body back. No more shutting me down with your words.”

Three of the Applejack Rangers turned to face the Courser's, their large miniguns spinning up and sending a volley of bullets towards them. The Coursers staggered back, growling at us as they dove apart, the Applejack Rangers stream of fire trailing after them.

A synth fired off a flurry of shots, each one slashing into the side of one of the Rangers. The Applejack ranger screamed out in pain, their minigun spinning to a stop as their body turned to ash inside their armour.

“We’ve dealt with Coursers before,” I spat at the Coursers as the minguns spun down, allowing the dark coated monstrosities to once more approach. “I don’t fear you.”

One of the Coursers grinned at me, showing an uncomfortable amount of teeth. “You should. We’ve dealt with you before as well. We’ve monitored your journey across the wasteland. We’ve seen your greatest regrets. Greatest failures. We know how to make you squirm.”

The second Courser put a hoof to the blinking intercom on their ear. “Amber is in the tower. Move in. Kill them.”

Xayah glanced over at me nervously, her anti-material rifle trained on the approaching Coursers. “Greatest regrets? What are they talking about…”

But I could hardly answer her. My blood had gone ice cold in my veins. “No…” I breathed, my eyes going wide. They wouldn’t. Silver Ace wasn’t that cruel… But from my past experience with Coursers, I knew full well that they would do anything to achieve their mission. They were efficient, but worse than that, they were ruthless. “They’re going after the foals…”

My horn pulsed with magic and I threw up another magical shield up around the group of ponies, separating us from the Coursers and their synths as their deadly Institute weaponry swung up and fired at us. The deadly blasts pounded against the shield, sending cracks shooting across the shields surface and forcing me to take a step back to brace myself against the force.

Scarlet stepped up beside me, her own horn glowing as she added her energy to the shield. I gave her a grateful smile before I looked away again, beads of sweat already forming on my brow. Both Scarlet and I flinched as every Synth in the room raised their gun and fired at us, blazing blue beams of magical energy slashing at the forcefield and ricocheting around the room.

“I want every able bodied unicorn to help maintain that shield!” Steadyhoof was shouting from behind me. “We need to hold them off as long as possible.”

Gradually, the pressure of holding up the shield lessened as more and more ponies around me ignited their horn and added their own strength to the shield. The centre of the room slowly became illuminated by the glow of the unicorn's horns, pushing back the darkness that had surrounded us and casting the now damaged walls of Tenpony Tower into an eerie, pulsing light.

I looked behind me, catching Steadyhoof’s gaze out of the corner of my eye. “Steadyhoof, they’re going after the foals!” I shouted, my voice cracking slightly as I struggled to keep my magic from imploding as the synths increased their fire upon the shield. I could feel ripples of fear shoot out amongst the cowering ponies at my words. “We need a plan! Now!”

“There are already ponies upstairs helping the foals out,” One stallion snorted, stomping his hoof down. He gestured to the Coursers and the small army of synths just on the other side of the large shield. “Right now we have our own issues to deal with. They can save the foals!”

Chief Steadyhoof growled. “The ponies upstairs don't have nearly enough firepower to take on what these synths are packing,” he glanced back out at the synths, his eyes following the two Coursers whom had taken to stalking around the perimeter of the shield, their faces twisted into mocking grins. “Besides, there’s still one of those Courser fucks unaccounted for. If they’re going after the foals, they’re going to need all the help they can get.”

“Well fuck... Any ideas?” Brisk asked, taking a step away from the shield as more synths began firing at it.

I grimaced. Ideas? I had run out of those two months ago, or at least, I’d run out of good ones. I took a deep breath, my mind racing a hundred miles a minute. “Alright, We can’t let them get to the foals first. I’m not letting any more foals die because of all of this,” I turned, pointing at Crusader Blueberry with a hoof. “Leave two Rangers behind to help defend the ponies here, then send as many other rangers as you can up with me and my friends to the top floor. We’re going to need your explosives to unbury those foals.”

Blueberry gave a sharp salute, his eyes still focused on the synths outside. “Understood.”

Turning my head to face Glasswing and Freedom, I beckoned them both over. “I need you both to stay here. You two and your ponies combined know more about synths than anypony. Take out as many synths as you can. Protect everypony if possible. Do you understand?”

They both gave grim nods. “You can count on us,” Freedom affirmed, though she did cast Glasswing a small scowl.

“I’m going with you,” Mother told me flatly, marching up to me, her magical energy rifle raised.

I shook my head. “I need ponies with an understanding of synth battle strategy down here keeping ponies safe. We have to stay ahead of those Coursers if we hope to survive this.”

Mother just gave me a stern look that made me want to cringe away a little. “No. Glasswing and his scientists already have that covered. And you could use somepony with much the same expertise when you go upstairs. Besides…” She looked away, not able to look me in the eye. “Enough foals have had to suffer because of my choices. I want to save a foal for once.”

I looked at her for a long second before finally giving a defeated nod. I could understand that. “Alrighty,” I turned to face Steadyhoof. “Can you lead the way to the bunker the foals are in?”

Steadyhoof gave a nod, and stomped his hoof. “Indeed. We will not let these monsters harm our foals.”

“Anypony else that wants to help save the foals is welcome to come with us,” I said, turning to face the wide eyed faces of the Tenpony ponies around me. “We’re going to make a rush for the top floor. It’s going to be dangerous. There is no shame in backing down.”

Most ponies just whimpered and backed away, but a few ponies stepped forwards, determined looks across their faces. I noticed Coco Pommel amongst them.

“We’re also going to want to get the lights back on,” Star pointed out factually. “We’re at a huge disadvantage without our eyes, and those synths don't seem to have any issue seeing in the dark.”

I nodded “Good point. We’re going to need a team of ponies to work on getting those up and running again.”

“I can do it,” Sprocket said timidly, stepping forwards. “If anypony could do that in a hurry, it’s me.”

Freedom gave her a worried look. “Are you sure? I can only supply a few operatives to help you. Out there, we won’t be able to protect you. You’re a tinker, Sprocket, not a fighter.”

Sprocket just gave a brave little nod, standing up a little straighter. “I’ll get the lights back on.”

“Alright then. Everypony, get ready…” I told everypony, spinning back around to face the shield. The Coursers had finished their lap of the force field and had come to a stop before me, their vile sneers as unbearable as ever. “On my command, we drop the shield!”

I could feel everypony in the room hold their breath at those words. I raised my shotgun, reading myself for what was to come. The Coursers leaned forwards, the powerful muscles in their legs rippling as they readied themselves to lunge. The synth forces advanced, their weapons raised and ready to render us to ash.

I exhaled. “Now!”

My magic flared out, sending the massive bubble shield ramming outwards, knocking into the hoards of synths and sending them stumbling backwards. The two Coursers stumbled, trying to remain upright as the combined magical strength of at least forty unicorns slammed into them at full force all at once.

“Go go go!” I shouted, sprinting forwards and rushing after Chief Steadyhoof who had taken off down a side hall at full speed. Brisk, Xayah, Star, Scarlet and Mother charged behind me, followed in quick pursuit by Blueberry and a large squadron of his rangers.

“They’re heading for the top floor! Cut them off!” I heard one of the Coursers shout into their intercom, only for their order to get muffled by the sound of booming gunfire as the Tenpony tower guards retaliated.

We rushed up a flight of steps, our hooves pounding loudly against the marble floor. Up ahead, I saw flashes of blue light, signalling the appearance of several synths. My shotgun raised up in my magic, sending blasts of energy enhanced buckshot bursting at the synths ahead of us as they materialised. Two synths fell to the ground, their metal forms ripped apart by the deadly blast.

Beams of blue energy flashed down the stairway at us. I jumped to the side, grunting with pain as my body rammed into the side of the wall to avoid being shot dead. An Applejack ranger fell to the ground, their head turned to sizzling ash from one of the synths blasts.

Brisk’s minigun flared with light, the rapidfire burst of his large gun making the darkness around us strobe with crimson light and a cacophony of gunfire. Two synths were ripped apart by his deadly fire, clattering to the ground, the light fading from their sinister eyes.

A beam of energy slashed across Blueberry’s side, blasting its way through his armour and searing his hide beneath. He gave a loud roar of pain, his saddle mounted rocket launcher making a loud clunking sound as if fired off a single shot up the stairway, detonating between the group of synths and blasting them apart with a deafening boom.

“The way is clear! Go now!” Blueberry shouted through gritted teeth as he pushed his way up the last few steps. I charged my way up with him, jumping over the broken and twitching synth bodies that littered the entryway into the upper floor.

As my hooves reached the last few steps, I began to hear the sound of gunfire coming from ahead of me as well as rather than just behind me. The sound of ponies screaming began to fill the dark hall, each one followed shortly by the loud zapping sound of an Institute rifle.

Scowling, I pushed myself around the next corner, stumbling in the dim light as I tried to find my hoofing. Ahead of me, I could see a large group of synths slowly closing in on a smaller group of Tenpony residents, each one blasting off beam after beam of searing blue energy at them, many of their shots already having turned ponies into glittering piles of ash. Most of the ponies were armed and retaliating, but it was clear that they were vastly outnumbered and out classed. Behind them, I could see a large wall of rubble where the ceiling had collapsed in, likely the wall that the foals were behind.

I began firing before the rest of my friends had even rounded the corner, my new shotgun bursting the chest open of the synth nearest to me, blazing red buckshot spewing from the end of my shotgun with righteous fury. A few synths turned to fire back at me, only for my friends to burst around the corner behind me, their own weapons flaring with light.

Blam! Blam! Blam!

Three more synths fell, their bodies riddled with holes as our weapons blasted through them.

I ducked to the side, a blazing burst of energy lancing out from one of the synths rifles and nearly blasting my head off. I hit the ground hard, my hind legs kicking as I tried to quickly scamper back to my hooves and keep fighting.

I was only half way up when a synth rushed at me, their skeletal, metal form crashing into me with tremendous force and sending me toppling to the ground. I gave a loud grunt as I hit the ground again, my hooves frantically swinging up in front of me as I tried to shove the synth away. I felt an agonising spike of pain shoot through my hoof as the synth met my swing with a swing of his own, ramming the side of his shock baton against my flailing hoof.

Another pony fell dead with a scream of pain, half their faces melted off by one of the synths deadly beams. Their body slumped, toppling to the floor before fully disintegrating into glowing dust. Another pony boldly took their place, their small pistol cracking off a few shots into the synths.

I rolled to the side, avoiding another swing from the asialing synths baton, its sparking end slamming hard against the ground and causing a shower of sparks to shoot out around us, their lights flashing across my face in the darkness. I spun my shotgun around in my magic, pressing it up against the synth's chest and let loose a round of magically infused buckshot straight into its robotic heart. I wasn’t sure if synths even had hearts, but the shot seemed to do the trick, blasting straight through his metal form and sending him crashing to the ground next to Scarlet.

Star zipped over my head, her wings beating frantically as she swerved back and forth in the air, doing her best to avoid being blasted apart. Her own magical energy rifle fired off a few shots, raining crimson beams into the group of synths. Most managed to dodge away, but I saw two collapse to the ground, the stray beams blasting off critical parts of their body.

Scarlet grit her teeth as she took a shot to the shoulder beside me, wincing as the deadly laser ripped off a long streak of her hide. She growled and fired back, standing side by side with Coco Pommel as they both fended off as many synths as they could. Brisk quickly darted over to them, his own minigun roaring as he made his way past them and over to me, his hoof reaching down and helping me up to my hooves.

“Thanks,” I grunted, wincing a little as I applied pressure to the leg the synths baton had struck. It didn’t seem broken thankfully, only sprained.

“You can thank me when the foals are safe!” Brisk shouted back, dodging to the side a bit and letting his minigun roar with life again. Another synth fell to his barrage of bullets, their body spasming as it was repeatedly blasted into.

Mother and Xayah scampered up behind me, both of them blasting off shots into the synths. Behind them, Chief Steadyhoof gave a loud shout as he fired into the small army of synths. “Synths! You are surrounded! Stand down now!” None of the synths seemed to register his command. A few turned their guns to face him, forcing Steadyhoof to duck back as they fired. “Damn it, I said stand down!”

“Don’t try to reason with them!” Mother scolded, her own rifle firing off a shot and felling another synth. “They aren’t programmed to feel fear! Talking will get you nowhere!”

“Move in around them! Hit them from all sides!” Blueberry was ordering, weaving back and forth to avoid being turned to ash. His rangers quickly followed the command, rushing to circle the synths. The synths quickly averted their fire fully from the surrounded Tenpony residence as they realized they were getting surrounded. I saw one ranger drop dead as one of the synths blasted a beam of magical energy through the visor of their helmet.

With the ponies no longer surrounded, the Tenpony civilians quickly reorganized themselves and began firing into the synths with more vigour, no longer needing to worry as much about being shot down.

Wiping a bead of sweat from my brow, I pushed past the synths, standing protectively before the civilians and letting my magical shotgun flare with muzzle fire as I mowed down synth after synth. One synth turned to strike me down, only to be shot down by a blast from Coco Pommels gun.

“Amber is on the top floor,” I heard a synth monotone in its robotic sounding voice, one of its metallic hooves pressed up against an intercom on its ear. “Eliminate the foals now.”

I scowled, my shotgun swivelling in my magic to blow the synths head clean off. “Yeah, I’m not letting that happen!” I fired another shot off into the synths before turning to Crusader Blueberry. We had to get to those foals to safety now! Who knew how long we had left before the synths started slaughtering them, and even if we had time, we couldn’t keep fighting them like this. We were at a massive disadvantage against the synths in this darkness. “Blueberry! We need to get this rubble out of the way right now!”

One of the ponies behind me grasped at my hoof, their face awash with fear. “No! Not yet! We can’t let these monsters get to our foals!”

I turned to them, a desperate look sprawled across my face. “We don’t have a choice. These synths can teleport! Chances are, they’re already inside!” I turned back to Blueberry, who gave me a grim looking nod.

“Knight Meringue! Aim your fire at the rubble! Explosives!” Blueberry shouted, addressing the ranger closest to the collapsed hallway for only a second before being forced to dodge out of the way of another blast.

The ranger gave Blueberry a salute, spinning around and firing off an apple grenade into rubble. Immediately, they spun around, their large hooves knocking a synth out of the way as they dove away from the wall. “Everypony! Take cover!”

Boom!

The whole hallway exploded with fire and flying rubble. I watched as two synths were crushed under the massive chunks of flying debris. I had to duck as a large chunk of the wall was sent sailing over my head and crashing into the wall behind me. A huge cloud burst into the air, the explosion filling the already dark hallway with a blinding shroud of ash and dust.

“Rangers! Advance! Now!” Blueberry’s booming voice was ordering, though I couldn’t see where he was in the smoke filled gloom. I heard the sound of metal clad hoofsteps echoing around the hallway even above the gunfire, clearly the rest of the Applejack Rangers rushing to protect the foals.

A sudden beam of blue energy lanced out from the darkness, slashing me across the shoulder. I gave a loud scream of pain, my body sent skidding to the side and tumbling across the floor, blood dripping from the large strip of hide that had been ripped off my flesh from the blast. I looked up just in time to see the dim light of my pipbuck illuminate three synths rushing at me, their weapons already drawn and poised to fire.

Wincing, I rolled to my right, narrowly avoiding a series of blasts that slashed down at where I had just been. I kicked back with my hooves, pushing myself back up just in time to dodge another blast from one of the synths guns.

One of the synths rushed me, their shock baton swinging at my neck. I staggered back, my shotgun swinging up and meeting the baton mid swing. A sharp, zapping pain shot up my horn as the two weapons collided, a long crack snapping across my gun's weapon at the hit. I quickly recoiled my newly acquired shotgun, grimacing.

“Right… not all guns are as indestructible as my old ones…” I grumbled, observing the damage to the side of the gun where the shock baton had hit. Thankfully, the damage seemed relatively minimal.

Wrapping my magic around one of the fallen shock batons on the ground, I swung it up, batting aside the synth's second swing. The second the sparking baton wasn’t flying at my head, my shotgun spun forwards and levelled with their head, blasting a beam of magic infused buckshot directly into their metallic skull.

I glanced up as the other two synths approached me, the billowing smoke of the apple grenade slowly settling around their hooves. I took a step back as they readied their guns, bracing myself to leap out of the way.

Star flashed above me, her own rifle blasting a hole through the chest of one of the synths. The synth staggered back, its circuitry smoking. A second later, another shot rang out, this one from the distinct sound of Xayah’s large anti-material rifle. Both synths topple over dead, the single shot having ripped through both of their heads, oil-like blood splattering across the hall.

“Come on! Move!” Mother shouted, frantically pushing her way into my vision through the settling smoke and rushing past me. Coco Pommel desperately scrambled after her, her revolver taking a few blind shots into the darkness.

Grunting, I began following after them, pushing my way through the darkness and towards the gaping hole in the hallway where I assumed the foals were hiding. I coughed as a thick cloud of kicked up ash found its way past my mouth and into my lungs.

“Don’t take another step,” I heard the icy voice of a Courser call out. I skidded to a stop at the sound of the voice, my eyes darting around in the barely lit room as I tried to make out the different shapes in the darkness.

The light of my pipbuck finally began illuminating the collection of pony forms in the room. One Courser stood in the centre of the clearing, his deadly magical energy rifle aimed at a group of about thirty foals that lay huddled up by his hooves, their faces awash with fear. Behind him, a large group of skeletal looking synths glared at us with unblinking eyes, their own weapons trained on the foals as well. The Applejack rangers had filed into the clearing and had begun to surround the perimeter of the room, but had stopped when they realised the mortal peril the foals were in. At the sound of stomping metal hooves, I glanced behind me, making out the shapes of dozens of more synths as they slowly marched into the room behind us, blocking off our escape.

“Let the foals go, Now!” I growled at the Courser, my shotgun aiming at his head. It was hard to fully make out his dark form in the shadowy room, his black trench coat and hide nearly making him invisible, but I could still make out the general outline of his body. “Let them go now or else?”

“Or else what?” The Courser asked simply, his voice providing no inflection or remorse. He didn’t seem frightened or curious in the slightest. “We have monitored your time across the wasteland, Amber Aura. You do not have the greatest track record of saving foals.”

Xayah stepped up beside me, her lips curled back into a growl of her own. “We are giving you one chance to let them all go,” She snarled rhythmically, her voice scathing. “We do not wish to ask you a second time.”

The Courser stared back at her, his expression unflinching. “Have your ponies stand down and drop your weapons, then we will talk,” He responded, its voice sending chills down my spine. Its ice blue eyes seemed to be digging into me, as if trying to read my next course of action. “Silver Ace does not wish for the foals to be harmed. He simply wants Amber out of the way. Surrender her and the foals will be left alone.”

My eyes darted back and forth between the synths and the foals. I considered teleporting them out, but I wasn’t nearly magically talented enough for that. Just teleporting two or three ponies was difficult for me. But thirty or so foals? Impossible.

I saw Brisk cast me a sideways glance. We had been in situations like this before. We had to make sure to tread carefully and not make the same mistakes. I silently mouthed an explosion noise at him and shook my head, nodding my head to the Applejack Rangers around me. The gesture was vague, but thankfully, Brisk seemed to get the idea. He seemed to read my expression and gave me a grim nod, slinking off into the shadows behind him.

“Scarlet, on my signal, put up a forcefield behind us,” I whispered at her, leaning in towards her so that the Courser hopefully couldn’t hear what I was saying.

Scarlet's eyes widened a little at the request. “I’m not very powerful, Amber. I won’t be able to hold it for very long,” she hushed back, clearly trying to keep her voice as quiet as possible as well.

I gave the smallest shake of my head. “That’s fine. Just hold it as long as you can.”

“What’s the signal?” Scarlet asked, a tremor in her voice.

I just gave her a grim grin. “You’ll know it when you see it,” I turned back to Courser and gave them a small growl. I had to stall for time. Not long. Just long enough for Brisk to get the word out. “Fine. I’ll give myself up.”

The Courser gave me a sceptical look. “I assume you intend to play some sort of trickery. Know that we will be taking every precaution. Try anything and the foals will die.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Brisk whispering something into Crusader Blueberry’s ear before darting off to the next Ranger. Come on. Just a little longer. “If you assume I’d try something, why use the foals to begin with? Not the most logical thinking,” I countered smuggly, hoping to bait the Courser.

The Courser, much to my displeasure, seemed unfazed by the retort. “On the contrary, it is incredibly logical. It was a certainty that you would come when you realised they were in trouble, and our analysis on your encounter with Fluer in the Ponypalooza Hotel would suggest that such a threat to their lives will make you act irrationally,” Their deadly rifle pressed tight against the heads of one of the whimpering foals. “Now. If you please. Drop your weapon and surrender yourself. We have stalled long enough.”

I gave a slow nod. Hopefully he was right and that had been long enough for Brisk to get the word out. “Alright. You win. I am dropping my weapon,” I let my horn light up and wrapped my amber aura around my shotgun.

I had hoped the Courser would train their weapon away from the foals and at me with my weapon now up, but I was not so lucky. Instead it just narrowed its eyes, the magical grip on its trigger tightening slightly. It didn’t matter. I just needed to have a reason to ignite my horn.

In the blink of an eye, my magic flashed out and wrapped around each and every one of the foals. There was a blinding flash of light and all of them blinked out of existence. “Now!”

Instantly, everypony kicked into action. Scarlet’s horn flared with life, a magical scarlet field of energy materializing and blocking us off from the wall of synths that had formed behind us. The Applejack Rangers rushed forwards, their battle saddles roaring as they sent a sudden torrent of bullets towards the army of synths. I was glad to see Brisk’s word had gotten out. No explosives. The last thing we wanted was for a stray missile to blast apart a foal.

The synths' weapons darted back and forth searching for the foals, thrown off by their sudden disappearance. Bullets riddle into them, more than half the synthetic force dropping to the ground as the sudden assault slammed against them like a wall. The synths behind us opened fire, their weapons blasting towards us, only to be abruptly caught short as they rammed against Scarlet’s shield. I saw Scarlet wince as she struggled to maintain the magical barrier. With a loud grunt of pain, Scarlet’s horn flared brighter and she shoved the magical wall against the wall of synths with as much force as she could muster, pushing them all into one large clump.

The Courser leapt back, ducking away as Brisk’s minigun sent a stream of lead spewing towards him. “What! How!” It growled, its emotionless, icy eyes digging into me as it weaved its body about to avoid getting shot. “There is no way that you could have teleported all of them-” The Courser paused as his hoof hit something small and invisible that frantically darted across the room. “The foals are invisible! Fire at the floor!”

“Scarlet! Switch shields!” I shouted, my horn still flaring with light as I tried to maintain the mass invisibility spell. I could feel my strength dwindling by the second. I had forgotten just how much energy this spell consumed.

Without so much as acknowledging my command, Scarlet shifted her magic, the magical force field blocking of the synths behind us sputtering out and reappearing around the Courser and his squad of synths. Again, she gave a loud grunt of pain, her horn blazing with scarlet light as the bubble shield began constricting around the synths, pushing them together and keeping them away from the invisible foals.

The second the shield was down, the synths behind us charged, their weapons blazing with blue beams of light. I skipped about frantically, doing my best to avoid being gunned down while still maintaining my spell.

“Blueberry! One missile at the synths! Now!” I shouted, my voice sounding out of breath from the overexertion. “Aim high! Don’t hit the foals!”

Blueberry gave a quick nod, his whole body pivoting to face the synths pouring through the blasted apart doorway and letting a single missile rocket out from his battle saddle and into the corralled synths. There was a blinding flash of light followed in short order by an ear splitting boom as the missile detonated, sending blasted apart synth limbs and rubble flying in every direction. The explosion ripped through the wall of Tenpony tower, blowing apart stone and plaster and creating a gaping hole in the wall that gave me a clear view of the Manehattan wastes beyond.

No longer able to hold the spell, I let my horn tapper out, the forms of thirty or so trembling foals flickering back into view around us. I was beyond thankful to see that none of them looked particularly injured. A little banged up, but nothing a healing potion couldn’t fix.

“Mother! Steadyhoof! We need to start getting these foals to safety!” I shouted, picking my shotgun up in my mouth and firing a few shots into the few synths still standing by the doorway.

Before they could move, I heard a loud yell as the Courser rammed the full weight of his body against Scarlet's shield. Dark cracks shot across the magical surface for only a second before the force caused Scarlet to reel back, the force field dropping. Immediately, the synths inside surged forwards, their flaring weapons blasting three of the tenpony civilians to ash.

“You have made a grave mistake, Amber Aura,” The Courser scowled, lunging towards me. I ducked back, their strong hoof sailing only half an inch past my face. I didn’t have time to righten myself when the Courser spun around and bucked back, their powerful hind hooves slamming into my chest. I felt all the wind get knocked from my lungs as the powerful strike sent me sailing backwards, my back ramming hard against the floor.

Xayah jumped between the Courser and I, her large anti-material rifle blasting off a round in the direction of the dark stallion. The Courser swerved expertly out of the way, whipping their whole body back around to face us, their forehooves crashing violently into Xayah’s head and throwing her to the side.

I pushed myself back up and rushed at the Courser as Xayah was sent skidding across the ground. I swung my shotgun up in a quick arch to face them, only for the weapon to get knocked away from a blast from the Coursers own rifle.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw mother jump in front of a couple of the cowering foals, her horn glowing as she erected a magical shield around them, sparing them from being turned to ash as a few synths fired upon their location. Coco Pommel was only a few steps away from her, using her own body as a shield for a small filly that had curled up fearfully in the corner.

Grimacing, I jumped back again as the Courser advanced on me, their forehooves once more lashing at my neck. Star flashed down from above them, her magical energy rifle strafing at the ground around the Courser. The Courser weaved back and forth, their hooves moving them faster than I could process as they evaded the searing blasts. They managed to flip themselves around, their institute rifle swinging up to aim at Star and firing.

Blam!

A beam of blue energy lanced out, striking Star through her forehoof. Star screamed, her wings sagging slightly and her body plumbitting to the ground as the shot caused her to lose control of her momentum, blood spilling down her leg.

At that exact moment, the lights above us burst back to life. I winced as the darkness around us was suddenly flooded with a blinding light. I felt myself grin. Sprocket had actually done it!

The Courser glanced up at the flickering lights, their eyes narrowing and their lips twisting into a snarl. There was a loud roar of rage induced excitement from all around the room as the ponies around me were finally given their first good look at the synths they were fighting, their aim suddenly switching from mostly blind shots in the dark to well aimed and calculated shots. I watched in amazement as several synths were immediately gunned down, their bodies riddled with holes.

Clearly seeing we were about to gain the advantage, the Courser flashed forwards, one of their hooves wrapping around one of the scrambling colts that was desperately trying to find shelter amongst the chaos. Their rifle flicked up, pressing against the foal's head. “You should have surrendered yourself when we gave you the chance. I think we are done being reasonable.”

I saw the colt tense as the barrel of the Courser’s rifle began to charge up. I kicked at the ground with my hind hooves, trying desperately to get between the Courser and the foal before it was too late. But there was nothing I could do. I was too far away. Once again, I was going to fail to save the foals I was trying to protect.

From seemingly out of nowhere, Coco Pommel threw herself forwards, her rotting hooves bashing against the side of the Courser and knocking his rifle aside. The lethal shot went wide, missing the colt by inches. Before anyone could properly react, Coco had flung the colt out of the Courser’s reach, her own revolver desperately cracking off shots as she tried to gun down the unbelievably nimble Courser.

The Courser scowled, their rifled flaring with light as they blasted a beam of blue energy straight through Coco Pommels chest. The ghoul’s hazy eyes shot wide as the deadly bolt of light seared off the front of her torso and burned away at the organs within. I could feel myself scream as I watched Coco Pommel sway for a moment before crumpling to the ground and going still.

“Residence of Tenpony Tower! This is the Enclave!” A booming voice called out, making all the ponies in the tower freeze. I could feel my blood run cold at the sound. Fuck me, that last thing we needed right now was the Enlcave to attack. “You are now under our command. You will obey or we will be required to use lethal force!”

The Courser growled at the sound of the approaching Enclave. They reached up, a hoof tapping at the intercom on their ear. “Regroup at the Ponypalooza. We are done here.”

Beams of blue light flashed out and enveloped all the synths around us, each and every one of them seemingly blinking out of existence.

“What the hell just happened? Where did they go?!” I heard a pony call out, their shot meeting empty air as the synth they had been attacking disappeared in a beam of light.

“Doesn’t matter. We have bigger issues to deal with!” Mother shouted back over the hubbub, standing at the precipice of the blown up section of wall and looking out at the city of Manehattan beyond. “Enclave’s here!”

Steadyhoof growled. “Damn it. They weren’t supposed to be here for another few hours!”

Scarlet rushed up beside Mother, her eyes sweeping the wastes outside. “That may be, but it looks like a squad of their troops are coming in ahead of the Raptors!”

“We repeat: this is the Enclave! You are now under our command. Obey or we will be required to use lethal force!” the voice called out again, this time a little louder than before. They were getting closer.

I, however, all but ignored the voice, frantically rushing over to where Coco had fallen and propping her up with a hoof. I felt the smallest bit of relief flush through me when I found her breathing, but she was fading fast and fountains of blood were pumping from the gaping hole in her chest. “Star! I need you here! Now!” I shouted, quickly applying pressure to the wound. “Come on Coco… You’re going to be okay.”

Star painfully staggered over to me, limping on her wounded hoof. She took one look at Coco Pommel and grimaced. She grit her teeth through the pain and rushed the last few steps to us, calling out behind her. “Fuck. Brisk! I need you to get me my saddle bag!”

Brisk was quickly rushing over as well, his eyes landing on Star’s bleeding hoof. “Star, you’re leg!”

“I don’t give a fucking flying feather about my leg right now! Saddle bag! Go! Grab it!” Star snapped at him while quickly instructing me on how to better hold together the wound. Brisk flushed and spun around, rushing back into the crowd of ponies.

Movement drew my attention over to the large whole in the wall. I saw Mother slowly backing away as four fully armoured Enclave troopers swooped into the building, their armoured hooves landing heavily against the marble floors of Tenpony. “The Tower is being surrounded as we speak. You will all lower your weapons and comply!” One of the Enclave ponies demanded roughly, their pulsating Novesurge rifle sweeping back and forth between all of us. I could tell from the tone of their voice they were trying to hide how surprised they were to have just flown straight into a gathering of Applejack Rangers among other assorted ponies.

A small, wheezing sputter turned my gaze back down to Coco Pommel as she coughed back to consciousness, blood dribbling down her front and staining her collar. She looked up at me as Star fretted over her, her hazy, pale eyes distant. “Is the colt okay…?”

I gave her my best smile, trying to hold the gaping hole in her torso together. “He is. You did great. Now relax. You’re going to be okay.”

Coco Pommel glanced down at my hooves pressed up against her chest, my hide soaked a dark red from her blood. “I…” her face paled and for a second it looked like the sight of her own blood was going to make her pass out. “I don’t think I’m going to survive this one…” She gave me a thin smile. “But thank you… For giving me the chance to have at least some life before the end. I’d probably still be Suri Polomare’s prisoner if it wasn’t for you.”

“Don’t say that. Brisk is on his way with healing supplies. You’ll be okay. I promise,” I reassured her. Damn it, I didn’t want her to die. Not like this. She had probably suffered more than anypony in this room yet had never done a single thing wrong. Of all the ponies in the wasteland, she didn’t deserve this.

“Who amongst you is your leader?” The Enclave pony that seemed to be in charge ordered. The sound of flapping wings signalled the arrival of five more fully armoured Enclave troopers arriving behind them.

There were a few mumbling sounds from the crowd of ponies before Steadyhoof stepped forwards. “That would be me. We want no quarrel with the Enclave. Leave now. As you can see, Tenpony Tower is currently under protection.”

The Enclave soldier stomped their metal clad hoof roughly on the ground before him, cracking the marble floor even more. He growled at the collection of Applejack Rangers that surrounded them. “Your protection will do you little good when our Raptors arrive. Comply or we will do to your tower what we did to Canterlot.”

Coco reached up, wrapping one of her rotting hooves around my own. I felt her pull my hoof away from the bleeding gap in her torso for a second, placing something small into my grip. I glanced down, looking at the small statuette of Rarity she had placed into my hoof. The same statuette I had given to her on my last visit to Tenpony Tower.

“Coco, what are you doing?” I pleaded with her, reverting my hoof back to holding her wound together. “Stop acting like this, really. We’re going to save you.”

The ghoul just gave me a sad shake of her head. “I think we both know that that isn’t going to happen. Rarity deserves a good pony to carry her around.”

I heard Star give a grunt from beside me as she tried to sear the wound closed with the tip of her magical energy rifle to minimal effect. There was only so much she could do without her healing supplies. “Damn it. How long does it take Brisk to get my fucking bag?”

“Tenpony Tower has done nothing against the Enclave,” Steadyhoof was saying over the mumbling din of the crowd. “You have no grounds on which to launch this invasion.”

Again, the Enclave trooper scowled at him. “We just got word that you have been in recent contact with the terrorist that ponies are calling the Stable Dweller. The Enclave High council does not intend to take any more risks when it comes to dealing with this dangerous individual,” My ears perked up at the Enclaves declaration. Littlepip had been here? Why? What the hell was she planning now? “Now we are not going to ask again. Surrender to us, or we will take the tower by force.”

Another Enclave soldier spun around, their twin novasurge rifles swinging to aim at Brisk as he came charging back through the crowd of ponies, Star’s saddlebags slung over his back. “Woah! Halt wasteland savage!” The Trooper scowled, their aim bringing Brisk up short. “Put the bags down and take a step back. Now!”

“They’re medical supplies! We need to get them to our friend! Now!” Brisk shouted back, taking a small step back, but refusing to drop the bags. “Please, she’s hurt!”

“I said put down the fucking bags!” The Enclave soldier reaffirmed, their eyes narrowing behind their insectoid helmet. “I’m not going to ask you twice!”

Bang!

A loud gun shot rang out. One of the Enclave trooper’s heads burst open, the large round from an unseen sniper blasting out the back of their brains and sending blood splattering across the wall. They crashed to the ground, their armour clanking loudly against the marble floor.

All the Enclave troopers spun around, their novasurge rifles blazing as they faced the gaping hole in the wall where the shot had come from. “Give them hell!” The leading Enclave pony screamed, their weapon bursting to life.

“Ponies! Defend the tower!” Steadyhoof called out, the sudden attack jolting him into action. There was a loud roar of agreement as all the ponies around us raised their weapons and opened fire.

I felt Coco’s grip on me loosen, their pale eyes slowly rolling back up into her head as they began fading faster. More and more blood poured from her body, pooling around us in a large puddle of crimson.

“No no. Come on! Stay with me! Just a little longer!” I begged her, shaking her back awake. The movement caused her to cough, more blood spilling across my hooves.

Brisk dashed forwards, ducking low as the deadly blasts from one of the Enclave ponies rifles blasted above his head. He weaved around a few charging ponies, skidding to a stop beside us and dumping the saddle bags by Star’s side.

“Healing supplies,” he grunted quickly, his voice out of breath as he turned and stood over us protectively as Star worked, his minigun roaring.

More ringing gunshots began echoing into the chamber from outside. Through the gaping hole in the wall, I saw a few Enclave soldiers get shot down from the sky, gunned down by our unseen saviours. For a second, I could have sworn I saw a large feathered form flash past the hole, but I couldn’t be sure.

Crusader Blueberry fired off a shot from his rocket, the deadly projectile detonating against one of the Enlcave’s armoured forms and blasting them apart. Bits of scrapped power armour and pony bits were sent flying everywhere.

Star rummaged through her bag, he hooves digging frantically as she tried to find something of use. A bolt of fear passed through me as I felt Coco Pommels heart slowly beat to a stop. I tried to shake her awake again, but she didn’t respond. Her body just lay there, limp and unmoving.

“Damn it… Nononono,” I breathed, trying to shake her awake again. “I don’t want to lose another good pony,” Wasn’t Shade and Crank and Heartbeat and Chestnut enough? The Wasteland had to take away the first kind face I had ever seen outside the Stable as well? It wasn’t fair!

Something swooped past the hole in the wall for just a second, their form silhouetted by the light outside. They fired off a shot from a revolver clutched tight in their grip, the shot downing another pegasus.

With a yelp of relief, Star staggered away from her saddlebags, a hoof full of healing potions clutched close to her chest. She dragged herself over to Coco’s head, quickly popping the top off the first potion and pouring it down the small ghouls throat.

“Hold her head up!” Star ordered me, draining the rest of the potions contents into her mouth. She paused, waiting for the healing potion to take effect. Nothing seemed to happen. “Fucking hell, come on!” She dumped another potion down Coco’s throat. Again, no signs of life returned to her.

I felt my heart rate quicken, my eyes darting back and forth for any signs that the potion was helping. Star frantically poured another one into Coco’s mouth, helping me to lean her head up more to ensure she swallowed the healing potion. Again, nothing seemed to happen. “Give her another one,” I ordered Star, clinging desperately to the bleeding wound. I could feel Coco Pommel’s body slowly going cold against my hooves, her heartbeat long since still. When Star didn’t seem to respond to my command, I looked up and growled at her, desperation in my eyes. “I said give her another fucking potion! Hurry!”

“It won’t do anything, Amber. We’re too late…” Star said solemnly, her dower expression downcast. She leaned away from Coco’s body, her shoulders slumped. “She’s gone…”

Bang!

One final shot lanced in through the hole in the wall, blasting the last standing Enclave pony through their tinted visor. With a thud, the pegasus crumpled to the ground, dark blood pooling around them. Then, everything went strangely silent, no pony daring to breathe as they waited to see if it was finally and truly over.

I stared at Star for a long moment, praying to the goddesses that she was wrong. But I knew deep down that she wasn’t, and the sudden, deathly silence of the room only seemed to prove her point. Coco Pommel’s body was already turning deathly cold. The first pony in the wasteland that had ever been kind to me, was dead.

I heard Brisk take a shuddering breath from beside me, his own eyes locked on Coco’s limp form. No doubt many of the same thoughts I was having were going through his own mind. The two of us had known Coco for longer than anypony in the wasteland. The idea that she was gone stung far more than I had ever expected it would.

I slowly sat back, my blood soaked hooves picking the Rarity statuette up and looking it over. The small figurine must have meant a lot to Coco if she chose to think of it of all things in her dying moments. Blinking back a tear, I slipped the Rarity statuette into my saddlebag next to the small figurine of Twilight that Scarlet had given to me. It just seemed right to put the two of them together. It made all the bad feel just a little bit better somehow. Maybe it didn’t make things feel better enough, but it was a start in the right direction.

The sound of flapping wings drew my gaze once more to the large hole in the wall, but this time it wasn’t a pegasus that flew in, but two large griffons. The first griffon was clad in a large suit of power armour, though the suit was modified to lack legs, wings and talon covering, clearly intended to give her more movement. A massive tri-barrelled, anti-air cannon was mounted to their battlesaddle, clearly the cause of the devastating shots that had blown through Enclave power armour like it was butter. The words ‘Little Gilda’ had been carved into the side of the weapon. The other figure, smaller in statute, but no less imposing was a brown griffon with a white feathered face and two pistols that had clearly once been rifles clutched in her talons.

The two griffons stood there for a moment, taking in the large group inside. After a moment, Steadyhoof took a step forward. “And whom might we have to thank for this unexpected rescue?”

The pistol wielding griffon cocked her head to the side a little, her beak twisting into a thin smirk. “You can thank gawd.”

As if she had been waiting for her cue, another griffon, this one clad in scratched up combat armour and bearing a large scar across her hardened face, flapped into the room, dropping down and landing in front of the first two griffons. I didn’t recognize her face, but from the reactions of the ponies around me, I could tell she was a big deal.

“Gawd Grimfeathers,” Steadyhoof breathed, taking a small step back. “I was not expecting you. What brings you to Tenpony?”

Gawd reached down with one of her talons, picking up the helmet of a fallen Enclave trooper. “The Enclave is moving faster than we had expected. We’re anticipating they’re going to reach Filly by midday tomorrow,” Gawd Grimfeathers tossed the cracked power armour helmet back to the ground. “Our mutual friend Littlepip figured she'd send us to protect the tower. Keep it free of Enclave till you can get our secret weapon up and running.”

A few of the Applejack Rangers looked around at each other curiously at the mention of a secret weapon. Crusader Blueberry surprisingly seemed somewhat unfazed. I knew Littlepip had been in contact with the Applejack Rangers already. Perhaps he already knew.

Steadyhoof stepped aside, raising his hoof to gesture for them to enter further into the tower. “Well come on in. The Enclave is gone now, but as you’ve likely seen, we have more Raptors well on their way. They’ll likely be upon us within a few hours. We can use every last bit of help we can get.”

Gawd gave him a thin smirk. I found the twisting of her beak to be slightly disturbing in how it made the large scar on her muscular face ripple. “I can tell,” she turned, giving a signal out the window with one of her wings. “And I hope you don’t mind, but we brought some backup.”

Several griffons, all dressed in battle hardened combat armour bearing the Talon’s insignia swooped into the building, taking up defensive positions behind the first two griffons that had entered. Behind them, I could see dozens more circling in the air around the tower and a few posted on tops of the surrounding toppled buildings.

I heard Mother give a slight whistle. “Talk about backup…”

“Star… You’re leg…” I heard Brisk grunt behind me. I glanced back over to my side where Brisk was trying desperately to get Star to finally tend to her own injuries.

Instead however, Star shoved him off with a wing, her defeated looking gaze still fixed on Coco Pommel’s lifeless form. “Fuck my leg damn it,” She pushed herself up to her hooves, wincing as she applied pressure to her wounded hoof. She gestured frantically at the dozens of other ponies around them that were bleeding out on the floor, many of them in far worse condition than she was. “Stop thinking about my damn fucking leg for a second. There are other ponies here that need help!”

Brisk recoiled at the remark a little, his eyes glancing back and forth from her leg to the injured ponies around them. He bit his lip for a second before a look of confliction crossed his face and he gave a violent shake of his head. “Star I just- Fuck. Never mind. Fuck it,” Then, not waiting to let Star get another word in, Brisk spun around and darted off, pushing his way past a few ponies and disappearing into the crowd.

“The fuck was that about?” Star asked, looking from the way Brisk had run off and back to me. Her tone held concern for once, instead of just annoyance like it usually did.

I gave a worried shake of my head. “I don’t know. That wasn't like Brisk…” I glanced over at the wounded ponies around us and sighed. “You help the ponies here, I’ll go talk to him.”

Star gave a small nod. “Sure. Thanks.”

I took one step away before pausing and looking back at her. “And Star… Make sure you heal yourself up to. You won’t be able to help anypony if you can’t walk yourself.”

“I’ll see what supplies I can spare,” was all Star grunted back, turning away from me and half limping half fluttering over to the pony that seemed the most wounded.

Deciding that response was satisfactory and not wanting to lose track of which way Brisk had run off more than I already had, I weaved my way through the crowd of ponies after Brisk, stopping only briefly as I passed Crusader Blueberry and Mother. The two had made their way over to Gawd and Steadyhoof and were deep in conversation over something. Blueberry looked up at me as I approached.

“Do you have everything covered here?” I asked them quickly.

Blueberry gave me a quick nod. “For the moment. He cast a small glance over at Gawd and the group of Talon mercs behind her. “It seems like for the first time in a few days, our luck is finally turning around.”

Mother’s eyebrows furrowed at me slightly. “Why? Where are you going? Do you need some assistance?”

I gave her a polite smile and shook my head. It was nice in a strange way to hear Mothers concern over me. “No. Just need to deal with some personal stuff, I think. Don’t worry about it. I’ll be fine.”

“I have a few words I wish to exchange with you, but I'm afraid that now isn’t the time,” Steadyhoof admitted. “I’ll find you afterwards.”

Giving him a nod, I turned to keep searching for Brisk, only to bump into the large female griffon that had been duel wielding pistols. The large griffon cocked her head at me, looking down at me with one of her intense eyes. “Oh, um… hi,” I squeaked, a little off put by their sudden interjection into my path.

“Another Stable Dweller, huh?” The griffon smirked, turning their head back to face me more directly again. “There sure are a lot of you crawling out into the wasteland these days.”

I gave her a sheepish smile and raised my hoof to greet her. “Amber Aura. Nice to meet you.”

The Griffon awkwardly raised their leg up to my outstretched hoof and closed their sharp talons around my hoof. “Ragina Grimfeathers.”

We both stood there for a second, not really knowing how to proceed before I gave a nervous laugh and gave her talon a shake. “Nice to meet you… you didn’t happen to see a green stallion run by, did you. Also in Stable barding? Has an eyepatch over one eye.”

Ragina nodded and pointed in the exact opposite direction I had been about to head. “Went into the crowd for a second before circling around and heading towards the main market place. Looked like he was trying to not be followed.”

Damn. That meant finding him was probably going to be harder than I had hoped, but at least I had a general direction. “Thanks,” I pushed past the griffon, making my way back through the hallway and down the steps we had first run up. Each and every way I looked, pony and synth bodies lay scattered and broken against the marble floor. There had already been so much death today, and the day was still young.

I made my way out into the main marketplace. Like the hallways on the floor above, pony and synth corpses lay in grisly mounds everywhere. Blood speckled the walls like visceral paint strokes and the sounds of weeping and screaming ponies filled the large room. Most of the survivors had gathered together in the middle of the chamber while Glaswswings disguised Institute remnants darted about, trying to heal as many of the wounded as they could. I was happily surprised to see Glasswing attending the wounded leg of a weeping Freedom Express operative.

My little bit of joy faltered when I saw Freedom’s body hunched over the limp form of Sprocket, her shoulders heaving as she cried into the fallen operatives lifeless from. I didn’t need to see Freedom’s solemn, tear filled eyes to know that Sprocket was dead, but at least they had died a hero. I took a step forward to go comfort her, but quickly thought better of it. It looked like she needed a moment to mourn the fallen mechanic on her own. so instead, casting one last look at Sprockets lifeless Body, I turned and continued my search for Brisk.

It took another several minutes before I finally located Brisk. He was standing on a large balcony, overlooking the crumbling ruins of Manehattan below. The ash filled winds blew at his ruffled mane and tail lightly, pushing flowing strands across his face.

“Hey,” I started, alerting him to my presence as I slowly trotted up behind him. I paused, not sure if I should approach him fully.

Brisk didn’t bother looking back, but he gave a low sigh and tapped the railing beside him, gesturing for me to join him. “Hey sis. I did a lousy job trying to sneak away from you, huh.”

“One of the griffon’s tipped me off,” I admitted, making my way up beside him and looking out at the wastes. “But I had a hunch you would come here. Some things never change, and your longing to be free and have your face out a window or balcony is one of those things.”

“Is it?” Brisk asked, still not daring to look at me. “I feel like I’m a lot less adventurous than I was when I left the Stable. I don’t even feel like the same pony half the time.”

“We’ve all changed,” I shrugged. “We’ve all been through a lot. If we were all the same ponies that we were back then, then we would never have learned anything.”

“Still feels wrong,” He grunted wistfully. “I’m tired. Have been for days. You’re an emotional wreck all the time now, no matter how hard you try to hide it. Hell, all of us are in desperate need of therapy. It isn’t fair…”

I watched the dark black spots of the Enclave Raptors on the horizon for a bit before giving a small smile. “True, but we’re all stronger as well. I’m more confident with myself than I ever was back in the Stable, Xayah’s come to terms with her past and what happened to her family, plus she’s got a better grasp on things like social cues and emotions. Hell, just look at Pyre. She actually seems to be happy for the first time in her life,” I looked over at him, trying to read his slightly turned away face for any signs of his emotion. “Sure, we’re all broken, but we’re also stronger because of it.”

“And what about me?” He asked, finally looking over at me. His eyes were almost pleading, as if asking me to tell him that everything was going to be okay soon. I wish I could have told him that. “I don’t feel stronger. I just feel more afraid of things. More ready to give up. Less energetic and happy. The desire for adventure I used to crave disappeared long ago. Now all I want is to finally settle down. Live life like a normal fucking pony for just a day. Fuck, I even came to terms with the fact I was raped and I still don’t really feel all that great.”

I gestured for him to move a little closer to me. Brisk gave me a small roll of his eyes before scooting himself towards me and against my side, leaning his head against my shoulder as I wrapped him in a hug.

“I think you’re stronger,” I told him factually, holding him as tight as I could. “Maybe you can’t see it yet, but you are. When we left the Stable all you cared about was yourself. You would have just as soon let Crank and his cyber ponies get away with the A.A.S.S. than go after them. It was all about getting away for you. From your past, from the truths you were running from. About jumping head first into some crazy adventure. But look at you know. You’re giving speeches in war meetings, fighting in the thick of some of the biggest battles Equestria has seen since the great war. You’ve saved ponies, and not just because you felt you had to or wanted to. Sure you’re scared of things now, but that just shows that you’re brave.”

“We’re not raiders,” Brisk smirked somewhat wistfully, quoting me from all those weeks ago. “That line you said really stuck around with me.”

I smiled. “Yeah, I didn’t think you’d grasp onto that line so much. I just said it spur of the moment because I was angry.”

“But you were right,” Brisk insisted. “We aren’t raiders. And that’s why. It’s not just about helping ponies or sparing someone's life. It’s actually thinking through your actions, right? It’s figuring out where we draw the line and when we should cross it.”

I chuckled a little. “I love you bro, but don’t try to be a philosopher. You’ll hurt your brain,” I nuzzled the side of his head slightly. “But yeah. That’s why we aren’t raiders,” I pulled back from him a little, looking up into his eyes. “Do you wanna talk about what happened back there? You just kinda ran off.”

Brisk gave a small laugh. “After this conversation, it’s going to sound stupid.”

“You usually sound stupid. What’s on your mind?”

Brisk flushed. “I just- How did you do it? With me and Xayah, I mean?”

I blinked at him in confusion. “I’m not sure I follow?”

“I mean, like- You had a crush on me, and you confessed your feelings to me and stuff. And then you managed to get together with Xayah and like… I don’t know. I always try to be outgoing, but I just can’t wrap my head around how you did that,” Brisk’s blush deepened. “I know this is all stupid and we’re in the middle of a war and that I probably shouldn’t be trying to sort out stupid things like crushes right now, but I just can’t stop getting this awful feeling that not all of us are going to make it out of this… and then Coco died and I- I just don’t think I can keep going on like this…”

Feeling a gripping sense of dread building up in my own gut, I looked away, returning my gaze once more to the desolation of Manehattan. “Yeah, I’ve been getting that feeling too. Every time I look at one of you, I can’t stop feeling it’ll be the last time. We’ve watched so many good ponies die in the past few days, I can’t help but wonder when the next good pony we lose is going to be you or Xayah or somepony else I really care about,” I did my best to shake away those intrusive thoughts with a forced laugh. “But as for your question. Xayah once told me that it’s better to know than to spend the rest of your life wondering what might have been, even if it hurts. I just clung to that idea. It makes it easier.”

“And you don’t think this is stupid?” Brisk asked shyly. “Worrying about a stupid crush when the whole wasteland seems to be burning up around us?”

I smiled a little wider. “I don’t think it’s stupid at all. Some of us might not make it through the next few days. It might be you, or Star Breeze. The last thing you want is for one or both of you to die with your feelings unsaid.”

Brisk blushed even more. “I- I never said I was talking about Star!”

I gave him a smug smirk. “Right. Like your feelings for her are a secret,” I gave him a quick wink. “You should talk to her. Who knows how many chances you have left to do that.”

Brisk glanced down at his fore hooves, scuffing one of them across the marble floor. “And if she doesn’t feel the same? I don’t want things to be awkward or, I don’t know…”

“Hey, you didn’t feel the same about me, and look at us now,” I nickered, giving him a playful nudge. “Our relationship didn’t become what I had wanted it to be back then, but seeing where we are now, I wouldn’t have had it any other way.”

Brisk gave me another smile, though this time it didn’t feel as forced. It was a nice smile, though it showed the hoof full of teeth that had been knocked out over the past two months. “Alright. Thanks, sis. I will. Maybe not here in Tenpony tower, I’ve got some stuff to think through first.”

“Don’t think about it too hard,” I giggled, flicking his side a little with my tail. “You only have so many brain cells you can use up ya knucklehead.”

Brisk grinned back with a small laugh of his own. “Well maybe I could think better if you shared a few of yours with me ya big nerd!”

A small cough drew our gaze over to Chief Steadyhoof who was watching us in mild amusement from the doorway back into the tower. “Am I interrupting anything important?” The large stallion asked, taking a small step out.

I shook my head. “No. We were just finishing. You needed to talk to me?”

Steadyhoof nodded. “The Tower is currently secure, and Gawd’s Talons are currently setting up defences around Tenpony, but the Enclave is still coming and they appear to be coming in force. We aren’t sure how well we will be able to defend the tower, even with the Griffons on our side.”

“We could always stay around longer. With the combined force of the Talons and Applejack Rangers, we should be able to hold the Enclave back,” I suggested, glancing at the dark specs of the Enclave Raptors in the distance.

Steadyhoof shook his head. “Perhaps that would be enough, but no. I’ve been talking with Crusader Blueberry and Freedom. By the sounds of it, you have a lot more to deal with than just the Enclave. The war for Manehattan has been brewing for a long time. We’ve all seen it coming for years. Tenpony Tower must stand against the Enclave, but from what I understand, the Fluttershy Medical Centre out in Fetlock must stand against the True Steels.”

I nodded. “That was our next destination, yes. We’re expecting an attack there soon. Iron Hock won’t want to miss the opportunity to take it while it's defenceless.”

“Soon? No. As I said, I was just talking to Blueberry. He’s received word from his scribes posted there. The Centre is already under attack. The attack likely launched shortly after the Synths fled Tenpony.”

“It’s those damn Coursers,” Brisk scowled. “They’re dragging us out to them. They know damn well that fighting against us and the Talons would be a losing fight, especially if they have to deal with the Enclave at the same time.”

I nodded. “I suppose that gives us one more reason to leave then. Silver Ace only sent his synths after Tenpony as a trap for us. Without us here, they’ll have no reason to attack the tower again, not while the Enclave and the Talons are fighting over it anyway.”

Steadyhoof nodded. “I’ll report all of this back to Blueberry. It has been a pleasure fighting alongside you, Amber Aura, the Pink Menace. With some luck, perhaps we will get the chance to fight alongside one enough in the future.”

“Please don’t call me the Pink Menace… I did not agree to that name,” I grumbled, but I gave him a grim smile all the same. “And with some luck we will get to talk under better circumstances,” Steadyhoof began to move away, but before he did, I quickly called out to him. “Steadyhoof wait… Coco Pommel… she was a ghoul in the tower… I just…”

Steadyhoof turned back to me, giving me a soft, yet sad smile. “I knew her. Ghouls are rarely accepted by the community here at Tenpony, but she managed to make quite the impression in the time she spent here, and not just to me. Don’t worry. We’ll make sure she receives a proper burial like the rest of the ponies that were lost today.”

I brushed aside a tear and gave him a grateful hug. It didn’t feel like enough, but it was all I could ask for.

Fetlock wasn’t a particularly long walk. It amazes me even to this day how effortlessly travelling though some of the more traversed areas of Manehattan could be when you weren’t new to the wasteland and had a whole army backing you up.

Freedom had gathered her Operators around her relatively quickly upon being told it was time to leave the tower, though she looked very dower. Clearly Sprocket's death had hit her and many of her Operatives hard. The Friendship Express had been hit badly in the fight. I noted there were a fair amount of Operatives that didn’t leave the tower with us.

Glasswing and Mother seemed better in mental state. The Institute Remnants, though already a relatively weakened faction, had come out relatively unscathed. A few scientists had been lost, but overall, they had only lost a few in numbers.

I saw Scarlet and Star trotting a few paces ahead of me alongside Crusader Blueberry, deep in conversation. I was glad to see that Star had taken to mending her wounded leg, though there was a nasty scar where the Courser’s shot had struck. Brisk walked a few paces behind them, lost in thought, though for the first time in a while, I saw him walking along with a smile on his face.

That left me to walk alongside Xayah, the two of us were separated from the rest of the groups by a few steps. I found myself strangely glad for the small bit of isolation. It had been a long while since I had gotten a chance to really talk with Xayah by herself. However, as the two of us walked alone, I found myself with little to nothing to say.

“You’re quieter than usual,” Xayah noted, glancing over at me. “You usually have something that you wish to get off your chest, no?”

I gave her a smile. “I guess I’m just worried about everypony. We lost a lot of good ponies today and I don’t really know how we actually hope to beat all of this,” I felt my smile falter a little. “I mean, we don’t even really know what Silver Ace’s endgame is!”

Xayah nickered. “Ah. There it is. I knew you had some anxiety you needed to vent.”

I sighed. “You know me too well apparently.”

“You are not hard to read,” Xayah soothed. “It is not hard to tell that you are trying to take on the weight of the world on your own. You overcame Kamari, Insecta and now Pureblood. I have full faith you can do the same with Silver Ace.”

I gave her a nod, though I didn’t really feel like I agreed. “True, but I hardly survived those encounters. Arguably, I didn’t survive Pureblood. I was just lucky that Twilight was able to send me back to my real body. This whole war for Manehattan is so much bigger than anything we’ve faced, and I don’t even know how to stop it all cause I don’t know what Silver Ace is going to do.”

“You didn’t know what Kamari was going to do? And yet you live and he does not,” Xayah pointed out.

“True, but at the time I wasn’t dealing with armies of synths and True Steels and the Enclave and a Pony of Shadows and shit,” I grumbled.

Xayah cast me a confused look. “Pony of Shadows?”

I gave her a shrug. “Something Jinx and I keep talking about. Apparently there was some shadow monster thing that some great legendary heroes fought hundreds of years before the war or something. I think I might have seen it inside the Utopia Program.”

“In the Starswirl the Bearded tower, I recall from your story,” Xayah frowned. “I confess to having not put much thought into that part of your tale. Do you think it is a threat?”

“I mean, whatever it was certainly seemed dangerous. Farmer was terrified of it and he doesn’t seem to be scared of anything,” I replied nervously. “Jinx thinks that if this Pony of Shadows really is inside the Utopia Program, then it might be more serious than the war is.”

Xayah shuttered. “What do you think this thing wants? Or what it even is?”

I shook my head. “I have no idea. Do you think it might be some kind of star god or something? Trapped and waiting to be let out? I don’t really know about zebra beliefs and stuff outside of what you've told me.”

Xayah frowned. “I have heard legends of beings from the Stars that have gotten trapped on Equis before. Such stories are the reason many zebras including myself avoid areas in Equestria such as the Hoof. But I’ve never heard of anything like this Pony of Shadows.”

“Jinx said something like that too, that not all horrors are from beyond the Stars,” I shrugged. “She seems to think it was something that’s been on Equestria for a very long time. She had another name for it I think too… The uh… Hound of Twilight or something like that.”

I could see a look of hesitation cross Xayah’s face at the mention of the name. “Hmm. That name does sound familiar actually. But you are right, it wasn’t a zebra legend. It was a legend that pony settlers brought with them on an expedition to the Zebra Homelands before the war. I confess to not knowing it well. My mother told me when I was very young.”

I raised my eyebrows a little. “Really? What can you remember?” A small thought went through my mind. “You don’t think this creature has anything to do with Twilight Sparkle do you?”

Xayah shook her head. “From what I could remember, the Twilight in the name comes from its affiliation with the time of day, not the pony. It was why zebras took so much more interest in this story particularly over others that ponies brought over. It was said that a shadow hound would chase the sun across the sky and beyond the horizon to make way for the coming Stars to overtake the sky.”

“Very folktaley,” I noted with a huff, frowning a little. “I don’t suppose any of that story actually has any truth to it?”

Xayah gave me a small shrug. “I cannot say. It is likely that like many tales from ancient Equestria, it was created primarily to give reason to things ponies and zebras did not fully understand. But that said, there are many great powers in this world and in the stars beyond, why not this one,” Xayah thought in her own words for a second before chuckling. “Though, a shadow monster that chases the sun across the sky is rather silly.”

“Did the legend say anything about how to fight it? or how to defeat it?” I asked hopefully. I wasn’t sure how much of all this I should believed, but if it was real, I needed to be ready.”

“The legend says it already has been,” Xayah told me simply. “Great Equestrian heros banded together and banished it into limbo.”

I furrowed my brows. “Banished it to limbo? As in like… out of our universe?”

Again, Xayah simply shrugged. “I do not know. I hardly remember the legend as it is.”

“Well if it was banished, how could it possibly be inside the Utopia Program? That doesn’t make any sense? And why would it be in the Utopia Program anyway? That thing told me that the program was its prison? How would that work?”

Before I could keep asking questions, Xayah silenced me with a small nudge. “I cannot say. I know just as much about all of this as you, but whatever it is, we must not take such dark dealings lightly.”

I tried to release some of the tension in my shoulders by letting out a long sigh. I kissed Xayah on the cheek quickly. “You’re right. Sorry. We’ll cross that bridge when we get there I guess.”

Up ahead, I heard one of the Applejack Rangers give a warning shout. “Ready yourselves everypony! We’re here.”

No sooner did the warning go out, I began to hear the sounds of magical energy gunfire and roaring explosives in the distance. Xayah and I crept forwards, keeping low and moving up beside Star and Scarlet as our group moved up behind a large pile of recently fallen rubble. We peeked out, looking down the hill towards the large, cube-like structure of the Fluttershy Medical Centre. Much as we had expected, the attack on the medical centre had already begun. Swarms of synths closed in on the large building, their deadly weapons aimed at the few Applejack Rangers and robobrains that protected the building. Alongside them, well organised ranks of True Steel knights advanced forwards, their impressive arsonals shaking the foundation of the very building with each and every explosive blast. I felt myself inhale sharply at the size of the synth and True Steel army. It was likely double the size of the force that had attacked Tenpony.

“We need to get down there. Our ponies aren’t going to be able to last much longer against a force like that,” Blueberry scowled, signalling with a hoof for a few of his knights to move into a flanking position.

“Wait,” Scarlet hissed, her eyes narrowing at the large army in the distance. “It looks like they’ve got three Coursers down there. Likely the same ones from Tenpony.”

“I can help take out the Coursers,” Freedom seethed, pulling out her large revolver. “I’ve got a score to settle with one of them.”

I shook my head. “Bad idea. I’ve fought with enough Coursers to know that no pony can just take them out. They’re far too strong, especially in greater numbers. We’ll need to outsmart them,” I paused as I shifted my gaze to the marching forms of the True Steels. “Besides, brute force is never the right approach when dealing with the True Steels.”

I saw a thin smile settle across Glasswings face. “I agree. Huddle close ponies. I have a plan.”

Boom!

Another rocket flashed out from one of the True Steels battle saddles, streaking across the battlefield and detonating near a group of Applejack Ranger scribes. The Scribes dove apart, but two weren’t fast enough, their unarmoured bodies being ripped apart by the force and explosive shrapnel.

One of the Applejack rangers pushed themselves up against a toppled wagon, doing their best to hunker down low despite their bulky power armour. They took a deep breath, trying to steady themselves before pushing themselves back up and letting their battle saddle mounted energy rifles fire. Crimson beams streaked out, one blast bursting open the head of a charging mannequin-like synth. The synth topples to the ground, wires spilling from the stump of their neck. A second later, the ranger collapsed to the ground, a well aimed shot from one of the Coursers lancing through his visor and turning him to ash within his armour.

Five True Steel Scribes rushed forwards through the army slowly marching its way towards the medical centre, a letter tight in one of their hooves. They scampered up next to a hulking True Steel Rangers clad in an almost blindingly white and gold suit of power armour. Blood smattered the shiny armour, giving the otherwise godly look a very grisly appearance. “Paladin! Orders from Iron Hock! We need to retreat immediately!”

The large paladin scowled, glancing down at the letter. “Absurd! We’re so close! A few more minutes and the medical centre will be ours!” He fired off another rocket from his battle saddle, the deadly projectile blasting appart a charging Applejack Ranger before turning and glancing down at the scribes. He swiped the letter from the scribe's hoof and glared at it, letting his concealed eyes roll over the hastily written words. “Let me see that… You just received this transmission?”

One of the scribes nodded. “He said he needs everypony to return to Fort Strong at once. He has a better plan of attack to-”

“Yes I can read the fucking transmittion,” The huge True Steel paladin scowled. He looked back and forth between his army and the medical centre before growling. “Fuck it. True Steels retreat back to Fort Strong. We are done here… For now…”

There were a few looks of confusion amongst the True Steels, but they quickly obeyed the command, slowly backing away from the few applejack rangers that were defending the medical centre.

Before the True Steels could get far, an imposing black shape materialised in front of the white and gold clad paladin in a blast of blue light. The Courser practically hissed, its face inches from the paladin's face. “What seems to be the issue, Paladin Bonebreaker? We gave no order to retreat.”

“Orders from High Elder Iron Hock. We are to retreat immediately,” Bonebreaker growled back. “Trust me, I am just as pleased about this as you.”

The Courser didn’t seem to be swayed by the statement. “Iron Hock does not make the orders around here, and we received no such transmission,” The Courser scowled, prowling around the larger pony predatorily. “Tell your troops to get back and fight! We don’t leave until we say we leave.”

The five scribes gulped nervously at the Coursers words. Beside them, the large paladin’s eyes narrowed behind his visor. “Iron Hock is our High Elder and commander. You will not undermine his authority!”

The Courser scowled back before turning its gaze to the five scribes that were slowly trying to inch away from the deadly looking Courser. “And you were the ones that received this Transmission?”

The leading Scribe gave a nervous nod. “We were… yes.”

“Do you have any proof of this transmission?” The Courser hissed, slowly slinking closer towards them.

Bonebreaker growled. “You will not undermine the loyalty of my brothers and sisters either. The True Steels are loyal to our cause.”

The Courser practically laughed at the decoration. “Says the splinter group of traitors,” It returned its piercing icy gaze back to the scribes. “Now, your proof?”

One of the Scribes stepped forwards and tapped the leading Scribe on the shoulder. “We’re all in position.”

The lead scribe nodded, turning its head back to face the Courser. When they spoke, their voice had changed to one filled with a glassy charism. “No proof I’m afraid.”

The Courser’s eyes widened ever so slightly at the sound of the pony's voice. It was somewhat satisfying to see one of these emotionless death machines get surprised by something for once. “Glasswing?”

I took that as my cue to drop my spell. The magic around my horn faded, dropping the invisibility spell I had cast on myself. I appeared directly in front of the Courser, my shotgun already up and aimed at their head. “Hiya!”

Blam!

The Courser reeled back from the shotgun blast, its face a mess of synthetic flesh. It staggered, its hooves clawing desperately at its ruined face. “Keep fighting! It’s a trick!” It shrieked out, lashing about blindly as its eyes slowly rehealed themselves, trying its best to land a hit on me.

A few of the True Steels stopped retreating, their faces clearly showing confusion in whether they should keep attacking or retreat. In the confusion, small pillars of magical green fire began swirling up out of the synth and True Steel army as dozens of Institute Changelings shed their disguise and began blasting into their forces with deadly rifles. Beside me, Glasswing, Mother and their three changeling scientists dropped their disguises as well, their own weapons firing. One of Glasswings shots grazed the side of Bonebreakers helmet, sending the huge True Steel Paladin stumbling back.

“Defensive formation!” Bonebreaker howled, a large minigun on the side of his battle saddle rapidly whirring to life. “Show these shapechangers what the True Steels can-”

He was interrupted as the booming sound of hundreds of metal clad hooves began to fill the air. He raised his gaze, his eyes wide behind his helmet as he made out the forms of fully armoured Applejack Rangers cresting over the side of the hill and rushing out from behind broken down buildings on every side. The air filled with the sound of a loud whistling as dozens of rockets streaked out across the battlefield, slamming into clusters of True Steels and synths and blasting them apart.

I ducked low as the Courser rushed at me again, their powerful hoof missing my head by inches. “We have been expecting you, Amber Aura,” The Courser seethed, whipping around to glare at me with its ice blue, reforming eyes. “You are a fool to run head first into our trap a second time.”

“First of all, stop calling me by my full name. Amber will do just fine,” I shot back, dodging another deadly swip of their hoof. “You sound like my dad whenever he’s angry at me. Like seriously, what is it with you villains and using my last name all the time? Very annoying. And second, traps are less effective when we see them coming.”

Blam!

A bullet lanced out from beside me, lancing through the Courser’s head and blasting out one of their eyes. The Courser howled, staggering back as blood flowed freely down their face for the second time from where the powerful shot had hit.

Xayah flickered into view beside me, tossing aside her spent stealthbuck. She re-aimed her anti-material rifle and fired off a second shot, this time blasting out one of the Courser’s legs. A second later, Brisk, Star and Scarlet flashed into view as well, their own weapons slashing into the Coursers hide.

The Coursers scowled, flipping backwards, the flurry of shots from Brisk’s minigun flashing past them. They landed heavily on their hooves, a small grin across their face. “Clever, but your army has little hope of defeating our-”

Much like with Bonebreaker, the Courser was interrupted as a loud cheer rose up from the Fluttershy Medical Centre. The cornered Applejack Rangers had rallied, now joined by a large group of well armoured, minigun wielding Friendship Express Operatives.

“Come on ponies! Let's show them hell!” Freedom screamed, her revolver blasting shot after shot into the True Steels.

The Courser was forced to duck away again, this time by one of Star's shots as they fired off a few rounds of searing magical beams in their direction. “Word to the wise, don’t let a collection of the smartest minds in Equestria come up with your enemy's attack plan,” She quipped at the Courser, swooping in for a second attack.

“Noted,” the Courser monotone back, easily ducking out of the way of the blasts. They spun around, their hoof flashing out and slamming into Scarlet’s chest. Scarlet gave a loud scream of pain as she was flung backwards, hitting the ground hard.

I dove forwards, my shotgun roaring as I blast shot after shot of magically enhanced buckshot in the Courser’s direction. Before I could make it far, another hoof shot out, catching me in the stomach and sending me flying to the side. I groaned, glancing up at the two other Courses that were rapidly moving in on us.

“Right… there are three of you,” I grimace, shakily pulling myself back to my hooves. The strike caused my whole body to feel like it was one fire. Those Courser’s packed one hell of a fucking punch.

Xayah dodged a swing from one of the Coursers, one of her cybernetic legs swinging up to deflect one of strikes. The Courser's hoof slammed hard against the white metal, ramming Xayah into the ground, but she remained otherwise unharmed.

Two of the Coursers exchanged a knowing look as they slowly advanced on me as I tried to pull myself back to my hooves. “It’s time…”

The other Courser nodded, tapping a hoof to their ear. “Bring it in.”

Brisk had to jump back as one of the Coursers rounded on him, their magical energy rifle flaring. The first shot grazed Brisk’s forehoof, searing away his hide and flesh and showing the bone beneath. Brisk grit his teeth, biting down hard on the bit of his minigun and letting loose another torrent of bullets. The Courser he was aiming at easily leaped away from the stream of bullets, their hoof lashing out and knocking Brisk back with a powerful strike to the face.

Across the battlefield, I saw Bonecrusher lung forward, his huge, metal clad hooves crushing a changeling beneath him as if he were a small bug. The huge ranger reared up, his bloodsoaked hooves swinging to collide with anypony else that dared to get close. Behind him, I saw a group of synths swarm around the Friendship Express operatives from all sides, their energy rifles turning a few Operatives to ash. Even with our advantage of surprise, we were quickly being over run.

One of the Coursers slammed into me again, this time pinning me to the ground with their powerful hoof. They leered at me, pressing their hoof tight against my throat. I could feel the air rapidly leaving my lungs as I tried to breathe.

“You may have won in Tenpony Tower, but only because the Talons were there to save you,” The Courser cooed at me. “You will have no such luck here. Plan all you like. Our forces are far greater than you are able to overcome,” A sly smile spread across their ice cold expression. “And this time we brought some insurance.”

A deafening roar echoed out over the battlefield. I heard gasps of horror as a massive shadow shot over us, black wings blotting out the sky as a huge beast soared into the air above us. I looked up with fear filled eyes as the shape of a massive black dragon swooped into my view, its massive maw opening wide and unleashing a sweltering jet of flame across the battlefield. Ponies screamed as the crimson stream of fire washed over them, sending their bodies up in writhing flames. I saw a group of Applejack Rangers collapse to the ground, smoke billowing out of their armour as they were cooked alive.

“You have a- what- dragon- how!” I gasped out, trying desperately to push the Courser’s hoof off my neck.

The Courser just grinned at me. “As you said, traps are always more effective when you don’t see them coming.”

The dragon did a loop in the air before swooping back over us, its huge claws lashing out and snatching fleeing ponies from the ground before soaring off. The massive beast shot upwards for a few seconds before letting their razor sharp claws release, dropping the screaming ponies to their deaths. It roared again, smoke and flame billowing from its mouth and nostrils as it sent another searing jet of fire across the battlefield.

Across from me, I watched in horror as Bonecrusher swung another one of his massive hooves at Glasswing, the huge, metal clad hoof colliding violently with his leg and snapping the bone. Glasswing gave a loud scream of pain, dropping to one knee as the massive True Steel loomed over him.

“Glasswing!” Mother screamed out, rushing at Bonecrusher, her magical energy rifle firing a few blasts into the paladin that did little but ricochet off his gleaming, blood soaked armour. The large True Steel just grunted, their minigun spinning up and firing off a stream of bullets in Mothers direction. Mother screamed as several bullets ripped through her forehoof, sending her staggering backwards.

Brisk gave a loud grunt as one of the Coursers slammed into him, knocking him backwards. He only had just enough time to righten himself when the Courser was on him again, their hoof swinging at his neck. Behind them, a group of synths surrounded a group of Applejack Rangers, their weapons rendering them to ash.

Xayah launched herself at the Courser pinning me down. Her metal hooves slammed against the Coursers side, frantically trying to push them off of me and give me a breath of air. The Courser easily batted her aside, one of their own hooves flashing out and knocking Xayah upside the head. I saw blood drizzle down from where the blow struck.

Taking advantage of the distraction, I shot my head forwards and bit down on the Courser's hoof as hard as I could just below the leather barding. The Course merely flinched, looking down at me in amusement, only to find my horn flaring and sending my new shotgun swinging at their head like a battering ram. The Courser howled as the metal weapon collided with their face, caving the side of their head in.

I pushed myself up, grasping at my neck and trying to pull as much air into my lungs as possible. I spat a wad of blood from my mouth, trying to regain control of all my senses as the wonderful feeling of breath came rushing back into me.

“Retreat to the Medical Centre!” I heard somepony screaming. I looked over to see Crusader Blueberry standing with a large group of his rangers, their explosive weaponry firing rapidly as they tried to cover their allies as they made a frantic dash for the medical centre.

“You heard him! Get inside! Now!” Freedom was shouting, her revolver firing shot after shot up at the dragon as it swooped down again, its maw open wide and unleashing a torrent of flame. The bullets did little but bounce harmlessly off its thick scaled hide.

I rolled forwards, narrowly avoiding a blast from one of the Courser’s deadly rifles as I pulled myself up beside Xayah and helped her back up to her hooves before making a mad dash towards the medical centre. A few synths jumped at me, but I quickly bashed them aside with wild swings of my shotgun, using it almost as a riot shield as the hordes of enemies closed in on me. I saw Star helping Brisk along a few paces behind me, both of their weapons blazing with light as they tried to fend off the three Coursers that were now chasing after us at full speed.

Glasswing’s wings burst to life, sending him flashing past Bonecrusher, his gnarled forehooves scooping Mother up and carrying her bleeding form away from the raging True Steel paladin. Bonecrusher gave a roar of rage, rapidly charging after them, each step shaking the ground.

“Go Go! Blueberry urged everypony, ushering them inside as fast as he could. Xayah and I rushed past him, staggering our way into the medical centre with our friends close behind us. I looked back to see the black dragon swoop by again, its claws rending into a group of frantically rushing Friendship Express Operatives and ripping the in half.

As the last few ponies staggered in, Blueberry turned to one of the robobrains beside him. “Dazzling Souvenir, get the buildings defences down, now!”

Dazzling Souvenir gave a quick salute with her long, accordion-like arm and clicked a button on a terminal inset into the wall. The interior lights of the building abruptly shut off, followed by the loud sounding bang of metal plates slamming shut over the door and window. There was an ear piercing roar as the dragon howled outside, smashing its huge form against the outer wall of the medical centre again and again.

“That should hold it off for a bit,” Dazzling Souvenir chirped in her metallic sounding tone. “But not forever. This building was designed to withstand a zebra invasion, not a fully grown dragon.”

“How the fuck did they even get one of those!” I gasped, my eyes still locked on the door as the massive beast rammed itself into the wall again and again. Bits of smoke began pouring through the cracks under the doorway as the dragon let loose a jet of fire upon the building. I glanced around, trying to see how well everyone was faring in the dim lighting. Many of the ponies lay on the ground, wounded, but a majority of our forces seemed to have gotten inside alive. I spotted a few Applejack Ranger medics darting about, being led by a very tired and frazzled looking Reverie as they tried to patch as many ponies up as quickly as possible.

“Because it’s not a dragon. Not really,” I heard Glasswing grunt. I turned to see the lab coat clad changeling leaning up against a wall for support, trying his best to set his broken leg. Mother rested beside him, trying to bandage her bleeding hoof to the best of her ability.

Xayah gave Glasswing a confused look, wincing a little as the constant slamming of the dragon outside caused a small piece of the roof to fall away. “What do you mean that was not a dragon? It looked like a dragon to me!”

Glasswing scowled, wincing as he applied a little bit of pressure to his broken hoof in an attempt to stand on his own. “A few years back, the Institute began working on creating more than just synthetic ponies, but other creatures as well. The intention was to try and repopulate the wasteland with less irradiated fauna. Among those projects, was the development of synthetic dragons,” he winced again, finally giving up on trying to walk and sitting down. “The project was all but abandoned. It simply was too expensive in resources and didn’t have nearly enough practical use to us. Clearly Silver Ace thought otherwise and finished the project.”

“You were trying to make synth dragons! That’s insane!” Brisk sputtered, glaring at Glasswing.

“Exactly why we never actually made one,” Glasswing shot back. “The idea somepony could take control of the Institute by simply overriding our synths was already a concern, but to give the possibility of them taking control of synth dragons? It was just as much a safety breach to my control over the Institute as it was to the rest of the wasteland.”

I frowned, something not adding up in my head. “Wait, but how does that make any sense? Silver Ace no longer has control over the synth production facilities in the Institute, and I never saw a Dragon fighting in the battle for the Institute either. He would have had to have made that thing after we took the synth creation wing back!”

I saw a look of hesitation cross Glasswings face. Before he could make any form of confession however, Mother stepped forwards. “That’s because the Institute as you know it is only one of two facilities.”

I gaped at her. There was another Institute!? She had to be fucking kidding me. “And you didn’t think to mention this to us earlier!?”

Glasswing sighed and shot Mother with a scolding glare. “I had hoped to keep some secrets close to our chest, or risk losing more than the Institute already has,” With a grunt, he looked back at me. “We have a second facility located in the desolate expanse between Manehattan and Fillydelphia, yes. The one located under Tenpony is our primary base of operations, but this second facility is where a majority of our synths are created. We lost all contact with it after Pureblood first took over the Institute.”

I could practically feel myself seething. “So not only did you withhold valuable information, but this facility is making Silver Ace an even bigger army than he already has!” I stopped my hoof down in agitation. “Fuck, that’s bad.”

“It gets worse,” Glasswing warned. “ If they've managed to create one synth dragon, who is to say they cannot make more. If Silver Ace’s intention is to ensure we cannot beat him in the war for Manehattan, then it is likely that he has already begun production on more of those.”

I could feel a shiver go down my spine. A whole army of fully grown dragons at his disposal? The idea alone was horrifying.

“So? What do we do?” Scarlet asked, trotting up to me slowly.

“At the moment, there is nothing we can do, not while we are trapped in here,” Glasswing grimaced, gesturing to the metal slabs that had slid shut over the door and windows. “Our first course of action must be to survive this fight first. We will be able to do little to stop all this if we cannot kill even this one dragon.”

The whole building shook as the dragon rammed itself into the medical centre again. I took a step back, glancing around. “Well? Does anypony have even the smallest semblance of a plan?” I was only met with blank, horrified stares.

“Ponies!” I heard the booming voice of Bonecrusher call out. I pushed myself up against the wall, peeking through a small crack that led outside. I could see Bonecrusher standing proudly before the amassed army of synths and True Steels in his imposing power armour, all three Coursers flanking him. I couldn’t see the dragon, but I saw a flash of a massive shadow pass over everything. “You have no hope of winning. Surrender Amber Aura to us, and we might let you live!”

There was a moment of hesitation from all the ponies around me. I'm sure the offer seemed incredibly tempting. Then, after a second of silence, Mother pulled herself up to the sealed off doorway. “Go fuck yourselves!” She shouted back, venom in her voice.

Her declaration was quickly followed by loud shouts of approval from all the ponies around me as they all pulled themselves back up to their hooves. “We aren’t doing anything you say!” Freedom hissed. “And Amber is not going anywhere with you!”

I could see Bonecrusher scowl through the small crack in the wall. He took a step forward, but one of the Coursers put a hoof out to stop him. The Courser gave a sinister looking leer as they glowered at the fortified medical centre. “Very well. You cannot hide in there forever!” They turned their gaze skyward, signalling with a hoof down to the building. “Burn it down!”

With a mighty roar, the dragon swooped down again, fire spewing from its jagged maw. I ducked away from the crack in the wall as flame licked at the side of the building. The whole building trembled as the crushing weight of the dragon landed heavily atop its roof.

I turned back to face everypony. “Thank you, for not surrendering me, it means alot, but maybe we should-”

“If you are about to say give you over to them, you can shut the fuck up,” Star smirked, flapping over and giving me a slap across the back of the head with her wing. “You are sticking right here.”

“I agree with the pegasus,” Crusader Blueberry grunted factually. “You have done far too much for everypony here for us to simply hoof you over to them. Besides… it is unlikely they would leave us all alone even if we did.”

I gave a grim nod. It was good to know everypony had my back. Of course, that just left us with a massive dragon and a small army to deal with. No big deal…

Beside me, I saw Brisk quickly move up beside Star, his eyes darting back and forth nervously between her and the large cracks that were rapidly shooting down the wall as the massive dragon slammed its claws against the rooftop. “H-hey Star. there’s something we need to talk about.”

Star gave him a small nod, her gaze still fixed on the door. “Yeah, what’s that?”

Brisk shuffled his hooves a little. “I, um… I’m like, totally in love with you.”

Star paused, her face flushing a bright red. A second later, she shook whatever thoughts she was having from her head and gave Brisk a scolding look. “Wha- does this look even remotely like the right fucking time!? Talk to me after the battle, dumbass!”

The sound of beating wings filled our ears as the massive dragon launched off of the roof. I staggered as the floor beneath me shook, spreading my legs apart as I tried to take on a more sturdy stance.

“It looks like it’s coming around for another strike!” An Applejack Ranger glancing out one of the cracks in the walls called out, taking a small step back. “Everypony brace yoursel-”

His warning was cut off as the dragon rammed itself into the building. Chunks of wall were sent flying inwards as its huge maw burst through the concrete surface. I jumped back, nearly avoiding being snapped in two as its razor sharp mouth violently gnashed at us. The dragon pulled back, turning its head to peer at us through the new opening in the wall with one of its massive yellow eyes. Its burning gaze seemed to lock onto me and it reared its head back, glowing firelight suddenly building up in the back of its throat.

“Shit shit shit! Everypony out! Now!” Blueberry screamed, ushering his ponies back towards the doorway. “That thing’s going to roast us! Dazzling! Get the doors open again!”

The treads on Dazzling Souvenir’s chassis whirred to life as she rolled towards the terminal. She reached out, frantically tapping keys.

The medical centre’s lights burst back to life, the metal plating that had covered the door abruptly sliding away. We all scrambled to the doorway as fast as we could, our weapons already firing as we tried to create as much cover for ourselves as we could as we all rushed through the tight choke point towards the amassed army that was rapidly surrounding the building.

I looked back just in time to see the dragon’s mouth burst open, a searing jet of flame pouring into the medical centre behind me. A dozen Applejack Rangers went up in flame, their shrieks of pain echoing in my ears as they burned alive.

With a roar of triumph, the legion of True Steels charged towards us, their metal clad hooves pounding against the ground. Bonecrusher gave a booming battlecry, his rocket launcher firing and sending an explosive projectile rocketing into a group of Rangers.

I ducked and rolled across the ground as the dragon lurched around, its bladed tail swinging over my head and slicing a few hairs from my mane. It beat its massive wings against its side, powerful bursts of wind shooting out from it in every direction and causing a few ponies to lose their hoofing. One of its claws lashed out, slashing through the glass dome on Dazzling Souvenir’s brian case. Its claws rended through Dazzling Souvenir as if her metal chassis was nothing more than butter. I watched in horror as the robobrain collapsed to the ground, dead, biomedical gel spilling across the ground like blood.

“Dazzling!” I shouted, pushing myself off the ground and rushing to where the robobrain’s body had fallen. I didn’t need to reach her to know that she was dead. There was no surviving an attack like that.

A searing pain shot through my leg as one of the Courser’s blasted a beam of magical energy through my forehoof. I dropped to my stomach, pain flaring through me as I looked up and spotted all three Coursers walking towards me, eerily identical smirks sprawled across their faces.

“It’s all over Amber,” One of the Courser’s mocked, the magical energy rifle in their magical grasp charging up as they aimed it at me. “Your army is finished. Once we are done here, we will turn our sights fully on the Celestial States building. How long do you think your allies there will last with the full might of the Institute bearing down on them?”

I scowled, applying pressure to my hoof to stop the bleeding. “Don’t write Pyre and her forces off so easily,” I glowered. “They won’t let you win!”

The Courser just smiled. “We will see…” It raised a hoof, signalling to the dragon. Before I could even think to move, that dragon lunged forward, its huge claw pinning me to the ground. All the breath was pushed from my lungs as the beast slammed me against the ground, its steaming muzzle inches from my face. “Kill her.”

The Dragon pulled it’s head back, scorching flame building up in the back of it’s throat. Panicked, I raised my shotgun in my magic and blasted as many rounds as I could into its side, but the magically enhanced buckshot simply refracted off its thick scales.

Boom!

Green fire exploded across my vision as a massive projectile was sent hurtling directly into the dragon's face. I could feel my flesh sizzling at the immense heat and my pipbuck began clicking as I was hit with a sudden wave of radiation. Blood and gore spilled down upon me as the huge explosion ripped the Dragon apart.

The Dragon staggered back, its face a mess of melted flesh and shattered bone. It pulled away from me, allowing for a large breath to fill my lungs, before the colossal beast raised its head to look at its new attacker. No sooner had the dragon turned away from me, than a second projectile launched through the air, once more slamming directly into the dragon's face, blasting apart the skull and raining viscera down upon the battlefield. The Dragon let out a final dying screech as the remains of its maw were incinerated, its body lashing back and forth as its now headless body went into its death throes. Then, still smoking, the dragon crashed to the ground, dead, blood seeping from the ruined stump of its neck and pooling around my panting form.

I raised my gaze in the direction of the blast, making out the diffused sunlight glinting off of a metal clad form approaching from the west. The large power armoured figure stood there, a Balefire Egg launcher slung over their shoulder.

“True Steels and Institute synths!” The Ranger boomed out, standing unmoving as all eyes turned to them. “You will stand down and surrender or be obliterated!” I felt myself smile. I knew that voice. Slowly, more armoured forms began to crest over the hill and enter our line of sight. I watched in awe as just under a hundred fully armoured Steel Rangers began to charge into battle, Paladin Sardine at their head.

“The Steel Rangers are coming! The Steel Rangers are coming!” An Applejack Ranger shouted out, their cries sending waves of relief surging through our forces.

“Keep fighting! Push them back!” I heard Crusader Blueberry shouting in turn, rallying his troops behind him. He charged forwards, slamming his full weight into Bonecrusher and sending the larger pony stumbling back.

The Steel Rangers opened fire, their impressive weaponry ripping through the first wave of True Steels as they struggled to adjust to the sudden onslaught from behind. I saw a group of five True Steels blown apart as a Steel Ranger tossed an apple grenade at them.

“True Steels! To me!” Bonecrusher was screaming, his rocket launcher firing off another devastating rocket into the approaching rangers. “We need to retreat to Fort Strong! Fall back!”

One of the Coursers hissed at him, their ice cold eyes narrowing. “No! Stay and fight cowards! Our work is not done here unt-”

I swivelled my shotgun around in my magic and unloaded a full clip into the back of the Courser’s head. They howled as blast after blast of searing red buckshot burst through their skull and out their face, ripping flesh from bone. The Courser staggered back, their rage filled eyes turning to me. I never gave them time to counter attack as I shoved another clip in and unloaded a second round point blank into their face and chest again, blowing the top half of their body clean off. The magical energy infused into the buckshot seemed to course through the synth, blowing out whatever circuitry existed within their synthetic form. A burst of sparks shot out from their chest as they slumped motionless to the ground.

"There," I spat, heaving. "Now I've finally gotten to kill one of you fucks..."

The other two Coursers whipped around to face me, their own guns raising and ready to fire, but they were too late. More Steel Rangers began turning their attention to the Coursers as the True Steels began pulling back, trying to distance themselves as far away from the battlefield as they could. Two rockets streaked out, blasting into the Coursers and sending them flying back, limbs and flesh flying every which way.

Xayah rushed up to me, helping me back to my hooves and frantically looking me over for injury. The Dragon's claws had stabbed into me, though thankfully the ballistic weave Coco Pommel had sewn into my stable barding had protected me from having the claws actually puncture my flesh.

With a roar of great triumph, our forces, alongside the Steel Rangers swept across the battlefield, blasting apart synth after synth as the dwindling army tried to hold them back. I saw a small hoof full of True Steels stay and fight, but most had quickly fled with Bonecrusher back to Forth Strong. In only a matter of minutes, we went from losing, to winning. A few minutes more, and the battle was over.

Across from Xayah and I, I saw Star swoop down and wrap Brisk in a big hug, both of them blushing profusely. Even from across the field of corpses, I could see Brisk blush a bright red. “Star, about what I said earlier, uh… I just wanted to say that-” Instead of letting him finish, Star planted a quick kiss on his lip. “Oh! Uh- okay…”

“Get over it dummy,” Star smirked back at him. “Come on. We got ponies we need to heal.”

I smiled a little as I watched them scamper off to go help a group of wounded ponies. My gaze was drawn from them to Paladin Sardine who was slowly marching towards Crusader Blueberry. “Blueberry,” The large paladin rumbled, his tone unreadable.

Blueberry gave the Steel Ranger a quick, but uncertain salute. “Paladin. I cannot express how thankful we are that you and your Rangers arrived when you did. But what are you doing here? Last I heard, you were busy defending the cathedral?”

Sardine nodded. “Sirloin filled me in on everything that went down in the Institute. I figured it was about time we all got over our petty squabbles and dealt with the real threat. I doubt the Applejack Rangers and the Steel Rangers will ever be truly on peaceful terms, but if there is one thing neither of us can abide by, it's the True Steels. But this is not the time. Let us retire inside. We have much to discuss.”

I went to follow them as the two power armoured ponies began to lead everypony inside, only to pause and a small choking cough drew my attention downwards. One of the Courser’s lay a few feet away from me, half its face missing and two of its hooves rendered completely useless from the explosion that had ripped them apart. Most of the hide on their body had been burned off and beneath the warped and ripped muscle tissue, I could see the remains of broken bones. Their body continuously spasmed as it tried to knit itself back together to minimal success.

Scowling, I stumbled over to where the Courser lay, Xayah nervously following behind me. I raised my shotgun, pressing its barrel against what remained of the Courser's forehead. The synth's glowing blue eye seemed to lock on me as I loomed over it, glaring at me with a shocking smug expression for something on death's door. I supposed these things didn’t truly know fear. “You are going to answer my questions, or I’m going to blow your head off,” I told it factually. “Understood?”

The Courser just cackled. “I think not. Your intimidation methods are useless on me.”

I just growled at it. “What is Silver Ace planning? What does he need Luna Prime for?”

“It won’t tell you anything,” Xayah and I looked behind us to see Freedom slowly approaching, a grim look across her face. “The Friendship Express has minimal experience with Coursers. Killing one is hard enough. Catching one alive is damn near impossible. And when we can interrogate them, they never talk,” She came to a stop, glaring down at the Courser hatefully. “But we’ve found ways to get inside their heads.”

The Courser snickered, a calculating malice etching its way across their face. “Ah. The leader of the Friendship Express. How we Coursers have longed to meet you face to face. How is that little mechanic of yours doing? Sprocket, I think her name was? Oh how she begged when I put her down.”

Freedom remained silent, ignoring the synth's taunts. She moved around behind it, pulling a bag of tools out from her saddlebag. “Funny you mention her. She was the one who figured out how to do this,” was all she bothered to say, drilling into the Coursers cranium with a small drill. She fiddled around inside their head for a second before seeming to press on some part of their brain and stepping back. She looked over at me, her hooves and face covered in the Courser's blood. “There. Ask it your questions now. I’ve hacked into its memory codec. I think you’ll find it much more cooperative. Just be fast. They don’t last long once we do this.”

I gave her a thankful nod before returning my gaze to the Courser. “What is Silver Ace planning?”

The Courser’s limp face took on a strangely sinister looking expression. “To end the war…”

I paused. When I had first spoken to Silver Ace face to face, he had talked quite a lot about achieving peace. I could imagine that being Silver Aces end goal in his own twisted way. “You’re not talking about the war for Manehattan, are you? You're talking about the great war?”

The Courser nodded. “Yes…”

“And how does he plan to do that? With the Utopia program, I suppose, but how? And what does Luna Prime have to do with any of this? Why did he take it from my pipbuck?” I asked back, trying to figure out the best way to get all the answers I needed.

I felt a chill go down my spine as the Courser let loose a hollow, icy laugh. “Silver Ace won’t succeed. My master has ensured it…”

“Your master? What are you talking about? You work for Silver Ace, don’t you?” I asked, uncertain about how to respond to that.

The Courser just gave me a smug glare. “Spiderwebs and puppet strings,” The Courser sang out in a tone that was very unlike icy monotone I had come to expect from Coursers. “Silver Ace believes he is the master of his own fate. He has no idea who is really pulling the strings.”

I could feel an uneasy feeling washing over me. “Then who’s really in charge of all this? Iron Hock? Bonecrusher?” I paused, a terrible feeling opening up in my gut. “The Pony of Shadows?”

The smile on the Courser's face faded. “The Pony of Shadows? It has not gone by that name in thousands of years.”

“Then who? What is that thing in the Utopia program?” I urged.

The Courser just looked at me, the small spark of life in its lone eye fading. “Fear the Collective, Amber Aura… Fear the Collective and be assimilated into nothingness…” Then, with that final word, the light in the Courser's eye went out completely and it finally went still.

“The Collective?” Xayah asked, her gaze fixated on the Courser. “What is the Collective?”

I gave a nervous shrug. “I don’t know. But we don’t have time right now to figure that out,” I turned, heading back towards the Fluttershy Medical Centre with Xayah and Freedom. “We have many other things to discuss first.”

I watched out the window as an Applejack ranger finally finished buring the shattered brain jar of Dazzling Souvenir alongside the rest of the ponies that had fallen in the battle. They marked the grave with a simple tombstone before moving onto the next body that needed to be buried. In only the span of an hour, the Fetlock suburbs around the Fluttershy medical Centre had become a graveyard.

Taking a deep breath, I turned my gaze from the window to the assembled ponies around me. After the battle, we had quickly made our way up to the ruins of Silver Ace’s old office and were discussing our next course of action, though no pony could seem to come to a good consensus. Paladin Sardine and Crusader Blueberry were leading the conversation, or they were trying to anyway when the two weren't arguing about politics. Blueberry’s helmet was off, giving me a clear view of his face for only the third time since I'd met him, he looked tired. Glasswing, Mother and Freedom stood slightly off to the side, pitching in an idea every now and again while Brisk, Star, Xayah and Scarlet stood next to me, all of them mostly silent. I smiled again as I saw Brisk and Star standing much closer together than they normally do.

“We need to attack Fort Strong now while we’re on the offensive,” Sardine was insisting. “For the first time since the True Steels were formed, we finally have those traitors on the run. We need to hit them fast and hard while they’re still reorganising. If we can take Fort Strong now, we will actually have a fighting chance in this war.”

“I don’t disagree, but we simply aren’t ready for that kind of attack,” Blueberry retorted. “Fort Strong is one of the most secure places in Manehattan, topped only by the Celestial States building itself and we’re still weak from the fight. My ponies have just been through two harrowing battles. They need time to rest and mourn for those they’ve lost.”

Sardine shook his head firmly. “We simply don't have time for that. Waiting another day isn’t an option for us. By tomorrow afternoon, the Enclave will reach Fillydelphia. When that happens, my Rangers and I will be forced to return to the Stable-Tec headquarters or risk losing our greatest stronghold against Red Eyes slavers. Besides, every day that we wait, we give this Silver Ace pony a chance to enact his plans with this Utopia Program you keep speaking of.”

“Plus, we’re going to need to deal with the synth dragons,” Glasswing added. “If they’ve managed to make one dragon, they will make more. I doubt this defeat will deter them. If anything, it will only enforce their belief that they must continue production. If one dragon almost ended this war in their favour, imagine what they could do with an army of them.”

Freedom gave a grim nod. “As much as I hate to agree with Glasswing, so long as Silver Ace is in control of a facility that can make more synths, not to mention synth dragons, what hope do we really have at winning this? For every synth we take down, he’ll be ready to replace them with ten more.”

“We can’t let this opportunity to take Fort Strong slip through our hooves!” paladin Sardine reaffirmed. “As dire as this synth situation is, taking Fort Strong would not only cement our control over the Fetlock area and the trade routes leading into and out of the city, but we would be taking away one of their largest advantages… the munitions factory below the Fort.”

Blueberry nodded. “True enough. That factory supplied the True Steels with enough firepower to take control of most of the city almost overnight, and it's not a kind of firepower that we are in a position to combat. If we can take that from them, not only would we be dealing a huge blow to their forces around the Celestial States building, but we would be giving a huge advantage to ourselves.”

“Okay, but did you forget about the synth dragons,” Glasswing hissed mockingly in response. “A factory of weapons is only going to take you so far. A war against an army of dragons simply isn’t something we can win.”

“And what about this Paladin Bonecrusher that is leading the True Steels out in Fetlock?” Blueberry questioned. “I was not familiar with his name. Should we be worried about him?”

Sadine gave a loud grunt of annoyance at the mention of the lumbering True Steel. “I’ve never met Bonecrusher face to face, but I’ve heard of him. He was a member of the Steel Rangers fifty years back, but was dishonoured and thrown from the order. He’s no strategist like Tesla Coil was, but he is known for his efficiency and ruthlessness. Given enough time, he will likely whip his troops back into fighting shape and march back here to finish what he started. I would not take him lightly if I were you.”

“Fifty years ago?” Freedom blurted. “How old is this buck?”

“Likely nearing his eighties at this point. From what I’ve heard he’s dramatically prolonged his life and enhanced his strength with cybernetics from Las Pegasus,” I had to resist the urge to scowl at that. That monster of a True Steel was Doctor Pestilence's work no doubt.

“Well, what does Amber think we should do?” Mother piped up, speaking up for the first time in the last few minutes. “You’ve been rather quiet.”

I glanced up from my hooves and at the ponies that had all turned their attention to me. “I… uh… I’m not sure. This might be our only chance to actually hit the True Steels where it hurts…” I paused, trying to come up with a good solution. After a second, I turned to Glasswing and Mother. “Do you know where this Institute Facility is?”

Glasswing gave me one of his charming, snake-like smiles. “What head of the Institute would I be if I did not? It’s located in the wastes between Manehattan and Fillydelphia, intentionally miles and miles out of the way of any settlements or travelled routes. There is an old military bunker it was originally built under almost a hundred years ago now.”

“How fast do you think you and a team of ponies could get there?” I asked. I had walked to Fillydelphia before, and it was quite a walk.

“A few days, maybe only one if we took the Fetlock train half way out,” Glasswing estimated. “But we would have to leave now. By the end of the day, Silver Ace will likely have made another ten or so dragons. By the end of the second day we could be looking at anywhere between twenty to fifty. After that, it’s hard to guess.”

I nodded. “Then that should be your priority. Getting that factory shut down. However, we also can’t allow this chance to take down the True Steels slip by…”

“You’re suggesting we split our forces?” Scarlet guessed, looking at me nervously. “We’re spread pretty thin as it is, and these don't sound like they’re going to be easy missions.”

I nodded grimly. “The way I see it, is that we have to deal with both of these before we regroup with Jinx, Pyre and the Las Pegasus raiders in the centre of the city, but we also can’t wait a day to do either of these. Right now, we have four armies all gathered here in the medical centre. The Steel Rangers, the Applejack Rangers, the Institute Remnants and the Friendship Express. The two ranger factions can move out and lay siege to Fort Strong while the Institute Scientists and Friendship Express Operatives go and dismantle Silver Ace’s operations out in the wastes.”

“The plan could work,” Sardine grunted bluntly. “It’s risky to spread ourselves so thin, but what other choice do we have? Neither of these objectives can wait.”

“Xayah and I can go with Glasswing and Freedom to take out the synth production facility,” Brisk suggested, gesturing to himself and Xayah. “It sounds like we’re going to need somezebra stealthy and if things get bad, we’re going to need a pony that can mow down as many synths as they can while we flee,” He grinned and tapped the large minigun strapped to his side.

I gave them both a sad look. “Are you sure? This whole mission is going to be dangerous… I don’t want to lose you guys while you’re-”

“We will be fine, you foolish pony,” Xayah said soothingly, giving me a smile. “We have to go into a fight anyway. Might as well go to that which we are most needed.”

I gave a hesitant nod. “I know but… We’ve already split up with Pyre and Mirra… I don’t want to be separated from you guys too…” I took a deep breath, steadying myself. There was more than keeping all of us together at stake here. I had to do what was best for the wasteland. “Alright, but you two better come back to me alive.”

“Then it’s settled,” Paladin Sardine interjected. “Glasswing, Mother, Freedom, Brisk and Xayah will lead the Institute Remnants and The Friendship Express on a stealth mission into the Synth production facility while Amber, Star, Scarlet, Blueberry and myself lead our ranger factions into a full frontal siege on Fort Strong,” He paused, looking around the room as if expecting somepony to object. No pony did.

With a sigh, Blueberry straightened his back and placed his power armour helmet over his head. “I’ll start readying my troops. We should be ready to go within the hour.”

I found Brisk rummaging through my saddlebag a few minutes later on the roof of the Fluttershy Medical Centre. He grumbled something to himself before shoving something into his saddlebag.

“Hey… what are you doing with my bag?” I asked, slowly walking up to him. It wasn’t really an accusation, I was just curious. Brisk whirled around to stare at me with wide eyes as he heard my voice, his expression reminiscent of a child caught stealing candy from a candy store. “Woah, don’t worry bro. I’m just curious.”

Brisk glanced down at the saddlebag for a second before giving me a shaky smile. “I… uh… thought this was my bag. Sorry. My mistake,” He tossed the bag back to me which I deftly caught in my magical grasp before levitating it over to rest on my withers. His response was an obvious lie, but I didn’t push him. I trusted Brisk enough at this point to figure that if there was something he didn’t want me to know, he probably had a good reason.

Ignoring his lie, I trotted up to him and looked out at the wasteland beyond. Not all that far away I could see the looming, concrete walls of Fort Strong, its massive skyscraper sized gun still mounted on the roof, thankfully also still deactivated. “How are you holding up?”

“Better than I was earlier,” Brisk confessed. “That talk we had really put some shit into perspective for me,” He paused, looking down at his hoof as he scratched slightly at the dusty roof of the medical centre. “This is the spot where we fought each other all those weeks ago… you know that that day was probably the biggest regret of my life?”

I looked over at him, trying to get a good reading of his emotions. “I forgave you for that ages ago. Besides, turns out you were right all along. We should have just destroyed the A.A.S.S. the second we got our hooves on it. I was just to stupid to let go of the past.”

Brisk shook his head and chuckled. “Trying to destroy the A.A.S.S. isn’t what I regret. I regret attacking you. I became so obsessed with the idea of getting out of this whole mess that I almost gave up on the only thing that makes all this mess bearable in the first place. My sister.”

I blushed a little at the comment. “Yeah, well… I would be pretty upset if I lost you as my brother too, so I know what you mean…” A smug smirk settled across my face. “But hey, isn’t there somepony else that makes all of this shit berable? A specific lavender and mint pegasus maybe?”

Now it was Brisk’s turn to blush. “Haha, yes. Another thing you were right about, I suppose," He deflected. "Yeah. Star Breeze makes it all a little easier to get by as well, as grumpy as she can be sometimes.”

“I’m happy for you two,” I smiled at him. “I’m glad you both found somepony in each other.”

We both took a moment, just standing there and staring out at the wasteland. It was nice. Peaceful even. I wish I knew that it didn’t have to end so soon.

After a few moments, I heard the sound of hoofsteps walking up behind us. I turned my head a little, making out Xayah slowly approaching. “Something told me I’d find you two up here,” She said, coming to a stop beside us and looking out at the wasteland.

I gave her a smile. “We’re predictable like that I suppose,” I gave a long sigh. “I’m going to miss you two while we’re apart.”

“Hopefully it will only be for a few days,” Xayah said comfortingly.

Brisk nodded in agreement. “Yeah. We’ll see eachother again once this whole war is over. Then we can finally settle down. Live normal lives. All that good stuff.”

“Do you really think a normal life is something we can have?” I asked, sceptical, though quite elated at the idea. “After everything we’ve seen and done?”

“I’m sure we can find a way. We always do,” Brisk smiled. “We’ve come a long way, the three of us. I’m confident nothing can stop us. Not Silver Ace, not the war, not even the damned wasteland itself.”

I smiled a little wider. That was a nice thought.

Xayah gave a long sigh, taking a second more to soak in the view of the wasteland with us. After a moment, she gestured for us to follow her. “Anyway, I came up here to tell you both that everypony waiting for you out front. It is time to go.”

Nodding, Brisk and I followed Xayah off of the roof to the front of the Fluttershy Medical Centre. Out front, we were confronted by the two groups that were preparing to head out. Both Ranger factions stood to one side, checking over their power armour and weapons while the Institute Remnants and the Friendship Express Operatives stood side by side across from them. For the first time, none of the factions seemed to be casting hateful glances at each other.

I hated violence, but it seemed fighting alongside somepony could mend almost any rift. Funny how that worked.

Xayah led us off to the right, where Star, Scarlet and Mother were waiting for us. I moseyed up to Mother first, giving her a small smile. “You be safe out there,” I told her, moving forwards and giving her a quick hug. “The two of us have a lot of missed time to make up for after all this.”

“I will. And thank you. For giving me another chance. Celestia knows I don’t deserve it,” Mother said back, wiping a small tear from the corner of her eye. “And that goes for you as well. I expect to be a proud grandmare one day.”

I smirked. “I’ll do my best,” I turned to Xayah and gave her a quick hug. “I love you. You bring both you and Brisk back safely to me, you hear?”

“Brisk Spark is hard to keep safe in the best of times, but I will do my best,” Xayah smirked, planting a kiss on my forehead.

I blushed a little, giving her a small kiss in return before finally turning to Brisk. Brisk had just parted from a quick hug with Star who was scolding him mercilessly. “And I expect you to be fully alive, understand?”

“I don’t expect to come back half alive,” Brisk joked back. “You stay safe too. I… I don’t want to lose you… Not so soon...”

Much to my surprise, Star actually dropped her more hostile demeanour for a moment and gave Brisk a quick kiss. “I don’t want to lose you either,” And with that, she took off to go say her own farewells to Xayah.

“Looks like this is where we part ways,” I said, approaching Brisk. “If you or Xayah ever need to contact me while you’re out there, you know which radio channel to get a hold of me with. Channel 7. Please stay safe out there, and keep Xayah alive for me."

Brisk reached out and gave me a tight hug. "Don't you worry. We'll meet again. I promise you that."

"I love you, bro.”

“I love you too, sis.”

I looked over Brisk’s shoulder to see Sardine and Blueberry quickly approaching us, flanked on both sides by fully armoured Rangers. “I see you have said your goodbyes,” Sadrine monotone as he watched Brisk and I separate from our hug. “Then unless you have anything else to do, I suggest we depart. The day rapidly draws to a close and we all still have much to do.”

Giving everypony one last hug, Star, Scarlet and I broke off from the group and headed towards the large gathering of assembled rangers as they began to march towards the looming fortress of Fort Strong on the horizon. I glanced behind me one last time as I watched Mother, Xayah and Brisk go stand by Glasswing and Freedom as their own group began heading for the Fetlock train station.

We had lost so many good ponies today. Coco Pommel, Sprocket, Dazzling Souvenir, and the day wasn’t over yet. More blood was bound to be spilt in the coming hours. I sent a prayer up to Celestia that this wouldn’t be the last time I saw my friends.

Stealing myself, I turned my gaze back towards the massive structure of Fort Strong. This was not the time to dwell on what might be or those we might lose along the way. We had a war to win…

Footnote: Maximum level reached

Author's Note

Hey guys... sooo, long time no see, huh? Sorry this chapter took so long. Life got really busy and writing combat scenes like these with that many characters is not my strong suit. Hopefully you enjoyed and that the chapter was worth the wait.

Fallout: Equestria belongs to Kkat.

Hope you all have a great day!

Chapter XXXXIV: Blitzkrieg

“Isn’t there supposed to be a light?”

Rain.

A heavy rain had begun to pour down from the thick overcast clouds above me as I stared down at the looming structure of Fort Strong on the horizon. The sound of the torrent beating against the ground filled my ears, only partially obscuring the sound of stomping hooves as the coalition army of power armoured Steel Rangers and Applejack Rangers marched forwards. Every few minutes, I’d hear a loud plopping sound as a large bead of water rolled down the broken roof above and splashed into a large puddle by my hooves. My coat and mane had been thoroughly soaked through, matting all my hair down against my body in thick clumps.

I had taken up a position at the top of one of the many ruined buildings making up the Fetlock suburbs. Long ago, I think it might have been home to a family of five, if the worn and faded picture in the living room was to be believed. Now it was only a tomb. Five skeletons lay curled up in the corner, hooves wrapped around each other as if staying close might save them from the holocaust that seared the flesh from their bones. I wished it worked like that. That I could just wrap my friends in a big hug and hold them tight till it was all over and that everything would be okay. But the wasteland was just as cruel as the balefire that had taken the lives of these innocent ponies, and in many ways, it was perhaps even crueller.

Past the crooked and run down stretch of houses, I could see the True Steel’s forces slowly trying to mobilise themselves again as they regrouped around their looming fortress in the distance. Most of their forces had made their way back inside Fort Strong, but I noticed a fairly large True Steel presence had remained beyond its walls. Clearly, they were expecting our attack. From here, I could see no signs of Bonebreaker, though I had no doubt he was in there somewhere, licking his wounds and readying himself for the onslaught he knew was coming.

Shifting my gaze, I looked up at the massive, mini skyscraper sized gun that rested deactivated atop the huge, concrete fortress. Like before, a ring of functional turrets shifted back and forth on it, searching for hostile targets. I was thankful to see the huge gun itself had not been reactivated. I had seen the dragon cannons in Las Pegasus down an Enclave Raptor in a single shot, and this gun was almost double the size. I could only begin to imagine what it would be capable of if activated.

I felt my eyebrows furrow slightly as my gaze landed on the base of the massive gun. It may be inactive, but the True Steels were clearly up to something. I could see long catwalks and scaffolding that had been built around the base of the gun, and a hoof full of True Steel scribes were busy at work, welding bits of metal to the guns base. They were building something in there. I just prayed they weren’t fixing the gun.

With my luck they were defiantly fixing the gun.

“Our forces are in position,” I voice rumbled from behind me. I turned to see Paladin Sardine and Crusader Blueberry standing in the now doorless door frame behind me. Sardine took a step forward as I met his gaze. “It’s time to launch the attack.”

“Do we have a plan?” I asked. It felt almost refreshing to be the one asking that question for once. “As soon as we launch this assault, a lot of ponies are going to die.”

Blueberry nodded. “We do. Paladin Sardine will lead a direct attack on the front gates. With luck, our overwhelming forces will be able to overpower them while they’re still weak from the fight at the Medical Centre. They may have the home advantage, but for the first time in a long time, we outnumber them. Meanwhile, You and I are going to be taking a back entrance with an elite troop. We’re going to try and cut the head off the snake.”

Sardine gave a grim grunt of affirmation. “Indeed. With Iron Hock out in the centre of Manehattan battling for control of the Celestial States building, the True Steels forces out here will likely crumble without the leadership of Paladin Bonebreaker.”

I took a deep breath. “Okay. When do we start?”

Crusader Blueberry trotted up beside me, sadly looking out at the gathered group of Rangers below. “With every second we wait, the True Steels ready themselves more. So we don’t wait. We strike now.”

I could feel an anxious ball of stress forming in my gut. It didn’t seem to matter how many battles I fought in. The nerves never seemed to go away. “Alright… Let’s do this.”

I followed the two rangers out of the building to join up with our forces outside. As I pulled myself through the crooked door and back into the pouring rain, Scarlet and Star Breeze saddled up beside me, their faces awash with grim worry. I gave them each a reassuring nod, gesturing for them to stand by me. “Stay close,” I told them, turning my gaze to face Blueberry and Sardine as the two leaders began addressing their troops. “Things are about to get messy. I want to keep you by my side if possible.”

“Steel Rangers and Applejack Rangers!” Paladin Sardine shouted out, taking another step forwards. Much of the murmuring from the assembled rangers went silent as he spoke up, every pony turning their head to look at him. It was clear to me that Sardine held a lot of respect among the ranks of the Rangers, Applejack or otherwise. “For too long now, we have fought amongst each other! Bickered and warred over petty rules and territory we no longer own. And all the while the real threat has been growing. Killing our brothers and making pacts with foes far worse than we could have known. You all know who I speak of!”

“The True Steels!” A few ponies roared out, their voices filled with violent disdain.

Sardine gave a grave nod. “Indeed. They have invaded our fortresses, taken the lives of our brothers and sisters, turned their backs on the oaths we pledged, be us Steel Rangers or Outcasts! But right now, we have a chance to take back what is ours! We will show these True Steels that the Rangers of the Wasteland are not a force to be reckoned with!”

There were a few cheers from the crowd. It was a strange emotion, seeing so much pride and excitement mingled with so much fear and sadness and rage all in one group.

Crusader Blueberry stepped forwards then, taking his spot beside Sardine. “It’s time to put our feuding aside, if only for today. Back when I was with the Steel Rangers, positioned here in Fort Strong, I felt pride whenever I looked to Fetlock, seeing our fortresses' massive walls towering over the wasteland. And when the True Steels stormed it, when they slaughtered our brothers and sisters, Steel Ranger or not, I felt sorrow and anguish. A sorrow I’m sure many of you felt and are still feeling. Today is the day we finally put all that sorrow aside and strike back. After today, when we look to the horizon and see Fort Strong's mighty walls, we’ll feel pride once again!”

Blueberry put a single hoof to his chest, his metal hoof plating clanking loudly against his power armour’s chest plate. He shouted a word, though it was rapidly obscured as every member of the group before him raised their own voice and called out in time with him.

“Ad Victoriam!”

Blueberry turned back to me, giving me a small nod. I returned it, feeling my heart beating heavily in my chest. It was time. Into the fire.

Boom!

A rocket shot out across the battlefield, slamming into the upper part of the looming wall of Fort Strong. The explosion rocked the fortress, accompanied by howling screams as a True Steel positioned on the upper wall was sent flailing to his death alongside a burst of scattered stone, knocked prone by the massive blast.

Paladin Sardine strode forwards, a second rocket notching into place at his side as the Rangers around him surged forward with a mighty battlecry, rushing towards the fortified structure of Fort Strong. The tremendous clamour of their hooves echoing out to join the endless drumbeat of the rain. Then the air was filled with a cacophony of blaring gunfire, explosions and billowing screams.

“Hold steady!” A True Steel Crusader was barking, his side mounted minigun roaring as he tried to stand strong against the onslaught. He looked at his troops behind him, snapping off command after command. “Try to flank them from behind! Get the defences up and running! Now!”

The small turrets ringing the massive dragon cannon snapped to life, swivelling out and aiming down at the charging Rangers. Crackling sounding zaps filled the air as they fired as a unit, slashing down Ranger after Ranger with pinpoint accuracy. I watched as five Rangers fell dead to the ground, their heads rendered to glittering ash.

“Push forward!” Sardine was booming, his own weapons roaring with fire. A grenade went off a few feet from him, rocking the ground, smoke and ash being kicked up into the air in a violent plume. One Ranger was blown apart by the blast, limbs, metal and gore shooting in all directions. “Corner them against the wall!”

Another rocket detonated, this time in the centre of a group of charging rangers. I saw limbs flying in every direction as the explosion blasted five ponies apart, their markers blinking out on my EFS just like that. A loud wail of pain arose from a Applejack ranger lying prone on the ground, his back half obliterated in the blast and his desicrated torso trailing bloody innards. He pulled himself forwards in the mud, trying to drag himself desperately to safety.

I weaved to the side as a volley of blasts scoured the ground next to me. I raised my magically enhanced shotgun in my magic to retaliate, only for Blueberry to pull me to the side, leading me off to and around the back of what looked to have once been a small military watch tower.

“This isn’t our fight,” he grunted, leading me away from the battle. Scarlet and Star skittered behind us, their weapons raised in case we were spotted. “This is just the distraction.”

Blueberry led us almost a mile away from the massive structure of Fort Strong. Even from this distance, I could still hear the roaring sound of battle and the occasional feeling of the ground shaking beneath my hooves as a grenade or rocket detonated. Finally, after a few minutes of walking, Blueberry pulled up beside two other Applejack Rangers that were waiting for us at the mouth of a massive sewer pipe. The pipe jutted out over a concrete ledge, hanging over the edge of a large aqueduct that had long since run dry. Before the war, it likely ran water from the Celestial Sea into the city of Manehattan, now it lay as a long abandoned ruin, cracked and coated in a thick layer of ash and debris.

“This is the entrance into Fort Strong?” Scarlet mumbled, peering over the edge and at the large entrance to the pipe. “You’d think it would be better guarded if Iron Hock knew about it.”

“He can’t guard this area. It’s technically still in Steel Ranger territory,” Blueberry told her, trotting briskly over to a small, crooked ramp that led down to the opening of the pipe. “Trying to defend this location would be opening himself up for an attack.”

“But not defending it just leaves his main base open, especially if all the Rangers know about it,” Star pointed out. “Surely he isn’t that fucking dumb?”

Blueberry gave off a small chuckle. “Oh, I very much doubt this place is unguarded. We will likely find True Steel guards further in. And if Bonebreaker is smart, which from what Sardine has told me, he is, he likely will have doubled those forces the moment he failed to wipe us out at the medical centre. With luck, our display of force on the front gate will have elevated it somewhat.”

I watched for a second as Star and Scarlet began descending the ramp after Blueberry, bits of debris shifting and crumbling away from the ramp under their weight. Blueberry managed to make it to the bottom with relative ease despite his bulky suit of power armour. Star had to jump back for a second as a large chunk of rebar and cement crumbled away.

After waiting a second for my turn to trot down, I ignited my horn and materialised a few small shields of magic in a staircase-like pattern down into the pipe. I smirked a little at the sight. I had never considered the idea of using this spell for more creative purposes.

“Show off,” Star grunted at me as I hopped down my magical staircase and easily landed at the mouth of the tunnel in front of them.

I stuck my tongue out at her. “You could have just used your wings.”

Star frowned at herself. “Fuck… I could have just used my wings.”

Not a second later, the two other Applejack Rangers skirted down the ramp, trotting up behind Blueberry and awaited further instruction. Blueberry gave each of them a nod, before addressing all of us. “You all ready? Something tells me we’re going to be in for a-”

“Let’s just get on with it,” Star grunted, cutting him off and fluttering her wings as moving past him into the dark tunnel. Scarlet and I exchanged a quick, worried glance before slowly and cautiously following after Star, Blueberry and his two knights trailing behind us. If Blueberry was offended by Stars outburst, he didn't show it.

The tunnel was longer than I had expected. I had assumed it was going to just be a straight walk from the entrance to the inside of Fort Strong, but I quickly found myself following behind Blueberry as he twisted and weaved his way through a rather impressive labyrinthian of tunnel systems beneath the city. After almost a minute of trotting through the pitch black, I gave up trying to remember what way we were going.

“I didn’t realize there were so many tunnels down here,” Scarlet muttered, her words echoing my own thoughts.

“These were used to supply the entire city with running water,” Blueberry explained, turning down another tunnel. “You could get practically anywhere in the city through these pipes, assuming you know the proper route.”

I glanced over at Star Breeze as we walked. She had started out leading the group in, though she had quickly fallen to the back of the line as she realized that, like me, she had no idea which way she was heading. Slowing my step a little, I fell in step beside her.

“Hey. You doing alright?” I asked, keeping my voice low. “You seem a little… I don’t know… A little off today, I guess.”

Star just cast me a sideways glance. “We’re in a fucking war right now. Good ponies are dying. What kind of psycho wouldn’t feel a little off.”

“Fair point.”

We walked in silence for almost a minute before Star abruptly broke the silence once more. “Fuck… How transparent am I?”

I glanced back over at her, feeling only a little smug. “Well you got snappy at Blueberry back there and seemed to be in a bit of a rush so I figured something was wrong. I mean, you forgot you had wings for a second,” I looked her up and down, trying to get a read on her. “So I’m taking it I was right. Something’s off?”

Star grit her teeth. “Of course something fucking off… I just…” She trailed off, trying to figure out what to say. When she spoke up again, her voice was distant. “Do you ever think we’ll see Brisk again?”

I gave her a warm smile that I feared didn’t manage to reach my eyes. “I’m sure we will, one way or another. Brisk and I have been through a lot these past few weeks. Hell, he’s been through a lot even before I met him. I’ve never seen anything keep him down for long.”

“So you aren’t worried about him? Or Xayah for that matter?” Star asked, almost impatiently. I was surprised by the sincerity in her voice.

“Of course I’m worried. I always am. Every day I wake up and fear it’ll be the last day I get to see them. After everything that's happened, those two mean everything to me. I feel like all of us have come so close to dying every day since this whole crazy thing started that sooner or later fate is finally going to catch up with us,” I told her, letting my own fear and anxieties seep into my words. I had to take a second to catch my breath when I realized I had started rambling. “But I can’t let that weigh me down. I just have to keep moving forward and have faith that my friends will do their best to make it through the day.”

“It hardly seems fair,” Star sighed, finally looking away. “It feels like Brisk and I only just found one another, and now we’ve been pulled apart.”

“I know what you mean. Things have been so crazy that it feels like I’ve spent a whole lifetime with Xayah already, but sometimes I think back on everything that’s happened and I realize I’ve only known her for a little over a month.”

“It’s honestly strange to think what we’ve all been through,” Star agreed. “We’ve lived through more in the last few weeks than most ponies will live in a lifetime. Looking back, it doesn’t even all feel real. And I’ve only been there for a small chunk of it,” She took a deep breath, looking forwards towards the end of the hall. “I just want all of this to be over, Amber. I’m tired of all this violence. When will things stop getting worse?”

I opened my mouth to respond, only to hear Blueberry give a small warning from ahead. “I see light. We’re almost there.”

The six of us pushed up in a small clump beside a curve in the hallway. Around the corner I could see the flicker of firelight and hear the slight clanking of what sounded like somepony shifting their weight within a suit of power armour.

“The doorway into Fort Strong is just around the corner,” One of the Applejack rangers that had been accompanying us affirmed in a low whisper. He paused for a second, listening intently. “Sounds like there are around four guards or so.”

“That’s a good sign,” Blueberry noted. “I was expecting much heavier resistance. It means our plan is working and Bonebreaker is afraid.”

“Attack on three?” I suggested simply. Might as well get this over with.

Blueberry nodded. “Attack on three.”

“One…”

“...Two…”

“Three.”

The fight lasted all of ten seconds. Three of the True Steels fell dead before they even knew what hit them, their bodies riddled with bullet holes. I heard one of the Applejack Rangers shouting something in a panic before violently slamming into me, roughly shoving me away and back down the hallway. I glanced up just in time to see the final True Steel reeling up, a balefire egg launcher strapped tightly to his battle saddle.

Star had just managed to grab onto Scarlet and pull her backwards when our vision was filled with a flash of blinding green light. I felt my hooves fly out from under me as I was sent hurtling backwards, flying end over end, only for the feeling of my back slamming roughly into the wall to jolt me back to my senses. I heard screams as the massive explosion ripped ponies apart. I felt hot blood splatter across my face, though I couldn’t tell whose it was.

I lay there on the floor of the tunnel for a long moment, dazed. My hole body was numb, my ears were ringing. What happened. The light. The pain. Had the True Steels fired the Balefire egg? Why couldn't I feel my hooves?

My head throbbing with pain, I hauled myself back up, stumbling around and trying to regain my bearings as my vision slowly faded back in. My head was pounding and I could hear very little as a loud ringing noise throbbed in my ears.

I saw Scarlet staggering over to me, the side of her face singed and blood dripping down one side of her head. Smoke was pouring through the hallway, curling around her form. “Amber…” Her words were distant and I had to focus to hear them. “Amber, are you alright!?”

I braced myself against the wall, my forehooves almost giving out from under me. I looked down, making out the torn open mangle of charred flesh on the front half of my body. I could feel my stomach lurch and I had ro resist the urge to vomit up what little food I had managed to down that morning.

“Amber! Holy shit! Hold on!” That was Star’s voice this time, though I couldn’t see her as I shut my eyes tight and tried to zone out the sudden pain that was beginning to flare up all over my body. It all felt too familiar; the same burning sensation I had felt when I dove head first into the Utopia Program suddenly flooded back into my mind at full force. I dropped fully to the ground, my whole body going limp as I struggled to hold onto consciousness.

I felt a pair of hooves reach down and start tending to my wounds. I let loose a scream I couldn’t hear as the gentle touch felt like a hammer blow shattering my ribs. A second later, I felt the mouth of a glass bottle push up against my muzzle and I hastily drank down the liquid, desperate for any end to the pain. The uncomfortable itching feeling of my flesh slithering around on my body made me squirm as the healing potion Star had shoved down my throat did its work. A few moments later I lay on the ground, breathing heavily as I tried to calm my racing nerves.

Taking a deep breath, I looked up, making out Star and Scarlet standing above me, both of them looking the worse for wear as they stared at me with worried expressions. “Blueberry?” I managed to croak out through my dry throat, glancing back at the tunnel leading to Fort Strong. From here I could see the thick smoke billowing from the tunnel and large chunks of the walls that had warped due to the intense heat of the balefire egg blast.

Star gave a quick nod in response, flapping her wings and lifting off into the air before rushing into the smoke. A few moments later, I heard her give a loud yell, urging Scarlet to come join her. Scarlet gave my hoof a quick squeeze before rushing off to help her.

Gritting my teeth, I pulled myself back up to my hooves. I glanced back down, making out the impressive work of the healing potion. Most of the seared flesh and gaping wounds had healed over, though there was no doubt they would leave a terrible scar. My Stable barding had been badly seared as well, though the ballistic weave Coco Pommel had lined it with seemed to have protected it from being completely destroyed.

I staggered a few steps towards the smoke, only to see Star and Scarlet dragging a large form from the rubble. I quickly stumbled over to aid them, helping to drag the power armoured body of Blueberry a few feet away from the smoke before laying him down to rest. His armour was an absolute mess, with large hunks of the metal plating having melted to slag.

“Is he alright? He’s not dead, right!” I frantically began asking, looking up at Star in worry as she began looking over the body. I really hadn’t known Blueberry that well, but he had been one of my greatest allies throughout my journey in the wasteland all the same. If nothing else, I had admired him. He was a good pony, and there weren’t nearly enough of those in the wasteland. I didn’t want to lose him too.

“He’s alive,” Star grunted in response, digging around in her saddlebag for medical supplies. “But not for long. Quick, help me get him out of his armour!”

I nodded, desperately beginning to peel off his power armour one plate at a time. I had to hold back a gasp as the back half of his body emerged from the metal armour. One of his hind hooves had been completely severed within the armour, leaving nothing but a bloody, mutilated stump. Most of his hide had been burned away and part of his ribcage was exposed.

Scarlet managed to pry his bulky helmet from the armour, revealing his dark blue coat and short cut white mane. Star quickly shoved another healing potion down his throat, before returning to removing the armour over his midsection to tend to the large burn wounds that the healing potion couldn’t help.

There was a loud croaking gasp as Blueberry’s head suddenly bolted up. “My men,” Blueberry gasped, spitting the empty healing potion bottle to the floor. “Where are they? Are they alright!?”

“Stay down,” Star instructed him, whipping away some blood with a rag to get a better look at one of the wounds along his back. She grimaced at the sight. “They’re dead. There is nothing you can do for them.”

I glanced behind me, making out the crumpled forms of the two Applejack rangers lying dead in the hallway. Both of their bodies had been twisted at brutal angles and their armour still smouldered red hot. I gave them both a respectful nod. One of them had pushed me out of the way of the blast mere moments before it had gone off. If not for them, I likely would have met the same fate.

Not yet even inside the Fort, and this mission was starting to go very awry. Thankfully, I could hear no sign of the last True Steel around the corner. I assumed he must have been killed by his own blast.

Blueberry lay his head against the ground and closed his eyes as the news washed over him, a small shudder racing throughout his body. “I see… Thank you…”

“Uh, don’t mention it,” Star grunted. She looked up at me over his body, worry in her eyes. “So we’ve got a bit of a problem.”

I furrowed my brow. “Aside from a third of us getting whipped out before we even got into the building?”

“Two thirds, Blueberry isn’t going anywhere like this and somepony needs to look after him. You and Scarlet are doing this solo.”

Blueberry growled, pushing himself up to his hooves and braced himself against the wall despite the clear pain the movement caused him. I was amazed to see him manage to stand even while missing a hoof. “No. I intend to finish this. These monsters have killed dozens of good ponies. Many of which I cared about. I am seeing this through to the end, you can’t-” he was cut short as one of his fore hooves buckled and he collapsed back to the ground.

“No, you’re not. Not in this fucking state. Look at yourself,” Star scowled. “Amber and Scarlet have this. Don’t worry. They snuck into fucking Fillydelphia and back! They can do this.”

“That mission was a disaster,” Scarlet pointed out, holding one hoof to her head to stop some of the blood that was dripping down her face.

“Wasn’t there, don’t care,” Star snorted. “Point is you did it and no pony died.”

“Chestnut died,” I corrected.

“Point is you both didn’t die. Fuck,” Star shot back, clearly agitated. “Look, am not saying this is going to be a fucking cake walk, I’m just saying that’s how things are going to have to be. Blueberry isn’t going anywhere, and I need to stay with him to tend to his wounds. Unless anypony has a better idea or we decide to just walk away and leave all those ponies fighting outside here to die, that’s just how things are going to go.”

“I’ll be fine!” Blueberry began to protest again, but Star quickly cut him off with a swipe of her wing.

“Stop saying that. You clearly are not!” She sighed, letting the tense muscles in her shoulders relax a little. “Look. You’ve done a lot. You got us this far. Now let us finish this for you.”

Blueberry looked back and forth between the three of us, his mind clearly racing. “No. I won’t slow down this mission. All of you go. I’ll tend my wounds myself.”

Star scowled. “You have medical training?”

“No, but the healing potion was more than enough to stabilise me,” he replied flatly. He glanced down at the ruined stump of his hind leg, the features of his face trembling slightly. “I’m not walking out of here and you three have more important things to deal with. Go. I’ll be fine.”

All our heads bolted up at the sudden sound of metal clad hoofsteps beginning to echo down the hall from behind us. They were distant, but they were clearly getting closer.

“The fuck, we don’t have reinforcements coming…” Star muttered under her breath.

“No, we don’t…” Blueberry breathed. “This was a trap… I should have known Bonebreaker was smart enough to have more ponies guarding this place. They meant to weaken us before finishing us off… ” He looked over at his armour a few paces away from him. “Amber, get me my gun.”

I nodded, scampering over and pulling his minigun from his battlesaddle before dragging it over to him. “What are we going to do?”

“As I said, you’re going to continue on with the plan,” Crusader Blueberry ordered. “I’ll hold them off as long as I can. Hopefully I can keep them back long enough to stop them from getting word to Paladin Bonebreaker that you’ve made it into the building.”

“That’s insane! You’ll die! This is suicide and you know it!” Scarlet blurted, stomping her hoof a little. “I won’t allow this!”

“Just like Star pointed out, we all don’t have a choice in this matter,” Blueberry retorted. “Now go! Now!”

Star nodded. “You all heard the buck. Come on!” She spun around, darting back into the smoke filled hallway. After a second of hesitation, Scarlet gave a grim nod of resignation before turning and sprinting after her.

I stood in the hallway for a second, glancing in the direction Star and Scarlet had gone before turning and kneeling next to Blueberry. “Try to survive this, alright?” I told him, knowing full well this was going to be one of those promises that he couldn’t keep.

Crusader Blueberry gave me a sad smile. “I’ll do my very best.”

I leaned forwards and gave him a small kiss on the forehead. “You’re one of the bravest ponies I’ve ever met in the wasteland. Did you know that?”

Blueberry’s sad smile became a little more genuine. “I try... Win this war, Amber Aura,” The sound of clomping hooves grew louder. I watched as Blueberry’s smile faltered somewhat and was replaced with a second of fear before he concealed it behind a stoic mask. “And thank you… For everything you’ve done.”

I took a step back, looking him over one last time before turning and rushing into the thick smoke after Star and Scarlet. I hadn’t even managed to catch up with them when the gunfire began to sound behind me. The smoke stung at my eyes, but I doubted it was the reason I was crying.

Up ahead, I could see a large hole in the wall where the tunnel presumably led into Fort Strong. A large metal door, clearly constructed post war, had been welded to the wall, blocking the entrance. Star stood in front of it, tapping away at the terminal connected to it. As I pulled up beside her, there was a beep and she gave a small grin before yanking the door open with a hoof and darting inside.

I followed close behind, squeezing in beside Scarlet as we stumbled into the fortified walls of Fort Strong, shutting and locking the door behind us. Interestingly enough, I actually recognized the hallway. It was the same hall I had snuck through on my first visit. I quickly pointed out both the prison and the corridor ahead of us that would eventually lead to the armoury.

“don’t suppose you also know where Bonebreaker would be holded up?” Star grunted, her eyes darting around for any dangers.

I shook my head. “I didn’t stick around in this place long. I can get us to the front door and that’s about it.”

We heard the sound of the approaching squadron of True Steels long before they rounded the corner. I quickly ushered Star and Scarlet to the side, pushing us into a side room as a group of at least twenty fully armoured True Steels rushed down the hallway.

“Get to the wall, now!” One of the True Steels was shouting. “We can’t let those bastards breach the front gate.”

I felt Scarlet put a hoof on my shoulder and hold me back. I glanced over at her in confusion before realizing that I had already raised my shotgun in my magic and had taken two steps towards the doorway. I took a second, taking a deep breath and trying to steady myself.

“This isn’t a place for rash action,” Scarlet whispered. “I know you’re angry about Blueberry, but we cannot let his sacrifice be in vain.”

I nodded. Of course she was right. Though my rage went a little deeper than just the loss of Blueberry. These ponies had ransacked Stable 25, stripped it for parts and collected the corpses of everypony I’d ever known to melt down into fuel. I more than just wanted to win this war for Manehattan; I wanted to watch the True Steels burn.

Then a thought struck me.

“Neither of you were there when we explored Stable 23, were you?” I asked, already knowing their answers. At the shake of their heads, I elaborated. “They were harvesting tech. Pretty much anything they could get their hooves on.”

“Seems pretty fuckin’ normal for these assholes,” Star remarked.

I shook my head. “I thought so too at first, but they had little interest in medical supplies and weapons. They took them, sure, but it was secondary to everything else. Since when do the True Steels not want weaponry first and foremost?”

Scarlet nodded, following along. “They have their munitions factory beneath this fort. Perhaps they don’t need more weapons and they had to prioritize getting other supplies.”

“Or they're building a bigger weapon,” Star interjected. “That would match better with what we know of Iron Hock’s intentions.”

“You think they’re fixing the big gun on the roof of this fortress?” Scarlet questioned, glancing from Star back to me.

I gave a nod. “I would be surprised if they weren’t, but from the amount of materials they were scavenging, and the amount of construction I saw from outside, I’d reckon they’re building something more.”

“Alright, more reason to kick them when they’re down,” Star nickered. “But how does this help us any? We still need to find Bonebreaker.”

“Because the True Steels are outmatched right now and Bonebreaker knows it,” Scarlet blurted, finally catching on. “They put way too much stock in winning the battle for the Fluttershy Medical Centre. They have to make a big move right now to guarantee their victory or the Steel Rangers and Applejack rangers are going to trample them.”

Star’s eyes widened. “So if Iron Hock had Bonebreaker working on some kind of massive super weapon…”

“...Then he’s going to be trying to make sure it becomes operational as soon as possible before the battle at the front gate turns into a total massacre,” I finished, gritting my teeth.

More heavy footsteps came trampling down the hall, alerting us to another group of True Steels fast approaching. I beckoned for Star and Scarlet to follow me, as I began weaving my way through the hallways, ducking out of sight whenever any True Steels came by. Thankfully, the halls were mostly empty. Most of everypony must have been sent to deal with the attack on the front.

Up ahead, we heard ponies bickering and quickly slowed our pace, careful not to let our hoofsteps be heard.

“We need to start going on the defensive,” one voice hissed, their voice clearly echoing out of the voice modulator of a power armour helmet. “If we keep this up, we aren’t going to last much longer in this war.”

“The fuck do you think we’re doing?” another voice shot back. “Bonebreaker has all of us holed up in this fuckin’ fort till Iron Hock can send reinforcements.”

“You think they’re going to get here in time?” The voice sounded desperate.

There was a long pause as the three of us slowly began slinking past the doorway, careful to stay low and out of sight. I caught a quick glance of the two fully armoured True Steels hunkered down against the far wall, their power armour singed and dented. Clearly they had just come in from the battle at the front.

“They aren’t coming...” The second True Steel finally replied, a sombre note to his voice. “Iron Hock needs all the ponies he can get in the main battle at the heart of Manehattan. The truth is… Our victory here is only secondary to that, especially now that those synths betrayed him.”

I paused, that last bit catching me off guard. Clearly the statement caught the other True Steel off guard as well, as a second later I heard him say, “What do you mean, those synths betrayed him?”

There was a small grunt from the True Steel. “We got a distress signal from Stable 25. Those synths swarmed the place and wiped out everypony stationed there.”

“But why!? That stable was empty! We scrapped it for everything it had!”

“No clue. Doesn’t matter,” The True Steel spat back, pulling off his helmet and slumping against the wall. “That was our only outpost between here and the Celestial States Building. Now we’re cut off.”

I felt my lips curl into a snarl. Silver Ace made damn sure he had control over Project Redirect. The only thing stopping him from doing whatever he was planning now was Twilight and Farmer inside the Utopia program. I prayed to the goddesses that they were still doing well.

Scarlet tugged on my leg again, pulling my forwards. “Amber, come on. We need to move,” I gave her a grim look in response before nodding and continuing on through the hallway, leaving the two True Steels behind.

After a few moments, I located a stairwell, leading both to the upper and lower floors of the base. I glanced over at my companions, seeing if either of them had any idea of which way we should take.

Star rolled her eyes at my look. “Gimme a second. I’ll fly up and see if it’s the right way,” I opened my mouth to respond, but before I could, Star had already flapped her wings and shot up the stairwell at a speed my legs could not hope to match. A second later she came swooping back down, eyes wide. “Nope nope nope fuck nope fuck!” She shouted, rapidly urging us down the other flight of steps. “Wrong way!”

Heart racing, I whirled around just as I began to make out the sound of shouting from the floor above alongside the clamour of steel clad hooves. “Star! The fuck did you just do!”

“Sorry, but I wasn’t expecting a squadron of fuckers right at the top of the goddess fucking stairs, now did I!”

"There was a what at the top of the what?!"

“There they are!” A True Steel shouted, rounding the corner at the top of the steps as we darted rapidly into the lower levels of the fort. “Open fire!”

My ears were assaulted by machine gun fire as the True Steel opened fire. Sprays of cement dusted me as the bullets riddle the wall above my head as I duck and dove back and forth, dipping out of his line of sight and bounding down the stairs after Star.

Several more True Steels came rushing around the corner, rapidly rushing down the steps towards us as their battle saddle mounted weaponry flared. My horn burst to life, erecting a magical shield as I did my best to deflect the onslaught. Star dropped to the ground, her head ducking low to keep from being blasted apart.

“We need to find a way to lose them!” Scarlet shouted, firing her magical energy pistol behind her blindly. One of the True Steels shots pinged loudly off the wall by her head, making her recoil.

I rammed my shoulder against a steel double door at the bottom of the steps, slamming it open for us to rush into the lower sections of the base. “Working on it! Working on it!”

We burst into a large factory floor. The second we were through the door, we ran face first into a wall of intense heat and I instinctively pulled myself to a stop, taking in the chamber around me, a large gasp escaping my lips. The room was so large, that for a brief second, I thought I had somehow stumbled back outside. Giant furnaces smouldered to one side of the chamber, filling the room with a hellish red glow and pumping thick black clouds into the chamber. Large, elevated conveyor belts of varying heights crisscrossed around the room, working overtime as armoured ponies rushed back and forth to keep the machinery running at maximum capacity. What had clearly once been a weapons factory had been transformed into some sort of nightmarish workshop.

In the centre of the chamber, was a massive, metallic construct clearly built post war, that formed a large armoured vehicle supported by four endless chain tracks. The top of the construct extended above the ceiling, the whole centre of the fort having clearly been hollowed out to allow room for the massive piece of machinery. The monstrous contraption must have been roughly the size of a small city block. The whole thing kinda reminded me of a giant version of one of those robobrains I had encountered in the Fluttershy Medical Centre, only a few hundred times larger.

“Is that… A tank…!” Scarlet breathed, her own eyes widening as she took in the massive, armoured vehicle.

I glanced up, my own awe at the sheer scale of the machine outweighing my drive to keep running. “Yup… And guessing from the size…” I glanced up at where the top of the large tank extended out of my line of sight. That thing connected to the massive gun atop Fort Strong.

I had been right. They weren’t just fixing the gun. They were making it mobile!

“Not the time for gawking!” Star spat, pushing us forwards. Her shout was accompanied by several rounds of detonations as a True Steel with a grenade launcher came rushing around the corner.

I dove to the side, yanking Scarlet and Star with me with my magic as the explosives ripped apart the ground where we’d been standing. I saw a bunch of the True Steels on the factory floor whip around at the sound of explosives and gunfire, their weapons turning to face us as they began to rally.

“This just keeps getting better and better,” I groaned, rolling back to my hooves. I glanced down at Star and Scarlet. “Alright, new objective. Find and kill Bonebreaker, and disable that big tank thing.”

Star gave me a quick nod, diving to the side to take cover under one of the conveyor belts. “You’re good with machines. Can you handle the tank?”

I gave a nod, scamping back and taking cover behind a large furnace. A few bullets bounced off the furnaces' metal walls, nearly blinding me with their sparks. “I’ll need cover!”

“I’ll do my best!” Scarlet shouted back. She pushed herself out from behind cover, her pistol firing beams of magical energy towards the largest collection of True Steels. “Over here you tin cans!”

“Scarlet wait! Don’t!” I shouted, blasting off a few shots from my shotgun, the magically infused buckshot blasting into the head of one of the True Steels, knocking them back but failing to pierce his armour. Before I could say more Scarlet was off, firing blindly behind her as she raced down a side hall, a majority of the True Steels racing after her. I felt my heart pound frantically in my chest. “Fuck… Crank is going to kill me…”

“She’ll be fine! Focus on the issue at hoof!” Star shouted, poking out from under one of the conveyor belts just long enough to fire off a shot from her rifle before she ducked back down. “Big tank! Disable! Go!”

“Right!”

I rolled across the floor, using the conveyor belts for cover as I rapidly began making my way across the room. Bullets whizzed past me, ricocheting off the ground as I made a mad dash to the next bit of cover. Across from me, Star took off into the air, doing her best to divert the gunfire away from me.

There was a loud thunking sound as one of the True Steels leapt over the conveyor belt I was under, blocking my path. I jerked back, rolling back out as they fired upon my spot. Hooves skidding across the concrete, I leapt up, jumping onto the conveyor belt, my shotgun flaring as a round of buckshot burst across the True Steels face.

The True Steel stumbled back, their fore hoof swinging out as they tried to blindly knock me off the elevated conveyor belt. I jumped over their swing, doing my best to keep my balance as the rubber surface beneath me rapidly continued shifting. I jumped to the next belt, my hoof kicking out at the True Steel as I leapt, sending him sprawling.

“Gah! You’ll pay for that!” The armoured soldier scowled, whipping around and trying to aim for me as I weaved back and forth. I didn’t have much cover here, but thankfully it seemed the shifting conveyor belt beneath me was making my frantic zagging hard to pin down.

The wind was abruptly knocked out of me as another True Steel rammed into me from the side, sending me flying off my hooves. I hit the floor of the conveyor belt hard, my side bruised from being steamrolled by a fully charging knight in power armour.

I rolled onto my back to get a good look at the True Steel that had hit me, only for my eyes to widen as I spotted the massive piston above me as it began to slam down. I gave a yelp of fear, tucking my hind legs and tail against my body as the metal piston slammed against the catwalk, ripples of force vibrating the whole structure.

Blam! Blam! Blam!

More shots peppered the area around me. I felt a sharp pain as one rammed into my side, the only thing keeping it from piercing my hide being the reinforced ballistic weave of my Stable barding. Star shouted something at me as she whizzed by in the air, dipping and rolling back and forth to avoid the constant string of gunfire, though I couldn’t hear over the loud cacophony of weapon discharge.

I staggered to my hooves, turning around just in time to see the True Steel that had slammed into me charging me once again, sparks bursting beneath their hooves as they powered across the conveyor belt. With a grunt, I stepped to the side, the first strike of their armoured hooves swinging past me as they tried to crush my skull.

My horn flared and I sent my shotgun spinning into the air to face them, but before I could fire, I felt a strong set of hooves grab onto me from behind, holding me in place. I glanced behind me, just barely able to make out the True Steel I had shot in the face grappling me, the front of their visor cracked.

I twisted in his grasp, barely managing to evade having my chest pummelled as the charging True Steel in front of me swung at me again. I tried to break the grapple, but the True Steel behind me scowled, tightening his grip and slamming me roughly back down against the conveyor belt.

“Help me hold the bitch down!” He shouted to the other True Steel, shifting his weight so he was mostly pinning down my forehooves. I felt the pony that had been charging me leap forwards, their armoured hooves clamping down over my hind legs. I gave a shout of pain, thankfully the impact of his metal clad hooves slamming down on me didn’t completely shatter the bones in my hind leg.

I glanced up, spotting another giant piston rapidly approaching as the conveyor belt began to align itself beneath it. I could feel the two True Steels shifting, clearly moving me into a position to be crushed beneath it. I pulled desperately against them, but their impossibly strong power armour held me fast, unmoving.

“Star!” I shouted, yanking frantically against their might again. “I need some fucking help here!”

“I don’t think so!” The True Steel holding my hind legs growled, the minigun on his battle saddle spinning up as he aimed it down at me. “You’re going to get it for what you did to Pistachio!”

“Look, I’m sorry about what happened, really, but I’ll be honest, I don’t even know who that is and I’m tired of telling you people!” My horn flared as I disconnected his minigun from his saddle, dropping it to the ground. Before the two knights had time to react, I rapidly switched the focus of my magic and snapped down on the minigun’s trigger with it. “And for the record, I think I’ve killed a few more True Steels than just him by this point!”

There was a flurry of bullets as the minigun unloaded into the True Steel holding my forehooves. I heard a loud scream as the bullets battered repeatedly against the outside of his armour before they managed to break through and began ripping through his torso. The knight staggered back, falling from the conveyor belt and hitting the floor with a crash where he lay unmoving.

The True Steel still holding onto me gave a roar of rage, reeling up aiming to slam his hooves down on my chest. I squirmed, trying to angle myself to avoid the incoming attack.

Five rounds of magical energy lanced through the air, slamming into the side of the raging True Steels head, forcing him to avert his gaze from me and up to Star as she zipped by. He scowled, reaching for a grenade launcher strapped to his leg.

I glanced up, noting our distance from the piston above, before kicking out with my hooves and using the True Steels chest to push myself away. The True Steel whipped back around to face me, staggering slightly only to note my knowing smirk as I looked back at him smugly from a few feet away.

“Look up.”

The True Steel didn’t even manage to raise his head the whole way before the large piston cracked down. There was a sickening sound of screaming metal as he was condensed into a pancake, blood splattering out in all directions.

“Could have used that help a little sooner!” I shouted out at Star, brushing myself off and firing another round at a True Steel across the room from me.

“Well I’m a little fucking busy, aren’t I!” Star shouted back, doing a quick twirl in the air. “Now you’ve got a fucking clear path! Destroy that damn thing!”

Eyes darting back and forth to find the safest path though the mayhem, I began continuing my dash across the factory floor towards the tank. I was almost there. Just a few more steps.

My hoof skidded in something sticky.

I glanced down, my eyes locking with the lifeless eyes of a pony.

I pulled up short, my eyes going wide as I realised I was standing amongst a mound of corpses that were being readied to get shoved into the furnace. Each and every one of them clad in a tight blue Stable jumpsuit. I could feel my heart rate spike. These were the ponies of Stable 25. My ponies. The ponies that I had set out on this whole stupid adventure to save in the first place. I had known this had been their fate, but to see it here, so casually thrown into a pile to be melted into fuel.

There was a hatred burning within me for Iron Hock that I had never truly tapped into until this moment.

I reached out, my hoof gently bumping the side of the face of the dead stable pony beneath me. They were cold to the touch. I think I had known this buck once. An older pony that would yell at me sometimes for my connection to my father or something like that.

I could feel my body trembling.

“Amber! Move it!”

I snapped back into focus as Star’s words reached me. I turned, dashing the last few feet to the tank. The True Steels were going to pay for this. I pulled myself up along the massive tank's side, searching for something that I could use to destroy it. Seeing nothing, I just braced myself and unloaded all of my shotguns rounds into the side of it.

Nothing. Looks like I’d have to do this the hard- oof!

A hammer slammed into my gut, sending me sprawling onto my back. I gasped, blood spurting from my lips as I hit the ground hard, my head spinning. I glanced up, watching as a massive True Steel clad in blindingly bright, polished white and gold power armour towered over me, a super sledge nearly twice the size of my body slung over his shoulder.

“Well well, You’re the damn Stable pony Iron Hock warned me about,” The Paladin nickered, tapping the end of the super sledge’s handle so that it swung down and crashed against the concrete floor with a resounding clang. His voice had a deep, resonating reverberation to it, giving his already imposing presence a more sinister impression. “You don’t seem all that tough, but I think I’ll be best to not take chances.”

“Bonebreaker,” I spat, wiping blood from my mouth with my hoof as I pulled myself back up. “I’m here to kill you.”

“You’re too late for that I’m afraid,” The looming paladin nickered. He turned his gaze upwards, calling out to somepony above him. “Activate the platform! It’s time we give Iron Hock his reinforcements!” There was a loud beep as the entire floor beneath me lurched upwards. I staggered on my hooves, doing my best to stay upright as the massive platform began lifting us and the towering tank upwards towards the roof. Bonebreaker gave me a snide smile, or at least what I assumed was a snide smile. It was hard to tell with the fully enclosed helmet. “We’ll see how well you last against the true might of the True Steels.”

“I already killed Teslacoil,” I boasted, hoping to get under his skin a little. “From what I hear, you aren’t nearly as smart as he was. What makes you think you stand half a chance?”

I dipped to the side as he swung at me again with a roar of rage, only narrowly avoiding the rocket powered super sledge as it swung inches past my head. I rolled forwards, rapidly trying to load another drum mag into my shotgun. There was a click as the mag snapped into place seconds before I whipped around and fired. The magically charged buckshot flashed out, blasting against the side of Bonebreaker’s armour. I grimaced as I realised the shots did little more than scrape the paint job.

I groaned at myself. “Shit. Mom was right. Not great against power armo- Eep!” I scampered back as Bonebreaker slammed his sledgehammer at me again. I ducked around behind the side of the tank as he swung at me, hoping I could use his own powerful swings against the tank. To my dismay, his strikes didn’t even dent the damn thing. “The fuck is this tank made of?”

“Like it? Fashioned its armoured plating out of Stable doors,” Bonebreaker bragged back, dragging his super sledge along behind him as he slowly rounded the tank after me. “You think you’ve seen firepower? Wait until we deploy this… A shame you won’t live long enough to witness its might!”

Bonebreaker threw himself at me again. I jumped up, grabbing onto the side of the huge tank and desperately began climbing it to avoid his lethal, bone shattering swings.

“Any chance I can convince you to deactivate it? Tell me where I can find a self destruct button?” I quipped back, scrambling a few more inches up the huge war machine. The platform shook as it continued to rise, forcing me to cling tightly to the side of the tank to keep from falling.

“Humour will not save you here,” Bonebreaker smirked, swinging his sledge wide as he tried to swipe up at me now a few feet above him. “Iron Hock has ensured that nothing can stop this!”

I climbed a little higher on the tank, easily getting out of his melee range. I stuck my tongue out at him. “What’s the matter? Can’t climb in all that power armour.

A grappling hook shot out of Bonebreakers battle saddle, whipping past my head and locking somewhere above me. I glanced down, watching as Bonebreaker began rapidly scaling the war machine after me, his grappling hook pulling him upwards at an alarming rate.

“Seriously, what kind of gadgets do you have in that fucking thing,” I spat, pulling myself higher to keep clear of his range. “Totally not fair.”

There was a loud shuttering sound as the massive platform came to a stop at the roof of Fort Strong. I looked up, taking in the whole tank for the first time. The thing was massive, wider than most streets and with a massive gun the size of a mini skyscraper. How they planned to move this thing around the city was beyond me.

Down below, I could hear more than see the booming sound of battle as the three Ranger factions brutally blasted each other apart as they tried to either reclaim or maintain their control over Fort Strong. I saw dozens of Steel Rangers look up in awe as they made out the massive tank.

Bonebreaker gave a loud grunt as he finally pulled himself up atop the tank with me, his grappling hook rewinding and snapping back into place at his side. His ability to hoist his body up such a steep slope in armour that heavy was a testament to not just the advancement of his tech, but to his personal strength and endurance.

I fired another round from my shotgun point blank into his chest, but he didn’t even flinch as the magically charged buckshot bounced harmlessly across his chest. He didn’t even bother trying to dodge out of the way. Grimacing, I fired again, this shot being equally as effective as the last.

“How’s killing me going?" Bonebreaker chuckled, glancing down lazily at the spot my buckshot had grazed him.

I gave him a nervous chuckle, slowly backing up. “Yeah, I’m still working out how to do that.”

"Still think I’m weaker than Tesla Coil?” He groused, swinging his sledge around in a lazy arch as he began moving in towards me. “Even if your gun could penetrate power armour, my suit is made out of the very same metal as this tank. Perhaps you’ll recognize the very same steel from your own Stable door.”

Oh, this fucker was going to die.

He lunged at me again, this time swinging low in an attempt to take out my legs. I rapidly stepped back to avoid the strike, the backs of my hooves pressing up against the edge of the tank. I glanced behind me, staring down at the ground now hundreds of feet below.

“Have I ever mentioned I don’t like heights? Because I feel like right now is a good time to mention it.”

I ducked low, avoiding another swing. My magic surged outwards, trying to slam into Bonebreaker and knock him off the side of the tank. The large paladin laughed, bracing his legs and easily resisting the magical force.

“Paladin! The cannon is ready to fire!” A True Steel shouted. I glanced over, spotting a True Steel pop his head out from a large hatch to my right. “Awaiting your order to fire!”

Paladin Bonebreaker glanced back at me, taking a few steps back to put distance between him and myself. “Well, perhaps you will get to see our true might after all. Fire when ready!”

“What! NO!” I shouted, diving forwards to try and get to the hatch in time before the pony within the tank ducked within. I didn’t get even an inch before the grappling hook shot out from Bonebreakers battle saddle, wrapping around my hooves and dropping me to the ground, sending me skidding to my side and away from the hatch. A second later, the pony within the tank ducked out of sight, slamming the hatch behind them.

Up above us, the massive cannon began glowing an ominous green, crackles of energy racing along its ginormous frame. I could feel the very gravity around the proximity of the gun increase as the massive power buildup began seemingly sucking in the matter around it. Surges of electricity raced up the large tubes connecting the gun to the top of the tank, emitting the same eerie green glow as the rest of the cannon. The whole thing reminded me uncomfortably of the large tesla cannons Crank had wielded, only this time, it was much, much, much bigger.

The huge cannon shifted, aiming down at the battlefield below, locking in on the advancing Steel and Applejack Rangers.

“Run! You need to scatter! Now!” I shouted down at them, doubting I could be heard at this distance or even over the sound of gunfire. I spun back around, struggling to untangle my legs from the thick wire of the grappling hook before facing towards Bonebreaker. “This is insane! You’re going to blow up your own troops!”

“Anything for victory! Ad victoriam!” Bonebreaker’s armoured hoof grabbed onto the back of my mane, slamming me down against the edge of the tank so that my head was looking down at all the ponies fighting below. I felt the huge True Steel lean over me, glaring down at me with a snide sneer. “Watch as we end this pathetic little battle right here,” Bonebreaker snarled. “This ends now.”

Boom!

The massive cannon fired, a searing beam of blinding green energy burst across the battlefield, filling the overcast sky with flaring light. I felt the tremendous shockwave ripple out from the hulking barrel, flattening me against the metal surface of the tank. Even Bonebreaker staggered away from me as the unexpectedly powerful blast of destructive energy ripple across the wasteland.

The cannon did not, however, blast its targeted destination. Instead, the searing beam tore through the sky, lancing through a nearby skyscraper. Fire flared up the massive, ruined structure as the green beam tore through it, followed shortly by the entire structure exploding in a blast of balefire.

“What the fuck!” Bonebreaker scowled, his eyes following the unexpected trajectory of the blast before shifting his gaze up towards the looming cannon. “I told you to fire at the-”

“What? Did you think an Enclave scientist couldn’t fucking hotwire a fucking gun?” Star snickered, flapping her wings lazily as she floated down from above us. I felt myself smile. She may swear a lot, but damn did I love that pegasus right now. “I’m sure making this was hard shit and all, but I’ve built fucking mindcontrol headsets. Redirecting this was fucking childs play.”

I could practically feel Bonebreaker seething inside his power armour. “Do you have any idea how long it takes to charge that up!? How much a single blast of that costs! That cost us enough fusion cores to fire as it would to power all our power armour for a fucking year!”

“Well then you shouldn’t have wasted it all on shooting some random building,” Star snarked back, sticking out her tongue. “Honestly, I know some of the buildings around here are eyesores, but that’s just overkill.

There was a roar of fury from down below as the Steel and Applejack Rangers resumed charging towards the True Steels with renewed vigour. True Steels began frantically retreating as they realised they had become greatly outnumbered. Down below, I saw Paladin Sardine leading the charge, his weaponry booming as he shot down True Steel after True Steel. We were actually doing it! We were winning!

“No! Stand your ground! Stand and fight you cowards!” Bonebreaker hollered, his power armour enhancing his voice to an overwhelming octave. “Do not let these profligates best us!”

“It’s over Bonebreaker,” I scowled, pulling myself back to my hooves. “Surrender. Now.”

Bonebreaker growled, his eyes narrowing behind his visor at me. “Never. Prepare to fire again!”

The massive cannon shifted back into position, aiming back down at the battle field below. The barrel began to once more glow with a deadly light.

“Charging. Please hold still while the Dragon Lance Canon Mark II prepares to atomize you. 20 minutes until fully charged.”

Bonebreaker grit his teeth at the time required to fire. Even I, with my minimal combat training, knew that in the heat of battle, twenty minutes was not an amount of time Bonebreaker could afford. Bonebreaker shifted his weight, slamming his hoof heavily against the top of the hatch leading into the tank. “No time! Fort Strong is lost to us! Get this damn thing to the Celestial States Building! Iron Hock will have his weapon!”

I felt the whole tank shift beneath us as it began rolling away from Fort Strong on its massive treads, descending down a huge ramp towards the heart of the city.

I lunged forwards, trying to reef open the hatch into the tank, but Bonebreaker quickly imposed himself between it and me, scowling. “You may take Fort Strong, but the True Steels are far from finished. Iron Hock will have all of your hides! You cannot stop this!”

“True, but killing you will at least be a step in the right direction.”

“All talk and no action.”

I smirked at him. “Actually, I just had a thought.”

“Oh, and what’s that?” Bonebreaker growled, advancing towards me, the rocket on the end of his super sledge sparking.

“Your armour is impressive, but this tank is stronger.”

Bonebreaker leaned his head back and howled with laughter. “You’re going to try and hit me with a blast from that gun? You’ll have to survive quite a few more hits of my hammer before you could possibly hope to even attempt such a trick!”

“Nah, the treads will do,” I nickered.

“The what…?”

My magic snapped out, grasping tightly to the grappling hook in his battle saddle and yanked it free before tossing it over the side of the tank.

Bonebreakers eyes went wide as he watched the metal hook and attached metal wire sail over the edge of the tank before locking with the steel hinges that made up the tank's tracks. There was a moment of stillness as we both stood there, watching the long wire spiral and unravel as it wound itself up in the wheels before it abruptly pulled taught and sent Bonebreaker flailing over the side.

Bonebreaker screamed, his hooves frantically trying to disconnect his grappling hook from his side as the force of the tank yanked him dowards. I rushed to the edge of the tank, watching as the massive True Steel paladin slammed against the cement road below. To his credit (though perhaps mostly to the credit of his impressive armour), Bonebreaker managed to survive the fifty foot fall and stagger his way back onto his hooves when the grappling hook pulled taught again and reefed him directly under the tanks treads.

There was a loud sound of rending metal as the reinforced tank treads crushed Bonebreaker beneath them, compressing his impressive armour past the point it should have. His screams lasted for several more seconds until a loud popping sound cut them short as his head burst open like a balloon as the tank rolled over him.

“Well that’s the last of him,” Star stated factually, swooping down and landing next to me, breathing heavily.

“The world could do with less True Steels,” I replied grimly. “Now come on, we need to figure out how to deactivate this tank before-”

Several turrets popped out of the tanks surface and swivelled to face us, drawing my sentence up short. I glanced up, watching as dozens of larger rocket launchers that ringed the main, central gun also began shifting towards us.

“Better idea. We get the fuck out of here and live to fight another day,” Star shot back, scooping her fore hooves under mine and lifting off into the air.

“No wait! We need to stop this thing!” I shouted, fighting against her as she hoisted me up and began making a beeline away from the tank and back to Fort Strong.

The turrets opened fire, their explosive weaponry detonating in the air around us as Star madly swerved back and forth to avoid being pulverised. One of the rocket launchers came uncomfortably close to obliterating us, their explosive fire singeing the hair in my mane.

“Yeah, no. Fuck that,” Star groused in response, diving lower to avoid the turrets. “That thing is indestructible. Best to regroup and come up with a plan. We have a lot of strong and smart ponies fighting in the centre of the city. They’ll be able to fend for themself for a bit.”

A few moments later, Star touched down on the roof of Fort Strong, dropping me down to stand on my own four hooves. I watched the massive True Steel Tank rumble off into the distance, growing smaller and smaller on the horizon as it made its way to join the frey in the centre of the city, silhouetted by the last rays of the setting sun as it set behind the eternal cloudlayer. Shifting my gaze, I glanced over the edge of the fort to the Steel Rangers down below. The fighting seemed to have stopped in the wake of the tank. It was hard to tell from all the way up here, but it looked like the True Steels had surrendered. It was unclear if word of Bonebreakers death had somehow already gotten out, or if survival instincts had simply finally kicked in as they realized how outnumbered they were. regardless, the remaining True Steels would soon begin to notice the lack of command.

We had won this fight, but the war was far from over.

It took over an hour before I finally located a pony I knew amongst the wreckage. Star had immediately rushed off to aid the wounded, which had left me to search through Fort Strong for Scarlet. Thankfully, I found her nursing her wounds in the armoury, surrounded by the bodies of several dead True Steels, to my relief only slightly wounded.

“Did you kill all of these yourself?” I asked, glancing around at the piles of corpses.

“I can take care of myself, thank you,” Scarlet smirked, whipping her long red mane a little as she wrapped a wad of gauze around a bullet wound that had pierced her hind hoof. At my shocked stare she just rolled her eyes. “No silly. I managed to evade them long enough for Sardine and his Steel Rangers to catch up with me. I’d likely be dead without them.”

“Try not to do something like that again, alright,” I scolded, shifting over to her to help wrap her wounds. “I made a promise to Crank I’d keep you safe. That’s going to be hard if you run off as a distraction like that again.”

Scarlet gave me a sad smile. “Unfortunately, your promise to Crank is the least of the world's worries right now…”

I didn’t bother voicing that she was right.

Half an hour after that, Scarlet and I found ourselves in the elders office on the top floor of Fort Strong, sitting in front of the large desk as Paladin Sardine trotted back and forth, giving orders to the last few Steel Rangers before finally turning his attention to me.

“Sorry I haven’t had the time to properly thank you for your service,” the stoic paladin grunted. “Without you, I’m sure this would have all turned out very differently.”

I just nodded, my thoughts elsewhere. “Any sign of Blueberry?” I asked.

Sardine shook his head. “I’ve got a few ponies looking for the body now, though I’m afraid I can only spare a few. We’ll find his body and make sure he gets a proper burial…”

"How can you be sure that he's dead?" Scarlet asked, propping her hooves up on the desk. "We should at least find his body before we write him off like that."

"Believe me, I hope he is alive just as much as you. But the odds are unlikely. We apprehended a group of True Steels a few minutes ago that had been hiding out in the secret entrance to the Fort. We suspect they were the ones that finally killed Blueberry," Sardine seemed to sink into himself. “Fetlock has become somewhat of a Ranger graveyard these past few days. First Steelhooves, then the fallen knights at the Medical Centre, now Blueberry. It seems the wasteland is in the mood to take. More than usual anyway.”

“And the ponies from Stable 25…” I muttered, my stomach sinking. “Can you give them a proper burial as well?”

I couldn’t tell what Sardine's expression was behind his helmet, but it was clear from his posture that the news of the mass corpse pile in the munitions factory had rattled him somewhat. “We’ll try. It’s a lot of bodies down there and we’re short on ponies as it is. Likely any funeral rites will need to wait till this war is over. But we will get to it eventually,” Sardine looked me over carefully, checking for signs of retaliation to the remark. “You must feel terrible. To see such a thing as what Iron Hock had down in his factories.”

A tremor raced down my spine at the memory of the pile of Stable dweller corpses, their lifeless, vacant eyes staring up at me. “I’m just glad they can finally have some sort of peace. None of them deserved what the wasteland did to them. Melting them down for fuel was only an insult to injury.”

“And what of Fort Strong?” Scarlet asked, wincing slightly as she flexed one of her injured hind legs. “I suppose it’s becoming a Steel Ranger base proper again? Especially since Blueberry is no longer in the picture.”

Sardine winced at the remark. I could feel more than see him give a sad smile from behind his helmet as he shifted his gaze over to Scarlet. “As much as I would love to assert complete control over this place, such a claim would not be possible. We expect the Enclave will reach Fillydelphia in less than 24 hours. As beneficial as this fort would be to the Steel Rangers, we cannot allow our cathedral out in Filly to fall. I will be leaving shortly with all of my ponies to maintain and secure what little territory we have left.”

“You’re willingly giving it up to the Applejack Rangers?” I asked, somewhat awed at how easily the Steel Ranger was giving such a valued location to his enemies.

Sardine stiffened at the comment. “If I could have had it any other way, know that I would have. But there is a war going on, and right now we need to keep up what little strength we still have. The last thing we need is to start fighting amongst the few allies we currently hold, tentative as those alliances may be,” he paused, glancing over some document on the desk I had no context to. “Even still, this is not a total loss for the Steel Rangers. I’ve reached out to Star Paladin Crossroads at Stable 29, and we’ve made the decision to make Fort Strong a mutual ground. A place where we can start rebuilding trust between the ranger factions.”

“Peace?” I asked hopefully.

Sardine shook his head. “Unlikely. At least not at first. But this is a step towards peace anyhow. It’s fitting. I feel like that is what Blueberry would have wanted for this place. He was a good pony.”

Star Breeze came fluttering into the room a few seconds later, looking exhausted. I could see the bags forming under her eyes and the stress lines that marred her face. “You know, I became a scientist because Enclave tech interested me. The question of how I ended up as the de facto wasteland medic will forever plague me.”

Sardine took a step back at her approach, taking all three of us in. “Well, your work is done here for now. Fetlock is secured and the True Steel presence has been completely isolated to central Manehattan. With your mission complete, what is your next move? Plan to catch up with the team heading to the secret institute facility out west?”

As much as I loved the idea of joining back up with Brisk and Xayah, I had to shake my head. “That tank heading for the Celestial States Building was only the tip of the iceberg. Our next move needs to be securing the centre of the city and stopping Silver Ace or Iron hock from getting this Beryllium Agitator before we can make a big push on Stable 25.”

I saw Sardine’s eyebrow raise behind his visor. “Stable 25?” His eyes flickered to the number on the collar of my barding. “Your own Stable?”

I nodded. “It sounds like Silver Ace turned on Iron Hock. Sent a small army of synths to wipe out all the True Steels stationed at what was left of my old Stable. If I had to bet, that’s where Silver Ace is currently hiding, using his project Redirect to control the synth army and the Utopia Program remotely. I’m guessing he’s likely holed himself up there behind an army of synths to make sure we can’t get to him.”

Sardine nodded. “Taking control of the centre of the city won’t be easy. Hundreds of ponies have tried over the years, none succeeded. Manehattan is simply too big and uncontrollable. But if ever there was a time. It’s now.”

“That tank looked like it was making some pretty good headway,” Star spoke up, drawing our attention over to her. “But Manehattan is huge and slow. By my best estimation, it’ll reach the Celestial States building early tomorrow.”

“Which means the True Steels will likely take the tower come morning,” Scarlet groaned. “We don’t get a break, do we?”

Star shook her head. “Not necessarily. The Enclave still holds control over the States Building, and they have a Thunderhead, not to mention their Ursa Major. They won't make it easy for the True Steels.”

My blood ran cold in my veins. I blinked a couple of times, trying to make sense of what Star had just said. From the look on Scarlet's face, I could tell she was having a similar reaction “I’m sorry, their what?!”

Star blinked at me a couple times. “Their… Ursa- did I not mention this already? I thought you knew?”

I could see Sardine stiffen from the other side of the desk. “Are you trying to tell me the Enclave has an Ursa Major on their side?”

Star gave a nod. “Same general principle as their mind controlled hellhounds. Big fancy headpiece that connects to the radio signal they’ve been broadcasting from the top of the Celestia States building since their arrival in Manehattan. Some of my best work, much as it's going to bite me in the ass now,” Star glanced back at me. “How did you not know this? You literally helped me plant a monitoring device in its layer when you saved me back in the Manehattan Gardens.”

“I didn’t know that was so the Enclave could control a-” A slapped my hoof across my face, groaning. “Fuck me, there’s no end how bad things can get, is there? An Ursa Major! Really!?”

“All the more reason to join up with the battle in the middle of the city,” Sardine harrumphed, casting Star a small scowl. “I’ll get in contact with Crossroads and see if she can supply a few Applejack Rangers to accompany you. Though I doubt she will be able to supply many. As urgent as our situation seems, Crossroads is preoccupied with Littlepip’s plan to lay siege to Neighvarro and clear the skies tomorrow.”

I gave a nod, but the idea of rushing off into yet another battle made my mind scream in protest. Not to mention my eyelids were beginning to feel uncomfortably heavy. I hadn’t slept in how long? Over a day? At least not since my brief coma in the Institute. The past several hours were all beginning to blur together.

“We’ll head out immediately,” I finally sighed, pulling myself up to my hooves. “But we’re going to need to get some rest. We can’t keep fighting like this.”

Sardine nodded. “I wouldn’t expect you to get to the Celestial states building come sunrise anyhow. You’ve all gone through far more in one day than what is expected of anypony,” he tapped an armoured hoof to his chin thoughtfully. “Friendship City should be on route to the Celestial States building. I’d recommend catching a few hours of sleep under a non hostile roof while you can.”

“It would give us a good opportunity to catch up with Nova and Tinker as well,” Scarlet agreed, standing up herself.

And a good opportunity to check out Silver Ace's apartment in the Four Star Building, I quickly noted to myself. Though I didn’t bother saying the thought aloud. “Alright, look into the ranger accompaniment, and we’ll head out by the end of the hour.”

The streets of Manehattan were uncomfortably silent. I could see signs of battle everywhere, but aside from my companions and our Applejack Ranger escorts, there was no life to be seen on the desolate streets. Bodies were strewn about, many completely unrecognisable from the explosives that had ripped through their bodies. My EFS was equally silent; not even a blip from a lone radroach.

I was thankful that none of the ponies I found dead were ones that I knew. I had lost too many friends today already.

“So much death,” Scarlet whimpered, looking at one of the bodies strewn across the street. “And for what? A better tomorrow?”

I didn’t have an answer for her. The idea seemed hypocritical at best.

The loud groaning of creaking steel drew my gaze upwards to the Pony of Friendship statue in the harbour that marked the location of Friendship City. The city still looked a mess from the Enclave invasion, its walls pitted with holes and the bridge connecting it to the mainland now missing, but I could still see the flickering lights of life emanating from within.

Approaching, I saw a few Applejack Rangers stationed on the shore, helping ponies into and out of a small life boat that seemed to have been scavenged and repaired from the Manehattan shoreline. A few tents and campfires had been built around the dock area, an indication that the Applejack Rangers had been set up here for a day or two now. I felt a spike of joy go through me when I spotted a tall purple, hornless alicorn amongst the gathered ponies, a small, beige unicorn colt with a white patch on his muzzle sitting atop her back.

“Nova! Tinker!” I exclaimed, skidding down the incline to the water's edge.

“Amber! It is most good to see you alive!” Nova commented, accepting my tight hug. “I had heard that you managed to return from Las Pegasus alive, but I have not heard of what has transpired within the walls of the Institute,” Her voice turned grave and she looked me over. “Things in Manehattan have not been going well.”

The small laugh that escaped my lips was completely involuntary. “You don’t know the half of it.”

Nova’s brow furrowed. “I get the impression I do not. I do not like not knowing…”

“How's it going kiddo?” Scarlet asked, approaching herself and ruffling Tinkers mane a little with her hoof. She gave Nova a polite but thankfully respectful nod. “Nova.”

I glanced around at the ponies around me, inspecting the rickety boat closer. “What’s going on here?” I asked, watching as an Applejack Ranger pulled another pony from the small watercraft.

“We have been helping to get ponies off the island after the Enclave’s assault,” Nova confirmed, looking down at the small boat. “There are quite a few ponies that do not wish to stay within the walls of Friendship City after the attack, though most still choose to remain. Strength in numbers.”

“I fixed up the boat!” Tinker replied happily, waving a wrench around in his magic. I smiled at the colts' antics. If there was any happiness to be found through all this, it was Tinker's ability to move on in the wake of what had happened to Chestnut. Or at the very least, his ability to repress.

“We were just about to head back to the city,” One of the Applejack rangers said, gently hoisting the last pony onto dry land. “We have a shipment of supplies we intend to bring into the city, you are all welcome to come along,” he glanced over at the small gathering of Applejack Rangers that had accompanied us. “Though we may need to do two trips.”

One of the Applejack Rangers that Sardine had sent with us stepped towards me. I think their name was Crusader Apple Cheese. I couldn't quite remember. “You go ahead. We’ll rest here with the rest of our brothers and sisters till morning. Get your rest. Tomorrow is going to be a big day for all of us.”

We quickly all loaded up onto the boat, setting out for Friendship City, Star Breeze taking to the sky to minimise the amount of ponies the admittedly rickety boat could take. Tinker had done a good work fixing it up, but not that good of a job. I noticed Nova boarded the ship with us as well. Clearly her wing had not yet fully healed from her battle with the Courser.

We made our way up the city to our old apartment room, stopping only briefly to stock up on supplies and ammo. Nova and Tinker had made decent work of fixing up our room after the attack since we had last been there. At the very least, all the furniture had been tilted back upright.

The moment I saw my bed, I slumped down onto the mattress, my body almost immediately falling asleep from exhaustion as I sunk into the somewhat stained sheets. This may very well have been one of the longest days of my life.

With what last bit of energy I had left, I raised my pipbuck, tapping into the radio transmitter Sprocket had given me earlier that day and tuned in to channel 7. I felt myself frown slightly as I fiddled with the dial, my mind replaying the image of Freedom crying over Sprocket’s lifeless body. This had been the last contraption they ever got to make.

There was radio static for a moment from the transmitter before a calculating voice spoke out at me. “Dixie? Report? What do you have for me?”

My heart wilted a little, I had hoped Pyre would pick up. “Magazine? Is that you? This is Amber Aura,” I said, resigning myself. “I’m guessing Pyre isn’t available?”

There was silence for a second before Magazine spoke up again. “Amber? How the fuck did you get this frequency? Never mind. I don’t care. I’m afraid Pyre is currently on the front lines. Whatever you need to say, you’ll need to say to me. How are things looking out in Fetlock?”

I sighed. “Fetlock is secured, but there’s trouble coming your way. The True Steels have a tank of some sort. Has a gun on it big enough to level a city block.”

“Fuck, just what we need. Any other news that spoils my evening?” The cyborg raider groused. “We had enough problems out here already.”

“The Enclave has a Ursa Major apparently,” I piped up, grimacing slightly.

There was a scowl from the other side of the radio. “We knew that. Damn thing joined the fray a few hours ago. It’s been keeping Jinx busy. Stopping us from properly advancing on the Celestial States Building.”

“I’m on my way back from Fetlock now. I should be arriving late tomorrow morning.”

“I’ll have some ponies meet you at Friendship City in the morning to escort you if you can get there,” Magazine sighed, clearly unaware I had already made it to that destination. “We’re currently camped out in Maneway Station, south west of the States building.”

I yawned, giving a small nod of my head that I knew Magazine couldn’t see. “We’ll be there. See you in the morning. Amber out,” there was a small click as the transmitter turned off, being replaced with a few seconds of static before finally going peacefully silent.

Scarlet watched me silently from the other side of the bed, clearly just as exhausted as I was. “I don’t suppose you can contact Brisk’s Pipbuck with that as well? See how they’re doing?” I saw Star’s ears perk up from the other side of the room at the request.

“I can try,” I said, flipping back through my radio frequencies and searching for Brisk’s pipbuck tag. “He knows the channel we’re on so I could… Give me a second…” I waited for a moment, hoping Brisk would pick up on the other end. After a few seconds of waiting with no response, I tried tuning in and out of the frequency a couple times, hoping it would cause some beeping on Brisks end he’d pick up on. I was met with only silence. I gave Scarlet a sad shake of my head. “Looks like it's radio silence for now. We’ll try again in the morning.”

“You think they’re okay?” Star asked, fluttering over and curling up against a pillow in the corner. “If Brisk dies, I’m going ballistic.”

I could feel my heart pounding heavily in my chest, but I forced a smile onto my lips. “I’m sure they’re fine,” They had to be fine. I didn’t know if I could keep doing all this if Brisk and Xayah were gone. I reached out with my magic, tugging gently on the pull chain for the hanging lightbulb above our heads, casting the room into darkness. “We’ll worry about all that tomorrow. Right now, we need to rest…”

I’m not sure what drove me. Perhaps the knowledge that come sunrise, I would need to beeline for the centre of the city and this opportunity would be lost forever. I knew explicitly that bringing my friends along was the wise decision, but they needed sleep. They had been through just as much as me and if they were going to plunge into a full on war zone with me tomorrow, I needed them to be in tip top shape.

Regardless, as soon as I heard Scarlet and Star Breeze snoring, I crept out of the room silent as a knife and headed down to the main gates of Friendship City.

The Applejack Rangers had stopped catering ponies across the water at this time of night, forcing me to find a more creative solution. Taking a deep breath and channelling as much energy into my horn as I could, I quietly cast a teleport spell and tried to bamf myself to the mainland, wincing as I felt the energy pulsate through the crack in my horn. To my chagrin, I only managed to make it about three quarters of the way across the water, re-materializing a few inches above the waves before dropping down with a splash.

I scowled, spitting out water as I frantically swam the rest of the way to shore, my pipbuck’s geiger counter clicking ominously from the highly radioactive water. I’d need to take some radaway after this. I doubted the radiation exposure was good for the baby; though perhaps alicorn babies were immune? Perhaps they were more hearty? I certainly hoped so. I prayed the hammer blow to the gut Bonecrusher had given me hadn’t injured it. I had put this fetus through the ringer already and it hadn’t even been a day.

I dragged my drenched body up onto the shore, giving myself a quick shake to try and dry my hide as much as possible. My Stable barding felt like it weighed another twenty or so pounds from all the water. A cold night breeze whipped through the ruins around me, making me shiver and making the accumulated water droplets on me feel like shards of ice.

Bracing against the wind, I began trudging along the desolate streets towards my destination. The moon was hidden behind the Enclaves eternal cloud cover as usual, but I could still see the soft glow where it lit up the dark night sky.

Eventually, I saw my terminus ahead.

The large apartment building looked just as I remembered it, standing roughly twelve stories tall, its uppermost floor connecting to the large elevated monorail that extended over the conjoined theatre ruins. I raised my gaze, looking at the large sign above the door, reading simply, ‘Four Star Living’.

Pushing open the front doors, I could tell something was immediately off. Where once was a relatively clean looking front room, now lay a mess of burn marks and scattered furniture. Holes had been blasted into the walls and the terminal that had once sat behind the front desk had been rendered to little more than slag. All in all, the damage looked relatively fresh. Judging by how recent the burn marks looked, this all couldn’t have happened any longer than a day ago.

It all resembled an obvious struggle, but upon closer inspection, even that was clearly off. No bodies, no drops or splatters of blood or spent ammunition. Just structural damage. I ran my hoof over one of the many blast marks on the wall. I had seen enough identical marks throughout the last few weeks to identify the cause immediately…

Institute weaponry...

“Damn,” I felt myself involuntarily whisper under my breath. “Looks like Silver Ace came to clean up after all.”

I strode through the rundown halls of the building, my eyes roaming over the scores of burn marks along the walls. Pretty much anything of value here had been rendered to ash. Moving up to the second floor, I found more of the same; just rubble and ashes scattered across the floor.

There was a faint clattering sound behind me. My ears perked up, picking out the subtle sound of hoofsteps amongst the groaning of creaking metal. I spun around, my shotgun swinging up into the air and aiming down the hall. My eyes darted back and forth, looking for any signs of something that was out of place or an unexpected danger.

If Silver Ace had sent his synths to burn any evidence or secrets he had been hiding here before the apocalypse in case I came snooping, what were the odds he also left a synth or two behind to take me out.

“Idiot, Amber,” I scowled at myself, realising that if anything, he probably left a Courser here to kill me or something. I really should not have come here without my friends.

Taking a deep breath, I took a shaky step down the hallway, my shotgun swinging back and forth as I searched for the assailants. I glanced down at my EFS, hoping to spot something. Nothing. Whatever that sound was, it was gone now.

I poked my shotgun around one door before glancing in myself, finding the room empty. I paused, realising that I had seen this apartment room before. The window had been boarded up and a large cork board sat to one side of the room, now laying face down on the floor below where I had once seen it hanging. Like the rest of the apartment building, the room had been tossed. The terminal on the desk had been melted down, its once flickering screen now cracked and dark.

Trotting into the room, I reached down and picked up a small frame that had fallen from the broken desk to land face down on the floor. I flipped it over, looking at the old photo of a beige and brown earth pony stallion through the cracked pane.

Smiling slightly, I pulled the picture from its frame and tucked it into my saddlebag before inhaling sharply and turning to face the corner of the room where I knew the body would be waiting for me.

The charred skeleton lay exactly as I remembered it, seemingly untouched by the rest of the devastation that had beset the apartment building. Above him, still scrawled in what I assumed to be his own blood, I could read the words, ‘I can’t remember anything’.

I knelt down, not wanting to touch the long dead corpse directly, but feeling the action was appropriate. “Sorry Farmer. You didn’t deserve any of this,” I muttered, my words landing on deaf ears. The silence of the creaking structure was my only response. “Thanks for looking out for Mirra and I. I’ll find a way to get you and Twilight out of the Utopia Program somehow. Or at least put an end to your loneliness…”

Picking myself back up, I continued on though the building, carefully climbing up the large ramps of rubble that lead to the upper floors. Eventually, I managed to make my way to the room that I had really come to see. I was unsurprised to see that it had been completely obliterated.

What had once been Silver Ace’s old apartment, was now a crater. The floor had been caved in, the wall leading out now a gaping hole giving me a clear view of the Manehattan ruins beyond and the adjacent abandoned theatre. Not even a desk remained in the bombed out room. If Silver Ace had left anything behind, it was definitely gone now. All that remained was an old, dog-eared brochure for the theatre next door, now mostly burned and unreadable.

I let loose a long sigh. I supposed it had been too wishful to think that perhaps Silver Ace might have overlooked something.

“Looks like I got myself drenched for nothing,” I groaned, flicking some of the radioactive water that still clung to me off with a shake of my hoof, spraying the wall a little.

There was another clattering sound behind me, barely audible. I whipped around again, once more swinging my shotgun in my magic up to bear. This time, I spotted a small flicker of light on me EFS before the individual dipped back and out of range.

“Who’s there!?” I called out, pushing my back up against a wall to keep from being snuck up on. “Come on out! I know you’re there! Did Silver Ace send you?”

There was a moment of silence where no pony responded. Then, from the floor below, I heard a voice pipe up. “Was I that loud?”

I felt a wave of relief wash over me at the familiar voice. “Nova? Did you follow me?”

A second later, the large, purple, hornless alicorn pulled herself into view, slowly climbing over some of the rubble to get to the same floor as me. “I spotted you leaving Friendship City,” the alicorn confessed. “Figured it would be bad of us- for me, rather, to let you wander off into the Manehattan ruins alone.”

“You nearly gave me a heart attack. I thought Silver Ace left a Courser here to kill me,” I chuckled, putting my gun away.

“Why did you come here alone, Amber Aura?” Nova pressed, glancing around the trashed room. “It is not wise to do so in the best of times, and these times are trying,” her face darkened slightly and she leaned towards me almost conspiratorially. “We are not doing something we should not be, are we?”

I shook my head. “Nothing so exciting. I just knew I wouldn’t get the chance to scope this place out in the morning and Scarlet and Star needed to sleep.”

“As do you,” Nova pointed out flatly, clearly a little disappointed by the answer. “Even still, you should have told somepony. Or gotten one of your Applejack Ranger escorts to accompany you. Especially if you suspect this Silver Ace pony may be up to no good here.”

I sighed. “You’re right. Honestly, I don’t know what I was even thinking,” I kicked at one of the scorched rocks by my hooves, watching as it tumbled down the pit that had once been Silver Ace’s apartment to the floor below. “I was hoping I could find some kind of secret or something that Silver Ace left behind that might give me some insight into what he’s planning. Doesn’t matter in the end. Anything I could have found here is long gone now.”

“This was his old apartment?” Nova asked, more curiously looking over the devastation. She chuckled to herself. “Doesn’t look like he liked the idea of you finding out more about him.”

I gave an exasperated shake of my head. “No, apparently not,” My eyes trailed over the wreckage one final time before I turned to leave. As I turned, my gaze landed on the singed brochure beneath my hooves, pinned beneath the rubble. I reached out with my magic, ripping it free and looking it over curiously. “Unless…”

Nova glanced at the brochure with interest. It was an old prewar pamphlet advertising the Bridleway Theatre. Undoubtably the very same one attached to this building below. “You think there is something in the theatre?”

“Worth a look, right? At the very least, it’s a location we know Silver Ace went to shortly before the bombs,” I smirked, wiggling the brochure. “What’s the worst that could happen?”

Nova grimaced at the blunt rhetorical question. “In the Equestrian wasteland? The worst could be quite bad. Hellhounds, manticores, mutant abominations, secret ministry experiments gone awry.”

“Ghouls,” I replied simply, beginning to make my way back towards the stair leading out of the building. “Brisk, Xayah and I cleared that place out on one of our first nights out of the Stable. It should be empty and ghoul-less now, unless something has moved in.”

I gave a small gasp of surprise as I felt Nova’s hooves unexpectedly wrap under my barrel and the sensation of defying gravity as she gave a flap of her wings, pulling us up into the air. She twisted in the air, angling out the large hole in the wall and beginning to descend us towards the theatre in question. I saw her face scrunch in pain slightly as she worked her injured wing.

“This is faster,” Was all she bothered to comment as we dropped down to the building below.

There was a soft thumping sound as our hooves touched down on the rotting wood floor of the theatre. Much like how I remembered, the location was dark, the only light to see by was the defused moonlight peaking through the many holes in the roof. Old theatre lights had come crashing to the floor in years long past, creating small creators along the audience seating and large central stage. The catwalks along the top of the stage had collapsed in as well, slanting towards the floor at sinister looking angles, giving the whole auditorium an almost lopsided, geometric look.

Slowly, we began pushing our way through the building's wreckage, making our way through the rotting and age-worn seats towards the stage. Hopping up onto the cracked apron, I made out the desecrated, bisected remains of the glowing ghoul we had killed on our first visit. Amazingly, his body still glowed a baleful, radioactive green, even after all this time.

“Your work?” Nova asked, looking the body over, clearly making note of the pulped head and buckshot lodged in the floor.

I nodded, explaining the whole encounter of how the ghoul had come out of a trapdoor in the stage to her as we made our way past the stage and through the wings. We spent the next few minutes scouring the theatre, searching for anything of interest that Silver Ace might have left behind. After a while, I could feel my hopes waning again.

Nothing.

Of course there was nothing. If Silver Ace had done or left anything here that might expose him or give us some kind of insite, he would have ravaged this building just as he had the Four Star building. If Silver Ace was anything, he was thorough. He wouldn’t have made such an oversight. This whole trip to the theatre had been made on the vaguest hunch, I shouldn’t have gotten my hopes up.

I was about to throw in the towel and suggest we head back to Friendship City to get some much needed rest, when I heard Nova call out for me from the back of the theatre. I rushed to her, moving behind the stage to the abandoned green rooms to find Nova curiously looking over a long dead skeleton on the floor.

I walked up next to her, looking the body over. “What is it?” In response, Nova pointed at a small object clutched in the skeletons' hoof, pushed close up against its chest. I narrowed my eyes, trying to make out the object. “What is that? Some kind of fetish?”

Nova nodded, picking the small object up. The skeletons' hoof crumbled to dust as she pulled it away from them. “Specifically, it’s a zebra fetish,” She explained, rolling it over so I could see the zebra runes carved across its back. “Not a common sight in Equestria before the war.”

“Four Star were Zebra sympathisers,” I pointed out, plucking the small fetish from Nova’s grip and looking it over more closely. My eyes caught on a collection of four stars around the base of the figurine, circling a moon with an alicorn's head imprinted upon it. I pointed it out to Nova immediately.

“A Zebra fetish for star worship?” Nova gasped, her eyes widening slightly. “That is most disturbing.”

“Four Star,” I scowled, running my hoof along the image. “This is the same image used to depict the Utopia Program.”

Nova nodded thoughtfully, though I could tell she wasn’t fully following my train of thought. “So what does all this mean then? Other than affirming that which we already know.”

“It means that Four Star was here for one…” I thought allowed, more for myself than for Nova. “But more than that, since this pony died in the greenroom backstage, that leads me to believe that Four Star had operations in this theatre as well.”

“Silver Ace didn’t have this place destroyed though,” Nova commented. “You would think that if there was something of value here, he would have come back for it?”

Nodding, I began glancing around, hoping to spot something of interest. My eyes caught on the destroyed body of the ghoul I had fought with Brisk and Xayah all those weeks ago. Where had it come from?

“I’ve got an idea,” I said quickly, trotting back out onto the stage. “This ghoul came from beneath the stage. Which means there's likely some kind of tunnel or crawlspace beneath us for the actors to get around.”

I gripped the secret hatch with my magic and gave it a yank. The rotting wood hatch gave way immediately, snapping free from the floor. Instantly, green fog began bubbling up from the hole, wafting across the stage. My pipbuck began clicking away furiously and I had to take a rapid couple of steps back to avoid the radioactive cloud.

Shit, I had forgotten about that part!

“Give me a moment,”Nova said cooly, stepping into the green haze and beginning to lower herself into the hidden tunnel. “Radiation does not bother me.”

She slipped out of my line of sight, disappearing into the fog. I waited for a few moments, straining my ears as I tried to listen for any signs of Nova below. After a few moments of restlessness, I called out to her. No response.

“Nova? You alright down there?” Again, my call was met with nothing. Steeling myself, I took another step towards the hole, grimacing as my pipbuck began clicking a little faster. I took a long, deep, breath. “Alright, I’m coming down there to-”

Click.

The fog burst upwards for a second before suddenly rapidly deteriorating. I took a jumping step back in alarm, watching as the radioactive haze dissipated. A second later, Nova popped her head back out.

“There was a pipe down there pumping some sort of radioactive fog into the tunnel. Likely was used pre war as a way to fog up the stage. We have blocked it now. The radiation isn’t gone, but it should have dissipated enough for you to be safe,” the alicorn ducked back down out of sight. “Come now, There is something interesting here you will likely wish to see.”

Following after Nova, I lowered myself down the hatch into the narrow tunnel beneath the stage. Sure enough, my pipbuck started clicking away, but at a much lower rate. I switched on my pipbuck light, illuminating the area around me with a wash of green light.

The tunnel seemed to stretch out across the whole of the theatre, allowing pre war actors to spring up though secret hatches from beneath several different parts of the stage, and apparently places in the audience as well. There was a door at the end of the hallway that looked like it had once led out somewhere backstage, but it had long since collapsed inwards, barring any possible entrance or exit through there. No wonder we had been unable to find this place.

“Look at this,” Nova said, urging me towards a spot at the back of the tunnel. To my surprise, the wooden walls gave way to hard jagged rock as the tunnel began descending deep into the earth. “This does not appear to be part of the original construction.”

“Looks like they blasted this tunnel with explosives,” I noted, running my hand along the rough hewn stone. I peered down the sloping tunnel into the rocky depths of the earth. “Where do you think this goes?”

Nova gave a shrug and began slowly trotting downwards into the darkness. “There is only one way to find out, correct?”

Nodding, I followed after her, using my pipbuck light to scan the rocky cave walls. The tunnel travelled downwards for a few minutes, twisting and turning at strange angles. A few times we had to stop to squeeze through parts of the rock that were too narrow to walk through normally.

“This may not be part of the original construction, but its still old,” I said, nudging an ancient pre-war corpse with my hoof as we continued to descend. “Somepony likely didn’t want whatever this tunnel was to be on any sort of record.”

“Then it was used to house secrets,” Nova affirmed, her slitted eyes glancing around. “Perhaps we have stumbled across something Silver Ace has forgotten.”

I felt my heart rate quicken with excitement. I got you Silver Ace! I got you!

At the end of the tunnel, a thick steel door came into view, locked behind an expert terminal. I immediately began hacking away at it, switching through possible passwords. A few times I had to back out and try again before I finally found the correct password. Hollowshades.

There was a faint beep, and the metal door swung inwards, hitting the wall of the room beyond with a clang.

I stepped forwards, my eyes adjusting as I made out the small chamber within. The steel walls had clearly been built into the cave to fit a large blinking device of some sort. Strange mechanical control boards had been built into the floor and walls and a web of thick wires formed a complex canopy across the ceiling. The massive device seemed to accumulate in the centre of the chamber where an unusual pedestal protruded from the still rock ground, supporting some strange glowing black and white orb. A noxious black aura pulsed around the orb, radiating some sort of cruel necrotic energy. The simple proximity of the vile sphere sent a shiver up my spine.

Carefully, I slinked into the room, eyeing the walls nervously before cautiously looking over the pulsing orb in the centre. There was an uncanny familiarity to it, like staring at a face I had once seen in a dream. Just looking at it gave me a strange sense of roiling hatred. I had to take a step back as I felt the waves of rage wash through me.

“What is that thing?” Nova asked, clearly noting my strange reaction. The orb clearly put her at unease as well.

I shook my head, shaking myself free from the weird blip of anger. “I… I don’t know. It looks like some kind of memory orb, but I’ve never seen one quite like this.”

That was somewhat of a lie. I had seen something similar inside of the Utopia Program, but those had been much more advanced and stable. This one seemed to be held together by scrap electronics and some weird dark magic.

There was a loud beep as one of the terminals on the wall flickered brighter. The orb pulsed slightly before abruptly shifting, as if an arcane eye swivelling to face us.

“Ah, I had wondered when you would come and find me to finish the job-” The orb cooed in its strangely commanding, echoey tone. My whole body went rigid at the voice. That was a voice I knew well. A voice I had hoped never to hear again. There was a sudden moment of hesitation from the sphere as it peered at us before I heard it give a weird, distorted scowl. “Wait, you aren’t Silver Ace.”

I growled, raising my shotgun with my magic. “Kamari? Is that you? You’re supposed to be fucking dead!”

That was Kamari’s voice. I could never forget a vile voice like that. I didn’t know how or why, but if that bastard was still alive somehow, I was going to make sure he died again in very short order.

“Amber Aura…” Kamari’s ragged voice oozed from the orb, filling with a vile loathing. “I confess, you are not the pony that I expected to find me here. How such an unexpected variable in a centuries old plan can come so far… You have impressed me.”

“Amber, you know this… uh… orb?” Nova asked, taking a tentative step forwards.

“I’d love to tell you I didn’t,” I scowled. “I don’t know how or why, but that voice is Kamari’s. A zebra I killed almost a month ago.”

“Death is hardly an ending for one in my line of work,” Kamari’s voice scoffed, the orb shifting on its pedestal to glance at Nova. “I escaped death when the bombs fell. I escaped death when Pureblood sent his wretched cyber ponies after me. Do not think I am so foolish as to not prepare contingencies. Death is but a tool. A tool that I control.”

“So then what is this thing?” I growled, waving my shotgun at the orb. “How are you still alive?”

“A memory orb,” Kamari drawled, sounding almost bored. “I created a backup of my mind well over a hundred years before you and your friends decided to come crawling through my operations out in the Hollow Shades. I had hoped to use this to assert control over the Utopia Program; once I had Luna Prime activated. You saw to it that that never happened. When that bitch Shade put a bullet through my skull, my consciousness was sent here… Just as planned. A little earlier than I would have liked mind you…”

“Just like Twilight in the Utopia Program…” I muttered, realizing where I had seen all of this happen before.

“Twilight Sparkle is inside the Utopia Program?” Kamari’s voice piped up, suddenly filled with wrapped interest. I winced. I probably shouldn’t have said that out loud. When I refused to expound upon my statement, Kamari sneered. “She is, isn’t she? And you have been too. That must mean Pureblood is dead and Silver Ace has begun the final stages of his plan.”

My eyes narrowed. “What do you know about Silver Ace and his plans?”

There was a moment of silence from the orb as Kamari deliberated the question. After a few moments, I heard Kamari give a dark chuckle. “Oh, I know a great deal. It was once my plan after all, before Silver Ace decided to cut me out…” There was a violence to his tone. A seething rage comparable to my own hatred to the star worshipping zebra who commanded this voice. When Kamari spoke again, his voice had settled into a calmer octave. “I’m afraid I have been dead for the past few weeks, you understand. I don’t hear very much of the goings on in the wasteland from down here, stuck inside this memory orb, though from your words I gather quite a lot has transpired in my absence. Tell me, Amber Aura, what do you know of Silver Ace and his plans for Utopia?”

“That’s not how this is going to work,” I shot back, pushing the barrel of my gun against the memory orb. “I don’t owe you anything after you had Azar wipe out my entire Stable! Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t just destroy this orb right here and now!”

I could feel a boiling rage begin building up inside me. An anger I hadn’t felt since I had first travelled to the Hollow Shades. Even in my state of delirium, I could feel the hatred clogging my senses, blocking my reason.

“Because you are going to need me,” Kamari nickered, the monochrome memory orb pulsing slightly with each word. “I know Silver Ace. I understand his secrecy. You need information. And I have all of it.”

“And if I deem your information insufficient?” I retorted. “What’s to stop me from killing you then?”

“You won't,” Kamari’s voice was like a dagger in my chest. I hated his confidence. I hated his inflection that sounded almost like a cheap mockery of Xayah’s own melodic tone. “You see, I can offer you something far greater than information. I can offer you victory.”

“I don’t want whatever sick form of victory you’re offering!” I spat back, seething.

“Amber, perhaps it would be wise to hear him out,” Nova said softly, resting one of her long hooves on my shoulder.

I flinched slightly at the comment, but remained silent. After a few seconds, I lowered my shotgun. “Alright, start talking.”

If a smooth, glowing memory orb could roll its eyes, that’s what Kamari did. “You want me to talk? Then I need to know what’s happening up there. I can’t give you the answers you seek if I don’t even know what’s happened.”

I had to bite back a snide response. Finally, I just sighed and gave in. “Long and short, Pureblood is dead, the Institute is under my control, Silver Ace is controlling the Utopia Program and an army of synths from Stable 25 and Manehattan is at war. Anything else you need to know, asshole?”

Kamari was silent for a moment as he thought all of that over. “And so it was that all the pieces were at last in play, exactly as we planned. Neither of us anticipated you controlling the Institute, surely, though Silver Ace will make due with project Redirect in Stable 25, I’m sure,” He was quiet for a second longer before scowling under his breath. “The bastard likely has found some way to acquire the launch for Luna Prime as well… Though I’m not sure how, with my maneframe in the Hollow Shades destroyed.”

I grimaced. “He downloaded it off my pipbuck. I had to download it to deactivate it when I stopped you.”

There was a soft sound of laughter from the orb. “Of course. Even against the impossible odds of the unexpected variable Amber Aura, Silver Ace finds a way. He always was a clever pony.”

“Now I think it’s time that you start talking,” I scowled. “What is Silver Ace planning?”

“Normally I would never divulge such secrets. Secrets being the most valuable weapon, though considering the circumstances, I think it is at last time to reveal them,” Kamari hissed, sounding almost disappointed with himself. “The two of us are going to be working very closely, now that our goals are aligned.”

“I’m not going to be working with you on anything,” I groused. “You are going to be very lucky if I don’t kill you the second you’ve told me everything I need to know.”

Kamari made a faint clicking sound with his imaginary tongue. “Not very good at making friends, now are you, Amber Aura. Trust me, if there were another way for me to do this, I would, but you and I need each other. Neither of us has any hope of defeating Silver Ace on our own. Not me, and certainly not you. You will understand before this conversation is over,” He paused, deep in thought. “Do you know yet what Silver Ace’s end goal is?”

I had to bite back my pride slightly before shaking my head.

“Then allow me to enlighten you…”

The orb began glowing brightly for a moment, flooding the room with glowing white light. I stepped back, covering my eyes to shield myself from going completely blind. I opened my mouth to demand an explanation, but the next thing I knew, the whole world flashed away, and I found myself in a world long ago.

Silver Ace was brought before Kamari. As per usual, several books floated around his head, illuminated by the glowing white magic emanating from his strange magical talisman. Two zebra’s flanked Silver Ace on either side, either as bodyguards or as prisoner escorts, I couldn’t tell.

I glanced around myself, taking in my new surroundings. We were in some sort of ancient looking temple, clearly predating any of the modern structures that I had seen through Manehattan by quite a few hundred years. From the many zebra glyphs and depictions across the stone walls, I guessed we were likely somewhere in the Zebra Empire.

Looking down, my body seemed somewhat ethereal. I doubted, I was anything more than a passive observer in these memories. Beside me stood the slightly shimmering form of Kamari, likely his own avatar in this projection. I felt a wave of loathing pass through me just by looking at him.

“What is this?” I asked, though I had a pretty good idea of what I was about to see,” I glanced around me for a moment before glaring back at Kamari. “And where is Nova?”

“Your alicorn companion is still standing with you in the room,” Kamari drawled, seemingly annoyed by the question. I was surprised to hear that his voice still had the same echoey distortion to it. “Do not worry. I doubt she even realises any of this is happening. Within the mind, the distortion of time is at my command. All of this is happening within a fraction of a fraction of a second.”

“That’s impressive,” I forced myself to admit, hating myself just a little for being impressed by anything this waste of a zebra did.

“No more impressive than the SATS on your pipbuck,” Kamari sneered. “The relay of information with advanced enough technology can be done instantaneously. If you think for a second that everything Silver Ace and I have devised over the past two hundred years was without the use of time distortion, then perhaps you need to reconsider just what you are up against.”

I furrowed my brow at that comment. “Silver Ace is using time distortion on himself? Why?”

“In the great game, the most important step is to stay ten steps ahead of your opponents. To have contingencies and be prepared for the future,” Kamari shrugged. “Through memory magic, Silver Ace has all the time in the world to calculate every possible outcome and then plan for it accordingly. Whatever plan you devise, he will have already thought of.”

Nodding thoughtfully, I turned my gaze to the vision before me. “And what is all this?”

“The beginning,” Kamari smirked. “Silver Ace came to me many years ago. The war was only in its infancy back then. At the time, he was on an expedition to the zebra lands funded by Pureblood to research non-unicorn magic. He was, even before the madness of the war, a devout zebra sympathizer of course, as I am sure you have figured out by now. And rather obsessed with our magic and advanced potions.”

“He denied being a zebra sympathizer when I questioned him on it,” I groused, calling back to one of my only conversations with Silver Ace.

“He would deny it. The term never appealed to him. Silver Ace called himself an advocate for life. He wished to end all wars. For all life to prosper. A war with the zebra’s was an affront to that belief.”

“A advocate for life and an anti war mentality hardly makes him a zebra sympathizer,” I noted, narrowing my eyes at the scene before us.

Kamari rolled his eyes. “And yet he joined Four Star, worked with zebras in secret, leaked valuable Equestrian intel to the Zebra empire,” He listed on and on, his voice both harsh and smug all at once. “Silver Ace took an especial interest with the Ministry of Peace when he learned they planned to help all life, zebra’s included. He may not have been the one to give the zebra’s the megaspell, but do not think he was either unaware of Fluttershy’s actions or displeased with the results.”

Turning from me and once more addressing the scene before us, Kamari continued. “Silver Ace approached me after learning of my skill in necromancy and soul jars. He had a rather unique plan to create a string of growing, learning memory orbs that could take on an infinitely perfect world of their own. A creation that I had already done some amount of research into at the time.”

“You’re Starkatteri,” I heard Silver Ace state factually as he looked over Kamari’s strange stripes in the memory. I recalled Xayah mentioning something similar when she had first seen Kamari.

“You’ve done your research,” Kamari smirked back at him, crossing his hooves in front of his desk. “Will that be a problem for you?”

Silver Ace just shook his head. “On the contrary, I think it might be of great use…”

“We both knew our alliance was to be short lived,” Kamari told me, his eyes switching back and forth between the memory of Silver Ace and the memory of himself. “We had different goals for this hypothetical utopia. Silver Ace, seeing even back then that the only world where war never existed was a world devoid of all issues, wished to create a world without strife, arrogant as the notion seems.”

“And yourself?” I scowled, noting Kamari’s clear omission of his own agenda. “What was your plan for the Utopia Program?”

Kamari worked his jaw for a second, clearly not wishing to say more. “I am but a messenger of the stars, Amber Aura. My god is not of the physical world as you understand it. They are beyond all of us, trapped in limbo with the vessel Stygian and ensnared in a spell so strong that not even a hundred thousand years of research could hope to break.”

“The Pony of Shadows,” I breathed, quickly realizing what Kamari was referring to.

I could see the surprise in Kamari’s face that I knew the word. His hoof twitched slightly and suddenly we found ourselves standing in a different location; a dark cave hundreds of miles beneath the surface. Before us, I could see the memory of Silver Ace and Kamari looking at a leering, vile obelisk protruding from beneath the rocks. I had seen this very obelisk when I had travelled to the Hollow Shades myself.

“Few know of that name. Fewer still know what the entity is truly called,” Kamari stated, looking the obelisk over. “The Pony of Shadows, The Hound of Starlight, Ug-Qualtoth. All names forgotten to time and lost to the forgotten god. But the powerful magics that bound him to limbo leave echoes of memory. Tangible memory that can be tapped into.”

“I saw this Pony of Shadows when I was inside of the Utopia Program,” I shivered, remembering the horrific beast that had nearly broken my mind simply by looking upon it.

I saw an uncomfortably smug smile spread across Kamari’s ethereal features. “Then the two of us are bound more than you can hope to understand,” He paused for a moment, collecting himself. “What you witnessed was not the Pony of Shadows, but the memory of it, imprinted forever within the depths of the Hollow Shades. Had it been my real master, your mortal mind would have been sundered and driven to madness at the mere sight of it. No. Instead, you witnessed a vast collective of memories that I have compiled over nearly two thousand years of life. The Pony of Shadows is gone from this life. It has taken on a new form, and as such, it has since taken on a new name, one more befitting its current state. The Collective.”

That must be the Collective the Courser had been talking about. Instead of pursuing that train of thought however, I let my mouth drop open. “Two thousand years! I thought you had lived so long because you were a ghoul! But that makes you way older than the great war was.”

“The radiation extended my already prolonged life, indeed,” Kamari groused. “But I have been around far longer than even that. A gift from my god to ensure his return.”

“And that’s what the Collective is then?” I asked, curious. “An echo of the Pony of Shadows. Made up of memories from some ancient spell that sealed him away?” I was starting to feel completely out of my depths. This was all far too big and grand for me to understand.

Kamari nodded. “I had hoped to create the Utopia Program to house my lord's mind. To grant him autonomy, even as a mere memory. A massive brain in which to pilot his new vessel.”

“His vessel?” I asked, almost absentmindedly as I tried to absorb all this information. I glanced around the simulacrum of the cave we were in and at the looming obelisk before me. Suddenly I was beginning to have a better understanding. I felt a loud gasp escape my lips involuntarily. “Luna Prime… That was to be the Pony of Shadows, er- The Collectives vessel…”

Kamari’s grin was unbearable. “Indeed. Had things turned out differently, that would have been well underway.”

“That’s what you were doing out in the Hollow Shades before my friends and I stopped you. That makeshift maneframe you had was a sort of project Redirect of your own, wasn’t it,” I assumed, recalling the massive spire-like computer that Kamari had plugged himself into in his attempt to activate Luna Prime.

“You catch on quick. Had you not interfered, I would have hijacked the Utopia Program from the MAS Hub and brought my god into this world long before Silver Ace and the fool Pureblood had the chance to retake the Institute. A temporary solution, but with control over the Utopia Program, I would have asserted a more permanent control in short order. Silver Ace had his suspensions of my intentions, even before the apocalypse I’m sure; though he had a desperate need of my alchemical skills and untraditional magics and I had need of his brilliant mind and the numerous resources he was able to pull from Pureblood,” Kamari continued, slowly walking around the obelisk before looking once more at me. “In time, I convinced him of the necessity of the Luna Prime megaspell. A failsafe against those who would resist our new era. Our partnership worked for a time.”

“Wait, so let me get this straight, You wanted to create the Utopia Program to bring back your banished god and Silver Ace wants to use it to create a world without war and you somehow convinced him a weapon of mass destruction was needed to create a warless solution for violence?”

“Silver Ace’s hypocrisy is not lost on me,” Kamari sneered. “And do not think his perfect world is a viable solution either. Utopia is only a Utopia so long as there is nopony in it. The moment Silver Ace brings everypony into the program, he will either need to deal with the realisation that ponies cannot live in perfect harmony or he will need to erase all of your memories and start anew. He is so madly blind and obsessed with his chance at creating perfection that he hasn’t stopped to think what would happen if he actually succeeded.”

“So that’s it then. All Silver Ace is planning is to bring everypony into a true Utopia?” The idea that all of this was for something so simple and well meaning was almost baffling to me. I had been trying so hard to figure out what his huge master plan had been that I hadn’t even considered that it could be so blatantly simple. Of course that’s all Silver Ace wanted. He had designed the Utopia Program. It made sense that its primary function what his primary goal.

Kamari gave a curt nod. “It is. Often the most important things in life are simple. But ask yourself this, what would you rather? A world of perfection, a world where you no longer need to fight for anything and everything is freely given. A world where whatever happens, good or not, is out of your control. Or this world, a world of violence and death and sorrow. A broken world, where every day is a struggle for survival and a mockery of fairness, but a world that you get to fight for. A world that you get to shape, for better or for worse.”

“Silver Ace’s option does sound like the nicer option. An easier option...” I admitted after a few seconds of deliberation, almost relishing in the idea of living in a perfect world. “It sounds nice... Especially after all these days in the wasteland…” I sighed, letting the fantasy slip away. “But so did Pureblood’s world, and that world turned out to be a nightmare.”

“Silver Ace thinks he is this world's saviour; The pony that will bring peace to this desperate, war torn reality. But his plan will lead to its inevitable conclusion,” Kamari soothed.

“Says the zebra that literally wants to unleash an evil god,” I shot back, somewhat hotly.

“Good and Evil are binary concepts,” Kamari spat, sounding almost exasperated. “The world the Collective would create is neither good nor evil, but simply another avenue in which Utopia can be attained. We view the world very differently, Amber Aura. You would fight for a world of fairness and safety. An imperfect world that you will never need to stop fighting for as you will never be able to fully attain. Silver Ace would see a world of perfect balance due to the lack of personal autonomy. I would see the world become what it is meant to be.”

“Which is what?”

“Perfect silence,” Kamari whispered. The conviction in which he said those two words caused tingles to race down my spine. “Silver Ace’s utopia will never work because living beings cannot coexist without fault. He is destined to be driven mad trying to achieve the unachievable. So the solution is simple. Reality is better off without living things. The melodies of life are only made beautiful through the reprieve of eternal death.”

I just gawked at him, horrified. “That’s- that’s madness!” I exclaimed, my heart beating rapidly in my chest. “You would kill everypony to see a world without suffering?!”

“In a word, yes,” Kamari breathed, the sick smile on his face almost euphoric. “It may seem cruel and violent to your simple mind, but you have not known the peace of death as I have. You have not been shown the wonders that my god has shown me. There is so much more to this vast universe than you could ever hope to understand. Why fight; why torture yourself with the agony of existence day in and day out, when the only real reprieve is silence everlasting?”

I shook my head. “Because I’m not crazy.”

Kamari just chucked. “Perhaps you will see in time. Most do before the end.”

“Just continue your fucking story,” I scowled back. I was running out of patience with the damn zebra.

With the twist of his hoof, the scene shifted again. I found myself once more in the Four Star apartment building, watching as Kamari squared off against Silver Ace. The two of them looked to be in a violent debate, though their words were muffled. I wondered if Kamari simply didn’t want me to hear what they had been saying, or if he himself didn’t fully remember the words of the argument. Blood dripped from Silver Ace's neck where a long gash had been cut while a jagged looking green knife oozing with black ichor was clenched tight in Kamari’s mouth.

“As we both anticipated, our partnership came to an end, only one day before the end of the world,” Kamari said flatly, stepping forwards and looking the memory of Silver Ace and himself over. “We both saw it coming, but for some reason, it felt like a betrayal all the same.”

“What eventually caused the falling out?” I asked. I had wondered this a few times myself, even before Kamari had offloaded all of this information onto me.

“What else, the Utopia Program was completed,” Kamari said simply, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “I had planned to slit his throat in the night and be done with him. I was only hours away from completing my goals. Once Silver Ace was out of the picture, I was going to activate project Redirect and let the Collective be reborn anew,” Kamari looked loath-fully at the memory of the fight happening before us. “As you can see, things didn’t go according to plan.”

I watched as the memory of Silver Ace activated his talisman and sent a wave of magical force ramming into Kamari. Kamari was slammed back, crashing into the wall, his head striking the stone surface roughly..

“I figured you’d be coming,” Silver Ace gasped, applying pressure to his blood soaked neck. “It was wise of you, of course… We both knew this had to happen. Might as well have been on your terms,” as he spoke, Silver Ace yanked a small syringe from his vests pocket with his magic, quickly injecting it into himself.

“Silver Ace was well aware of my plan to kill him,” Kamari scowled, glaring daggers at the needle as Silver Ace administered what I could only assume was an anti-venom.. “I suspect that given a few more days, he would have likely tried to kill me; the only other that knew the full extent of his plans outside of himself.”

“So there was no big revelation or anything like that? You just both ran out of use for each other?” I surmised bluntly. “What a trustworthy lot you both are.”

The memory of Kamari dragged himself back to his striped hooves, leaning on the wall for support. I could hear the sound of rapid hoofsteps approaching from outside the door. From the expression of the memory of Kamari’s face, I could tell their little scuffle had caused a much greater commotion than he had intended. I watched as the deadly zebra took one last swing at Silver Ace, his poisoned blade aimed at his throat, only for the strike to be knocked aside from a magical field of Silver Ace’s faux aura. The memory of Kamari gave a final hiss of frustration before ducking out the window, disappearing into the night, moments before a group of armed ponies burst through the apartment door, guns at the ready.

The vision faded out, being replaced by darkness. I glanced around, expecting something else to show, but it seemed Kamari was finished showing me things.

“As you can imagine, Silver Ace immediately put the Institute on high alert for me. Changeling spies were hunting me out. All entrances into and out of the Institute facility and Stable 25 we blockaded. Even I was impressed by the speed in which Silver Ace locked down his operations. He knew I was a threat to him.” Kamari’s spectral from phased back into my view, hovering a few feet above me in the darkness. “Without access to all of our work, I had to spend the next two hundred years recreating project Redirect from scratch. The last piece I needed was the A.A.S.S. from Stable 25. I'm sure you know the rest.”

“Maybe if you had been a little less blood thirsty and a little more compassionate, you would have succeeded,” I told him smugly. "Seems Silver Ace was smart for cutting you out of the plan. You attacked him."

“Perhaps,” Kamari admitted, almost wistfully. “But it is far too late now to be bothered with what could and could not have been. Perhaps had I not tried to kill him, I would have found Silver Ace’s knife in my own neck. Perhaps not. But regardless of the truth, it stands as testament to the only universal truth… War never changes… And as such, death is the only solution,” Kamari sighed, looking past me and into the darkness beyond. “But now, I think we’ve talked long enough…”

There was another flash of light, and I felt my mind return once more to my body.

The light abruptly shut off, my mind rapidly slamming back into myself. I staggered, collapsing backwards. Before I hit the ground, I felt Nova’s hoof reach out and grab onto me, catching me before I injured myself.

“Amber?! Are you alright? What was that flash? What just happened?” Nova was asking, trying to make sense of the strange burst of light that had sent me staggering.

“I’m fine, Nova, really,” I said, pulling myself back up to standing. I glanced around, finding myself once more in the dark, metal chamber beneath the theatre, terminals and other circuit boards flickering faintly along the walls. I looked over at the glowing memory orb in the centre of the room, still seemingly staring at us ominously. “Kamari just showed me some stuff, that’s all.”

“Indeed. I have done as you requested… And now you are going to help me,” Kamari’s voice oozed, once more echoing around the chamber from within the orb. “I cannot do much, stuck down here in this hole in the ground, but with your help, You can plug me into the Utopia Program. We can finally bring an end to Silver Ace’s reign.”

I scoffed, raising my shotgun and pressing it once more to the smooth surface of the memory orb. “If you think for even a second that I’m dumb enough to help plug you into the Utopia Program, you have greatly miscalculated what your current situation is.”

A low growl came from deep within the orb. “No, perhaps you have miscalculated the situation, Amber Aura,” Kamari seethed. “Sure, you can destroy this memory orb now; end my existence once and for all. I’m sure it will make you feel nice. Make you feel like you’ve gotten revenge for what I did to your Stable… Or, you can put your blinding hatred aside and take me with you. I think you’ll find that without me, stopping Silver Ace will be quite impossible.”

I grit my teeth, praying this was all some kind of bluff. “Oh yeah? And why is that?”

“Because by now, Silver Ace will have already fully downloaded himself into the Utopia Program. He is just as much a part of it now as Twilight and the rest of her friends are,” Kamari said, a dangerous edge to his tone. “The Utopia Program is more than a machine. It’s a memory. It cannot be destroyed or deactivated. It can only be altered. Silver Ace has become one with it now, as was always his intention. He is indestructible. You cannot kill him. You will find yourself unable to reason with him. All that is left to be done is to corrupt the memory.”

“And you think I should corrupt the memory with you? Whatever that means,” I spat. I hated everything about what was happening right now. If Kamari thought for a single second that I was going to team up with him, after he had ordered the death of everypony in my Stable, he was dead wrong.

“It is the ideal solution; and your only gambit,” Kamari stated. “I already told you, With unlimited access to the Utopia Program, Silver Ace has all the time he needs on his side. Any plan you devise, he will have come up with well over a hundred counters. He is smarter than you, he is stronger than you, and he has imbued himself with the power of a god within Utopia, the only place you can hope to confront him. You will need to have a plan that he could not possibly expect. He does not yet know I still live, and as such, will be unprepared.”

“And what is to stop you from taking control of the Utopia Program once I plug you in? Huh? Wouldn’t downloading you into the Utopia program just give you the control that Silver Ace currently has?”

“It would. I am not going to lie to you, Amber Aura. We are all well past hiding our intentions from one another. From here on out, I shall be fully transparent with you, just as I was with Silver Ace two hundred years ago…” Kamari leered. The black and white memory orb pulsed ominously upon its pedestal as he spoke. “I need you if I hope to bring about my god's new reign, and you need me if you want to bring an end to Silver Ace’s madness. The two of us, we are bound together by something far stronger than friendship. We have a mutual need. Our partnership is a necessity that you cannot escape from. So, you can kill me, forever dooming this world's chance of preservation, or you can do what I say, and finally bring an end to all of this madness. After that…”

“...It's everypony for themselves…” I finished for him, my words trailing off slightly. I cast a nervous glance over at Nova, hoping she could give me some sort of advice, but the alicorn looked as lost as I felt. We were all out of our depths here, and Kamari knew it.

“Exactly… An alliance forged from necessity. Enemy of my enemy…” Kamari purred, clearly pleased with himself. “So, Amber Aura… What’s it going to be?”

Footnote: Maximum level reached

Author's Note

Whoops, and I thought the waits between some of the other chapters were long. Sorry this took so long to get out. Hopefully it was well worth the wait. The story is rapidly approaching its conclusion (Or as rapidly as I can get chapters out, anyway).

Hope you all enjoyed, and I hope you all have a wonderful day!

Prologue

The following file was uncovered from a terminal in the wreckage of Canterlot:

Robronco Industries (TM) Termlink Protocol

Enter Password Now:

**************

Password Accepted!

Data Logs:

Entry #58

War, War never changes.

My Equestria could have been considered a Utopia once. There was a time in Equestria's history where the ponies that inhabited it didn't give into vices such as greed or violence. There was a point where ponies biggest concerns were nothing more than insignificant friendship problems and tea parties. Those chapters of history however, were not to last. Soon the pages of joy would burn away with the rest of the world. Things such as parties would soon become consumers of resources, and resources would become a catalyst for hatred and selfishness. The whole world took up arms and charged head first into the inevitable darkness that soon would consume them. Civilization and the great pony dream of achieving a land of Utopia was crushed under the pressing weight of bullets and blood as much of my beautiful land of Equestria was marred by the oncoming holocaust. And on that fateful day, when balefire rained down from the sky to extinguish the crumbling remains of pony kind, all hope of reaching Utopia again was lost...

...But it was not, as some had predicted, the end of the world. Rather the loss of Utopia gave way to the rise of a new society. A vile, filthy society. A society or raiders and ghouls. A horrific world of pure madness would grow from within the ruins of my once great Equestria. However, there are small places throughout the Equestrian wasteland that still hold out hope of seeing such a world again. In the final days, many ponies managed to survive the horrific cataclysm in underground bunkers known as Stables. Many Stables were twisted; prisons intended to carry out cruel experiments. Those lucky few that managed to avoid the vile experimentation would emerge from their Stables with only the desolation of the wasteland to greet them, but other Stables remain closed off to the outside world, hoping beyond hope that one day they can return to Utopia.

I intend to give them that Utopia... No matter the cost...

-The Director

-- Fallout: Equestria - Utopia --

Author's Note

The world of Fallout Equestria was created by and belongs to the amazing kkat.
I would highly recommend reading Fallout Equestria before this story to fully understand everything that is happening and not get spoilers for the original! Actually, I'd recommend reading Fallout Equestria regardless, it truly is a masterpiece!

I don't have any editors helping me with this story, so expect some small spelling and grammatical fixes to be done over time.
I would greatly appreciate any feedback you have about the story and hope you enjoy this and what is to come!

Chapter I: The Dull Walls of Stable 25

“War, War never changes”

Cutie Marks.

It was my tenth birthday when I got mine, which was much later than most foals my age. I suppose that was when I should have realized that I was doomed to fail at everything I did. Would you believe I got my cutie mark by fixing a malfunction in my Stables generator? I had rushed towards the problem as soon as I saw it and began connecting and disconnecting all the different malfunctioning cables. Then there was a blinding flash of light and my dumb cutie mark just popped into existence.

I can remember my father's reaction pretty well too. I had burst into his office, grinning like an idiot and waving my ass around in his face like I had just found the cure for pony pox. His face had lit up brighter than mine at first, but then his face changed. His broad grin stretched a little, and the bags under his eyes seemed to deepen just ever so slightly. There was that subtle twitch in his tail that only ever happened when he was disappointed in me.

My whole family has been direct descendant of the first Overmare of Stable 25 since ponies first moved into the Stable. Unlike any other pony I had ever met or heard of, my family had a hereditary cutie mark. Every single pony in my family had had an Overmare or Overstallion cutie mark, everyone until me that is. Somehow I decided to fix a generator and get a disgusting red screwdriver imprinted on my butt for the rest of my life.

Life in Stable 25 only got harder for me from there. Up until that point everypony had treated me with respect, knowing full well that I would one day take over my father's place. No one wanted to be on my bad side once I was running the Stable. Then they didn’t know if I would take over, then they were certain that I never would, then they decided to take out all their built up anger and disdain towards my father and I out on me. After countless beatings I began spending less and less time with the other ponies in the Stable, but rather spent every second I had maintaining our generators and A.A.S.S program. Which was fine by me, they needed to be taken care of and frankly, I enjoyed the company of machines far more than ponies.

The Atmospheric Administering Sustenance System, or A.A.S.S for short is something else I should probably mention. Back before the megaspells ravaged Equestria, Stable-Tec installed Stable 25 with a one of a kind nutrition administering device called the A.A.S.S. The purpose of the device was to ensure that a Stable would never run out of food, nor would its inhabitants ever die of starvation. Three times a day, the device emits large amounts of vapors into the venting system, filled with all the nutrients needed for a pony to survive. Water is still required for survival of course, but it effectively removed the need for any other form of digestible substance.

As head Stable maintenance pony, I was assigned to ensure that the A.A.S.S stayed completely operational at all times. That was the job I was tasked to carry out for the rest of my meaningless life, away from the rest of the ponies in Stable 25. Here I would stay, here I would work, and here I would most likely die.

Beep! Beep! Beep!

The automated alarm on my pipbuck began chirping, aggressively rousing me from my sleep. Did work hours really need to be so early in the goddess damned morning? It’s not like the Stable-Tec Generator was going to be going anywhere any time soon. I’m sure no one would care if I slept a few more minutes.

Beep! Beep! Beep!

“Okay! Fine! I’m Getting up,” I huffed at my pipbuck, slowly pushing my slightly stained, dull grey sheets off of me. I climbed off the bed, only to find the blanket had somehow wrapped itself around my hoof, causing me to trip and land face first on the cold ground.

This morning was off to a great start, I could tell.

I walked across the cold floor of my room to where my pipbuck lay atop my desk. I hastily pushed the off button on the alarm. Peace and quiet at last. I glanced over at my bed, now an unkempt pile of grey blankets and pillows and wondered if I should just crawl back into it and get another hour or so worth of sleep. Finally I sighed. “No, Amber. You need to get to work.”

This morning was just like every morning. Everything in Stable 25 was like everything. The slightly curved walls all had the same grey, metallic look. Everypony wore the exact same dull blue jumpsuit, and nothing ever happened that was out of the ordinary.

I lit my horn up and wrapped my Stable barding in a glowing Amber Aura. I groaned at the light being emitted from my horn as I levitated the ghastly attire over to me. Why my dad thought it was a good idea to name me after the colour of my magic was beyond me.

Quickly slipping into the Stable barding, I approached the small rectangular mirror above my mini bookshelf. Atop the shelf sat my latest read titled 'A non bias take on history' written and edited by the ministry of image. I loved books!

I squinted at my slightly wrapped reflection in the scratched and dusty surface of the mirror.

“Good morning Amber Aura,” I whispered to myself as I brushed my light pink and blue mane out of my face and did my best to look somewhat presentable. Not that anything really went well with a tight blue jumpsuit. My father always said I took after my mom, with the same pink coat and mane. My amber eyes and aura though I got from my dad, that much was certain.

I tiptoed over to the door and watched it slide open with a near silent squeak. I was greeted by the lavish hardwood walls of the Overstallions living area. The only room in the whole Stable that didn’t look like an underground bunker.

The wall across from me held framed portraits of all the Overmares and Overstallions over the years, dating all the way back to the first Overstallion, a large, white buck with a snooty looking red mane. Rust had long since claimed the portraits frame, making the name of whomever that pony had once been unreadable. My fathers was the last on the list, depicting a younger version of him sporting his usual dark beige coat and curly red mane. His face distorted slightly by his dorky looking grin. I wished he still grinned like that. His photo had gone up long before he had become the Overstallion.

I noted that my picture still didn’t hang on the wall. I suppose everyone was already aware that I was doomed to forever be a maintenance pony. Probably for the best though, I don’t think I have the emotional capacity to be in charge of the safety of over seven hundred ponies.

I could hear my father snoring loudly behind the door to my left. How I ever managed to fall asleep to that noise is something I questioned every night. He usually slept into the morning far longer than the rest of the Stable. A part of me assumed he was just so tired from all his duties as Overstallion, though I knew it was just because he could. He was head of the Stable after all, who was going to put him in his place.

I levitated my saddlebags onto my back as I entered into the hallway of Stable 25. The hallway was dull, grey, bland, and did I mention dull.

"It’s only a few minute walk to the generator room, Amber," I reassured myself as I began trotting towards my work space. Only a few minutes, then I’ll be away from the rest of the ponies in this Stable for yet another day. A few ponies also clad in the usual Stable barding snickered as I walked past them. Though if they were snickering at me, or at something else entirely was unclear. I assumed the former.

Moments before the Stables intercom flared to life, I heard the clicking of the speakers preparing to bombard us with the usual nonsense that was Stable 25’s wake up routine and the small cough that always accompanied our current Stable announcer when he talked.

“Good morning Stable dwellers of Stable 25! I hope you are doing well this morning!” I winced as the sound pounded against my ears. I could see a few other ponies do the same as they emerged from their rooms. The speakers in Stable 25 were far louder than they should be, and it drove everypony up the wall. They had tried to fix the issue a few times, but to no avail. I had tried to fix it myself once, but I just ended up embarrassing myself and somehow amplifying the noise.

It also didn’t help that our announcers voice sounded like he had sucked on a canister of helium. “As per usual, here is your daily Stable update,” The announcer continued, clearing his throat and taking a dramatic pause. “Nothing new to be reported, all systems are running as smoothly as ever,” I rolled my eyes. These announcements might as well be a recording. He always said the exact same thing, every day. Even his coughs tended to end up in the same spot. “And now for everyponies favorite part of the day! The daily Stable-Tec March!” and with a ear splitting crackle of the speakers, the sound of an upbeat jingle began to fill the halls of Stable 25.

Almost in unison, everypony in the hall groaned at the noise. The music had been nice at one point, I’m sure, but when it’s literally the only song you have ever heard, it begins to get really annoying, really damn fast. How I wished we had some form of musician in our Stable, then perhaps the mornings might not be so bad.

I approached the steel door of the generator room. A large yellow signs read ‘Authorized personnel only’ in big, bold letters. I pulled out my pipbuck and activate the door with my access pass. Instantly the door swung open to the cramped, and dusty room that was my life. A flickering light bulb hung from the centre of the ceiling, casting ominous shadows against the walls.

I walked into the tight space, letting the sliding door close silently behind me and checked the generator. Everything seemed to be in functioning order. As usual.

I sat down in my seat, just getting comfortable when the door slid open behind me again and my boss, Shade entered the room. She was a deep lavender earth pony with a fabulous white mane. Many of the dwellers joked that she looked like the old ministry mare Rarity with her mane and coat colours swapped.

“Mornin’ Amber,” Shade drawled, limping over to her chair against the far wall.

I nodded in greeting, not looking over my shoulder to see her.

“They need to get a new damn song,” Shade muttered, throwing herself down on the chair lazily. “We all hate it. It would be a goddess damned mercy if they didn’t play it for once,” she took a quick swig of the bottle of wild Pegasus she had carried in with her. She lifted the bottle to me. “You want some?”

I levitated the bottle the rest of the way and took a quick sip, despite knowing full well I hated the taste. I coughed as the liquid burned it’s way down my throat.

Shade chuckled to herself as I quickly handed the bottle back, sputtering. "You're adorable."

"No I'm not," I insisted, eyeing the glass bottle with disgust. "I could drink that whole thing if I really wanted to," Shade gestured for me to take the bottle again. I shook my head vigorously. "But I don't want to, so I wont."

"As I said... Adorable," I watching in awe as Shade gulped down half the bottle in one swig.

“You going to be here very long today?” I questioned, sitting down on the chair across the room from her. Shade usually didn’t stay very long. Her job was to make sure I did my job, as well as make sure every other pony on the maintenance level stayed in line. However, on the rare occasion when the Stable wasn’t as busy, she would stay by for a few extra hours in the generator room with me. I think she knew I got kinda lonely down here.

I didn’t mind her company either. I found Shade to be one of the more tolerable ponies, even if she was a bit vulgar at times.

“Nah,” She replied, whipping some of the whiskey off her lips. “Got other stuff planned. Just a quick check up on you as usual.”

I nodded casually and returned my attention to the humming piece of machinery that took up most of the small room. Shade let out a tired yawn and stretched her forelegs before hopping of the chair and strutting over to the door, which slid open for her with a clang.

“I’ll be around, call me on the intercom if you need anything,” She bluntly stated, pointing to the small white box with a steady green light next to the door as she stepped out into the hall.

I gave her a playful salute. “I know, this ain’t my first rodeo.”

She gave me an unamused stare as the door closed silently behind her, once again leaving me alone in the tiny space. I let out a low sigh and checked to make sure Shade was gone by pushing my ear up against the door. I could hear the soft patter of hoof steps slowly fade away as Shade grew further away from the room.

Once I was sure she wasn't coming back, I pulled a comic book out from under my desk where I had placed it the night before. The battered cover of the book faded, and dogeared, but still easy depicting the image of the power ponies on the front. Not my first choice in literature, but I’d take what I can get. What I'd really like is one of those Big Book of Sciences that my dad had, though the right to read that for me was revoked when I would refuse to put the book down to do my job. Did I mention I love books.

I flipped the comic open to where I had last stopped reading at and scanned the comics panels. This was practically all I did while on the job. Read, and pretend that I was working if Shade came knocking on the door to make sure everything was in order. Occasionally there would be a malfunction, sure, but those were rare and usually I could fix them in a couple of minutes. Nothing to unexpected though.

There was an unexpected shout from outside my room. I leaped to my hooves, expecting someone to come in and make sure I was working, but nothing happened. I waited a few minutes, then returned to reading my comic, only to be startled again as the sliding door slid open and a bright green unicorn with a windswept looking dark green mane shot into the room.

“Hey you! You gotta hid me!” The intruder demanded between heavy breaths. I nodded slowly in response, not quite sure what to make of the event. I was about to ask what was happening when he started scampering up the side of the generator and curling up inside of a small nook in the back of the room.

“Uh, you aren’t supposed to climb that,” I scolded dumbly, doing nothing to stop him as he quickly climbed up a little higher. The Stallion simply waved me off. I watched him climb, noting his cutie mark was some kind of multi coloured cone.

I heard more shouting from outside as what I assumed were a handful of Security ponies started checking through all the different rooms. “He has got to be in one of these!” I heard a gruff voice shout.

I turned towards the green unicorn. “Security is after you? What did you do?” I demanded, pointing my hoof at him lamely. “And how did you even get in here? You shouldn't have clearance for this room?”

The green unicorn just waved my questions aside with his hoof like he had before. “That doesn’t matter, what matters is that you make sure they don’t find me.”

I gave him a skeptical stare. “It matters to me if you get me in trouble for whatever you’ve gotten yourself into.”

The stallion looked me over for a few seconds before finally giving a sigh of defeat. “Alright, fine. I suppose if you are going to help you might as well know,” He paused and took another deep breath. “I stole the door override pass codes from the security section.”

My jaw dropped. “You did what!”

The Unicorn put a hoof to his lips. “Shhhhh, they’ll hear you,” I just continued to stare at him in bafflement, trying to process what he had just told me.

I shook my head in confusion. “What do you want with the security door override codes?” I questioned, lowering my tone a little. “And why-”

The rest of my question was cut off as four Security ponies burst into the room, each welding a shock baton and dressed in the usual security armour over top of their Stable barding. The lead Security mare, a purple unicorn with a small scar on the clip of her left eye stepped forward. “We are looking for a green unicorn named Brisk Spark. We believe he came this way. Have you seen him?” His voice was steady and monotone.

Without even thinking, I pointed up to where Brisk clung to the top of the generator. He glared down at me with an amused look. “Wow, thanks for your cooperation,” he deadpanned, trying to pull himself higher up on the machine.

The five of us just stared up at him. The Security ponies looked almost bored. Was this a regular occurrence with this guy? The lead Security ponie gave a low sigh. “Brisk, please come down from there before you hurt yourself,” Brisk stuck his tongue out in response. The Security ponies were starting to get very clearly impatient. “I’ll ask you one more time to get down Brisk.”

“I’ll get down once you let me out of this Stable,” Brisk retorted, swinging his front hooves around wildly. My jaw dropped for a second time. Leave the Stable? Was this guy insane? Who was I kidding, of course he was.

The lead Security mare gave a disappointed shake of her head and magically levitate her baton up to Brisk. I could see the sudden fear flicker across his face as he realized she was still fully capable of reaching him from down below. How he had forgotten she could use magic was any ponies guess.

“Damn it Brisk,” I knew that voice all to well. I turned my head to see my father standing in the doorway flanked by two more Security ponies. “What am I supposed to do with you?”

“Give me what I want would be a good place to start,” Brisk grinned back at him, lifting the floating baton away from his face with a hoof. “Also, it would be nice if you told the lovely Security ponies here to back off.”

No pony backed off. Brisk gave a low groan.

My father turned to the lead Security mare. “What did he do this time?”

“He downloaded all of the door override pass codes from the security section,” She explained, jabbing her baton at Brisk menacingly. Brisk tried to swat the baton aside again, but the Security mare had already pulled it out of his reach by the time his hoof came close.

My Father gave Brisk a flat stare. “Would you please come down? I don’t want this to be difficult.”

“Fuck you,” Brisk grinned down at him. “I’m not doing anything.”

My father gave a long, tedious sigh. He turned to the Security ponies. “Alright, get him down from there.”

All six Security ponies gave a wicked grin and raised their batons. Brisk gave a nervous chuckle as he was confronted by the six blunt, sparking clubs. Then he was being knocked to the floor and pummeled into the ground.

I averted my gaze as the six ponies circled him and continued to bash him against the ground, a sickening zap filling the air with every beating he received. The batons came down over and over again until he finally stopped moving entirely, save for the occasional twitch of his hind leg as an electrical charge pulsed through him.

I glanced over at my father, observing the scene stoically. The bags under his eyes just as prominent as ever. He cleared his throat, causing the six Security ponies to back off a bit. “Revoke his pipbuck, and get those files off,” he demanded sternly, turning away from the scene and exiting through the door. Before the door closed behind him he turned back to me. “And Amber,” I puffed out my chest and gave him a forced smile.

Look at me! I can be responsible!

My Father just shook his head. “Just get back to work.”

My ears drooped. I watched as the Security ponies detached Brisk’s pipbuck and hauled him off, out of the room and down the hall. I gave my head a good shake as the door closed behind them. That might have straight up been the oddest thing to ever happen to me.

I was about to go back to reading when I saw the red light on the intercom by the door flashing on and off. Someone was trying to contact me? I must not have noticed the light turn on during the chaos of Brisk’s interruption.

“Probably just Shade trying to find out what happened,” I muttered to myself, crossing the room and pushing the answer button.

"Hiya, this is Amber Aura," I said into the speaker.

“Hello, can I talk to the pony in charge of the Stable 25 generator?” The voice on the other side of the intercom blurted. Okay, not Shade. This was a stallions voice. It was deep and gravelly with an thick sense of snootiness, almost as if he had a terrible cold.

“Uh… that would be me,” I responded, leaning towards the intercom a little more as we spoke. “Can, uh… can I help you with something?”

There was silence on the other side for a few seconds. “Actually yes, there is something we need,” The voice replied, coughing slightly. “We need you to turn on the generator's emergency broadcaster. It doesn’t need to be on long, just a few moments will do.”

The emergency broadcaster? I had no idea what was going on at this point. “I’m sorry, who am I talking to?” I challenged, arching an eyebrow skeptically.

Once again there was silence form the far side. “This is Stable-Tec Headquarters,” he stated through the speaker nonchalantly.

Stable-Tec? This was starting to get real weird.

“Uh, would you like me to get the Overstallion?” I asked, dumbfounded. “I’m sure he would be more helpful to you than I am.”

“Oh no, you will do just fine!” the voice blurted. “We won’t be needing him for this,” Red flags started popping up in my brain. There was no reason I could think of that Stable-Tec would want to talk to me and not my dad. “We just need you to turn the emergency broadcaster on for a second, that is all.”

“What for?” I continued to ask. I glanced over at the generator emergency broadcast switch that lay dusty in the crevice it had been built into. It very clearly hadn’t been touched in years.

“A Stable out in Ponyville lost connection with us a few days ago,” The voice replied calmly. Turns out that their generator malfunctioned and their emergency distress broadcast had broken down years ago. They all died without being able to call for help,” I gulped slowly. That didn’t sound like a fun way to go. “We are just doing a check up on all the Stables to make sure everything is operating at Stable-Tec standards.”

I glanced back and forth between the intercom and the switch. What could it hurt to pull it? The only thing that would happen is it would send a distress signal to Stable-Tec, and that wouldn’t cause any harm. Right?

“It doesn’t need to be on long,” The voice reassured me again. “Just a few seconds is all we need to make sure everything is in working order. Are you in the generator room? It should be right beside you.”

I sighed. “Yeah, I’m in the generator room. Just give me a quick sec,” I pulled myself away from the intercom and pulled the emergency switch a few steps away from me. A bright, red flashing light whirled to life above my head and a siren began to sound. I waited a few second and them pulled the switch again, deactivating the light and siren.

I re-approached the intercom and pushed the speaker. “Did you get that?” I waited a few seconds, but there was no reply. “Hello? Did you get the signal?” again, nothing.

Then there was a heavy knock on the Stable door. That must be Shade, I thought as I activated the door and let it slid open. That was when I realized my mistake. Shade had a pass to get into the generator room, she didn’t need my assistance. Shade also didn’t stand a few feet taller than me or dress in solid metal plating.

The large Stallion that stood before me looked like something out of a nightmare. He was tall, muscular, and covered head to hoof in solid metal that seemed to be wielded to his dark orange coat. At his sides he carried a pair of robotic wings seemingly made up of blades and two large Tesla canons the size of my body. Two glowing red eyes stared down at me from a metallic head wielding a jagged metal horn.

I gave a nervous chuckle as I stared up at the hulking cyber alicorn in the doorway. “Uh, hiya… can… can I do something for you?” I stammered, taking a slow step back.

The cyber alicorn just glared down at me for a long moment. “I need access to the A.A.S.S device,” It demanded in a low, gruff tone. His voices sounded strained and rough, like sandpaper being dragged across my face. “Lead me to it.”

“Uh, um…” I continued to stammer, taking a few more steps back. “We uh… kinda need that to live you know… so uh… I can’t really give that to you.”

The cyber alicorn began to advance on me. Oh shit this was bad. “Hand over the device now before I need to force you,” his voice rumbled, sending chills down my spine. This wasn't forcing me?

There was a slight shimmer in the air behind him as two more cyber ponies stepped out of seemingly nothing. They looked very similar in design to the first one, however they lacked both the metal wings and horn that the cyber alicorn had. One carried what looked like large, twin flamers while the other carried two magical energy weapons.

I shrank lower to the ground as a fourth appeared, this one with two different guns that I didn't recognize. My eyes darted around the room frantically, looking for a way to get out of this situation. How had they even gotten into the Stable? They couldn’t have opened the Stable door? Could they?

“I’m going to ask you one more time,” They large cyber alicorn demanded again, this time the ends of his Tesla cannons began to glow and threatening electric blue. “Give me the A.A.S.S or I will find it myself.”

I gave a shy squeak and pointed towards a black metal box that clung to the side of the far wall. Multiple pipes hooked up to it and carried it’s vapors into the Stable’s ventilation system. Both above and below the box was a yellow sign reading ‘Danger, do not remove’.

The cyber alicorn grunted and flicked his guns towards it. “Go get it,” he growled, glaring into me even more than before.

It took me a second to realize he was actually talking to me and not one of the other cyber ponies. I pointed at myself innocently. “Me?”

“Yes, you!” The cyber alicorn huffed, taking another step towards me and causing me to shrink back even farther. “Go grab it or I’ll blast you into fucking ash!”

I scampered backwards and hastily raised my pipbuck to the black box, activating the lock mechanism. With a hiss of steam, the front panel of the box flipped open, revealing the black, oblong device inside. A small tinted glass panel on the front of the device showed a multitude of gears moving inside it. The whole thing was only about the size of my hoof.

The sound of guards shouting could be heard coming down the hallway at a quick pace. No doubt to check out what was going on with the emergency broadcast. They needed to work on their reaction time apparently.

The cyber alicorn stomped his metal hoof heavily on the ground making the floors and walls vibrate ever so slightly. He gave a loud snort, exhaust erupting from his metallic nostrils as he did. “Bring it here! Now!”

I pulled the device from the wall and looked it over, trying to decide if I could stall until the Security ponies arrived. The shouting was getting really close.

“The fuck are those things!?” I heard somepony shout from outside the room. So apparently they were already here. I heard a couple of bullets whiz down the hallway and bounce harmlessly off the cyber ponies metal exoskeletons, ricocheting into the steel walls.

The cyber alicorn groaned. “Damn it,” He gestured to the cyber pony to his right. “You secure the device, I’ll deal with these fucking pests,” With that he turned to the door and advanced upon the approaching Security ponies.

There was a massive crackle of energy that caused all of my hair to stand on end, followed by a massive explosion of blue light that send me sprawling to the floor. Holy shit, I was glad I didn’t get hit by a bast of those Tesla cannons.

The smaller cyber pony approached me. Though only two thirds the size of the cyber alicorn, he still stood a foot or two above me.

“The device, now!” He instructed, extending his metal hoof for me to place the device in. Through the few cracks in the metal plating, I could make out glimpses of scarlet fur.

I held the A.A.S.S device closer to my chest. “I can’t let you ponies have this! We’ll all starve.”

The cyber ponies eyes narrowed in anger. He lunged forward and slammed his hoof across my head. I was sent flying back, crashing into the generator with a clang.

Another explosion rocked the Stable, this time forcing me to fall face first into the ground. I could feel blood in my mouth, which I spat out in disgust. I attempted to curl my body around the A.A.S.S device only to discover it was no longer in my hooves.

I spotted it laying on the floor, halfway between me and the cyber pony. I began crawling towards it, ignoring the aching pain in my head. The cyber pony got to it first. He picked it up in his mouth and nodded to the other two cyber ponies watching him.

“Objective is secured!” one of the cyber ponies shouted, though as to which one I couldn’t be sure. There was a final explosion of blue energy, then a blinding light, then all four cyber ponies were gone.

I slowly pulled myself to my hooves, wobbling slightly as I stood both from pain and shock. I wiped the thin trickle of blood of my face and took a few shaky steps towards the door, only to collapse on my face. Again.

The Security ponies took that moment to rush into the room. They circled around me and looked around the room in confusion. I suppose that they must have been just as baffled as I was as to what had just happened. I noticed a majority of them were bruised and bloodied. One stallion’s front foreleg seemed to be broken. Shit, that cyber alicorn did a lot of damage in a really short amount of time!

“They took the A.A.S.S,” I muttered weakly, hoping one of them would hear me. From their many worried, wide eyed expressions, I could tell that they did.

The purple Security pony I had seen earlier stepped towards me and floated a healing potion down to my lips, which I gulped down gratefully. I could feel the itching sensation of my wounds slowly beginning to pull themselves back together as I chugged the fluid. Damn I loved healing potions.

I looked up at the mare above me with a thankful look across my face. I was met with a hard, cold stare. “You are to come with me immediately,” She demanded, and them marched out of the room. I pulled myself to my hooves for a second time and began to follow her.

“So let me get this straight… You were contacted by Stable-Tec, turned on the emergency broadcaster, and then were attacked by a group of robotic ponies that stole the A.A.S.S?” My father questioned, his eyebrows tightening as he tried to put everything together. I nodded slowly.

We were in the prison section of the Stable, which looked almost identical to the rest of the Stable to my displeasure, save for a couple of large holding cells against the far wall. No doubt I was in serious trouble for something. Probably for failing to keep the A.A.S.S safe, which was my one job. Granted they probably should have had some form of security on the device. Also granted they didn’t expect anyone to ever be able to get inside the Stable. So fuck me I guess...

“And you didn’t tell me that Stable-Tec contacted you before you activated the signal because?” He demanded, leaning across the cold table.

“They said I didn’t need to,” I retorted, waving my hooves in the air frantically. "I didn’t think anything bad would happen if I turned the signal on for a few seconds!” I looked at his disapproving glare. If I thought he had been disappointed about my cutie mark, he was really really really disappointed now. A sudden realization washed over me. “You don’t think I was involved in this do you?” My father sighed and rest his head on a hoof. “Holy shit! You actually think I had something to do with this, don't you!”

“I don’t know Amber!” He snapped at me, dropping his hoof to the table. “I know you to well to think you were intentionally involved in this, but I’m pretty damn sure if you had used that head of yours a little more you could have avoided it!”

Ouch… thanks dad… I shifted my gaze away from him and stared at the floor. I couldn’t call him out on that though, he was completely right. “What are we going to do now?” I stuttered, looking back up at him. “Do we leave the Stable to get it back or what?”

My father dropped his head into his hooves and let out a long breath of air. “I’m not sure yet Amber. We will need a bit of time to think this all though. We aren’t leaving the Stable though. It’s to dangerous outside, and I'm defiantly not letting you go outside after what happened to-” He shook his head, cutting himself off. Grunting, he stood up and started walking toward the door, leaving that unfinished thought hanging in the air. “You are to stay here until we figure this out more.”

I gawked at him. “Stay here? As in the prison wing? Why?”

“Because we aren’t sure what we're going to do next and honestly, half of the Stable thinks you did this, so it’s probably best for both of us that you stay here where it’s safe,” then he abruptly walked out of the room without even looking back at me. I could hear the click of the mechanical lock as the sliding door locked me in.

I looked over at the lone guard pony looking over at the different holding cells, a small key hung around his neck. I considered trying to steal it for a second, but thought better of it. Disobeying my father and putting myself in danger would get me nowhere. Not to mention that I probably couldn't beat that guard in a fight if my life depended on it. He was double my size, and I was hardly a tough pony.

Shifting my gaze from the guard, I scanned the holding cells until my gaze came to rest on a green unicorn with a black eye in one of the cells waving me over with his hoof.

“Brisk?” I asked, walking up to the cell and peering inside. “What are you doing here?”

“What do you think I’m doing in here idiot?” Brisk replied swiftly, gesturing to the cell around him with his hooves. “I tried to steal a bunch of super classified pass codes from Security and then tried to escape the Stable… I’m on a bit of a time out at the moment.”

I huffed. “Well good, you deserve it for stealing those.”

Brisk pretended to act hurt, placing one hoof over his chest. “Please, I only wanted to get out of this damn place, it’s so boring in here.”

“It’s really not that bad,” I countered, looking back over at the guard. “I mean it’s got to be better than whatever is outside, right?”

Brisk rolled his eyes. “Please, if I were to walk outside and suddenly drop dead from radiation poisoning, I would be happier than I am caged up in here. I mean, have you heard that dumb song they play every morning? Like, get some more music guys, come on!”

I smirked at that a little. The music really did suck. “Well I guess you’re just going to have to live with it,” I mocked, grinning into the cage at him. “Because I don’t think you are going to be getting outside any time soon,” And he was grinning at me. Why was he grinning at me. He had lost a tooth at some point when the guards had beaten him, making his smile look far less flattering on him than it should have. I took a step back as a smug look began to cross his face. “What…” I deadpanned, dropping my head a little and flattening my ears against the side of my head.

“Oh I’m going to be getting out of here all right,” He grinned. “And you are going to help me do it.”

“I’m going to what!” I blurted, taking a second step back. “Why?”

Brisk reached out of the cell and placed a hoof over my lips. “Shhhh, we don’t need to draw any attention,” He sent a quick glance at the guard who still didn’t seem to be paying us any attention. He returned his gaze to me. “Look, I hate this place, and you need to get out of here to go retrieve that ass thing or whatever that you and your dad were talking about.”

“It’s A.A.S.S,” I corrected. “It stands for Atmospheric Administering Sustenance System. How do you not know that? That's like, basic information?”

Brisk waved a hoof. “Yeah yeah whatever. That sound's like smarty, nerdy pony shit. The point is you need to go get it, ‘cause it didn’t sound like your dad had any plan on doing so and you need to prove to him that you aren’t a worthless waste of space.”

I stared at him flatly. “You really aren’t holding back any punches with those points, are you?” he shook his head. I groaned. “Besides, how did you even know tha-”

“That you feel the need to prove yourself to him? Oh come on, it’s obvious!” He chuckled.

I got flustered at that probably a lot more than I should have. “Wha- no it’s not!” I wanted to punch this guy.

“Uh, yeah… it is,” he responded factually. “The point is you need to save the Stable and prove you have potential or some shit, and I want freedom from this cesspool of a Stable. The only way either of us do that is if we work together and leave the Stable behind us.”

I rolled his words around in his head. He wasn’t wrong. Damn, I hated how he wasn’t wrong. But leaving the Stable seemed so extreme. I glanced over at the guard who was seemingly so lost in thought he still hadn’t managed to notice our conversation. That or he just didn’t care. Didn’t care just like everyone else in this place. I sighed.

“Alright, what do you need me to do?”

Brisk’s grin widened. “Well, first we need to get me out of this cage,” he whispered. "I don't suppose you have any bobby pins do you? They took mine when they locked me up."

"Why would we need bobby pins?" I questioned. "And no, I don't have any."

"I was hoping we could use them to pick the lock on this cage."

I gawked at him. "I can't pick a lock, I've never even considered doing something like that."

"You haven't? What did you do all day down here?"

"Read," I stated proudly. "I like books."

Brisk slapped his hoof to his forehead. "Oh god, I'm stuck with a nerd."

"I can just leave you locked up in here."

His face showed signs of panic. "No no, I'm just joking. you're great," He stammered, giving me a forced grin. "Besides, you wouldn't need to pick the lock anyway, I would have. That said, it doesn't matter now," Brisk glancing back over at the guard across the room. “Alright, plan number two. I’ll cause a distraction while you sneak up behind the guard and whack him over the head with that shock baton over there,” He pointed to a baton lying on the table against the far wall of the room.

“What? No way! I can’t do that either!” I stammered, looking back and forth between the baton, the guard, and Brisk. “You honestly can’t expect me to atta-”

“To late, I’ve made up my mind, that’s the plan,” Brisk whispered with a chuckle. Then he fell to the floor and started screaming at the top of his little pony lungs. “Holy Shit! I can’t breath!”

I backpedaled away from him as the guard rushed towards the cell. I glanced over at the shock baton lying on the table. It was now or never I suppose.

I magically levitated the baton into the air and floated it above the guards head as he struggled to understand the issue. I shut my eyes tight and slammed the blunt club against the top of his head.

The guard shouted and stumbled, but goddess damn it! He didn’t fall! He slowly turned to me, readying himself to lunge when I slammed the baton against his head a dozen more times. At last he fell twitching to the floor, electrical pulses flowing out of him and into the ground.

I took a deep breath and pulled the key off of his neck and unlocked the cell door. Brisk stepped out looking happier than he had already been.

“I told you it would work,” He laughed, slowly pulling the Security armor off of the guard and strapping it on over his Stable barding.

“What are you doing?” I asked, watching him place the visor on the helmet over his face and strap the guards 10mm pistol to his side with his hooves.

“Protecting myself and getting a disguise,” He replied, half trotting, half dancing to the door. “Most of the Security know I’m supposed to be in holding, so I’ve gotta blend it,” Then he slammed face first into the door. He stumbled back and looked up at metal surface he had just run into. “These things are supposed to open right?”

I rolled my eyes. Great, not only was I breaking almost every rule in the Stable, but my companion was a complete idiot.

“It’s locked doofus,” I scolded, approaching the door myself. “It’s for keeping ponies in. How do you not know that?”

“Well, can we unlock it?” He asked impatiently, tapping his hoof on the door. "There has got to be a manual release or something, right?”

I raised an eyebrow and levitated the guards pipbuck. The only thing Brisk hadn’t taken. Brisk gave me a shut up sort of look as I brought the pipbuck towards the door and watched in satisfaction as the door slid open as I clicked to door activation pass.

Brisk chuckled nervously. “Right… uh… after you.”

“What do we do next?” I asked, trotting past him and into the empty hallway. I wasn’t sure what time it was, but I assumed most ponies were going to bed at this point. “Do we just head to the Stable door or what?”

“We are going to need the Stable door override code, or we aren’t going to be getting anywhere,” Brisk explained, walking up beside me. “I was hoping it would be in the door override pass codes I stole from the security section, but I couldn’t find it in the file. Besides, I don’t even know where they put my pipbuck.”

“I doubt the Security section would have the override for the Stable door. The only pony that I can think of that would have it would be-” I pulled myself up short as I realized what I was saying.

Brisk groaned. “Let me guess. The only pony that would have the override to the door is the Overstallion… your father…”

I nodded glumly. “It’s probably in his terminal in his office.”

“Alright then,” Brisk said, practically bouncing down the hall. I had no idea where this pony got his energy. “Let’s go get that override,” then he froze in his tracks.

I stopped and followed his gaze to the end of the hall where the scarred purple Security mare stood staring at us in shock. I gave her a nervous wave.

“Do you think she recognizes us?” I asked. Then she began to charge us, yelling for other security to join her. I let out another sigh. “Yup, she does.”

The two of us spun around and started galloping in the other direction as fast as we possibly could. I could hear more guards chasing after us as we raced along. I ran a few steps ahead of Brisk, seeing how I knew the way to the Overstallion’s office better than anypony, it only seemed fitting that I take the lead.

We were almost to the stairs leading to my father's office when a larger Security stallion stepped out in front of us. Without wasting time I jumped into S.A.T.S. (also known as the Stable-Tec Arcane Targeting Spell, every pipbuck has it) I never imagined I would ever need to use mine to be honest. For a few seconds, I sat in the magical stillness that came with S.A.T.S. was I really going to do this? I looked at the Security pony that had jumped into my path. He was just doing his job, did I really have it in me to hurt him?

Damn it, I was in to deep already. I targeted two shots to his legs and released the S.A.T.S Spell. Instantly my shock baton slammed into his front legs. I heard the crunch of the bones in his leg snapping under the impact as we rushed past him and up the stairs that ascended to the Overstallion’s office.

We burst into the room and locked the door behind us. Only seconds after the door had closed and locked we heard the pounding of at least a dozen ponies outside trying to get into the room. To my relief, my father wasn’t in the room. I really didn’t want to explain all of this to him. He wouldn’t understand.

“Okay, now would be a good time to get that override!” Brisk shouted, pushing a table up against the door. I didn’t bother telling him that barricading the door would do nothing to prevent a sliding door from opening.

I rushed to my father's desk and turned on his terminal. Shit, it was locked! Probably shouldn’t have been surprised. I pulled up the computers data and began typing in a bunch of letters.

“Give me a second, I’m going to need to hack the terminal,” I shouted over the thundering noise of the ponies outside.

“We don’t have a sec-” Brisk began, but I cut him off.

“I’m in,” I declared, entering the correct password and pulling up all of my fathers files. Brisk just stared at me blankly.

“Already? How?”

I blushed and gave him a little shrug. “Machines are kinda my strong suit. Besides, dad’s password isn’t very good. Your password is Amber? really dad?”

Brisk coughed. “I get it, you’re amazing. Now get that override and lets get out of here before they drag both of our asses back to that cell!”

“Right,” I muttered, pulling up the file that was labeled ‘Stable door override code'. I scanned the file for a second. “I got it! The override is sabsb3cmc!” I shouted, pulling myself away from the computer. Then I spotted a second file on the computer titled ‘Stable door Overstallion access. I glanced around the room and pressed on the file.

There was a sudden hiss, followed by the grinding noise of gears as the Overstallion's desk started sliding across the room to reveal a set of stairs beneath it.

“Holy shit!” Brisk exclaimed, watching as the rest of the stairwell revealed itself. “How long as that been there?”

“Forever I guess,” I replied, taking a few steps down the stairs. “Now are you coming or not?” Brisk grinned and began racing down the steps after me.

As the desk began to slid back into place above us I heard the sound of the security ponies outside charging into the office. “Shit, they are heading to the Stable door!” I heard one of them shout. “Get to the door! Now!”

Brisk quickened his pace. “We gotta get moving,” he urged, pushing the top of his head against my rump and ushering me forwards. I yipped slightly and could feel my face go a deep red as he nudged his head against my ass. I doubled my speed as well and began charging down the tunnel.

We emerged into a large metal chamber with a long catwalk that extended out to a gigantic gear shaped metal door. Two security ponies stood guard beside the control panel for the door playing some sort of card game. They straightened up as soon as they spotted us.

“What are you two doing here, this is a restricted area,” The guard on the left said in a tough voice. He was just a little taller than I was, which wasn't hard as I stood a few inches shorter than most other ponies. He had a jet black coat and an ivory mane that spiked upwards.

“Sorry,” I muttered as I approached them, reaching for my baton with my telekinesis.

The second guard, a short earth pony with a light red coat and mane raised his eyebrow. “What was that?”

The first guard had no time to react as I jumped into S.A.T.S. and bashed him over the head with my baton. With a zap he crumpled limp to the ground.

The second guard recovered from the shock of being attacked quicker than I would have liked and raised his pistol towards me. I shut my eyes as the barrel came level with my head.

Shit! I was going to die before I even got out of the Stable!

Then Brisk threw his gun at the guards head, knocking him to the side. The guard tired to retaliate, but by the time he had looked back up, Brisk's hoof was pummeling him to the ground. Within the minute, both guards lay in a twitching pile at our feet.

“You are scarily good with that thing,” Brisk commented, pointing to my baton as he walking over to the controls and started typing in the override. “I would not want to be on your bad side.”

I swung my baton dangerously in a loop. “What makes you think you aren’t on my bad side?” I questioned smugly. Then I dropped the baton on my hoof, sending an electric shock shooting up my body. My whole body twitched and my mane stood on end.

Nope, I still sucked at everything.

Brisk pulled a small switch on the control board. A spinning orange light sprang to life above the Stable door, casting spiraling shadows to dance across the walls. A massive bolt swung down from the roof and inserted itself into the metal gear that separated Stable 25 from the world beyond. There was a hiss of steam, and the sound of metal on metal, then the humongous door began moving away from the entrance, giving us a look at the blackness that awaited us outside.

The clattering of hooves drew our attention away from the door and to the stampede of Security ponies rushing up behind us.

Crap! That was a lot of Security ponies!

“It’s now or never!” Brisk shouted, grabbing his dropped gun from the floor and jumping over the rail next to the controls before darting out into the darkness beyond Stable 25.

Holy shit, I was actually doing this.

I took one step forwards. Then another. Then I began galloping towards the exit. I could hear the guards yelling for me to stop, but I didn't turn back. I was determined to get out now, no turning back or giving up, nothing was going to make me change my mind. But something could make me stop dead in my tracks.

“Amber stop!”

Damn it! Damn it that was my father's voice.

I slowly turned to face him and the group of Security ponies that had gathered a few feet behind me, my hoof resting on the edge of the metal door.

“Come back Amber, you don’t need to do this,” his eyes looked sad. Damn him, his eyes actually looked sad.

“Yes I do dad, I’m going to bring the A.A.S.S back,” I sounded so certain. So strong in that moment, but I certainly didn’t feel it. I felt like I could crumble into a million pieces at the slightest breeze. “I’m going to set everything right!”

My father gave me a sad smile and a small shake of his head. “No Amber. You won't. All you will do out there is die.”

I took a step towards him. “But I have to try!” I insisted. “I have to try and fix all of this!”

“Think of the Stable before yourself for once Amber,” My father soothed. “If you leave here, I won’t be able to let you back in.”

I felt my heart sink.

He wouldn’t let me back in? Why not? To prove a point? To protect the Stable? I could feel a long suppressed anger slowly pushing its way to the surface. This whole thing wasn't my fault! He needed to stop treating me like it was. “Fuck you dad!” I shouted, pointing a hoof at him accusingly. “Fuck you!”

With that, I darted out of the Stable and into the darkness, the large Stable door rolling shut behind me. A loud clang rang throughout the darkness as the solid wall of metal came to a stop, resealing the Stable from the outside.

Then I was alone in the darkness with nothing but regret. What had I said? Why had I said it? Damn it! Don’t let that be the last thing I ever say to my father.

The dull green light of my pipbuck lit up the tunnel around me, reviling a long metal tunnel coated in a thick layer of rust and grime. A small pool of foul brown sludge swirled around my hooves as I walked forward. A few feet ahead of me I could make out the slim silhouette of Brisk Spark attaching the Security ponies pipbuck to his left foreleg.

Brisk turned to look at me and gave me a reassuring smile, showing off his missing tooth. “Bold move, saying that to your dad.”

“Don’t remind me,” I groaned, walking past him and towards the small steel door at the end of the tunnel. Through the cracks around the side of the door I could see slivers of silver moonlight peeking through, giving the tunnel a ghostly appearance.

I pushed the door open, and instantly gagged at the rancid stench of the air outside. I shut my eyes as I was blinded by a light I couldn't see and took my first step into the Equestrian Wasteland.

Before me stood a large rusted billboard, now marred by bullet holes and graffiti, though the large letters were still perfectly legible.

Welcome to Manehattan!

Or as the graffiti put it…

Welcome to Hell!

Footnote: level up.
New perk: Swift learner -- +10% XP whenever XP is earned

Author's Note

I've got a long story ahead of me to write, so get ready for a crazy wasteland adventure!
I hope you enjoyed this first chapter. Please feel free to give your thoughts and feedback.

As usual, huge thanks to kkat for creating the wonderful world of Fallout: Equestira

Short: What the Past has Taken, What the Future Might Give

I sat with my back pushed up against a large half broken chair. The chairs legs on one side had collapsed, leaving the whole thing slanted to one side. Across the room, I could see a large gaping hole in the wall that had been blown apart by some explosion during the battle earlier today. Outside I could still make out the forms of ponies rummaging through the debris, looking for loved ones they had lost. Every once and a while I would hear the manic wail as somepony found who they were looking for, often broken and crushed beneath the heavy rubble.

Despite the structures broken disarray, a lone brick fireplace had miraculously managed to stay perfectly upright and intact. I had spent a few minutes desperately trying to light a fire to warm up the defiled cottage before Pyre had marched in and quickly lit it up with a flumph of her flamers. Before I could thank her, she sulked out of the building without saying so much as a word to me, grumbling to herself and trying her best to hide the massive red claw marks that now races down her face.

I sat with the large Big Book of Science in my hooves as I eagerly turned page after page, hoping to use the escapism of the wonderful book before me to let me leave the depressing world I was currently stranded in. The last five days had been without question the worst days of my entire life. What had started with the traumatic invasion of my Stable had led to a seemingly endless string of horrors just as evil if not more so than the one before. The final destruction of Stable 25, finding out about my murder of the raider foals, the nightmares below the surface and finally the senseless violence of the Hollow Shade Massacre.

It was all just too much.

A ragged and broken looking pony coated in a thick layer of blood and muck stumbled into the cottage, limping heavily on his right fore hoof. He slumped down next to the fireplace and went limp, the fight had taking far more out of him than he had ever had to give. With a great deal of effort, I levitated a tattered blanket over to him and softly draped it over his almost lifeless form. The ponies of the Hollow Shades would need a lot of healing over the next few days, and not just for the physical wounds that had accompanied the bloodshed.

My thoughts turned back to the battle. The graphic image of a young colt being torn apart by a huge artillery weapon was still very vividly imprinted into my mind. It had all been so pointless! All of it! None of the ponies should have needed to die!

I could feel myself start shaking as more and more memories started flooding my mind. Slavers heads being blown open by blasts of my shotgun, raiders gnashing at me with sharpened fangs and twisted daggers, Boulders final seconds as a stray bullet lanced through his chest, blood spewing from the wound and across the charred pavement. They all flashed through my mind, refusing to leave me in peace.

I looked back down at my book defiantly, trying my best to simply not think about it. Push all the raw hurting feelings deep down where they can't hurt me. What was done was done, there was no going back now. The most I could do was try and deal with it the best I could, and the only way I knew how to escape my feelings was through books.

“Brisk and Pyre just left for Stable 44,” Xayah said as she pushed open the door to the cottage and trotted in. I didn’t bother asking why she used the door at all since half the building’s walls had been obliterated in the war.

I looked up, I saw her walk over to stand beside the sleeping pony by the fire. We were going to need all the supplies we could. If this Glowing Sea was as dangerous as Toffee had told me, we were going to be in for a real hell of a time. “And how are they holding up? Brisk and Pyre, I mean. I haven’t talked to either of them since our meeting with Toffee.”

“Brisk is doing well,” Xayah started, trying to warm herself up by the fire. She was shivering, both from shock of all that had happened and the deathly cold night breeze. "Save for a little pain in his fore hoof, he managed to get out with less wounds than most ponies."

I nodded, taking in the information. “And Pyre? How is she? She hasn’t seemed herself since that raider attacked her."

She hesitated for a second before answering. “I am not sure. Something is weighing down on her mind quite a lot,” Xayah said quietly. “She is refusing to talk about what happened. Whomever this Viscera is got to her.”

The whole deal with the raiders wasn’t sitting well with me. This was the second time I had survived an encounter with Las Pegasus raiders on sheer luck alone. “Why do you think Viscera turned on the slavers and let us all live?” I asked, the memory of Viscera’s defeat over Pyre just as prevalent in my mind as the other horrors I had witnessed.

She simply shook her head. “I don’t know. I just don’t know,” Xayah looked up from the fire towards me. “And You? How are you doing?”

“Just uh- reading a book is all. I’ll be fine,” I lied, lowering the book slightly and looking away from her. I didn’t really want to talk about my emotional state at the moment in fear of shattering into a million pieces.

Xayah cast me a weary glance. “Was it not you who told me that this group of ours has been hiding enough of our own issues from one another?” She cocked her head to the side a little, the motion slightly reminiscent of the movement of a griffon.

My face dropped. “That transparent am I?”

Xayah shook her head, her face somber. “You do not need to be transparent for me to know you need help. Nopony is simply fine after war, and you were already in a rather emotional place.”

I grumbled, not wanting to meet her eye. “It’s just… it all seems so pointless! All this violence! Why is it even happening! Wouldn’t it be better for everypony if we all just got along!” I blurted, my fears and doubts coming to the forefront of my mind. “I can’t even figure out what it will take to make it stop because I can’t for the life of me figure out why it has to happen in the first place!”

Xayah was silent for a moment, rolling my outburst around in her head for a bit. “I do not know why it has to happen, and I do not know why it is happening, but I do know you will make stop it,” I looked up at her as she spoke, my Amber eyes locking with her emerald ones. “You’ve come a long way Amber. I do not know where this journey you are taking us leads, but I am confident you will lead us safely to the end,” Her voice was steady, clearly believing every word of what she said.

I threw my hooves up in the air, letting my book fall onto the chairs dirty cushion. “But what if I don't?! I wasn't good enough to lead the Stable! My Cutie Mark alone is a constant reminder of that! I’m about to lead all of you through an incredibly dangerous, extremely radioactive wasteland to some crazy MAS building with who knows what inside!” I exclaimed. “What if one of you-” My voice caught in my throat, not wanting to even suggest such an idea. “What if one of you dies, Xayah? I don’t think I would be able to handle that…”

Shaking her head, Xayah limped over to me and hopped up next to me on the big chair. Somehow the chair didn’t collapse completely under our combined weight. “We will be fine. We will get through this together.”

Sighing, I put my book away and cuddled in closer to her, using her warmth to fend off the cold gusts of wind that ripped through the crumbling structure. “I’m just overwhelmed I guess,” I admitted, both to Xayah and to myself. “So much is happening that I don’t understand. I just- I don’t know… sometimes I wish that I really had died with everypony else back in Stable 25.”

Xayah’s eyes went wide at my words. She sat up a little and looked me in the eye, her expression hard. “Don’t say that! We will make it through, we will!”

I shook my head before resting it between my fore hooves. “Sorry, sorry. I know I shouldn’t think that, I just- Well... With everything going on, I guess thoughts about just escaping it all can be kinda easy to fall back to,” Neither of us spoke for a while after that as we sat and listened to the crackle of the fireplace and the far off howls of hurting ponies. After a few minutes, Xayah let herself back into a resting position, her muscles relaxing slightly.

“Seems like this whole wasteland is collapsing around us,” I finally muttered, looking out at the ruins of the Hollow Shades. “It’s suffocating,” My hooves tightened around Xayah.

“Perhaps we should do something when this is over. Put all this adventuring on hold,” Xayah suggested innocently, trying to lighten the mood.

I tried to smile. “I promised Pyre we’d stop at Tenpony Tower. There’s a cheese shop there that she really wants to go to,” I felt my mood brighten a little at the silly idea of the rough and tough raider Pyre Blaze eating fancy cheese in some high class establishment.

Xayah chuckled beside me. “Yes, that would be nice. I heard they have a spa there too, might be nice after all our hardships as of late.”

I blinked at her a couple times, trying to put meaning to her words. “What the heck is a Spa?” I asked, my interest peaked. I think I had read a book that mentioned a spa once, but I couldn’t think of anything past that.

Xayah shrugged. “I have no idea, but I’ve been told it is very relaxing.”

I couldn’t help myself. I found myself giggling at the whole thing. Fine food, relaxation, a raider and ghoul free day with no fighting in sight. It seemed impossible. “No adventures for a whole day huh? Sounds like Brisk’s own personal nightmare,” I chuckled. “Bet he’d be trying to escape the tower within the first hour of being there.”

“Pyre probably couldn’t spend a whole day without killing somepony anyway,” Xayah joked, her stomach rising and falling as she quietly laughed.

I sighed, letting my foalish giggles subside. “Thank’s Xayah, I needed a good laugh. It feels like I don’t do it enough anymore.”

“You don’t, and you should laugh more. You have a very cute laugh,” Xayah stated flatly, not even a hint of sarcasm in her voice. I blushed, but I didn’t bother rejecting the statement. I felt fine with it for once.

Some warm and fluttery feeling was gnawing away at my stomach. The feeling wasn’t all that different from the churning rage I had come accustomed to over the past few days, except it felt a little softer and almost soothing in a strange way, if not a little nerve-racking. I looked down at Xayah as she cuddled in close to me, the warm feeling only seeming to grow.

I had felt this before, not all that long ago while I sat beside Brisk in Friendship city, overlooking the gloomy wasteland…

Xayah opened up one eye and looked up at me, seeing the confused and distant look that had crossed my face as I silently looked down at her. “You alright?”

I nodded quietly, a lump forming in my throat. I looked away quickly to hide my blush. “I’m fine. Just thought… yeah…um... I'm fine.”

I shook the idea from my head. Maybe something was happening here, but everything was so confusing right now that I wasn’t in the proper mindset to make that kind of judgement. I’d figure this out on a happier day, when I could really think all this through with a clear mind.

Quietly, I cuddled up to Xayah and let my head rest atop her chest. I could feel myself slowly drifting off to sleep to the soothing rhythm of Xayah’s slow and calm breaths. We had a long and dangerous journey ahead of us tomorrow, but if all went well, perhaps this nightmare might all be over soon.

I really hoped it would be...

Chapter XX: Follow The Friendship Trail

“In a world full of suspicion, treachery and hunters - we’re the synths’ only friends...”

Metro.

The Manehattan metro had been built long before most of the surrounding city, long before Four Star had decided to expand upwards and build the massive monorail that now cluttered the jagged Manehattan skyline. We had learned that little fact in history class back in the Stable. It was yet another piece of seemingly random information that everypony always wondered why the hell we were being taught it when we were never supposed to leave the Stable.

It hadn’t been a long walk from the Fluttershy Medical Center to the Metro. The sky was still cast in the defused morning sunlight. I supposed nowhere in Manehattan was very far from the metro, they had stations scattered everywhere around the city.

“So let me get this straight,” Nurse Heartbeat said, looking down the steps into the darkness of the metro station below us. We had stopped at the entrance to the metro, none of us really wanting to walk down into the dark tunnels below Manehattan. “We are heading into one of the most dangerous places in Manehattan to find a secret organization that no pony has ever heard about, so that they can help us find an even more secret organization that even less ponies have heard about and scarcely even believe exists?”

I nodded confidently. “Yup, that about sums it up. Any problems with that?”

Heartbeat gave me a sly grin. “Not at all. I must have just picked the craziest group of wasteland ponies to travel with.”

“What exactly makes these metro tunnels so deadly?” Xayah asked, trying to spy something in the darkness below.

“You mean besides the ridiculous amount of ghouls?” Pyre said, giving Xayah a grin. “Well for starters the place is crawling with raiders and bandits trying to get away from the harsh elements. But the place is also full of lethal amounts of radiation, taint, manticores, monsters best left unnamed, prewar experiments gone wrong, and pretty much anything else that you can think of.”

Xayah gulped and gave a nervous chuckle. “Sounds lovely.”

“So, how do we expect to find the Friendship Express?” Mirra asked from her usual perch atop Pyre’s back. “I’ve never been into the metro myself, but I’ve heard it's practically a labyrinth down there.”

“We… uh… We follow the Friendship Trail…” I stammered, not really knowing what that was actually supposed to mean. For all I knew, that had nothing to do with the metro at all. I quickly pulled out the talisman Emissary gave me. “This should help us somehow… I hope.”

“Very reassuring,” Brisk deadpanned, looking over the talisman warily as we slowly started making our way down the steps and into the tunnels. “Do you even have the slightest idea of how to use that thing.”

I grimaced in response. We moved into the subway station. It was nearly pitch black, only the dim morning light following us down the stairs letting us make out the brick tunnel

“Well, I don’t know how to use it exactly… or like… at all...” Brisk facehoofed in response.

"I'm liking this plan of your less and less the more I realize you literally don't know what's happening."

I was about to put the talisman away when it started glowing a faint yellow. It wasn't a strong glow, but enough to catch my eye. I squinted at it, slowly slowing to a stop. “Hold up guys, I think… I think it’s doing something…”

Pyre glanced over my shoulder to see the talisman. “It’s… glowing?”

I nodded dumbly, not really knowing what that meant. I looked up and glanced around the dark tunnel we had just entered. It just looked like a ruined metro station. Dull and grey. Then I noticed something glowing on the wall with the same faint, pale glow that was emanating off of the talisman. I cautiously walked up to it, not knowing what to expect.

“What is it?” Brisk asked, trailing behind me a few steps.

I looked it over. It was a large metal plaque in the shape of a circle. The centre of the plaque held the image of a lantern, matching the talisman I held in my hoof and around the edge of the circle were the words, ‘Manehattan - The Friendship Trail’.

“I think I might have found what we’re looking for,” I said, not really knowing how to take our seemingly unfounded good luck. Remembering how I had seen Flask use his talisman back in Fetlock during our first visit there, I raised the talisman and touched it to the plaque.

Something clicked behind the wall. I took a step back, eyes wide as I watched the brick tiles on the wall of the tunnel start flipping around with the grinding sound of stone on stone. Slowly, a red brick line had formed in the wall, traveling down the tunnel and out of sight.

“The fuck did you just do?” Pyre asked, looking down the tunnel. “And… what the fuck? I’m so confused.”

“I think I just found the friendship trail,” I said, trying to look smug. Truth was I was just as dumbfounded as the rest of them.

“So do we just… follow it?” Xayah asked, tapping her striped hoof on the red brick line in the wall.

I glanced back and forth between all my friends. None of them seemed to have an answer. Finally, I sighed. “I guess so. Let's get moving before any of those things Pyre mentioned find us.”

“You did what!?” Heartbeat gasped, his face filling with shock.

I smirked, knowing full well how crazy it sounded. “Yup, detonated hundreds of Balefire bombs around me and walked out just fine.”

The Friendship Trail had gone on for far farther than any of us had expected. After about half an hour of walking I was beyond lost. To pass the time, I had been telling Heartbeat about our adventures across the wasteland. He had started off fairly interested, commenting only every once and a while to get clarification on something, but as the story continued, his eyes had grown wide with shock and he seemed to be completely lost for words.

“You… that’s insane!” Heartbeat slapped his face with a forehoof. “I mean… no, that’s exactly what I mean. That’s absolutely crazy! How did you even get out of there?”

I gestured over to Mirra, who was listening quietly from atop Pyre’s back. “This one here pulled me out with the help of a friend of hers,” I said. I turned to face Mirra. “A friend who I’m still waiting on you to tell me about.”

Mirra shrugged. “I’ve pretty much told you everything about him. He’s pretty mysterious. I never know when he’s going to show up.”

I glanced up at Mirra’s horn. It seemed to be working properly again, now that she had had a few days to rest after pulling me from the exploding MAS tower. “Mirra, I have to ask. Now that your magic is back to full, can you turn into more than just foals?”

Mirra cocked her head to the side a little. “Do you know nothing about changeling magic, Amber?” I didn’t and said as much. Mirra gave a small sigh. “Changelings have trouble transforming into anything larger than they already are. Most changelings can't turn into a fully grown pony until they are fully grown themselves. With a few exceptions of course…”

“Exceptions like what?” I asked, curious. I always loved learning new things, and there had been next to nothing about changelings to learn about in Stable 25.

“Well if a changeling studies and practices hard enough or has exceptionally powerful magic, it’s not unheard of for them to be able to turn into something larger than normal. Changeling queens of course can do anything they damn well please and Changeling generals can often turn into giant creatures, even at a young age, though they’re restricted to a specific colour scheme,” The tiny changeling said, rolling onto her back and lounging on top of Pyre as if the large raider were a couch.

“Changeling queens? As in plural? There are more than one?” I questioned, not really sure how to take that bit of information.

Mirra nodded. “Well, duh. Obviously there was Chrysalis, but you don’t think she managed to populate an entire race by herself did you?” Mirra rolled her eyes as if that had been obvious. “There are hundreds of different hives all over Equus. I’m not saying Changeling queens are common or anything like that… they’re about as common as changeling generals… but there are more of them out there. At least there used to be.”

“You keep mentioning changeling generals. What are those?” Brisk asked, butting into the conversation. Until now, I hadn’t realized he’d been eavesdropping.

“They’re rare, usually a changeling queen only ever gives birth to a general once,” Mirra explained, once again shifting her weight to a more comfortable position. “They’re immensely powerful, designed specifically for defending the hive. Unlike most changelings, they aren’t made for infiltration, so their trade-off for unmatched shapeshifting and combat ability is that the forms they change into are always stuck to the same colours,” Mirra thought for a second. “The last Changeling general I know of was named Pharynx. I think he died back in the war.”

“Aside from Transformation, what other powers do changelings have?” Heartbeat asked, joining in on our questioning.

Mirra glanced around the dark tunnel quickly. “What is this? Ask Mirra about her changelingness day?”

I shrugged. “It’s interesting and we don’t really have anything better to do until we find out where this Friendship Trail leads,” I admitted, gesturing to the red, brick line that raced along the wall beside us. “Might as well talk about something.”

Mirra sighed. “Well, lets see. Shapeshifting is our main ability obviously, but we have a few more. Our horns work about the same as unicorns, so we can do most any spell with the right amount of training. I for one am fairly adept at levitation and teleportation. Changelings also have a pretty good sense of smell, it's how we tell eachother apart,” She tapped her chin for a second as she tried to figure out how to word the rest of what she wanted to say. “We can also spit wads of mucus out of our mouth as well, but that's only good if you want to cocoon somepony.”

Xayah gagged. “That’s disgusting!”

The small changeling shrugged. “Hey, I didn’t say that my abilities were flattering. I’m not much of a fighter anyway, so you probably wont ever even see me do that one.”

The red line on the wall turned a corner and started heading down another tunnel. We had been walking uninterrupted for long enough that I was actually surprised when red bars popped up onto my EFS.

Pyre seemed to notice the bars too, crouching down into a more battle ready stance. “Five hostiles,” She hissed, small flames igniting on the end of her flamers.

“Any way around them?” Heartbeat asked, ducking behind a wall and trying to peer around the corner.

I shook my head. “There might be, but then we risk losing track of the Friendship Trail.”

Xayah flickered out of view for a second, tapping the gem on her stealth cloak. A few seconds later she appeared beside me. “Four ghouls. I couldn’t see the fifth.”

I nodded. Sounded easy enough. I turned to look at all my friends. “Everypony ready?” my question was returned by five confident nods.

Ghouls were easy. Xayah’s uncanny precision with her sniper dropped two of them to the ground before they even realised we were coming. Pyre’s flamers flared around another two, burning away their bodies until nothing but a charred corpse remained. The fifth ghoul, who had been sleeping under a pile of rubble, had only just managed to climb its way out when my baton caved in its head.

I looked around at the small pile of dead ghouls. The fight had almost been disappointing.

My eyes landed on a cluster of mannequins that had been standing in the center of the metro tunnel. I walked over to one of them and kicked it over. “Can somepony explain why there are so many damn mannequins everywhere? They’re freaking me out.”

“Manehattan used to be filled with boutiques. It was considered the fashion empire of Equestria for a while before the war turned it into a giant war factory,” Heartbeat said, prodding at one of the mannequins himself.

“Okay, but why are they all over the place? You know, in metro tunnels or hanging from roofs,” I pushed. “I mean, it just seems silly.”

Heartbeat shrugged. “No idea. Might be raiders simply playing a sick joke.”

I grumbled. Remind me to find those raiders and give them a good bucking upside the head.

“...Wasn’t that the symbol at the apartment building as well?” I heard Xayah ask. I looked over to see her and Brisk standing in front of a large logo of four stars that had been engraved on the wall.

Brisk scratched his head. “I think so. Maybe the company did trains and apartments?”

I walked up to them, looking over the symbol myself. “Well the apartments were connected to the monorail, so it's possible that they did both. That or the apartment was a one off thing.”

“What company that works on railroads makes a single apartment building?” Brisk quipped back, looking down from the logo and to me. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

I tried to remember what I had read in the terminals all the way back when I was in the four star apartment building. “The whole company was a front for zebra sympathisers. I think the apartment was a way to hide their activities.”

Heartbeat gave me a confused look. “I’m no expert on prewar companies save the ministry of peace, but I’ve never heard anything about Four Star being zebra sympathizers.”

I gave him a quick nod. “I was reading through a bunch of the employees terminals when I was in their apartments. The MOM was onto them too.”

Heartbeat gave an intrigued sounding huff. “Well I guess I learn something new every day.”

I spotted a small door off to the right of the tunnel that seemed to lead to a small office area. With my interest now peaked by our conversation, I started moving towards it. “Here, let's see if we can find out a bit about it in there?”

The door, to no ponies surprise, was locked. Knowing my rather embarrassing lack of skill with a bobby pin, I quickly stepped aside and let Brisk get at the door. His first bobby pin snapped, making Brisk curse quietly under his breath as he pulled a second one out with his mouth to stick it in.

“Damn, the door is jammed, I’m going to need a second,” Brisk said around the bobby pin in his mouth. I gave a respectful nod.

As Brisk worked, Pyre pulled me off to the side, clearly wanting to talk to me alone.

“Amber, I think we have a serious problem,” she said, her voice low and almost fearful.

I felt a pang of worry go through me. Pyre was unquestionably the bravest and most experienced out of all of us. If she felt there was reason to be worried about something, then probably was. I remembered her jumpiness this morning. something had been bothering her all day. “What is it?” I asked, matching the volume of my voice with hers.

Pyre glanced behind her, as if expecting something to leap out at her from the gloom. “I think we’re being followed.”

My eyes darted around the tunnel. “By who? In here?” My sights met nothing but the cracked brick walls of the metro.

“Viscera,” Pyre stated bluntly, her gaze returning to me. “I think she’s been following us since we left Tenpony Tower. I keep seeing bars on the edge of my EFS, but every time I look into it, they disappear.”

My brow furrowed, remembering the psychotic raider mare from the Hollow Shades. “How do you know it's her? I mean, there are lots of things in Manehattan…”

“Because I saw her,” Pyre’s words caught me off guard.

“You saw… what? When?” I stammered, no longer being able to be bothered to keep my voice low. “When did you see her?”

Pyre glanced away, once again looking out at the darkness of the metro. “Last night. Mirra had just fallen asleep. I went for a walk outside the Medical Center and I saw her. She wasn’t doing anything, she was just standing out there in the wastes staring at me.”

I felt a heavy lump fall into my stomach. “She was watching us…?” That was bad. From what little I knew about Viscera, she was not a pony to take lightly. “Why didn’t she attack?”

“She’s probably waiting till we are less guarded. We were in the company of the Applejack Rangers at the time. Not to mention Viscera likes to mess around with people before she kills them. She probably wants to scare us first,” If that was her goal, then Viscera was succeeding. “But that isn’t the worst part Amber. I don’t think Viscera was alone.”

There were more ponies tailing us? Just my fucking luck. “Okay… who else?” I heard a small tremor in my own voice.

“Pyre hesitated for a second, as if unsure if she should tell me more. “I think Viscera’s personal raiders are with her.”

“Her personal raiders?” I questioned, not exactly sure what that entailed. “Are those the ones we fought in the Hollow Shades?” I remembered the rather large army of raiders that had followed Viscera into combat. How had we not seen a group of that size following us?

Pyre almost laughed at that. “Ha! No, those were just some rookie raiders. Probably some new recruits that Razor Blade didn’t mind sending out on one of Viscera’s crusades. Viscera’s personal raiders are significantly worse…”

I don’t know when, but at some point my mouth had fallen open. I quickly shut it. “Those were the expendable raiders!” I gasped. Those raiders had been heavily armed and better trained than most raiders I had come across in Manehattan. How much of a threat were these Las Pegasus raiders? “And when you say her raiders are worse… What exactly do you mean by that?”

“I mean they’re hellhounds,” Pyre grunted bluntly. My whole body went rigged at that. They were Hellhounds! That was insane! Granted, I suppose Viscera was the walking incarnation of insanity and Pyre had told me that she was more Hellhound than pony anyway. “Strongest group of raiders in the wasteland. Can't out fight them, can't out run them, can’t out think them. Not to mention they’re backed by Las Pegasus’ resources. That means they’re equipped with an extensive arsonal of magical energy weapons, more than the usual hellhound anyway. You can't even hide from the damn things. They’ll sniff you out from hundreds of miles away and dig straight through solid walls to get to you.”

I had fought only two hellhounds before. More if you counted the twisted, zombie ones in the glowing sea, but I had mostly just run from those ones. The first hellhound had been a tough fight, but we had managed to kill it with a mix of ridiculous firepower and luck. The second we had stuck a mind control device on and called it a day. I knew how dangerous Hellhounds were, and now they were hunting us.

“H-how many hellhounds are with her?” I said, my voice soaked in my own fear.

Pyre thought about that for a second. “Probably around ten. That's usually what she likes to travel with. Easy amount to conceal, but enough to be near unbeatable in combat.”

I felt my legs go weak beneath me. Ten Hellhound! We couldn’t fight off something like that!

I was about to say as much when I heard a click from the door Brisk was picking at. “Got it!” he said gleefully, gesturing for the two of us to come over.

Glad for a distraction from the horrifying idea of Viscera and her Hellhound raiders, I quickly moved over to him and pushed open the door. I hadn’t even moved inside when a ghoul flung themselves from the doorway and slammed into me, hooves flying. I stumbled backwards, rolling away as the ghoul swiped at me again with its flayed hooves.

Pyre stomped down with her hooves, crushing the ghouls skull in a single mighty slam before it could attempt to cause any more harm.

I pulled myself up, giving Pyre a grateful look, and moved into the office. It was small, only just large enough for two ponies to stand in without it getting awkward. Pyre had to wait outside as the rest of us crammed ourselves inside. Thankfully I was pretty small and Mirra could fly, so we were able to fit most of us in, though it was a tight fit.

A skeleton lay in the corner of the room, the jumpsuit they had once worn now a tattered pile of cloth beside them. Long since dried blood coated the walls and floor of the tiny room and a glowing terminal rest on a small desk.

I pushed myself past my friends and moved towards the terminal. “Alright, let's see what Four Star has to say about themselves,” I needed a distraction from my thoughts of Viscera.

The terminal clicked open, oddly not being locked. I almost felt cheated. The terminal held a collection of audio files. Most of them dated before the war, but I noticed a few that had been recorded afterwards. I clicked on the first one and let it play out for everypony to hear.

“Hello, this is Train Tracks,” a male, static filled voice said from the terminal. He sounded happy enough. That was uncommon in audio recordings. “Say hi Rail.”

“Why are you even recording this?” A female voice said over the recording, presumably belonging to Rail. “Or are you just talking so that you can annoy me more with your incessant blabbering?”

“Oh come on, Rail. Just trying to pass the time. What else are we going to do down here while we wait? I mean we’re spending fifteen hours a day just sitting in here, we need to do something,” The voice of Train Tracks said back, not losing his happy tone. There was a huff, but Rail didn’t speak up again. “Anyway, I thought I’d start a little audio journal here. Just for fun you know. I’ll update it tomorrow. Bye!”

The recording shut out. How very uninformative. I clicked the next one.

“Hello, it’s Train Tracks again. Rail isn’t here at the moment, but she’ll be along soon. Nothing interesting has happened down here yet, hopefully it never has too,” Train Tracks voice started, as we all began listening to the next recording. “But stuff has been happening outside. I just got a nice new place in the four star apartments. All of us did. Rail doesn’t seem very happy about needing to share an apartment with me, said that we spent enough time cramped up in a small space together…”

There was a buzz of static and the voice cut out for a second. I suppose a terminal being over two hundred years old and having gone through a balefire bomb might end up damaging the files some. After a few seconds, Train Tracks voice came back.

“...I guess an apartment where neighbors can come over and have private chats is less suspicious than a company constantly doing secret meetings. Well, that and you can't hide refugees on a monorail,” Train Tracks continued, seemingly rambling on about his new living arrangements. “And sure the rooms are small, but I can’t complain. Cheap housing is always nice and the easy access to the monorail is nice too… my neighbor is kinda weird though, Saddles I think his name is…” The sound off a door creaked open over the recording, followed by the sound of sobbing. “Rail? Are you alright?”

The sobbing continued for a couple of seconds. “Zirria is dead…” There was a few seconds of silence after she spoke. Only the sound of static, broken by the occasional sob emitted from the terminal.

“W-What… how?” I finally heard Train Tracks mutter, his voice shaky.

“The Ministry of Image is saying it was an armed robbery gone wrong… But I don’t think so. Nothing was stolen,” Rail said back, her voice somber and sullen. “Some asshole broke into her shop, shot her and ran off.”

I could hear Train Tracks heavy breathing as he tried to control his temper. “Celestia damn it! I get that we are at war with the zebra’s, but that doesn’t give ponies an excuse to just kill them like that!” He paused to catch his breath. “Zirria didn’t even want to be a part of all this, damn it… she just wanted to be left alone…”

The sound of Rail sighing overlapped Train Tracks voice. “I don’t think it matters if they want to be involved or not… we’re all a part of this now…”

The recording died off, cutting out with a burst of static. I glanced over at Xayah to make sure she was okay, but she seemed unfazed by the news. I suppose racism towards the zebras was fairly common for her. I had seen it plenty of times myself.

I quickly moved onto the next recording. There weren't many left.

“Shitshitshitshit! Fucking bastereds! This can't be happening!” Train Tracks panicked voice flared to life over the recording. “This is Train Tracks to Four Star! Damn it, come in! The doors fucking jammed! Damn it, Somepony pick up!”

“No pony is listening,” I heard Rail scowl from somewhere behind him. “And if they are, they aren’t coming back for us. They probably all holed themselves up in one of the bunkers.”

I heard a loud thud as Train Tracks slammed his hooves on the desk. “Shit! This can’t be happening! I don’t want to die! I can’t fucking do this!”

“Please get to the safety of your designated Stable!” A tinny and muffled voice rang out. I had heard this voice before, in the final recording from Silver Ace’s terminal. “This is not a drill! Repeat, this is not a drill!”

Train Tracks breathing became more panicked. “Celestia above!”

I heard Rail grab Train Tracks by the shoulders and give him a shake. “Get a hold of yourself. These metro tunnels were built by Four Star. We were expecting the attack. We might be okay…”

There was a boom. Even from hundreds of miles away, the sound was all consuming. Then there was another, and another. Screams began filtering through the recording. Long, howling screams. I could hear the sound of the walls shaking. The fast ticking of a geiger counter filled the small room. I had to quickly check to make sure it was the recording and not my pipbuck.

“Fuck! Shit! Damn! Fuck!” Train Tracks voice echoed over the din. “Celestia damn them! Please! Let me out!”

The recording ended. I just stared at the terminal for a second. That recording had been awful. My whole body was shaking just from listening to it. I could see Mirra trying to hide her face behind her translucent wings. It wasn’t working.

I didn’t want to hear the rest. We had found a corpse and a ghoul inside the room, I knew they would never get out. There were no happy endings to be found here.

I turned away to face the door, struggling a little as I tried to move past my friends in the close quarters. “Come on, let's keep following the friendship trail.

Brisk, Mirra and Heartbeat quickly nodded, filing out of the room to join Pyre outside. As I began to move away, I spotted Xayah standing before the terminal, her eyes still transfixed on the screen. I turned back to her.

“Xayah? You coming?”

Xayah didn’t look at me, instead keeping her focus on the audio logs. “Somepony needs to hear this through…” She said, her voice low. “They died here, and no pony knew. Somepony should remember...”

I glanced from The broken body of the ghoul to the symbol of four stars on the wall. “These were bad ponies, Xayah. I know they didn’t sound it on the recording, but they played a hoof in the zebras smuggling balefire bombs into the city.”

“They helped protect my people!” Xayah snapped, finally looking up from the terminal and to me. I was taken aback, it was unlike Xayah to lose her cool. It happened, but rarely. And I had never heard her refer to other zebras as her people before. Looking almost ashamed, Xayah looked back down at the terminal. “These were ponies that cared not if one bears stripes… I’m tired of ponies hating me for those…”

I took a nervous step forward. “I don’t hate you for those. In fact, I wouldn’t have you without them,” I started, unsure where this sudden burst of emotion from Xayah had come from.

Xayah cast me a sideways glance. “Wouldn’t you? I saw you when you first saved me from the cage all those moons ago. You feared me just as all ponies do. Perhaps you were better than most, but still… I’m tired of the stares when I am around other ponies. In Tenpony tower, half of the stores I tried to go too would not let me barter with them.”

I took yet another step towards her. My mind filled with guilty thoughts. She was right. When we had first met, I had considered leaving her to the mercy of raiders. All I had ever known of zebras were that they were the enemy of Equestria. But that wasn’t Xayah. Xayah was just as much one of the zebras that destroyed Manehattan as I was one of the ponies that mercilessly slaughtered zebras in the war.

I took a deep breath and moved back into the small room with Xayah. “I admit that I felt that way when we first met. In the stable all I knew of zebras was to hate them. Yes, I almost left you there, but I didn’t. I chose to save you. To get to know you. I’m glad I did. You’re one of the most amazing people I have ever met.”

Xayah’s hoof trembled as it hovered over the next audio log. She released a heavy sigh. “I wish all ponies shared such sentiments.”

I reached forwards and pushed the next audio log for her. “Come on. Let's listen to these together,” I said, standing next to her. “Let's remember them.”

The audio recording started out slow. Just long pained breaths. Finally, the voice of Train Tracks started up. His voice was ragged, as if his throat was filled with a layer of sand. “I figure no pony is going to get this message, but I’m sending it out just in case there is any pony left out there. We’re trapped in this room. We’re both sick and I don’t know how long we will last. Radiation is seeping in. Not a lot, it shouldn’t be lethal to us so long as we don't fall asleep. We don’t have any food. Probably will only last another day or so…” Train Tracks went into a coughing fit. It lasted for minutes. “Fuck… I’m not even talking to anypony… they’re all dead… Fuck me…”

The recording ended. Damn it, I didn’t want to hear this. But Xayah was right. Somepony had to remember them. They deserved that much. I reached forwards and pushed the next one.

“Rail is dead…” Train Tracks voice said over the recording. His voice was low and somber. “It… it was a slow death… she deserved better. She… She told me to…” I heard him break down into tears, wet, raspy cough breaking up the whimpering sobs. “She told me to eat her… she… she said I-I m-might be a-able to make it out if I got some food… I… Celestia damn me… I did it…”

I could feel my stomach clench up at the idea. Being locked in a room and forced to eat the corpse of your friend just to survive. It was horrible.

Xayah’s hoof was trembling more than ever. She took a heavy breath and glanced at the curled up skeleton in the corner of the small room. It was all too horrible. I put a hoof around her and pulled her close.

“I… fuck… I’ll probably make it a few more days thanks to her… please… if any pony hears this… I just want to get out… I want to see the sun again… I don’t want to die in here…”

Once again, the recording ended with a burst of static. I glanced down at the terminal. There was only one recording left. To my surprise it was dated almost a hundred years after the other ones. With a shaking hoof, I reached forwards and activated it.

“I don’t know how long it's been. Time passes slowly in here, but I know it's been more than a year now,” Train Tracks voice said. His voice was low and gravely, unquestionably a ghoul. “I don’t know what happened, but that radiation did something to me… I’m… I’m different now… I can't die… I don’t sleep, I don’t need food… I’m still hungry, but I don’t need food… guess I didn’t need to eat whoever that mare was… I don’t even remember her name any more…”

My whole body felt heavy. I had seen horrors in the wasteland. Witnessed fates far worse than any death. But this was beyond anything I could have imagined. To be stuck in the same room for eternity, to be forced to eat your best friend to survive, only to find out you didn’t need to, to forget her name… it was horrible…

“I don’t know why I’m recording this,” Train Track continued. “I think I used to do this all the time, back before all this… I guess… I guess I just wanted somepony to know… To know what happened here. Somepony needs to find this place eventually, right…” He sighed. It was a painful sound. “I’ll probably still be here when you find this… and when you do… whoever you are… I want you to kill me… I don’t want to be alive anymore… I just can’t bring myself to do it… I… Uh… I don’t know what my name is, but… What am I doing… no pony is going to find this… fuck…”

The final recording ended. Xayah and I stared at the terminal. I almost expected there to be more. There wasn’t. What else was there for Train Tracks to say.

With a sigh, I moved over to Rail's skeleton and gingerly hauled her onto my back. The broken bones scratched at my back.

“Amber, what are you doing?” Xayah asked, looking over at me as I tried to balance myself with the weight of the skeleton on my back.

“I’m going to bury them,” I said flatly. “Not down here… they deserve better than that. I’m going to bury them outside.”

Xayah nodded and moved to lift the corpse of Train Tracks ghoul onto her own back. I was about to follow her out when I spotted a memory orb lying next to where Rail's skeleton had lain. I picked it up in my hooves and stuffed it into my saddlebags to watch later. We had spent enough time here already. It was time to get moving.

“Do I even want to ask?” Pyre asked, looking Xayah and I over as we re-approached the group with the two corpses slung over our backs. I quickly explained what we were doing to her. Pyre let out a long sigh. “You want to carry two corpses all the way through the metro?” When our faces made it clear that we did, Pyre gave a loud groan. “Alright, let's strap them to my back, I’ll be able to carry them faster than you two.”

I gave her a grateful look and moved to strap them to her back. Mirra quickly fluttered off of Pyre’s back and helped us tie down the two bodies.

“You guys might want to hurry up!” I heard Brisk shout from down the tunnel. “I’m picking up red bars on my EFS.”

I glanced down at my pipbuck. Sure enough it was swarming with red bars. So many in fact that I couldn’t tell where one bar ended and the other started. We had had so few encounters down here so far that I had forgotten that the metro was widely considered one of the most dangerous places in Manehattan.

“Ghouls,” I heard Heartbeat growl as the sound of wailing screams started echoing up the metro tunnels towards us.

I saw the first ghoul round the corner and start crawling towards us. I froze. All the muscles in my body locked up and I suddenly found it hard to breath.

This was like no ghoul I had ever seen. It looked more akin to something I might have found below the Hollow Shades than here in Manehattan. It was vaguely pony with peeled, rotting, bloated flesh in place of fur. Multiple limbs stuck out of it from odd angles, twisting hooves stretching from its sides, misshapen and lopsided wings sprouted from its back and gnarled unicorn horns protruded from its head. It's tongue had grown far longer than it should have, twisting from its mouth and dragging along the ground. The tongue had flayed and warped, looking more like a writhing mass of tentacles than a pony tongue.

Pyre’s flamers burst to life incinerating the monstrosity before it could get any closer. The second it fell, I found myself suddenly able to move again, as if looking at it had frozen me in place. A terrible stench started wafting from the charred body of the strange ghoul, filling the area and swirling into my nostrils. I gagged. I vomited. My body went weak and my head felt dizzy from the foul stench alone. I could tell my friends were having similar reactions.

“W-What the fuck was that!” I gasped, reeling back. “W-wha.. I… what the fuck!”

“Shit, what are they doing all the way out here?” I heard Heartbeat gasp, stumbling away from the tunnel where we could still hear the howls of more of those approaching… things.

Brisk cast him a glance. “You’ve seen things like that before?”

Heartbeat nodded. “I encountered something similar in a hospital out in Old Olneigh. They’re some sort of taint creature that causes a sort of paralysis by looking at them. That one though seems different somehow…”

Pyre gave a small snort. “Taint. Figures. Nothing else could create something so… well that…”

I glanced around at my companions. “So, do we fight them?”

Heartbeat gave me a look of horror. “Are you kidding? You can't fight that many and not look at them… no, we run. We run really damn fast.”

Then there was a roar. A loud billowing roar that echoed up from the depth of the tunnel. The wall of the metro shook at the sound and chunks of cement rained down around us as something huge charged down one of the tunnels outside our line of sight. A couple of red bars winked out on my EFS.

I gulped. “Yeah… let's run!”

Thankfully, the Friendship Trail seemed to lead us away from the terrifying abominations and whatever had caused that huge roar. Unfortunately, there seemed to be more of those vile horrors down this way too.

I dropped my head to look at the ground as I saw one of the horrifying creatures start to crawl out from behind one of the corners. Once again, Pyre’s flamers roared to life and burned it to a crisp. This things were terrifying and defiantly dangerous in large groups, but they thankfully seemed to be incredibly dumb and easy to kill if you could get a hit on them.

Behind us, I could still hear the pained wails as the strange horrors gave chase. They didn’t seem overly fast, limping and scrambling over the rough terrain with their twisted and broken limbs, but they gave us good incentive not to slow down.

As we rushed forwards, my pipbuck began clicking furiously at me, warning me that we had entered a large area of radiation. I recalled what Pyre had said. There were areas in the metro where radiation had pooled. I was getting reminded of why the metro was considered to be so dangerous.

“Radiation! Go, go!” Brisk shouted, stating what I had already figured out and demanding what I was only seconds away from ordering myself. We all quickened our pace.

The clicking of my geiger counter didn’t go away, it just kept clicking faster and faster as we charged down the long tunnel. How far down this tunnel did the pooling radiation go? I dared myself to check my pipbuck rad meter. I was suffering from severe radiation poisoning. We would all need a radaway after this.

Behind me, I could hear the sound of squishy hooves scuttling over the broken, debris covered floor of the tunnel behind us. I could smell the stench of the horrors as they surged into the tunnel behind us.

I made a mistake. I looked behind me. I froze.

Hundreds of horrifying, twisted ghoul like creatures were crawling towards us, their long tentacle tongues writhed and squirmed as if reaching for me. I felt Xayah pulling me away, trying to get me out of the radioactive area and away from those awful things.

I tried to move and help her get me away from them, but I couldn’t. I was frozen, immobilized.

The creatures drew closer, their tentacles finally coming within range. I felt the slimy, snake-like appendages slithering around me and dragging me forwards. I wanted to scream, but again, I found myself unable.

Xayah’s sniper fired towards them. The shot missed, her aim dramatically lessened by her inability to look at them without becoming immobilized herself.

Tentacle reached out and wrapped around her as well. Xayah twisted, trying to break free. Her gaze landed on one of the horrors that was scrambling towards her. Like me, she froze.

The tentacles pulling me towards the monstrosities twisted me to face the ground, temporarily moving my sight from the awful creatures and onto the roof. My paralysis broke. I screamed.

It wasn’t a dignifying scream. I sounded like a little filly, fearing the dark and crying for her mother. I suppose… I suppose when you look past everything I had been through, that actually was what I was.

I felt tentacles beginning to slither up my hind legs. The tips of the tentacles opened up, oozing a thick white fluid as if they were a cockroach giving birth. I suddenly had the terrible realization that they weren’t just trying to eat me, they were trying to… oh goddesses!

I felt one of the slimy tendrils push up against my pelvis. I thrashed, screaming. I couldn’t do this! This was too much!

Brisk leapt over me, his pistol firing off a shot into the monster that held me before falling frozen to the ground himself. I felt the tentacles recoil as the bullet pierced the creatures brain and dropped it to the ground, dead.

Now free, and with a slightly more clear mind, I raised my combat shotgun in my magic and blasted at the creature that held Xayah. The monster was pulped, vile yellow fluid erupted from the tattered stump where its head used to be.

Xayah scampered back, her paralysis finally over.

I kept my gaze down, knowing hundreds more were still scuttling down the tunnel towards us. I wrapped Brisk in a field of magic and pulled him away, allowing him to come back to his senses.

A wall of flame spewed over us as Pyre rushed to our aid. Her head was low, doing her best to take out the creatures without looking at them. Thankfully for her, unlike the rest of us who had to aim with our weapons to shoot at something, all Pyre had to do was face their general direction and let her flamers do the rest.

“Go!” The power armoured raider shouted, trying to be heard over the pained wails and bursts of her flamers. “Get out of the radiation, I’ll be fine.”

I saw a pale blue glow start pulsing from around the corner that the strange monsters had been coming from. A blood curdling roar reached my ears, making my ears ring in pain. Whatever other terrifying creature was in these tunnels with us, was still there.

I turned and started running down the hall, Brisk and Xayah close behind me. Heartbeat and Mirra had already moved ahead, darting around the far corner and out of sight.

I saw one of the twisted horrors emerge from a side tunnel. Without looking, I raised my combat shotgun and fired. From the sound of bursting flesh and blood splattering against the wall, I knew I hit it.

We rounded the corner. Up ahead, I saw both Heartbeat and Mirra standing frozen, their eyes locked on something down a side hall I couldn’t see. I rushed forwards and jumped in front of them, making sure not to look the direction they were.

With their view broken from what I had surmised to be another of the tortured looking creatures, Mirra and Heartbeat staggered back, freed from their frozen state.

I pointed down the tunnel that the red line of the Friendship Trail went down. “Come on! This way!”

Before we could start moving down the tunnel, I felt whatever creature Mirra and Heartbeat had been looking at start wrapping its fleshy tendrils around me from behind. Panicking, I levitated my combat shotgun up and fired blindly behind me. There was a horrific ripping noise, accompanied by a manic wail, and the tendrils fell away.

Pyre burst around the corner frantically, her flamers spewing jets of flames at a few of the strange horrors that still chased after her. “Run! Go go go!” She screamed, pushing past us and down the tunnel I had indicated. There was a fear in her voice that hadn’t been there before.

Not needing to be told twice, I started rushing after her, the rest of my friends following close behind. “Pyre? What is going on?” I yelled, putting all of my effort into running.

“That thing we heard roaring!” Pyre started, leaping over a collapsed area of ruble in the middle of the tunnel. “It’s a fucking Ursa minor!”

I glanced around at my friends, not knowing what that was. Brisk looked just as confused. Xayah on the other hoof, was wide eyed and trembling. “Star spawn…” her voice trembled with fear.

Another monstrous roar bellowed up at us from the darkness. I saw a few more red bars on my EFS go out. I could feel the metro tunnels shaking as the unseen star spawn thundered down the tunnels.

Heartbeat came to a stop and gestured down a side tunnel to our right. Down the tunnel sat a large metal door with the symbol of four stars on it. “Come on, let's hide in there!” He shouted, moving down the side tunnel. “We need to get out of this tunnel.”

“But we’ll lose the Friendship Trail!” I said, hesitating to follow.

“We can find it again later, right now we need to not die!” Heartbeat shot back, continuing to move towards the large metal door.

The booming sound of the Star Spawn reverberated around the tunnel as it grew closer. I could feel my whole body vibrating as it unleashed another horrific roar.

Pyre rushed past me, ushering Mirra along. “This is a Star Spawn, Amber. You don’t fight a fucking Star Spawn.”

“Amber! Move!” Xayah shouted, pulling up behind me and pushing me towards the large metal door. Xayah’s words finally convinced me. I bolted towards what I had begun to realize was the Four Star bunker Train Tracks and Rail had mentioned. It was made to survive a balefire bomb, surely it would keep us safe from whatever a Star Spawn was.

We all threw ourselves into the bunker. Thankfully, the bunker door seemed to be unlocked.

Once we had all piled into the bunker, Brisk tapped his hoof on the large door. It wasn’t even close to as secure as a Stable door, but it was still one of the most heavy duty doors I had seen in the wasteland. “Shouldn’t this thing have been locked?” Brisk questioned.

“Maybe nopony ever got inside,” I suggested, glancing out of the crack in the door to the dark tunnel we had just left. I saw the immense form of some strange beast dart past the entrance with alarming speed. Whatever that Star Spawn was, it was huge.

I took a deep breath, suddenly very thankful that we had decided to hide from that monster.

Heartbeat tapped me on the shoulder to get my attention. “If this is a bunker, chances are that there are medical supplies somewhere in here. Assuming this place hasn't been looted already. We should probably stock up if we can. And we are all in need of some radaway.”

I gave him a nod and turned to face the bunker beyond. It split off into three separate hallways, each sealed by a sliding metal door. “I don’t know how big this bunker is. We'll be able to cover more ground if we split up,” I looked around at all of my friends. "We’ll go in groups of two. Make sure each group has access to an EFS so that we can track each other down once we find medical supplies.”

Brisk glanced at his pipbuck. “Uh… Amber? That might be an issue…”

Raising an eyebrow I glanced down at my own pipbuck. Nothing. It showed nothing. Not a single green or red bar was on my EFS. I bit my lower lip nervously. This was just perfect… I glanced at my radio frequencies next. Again nothing. All the stations had been replaced with a low frequency that my ears couldn’t seem to pick up.

I groaned. “Alright, how about we meet back here in one hour. That should be more than long enough to search the whole area and the Pipbuck clock at least still works.”

They all gave quick nods of agreement. Pyre and Mirra began moving down the hallway to the left. Heartbeat and Brisk to the right. I turned to Xayah, gesturing for her to follow me down the central passage.

The bunker was uncomfortably silent. It wasn’t uncommon for the wasteland to be quiet, but true silence was uncommon. The only sounds we could hear were the slow rhythmic clopping of our hooves as Xayah and I moved down the dark corridor. There were no ponies in sight, not even bodies. Clearly no pony had managed to make it into the bunker before the bombs went off.

“So what exactly is a star spawn?” I asked, deciding I didn’t want to walk in silence anymore. We passed a couple of long abandoned rooms. They had been ransacked. The small, grey beds and few pieces of furniture lay on their sides, torn and ripped apart.

Xayah cast me a nervous glance. “Zebras believe they are monsters sent down from the stars to wreak havoc upon pony and zebra kind,” She said slowly, glancing behind her as if expecting to see the Star Spawn looming behind us. “They are greatly feared among zebras, as they should be.”

This was not the first time I had heard about the Zebras beliefs in things beyond the stars, but as we walked, I began to realize how little I actually knew about the whole thing. “The Stars…” I started, not quite sure how to approach the topic. “...What exactly do the zebras believe are out there?”

Xayah cast me another nervous look. I could tell talking about the stars was not something she was particularly fond of doing. “Zebras believe that there are many things beyond the stars. Most so vast our mortal minds would be unable to comprehend. Evil things. Things that enjoy meddling in our lives. Giving us the tools to craft our own destruction.”

I could feel a tremor run through me at that. I couldn’t say I believe in such things, but the universe was big. Far bigger than I had ever imagined in my small, claustrophobic Stable. Who knew what else was out there. If evil could exist in Equestria, why not beyond the stars?

“And what do you believe?” I finally decided to ask as we passed yet another ruined room that looked like it was supposed to be some sort of kitchen. Clearly we were not the first ponies to be here.

Xayah thought about that for a second. “I am unsure of what is beyond the stars. I do not believe that our beliefs are fully true, but I would have to be a fool to think they are unfounded. Something lies past the stars and moon, and it is not friendly. Just look at Nightmare Moon.”

That pulled me up short. “Wh-what is that supposed to mean?” I scowled. “Princess Luna overcame Nightmare Moon. She became a better pony!”

“Indeed,” Xayah nodded in agreeance. “But one must wonder how Luna became Nightmare Moon to begin with. Many believe she was driven by jealousy or even greed. That it was all some sort of metal break… but neither of those things come with physical transformations.”

I decided to stop the conversation there. The idea that Equestria’s princess had been controlled by some strange star god was terrifying beyond what I wanted to think about.

Snip. Snip. Snip.

The silence of the tunnel was interrupted. I came to a halt, my ears perking up as I tried to pinpoint the sound.

Snip. Snip. Snip.

Xayah came to a stop as well, her ears picking up the strange noise too. She crouched down, her hooves silently pulling out her sniper.

She glanced at me. “What do you suppose that is?” she whispered.

I stilled for a second, listening to the sound. In the silence it wasn’t hard to pinpoint where it was coming from. I gestured for Xayah to follow me as I moved up to an open doorway down the hallway and glanced inside.

Snip. Snip. Snip.

The good news was that we had found the medical bay. The bad news was that it was occupied.

The first thing I noticed were the chains. They hung from the roof and walls, ending in jagged and rusted meat hooks. From them hung tattered bits of rotting flesh, some looking blackened enough to be days or even months old while others still dripped fresh with blood. Even whole pony and zebra corpses hung from the hooks, strung up like lights on hearth's warming eve. The corpses looked as if they had once belonged to ghouls, but they had twisted and mutated, crooked wings, horns and extra limbs protruding from their bodies in places they really shouldn’t.

Gulping, I let my eyes fall to the floor, hoping to look away from the ghastly sight. The horrors of the room had other ideas.

The floor was soaked in a thick layer of blood and pony innereds. The discarded remains of the tentacled horrors in the metro tunnels lay scattered across the floor, cut open with surgical precision, their insides spewing out to join the viscera that coated the floor.

Multiple radios lay around the room. Each one of them was on, but seemed to be broadcasting nothing.

A blue alicorn stood in the center of the room, leaning over the writhing body of a pegasus ghoul that she had apparently strapped to the table. The ghoul looked past the point of feral, its ragged body covered in gashes and pus filled blisters. It squirmed desperately as the alicorn lowered a pair of scalpels towards its stomach and continued slowly slicing it open.

Snip. Snip. Snip.

I had to put a hoof over my mouth to keep from vomiting again. Beside me, I could see Xayah looking more pale than usual.

Trying my best not to scream, I raised my combat shotgun. Beside me, Xayah levelled her silenced sniper, aiming the weapon towards the alicorn. The alicorn's guard was down and she was facing away from us, we had a chance to take her out quickly before she spotted us.

I readied myself to fire.

The alicorn leaned back a little, admiring her handiwork on the thrashing ghoul. The ghoul had been pulled open completely, the flesh where its stomach had been pulled aside in a gruesome fashion.

“Ah, you are perfect!” The alicorn said, a hint of gleeful pride in her voice. Her words made me pause. They weren’t in my head like when most alicorns talked, she was just talking… normally.

Well… normal as an alicorn talking to a tied down captive while they slice them open can be I suppose.

The alicorn's horn flared and a small bucket full of some sloshing liquid levated out of the corner of the room to hover above the thrashing ghoul. “Hold still now, you are going to be beautiful!” The alicorn squeed, doing a happy little dance on the spot.

The bucket tipped. Rainbow fluid splashed out, filling the hole the alicorn had cut open.

The alicorn was filling the ghoul up with I.M.P!? Or Taint, as Heartbeat had called it. That was insane? Or was it... Does taint even affect alicorns?

The ghoul began to squirm more, thrashing violently as its insides filled with the vile fluids. A thick sizzling steam rose from where the taint touched the creatures rotting skin and the overpowering stench of rot filled the air.

The ghouls body began to morph, twisting and bloating into something horrible. Its tongue lolled from its mouth, warping and splitting into a mass of squirming tentacle. I felt my whole body lock up just by looking at the thing. Not freeze completely, but enough that I could feel my breathing slow.

This alicorn was doing more than just torture and experiment on ghouls. She was creating those monsters!

The alicorn sighed and stomped her hoof on the ground. “NO! Nonono! That's still not right at all!” The blue aura around the alicorns horn enveloped the nightmare on her table. There was the chilling sound of crunching bones, then a sickening pop as the creature's body collapsed in on itself, shriveling up until it was only the size of my hoof. The alicorn tossed the shriveled up body aside, letting it slump to the floor in a bloody mess with the rest of the corpses. “You are all lucky there we lots of you down here! I’ll perfect it soon! I know I will! I just need to try a few more experiments! I’ll get it!”

I had seen enough. I motioned for Xayah to take the shot. The zebra gave a grim nod and leveled the sniper at the crazed alicorns head. The side of the metal sniper tapped against the wall, a small ring chiming out in the eerie silence of the bunker.

The alicorn froze. Her eyes darted from the shriveled corpse on the ground to us by the door. Her smile widened.

In the blink of an eye, the alicorn flickered out of view. Xayah’s sniper fired, her bullet whizzing through the air and striking the wall the alicorn had stood in front of only seconds before.

I pushed myself away from the doorframe, my combat shotgun ready for when the alicorn would teleport back. I made a mistake. I assumed it had teleported.

A hoof swung out of nowhere and slammed into my head. I stumbled back, my head reeling from the impact.

Xayah spun around, trying to pinpoint where the strike had come from. I saw a shimmer of air as the invisible alicorn moved up behind her. I called out a warning, but I was too late. The alicorn knocked the sniper from Xayah’s grasp, the weapon flying away and skidding across the floor.

Xayah managed to dodge the next strike, Celestia only knows how while she was unable to see her attacker.

The alicorn flickered back into view, her horn glowing as she blasted a beam of blue light at Xayah. The laser stuck her square in the breast, knocking her back to the ground breathless.

I staggered forwards, trying to bring my combat shotgun to bear. The alicorn scoffed, her telekinesis easily ripping the shotgun from me, her magic vastly superior to my own.

“Did you really think you could sneak up on me?” The alicorn soothed, lowering her head to look me in the eye.

I faltered at that. “Me? Don’t you alicorns refer to yourselves as us and we or some shit?”

The blue alicorn seemed amused by that. Her amused expression slipped away when my hoof flew out and slapped her across the face. She stumbled back, a dumbfounded look of shock across her face that I would dare slap her. She snarled.

A blast of energy from her horn slammed into me, toppling me over and sending me crashing to the wall. My head thumped against the metal surface, making me see stars.

I rolled back to my hooves, my vision blurry and fractured. I sagged forward on my right forehoof. It felt sprained, though thankfully not broken.

The alicorn loomed over me, a scowl etched across her features. Xayah's unconscious body levitated beside her, the alicorns magic tight around her throat.

I stumbled forwards to swing at the monster again, only for a beam of light from the alicorns horn to blast me again. I stumbled backwards, reaching a hoof to my chest where the beam of light had struck me. Thankfully, it seemed my ballistic weave enhanced barding was warding off most of the damage.

Then I felt the alicorn's magic wrap around my heart. This wasn’t the first time I had felt the alicorns try this trick on me, but this time I was too weak to stop them.

A shooting pain shot through my body as my heart came to a very sudden stop. My already splintered vision began to swarm with black and the silence of the bunker was filled with a muffled ringing that flooded into my ears.

I dropped to the ground, my body limp. Then the blackness overtook me and I drifted into nothingness.

I awoke strapped face down to a table. Panic flared through me and I jerked against my bindings as I tried to free myself. The thick straps that held me down refused to budge.

I let my eyes dart around the room. I was still in the medical bay, surrounded by the gore and corpses dangling from meat hooks. I could see the shrivelled up remains of the ghoul pony the alicorn had been experimenting on lying only a few feet away.

Across the room I spotted a desk. The surface was covered in an assortment of different medial tools, syringes, scalpels. I could feel more fear sinking in as I spotted things such as bone saws and drills amongst the tools.

The alicorn was still in the room, slowly filling a syringe full of what I could only assume was taint. She glanced over at me, her blood soaked face twisting into an awful grin.

“Ah, you’re awake! Perfect,” The alicorn lifted a scalpel up off the desk and began floating it over to me. I began trying to thrash against my binding harder, but to no effect. “You should be honored. I think I’ve finally cracked the equation. You are going to be my first new alicorn!” the alicorn paused and thought about something for a second. “Well, I probably got it right this time. I don’t have any proof yet.”

I gawked at her, my surprise making me temporarily forget about trying to escape my bindings. She was trying to create her own alicorns! That was… impossible!

I recalled the tentacled horrors of the metro. They had been covered in wings and horns. Some of them had looked as if they had been sewn on while others had seemed to have grown them on their own.

Maybe creating alicorns wasn’t impossible, but still. This was insane.

“Where is Xayah!?” I finally managed to get out through my fear. “What did you do to her!”

The alicorn almost looked offended. The scalpel levitated away from me a little as the alicorn put a hoof to her breast in mock offence. “Why on earth would I do something to her? Like you, she will become one of my children. You two will be the first. The first of many!”

I tried to reach out and grapple the scalpel away from the alicorn with my magic, only to find that I couldn’t. I glanced down at my pipbuck. It was marred with scratches. Clearly the alicorn had tried to remove it to no avail. It was flashing warnings of severe rad poisoning. I could feel my body go even weaker just by looking at it.

I was in no state to use magic.

“Oh yes little pony, I will create my own unity!” The alicorn continued, smiling gleefully at her own words. “But unlike the goddess, my unity will be all consuming. Ponies, zebras, even dragons will become a part of the collective! As soon as I crack the equation that is.”

The scalpel began descending towards me again. I tried to pull myself away, but I was strapped down too tightly. “But… can’t the goddess already make alicorns?” I questioned, hoping there was some way for me to stall. I had to keep her talking until my friends could find me. Hopefully I had been unconscious long enough that they had realised something was up. My question however, didn’t seem to make the descent of the scalpel slow any.

“Ha!” The alicorn laughed, her face showing clear signs of enjoying the conversation. I wondered how long it had been since this alicorn had talked to somepony. “The goddess has no power over me here. That radio frequency blocks her influence.” she gestured to the radios that scattered the medical bay.

I started putting this together in my mind. I had noticed a strange frequency when we had first entered the bunker. A frequency I couldn’t hear, but that if I had to make a guess, was also somehow blocking our EFS’ from working. Furthermore, the hellhound mind control devices Star Breeze had been working on, at least with the older models, had had a radio broadcaster built into it. Perhaps they were the same frequency? One that could meddle with and confuse brain waves somehow?

My thoughts exploded in my head as I felt the sharp scalpel press against my back just above my foreleg. The blade burned as it sliced through my skin, no doubt the blade was laced with some corrosive substance. I could feel the scalpel digging deep, the tip scratching against bone.

I glanced back, wincing as I felt the blade withdraw from the deep laceration. Blood was spilling from my back and a large gash had opened up.

I could see the alicorn smirking above me as she levateded up the corpse of a green pegasus ghoul. Her horn flared and with a crack, the corpse's wings snapped off, the body falling back to the blood soaked floor.

The wing lowered, the jagged chunk of bone slipping into the laceration on my side. I screamed, feeling the sharp edge slicing into my muscles. I tried to yank myself free, only to find the alicorns magic envelope me as well and keep me still.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the alicorn raise her taint filled syringe up. I felt a spiking pain as the needle penetrate above the newly implanted wing. The dose was small, not nearly enough to be lethal, but it was enough for the alicorns purposes. I could feel my insides begin to squirm, the muscle around the ghouls' wing beginning to writhe and wrap around the bone as if the wing had always been there. I felt my skin around the wound begin to close up, welding the new appendage permanently to my side.

I felt sick and wrong, and not just because I could feel a small dose of taint flowing through my veins. This was a violation of who I was.

I dared myself to look at the wing. It was crooked, having not been placed perfectly flush with my back. The tattered green feathers contrasted starkly with my pink hide, making the twisted limb look visibly wrong.

My gut clenched. I screamed. My stomach was doing violent somersaults and at some point I had vomited, covering the blood stained mattress I lay on in my own filth.

The blue alicorn smirked, slowly walking around to the other side of me. More fear gripped me as I felt the scalpel start to once again dig into my flesh as the alicorn made room for a second wing. As soon as the new hole was large enough for the alicorn's liking, she levitated over the next wing and painfully slid it into its spot.

I continued screaming in protest, my vision beginning to grow fuzzy from the pain and blood loss. I could feel the needle once again inside me pumping me full of a small dose of taint, making my insides twist and convulse.

Something was gnawing away at me from the inside as if my intestines were filled with hungry maggots. I could feel the muscle and flesh growing back in and around the newly placed wing, locking it into place.

“There we go, was that so hard?” I heard the alicorn chuckle above me. Her voice sounded distant and muffled. The blood loss and contamination of taint in my veins was quickly sending me back towards unconsciousness. Though this time, I feared I wouldn’t wake up from it.

I felt the alicorn's magic wrap around the straps holding me down. There was a click, and suddenly I was able to move my limbs again.

Using what little strength I had left, I pushed myself forwards, trying to reach for and strangle the alicorn. I was too weak. I fell, landing face first in the blood soaked floor with a groan.

Once again, I felt the alicorn's magic take hold of me and raise me into the air, strapping me back to the table, this time face up.

I forced myself to open my eyes, taking in the scalpel that hovered over my stomach. My eyes went wide. Beside the scalpel floated a small bucket of sloshing rainbow fluid. I wasn’t just becoming an alicorn! I was becoming one of those… things!

The scalpel lowered. The tip of the blade began to slice into my belly.

“Maybe if you let me check your wounds I might be able to heal them,” it was Heartbeats voice. His words were accompanied by a collection of hoofsteps coming towards us from down the hall. Among them I could hear Brisk's distinct limp and the heavy thud of Pyre’s power armour.

“I don’t want you to fix them,” I heard Pyre scowl back. “They’re a part of me. They remind me not to make the same fuck ups again.”

I felt myself going limp with relief. They were coming. They would save me!

Now sprawled on my back, I was able to get a clear view of the alicorns blood soaked face. She was grinning. Why was she… oh goddesses!

The alicorn glanced down at me, her gleeful expression still sprawled across her face. Her head lowered so her mouth was only an inch or two from my ear. “I see you brought more friends to join my own personal unity,” She whispered, so quiet that only I could hear her.

Before I could scream a warning, the alicorn slipped a rope gag into my mouth with her magic, silencing me completely. She took a step back raising a hoof to her lips as if to tell me to be quiet. Then, she flickered out of view with her freaky invisibility spell.

I lay there helplessly, listening to the sound of my friends hoofsteps getting closer. I could feel my gut twisting, but I couldn’t tell if it was out of fear or my rapidly mutating insides caused by the taint.

Heartbeat turned into the room first. He was looking behind him as he talked to Pyre, not looking at the room he was entering.

I managed to make a muffled scream like noise through my gag. Heartbeats head picked up, looking at me from across the bloodsoaked room. His eyes went wide as he took in my state.

The alicorn was beside him before he could get his bearings. The monster's horn flared, blasting a beam of energy into Heartbeat and sending him skidding across the room. The monster took a step back, swiftly getting out of the way of Pyre’s attack as the power armoured raider charged into the room.

Heartbeat landed next to me, his lab grey hide and lab coat now soaked in blood. He looked up at me with pained eyes, his expression distant as he tried to shake off the dizziness of getting thrown to the ground so hard.

Blam.

I heard Brisk’s pistol fire, but the alicorn’s shield was already up. The shot ricocheted off the magic shield, embedding itself in the wall beside me.

Pyre’s flamers burst to life, smothering the alicorn's shield in flame. The fire washed over the alicorn, her shield making it look like the room held a giant ball of fire in the center. The flame subsided, and the alicorn stepped out. Completely unharmed due to her powerful shield.

Once more, the alicorn flickered out of view. Both Brisk and Pyre reeled back, trying to spot the invisible intruder.

Horror shot through me as I saw the splashes of invisible hooves in the blood soaked floor. She was heading towards Heartbeat who still lay dazed next to me.

I bit at the cloth gag in my mouth, trying to call out a warning to him. I felt the gag loosen a little. Not completely, but enough to choke out a few words. “Heartbeat! Behind…” The rest of my sentence was muffled by the gag, but I got the point across.

Heartbeats eyes flickered behind him. He couldn’t see the approaching alicorn, but he didn’t need to. If she was invisible, it meant she didn’t have her shield up.

Heartbeats pink aura of magic wrapped around the scalpel that lay next to me where the alicorn had left it and swung it in a frantic slash behind him. Blood spurted out across the room as the sharp blade dug deep into the invisible alicorns throat.

The alicorn flashed back into sight, her forehooves clutching at the large gash in her neck. Blood spilled down her front, making her dark blue coat a sickening black. She stumbled backwards, her eyes wide as she tried to mend her throat with a healing spell before she drowned in her own blood.

Pyre never gave her that opportunity. Her flamers roared to life, dousing the alicorn in fire. The alicorns magic imploded, the pain of being burned alive breaking her away from her concentration. She floundered in her own blood, beating at her coat desperately as she tried to put out the flames.

The air filled with the smell of burning flesh. After a few long minutes of torment, the alicorn fell to the ground, lifeless.

Heartbeat was by my side in a second, his hooves frantically pulling off my gag and looking over my body. His eyes filled with horror as he saw the grotesque pair of wings that now stretched awkwardly from my back.

“How the hell did she…” Heartbeat stammered, his pink mane falling into his face as he took in my new appendages.

“Taint…” I managed to croak out through my pain. I could see the nurses eyes widen even more at that. He mouthed the words, as if not fully believing what he was hearing and seeing. I gulped, my body feeling terribly violated. “Is… is there anything you can do?”

Heartbeat nodded solemnly. “I know a spell that can cleanse a pony of taint. I’m not as good at it as Helpinghoof or Life Bloom, so there may be some lasting side effects, but I should be able to reverse most of the damage,” He glanced in sickening horror at the wings sprouting from my back. “And I can amputate the wings, but we don’t have any pain medication… it's going to hurt.”

I put on the bravest face that I could. Heartbeat could clearly see straight through it. “Just do it. I’ll be fine…” I wouldn’t be fine. I doubted I would sleep peacefully ever again after this nightmare… not that I ever slept peacefully to begin with. Maybe Crank would protect me from my nightmares, assuming that was the sort of thing he could do.

Heartbeat quickly turned back to face Brisk and Pyre who were both gawking at my rotting set of wings. “You two! Search for healing potions. Pain medication! Anything you can find.”

That quickly snapped them out of their trance. They quickly scurried off, looking through anything that might contain medication.

Heartbeat lowered his horn and pressed the tip to my breast. His horn began to glow a brilliant pink. I could feel my insides begin slowly shifting back into place as his magic did its work. My shoulders suddenly felt heavy as the taint pulsing through them was sucked inwards and towards Heartbeats horn.

The pink magic around Heartbeats horn began to change, first darkening as if it were water filled with mud. Then bits of rainbow ooze seeped out of my skin, floating in the air above me. He levitated over a bucket and dumped the fluid inside.

I suddenly felt like I could breathe again. I still felt sick and feverish, and something inside of me felt fundamentally wrong, but my innards didn’t seem to be moving around inside me anymore. I looked up at Heartbeat, giving him the most thankful looking smile I could. I think it ended up looking more like a grimace.

“Can you roll onto your front Amber?” Heartbeat said, his face looking just as grim as mine. “I need to get to your… uh… your wings…”

I took a deep breath and rolled onto my stomach. It took a lot more work than such an action should have.

Heartbeat reached out and placed a hoof on one of my rotting wings. To my horror, I actually felt his hoof on my new appendage. The wings had been more than just fused to me, they had become a part of me!

Brisk and Pyre quickly approached, each carrying a large stash of healing potions and other chems. They dropped them off on the desk next to Heartbeat. I saw Brisk hesitate as he laid a package of Buck down on the table, but he managed to quickly pull himself away.

After doing little more than glance at the collection of chems, Heartbeat levitated over the bone saw that rested across the room from us. I gulped as I watched the jagged blade draw closer. For a second I was tempted to tell Heartbeat to stop. I mean, would having wings really be that bad?

The answer, of course, was yes. These weren’t just pegasus wings, these were rotting remains. I doubted I’d be able to fly with them and if I just left them in they would no doubt cause severe infections. Even now I could feel the muscles in my shoulder convulsing and writhing around the jagged wing bones. Whether as a result of the alicorn's experimentation or simple exposure, these wings had been infected with taint. If I didn’t remove them now, they would slowly kill me.

I realized with horror that the alicorn had been very very far away from perfecting that equation she had been talking about. Her experimentation on me was more likely to kill me or mutate me into one of those vile tentacle horrors then turn me into an alicorn.

I felt Heartbeat tapping his hoof against mine to get my attention. I glanced up at him, my eyes clearly displaying my horror. “Amber… it might be best if… Well…” he bit his lip for a second, trying to figure out how to say what he needed to. “It might be best if I strap you down. I’ll need you to be still to perform the surgery.”

I gave a very grim nod. Heartbeat exhaled deeply and began strapping down my hooves, but he didn’t seem very happy about it. he quickly glanced at Brisk. "Administer two tablets of this. it should ease the pain somewhat."

Brisk slowly moved up in front of me, kneeling down so that we were face to face. “Hey,” he said, trying to draw my attention away from the grotesque wings protruding from my spine. He held up two tablets of buck. I opened my mouth and let him feed them to me. “You’re going to be okay, got it?”

I forced myself to smile. “I’ve been through worse,” I said back slowly. I could feel myself trying to bite back tears. “If the MAS tower didn’t break me, nothing can. Right?”

“Right,” Brisk grinned back, though I could tell from his eyes that he didn’t seem to think so.

He stood up to move away. I panicked, calling out to him. “Brisk wait!” He paused, one hoof raised mid step. “Could you stay with me for this… I don’t want to be alone right now,” I knew I wasn’t alone either way, but I wanted him to be closer to me for this. Something about how the wings were violating me and the incoming pain I could almost feel approaching were making me a little more scared than I wanted to admit.

Brisk didn’t even hesitate. He moved back to me and wrapped me in a big hug, making sure to keep his hooves well away from the vile wings and out of Heartbeat’s way. “It’s all going to be okay,” He reassured me again, tightening his grip a little.

Then the surgery began. The bone saw dug into my flesh and bone, slicing away at the first wing. It was slow, and it hurt. A lot.

I went to bite down on my hoof to keep from screaming. My hooves were tied down. Instead I bit into Brisk’s foreleg. He winced as my teeth dug into his hide, but he didn’t protest. He just sat there, one hoof clamped in my mouth and the other gently stroking my mane.

The first wing fell away, leaving little more than a smooth stump where it used to be. I forced myself to look anywhere but the bleeding stump as Heartbeat began to remove the bone that had been lodged into my side. I could feel the squishy pop as the bone was pulled out.

“Pyre, apply pressure here and tend to the bleeding while I deal with the other wing,” I heard Heartbeat command before moving to my other side. “Don’t give her a healing potion until after the second wing has been properly removed.”

I felt Pyre’s strong hooves begin applying pressure to the gaping hole on my side while Heartbeat began working on the second wing. To my surprise I felt Pyre’s relatively soft coat. Apparently she had removed herself from her armour to help with the procedure.

It felt like the surgery stretched on for hours, my body constantly being forced into a new and terrible pain. Finally I felt Heartbeat pull up beside me and offer me a healing potion.

I realized my mouth was still clamped tightly around Brisk’s forehoof and I slowly pried my teeth from his flesh. To my displeasure, bits of flesh and fur stayed locked between my teeth.

Brisk took a second to make sure I didn’t need him anymore before slowly backing away and letting Heartbeat administer the healing potions to me. Each sip felt like liquid life rushing through me.

After downing the second healing potion I sat back up, my hooves having been freed from their bindings at some point. I looked at my back. Two large scars ran between my shoulder blades. The muscles were sore and it felt like I had a hundred pound weight on my back, but it was nothing I couldn’t handle. I knew that like many of the wounds that had been afflicted upon me in the wasteland, these would never leave me.

Pyre slowly approached, carrying my combat shotgun and stable barding. I took them gratefully and decided not to complain when both Brisk and Pyre started helping me get back into my barding. My suspicions had been right, Pyre was out of her power armour, giving me a rare view of her scarred and burned form. The large gashes Viscera had given her still seemed red and fresh, as if they had only been inflicted moments ago instead of days.

I glanced around at my friends once I was back into my barding. Xayah was still missing.

We found Xayah in a room a few doors down the hallway. She wasn’t alone.

The room had clearly once been some sort of holding cell or prison, now converted into a house of horrors. The Four Star ghouls that had once inhabited the bunker lay chained and caged within, their frail bodies deprived of food and light. They’re fur had all but rotted away, leaving them looking more like the corpses of hairless rodents than ponies and zebras. Their limbs had warped and elongated, a result of taint experimentation and other cruel forms of torture that I couldn’t even imagine.

One of the tortured ghouls crawled towards me, stumbling on their twisted and shattered legs. Their eyes were pale and looked like a pair of small silver stones embedded in their head, glinting off the light of my pipbuck. They howled at me, their pained wails more akin to a wounded wolf.

Xayah lay in the centre of the room, chained to the floor and sobbing.

I quickly rushed to her, no amount of pain stopping me from comforting her at this moment. She had been locked in here for almost two hours. Trapped in near darkness, able to see nothing but pained, silver eyes staring at her and the blood chilling screams of long since dead ponies.

Brisk made quick work of the locks holding Xayah down. The second she was free, she scuttled closely into my hooves, allowing me to embrace her fully. I led her from the room quickly. She had seen enough of this already.

A few minutes later I stood in the dark dungeon with Pyre, looking over the rotting ghouls. I glanced up at her, unsure what I should say. Pyre was back in her power armour, her expression unreadable through her helmet.

“What do you think we should do about them?” I finally asked, forcing myself to look at the twisted bodies shuffling around in the cages. “We can’t just leave them here… can we?”

Pyre shook his head. “Even I feel bad just leaving them here, but we can't free them either. The last thing the wasteland needs is more feral ghouls.”

I shone my pipbuck light into one of the cages, illuminating what was inside. The light was met by a volley of hisses as the ghouls within covered their faces and scuttled away from the light. There weren’t just a few ghouls imprisoned here either. There were hundreds. The alicorn had been planning to build an army of her own.

I gulped. I knew there was only one option. I didn’t like it. "Then... then we'll have to..."

Pyre bowed her head in grim acceptance. "Leave the room Amber. You've seen enough horror today."

I dragged myself away from the room, tears streaming down my face as I forced myself to look away from what had to happen.

Pyre’s flamers whirred to life. The howls of the ponies and zebras inside flooded the bunker as they were slowly burned alive.

Mirra was waiting for us at the entrance to the bunker when we finally arrived. Pyre had quickly filled me in that they had sent her to go scout for a way around the Star Spawn while they investigated what happened to Xayah and I.

I had at first questioned if it was smart to send a little kid to go investigate something as deadly as a Star Spawn, but this was Mirra we were talking about. She could handle herself.

Mirra took one look at Xayah and I and cocked her head, a disturbed look across her face. “What the fuck happened to you two?” She asked, her timid voice stoic and curious.

I shook my head. “Trust me, you don’t want to know.”

The changeling seemed to take that as an acceptable answer. “Alright, so I’ve got some good news, some bad news and some great news,” she said, fluttering over and perching atop Pyre’s back.

I raised an eyebrow at her. “Is that supposed to be sarcastic?” I couldn’t remember a single moment in the wasteland when there had been more good news than bad news. Let alone a time when there was great news.

Mirra shook her head. “Nope, looks like the wasteland is giving us a bit of a break… kind off,” She started. “The bad news is that I followed the Friendship Trail for a bit myself. It goes on for miles. I don’t know how many, but it seemed to stretch across most of Manehattan.”

“And the good news?” Brisk asked, giving the changeling a curious look.

Mirra grinned. “Well first off, there was no sign of the Star Spawn, so hopefully we won’t need to deal with it.”

“And what’s the good news?” Xayah pushed. She still seemed shaken from her time in the alicorns house of horrors, but she was doing a good job of hiding it. If anyone was good at hiding their emotions, it was Xayah.

“That was the good news,” Mirra soothed, lounging across Pyre’s back. “The great news is that I think I can speed up this whole follow the Friendship Trail thing. There’s a train a little bit down the tunnel. I think it’s still functional.”

My jaw dropped open. “It’s still… functional? As in it still has coal in it?”

Mirra shook her head. “Doesn’t need any. It's one of those newer models that were built closer to the end of the war. When trade with zebras became next to impossible, Equestria invested in a jem powered train engine. The super Locomotive 6000 I think it was called.”

Heartbeat gave a nod of understanding. “I’ve heard of these. To my understanding, Red Eye has a few working in Fillydelphia as well. They’re very rare.”

“We seem to have a knack for stumbling across things that are very rare,” Pyre replied simply, giving a small shrug. “Now how about we get going before that Star Spawn decides to come back.”

We all agreed, following Mirra out as she started leading us towards this so-called functional train. Right before I left the bunker, my eyes landed on one of the radios the alicorn had been using to block the goddesses influence. I still couldn’t hear anything coming from it, but it seemed to be on.

Curious, I hooked my pipbuck up to it and tried to see if my pipbuck could locate the origin of the signal. To my surprise, it seemed to be taking my pipbuck a few minutes to locate. I had never seen my pipbuck take longer than a second to locate anything before. Hell, it somehow managed to name and apply value to things it had never even seen before.

Xayah poked her head back into the bunker. “Amber, are you coming?”

I nodded, pulling myself back up and away from the radio as my pipbuck continued trying to locate the source. “Yup, just checking something!”

I turned and followed them out, my pipbuck still working away.

Mirra hadn’t lied. The train was rusty and many of the train cars at the back had been completely crushed under fallen ruble, but the front few cars seemed to be in surprisingly good condition for a train a few hundred years old.

I brushed my hoof along the side of the train, clearing away the dust that had accumulated over the large lettering that had been imprinted on the side. The lettering read ‘Flam and Sons’.

Mirra hopped into the train engine, gesturing for the rest of us to climb into the passenger car right behind it.

The inside of the train was not nearly as clean as the train we had taken to get to and from the Hollow Shades, but it was still remarkably clean. A bit of graffiti likely made by some passing raiders had been scrawled across one of the trains walls. I felt myself blush as I realized the crude image was that of two mares pleasuring each other.

“I like the decor,” Pyre smirked, trotting up beside me and looking over the pornographic graffiti herself. “Kinda reminds me of that one time in Tenpony Tower.”

That one time in Tenpony Tow-? My mind blanked and my face grew even redder as I realized what she was referring to. I could see Xayah beside me go red as well, clearly picking up on what Pyre had said before I did.

Brisk swatted Pyre with his tail, but he was chuckling himself.

“I don’t think I want to know,” Heartbeat said glumbly, doing his best not to look at the image on the wall. He was doing a much better job than I was.

Mirra stuck her head into the train car from a large hole that had been ripped open in the roof. A conductor's hat had been snuggly placed atop her head. No doubt she had taken it from a skeleton she had found in the conductors car. “Fillies and Gentalstallions... And Brisk!” she announced, a wide smile across her face.

“Hey!” Brisk scowled back, but he seemed to be smiling at the small changelings antics.

“We are about to depart. Please keep your hooves inside the cart at all times. Just give me a few moments to figure out how to drive a train, and we'll be on our way shortly,” Mirra giggled, giving us all a small tip of her new conductor hat.

A loud roar echoed up the tunnel. It seemed far away, but it was getting closer. Mirra’s grin faltered slightly.

“I thought you said the Star Spawn was gone?” Brisk said, sticking his head out the door of the car and staring down the tunnel into the gloom.

Mirra rolled her eyes. “I said I didn’t see it. Do keep in mind those things are invisible.”

Brisk and I stared at her in horror. “They’re… they’re invisible!” great… more things I had to fight that I couldn’t see.

Mirra waved our shock off with a hoof. “Gimme a sec. I’ll see if I can get moving,” The changeling ducked back and out of sight. I could hear her working away at the controls.

I glanced out of the train car and down the tunnel myself. Something was moving towards us through the darkness. Something really, really big. It seemed to be some kind of giant bear made up of stars. A Star Spawn! Mirra was right, if not for the glistening of what appeared to be tiny stars, the huge beast seemed to be completely invisible.

“Shit! Star Spawn incoming!” Pyre shouted, quickly looking over my shoulder at the rapidly approaching mass of stars. I could hear the booming thuds of each step the huge creature took as it thundered towards us.

It roared again, the all encompassing noise shaking the train and rattling my thoughts.

“Mirra! You need to get this thing moving now!” I yelled out over the sound of the Star Spawn.

“I said give me a second. I don’t know how to drive a train!” I heard Mirra squeak back from the conductor's car.

Pyre was pulling herself through the broken hole in the roof and onto the top of the train. I quickly started scampering up after her, my sore muscles making climbing quite difficult.

I pulled myself up, looking out at the approaching Star Spawn. It had reached the end of the train, its massive front paws raking through the ruined train cars as it tried to get at us. Now getting a good view of it, or as good of a view I could get with it being invisible, I found myself surprised such an immense creature could even fit in the tunnel.

“It’s just a baby,” Pyre said, as if knowing what I was thinking. “And thank Celestia, we would certainly be dead otherwise.”

Xayah pulled herself up next, standing beside me. I glanced at her, asking. “So… do we shoot at it or…”

Xayah gave me a funny look. “It is a Star Spawn. Unless you have any more balefire eggs, our weapons are useless.”

The massive star bear tore through another train car. The train car went flying, smashing against the wall and showering us in debris.

I ducked, a slab of broken train flying over my head. I ignited my horn and conjured a thin, magical shield between our train car and the raging Star Spawn. The shield was almost pitiful compared to the shield the alicorns could create, but it was a vast improvement to the shield I had made in the MAS tower.

The Star Spawn didn’t care. It’s huge claws lashed forwards, shattering the shield in a single powerful blow. I staggered back, my magic imploding as the force of the massive beasts attack shot through me.

Thankfully, the star spawn staggered back as well, temporarily slowed by the magical backlash of the shield.

Pyre let her flamers spew forth, dousing the Star Spawn in fire. The beast before us went from a near invisible cluster of stars to a raging bear wreathed in flame.

The Star Spawn roared in pain, reeling back and slamming at the ground of the metro tunnel. I was knocked from my hooves again as the train literally bounced into the air from the force.

The train made a loud squeak of metal on metal and jerked forwards. I could hear Mirra give a triumphant yell as she figured out how to get the train moving. I clutched to the edges of the train as the sudden movement threatened to throw me off. I could see Xayah and Pyre do the same.

Brisk poked his head out of the hole, looking at the flaming Star Spawn. “You guys might want to get below deck.

I cast a glance back at the Star Spawn. It was angry. Very very angry. Brisk didn’t need to ask me twice.

I rushed forwards, trying my best to not fly off the side of the train as the huge locomotive began picking up speed. Xayah rushed up beside me, doing her best to help me move along while trying to get in herself.

Despite the train's surprising speed, the Star Spawn seemed to be gaining on us. It charged forwards, each thump of its powerful paws against the tunnel floor threatening to derail the train completely.

I heard a whoosh and saw a jet of fire streak out from behind the train towards the Star Spawn. I looked behind me, making out the shape of Pyre. She was still standing on the edge of the train car, silhouetted by the flaming star bear that bounded after us. Her flamers were spewing fire, making the inferno around the Star Spawn continue to grow in brightness.

“Pyre, we need to get into the train!” I shouted over the booming sound of the train and thunderous roars of the Star Spawn.

“That thing is gaining on us!” Pyre shot back. “I need to slow it down!”

I could see that Pyre was right. The flames didn’t seem to be doing much damage to the massive creature, but it was at the very least slowing it down. If Pyre were to stop her constant barrage of fire, we would quickly be overrun.

I groaned and turned back from the hole into the train car, spinning around to face the Star spawn with my combat shotgun. Xayah protested, but I quickly pushed her back inside and rushed to stand next to Pyre.

Pyre had power armour and, making her weight harder for the train to throw around. furthermore, she carried tow corpses on her back, weighing her down even more. I didn’t have that luxury. Every few seconds the train would jerk about, making me stumble and lose my aim. Two shots went wide, the buckshot bursting against the walls of the tunnel, doing little more than add to the deafening soundscape.

I finally managed to land a shot, my combat shotguns slugs ripping into the Star Spawns near translucent hide. They did nothing. The Star Spawn shook it off and continued charging after us as if nothing had happened.

Well this was getting us nowhere.

The Star Spawn lunged forwards, its huge pony sized claws extended to rip into us. I leaped back, just narrowly avoiding being swiped in two as the beast claws tore into the back of the train. There was a loud crunching sound, and the back half of the train car was ripped off.

Pyre went with it, her metal clad hooves flailing about her and looking for purchase as she was tossed about. I wrapped her in my magic and pulled her back onto the train, sweat dripping from my brow as I overexerted myself with the telekinetic feat.

This was getting us nowhere. The Star Spawn would get to us in seconds. There had to be a more permanent solution to dealing with this creature.

I looked up, my eye catching on the large cracks that raced along the roof of the collapsing metro tunnel. Maybe I could…

I tried to wrap my magic around the cracks in the roof, but we were moving too fast for me to keep my concentration. The walls and roof were spinning past me, making any attempt to magically grasp onto something void.

The star Spawn swung at us again, its huge claws once again ripping into the train car. The whole train lurched to the side, tilting sideways at an impossible angle. I could hear the wheels screech. We were going to be derailed. I saw a soft, magical pink glow of light push it back up. The train thudded back onto the tracks, still bolting forwards and picking up speed. Heartbeat was keeping us on the tracks!

Alright, if levitation wasn’t going to help me, it was time to try something else. I had succeeded in mimicking the alicorns magic before, if only to moderate success. Time to see if I could do it again.

A powerful beam of amber light shot from my horn, streaking past the Star Spawn and crashing into the roof. My whole body went limp as the exhaustion from casting the spell washed over me. The roof fell.

I had intended to collapse the roof on top of the Star Spawn. Block it off from us, kill it if possible. But I got a little more than I bargained for.

The ceiling caved in, and with it came a flood of irradiated water. We had been crossing under some sort of river! Damn it!

The Star Spawn was gone, crushed under miles of rocks and water. Whether it was dead or not I had no way of knowing.

The irradiated water splashed into the tunnel, quickly filling up and rushing after us at an alarming rate.

Pyre scampered backwards, finally heading towards the inside of the traincar. “Great, just great Amber!” She scowled at me mockingly.

I tried to rush after her, but the train took an abrupt turn and sent me skidding across the roof. I grabbed onto the sides of the train as my hide hooves went sailing off the side. The door to the train car opened up and I saw Xayah reaching out to pull me back inside.

I extended a hoof, trying to reach for her. She was too far. Painfully, I began shimmying across the side of the train, reaching for the door. Water began splashing around my hooves, slicking the sides of the train and making keeping my grip a challenge.

A loud roar came from behind. I saw the water part as the invisible Star Spawn lumbered towards us.

That thing was still alive! The fuck does it take to kill that thing!

I reached Xayah, the zebra managing to finally pull me back into the train.

“You couldn’t have just let it be a Star Spawn, could you. You had to have a whole river after us too?” Brisk drawled, looking out the back of the broken train car and at the rushing water and raging star bear.

I gave him a nervous squee. “Uh… yes?” he just rolled his eyes at me. I scampered over to the door that led to the engine and gave it a quick knock. “Hey Mirra? Think you can speed this thing up at all?”

“I’m trying!” The changeling yelled back. I could hear her frantically pulling levers. How hard were the controls on this thing.

“Brace yourself!” I heard Heartbeat shout. I glanced up just in time to see what he was yelling about.

The Star Spawn rammed its whole body into the back of the train. The train car shook, my hooves slipping out from under me and making me crash into Xayah. I saw a mass of stars stretching towards me. The Star Spawn was reaching one of its lethal paws into the train car to get to us, its massive claws scratching long grooves into the sides of the train car.

There was a triumphant yell as the train suddenly lurched forwards with even more speed. “I got it!” I heard Mirra singsong. I felt myself sigh with relief as we sped away, leaving the star spawn and rushing waters behind us. There was a final roar as the Star Spawn was submerged in crashing ruble and waves.

I slumped back, my whole body aching as I finally let myself relax. Xayah flopped down next to me, panting heavily.

There was a beep, drawing my attention to my pipbuck leg. My pipbuck had finally managed to trace the origins of that strange radio frequency.

I didn’t know what I had expected. Some spot out in the middle of nowhere, a secret government facility. What I hadn’t expected was for the signal to be coming from somewhere within Tenpony Tower.

The Friendship Trail came to an end in the ruined remains of a train station. Thankfully, Mirra was much better at making the train stop than she was at making the train start.

I had almost missed the end of the friendship Trail. If I hadn’t been looking for it, we would have passed it. The red line we had been following came to a stop at another circular plaque, identical to the one at the beginning of the trail. It glowed faintly in the presence of the Friendship Express talisman as well, drawing my eye to it.

We all climbed out of the train, all our legs wobbly from the bumpy ride. Mirra hopped down next to us, a big grin across her face. “That was fun, we should do that again!” The small changeling chirped gleefully. At least somepony had enjoyed the trip.

I walked forwards and placed the small Friendship Express talisman against the plaque, not really knowing what to expect. The station filled with the clanking and grinding of gears. Slowly, the bricks around the plaque began to move away, revealing a hidden tunnel that stretched into darkness.

“Dramatic bunch, these Friendship Express ponies are, aren't they,” Brisk smirked, tapping the wall with a hoof as he peered into the dark, secret tunnel. “Think they’ll give me my own personal secret layer?”

I gave him a bump on the shoulder. “The last thing you need is a secret layer.”

Brisk pouted at me. “But I want one…”

Rolling my eyes, I moved into the tunnel. Brisk and Xayah moved in after me, with Pyre, Mirra and Heartbeat taking up the rear. Once again, the sound of gears filled the air. The secret door slid back into place behind us, blocking us from escaping. As the door closed we were cast into complete darkness.

I stumbled forwards, trying to find a wall to give me a sense of direction. Why the hell was it so dark in here?

The lights turned on.

The first thing I saw were the two huge miniguns pointed at my face. I took a step back, trying to get a better grip on what was happening.

We had stumbled into a large brick chamber. It was empty save a few turrets that rested in each corner. Three ponies stood across from us. The ponies on each side wielded large miniguns, one aimed towards me, the other towards Pyre who they no doubt thought to be the biggest threat.

The unicorn mare in the middle held a revolver up in her magic, its sights aimed at Brisk’s head. From the pipbuck around her foreleg, I guessed she could use SATS on us if violence broke out. She had a dusty brown coat and curly blond mane. Like me, she had a Friendship Express talisman hanging around her neck.

“Who are you and how did you get in here?” The lead mare demanded, her eyes narrowing. Her tone held no room for negotiation. “Answer quickly or we will fire.”

I swiftly held up the talisman hanging around my neck. “We were friends of Emissary’s. He gave us this and told us to find you.”

The mare glanced at the talisman sceptically. Her eyes narrowed even more. “It is against protocol to give over possession of a Friendship Talisman without my permission, and Emissary never went against protocol,” I could hear a sharp tone creeping into her voice.

“We were helping Emissary protect a synth named Rubber Band. A courser killed him and ponynapped Rubber Band. His last act was to give me this and tell me to Follow the friendship Trail,” I quickly elaborated. I could see the mare falter a little at that. “He told me to tell you that the Institute has the Utopia Program. That he couldn’t stop it.”

The mare’s gun dropped to the ground, her magic imploding as she took a step back. She put a hoof to her head, steadying herself. “Emissary is… dead?”

I saw Heartbeat give a grim nod from beside me. He had been the only pony save myself to witness Emissary’s death.

I took a daring step forward. “We’re looking to get into the Institute. Can you help us?”

The mare took a second to calm herself. Finally, she levetated her gun back off the ground and turned it to face us. “That depends. How do I know you aren’t Institute spies that killed Emissary and are here to wipe us out?”

Yeesh, these ponies were paranoid. That said, I suppose I would be too if I was always being tailed by the Institute.

“Amber?” I heard a familiar voice pipe up. I shifted my gaze to look behind the mare. A dark buck with a grey stetson emerged from behind her.

My eyes widened with surprise as I recognised him. “Flask?”

Flask waved for the mare to lower the weapons pointed at us. “These here are good ponies,” Flask assured her. “Emissary sent them to help me back when I was in Fetlock. I sent ‘em myself to help find the Rubber Band we were looking for.”

His words sent a wave of relief over the Mare. she gestured for the two ponies beside her to lower their miniguns. “Seems your story adds up,” She glanced quickly at Flask before returning her gaze to us. “My name is Freedom. Welcome to the Friendship Express.”

She turned, gesturing for us to follow her into the room beyond.

A single red curtain blocked the doorway, obscuring my vision of where we were headed. I saw both Freedom and Flask duck behind the curtain. The other two Friendship Express operatives continued to stand guard.

Pyre quickly trotted up to me and leaned in so only I could hear her. “You sure we trust these Friendship Express ponies?”

I gave a nod. “From everything I’ve seen, they’re the good guys.”

Pyre scoffed. “There is no such thing as good guys in the wasteland Amber. I’m surprised you haven’t figured that out yet.”

Before I could linger too long on that, I pushed the curtain aside and stepped into the headquarters of the Friendship Express. My breath caught in my throat.

The Friendship Express Headquarters was a large brick chamber. Brick archways branched off from the main room leading down a network of tunnels to a myriad of different rooms and large pillars rose up from the ground to support the ceiling. Large desks had been scattered across the main area, each one covered in papers and terminals. Ponies dressed in dark cloaks and fedoras darted back and forth around the room.

“This is the Friendship Express?” Xayah uttered from beside me, clearly as taken aback as I had been.

“It's… really small?” Brisk blurted, unable to catch himself.

Freedom cast him an annoyed glance. “We need to stay small. The Institute has been trying to find us for years, and they excel at infiltration and surveillance. We need to keep a low profile or the Institute would be on us in seconds,” She continued walking, gesturing for us to follow with a hoof. “You need to get into the Institute. Unfortunately, we are yet to have properly located them ourselves. That said, we do have a plan to get in if you are willing to help.”

I nodded, trotting up beside her. “We’ll do what we need to.”

Freedom gave me a grim look. “I hope so, because it won't be easy,” She came to a stop in front of a terminal covered desk. A small yellow mare with impossibly large eyes sat behind it, tinkering away at one of the terminals with some sort of screwdriver that looked more like a clockwork pocket knife. “Sprocket, we have some guests. Would you mind telling them about our plans to get into the institute.”

The small yellow mare I now knew as Sprocket shot up in their chair, looking us over. She cast a nervous glance at Freedom. “Are you sure? That's like… suuuuuper confidential and…”

Freedom gave an authoritative nod. “These ponies just braved the Friendship Trail. I think they might be just the ponies we’re looking for.”

Sprocket gave a nervous nod before turning back to us. “Well I guess I’ll start with a question,” She gestured to my pipbuck. “I see you are in possession of a pipbuck. Tell me, have you encountered a synth?”

I nodded. “I saw one on the roof of the Fluttershy medical centre yesterday.”

“And did you notice anything strange about it?”

I paused, thinking that over. “Well… it didn’t show up on my EFS… I thought it was rather odd, but I also might have just been distracted.”

“Nope, that's it!” Sprocket said cheerfully, clapping their forehooves together. “The Institute has found a way to disguise EFS. Annoying little trick, because it makes tracking them real damn hard.”

“What does this have to do with getting into the Institute?” Brisk asked, frowning slightly.

Sprocket rolled her eyes. “I’m getting there, hold your horses!” That was an odd statement. Sprocket continued. “Anyway, question number two. Do you know how the Institute gets in and out while making sure no pony ever finds the way in?”

“Teleportation,” I said, almost instinctively. I had seen non magical teleportation used a few times now, Including the synth that had taken the A.A.S.S. I also had my suspicions that the courser that had murdered Emissary had used it to flee the crime scene as well.

“Ding Ding Ding!” Sprocker announced cheerfully. “The Institute has managed to create a device that allows for instantaneous teleportation anywhere in the wasteland. A feat far beyond even the most powerful unicorns in Equestrian history. We can’t get into the Institute because there is no entrance to get into. Not one that still exists anyway. You need to teleport.”

“So what? There’s no hope?” Pyre groaned, her expression obscured by her helmet.

Sprocket shook her head. She held up a pipbuck that had some form of bulky machine screwed into it. “I created a teleportation device. Similar to that of the Institutes, only significantly less powerful. It has two charges. One to get into the Institute, and one to get out. But of course, there’s a catch.”

“And that is?” I pushed. If these things could get us in, we needed them.

“Well, two catches actually. First is that they’re still incomplete,” Sprocket explained. “The way they work is that they latch onto somethings EFS marker indefinitely. If it can lock onto a synth before they teleports back into the Institute, then it can follow them in.”

I suddenly realised what Sprocket was getting at. “But… Synths have managed to block EFS.”

“Exactly. Which of course brings us back to square one,” Sprocket said glumbly. “But I know how to fix that. Close to the end of the war, the Ministry of Wartime technology created two things. A targeting talisman and an anti-cloaking device. Get those, and I can repurpose them to detect even synths on EFS.”

“A targeting talisman?” Pyre scoffed, cocking her head to the side a little. “Aren’t those in like… every turret in the entire wasteland? Hell, you have four just waiting for you at the entrance to your base over there.”

Sprocket rolled her eyes again. “Not just any targeting talisman dumby! You think a normal targeting talisman can track a teleporting synth across the entire fucking wasteland? No! What I need is a Super targeting talisman.”

“And where are we going to find these?” Xayah said from beside me.

“The MWT’s Manehattan hub isn’t far from here. It should have all the things we need inside,” Freedom said, speaking up for the first time since handing the conversation over to Sprocket. “We’ve tried to get in there a few times ourselves, but we haven’t been able to get past the ghouls.”

“Sounds easy enough,” I said. I had fought worse than ghouls. How bad could it be?

Heartbeat raised a hoof into the air above his head. “You said there was a second catch? What was that?”

Sprocket nodded again. “I only have two devices, and each one can only take one person. Only two of you will be able to go into the Institute. And they’re magic activated, so you need to be a unicorn,” She glanced down nervously at Mirra who was hiding herself behind Pyre’s hoof. “Or a changeling I guess.”

I felt a bolt of discomfort shoot through me at that. Only two of us? I could hold my own in a fight fine, but I was far from the best combatant in the wasteland. The idea of not having Pyre for protection was a frightening one. And the last thing I wanted was to leave Xayah behind.

I glanced around at my friends worriedly. I could tell from their expressions that that didn’t sit well with them either. This was going to be interesting...

Freedom raised a hoof to catch out attention. "look, ponies. I am trusting you a lot with these secrets. Flask trusts you, and Emissary was one of our best operatives. If he trust you then I trust you," Her face grew serious, her eyes looking each one of us over. "But the Friendship Express operates on secrecy. We don't give out second chances here. Disloyalty against the Friendship Express will be considered an act of treason. And we punish treason very harshly. Do you understand?"

I gulped, giving her a quick nod. This was going to be very interesting indeed...

Footnote: level up.
New perk: Chem Resistant -- You are half as likely to get addicted

Author's Note

Two chapters in one day? It's a miracle!

Hope you enjoyed and have a good day!

Chapter XXVIII: All Betrayals begins with Trust

“The saddest thing about betrayal is that it never comes from your enemies.”

Stables.

Stables were, for lack of a better word, complicated. They were the epitome of ponies' good intentions gone awry. They were desperate attempts to save as many lives as possible from the inevitable holocaust that destroyed the world, only for many of them to become tombs for the ponies that had made it inside. They were also the testing grounds for experiments, attempts to improve the future of pony kind to ensure that such atrocities such as war and balefire annihilation would never again come to pass. But those too, only became sick, twisted echoes of their original purpose, killing and harming far more ponies than they ever did good.

And even still, after all of that, Stable had failed to save their inhabitants from the horrors that would emerge from the wasteland in the coming centuries. Even functional Stable such as Stable 25 and Stable 44 had eventually been tainted by the wastelands influence.

Not that I would have considered Stable 25 to be a proper functioning Stable. Perhaps it had done better than others, and the experiments that had gone on inside had not been as fatal as they could have been, but it was still far from perfect. The mental conditioning and lack of freedom, the cruel brutality and dominating nature of the Stable Security. Even the A.A.S.S. had eventually failed in the end. Without a backup to your main food source, what was the point.

It didn’t matter anymore I suppose. Stable 25 was gone. The ponies within slaughtered, gassed and finally melted down into a fuel. No place stays free from the Wasteland for long.

I could feel my breathing grow ragged as I stared at the entrance to Stable 23. It looked so similar to what I had seen when I had returned to Stable 25 all those days ago. I almost expected Inferno and an army of zebras to step out and greet us.

Of course Inferno was dead, or at least as close to dead as you can be while still living on inside of my brain, and Kamari’s cult was blown to oblivion and buried hundreds of miles below the Glowing Sea. Not even they had been safe from the wasteland I suppose.

There was another very distinct difference here as well. The corpses that surrounded the entrance to the Stable were not Stable dwellers. Instead, the floor was littered with the armoured corpses of True Steels.

“What do you think killed them?” Xayah asked, nudging one of the power armoured corpses with her hoof. She leaned down to look over the corpses more carefully. “They do not seem to have any visible bullet wounds?”

Still trembling a little, I trotted over to Xayah and looked the body over myself. She was right, I could see no obvious sign of death. Not even a dent in their golden power armour.

“Hard to say what killed them. Likely there is some danger inside of the Stable. This would not be uncommon,” Crusader Blueberry replied, walking out of the elevator with his three Outcasts trailing behind him. “But there will likely be more True Steels inside of the Stable. There are only five corpses, and we have reason to suspect around twenty rangers have entered.”

Mirra fluttered over to one of the bodies and tapped the side of their helmet with a hoof. A strange expression crossed her face and she gave the helmet a small tug. “Uh… Amber. I think I found something?” As I trotted over to her, she elaborated. “Their armour seems to be… attached to their body?”

My eyebrows shot up in alarm. Attached? What the hell did that even entail? I leaned in and looked the body over closer. It was hard to tell, with the power armour being fully enclosed, but it did look like a small, exposed part of the neck where Mirra had tugged at the helmet had fused to the ponies hide underneath.

“Shit. She’s right,” One of the Outcasts I didn’t know the name of grunted, pulling at one of the metal plates on one of the Corpses. As the metal plate was removed, hide and flesh was pulled off with it. “What the hell could do something like this?”

“Alright, so what’s the plan?” Brisk queried, walking over to us and looking up at the big Stable door. Something in his eye gave me the impression he was just as anxious about going in there as I was.

“I would recommend splitting into groups and scouring the Stable for any True Steels inside. We will need to clear them out if we hope to properly secure this location,” Blueberry declared, taking a step towards the large door. He looked down at the True Steel corpses around us. “There is very likely some danger within the Stable, so we will need to assess and eradicate that as well.”

I gave him a surprised look. “Split up? Shouldn’t we stick together? You know, power in numbers sort of thing,” The idea of splitting the party never seemed like a good one to me. The last thing I wanted was for us to be picked off one by one by the rangers or other threats within the Stable.

Blueberry shook his head. “Paladin Tesla Coil is smart and has a head start on us. It is likely that he is making a push for both the security wing and the Overmares office,” He explained, gesturing for us all to follow as we slowly moved through the large door. “Assuming this Stable has anything in common with other Stables across the Wasteland, if he takes control of those, he will likely have full control over the security and surveillance systems,” I remembered how I had utilized those very same things when I had been trying to protect my own Stable from Inferno and Kamari’s zebra cultists. I looked up at the roof of the Stable to see a few turrets, currently deactivated. If Tesla Coil got his hooves on those, things would get really bad, really fast.

“Furthermore, we need to evaluate what dangers reside within the Stable,” Blueberry continued. He once again looked over at the True Steel Corpses. “As we can see, the True Steels were met with some sort of resistance, but I see no signs of what those are. Splitting up will allow us to cover more ground and learn more about this threat.”

I nodded thoughtfully. That all made sense to me.

“Amber and I can go together,” Brisk suggested, throwing a hoof around my neck and pulling me beside him. "The two of us know Stables better than anypony. We can probably do some good work together.”

From the tone of his voice, it was clear that he wanted to talk to me about something privately. I decided not to call him out on that in front of everypony though and simply nodded in response. “Sounds good.”

“I’ll go with Xayah then,” A yellow filly with a blue mane piped up. It took me a second to realize I was looking at Mirra. I hadn’t seen her transform and I had grown used to her simply staying in her natural form. She seemed to be getting more comfortable showing her true self around us, though I suppose the presence of the Outcasts were making her less comfortable.

Xayah nodded at the fillies suggestion. “We would be most stealthy,” Xayah and Mirra together being ‘most stealthy’ was the understatement of the year, but I didn’t feel it was worth pointing that out.

"Like ninjas," Mirra agreed. The changelings enthusiasm was almost contagious. almost.

Blueberry gave an affirmative nod. “Understood. I will lead the rest of my rangers. Report back here in an hour. Stop Tesla Coil if you can find him.”

We all gave nods of understanding before turning and breaking off into our groups, slowly moving deeper and deeper into the Stable.

The Stable was stange, to say the least. While the walls of Stable 25 and 44 had been a dull grey, Stable 23 took it to a whole other level. The walls were coated in a thick layer of rust and dust, giving the dark tunnels a strange organic feeling. Cracks ran along the metal surfaces and many of the glass windows that had once overlooked smaller rooms had shattered. Most of the lights had gone out, leaving most of the Stable in darkness. The lights that had not gone out flickered constantly, filling the halls with a constant electric buzz and giving the area an eerie feeling.

I walked silently beside Brisk as we trotted forwards through the dark halls. Save for a few spots of what appeared to be fresh blood, there were no signs of the True Steels or whatever had attacked them near the entrance.

I looked over at Brisk while we walked. His head was downturned and he was staring at his hooves silently. After a few more seconds of silence, I spoke up. “Alright, out with it,” Brisk looked up at me at the remark, only looking somewhat confused. “Clearly something is on your mind that you want to talk to me about. What’s going on?”

Brisk sighed and returned his gaze to his hooves. “Yesterday… back in the Manehattan Garden. I told you that there was something I felt we should talk about…” He sighed again and continued to glare at the floor. “I guess I just wanted to know… um… Am I helpful, sis?”

I stopped in the middle of the hallway and looked over at him. “I don’t kn… what do you mean?”

He stopped too and dared himself to look up from the ground at me. “I mean, I’m I helpful to this group of ours? Like… Am I useful?” He looked away and at one of the rust covered walls. “When I lost my horn, it got me thinking. Any other unicorn would have been upset, I would imagine, but I just kinda felt, well, nothing I guess. I realized that it didn’t really change anything. That I was still just a useless buck that couldn’t do magic. And that got me thinking about other things as well. That I’ll never be as smart as you, or as sneaky as Xayah, or strong like Pyre… I’m just middle of the road when it comes to everything.”

I shook my head. “That’s not true bro, and you know it,” I thought around for something to prove my point. “I mean, I’m hopelessly lost when it comes to lock picking, and I don’t think I’ve ever met a pony as good at that as you are.”

Brisk gave a mirthless laugh. “Right, because picking locks is totally as valuable of a skill as what the rest of you bring to the table,” He reached up and rubbed his temple with a hoof. “I don’t know. I guess it doesn’t really matter in the end. I’m just being stupid.”

“I’m not saying you aren’t valued, bro, because you are. But this group of ours. This family or whatever we want to call it...” If we were a family, we had to have been the most messed up family in the wasteland. “...We don’t keep each other around because of what we all bring to the table. That’s what Pyre thought, and it drove her away,” We were both quiet for a moment as we remembered Pyre walking off into the wastes alone. “You’re with us because we care about you. The rest doesn’t matter.”

The response seemed to make Brisk feel a little better, but he seemed unconvinced. He waved his hoof across his forehead, tracing the scar where his horn once sat. “How did we find ourselves mixed up in all this?” Brisk finally said, placing his hoof back on the ground so we could resume walking. “I mean, you used to just be a little maintenance mare, somepony trying to prove herself to her father. And I… I don’t fucking know… I was some idiot jackass jokester that tried to never take things seriously so that I wouldn’t think to much about the past,” He kicked at a piece of debris that lay in the centre of the hallway, watching as it bounced across the floor ahead of us. “I never thought I’d live a week outside the Stable. Now we're helping wasteland factions and involved in Institute conspiracies… Never would have imagined this was what would happen when I finally got through those doors.”

“Hehe… yeah. We’ve all come a long way since we first left I guess,” That wasn’t something I liked to think about. I didn’t know if I liked the pony I was becoming. I looked back over at Brisk. “I’ve been meaning to ask… You, um… you don’t joke around as much as you used to…”

“I haven’t found many things worth joking about,” Brisk answered honestly. “After… Well, after what happened to Stable 25, smiling through all the bad just started to get a lot harder. I think I just gave up at some point.”

I felt myself sigh. “Yeah, that seems to be a problem for all of us these days. Finding reasons to smile.”

“Pyre never seemed to have a problem doing it,” Brisk pointed out. “I don’t know how she did it.”

I grimaced. “Pyre had experience. She’s seen and done a lot worse than any of us. Smiling is how she copes. Ignore the bad and pretend it doesn’t hurt you,” I didn’t know if that was one hundred percent true, but from what I had seen from her, it seemed to be true enough.

“That’s what I used to do,” Brisk admitted. “Back before things were so complicated… But, I guess enough bad things eventually added up to a point where I couldn’t even lie to myself anymore. Smiling and joking just felt like I was pretending.”

I reached out and wrapped a hoof around him in a tight hug. “When this is all over, I swear, we’re all going to settle down and have a good long rest.”

Brisk gave me a small smirk. “I’ll hold you to that. You, me, Xayah, Mirra and Pyre. One big happy family. Maybe we’ll start our own little settlement in some corner of the wasteland. Away from all the raiders and mutated monsters.”

I gave a quick laugh. “I don’t think there is a part of the wasteland without those, but you got yourself a deal,” I put my hoof over my mouth as I tried to hide a snicker. “While we’re at it, why don’t we invite Star to join the family? That’s what you want right?”

Brisk gave me a grumpy glare. After a second he groaned. “Damn it Mirra. We need to have a talk with her about revealing ponies secrets like that.”

I shrugged. “Not her fault she can taste love. Besides, we’ll tease you for it, but you can like whoever you want, bro. That’s none of our business, really.”

“And you're okay with it and everything?” Brisk asked softly, casting me a gentle look. “You know… after how you used to feel about the two of us or whatever?”

I gave a small snort. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine with it. I’ve got Xayah now. Besides, we’re siblings, and that means a lot more to me than some romance.”

Brisk nickered. “Good… sorry, I hope I didn’t make shit awkward or anything. Just felt like it was a conversation that needed to be had.”

I gave him a small bump on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, I’m with you. Feels like it’s been a long time since we’ve had a talk like this, just the two of us.”

We came up on a small, metal door. Above the door was a small sign that read, ‘Medical Clinic’. Remembering that this Stable had been used to experiment with some sort of medic based test, I walked over and let the door slide open.

As the room beyond came into view, I took a step back. From beside me I could hear Brisk intake a deep breath of air. The room was filled with blood. The walls and floors were stained with it. Rows of medical beds lines the walls, their dull coverings stained crimson by blood. Against the far wall was another sliding metal door, leading into some sort of back room.

“The fuck happened in here?” Brisk uttered, slowly creeping into the room and looking around.

I shook my head and scraped the tip of my hoof across one of the bloody surfaces. The blood wasn’t fresh, but years old. Though it was still very apparent, all that remained were red stains along the room's surfaces. “Probably whatever Stable-Tec was doing to experiment on the inhabitants of this Stable.”

Brisk glanced around. “Then why haven't we seen any bodies? I mean there were those True Steels at the entrance, but I haven't seen a single Stable dweller corpse since we got here?”

I looked around as well, realizing he was right. “No idea. Maybe they all left the Stable?”

Brisk gave me a flat look. “Unlikely. Not with this much blood,” he looked over to where a medical box with the image of three butterflies on the front rested. Trotting over he opened it and gave a small grunt of surprise before pulling out five healing potions. “Looks like the True Steels haven’t looted this place yet. That or they didn’t care for medical supplies, which I find unlikely.”

I took two of the potions from him and tossed them into my saddlebags. “Maybe they were more interested in weapons? That seems more up Iron Hock’s alley.”

Brisk shrugged. “Maybe… I don’t know. This place is weird and I don’t like it.”

My gaze landed on a terminal resting on one of the desks. I raised my hoof and pointed towards it. “Well, there’s only one way to find out what's been going on here, right?” I pulled myself over to the terminal and clicked it on. It was locked, but a locked terminal never stopped me from seeing its contents.

>Log #1

>Damn, I hate this Stable. Maybe I don’t have the right to complain, with all the ponies outside that died wishing to get in, but fuck does this place suck. The walls are so damn fucking bland. I miss the grass and sun outside. I miss my family too. I hope they managed to find a safe place…

>Anyway, that's enough feeling sorry for myself. As it turns out, according to the Overmare, this Stable is part of an experiment Stable-Tec is working on. She wouldn’t give me the details, but apparently I have a big role in it. If it's supposed to help ponies, then I suppose I’m on board, but I don’t like the secrecy. Never was a big fan of secrets.

>Log #2

>One of the generators is leaking. Filled the whole bottom floor of the Stable with some sort of weird gas shit. I don’t know what the gas is, but it seems pretty bad. No pony got hurt, but the whole lower area is practically unusable. Which fucking sucks because thats were most of the sleeping areas are. Of course, that means that now we got a bunch of homeless ponies sleeping in the middle of the halls.

>It gets worse too. Some ponies are starting to get sick. Nausea, vomiting, bleeding out their eyes. It's some fucked up shit. Again, no ponies died from it yet, but it's spreading like wildfire and I wouldn’t be surprised if this Stable becomes a graveyard soon. Probably related to the gas leak, so maybe if we solve that things will be okay… goddesses I hope so.

>Log #3

>So the Overmare swooped in and decided to bless me with the fucking cure to that ailment everypony was getting. Whoopy fucking do. I’m not an idiot. This was planned. The gas leak, the sickness. This whole thing is some fucked up shit that Stable-Tec planned. Make it look like an accident so that no pony gets their panties in a twist. Fucking shitty part is that it seems to be working.

>The cure is some sort of brain implant. I was forbidden from giving it a close examination which fucking sucks, but it seems to be working on all the ponies that have undergone the procedure. Hopefully I’ll get a better explanation soon.

>Log #4

>Saw a cute buck today. That’s all I really have to say about that.

>Still haven't gotten permission to take a look at the things I’m being told to plug into ponies brains, but honestly I don’t even care anymore. Whatever those fucking things are, they work. There have been a few ponies complaining about having a migraine after the procedure, but who fucking cares. A headache is a shit tone of a lot better than bleeding out of your fucking eyes.

>Log #5

>My dumb ass assistant dropped one of those brain implants today. The damn thing cracked and started leaking some weird pink mist shit. Same gas stuff that was leaking from the generator by the looks of it. Still don’t know what it was, but the Overmare had this whole area on lockdown for a few hours afterwards.

>The complaints about migraine are getting worse. Apparently ponies are having trouble sleeping and are getting stomach pains. Still a lot better than bleeding out your eyes, but I’m starting to get worried all the same.

>Log #8

>Fucking hell. Some asshat broke into the clinic and stole the implants. The Overmare is going to be pissed about this. That and I’m probably going to have to fill out a fuckload of paperwork now. Fuck my life.

>Log #7

>Stable-Tec Lied. Now we can’t die…

I looked up from the terminal and over at Brisk. That didn’t tell us all that much about what dangers awaited us, and the last entry was unbelievably vague. But it was an interesting read at the very least.

“Any idea on what any of that might mean?” I asked, having no ideas myself.

Brisk simply shrugged in return and turned to face the door that led off to the side room. “Beats me, but then again, I’ve never been the smartest pony,” He trotted up and let the door slide open at his approach.

Blam! Blam! Blam!

A burst of shots blasted out from behind the door as it slid open. Brisk dove to the side, the shots missing him by inches. He slammed against the blood stained floor, his pistol already pulled out and aiming at the door.

Damn it! I should have been keeping closer watch of my EFS!

I pushed myself away from the door and pulled out Breabrun’s Liberator as the True Steel that had been cowering on the other side of the door let his saddle mounted mini gun fire off another stream of lead. The True Steel was looking worse for wear. His armour was coated in blood and even through the thick metal plates, I could see the pony shivering in fear.

“Stay back phantoms! Back!” the True Steel shrieked fearfully, their mini gun firing again and blasting holes into the metal walls of the clinic.

Phantoms? What the fuck?

Brisk pushed himself up, his pistol firing off two shots that slammed into the True Steels helmet. The True Steel staggered, their head whiplashing back as the force of the bullets rammed into them. The ranger spun and bucked in Brisk’s general direction, their hooves met air as Brisk hopped back to avoid having their head stomped in.

I fired a shot from my shotgun, the buckshot, ripped through the plating on the True Steels chest, shredding the metal and slashing against their hide beneath. The True Steel reeled back, blood spilling down their front. They twisted and charged at me, their mini gun spinning as it charged up to fire another hail of bullets in my direction.

Before the shots could fire, I leapt aside, throwing myself to the ground to avoid being filled with holes. I landed roughly on my stomach, a shock shooting through my body and knocking the air from my lungs.

Another shot from Brisk’s pistol fired, this time slashing through the joint in one of the True Steels back hooves and making them fall onto their face. The True Steel gave a pained yelp as they slammed into the ground.

I pulled myself back to my hooves at the same time as the True Steel. Their metal clad hoof lashed at me, attempting to pummel me into the ground. I ducked back, the swing flashing past my face close enough that I could feel the air shift.

Brisk leapt forwards, ramming his hooved down hard on the True Steels head. The True Steel stumbled forwards from the impact, still limping from the bullet wound in their hind leg. The True Steel bucked backwards again, this time slamming their hind hooves into Brisk's chest and sending him tumbling backwards where he hit his head against the far wall with a loud crack.

There was the loud whirring sound of the True Steels mini gun spinning up as the Ranger took aim at me. I pushed myself away from them, looking for cover from the barrage of bullets that were about to be sent my way. My eyes landed on the open door to the conjoining room and started dashing my way towards it.

I pulled myself around the corner of the doorway only a second before the True Steel opened fire. Bullets whizzed passed me through the open door, many of them sparking off the corner of the doorframe and ricochetting past my face.

I heard the heavy stomping of the True Steels hoofsteps as they marched towards me. I let my gaze drop onto the emergency door control resting on the doorframe beside me, a plan forming in my mind.

The True Steel stepped past the threshold of the door, half of their body entering the room as they craned their neck to look at me. I gave them a grim smirk and tapped the button to close the door.

There was a screech as the sliding Stable door slammed down on the True Steel’s body from both above and below. The loud sound of metal crumpling filled my ears as the True Steels armour was crushed between the two powerful metal doors. The ranger called out, their torso being crushed by their own armour. A spot on the side of the armour snapped, sending jagged chunks of metal slicing into the True Steels side and spraying me with a fountain of blood.

The True Steel spasmed. The door had failed to slice the ranger in half as I had initially intended. Rather, it had simply crushed their armour, sending bits of metal into their body and most likely puncturing many vital organs. It wouldn’t be a slow death.

Instinctively, I reached for the emergency release on the door, wanting to free them from their painful fate. I hesitated. These were the bastards that had stripped the remains of my Stable for parts. Melted down my family and friends into fuel. I had watched them kill traders simply for being present.

Slowly, my hoof moved away from the emergency release. I took a step back, feeling oddly hollow as I watched the True Steel struggle. Blood was beginning to seep from the cracks in their armour and drip down their body onto the floor.

I felt myself take a slow breath. What the fuck was I doing.

The door suddenly jolted open, dropping the True Steel to the ground. Brisk stepped forwards, placed the barrel of his gun against the rangers helmet and sent a bullet through their brain. He looked back up at me with a grim expression. “That was probably one of the most fucked up things I’ve ever…” his voice faded away as his eyes landed on something behind me. Slowly, he took a shaky step back, his eyes wide.

I gulped and turned around. Now in the calm that followed the battle, I was able to make out what was in the small room we had entered. I felt myself stifle a scream.

Now I understood why that True Steel had seemed so afraid.

The room was alive. The walls, which had once been a dull metal were now covered in a thick layer of flesh and muscle. Veins raced along the room's surfaces and organs seemed to be beating within the walls. My eyes locked with a pony face that had been fused to the wall, its mouth still twisting and warping in a silent scream as it stared out at me with pained eyes.

There was more than just one pony face as well. There were at least twelve, all staring out at us with horrified and pained expressions. Some of the faces were still fully intact, looking almost as if a head had grown out of a wall, while others looked less complete, only seeming to have half of their old face remaining. They all seemed to have one thing in common though. They were screaming. They were still alive.

I took a step back, my whole body filling with fear as I stared at the room. What the fuck could do something like that to a pony! It was beyond horror. My legs felt weak and I think I vomited, but I wasn't sure.

“A-amber… l-lets get out of here,” I heard Brisk whimper from behind me, his voice sounding just as weak and horrified as I felt. I felt myself nod, though I didn’t have the power to say much else. For once, I had no desire to find out what had happened here.

We turned and left the Clinic, trembling and wanting to forget.

But we couldn’t forget. The Stable was determined to remind us. The farther we walked into the Stable, the more the horrors grew. At first it started with a few veins clinging to the sides of the hallways like moss, then it became a layer of flesh over the walls and floor. I felt myself need to suppress another scream as I realized I was trotting over still living pony hide. Eventually eyes and faces began peering out at us from the walls, screaming in their eternal torment. A few hooves seemed to have grown out from the walls as well, reaching out as if begging for somepony to pull them free.

At some point I simply shut my eyes and tried to ignore it all. Somehow that made it all easier. I just had to keep telling myself I was walking on a wet carpet. Keep telling myself that and maybe I would forget.

After a few minutes of walking, I heard Brisk mutter something under his breath “A-amber…”

I nodded, still refusing to open my eyes. “Y-yeah?”

Brisks pace slowed, but didn’t stop. “That True Steel was in the Clinic before us… why didn’t he take the healing potions?”

I gave a small shake of my head. “I, um… I don’t know… maybe they overlooked them?”

Brisk shuddered. “Maybe… I don’t know. Something just feels really weird about that. I-I… uh…" He paused, his voice drifting off as something else caught his attention. "There’s something on my EFS…”

We slowed to a stop and I cracked an eye open to glance at my pipbuck. Sure enough, a red bar had appeared on my EFS as well. Most likely another True Steel… or whatever had killed them.

Pulling out my shotgun, I loaded in another four shots and readied myself for whatever was approaching. I focused on the end of the hall, trying my best not to look too long at the living walls around me. Beside me, I saw Brisk ready his own weapon.

There was a moment of tense silence, the only sound being our heavy breath and the strange slurping noises that seemed to emit from the walls as the living flesh warped and twisted. Then, my pipbuck light landed on something as it scuttled around the corner towards us.

It looked like it had once been a pony, but it didn’t look anything like one anymore. It’s legs had warped and twisted and it had grown multiple more limbs from its back and stomach. Its mouth was elongated, its jaw detached and hanging so low it almost reached the floor. Its skin was akin to something like a ghoul, wrinkled and rotting and scored by burns and blisters. Like Fleur De Lis, its eyes seemed to glow a pale pink and a strange pink mist wafted around their gnarled form.

Brisk’s pistol fired off a shot, the bullet ripping through the strange creature's disfigured head and sending brain matter spraying across the wall behind it. The Creature howled, staggering backwards and dropping to the ground with a squishy sounding thud.

I took a deep breath as the creature collapsed. “What the fuck was that.”

“Probably whatever the hell that Phantom thing the True Steel was raving about,” Brisk suggested, taking a nervous step towards where the creature had fallen. The fallen creature twitched, making him jump, but otherwise remained still.

I gave a shake of my head in disbelief. “That took out five True Steels? I don’t buy it,” I argued. “There’s no way that they would have been taken down by that thing, not with the crazy amount of weaponry those True Steels are carrying around at any given time.”

“Maybe there were lots of them,” Brisk assumed, poking at the corpse with a hoof. The pink mist burned away at his hide, forcing him to reef his hoof away. “Yikes… don’t touch it. It’s not soft.”

I shook my head again as I slowly trotted over to look the body over with him. “Maybe, but if there were we still should have seen at least one body. But I haven't seen a single corpse since we entered this place save for at the entrance.”

Brisk grimaced, clearly not having a response to that. Finally he shrugged. “Well, I’m not the smart one. I’m just going to say freaky pre war magic and leave it at that.”

Then the corpse of the creature gave us the answer to why we hadn't seen any bodies.

There was a sickening sputter as the corpse of the fallen creature shuttered. The pink mists around it seemed to seep into its wounds, patching it back together. On shaky legs, it pulled itself back up to face us, its impossibly large mouth dropping open and screaming at us.

I reeled back, Breaburn’s Liberator swinging up and blasting the creature through the chest with its explosive buckshot. Upon impact, pink fog burst from the creature's body, filling the hallway and making me cough. I could feel my eyes sting and my coat burn as I came in contact with the thick haze.

The shot failed to slow the creature down. It pulled itself back up, the strange pink cloud that I was realizing looked scarily like the pink cloud Azar had flooded my Stable with patching its wounds back together. It lashed forwards at us, its warped hooves Missing Brisk by Inches as he jumped back.

“Fucking shit!” Brisk stammered, rushing to push himself out of the expanding cloud of pink. His pistol raised in his mouth, only to click on empty. “Amber, run!”

I was way ahead of him. I spun on my hooves and bolted down the hallway. Brisk rushed after me, quickly catching up and glancing behind us as the creature we had thought we killed began scrambling after us.

“Which way!” I shouted, the hallway ahead of us splitting off into three different pathways.

“Doesn’t matter! Just pick one!” Brisk yelled back, loading another shot into his gun and firing off a shot behind him. The shot slashed through the creature's chest, but it failed to slow it down. More pink mist began to spill from its body.

I turned left, darting down the hallway as fast as I could. My eyes still stung from the exposure to the pink could and I could feel blisters forming on my body.

My hoof snagged on something as I ran along. I fell, getting a face full of blood and flesh as I landed on the living floor. I looked back, my eyes widening as I saw that a living pony hoof had reached from the ground to grab me.

I screamed, thrashing my hooves in an attempt to free myself. The hoof let go, allowing me to scamper back up and continue running.

The strange creature was gaining on us. I could hear its painted wails echoing around the dark hallway as it screamed. I couldn’t tell how it was moving so fast on such mangled looking limbs, but it didn’t matter. All that mattered was that I needed to get away.

I heard Brisk give a yell of surprise. I shifted my gaze to the end of the hall to see three more of those… things, rushing towards us. Like the first one, they were twisted and distorted, like a pony that had been made of wax and then had a hairdryer taken to it.

“Quick, in here!” Brisk shouted, ducking into a sideroom. I rushed after him, desperate to get away from the howling monstrosities. The second I was in the room and the door had closed behind me, Brisk spun around and bucked at the emergency lock. There was a burst of sparks as it shattered under Brisk’s assault.

“That should stop them from following us,” Brisk said, tapping the door with a hoof. Though his voice didn’t reflect it, I could tell from the look in his eyes that those creatures had shaken him. He put on a fake smile. “I learned how to break the door systems back in Stable 25 to help escape security. They had to get some poor mechanic to open up the doors just to get to me.”

I winced, his words tugging at a memory. “Wait, that was you?” I slapped my hoof against my forehead. “Do you have any idea how long that took me to get open?! I was up for half the night trying to fix that damn door.”

Brisk gave me an awkward, sheepish look. “Hehehe… Whoops... No hard feelings?”

I just groaned, happy for the distraction to keep myself from thinking about anything but the horrors in this place. I turned to face the room we had entered. It looked to be some sort of sleeping area, though I doubted that was the rooms original purpose. Dozens of beds had been shoved into the room, a few of them little more than mattresses or sleeping bags with the Stable-Tec logo on them. There were a hoofful of terminals all over the room, though only one of them looked to still be functional. A door sat on the far side of the room, leading to what I could only hope was a way out.

“Probably where they were housing all the ponies that had been made homeless by the generator leak,” Brisk said, looking over the large collection of beds.

I gave a nod of agreement. That was as good a guess as any.

I pulled myself over to the only working terminal and clicked it on. Like the last one, it was locked, though not nearly locked enough to stop me from entering. Brisk peeked over my shoulder as I scrolled down a bit and opened one of the logs at random.

>Log #14

>Hi, Daffodil again. I’m still sleeping with everypony else while they try to make the lower levels safe again. It’s taking them a long time. Hopefully they can fix the issue soon.

>Apparently there’s a cure to that sickness that has been going around. I haven’t gotten sick yet, but I’m planning on getting the implant tomorrow anyway. Better safe than sorry, right?

>Anyway, that’s all for now. I had better get some sleep.

>Log #15

>Hi, Daffodil again. So I just got the implant. My head’s feeling a little funny, but I guess that's just what’s to be expected.

>The Overmare says we should be allowed to move back to our old sleeping area in the lower levels soon, but the other ponies don’t seem so sure. I heard somepony say that they think the leak wasn’t an accident, and that Stable-Tec is forcing us out of the lower levels. But I think that’s silly. Why would they do that? What would even be the point?

>Log #16

>It’s Daffodil. I’ve had the worst headache all day. The other ponies that got the implant are having it too. One pony even started coughing up blood. I’m really scared. I think something is going on here. That or Stable-Tec made a mistake. I really hope they didn’t make a mistake.

>Some ponies are saying they're going to demand the Overmare has the implant removed from their head. I’m worried about them. Won’t that just make them sick? Whatever these headaches are can't be worse than that illness, right?

>Log #17

>I woke up in pain today. My head and stomach hurts and I’ve got a weird burning feeling in my throat. It hurts so much. I’m going to have the doctor look at it tomorrow. I’m just going to lie in bed until then. Maybe it will go away.

>Log #18

>Diamond Sky is dead! Well, not dead, but something happened to her. She woke up screaming and spitting weird pink globs. Then some strange pink mist started coming out of her mouth and security escorted her away! I’m freaking out right now. Apparently one of the security ponies got melted from being close to her. I heard they got fused right to the floor!

>So much is happening right now. Some ponies broke into the clinic and stole some of those implants to see what’s inside of them. It's the same pink stuff that was coming out of Diamond. Another pony got melted when they cracked it open.

>Diamond was the first to get the implant. Is that going to happen to me?! I really hope not. Fuck, this is scary. I hope this is over soon.

>Log #19

>Ponies are going crazy! There was another incident like Diamond Sky, but this time ponies didn’t just sit by and let security take them away. They’re storming the Overmares office. I don’t know what they hope to achieve, but I think they might just be out for blood.

>I’m going to try and get out of here. Fuck this Stable. Maybe I can get the Stable door open and get back outside. If there even still is an outside.

>This is Daffodil Sunshine. Bye, I guess.

I looked up as I read the last entry. Still not as much information as I wanted, but it did help to paint a slightly clearer picture.

“So I suppose those things we saw were Stable ponies,” Brisk grimaced, still reading over the terminal. I realized he was much slower at reading than I was and was still on the second to last log. “With the pink cloud and stuff. Whatever that is.”

I knitted my brow together. “I think it's a kind of megaspell or something. The one they used on Canterlot and our Stable. Kamari had a bunch of megaspells in the MAS tower, which I could only assume was how Azar got it. It would explain how the True Steels got fused to their armour and the living walls,” I shivered at the thought of the walls. Ponies that had been melted down, but still unable to die. I remember hearing somewhere that Balefire bombs had some sort of necromantic component to them. I could only assume something similar was going on here.

“Doesn’t explain what happened here though. Unless Stable-Tec was putting tiny megaspells into ponies heads,” Brisk grumbled, finally pulling away from the terminal. He looked over at the door at the far side of the room and gestured over to it. “Come on, let's try and find a way around those freaks.”

I nodded and followed after him as we made our way across the room. The door slid up as we neared, giving us a view of the hallway beyond. Thankfully, it seemed that it wasn’t covered in living pony flesh like the other one had been. The only light in the hallway that still functioned flickered constantly, making my head feel dizzy.

I hated this place.

I looked down at my EFS to make sure we were in the clear. Thankfully, I couldn’t see any red bars. There were however, two green ones.

“Looks like we're coming up on another of the teams,” Brisk said, spotting the two green bars before I could point them out.

“Let's hope they’re having more luck than we are.”

The hallway ended at another sliding Stable door. On my EFS, I could see the two ponies on the far side come to a stop. Likely they had noticed the presence of something on the far side. Hopefully they could tell that we were friendly.

“Amber? Brisk? Is that you?” I heard Mirra’s voice squeak out.

I nodded, only to realize that they couldn’t see me. Flushing slightly, I raised my voice. “Yeah, it’s us.”

A second later the door slid open and I was wrapped in a tight hug as Xayah pushed through the door and wrapped her hooves around me. Brisk looked at the two of us as we embraced for a second before shifting his gaze to Mirra. “Any luck on finding the security wing or Overmare’s office?”

Mirra shook her head as Xayah and I parted. “Nope. We ran into two Rangers though and a mutant thing,” She shivered. “That thing was scary.”

Xayah’s expression was grim. “We seemed unable to kill the creature. Shots to the head slowed it down, but it seemed otherwise invulnerable.”

I grimaced. “We ran into something similar. We had just about as much luck with putting them down,” I glanced behind me and down the hallway we had come. I could feel a shiver race through my body. “That and we found some weird parts of the Stable where ponies seemed to be melted into the walls.”

Xayah cocked her head and gave me a confused look. “Melted into the walls?”

Brisk and I exchanged a worried look. After a second we both shook our heads, coming to a silent agreement. The last thing we wanted was to drag Mirra through that nightmare. Not that we had any desire to see something that horrible again.

I turned back to face them. “Best we don’t show you. It’s not pretty.”

I saw Mirra stiffen and her nose twitch as some scent hit her nostrils. She flinched. “We’ve got more of those creatures coming from that way,” She said, gesturing down the hallway Brisk and I had come from. She sniffed again and turned to one of the conjoining side halls. “I smell ponies and fresh paint that way. Probably True Steels.”

I nodded and started heading down the hall. I had forgotten how useful Mirra’s sense of smell could be. It had been a real life saver on numerous occasions now. “Alright, let's go. Any idea how many are down there?”

Mirra sniffed the air again and shook her head. “Probably three or four? They’re too far away to tell for sure,” she hesitated for a second before continuing to follow after me. “I think I can smell rotting flesh and radiation as well. I think there might be more of those… those things,” she didn’t need to explain what things she was talking about. We all knew.

As we walked, I began to notice veins once more slithering across the walls. Not nearly to the extent of what I had seen before, but still very much present. I heard Xayah take a shaky breath as she saw the veins. “Oh… I see…” She sounded disturbed.

Mirra gave her a worried look. “What? What do you see.”

I placed a hoof on the small changeling's shoulder and quickly shut off my pipbuck light, sending us into darkness. “Doesn’t matter Mirra. Do you think you can lead the way through the dark with your scent?”

I could feel Mirra shiver beside me. “Wh-why? What is it? Why can I smell blood?”

I sighed. “Trust me Mirra. You don’t want to know.”

She didn’t answer after that. I had no doubt that our reaction was scaring her, but it would be better than letting the filly see the walls. That wasn’t something anypony should need to witness. After a few seconds of walking, I felt the squishing of flesh under my hooves. I was thankful I had shut off my pipbuck light.

I heard Mirra whimper slightly beside me. “We’re walking on ponies, aren’t we…” She whimpered. “It smells like pony flesh…” I nodded, though I knew she couldn’t see me in the darkness.

“Just keep walking Mirra. We’ll be fine… I promise...”

There was a small flicker of light up ahead of us that outlined a turn in the hallway. Through the dim light I could see the flesh covered walls. I considered covering Mirra’s eyes, but it wouldn’t be much good at this point.

Mirra paused. “There’s one of those creatures around the corner,” I could tell she was staring in horror at the flesh on the wall, but she was doing her best not to show her fear.

A few seconds later, a pained wail echoed down the hallway at us, confirming the creature's presence. I turned to Xayah. “Xayah, can you take out the thing? Aim for the head.”

Xayah nodded and slunked over to the corner of the hall, her sniper already drawn. The rest of us slowly trailed behind her, readying ourselves for attack. I poked my head around the corner and stared down the hall.

One of the warped creatures stood in the middle of the hall, silhouetted by the flickering light above. He scratched at the ground, ripping bloody gashes in the flesh covered floor.

I could see Xayah shiver as she took in the organic hallway. It was the first time she had seen it in somewhat proper light. Her sniper raised and aimed at the creature's head.

“When you fire, we’re only going to have a few moments before it pulls itself up again," Brisk reminded us, crouching down beside me and looking out at the creature. “And the shots are probably going to alert more of them and send them running after us as well.”

I gave a grim nod. “We’ll make a run for it,” I looked past the creature and at the intersecting hallways at the end of the hall. Who the fuck designed this Stable? It was like a fucking maze. Whomever made Stable 25 did a much better job. “Mirra, which hallway are we wanting to go through?”

Mirra gave a big sniff of the air. She gagged slightly at the scent of rotten flesh but eventually pointed to the left most hallway. “I think I can smell rangers down that way.”

I nodded. “Alright, we’ll head left. Xayah, whenever you’re ready.”

Xayah looked back to the creature and re-aimed their sniper. There was a tense second of silence as she lined up her shot.

Bang!

The shot flashed forwards, piercing the twisted abomination between the eyes. There was a spurt of blood and a howl of pain as the thing collapsed to the ground in a slump. At once, I pushed myself forwards and darted down the hall. Xayah was at my side in seconds and I saw Brisk carting Mirra on his back a pace behind me.

Horrific wails echoed out from the halls around us and the sudden sound of clambering hooves filled the air. Clearly there were more creatures around than we thought. I figured Mirra’s nose had its limits, and it was probably getting confused by all the living flesh.

As we neared the fallen body of the creature Xayah had shot, a puff of pink vapor burst from its form, filling the hallway with a thin mist of Pink. The pink mist began seeping back into its body, patching the bullet wound in its head back together.

I reeled back as I came up on the thin wall of pink. I glanced behind me, making out the vile silhouette of more creatures as they began to pour into the tunnel after us. No other way through. I slammed my eyes shut, took a deep breath, and plunged into the pink.

For just a moment, my whole body felt like it was on fire. My insides churned, my eyes stung and leaked with tears and my hairs all felt like hot, metal rods that had been stabbed into my flesh. Less than a second later, I was out of the cloud and all the pain was little more than a throbbing memory in my head.

Brisk, Xayah and Mirra pushed their way out of the cloud less than a moment later and we continued scrambling as fast as we could down the hall. I heard the Creature give a howl of rage and torment as it finally rose back to its hooves and joined the rest of the monsters as they rushed after us.

We reached the end of the hall and I bolted left. A side door slid open at our approach, making way for one of the twisted creatures as they lunged out at us. I ducked and rolled, the fleshy apparition’s attack sailing over my head.

I bucked at it, my hooves slamming into the creatures head and staggering it. My hoof stung at the contact, the pink cloud wafting around my limbs. I yelped in pain and continued rushing forwards. I didn’t bother fighting it, I knew it couldn’t die.

The creatures were gaining on us. I couldn’t see them well in the dark, but I could feel their ragged, rot scented breath breathing down my neck. Brisk gave a holler of pain as one of the creatures lashed at him with a hoof, the mangled limb burning away a small bit of his hide.

Up ahead, I saw a sign embedded on the far wall, the words unreadable through the darkness of the room. I flicked on my pipbuck light as I ran, illuminating the hallway in hopes to read the sign and get an inkling of where we were. To my relief, the words Overmare’s office came into view. Clearly Mirra’s nose had not led us astray.

Unfortunately, my pipbuck light lit up other things in the hallway that were best left unseen. A collective gasp escaped my friends as they took in the ghastly Stable hallway.

Like the tunnel I had seen from before, the walls, floor and ceiling were covered in a thick layer of flesh and muscle, stretched across the surface like a canvass. Pony hooves and faces stretched out from the wall, squirming as if trying to break free from the wall. With my pipbuck light now activated, I saw its pale green glow reflecting off the numerous eyeballs that looked to have grown out of the wall and were following us as we ran.

“Quick, this way!” I shouted, trying my best to ignore the horrors of the Stable and turning down the hall that the sign suggested should lead to the Overmars office. “We’re almost there!”

One of the creatures dove forwards, their gnarled limbs wrapping around Xayah’s waist and dragging her to the ground with a scream, the pink mist wafting from its body burning at Xayah’s hide. Xayah flailed, slamming her hooves against the creature's body over and over in an attempt to free herself. She raised her sniper to blow out the creature's brains. I saw her whole body lock up as she took in the creature that had grabbed her.

The creature that had latched onto her was like all the others in many ways. Multiple twisted limbs, gaping maw, melted flesh. But it was different too. It was smaller. It was a filly.

I recalled what Xayah had told me. That fillies often remind her of Zira. I saw her jaw lessen and the sniper lower. She wasn’t going to shoot a filly, even if it was a mutated monster.

The filly creature’s mouth widened impossibly wide, its jaw unhinging and its long tongue lolling from its mouth. It’s jagged, rotting teeth glinted in the light of my pipbuck.

I whirled around, Braeburn’s Liberator swinging up in my magic and firing a shot of buckshot into the gnarled fillies head. Their heads burst open, making the creature stumbled off of Xayah, viscera spraying from the bloody stump of its neck.

Xayah blinked off the shock and pushed herself away from the scrambling mob of monstrosities. I could see tears in her eyes as she pushed herself past me, not bothering to give me even a sideways glance.

Ahead, I saw Brisk and Mirra charge around another corner, this corner seeming to lead to a more steady looking light. Pushing through my exhaustion, I pushed myself forwards and towards the light. As Brisk and Mirra moved out of sight, I heard the sound of what I could only assume was one of the True Steels Mirra had smelt.

“What the fu- we got ponies in here!” I heard them shout. My eyes filled with flashing lights as the sound of a mini gun opening fire rang through my ears. I hoped Brisk and Mirra managed to avoid the gunfire.

Xayah and I rounded the corner, stepping out into the light. A few steps away from us was a large open door that led to a larger room beyond. Four True Steels stood guard in the room around a door, their attention drawn to an open doorway that I could See Brisk and Mirra taking cover behind. One of them turned to face us as we entered.

“Shit! We’ve got more of the-” Through their visor I could see their eyes widen as one of the twisted creatures scrambled into the light behind us. “Fuck! Open Fire!”

The True Steels battle saddles let loose a stream of fire towards us. Xayah and I dove aside, taking shelter beside Brisk and Mirra. Thankfully, the True Steels weren’t aiming at us, but at the mass of creatures that were suddenly pouring into the tunnel after us.

There was a loud boom as a rocket shot from one of the rangers battle saddles. I ducked down, shrapnel blasting through the door as the large explosive ripped into the oncoming creatures.

One of the Creatures lunged forwards, lashing at a True Steel with their hooves. The True Steel stumbled backwards and fired at it, pink clouds bursting from the bullet holes that were ripped open in their body. The cloud consumed the ranger. I heard his screams as his hide was welded to his armour. A second later, he collapsed to the ground.

“Close the door! Get it closed now!” One of the True Steels shouted. I couldn’t tell which one. There was another blast of a rocket, followed by the frontmost creatures being ripped apart by the explosion.

One of the True Steels rushed forwards and activated the emergency lock on the door. Their metal clad hoof slammed down on the emergency lock mechanism, the large doors immediately sliding shut in response. Unfortunately for the True Steel, one of the Creatures had already pushed its way through the door. The True Steel staggered as the Creatures swiped at it with their twisted hooves, pink clouds seeping from their body and into the rangers armour.

The rocket launcher wielding True Steel lined up a shot and fired. The rocket blasted forwards, detonating with the creature's body. It exploded, limbs and gore flying all over the room. The Creature was not alone in their fate. The True Steel it had been assailing was blasted apart by their companions explosive attack. The True Steel screamed as they were blown apart, then there was silence.

No pony moved for a moment as they waited to see if the decimated creature would get back up. Pink cloud still seemed to be leaking from where its ruined head had landed, but other than that, it seemed to be staying down. I quickly took note that these things could in fact be killed. I just had to find a way to blow them up to a point they couldn’t regenerate. Perhaps fire might have been able to deal with them, had Pyre still been with us.

“Don’t move or we’ll shoot,” I heard one of the True Steels shout. I tensed up. I had forgotten that these ponies had seen us rush in. “We are not afraid to fire if you make any sudden moves,” I was honestly surprised they hadn’t fired yet.

I gulped as the sudden implication of one of the True Steels firing hit me. A single shot from that rocket launcher was likely to destroy everything in the small room we were taking cover in. Our cover suddenly felt more like a death trap. Curse these confined spaces.

Brisk cast me a glance. “Plan?”

“Star paladin Tesla Coil is probably in the other room. We need to deal with these rangers, then take him out.”

“That is simply a list of objectives,” Xayah quipped. “Why are your plans always just a list of obvious objectives?”

I threw my hooves up in the air in exasperation. “What else do you want me to do? I can’t be expected to make all these plans up on the fly like this all the time!”

“Step out with your weapons holstered!” The other True Steel ordered. “If you fail to comply we will fire!”

I turned to Mirra. “You have any grenades left from the MWT building?” I whispered. Mirra gave a timid nod. I allowed myself to crack a grin as I gestured to Brisk, Xayah and myself. “We’ll step out. When they’re distracted roll the grenade past our hooves and towards them.”

Mirra gave an affirmative nod, only looking somewhat confident in her ability to do so.

“I’m going to count to three!” One of them shouted. I could hear a rocket clicking into place in their launcher.

“No need. Just hold on, we’re coming out,” I said cautiously. Slowly, I stepped out from behind cover, Braeburn’s Liberator still holstered at my side. Nervously, Brisk and Xayah follow suit, their weapons also still at their sides.

The True Steel with the rocket launcher snarled at us. “State your purpose here.”

“Iron Hock sent us. We’re here to help,” I lied. If I could just catch them off guard enough…

“Unlikely. Only true members of the old order of the Steel Rangers are permitted entry into our ranks. Iron Hock would never accept some green Stable dwellers…” Their gaze shifted to Xayah. He gave her a low growl “And we would never affiliate ourselves with Zebras”

Xayah winced back slightly. I wanted to simply shoot this fucker then and there for that remark. That hadn’t been my best lies, I should have known they’d see through it.

I puffed out my chest and tried not to show any fear. “Well… um… Obviously. I never said we were True Steels… um…” I searched for a reason Iron Hock might have sent us. “Iron Hock figured we could help navigate the area… since… we’re Stable dwellers and all…”

“And the Zebra?” The second True Steel pushed.

“Um…” I looked at Brisk and Xayah for help. They just gave me unhelpful, worried shrugs. I looked back to the True Steels and gave an uncomfortable, nervous grin. “Backup?”

The True Steel with the rocket launcher snorted. “Yeah, right… Doesn’t matter anyway. We’re almost done here. Most of the old generator and the scrap metal has been salvaged and shipped off to Fort Strong. We’re just tying up loose ends.”

The ranger that hadn’t been speaking had taken to staring at me. I let my gaze flicker over to him as I spotted a sudden look of anger cross his face. “Wait a second. You’re that cunt that killed Pistachio!”

We all took a step back. I let myself groan. “Celestia damn it, can somepony tell me who the fuck this Pistachio is? Fucking hell!”

The grenade rolled past my hooves and landed by the True Steels hooves. They both dropped their heads down to look at it in shock. They realized what it was too late.

The grenade exploded, sending one of the True Steels flying across the room and smashing into a wall, their helmet now a dented and broken scrap of metal. The second True Steel stumbled back, their strong armour taking the brunt of the explosion.

My shotgun was up in the air in seconds, firing off a shot in the True Steels direction. The buckshot ripped through the rangers side, blasting apart metal and revealing bits of the scarred hide beneath. The True Steel staggered, still trying to keep his balance from the explosion that had rammed into him only seconds before.

There was a strong whoosh of air as a rocket launched itself from the True Steels side and flashed towards us. The shot missed by a mile, soaring above us and bursting against the top of the doorframe.

A rocket doesn’t need to hit.

I was knocked over, the shockwave slamming into me from above and making me collapse to my stomach. Brisk was sent reeling to his left, his head smacking against the side of the wall.

Xayah’s legs braced themselves, managing to keep her upright despite the blast. Her sniper snapped up and fired, its aim thrown off by the sudden detonation of the rocket. The bullet pierced the True Steels leg, making him collapse to one knee.

Behind me, Mirra fluttered out from behind the door and spat a large wad of green mucus from her mouth. The green slim splattered against the True Steels rocket launcher, covering the hole.

The True Steel didn’t seem to care. He pulled himself back up, his large weapon aiming to face me as I struggled to get back to my own hooves. The rocket launcher fired…

...and then promptly exploded.

The entire left side of the True Steel was blasted apart, the rocket detonation within his battle saddle before it had the chance to fire at me as it collided with Mirras green mucus. The True Steel was thrown halfway across the room, two of their hooves shredded and mangled underneath their armour. They landed in a heap, moaning in pain for only a moment before they went limp and died.

I let myself look away from the ranger and towards Mirra. “That spit thing is creepy.”

Mirra stuck her forked tongue out at me. “I work with what I’m given.”

Brisk turned to look at the door leading into the Overmares office. “You think Tesla Coil is inside?”

I gave him a nod. “If the welcome party was any indication, I’d say there’s a high chance that he’s in there.”

Like the rest of the doors in the Stable, the door to the Overmares office slid open at our approach. Instead of leading directly into the Office like I had expected, the doorway led to a short tunnel ending in a flight of stairs. Hopefully this distance between the door and the office itself would have been enough to muffle our previous fight. With any luck, Paladin Tesla Coil would have no idea we were coming.

We began slinking down the hallway towards the stairs. Like before, I could see veins spider webbing across the walls. Just a foot away from the first step, the walls once more became organic, covered in a thick layer of mangled hooves and warped pony flesh. A silently screaming pony face tried to stretch out from the wall and bite at me as we passed it.

The horrors in the walls seemed to be getting worse and more consistent the closer to the Overmares office we got. Something terrible had happened here. We were getting closer to the source.

As we slowly approached the top most step of the stairs, a voice was heard, low and gravelly. We all froze and listened in. “...We are almost done here. A few more hours and we will be ready to cleanse the Stable for good,” It wasn’t a voice I recognized. I could only assume it belonged to the aforementioned Paladin Tesla Coil.

“Good. Have you managed to reach the Security wing yet?” Another voice spoke up, this one filled with static and sounding as if it were coming over an intercom. I felt myself shiver. I knew that voice. I took a small step forward and peeked into the room.

The room was a lot like how I had expected it. In many ways it looked exactly like the Overstallion office back in Stable 25, if not just a little bit bigger. Across the room I could even see a small door that in Stable 25 would have led to my bedroom. It was weird to look at.

What made it different however were the living pony walls. Like the hallways, the Overmares office had become a nightmare of stretched pony flesh and muscle, mixed with veins, eyeballs and screaming pony faces. A few fully formed ponies still protruded from the walls and floor, their bodies twisted and warped and their hooves firmly welded to the ground as they tried to pull themselves free.

I wondered how long they had been like that, twisted and unable to move. Unable to scream or do anything beside writhe and feel pain. It was a terrible fate. One I knew would give me nightmares for years to come.

Paladin Tesla Coil stood in the centre of the room. He was a monster of a pony, standing almost three times my height. He must have ducked a little just to have fit himself through the door. He was clad in a fully enclosed suit of power armour that had been painted to be an almost blinding gold. His large, metal pauldrons had multiple energy capacitors built into them, each one connected to a bunch of tesla coils that raced across his form.

Attached to his battle saddle was a weapon I had hoped to never see used against me again. A massive Tesla cannon. Smaller than the twin ones Crank had been wielding, but not by much, and still a massive and impressive weapon all the same.

“I am awaiting confirmation from my grand knights on their success with the mission, High Lord Elder Iron Hock,” Tesla Coil boomed, facing the broadcaster he had set up in the middle of the Overmares office. That title still sounding fucking stupid. “As soon as they have secured everything of value, I’ll have them activate the security protocols and I’ll begin the pink cloud dispenser.”

I locked up. They wanted to flood the Stable with pink cloud as soon as they were finished looting? Why? Surely this place could be of some tactical use to them, right?

Iron Hock’s voice rumbled from the broadcaster, answering my thoughts. “Good. The last thing we need are the Steel Rangers, or Celestia forbid, the Fucking Outcast puppets, getting their hooves on this place,” He paused, and for a second I wondered if he had hung up on the other end. Then he spoke again. “I just got reports that your first scouting team has arrived. I am pleased to see you have delivered the generator and arch reactor as requested instead of chasing your own brash plan of storming the Security wing.”

I cast a worried glance with my friends, but they didn’t seem to pick up on the same thing as me. Why the fuck did Iron Hock want generator parts before weaponry? That seemed oddly out of character for him. And if what the True Steel in the room behind us had said was true, he had focused more on collecting scrap metal. Again, the question of why they hadn’t looted the medical clinic came up in my mind. The True Steels were here for something very specific. I couldn’t even begin to comprehend what. Things just didn’t quite add up.

Tesla Coil put a large hoof over his chest and gave the Steel Ranger salute. I doubted Iron Hock could see him, but I doubted that mattered to Tesla Coil. The movements looked almost instinctual. “Ad Victoriam!” He declared boldly, before reaching forwards and shutting off the broadcaster. He turned back to the Overmares terminal and began typing something.

I turned back to my friends. “Alright, do we have a plan?”

They all stared back at me blankly. Finally Brisk spoke up in a hushed whisper. “That’s your job. Since when do I ever have a plan for anything?”

I grumbled. “Darn, why do I always have to come up with it?”

“You’re the smartest?” Mirra suggested helpfully.

I just groaned. “Alright. He’s just one ranger. We can probably take him out,” I looked to Brisk. “We’ll charge in. I’ll take the right, you take the left. We’ll attack him from both sides,” I turned to Xayah. “You stay here and give us cover fire. Try to take him out with his sniper.”

Xayah gave a quick nod and began readying her sniper. Mirra looked up at me. “And what do you want me to do?” She held up her pistol bravely, but her face made it clear she had no desire to fight anypony.

I gestured to the staircase. “Make sure we don’t get any other unwelcome guests. Alert us if there are more rangers coming. There are still nine unaccounted True Steels in the Stable… and whatever those monsters were.”

“Report,” I heard Tesla Coil boom from across the room, drawing our attention back to him as he once again flicking on the broadcaster. “Have you reached the security wing yet?”

The voice that responded sounded clearer and less static filled than Iron Hock’s had. Clearly the proximity to the broadcaster was helping the pony on the other side pick up and transmit the signal. “We just reached the entrance. Though we’ve had some resistance with those phantom things.”

Tesla Coil growled. “Blow them apart. They cannot regenerate once their head is pulped,” Good to know. I’d keep that in mind for next time. I heard Tesla Coil growl again. “Keep pushing through. I need those security systems back online.”

I signalled with my hoof for us to start moving. “Alright. Let's do this.”

Boom!

The wall beside me was suddenly hit with a blinding flash of blue light. I staggered back, my head reeling and my ears ringing. Brisk was sent flying down the steps, being closest to the blast, tumbling head first and coming to a sudden stop at the bottom in a disheveled heap. I heard both Xayah and Mirra whimper as the powerful shockwave knocked them off kilter.

I stumbled, raising Braeburns Liberator and firing off a shot. The buckshot met air as Tesla Coil quickly moved out of the way.

“Did you really think you could sneak up on me?” Tesla Coil snarled, his large Tesla Cannon charging up for another blast. He turned to look at us more fully, a small chuckled escaping his lips. “Surely some Stable dwellers would not so easily forget about EFS?”

Fuck! How did I forget that his power armour would have had that. Our sudden move to attack him would have alerted him by showing our four red bars.

Xayah fired a shot from her sniper beside me, her shot being just as effective as mine had been as Tesla Coil quickly stepped to the side. Clearly our element of surprise was gone, so… fuck it!

I pulled myself out from our cover and charged at the large True Steel, my shotgun already raised and aimed. Tesla Coil spun around, his large rear hooves lashing out and bucking me in the chest. I choked out a pained breath, my lungs feeling like they were on fire as I was sent flying across the room and slamming into the rear wall. His buck was accompanied by a painful crack as a few of my ribs were shattered under his force.

Brisk came stumbling up the stairs, his pistol raised and firing at the paladin. Tesla Coil twisted to face him, Brisk’s shots simply bouncing off his powerful armour. He charged, his Tesla cannon continuing to grow with intense glowing light as he prepared for another blast.

Xayah, Brisk and Mirra all scattered as the large True Steel bulldozed towards them. The tesla coils on his armour sparked, sending jolts of pale blue electricity lashing out around him. The bolts slashed into the walls, sending more sparks rippling across the surfaces. Had it not been for the walls of flesh, I have no doubt we would have been instantly electrocuted.

I pulled myself back to my hooves, my head still spinning from slamming into the wall with such force. I stumbled, the searing pain in my chest threatening to throw me into unconsciousness already. My head raised, my eyes widening as I saw Tesla Coil’s cannon fully charged and turning back to face me. The end of the massive weapon began to shine with a blinding blue as it prepared to fire.

With less than a second to spare, I ignited my horn, wrapping myself in a thin amber shield of magic. The second the shield was up, I was hit by the immense blast of the tesla cannon. My shield exploded around me, the blast sending me once more flying across the room.

I slammed against the wall, my vision spinning as I tried to focus on the battle around me. I saw Tesla Coil charging at me, his weapon once more charging up as he prepared to fire.

Mirra flew out towards him, her pistol blasting a shot off into the side of his helmet. The shot sparked off the metal, making the huge paladin stumble, but not fall. He spun around, his hooves lashing out and swatting Mirra out of the air. The changeling was batted to the ground, a spark of energy lashing out from Tesla Coils hoof and sending a bolt slashing across Mirra's Chest.

Mirra screamed, her front blackened and burned from the attack. She staggered back, trying to pull herself away from Tesla Coil as he reared up and prepared to slam his hooves down on the fillies head.

Xayah’s sniper swung up and blasted Tesla Coil in one of his reer hooves. The bullet ripped through the joint in his armour, making him collapse backwards and onto his side in a growl of pain. Brisk rushed forward and wrapped his hooves around Mirra, quickly pulling her out of range of the deadly True Steel.

I stumbled to my hooves, my vision still seeing double of everything. “Everypony okay?”

It wasn’t time to talk yet. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a blinding flash of blue. I ducked and rolled forwards, a powerful blast of the paladin’s Tesla canon flashing over my head and slamming into the wall behind me. My broken ribs screamed in protest as I rolled to a stop, my breath coming out in ragged pants.

Tesla Coil pulled himself back up, limping on his injured hind hoof and turning his angry gaze towards us. He gave a deep growl that seemed to resonate through my whole body. “Who do you ponies work for? The Outcasts?”

I cast a look at my friends before giving a small shrug. “Not technically, but let's go with that.”

Tesla Coil gave another growl. “Mercenaries then? Whatever you’re being paid, I’m sure I can double it.”

So these True Steel assholes were interested in talking it out now? I didn’t think so. I shook my head. “Not after what you did to my Stable. And the Outcasts aren’t paying us. This is more like volunteer work than anything else.”

Tesla Coil straightened up into a slightly less hostile position, but he never dropped his guard. I could still see his large tesla cannon charging up at his side. “So you simply wish to help the wasteland then? I can admire that,” He gave a low, deep chuckle. “Perhaps we can come to an agreement. It would seem we have the same interests.”

Xayah snarled. “Your interests are to rule the ponies of the wasteland. You do not wish to aid in their struggles.”

Tesla Coil gave a shake of his head. “On the contrary. The True Steels desire to bring the wasteland a form of government, the likes of which have not been seen since before the bombs,” He stomped his hoof and gave a snort. “The Steel Rangers had no interest in this. They were merely raiders in fancy suits. While what the Outcasts have done is… admirable, their lack of drive and focus on the here and now will very quickly lead to their downfall. How long do you think the Outcasts will be able to thrive in the wasteland? They are up against foes and factions far superior in firepower and numbers then they will ever be, and they are constantly losing valuable resources in their hopeless crusade to save civilians that share no respect for them. Only the True Steels are strong enough to create genuine, lasting change to the wasteland.”

Brisk gave a loud snort. “The wasteland needs order, no argument there. But not under you or Iron Hock,” Mirra folded back her bug like ears and gave the paladin a small growl to emphasize Brisk’s point, scrunching up her muzzle and bearing her fangs.

“Under Iron Hock?” Tesla Coil scoffed. “Iron Hock is an opportunistic fool. He will lead the True Steels to victory, but he will not live long enough to take control of the wasteland. I will see to that.”

I raised an eyebrow, suddenly caught off guard. “Wait… You’re… planning to backstab him?” I had taken Tesla Coil for more of an obedient soldier than as a pony who had their own plans for the wasteland. “Why?”

“As I said, Iron Hock is a fool. He would see the wasteland ruled by him. He would see the ponies slaughtered to get his way. Even now, he has killed more than even I am comfortable with,” Tesla Coil explained, his deep, commanding voice rumbling around the room. “So…? What do you say?”

I shook my head again. I could understand where Tesla Coil was coming from, but while he seemed to be more reasonable and less bloodthirsty than Iron Hock, his idea of making a perfect wasteland was still paved by blood and violence. Enough so that he was willing to stand beside Iron Hock as long as he needed to make it happen.

“No,” I said firmly, once more leveling Breabruns Liberator. “There has to be a better way to do this than violence.”

“Maybe so...” Tesla Coil admitted, his head cocking slightly to the side. “But if ponies were capable of doing such a thing, do you not think that they would have done so at some point in the last two hundred years?” There was a small beep from beside him, making Tesla Coil look over to the broadcaster he had been communicating to earlier. He reached over and clicked it on. “Are you ready?”

The voice of the True Steel Knight we had heard earlier spoke up. “The Security wing has been secured.”

Wait… What…? Fuck…!

Tesla Coil turned back to face us. I could see the edges of his smile twisting upwards behind his visor. “Wonderful. I have some company with me in the Overmares office. Would you mind eliminating them for me?” I took a step back at his words, only for him to take an advancing step towards me, his vile grin continuing to grow behind his helmet. “Gotcha!”

He hadn’t been trying to offer us anything! He had just been trying to distract us! Stall us!

Blueberry had told me that Tesla Coil was smart. I should have seen this coming.

Five turrets popped down from the roof above us, red lights flickering to life across their metallic surfaces. I heard all my friends give startled yelps as they were suddenly faced with the extra extensive fire power.

Blam! Blam! Blam! Blam!

The turrets unleashed their stream of fire. I dove to the side, my chest filling with agony as I landed heavily on my broken ribs. To my right, I saw Xayah try to move out of the way, only for the turrets fire to rip through her hind leg. She screamed, falling to the ground, blood spilling from the multiple bullet wounds in her leg.

Brisk rushed forwards, a few of the turrets shots grazing his side as he attempted to charge Tesla Coil. The large paladin’s armour sparked, a bolt of electricity shooting through Brisk’s body and sending him stumbling backwards.

I staggered to my hooves, my whole body being wracked in aching pains. I swung my shotgun up and fired it towards Tesla Coil. The explosive buckshot pounded into his chest, pushing him backwards. Fire shot across the front of his body and scorched his armour as the fire talismans in my shotgun took effect, but the shot failed to actually penetrate the thick metal plating. The paladin scowled, firing off a shot of his own explosive weapon towards me.

My vision flared with light as the blast of static filled energy burst against the ground before me. All of the hairs on my body stood on end as a shock zapped through me as my body was hit by the massive shockwave that sent me somersaulting through the air backwards.

Mirra fluttered forwards, one of her hooves still clutching at the burn mark caused by Tesla Coils previous attack. She reached out and wrapped me in her magic, cushioning my fall as I once more slammed into the floor.

There was a beep, as the turrets once again swiveled to face us and opened fire. I rolled to the side, one of the turrets firing into the side of my barding. I felt a piercing pain as the bullets thumped into me, but thankfully the ballistic weave Coco Pommel had placed into my Stable barding protected me from most of the damage.

I saw Xayah struggling to move out of the way of another Turrets attack, relying on her metal forehooves to carry her as her left hind leg dragged uselessly behind her from the turret's previous assault. She struggled to aim her sniper with her mouth, taking aim at one of the turrets and firing. The bullet lashed through the turret, making it explode in a shower of sparks.

Tesla Coil spun around, his hooves ramming forwards and knocking Xayah back down. She spun to try and fire a shot at him, only for him to crack his metal clad hooves against her head, knocking her prone to the ground. A small drizzle of blood spilled from Xayah’s muzzle as the large True Steel slammed her head against the ground.

Brisk’s pistol fired, the shot ripping through another of Tesla Coil’s legs. He staggered back again, grunting in pain.

Tesla Coil was strong. I had no doubt that had he been fighting only one of us, or even three of us, he could have taken us out with ease. But there were more of us than there were of him, and we were beginning to wear him down. I could tell that he was beginning to see that too as he tried to steady himself on his only two uninjured legs.

He gave us all a deep growl, his tesla cannon firing off a powerful shot in Brisk’s direction. Brisk dove aside, stumbling into me as the blasts shockwave rammed into him. I helped to pull him back up, turning to face Tesla Coil and trying to take aim on him again.

Blam! Blam! Blam! Blam!

My chest was ripped open as two of the turrets spun around and fired directly into me. I slumped backwards, pain shooting across my body. My barding absorbed a lot of the damage, but even it could only stop so much.

Brisk crouched down next to me, his hooves applying pressure to my bleeding front. Blood spilled from the wounds, soaking his coat in crimson.

Mirra darted forwards, her revolver firing a shot that pinged off Tesla Coils armour. The True Steel spun around to face her, only to see her spit a wad of green mucus onto the front of his saddle mounted gun. The trick had worked well on the True Steel we had fought downstairs. It was not nearly as effective against the energy based Tesla Cannon.

The quick drying mucus was blasted apart as Tesla Coil fired again, sending bolts of energy and green slime flying across the room. The blast of energy lashed forwards, detonating against the flesh covered wall behind Mirra, spraying her with a mix of shredded flesh and viscera. I was horrified to hear the walls scream.

Tesla Coil growled at Mirra as she quickly zipped away from another blast of his cannon. Snarling, he pounced forwards, his armoured hooves slashing through the air as he tried to bat the changelings to the ground.

Pushing past the pain, I loaded four more shots into my gun. I was beginning to run scarily low on ammo. I steadied myself, trying to aim at the paladin despite the pain flaring through my body. Braeburns Liberator fired, the buckshot bursting against the side of his armour and ripping open a piece of the metal plating, giving me a clear view of his green coat beneath.

Tesla Coil scowled, stumbling backwards as he tried to keep his now unarmoured side away from our weaponry. He limped over to where Xayah was still struggling to pull herself up off the ground after the paladin's last attack and placed one of his hooves on her head, pushing her face back down into the flesh covered floor.

“Surrender now or the Zebra bitch’s head gets crushed!” Tesla Coil demanded. I could hear a small tremor in his voice. We were beating him. We would beat him, and he knew it. But not before he would get the chance to crush Xayah’s skull. That was something he knew too.

I took a step forward, only to see him apply more pressure onto Xayah’s head. Xayah yelled out in pain as the metal clad hoof pushed down on her.

Up above, the four remaining turrets swiveled around to face us, each one aiming at one of our heads. I gulped. I wouldn’t be able to dodge the turret again if it fired. Not with my broken ribs and my chest riddled with bullet holes.

I saw the barrels of the turrets prepare to fire.

The turrets went dead, their red blinking lights going dark and the barrels dropping to face the floor.

Tesla Coils head shot up with surprise. His head whipped around to stare at the turrets, his eyes widening. “What! What the fuck is going on!”

My pipbuck made a small beep, drawing all of our attention to me. I flicked it on and saw that a familiar broadcast signal had popped up. I quickly activated it.

“Amber Aura, this is Crusader Blueberry reporting. We have just taken control of the security wing. What’s your status?” I felt my whole body seemingly go limp with relief.

“We’re here in the Overmares office with Tesla Coil. Mind giving us some assistance?” I could feel some smugness seeping into my voice, despite the unbearable pain that I was still feeling.

The voice on the other side of the broadcast was quiet for less than a second before Blueberry spoke up. “No problem, I have a visual.”

I saw Tesla Coil’s body go rigid with alarm. He scrambled to crush Xayah’s skull, only for all four turrets to whir to life and send a stream of bullets slashing into him. Tesla Coil screamed, stumbling away from Xayah as his body was ripped into by the constant fire. Most of the shots bounced harmlessly off his armour, but many pushed through, slashing holes into his flesh which quickly began to spew blood. One of his legs was blasted apart, momentarily forcing him to his knees.

Tesla Coil scrambled back up and reeled back, his massive cannon firing a shot towards the ceiling and blowing apart one of the turrets in an explosion of blue energy. The turret burst into shrapnel, raining shards of metal and lead down on all of us.

Brisk pulled himself away from me, his pistol firing off a shot. The shot lanced through Tesla Coils last intact leg, sending the paladin collapsing onto his front.

Tesla Coil roared with pain, his head turning to face us as he gave us all a hateful glare. Amazingly, he pulled himself back up on shaking legs, his whole body trembling as the turrets continued to pour their constant stream of fire into him. His body turned towards us, his tesla cannon levelling with our position and beginning to glow a brilliant blue.

“You cannot stop us!” He bellowed, one of his legs buckling under him as he tried to keep a strong stance before us. “You have no idea what Iron Hock is capable of… what he has set in motion!”

His tesla cannon continued to charge up, glowing brighter and brighter as he prepared to fire.

One of the turrets sent a bullet that lashed through his neck. The weak part of the armour that allowed for his head to move burst open, a thick spray of blood spurting from his neck and across the floor. He dropped to his knees again, the glowing light of his tesla cannon going dead. I could see him glaring at me through his visor as he collapsed to the ground, his eyes filled with pain. Then the life drained from his eyes and his body went limp.

I felt myself take a deep breath as the room was suddenly cast into silence. My chest throbbed as I inhaled, reminding me of my wounds. I pulled out one of my healing potions and looked it over. I recalled what Star Breeze had told me about healing potions and broken bones. Deciding her knowledge of medicine vastly outweighed my own, I placed the potion down and looked my chest over.

I couldn’t just leave the bones to heal, not with the blood spilling down my front from all the bullet wounds. But if I just drank the healing potion, my ribs might heal wrong, and that sounded like the last thing I wanted. Remembering the bone healing spell Heartbeat had used, I let an amber aura surround my horn. I focused for a second, sweat dripping down my brow as I concentrated on the spell. There was a small pop, followed by my ribs snapping back into place.

I screamed, my chest flaring with pain as the bones twisted within my chest. My version of the spell was not nearly as effective as Heartbeats had been, and hurt a fuck of a lot more, but it did its job. Or at the very least, it did its job enough that hopefully the healing potion would be able to do the rest of the work.

I picked the healing potion back up in my hooves, my horn throbbing from that last spell too much to use magic again for a few moments, and quickly drank the potions contents. Almost immediately, I felt the itch of my flesh patching itself back together as the healing potion worked its magic.

Across the room, I saw Brisk giving Xayah a healing potion before drinking one himself. A few moments later and they were both looking better, though admittedly fairly tired. I offered a potion to Mirra, but she just waved me off, telling me to save it for something more important. She wasn’t wrong, there was only so much a healing potion could do for a burn mark.

My pipbuck gave another beep, signalling to me that Blueberry was once more trying to contact me. I clicked the broadcast on. “Thanks for the help,” I said to my pipbuck, pulling myself up to my aching hooves. “How did taking the security wing go?”

There was a bit of static from the other end before Blueberry answered. “We managed to clear the way and dispatch all the True Steels without casualty. However, Knight Elderberry had been injured and was in serious need of medical attention. I sent knight Lemon Cheesecake to return him to the Stable door and get him to Dazzling Souvenir.”

I nodded, trotting over to the Overmares terminal and clicking it on. “We have the Overmares office secured as well,” I paused, not sure how to continue. “Did you.. Um… did you encounter the things that are down here? Not the True Steels, the, uh… other things…”

There was silence from Blueberry for a moment. I could tell from his silence that the answer was yes. “The True Steels were calling them phantoms,” Blueberry finally responded. “I think they were the original inhabitants of this Stable… them and the… the walls...” I could hear a shiver in his voice as he said that last part. He was silent for a few more seconds as he thought something over in his head. “They seem to be a particularly nasty variant of Canterlot ghoul. How the Stables inhabitants came in contact with the pink cloud though, we aren’t sure. Unfortunately, we won’t be able to deal with them all without the proper resources. Resources that the Outcasts simply do not have at this time.”

I nodded again, though I wasn’t quite sure what he was getting at. “Okay? So what are we going to do then?”

I heard Blueberry give a deep sigh. “We can’t secure this place for the Outcasts. It's too dangerous, and even if it wasn’t, it would seem the True Steels had managed to scavenge most of the Stables resources already anyway save for the Stables weapons and medical supplies. I will make sure to leave here with some of those,” He was silent again as he forced himself to say what came next. “...But we can't just leave this place either. It's a deathtrap. And something gives me the feeling those phantoms chased the True Steels into the Stable when they opened up the door. If the door gets left open or the next ponies to open it get killed off faster…” He stopped to let those words sink in.

I could feel myself take a deep breath. “Those phantoms might get out into Manehattan…”

Though I couldn’t see him, I knew Blueberry nodded. “The last thing the wasteland needs is more mutants roaming the streets. Especially things as deadly as these phantoms seem to be.”

I gulped. I had a bad feeling I knew what he was about to ask me to do. “Okay, so what are we going to do about them?”

Goddesses, please don’t be what I think it is…

“There should be a terminal in the Overmare’s office. Go to it,” He started. I was already at the terminal, so I simply told him to continue. “During our search of the Stable, we discovered that the lower levels are filled with pink cloud. There is likely a way to flood the Stable with the cloud. We’re going to need to activate that. The nature of the cloud should be able to meld the Stable door into place. Making it impossible to open.”

My heart fell. It was exactly what I thought he was going to ask. I opened my voice to speak, only for no words to come out. Taking a deep breath, I coughed and tried again. “Yeah… I… I can do that…” My voice sounded frail and weak. “I can probably put it on a timer too… give us all time to escape.”

I could feel a piece of me dying inside. I was about to do to this Stable what Azar had done to mine. I knew there was no ponies left in here that were worth saving, but the idea still made me feel sick.

I heard a grunt of approval from Blueberry on the other side of the broadcast. “Perfect. Activate it when you’re ready. I’ll use the turret system to help pave a safe path out of the Stable for you. I doubt I’ll be able to kill the Phantoms, but I can at least keep them distracted and down for as long as possible.”

I gave another nod that I knew Blueberry couldn’t see and gave a croak like grunt. “Yeah. Just give me a minute. I’ll tell you when I’m about to activate the cloud.”

Blueberry gave an affirmative noise before switching off his side of the broadcast.

I turned my attention from my pipbuck to the terminal in front of me. The screen already displayed the function I wanted. Tesla Coil had just been planning to do the same thing.

>Activate Cloud dispenser?

[Yes]

[No]

I stared at the words for a long second before scowling and pulling myself away. Fuck. This wasn’t fair. How was I supposed to do this… I… I just couldn’t…

“Amber?” Xayah’s voice piped up softly from beside me. I turned to see her looking at me. “I heard what you need to do… If it would make it easier, I could do it for you?”

I wanted to kiss her. I did kiss her. Didn’t change a damn thing. I sighed. “No… It has to be me. I’m the only one with enough knowledge of Stable-Tec technology to create a delay on the activator,” I took a deep breath. “Don’t worry. I’ll be fine… I just need a moment.”

Xayah gave me a look that told me she didn’t quite believe me, but she nodded and trotted away anyway to go talk to Brisk and Mirra.

I stared at the screen for a few more seconds before scowling again and clicking away, pulling up the logs on the terminal instead. I needed something else to think about for a second.

I was met with a large collection of log entries and audio files. Curious, I opened up the first one. A familiar sounding voice came out of the terminal.

“Hello. My name is Scootaloo. Vice president of Stable-Tec. You’ve probably heard of me from my company Red Rac… Oh, never mind… It’s not important anymore… not if you’re hearing this. Look, you have been designated at Overmare of Stable 23 due to your extraordinary abilities as a leader. The Stable was designed to help keep ponies safe if the megaspells… when the megaspells finally fall, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t more to the place than that. We at Stable-Tec know that if we just lock a bunch of ponies up underground, then when we return to the surface to rebuild the world, we’ll just make the same mistakes. War never changes or some shit like that… That’s why your stable has a designated… test… that has been assigned to it to ensure that the world of tomorrow is a better one than this…

“One of the most destructive weapons we have seen in the war is something the zebras created called the pink cloud. Yes, the same weapon that was used in Littlehorn at the start of the war. It hasn’t seen mass production yet from what we can tell, but if the future that we fear is coming has come to pass, we can only assume that it has played some part in it. So, your Stable will be conducting a test to try and find a way to make an immunity to it. We’ve developed what we think to be a way to protect ponies from it. A kind of implant that goes into a ponies head. You can find more about them in the attached document. The medical procedure will be risky I’m afraid, and unfortunately we have not been able to do proper testing for it. That will be your job.

“I understand that you might not want to do this. That you’d rather sit underground safely than test these potentially dangerous implants on the ponies that live here. I can’t fault you for that. I wish you could do that too, but this experiment is too important for that. That's why we’re forcing you to use them. A week after the Stable door closes, the generator in the lower level will begin to emit pink cloud. Furthermore, the Stable door has been designed to not open for thirty years after it closes, so you won’t be able to escape it either. You will have to use the implant, or no pony will get to step hoof into Equestria again…

“On a side note, if you are feeling confident in the process of the implants, your terminal will have access to the cloud dispenser. You will be able to pump more cloud into the Stable without the rest of the Stables inhabitants knowing if necessary. You won't be able to slow it down or eliminate the cloud, but you will be able to have a little control over it for testing purposes.

“I’m sorry it had to come to this. I never imagined the world I grew up in could get this bad. That I would have to force you too… never mind. I’m getting off topic. I know you probably hate me right now, and honestly, you would be wrong not too. I’m not going to try and defend myself. This is Vice president Scootaloo, signing off…”

I stared at the screen as the audio log came to a close. I had known Stable-Tec had done experiments on the Stable dwellers, but I had never realized just how deep that rabbit hole went. To hear it all laid out like that...

I shook my head. I didn’t like thinking about all of that. I was about to move on to the first non audio log, when a particular log closer to the bottom caught my eye. It was titled, ‘Stable 25’. Reaching out, I clicked open the log.

>Log #24: Stable 25

>Fuck. I’ve been trying to get in contact with Trueblood, the Overstallion of Stable 25. The line Stable-Tec gave us to contact the nearby Stables is next to useless. I’ve picked up nothing but Static from the otherside. But I don’t think that's an accident. Those Stable-Tec bastards planned this! That bitch Scootaloo shoved me into a fucking doomed Stable and then sealed me off from the rest of the world! I bet the lack of communication is just another fucking ‘test’ too!

>Doesn’t matter. I’m out of time. The Stable is flooding with that fucking cloud and I’ve probably got about twenty fucking minutes before those ungreatful fucking Stable dweller burst down my fucking door and linch me.

>Damn it… fuck. Nothing. Maybe Trueblood is fucking ignoring me! That bastard and his snooby fucking uncle Pureblood were always a load of fucking donkey shit! I hope Stable-Tec gave him as big of a ‘fuck you’ as they gave me! Teach him right!

>Shit. The fucking Stable ponies are here. I guess I have less time than I thought. Damn them. This is there fucking fault! This is all of their fault! Fuck everypony! They fucking ruined everything! Fuck!

I blinked in disbelief as I read the log over. There were a few things there of interest, but one thing snagged at my attention.

‘Trueblood, the Overstallion of Stable 25.’

I read the line over and over again. My family had been the Overmare or Overstallion of Stable 25 since the day those doors had closed. A spell had been placed on our families cutie marks for years to ensure that that was guaranteed. An experiment to see if a government system like Celestia and Luna’s monarch could endure with the princesses gone. Trueblood must have been my great great something-or-rather grandfather.

But another part of that got stuck in my mind as well. Trueblood was Purebloods niece. The very same Pureblood I had been seeing bits and pieces off all over the wasteland for the past month. It was possible that it was a different Pureblood I suppose, but I felt the odds of that, especially considering the Overmare’s opinion on him, were rather slim.

Any yet, what did that even entail? That I was a descendant of some pre war blue-blooded aristocrat? It didn’t amount to much I suppose, just a gross feeling in my stomach that I shared genetics with somepony that seemed as vile as Pureblood and the rest of his family.

I sighed. I had learned enough and stalled enough. It was time to get this over with. Flipping on my pipbuck, I activated the broadcaster to speak with Crusader Blueberry. “Alright, get ready. I’m about to set the timer on the cloud dispensers.”

The large doors to Stable 23 slid shut with a loud clang. There was a burst of sparks as the door squealed into position before the solid metal gear came to an abrupt stop, sealing the Stable inside from the outside world once more.

There were a few seconds of silence before I heard the sound of the Stable’s cloud dispensers whirring to life. The sound was distant and muffled through the door, but I had heard the A.A.S.S. dispense nutrients into the air enough times in my life to recognize the sound perfectly.

Around the edges of the gear shaped door came a sharp, hissing sound. Slowly, the metal around the edges began to expand, warping and welding into the wall around it. After a few moments, the Stable door merged completely with the wall, becoming little more than a wall of near impenetrable metal with the number 23 plastered across the front.

I let myself release a long, deep breath. I was shaking. I had thankfully not seen the cloud filling the Stable halls, but the fact that I had done it filled me with dread and shame all the same.

Getting out of the Stable had been easy. I had made sure that we had plenty of time to get out before the dispensers began, and Blueberry had kept to his work and kept the Phantoms off us with the security systems. Not that I had any reason to believe that he wouldn’t have kept his word.

Blueberry stood beside me, looking towards the Stable door with me as it sealed off forever. His helmet was off, giving me a good look at his dark blue coat and white mane. He looked almost as sad as I did.

Finally, Blueberry turned away from the door and began walking to the elevator. “Come along. We’ve done all that we can do here.”

“You’re sure you don’t want to come along?” Blueberry asked me, pulling his helmet back onto his head. “We could really use your help dealing with the rest of the True Steels out here.”

I shook my head. “As much as I want to help and as much as I hate the True Steels, I’m afraid we can’t. We have our own business to attend to out in Fetlock. We’ve been sidetracked enough,” A thought hit me as I remembered our destination was fairly close to Stable 29. “But maybe we’ll stop by Stable 29 when we’re done. We can talk more once all of this has been dealt with.”

Blueberry gave a respectful nod. “I’ll make sure to keep an eye and ear out for if you drop by.”

The robobrain of Dazzling Souvenir quickly raised an accordion like arm to signal to me before returning her gaze to the injured knight in front of her. “Good luck on your travels Amber Aura. We wish you the best of luck and hope that our paths cross again in the future.”

I gave her a thin smile. “Yeah. Good luck to all of you as well,” I turned back to face my friends who were all waiting for me patiently. “Are you ready to get back on the road? We should be in Fetlock within the hour.”

Mirra shivered. “Anyplace is better than this place. I never want to see a Stable again,” I found that offensive for some reason, even though I completely agreed with her sentiment.

I turned to look at the horizon. Just peeking above the tops of the ruined skyscrapers, I could see the tip of the Ponypalooza hotel. It felt like it had been on my list of places to go since the first day I had left the Stable. For so long it had been the centre of my wonders and fears, a constant looming landmark that seemed to have watched over me for every part of my long journey. I had passed it so many times over the last few weeks, knowing full well that I was very likely to venture within its walls sooner or later, for one reason or another.

How odd it felt to finally be going there. To finally find out what lies within.

“Feels like this visit has been long overdue,” Brisk said, echoing my thoughts as we began making our way towards the hotel in the distance. “Feels like a lifetime ago that we were heading out to stop Crank and the rest of his gang from trying to reach that tower. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t a little curious about what we would have faced inside, had our adventures not taken us elsewhere.”

I gave a nod of agreement. “I guess we’re about to find out. For better or worse.”

“You ponies do realize we are walking towards a trap, no?” Xayah questioned, looking over to us in a slightly accusing manner. “I have doubts that this Fleur De Lis plans to simply let us talk our way out of this.”

“I know, but do we have any other options?” I pointed out. “They’ve already wiped out one settlement in the wasteland, simply because we failed to comply. Fleur isn’t bluffing. I wont allow her to wipe another off the map.”

“I'm not saying what she did was okay in any way, but that was hardly a settlement,” Brisk said quickly. “The place they wiped out was more of a small camp than anything else. What makes you think they even have the firepower to take on a larger settlement like they claim?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Mirra stated flatly with a small role of her eyes, making Brisk glance down at her. “They have all of Red Eyes forces at their disposal. And Red Eye has made it clear that he is willing to spend troops on getting the A.A.S.S. Friendship City or Tenpony tower might be able to hold their own against his forces for a while, but for how long? The Hollow Shades is still weak from the Hollow Shades Massacre and Oasis wouldn’t stand a chance on a good day.”

“It doesn’t matter anyway,” I reaffirmed. “They are killing ponies that don’t deserve it because of us. I refuse to stand down and let that happen.”

“But is simply delivering the A.A.S.S. to them really the best plan of action?” Brisk pushed. “There has to be something else we can do.

Xayah shook her head. “I hate to say it. But There is nothing else. Not without more casualties.”

Brisk looked onwards, dejected, his gaze transfixed on the looming hotel in the distance. It was getting closer. Perhaps only an hour more and we would arrive. How I dreaded when we would arrive.

The area around the Ponypalooza hotel had been cleaned of corpses when we arrived. Off to my right, I could see a large number of graves, each one marked with little more than a large stone.

I knew there were ponies that I knew buried there. Ponies that I had failed. Dusty and his son Scrapper. The two raiders I had reduced from the True Steels. Flask. The list of failures was forever growing.

I could feel a rage building up in me as I stared out at all the graves. Damn these basters for what they had done. I made a mental note to shoot every last one of them.

At least they had the decency to bury the bodies. Not that that made me feel all that much better. Evil was still evil.

The doors to the Ponypalooza hotel were guarded by five griffins in dark combat armour. Talons, if my memory served well enough. Up on the roof I could see a few more griffins and a couple of ponies looking down at us with snipers as we approached. I even spotted an alicorn amongst them, watching us with their intense, hawk-like gaze from far above.

My friends crouched into a battle stance as we approached. I reached out with my magic and wrapped Braeburns Liberator in my amber aura.

The talon mercs didn’t seem all that interested in fighting. Their bars on my pipbuck didn’t even change to red as we neared them. I could tell Brisk was a little put off by their rather passive behaviour to us.

As we got closer, one of the griffins cocked their head and looked us over with one of their eyes. He studied us for a second before, lowering his weapon and stepping aside, giving us a clear path into the hotel. The other four guards very quickly followed suit.

I glanced at all of my friends. I didn’t like this. I knew that they knew we were coming, but it just felt weird being let through so easily like this.

“Be careful,” Xayah said, one of her eyes flickering to look at the griffins. I could tell she was just as nervous as I was. “I do not like this.”

I shook my head. “Me neither…” I looked back to the large ornate doors of the Ponypalooza Hotel and took a deep breath. “Welp… here we go…”

I took a step forward, moving past the griffins and into the building beyond. My friends all gulped in unison, before slowly following in after me.

The inside of the hotel was much like how I had expected, though a million times more beautiful than I could have previously imagined.

The Ponypalooza Hotel had been a hotel for the upper class. A place for ponies like Pureblood and Fleur De Lis who could afford such extravagant luxuries. It was clear that after the war, somepony had put a lot of work into reverting the hotel back into its former glory.

The walls were made from marble, each and every intricate pillar that lined the halls seeming to glisten in the defused light of day as we walked past. The floor was covered in a large velvet carpet and extravagant glass chandeliers hung from the ceiling above us.

There were a few ponies inside dressed in Red Eyes combat armour, but the majority of the inhabitants inside were ghouls. Canterlot ghouls to be specific. All the ghouls were dressed in fancy suits, clearly attempting to maintain the fashion of the old world.

All eyes turned to us as we trotted our way in. I noticed angry expressions cross some of the slavers faces as we walked by. Perhaps they had met me before… or maybe I had killed somepony they cared about. Maybe both. It was hard to say.

No pony raised a hoof to stop us as we continued onward. They simply stood, and watched.

Before us lay a large set of stairs that led to another large ornate door. I saw a few of Red Eyes talon merc move into doorways, blocking our way from everywhere but the large doors ahead. Trotting quickly up the steps, I came to a stop before the doorway and turned back to look at my friends. They all looked as creeped out and worried as I felt.

“Alright… this is it…” I said slowly, resting my hoof on the door. “I’m going to guess Fleur is behind this door," All of my friends gave nervous nods, but remained silent. Taking a deep breath, I pushed the doors open and stepped in.

The second I saw the room beyond, I froze.

Fleur stood on the far side of the room, looking just as ghoulified and dead as ever. Two ponies with dark power armour stood on either side of her, each one wielding a large flamer on their battle saddle. Behind them was a large glass window, overlooking the suburbs of Fetlock. Far off in the distance I could see a red glow illuminating the desolate landscape, no doubt the pits of Fillydelphia.

But what really made me pause was what lay before Fleur.

A row of twelve fillies and colts sat before the Canterlot ghoul, each one strapped to a bomb collar and linked to the foal beside them with chains. They didn’t seem all that upset or worried, but they didn’t exactly look comfortable either.

Instinctively, I reached for my shotgun, only to stop as I saw the two power armoured ponies aim their flamers at the row of foals.

I could hear Xayah make a low growling sound behind me, her gaze narrowing in on Fleur. Brisk and Mirra both remained silent, but I could feel their discomfort and hate washing off of them.

Fleur De Lis took a careful step forward, her expression sad. “Amber. You brought the A.A.S.S?” It was more of a statement than a question.

I pointed to the foals on the ground before me. “Take them out of the room, then we’ll talk.”

Fleur shook her head. “I wish I could Amber Aura. I truly do. But you have shown over the last few weeks extraordinary dangerous behavior and a knack for getting out of tough situations. I will not be taking any chances with you here,” She gestured to the foals in front of her. “This is how this is going to work. I’m not going to try and fight you for the A.A.S.S. History would suggest that that would not turn out well for me. Instead I’m going to give you a choice.”

I felt my eyes narrow. I didn’t want to ask, but something gave me the feeling had no other option. “Okay… what is this choice?”

Fleur sighed. “It’s simple. If you do not relinquish the A.A.S.S. then we will continue to do what we have been doing. We will wipe a settlement off the map one at a time. Once a day. Every twenty four hours. We will begin with these foals…” Xayah gave another loud snarl at that remark. Fleur gave her a sad look. “If you deliver the A.A.S.S. to me, then the foals will be spared, and we will return to Fillydelphia. No pony else needs to die.”

“And if I decide to simply go guns blazing and kill all of you fuckers,” I growled, swiping my hoof across the ground and kicking up a little bit of dust.

Fleur cocked her head and gave me an almost pitying look. “You can try. Having seen some of your accomplishments over the past few weeks you might even succeed… But will you be able to do that before my guards can kill the fillies? And how many of your friends are you willing to spare for this? There are quite a lot of us here, and us Canterlot ghouls do not like to go down easy.”

Damn it. She was right. I let my eyes roll over the two flamers that were aimed at the foals. There was no way that I could get them out of the way of the flamers in time, even with all of my friends' help. Not to mention disarm all of the bomb collars in time. And even if I did manage to get a few to safety, how would I get them out of here and far enough away that they would be safe.

“Amber, what are you thinking?” I heard Brisk whisper beside me, his voice conveying his worry. He knew this situation was bad just as well as I did.

What was I thinking? I don’t know… I had no plan, no way out.

I locked eyes with Fleur. She looked so sad, so tired and broken. I wondered what she was like two hundred years ago. Before the bombs fell and ravaged her body. Was she like this? Was she nicer? A lot can happen in two hundred years. I had been through hell over a hundred times, and I had only been in the wasteland for a little under a month. What must she have been through, having lived out here for so long.

Not that that mattered. I'd find a way to kill her somehow...

My eyes landed on the red glow of Fillydelphia on the horizon. Red Eye was probably in there somewhere. Probably the mysterious director of the Institute as well. I had seen what evils could be caused if the wrong ponies got the A.A.S.S. Could I really allow Red Eye to do the same…?

Fleur took another step forward and held out her withered hoof. Bits of pink cloud whafted from her flesh and swirled around her from the motion. “You’ve protected that device better than anypony could have imagined or predicted. You should be proud of what you have done,” Fleur started, her gaze still locked with mine. “But there comes a time where you need to let go. Give me the A.A.S.S. It’s finally time for you to get your rest…”

I felt my hooves tremble at that. Oh how I wanted to simply let it all go. It could be over if I simply gave up the device. I reached back and pulled the A.A.S.S. out of my saddlebag. It was covered in muck and still had a few cracks down the front, yet it still seemed to shimmer in the light.

I felt Brisk step up beside me. “Amber… are you sure…”

I took a deep breath. I looked from the oblong device in my hoof to Brisk, then to Fleur and the foals. I looked back down at the A.A.S.S.

I couldn’t give it to her. There was no way in fucking hell I was letting Red Eye get his hooves on this. But I couldn’t just walk away. So many ponies would die if I let them continue to pick off settlement after settlement. And Fleur had been right, there was no fighting my way out either.

An idea crossed my mind. I didn’t like it, but it was the only way.

I took a step back. “No.”

Every pony tensed at my words. Fleur raised an eyebrow and gave me a mortified look. “No? What do you mean, no?”

“I mean no!” I growled firmly, slowly lowering my hoof and placing the A.A.S.S. on the floor. “Because I’m taking option four.”

Fleur scowled, the expression very unbecoming of her. “There is no option four. You either give it over or the foals…”

“There is…” I raised my hoof and placed it firmly atop the A.A.S.S. I pushed down, causing a crack to shoot out across the A.A.S.S’s. surface. Every pony in the room took a horrified step forward, their breath catching in their throats.

“What are you doing! Stop this right now!” Fleur screamed, waving her hooves frantically for me to stop. “Didn’t you listen to me! Give it to me or the foals die!”

I snarled at her, pulling her up short. “If it’s gone then Red Eye doesn’t get it and you have no reason to wipe out any more settlements,” I pushed down a little harder, making another crack spider web across the device. "So I'm going to destroy it... Game over."

“But the foals!” Fleur was practically in hysterics. She waved her hooves wildly, as if more motion would deter me from my course of action.

I simply pressed down again, causing four more cracks to snap across the A.A.S.S’s face. I saw the flamers aimed at the foals flicker to life, small fires burning on the end of each weapon as the two guards prepared to burn the foals alive.

“Amber!” Xayah’s hoarse voice snapped my attention over to her. She was crying, tears rolling down her face. “You promised. We would find another way to save foals…”

I felt my heart sink. I had promised that, hadn’t I. But this was the only way. The life of a few foals did not outweigh the lives of the rest of the wasteland.

I shut my eyes and looked away, already feeling the guilt start to build up within my chest. “I know… I’m sorry…”

“Amber…” Xayah’s voice was almost inaudible, muffled by her tears and hurt. Damn me and my betrayal.

“Stop! No!” Fleur was screaming louder, her voice raising and raising into a high pitched shrill. “I demand that you stop this instant!” I zoned her out. I didn't need to listen to her anymore.

I looked over to Brisk and Mirra, unable to look at Xayah any longer. the hurt and betrayal in her eyes was more than I could bear. Mirra looked terrified, but she understood. Her face was filled with fear, but also a strong sense of conviction.

Brisk held my gaze for a moment. He looked sad, but remained stoic. This is what he had been telling me to do all along. Maybe if I had listened to him from the beginning, things would have turned out better.

Fleur's screams were growing louder and more frantic, and I could see the two guards preparing to fire upon the foals. The second the A.A.S.S. was shattered, they would fire. There was no stopping that now.

It didn’t matter. I had made my choice.

I reared up, both my forehooves aimed to slam down on the A.A.S.S. This was it. After all this time. I had held onto the A.A.S.S. for so long. Clinging to it desperately as a reminder of Stable 25. But that didn't matter anymore. Stable 25 was dead and gone. Holding onto the past wasn't going to fix a damn thing.

There was a moment of stillness in the room as I rose to my full height. I felt my breath catch as my gaze locked on the oblong device below me. Then, I pushed forwards, working with gravity to slam myself down as fast as possible. I began to descend.

Blam!

I bullet ripped through my chest, sending me flying to my side. I hit the ground with a heavy thud, my hooves missing the A.A.S.S. by inches. Agony flared through my whole body and blood began to spill down my front, pooling around my hooves and splashing across the floor.

I lifted my head and looked up. Xayah stood there, mortified, her sniper clamped tightly in her mouth and smoke wafting from the end of its barrel. Her hooves were shaking and tears rolled down her face and dripped from her chin. “Amber, I’m sorry… I’m so so sorry…”

Xayah had… shot me? That couldn’t be right… she would never…

My thoughts were interrupted as a wave of pain washed over me. I tried to scream out, only for blood to rush from my mouth.

My vision was spinning, my thoughts groggy and warped. I saw somepony standing over me protectively. It might have been Brisk. I couldn't tell. Then they were gone, pulled away as chains were snapped around their necks. I heard screams and shouts of rage, but no coherent words seemed to be reaching my ears.

Through the fog of my vision, I saw the rotting face of a Canterlot ghoul crouch down next to me. The ghoul leaned in, her ghastly face entering my visions shallow depth of field. Pink cloud wafted from their orifices and there was a sad look in their eyes.

“You shouldn’t have done that…” Fleur said, her voice sounding distant and muffled. She pulled away from me, her features going fuzzy as she got farther and farther away.

I rolled onto my back, pain lancing up through my body and spreading out from the bullet wound in my chest. Through my spinning vision I saw both Xayah and Mirra getting dragged away, metal collars clamped tightly around their necks.

“No…” I tried to utter, but my voice sounded weak and foreign.

Slowly, I began to drift away into unconsciousness, my vision filling with black. Two ponies were standing over me, reaching down and fastening a collar around my own neck. I tried to fight them off, but I was too weak. There was simply too much pain.

Then I was swirling away into oblivion, sinking deeper and deeper into my subconsciousness.

A thought snagged at my mind as I drifted away. “Xayah… why…”

I slowly opened up my eyes.

The morning light stung my retinas, forcing me to squint. At least that meant I wasn’t dead. I sure didn’t think I was dead at least. Dead shouldn’t be this painful.

Groaning slightly, I propped myself up and looked at my surroundings.

The first thing I spotted was the metal bars of the cage. I was in a cage. Specifically, a cage on a wagon. We were moving somewhere, being pulled by two large earth pony bucks that looked to be slaves themselves. I could only imagine we were going to Fillydelphia.

“Glad to see you’re awake,” I heard Brisk grumble from beside me. I looked up to see him slumped on the far side of the cage, tending to what appeared to be a bleeding whiplash across his back. A bomb collar had been clamped around his neck. He looked up at me and looked me over for a second with his one good eye. “This is probably the worst we’ve fucked up, huh.”

My eyebrows knitted together. “What happened?” The events in the Ponypalooza Hotel were still groggy in my mind. I remember trying to break the A.A.S.S. then a lot of blood. Lots and lots of blood. I remember Xayah standing there. She had just… “Xayah shot me!” I blurted, abruptly sitting up straight. Pain flared through my chest, making me look down and see the gauze that had been wrapped over my chest to stop the bleeding. I felt a familiar itch where the wound had been, a clear sign of having taken a healing potion.

My mind was flooded with a mix of conflicting emotions as memories flooded back into me. Hurt, betrayal, rage, regret. How could she have done that to me? After everything we had been through!

I knew the answer was simple. I had promised that if foals' lives were on the line again, I would find another way than letting them die. A better way. I had betrayed that promise. I had let Xayah down.

That fact almost hurt me more than Xayah's betrayal had.

But it didn’t change the feeling of betrayal that was slowly drowning me. My gut clenched and I had to resist the urge to scream.

Brisk gave a grim nod. “Yeah… she did…” He looked out the bars at another pony pulled carriage just out of shouting distance from us. Through the bars of that cage I could see Xayah and Mirra huddled inside. “At the sound of her gunshot, the room got flooded with slavers and ghouls,” Brisk explained, tugging on the metal collar that was around his neck. “Slapped these collars on us and loaded us up into these cages. I figure we’re off to Filly now or whatever.”

I nodded, soaking in the information. I looked back down at my chest, my mind still filled with painful thoughts of betrayal. “They wrapped my wound up?”

“Yeah, gave you a few healing potions too. Fleur demanded that you didn’t die. I guess she has plans for you or whatever... I don't know,” Brisk grunted, curing up on the floor of the cage. The lash wound on his back continued to leak dribbles of blood.

“What happened to the foals?” I asked, worry filling me. Now that I was no longer in the moment, I don’t know if I would be able to handle learning I had caused the deaths of more foals.

“They’re fine,” Brisk grumbled, much to my relief. He pointed to yet another wagon, this one without a cage. On it, I could see the group of fillies and colts playing some sort of game. “Turns out those foals are from Red Eyes school. I don’t even know if they were ever in any real danger.”

I stared at the wagon of foals for a bit before returning my attention to Brisk. “How long have I been out?”

Brisk shrugged. “Not sure. Half a day at most,” He pointed up to the morning sky. “We’ll probably be arriving in Filly any moment now.”

It was clear that he was right. I could see the ruins of houses and factories all around us as our wagon was pulled through the Fillydelphia outskirts. Like Manehattan, most of the buildings were in complete shambles, being little more than large piles of rubble. A bit in the distance, I saw what appeared to be the Fillydelphia Stable-Tec Hub. The Steel Ranger's fag still waved above the building, signalling to me that Red Eye was still yet to successfully claim the area.

Those rangers must have been putting up one hell of a fight.

Turning my head, I saw the massive wall of Fillydelphia slowly looming towards us. Even from here, the air was beginning to turn a crimson red and I was already beginning to hear the screams of slaves and the clanking of chains.

We had been across the wasteland. Now we were entering hell.

After about twenty more minutes of traveling in silence, we came to a stop at the large gate into the city. The gate towered far above our heads, giving the evil city an imposing and hopeless feel. The looming, metal wall around of Fillydelphia seemed to be radiating heat, as if the city beyond was nothing more than a massive ball of fire. Smoke rose from behind the wall, blotting out the already overcast sky and making me cough.

Ten griffin mercs in combat armour pulled us over and began talking with Fleur. Fleur began to gesture towards our cage when another griffin, this one larger than the rest, dropped down from the sky and landed in front of her.

I felt myself take an involuntary step back, pushing my rump up against the edge of the cage. I had hoped to never see Stern again, and yet here she was, ready to welcome me to her city.

“...He wants her,” I hear Fleur say to Stern, batting her eyelashes in what looked like a seduction attempt. With her rotting looks and Sterns unblinking glare, something told me it didn’t work. “It is of utmost importance. The rest of her friends you can have.”

Instead of responding, Stern turned towards our cage and stalked over. She raised a talon and dragged it across one of the bars, making a loud, ear piercing squeal ring out. Both Brisk and I winced at the noise and scooted a little farther away from the edge of the cage.

“So. somepony finally got the better of you, huh?” Stern scowled, tilting her head to the side and looking the two of us over. “Shame. I wanted to have you down in the pits, but it looks like ‘his majesty’ has other plans for you,” She raised her talons in the air and made mocking quotations at the words ‘his majesty’. Her gaze twitched to look at Brisk. “But I’ll make sure the rest of your friends are put to work.”

Slavers pulled open the door to our cage and wrapped their hooves around Brisk, hauling him from the wagon. He squirmed and kicked, trying to break free, but it was to no avail. One of the slavers cracked the hilt of their gun against his head. There was a loud thump, and Brisk went limp in their hooves.

I screamed and pushed myself forward, trying to help him. A large slaver roughly pushed me back to the floor of the cage before slamming the bars shut, once more locking me inside.

A little bit away, I saw slavers pull Xayah and Mirra out of their cage. Mirra tried to run, but the slavers’ grip was far too strong. Xayah didn’t even try to pull away. She simply let them drag her away, her head hung low and her mane obscuring her face. I tried to catch her eye, but she didn’t even make an attempt to look at me.

Some betrayals simply cut too deep.

Stern tapped on the cage again, drawing my attention back to her. Her beak twisted into a sinister smile, showing off a few more teeth than I would have liked. “Send the big guy my regards.”

Fleur walked up to the cage, ordering for the two slaves pulling it to start moving. With a jolt, the wagon began moving away from Fillydelphia.

I scuttled over to the side of the cage and poked my head through the bars. “What’s happening? Where are we going?”

“Not Fillydelphia. We thought it would be best to keep you separated from your friends,” Fleur replied softly, not bothering to look at me. “And he wants to see you.”

I felt a bolt of alarm race through me. “Who? Who wants to see me?”

Fleur finally turned and looked up at me, her expression unreadable. “The director.”

My mind was filled with panic and excitement. As bad of a situation as we had found ourselves in, a small part of me was thrilled to learn that I was finally going to meet the mastermind behind all of my troubles. Assuming this director wasn't yet another puppet in the seemingly endless trail of lies, mystery and deceit.

The carriage came to a stop a few moments later in front of a heavily guarded bunker. A few ponies as well as Canterlot ghouls patrolled the entrance and I spotted a few green alicorns perched atop the roof, scanning the surrounding area.

A slaver trotted over and yanked open the door to my cage, giving me a sickening smile that showed off his rotting teeth. “Get out,” He snarled, cracking a whip in the air next to me, making me jump.

Giving him an angry glare, I pulled myself up and trotted out of the cage, trying my best to look as confident as possible. I wasn't feeling even the least bit confident right now.

The second my hooves touched the rough ground, I looked at the horizon, wondering if I could attempt to dart away and escape. The tight bomb collar around my neck made a small beep, telling me that probably wasn’t the best idea.

Besides, I still had to get my friends out of Fillydelphia. There was no way I was going to just leave them there, even if I did escape.

“Follow me,” Fleur said poshly, trotting towards the bunker. Two ponies quickly pulled open the door at her approach. The guards didn’t seem to be forcing me to follow like I had suspected them too, but since I couldn’t run anyway, I slowly followed after her anyway.

The bunker wasn’t very big, only consisting of a single room. The room had been cleared of practically everything inside, save for a large machine that stood erect in the middle of the floor. The machine was a large elevated platform, surrounded by three large metal pillars that flickered with rings of blinking red lights. Wires raced around the device, connecting all of it together.

I froze as I took in the machine. I had seen it before. In the director's office back in the Institute. I had been in a rush then and had been unable to find anything out on the nature of the device.

“What is this?” I asked Fleur, watching as she stepped up onto the elevated platform. Another Canterlot ghoul joined her, carrying my saddlebags with them.

“A teleportation device. We stole the designs from the Institute a few years back,” Fleur explained, her voice sounding almost proud of the machine she stood on.

I looked the teleporter over more closely. Crank and the rest of the cyber ponies had teleported into Stable 25 all those weeks ago. This must have been what they used to accomplish that.

Crank had told me that Red Eye only had limited access to this kind of technology. Clearly, he had remedied that in recent days.

“Where are we going?” I asked, nervously stepping up onto the platform next to Fleur. I felt a shiver race through me as the blinking red lights began to flicker faster.

Fleur gave me a halfhearted smile that still seemed to hold a feel of smug aristocracy. “You will see soon enough.”

Since we were teleporting there, I suppose that statement was true.

A purple alicorn flew in through the door and landed in front of the machine. Her horn began to glow, its aura wrapping around the machine. The lights began flashing faster and faster, the world around me seeming to vibrate beneath my hooves.

I shut my eyes as I felt the teleporter charging up.

I had teleported by non magical means before to get into and out of the Institute. I was really hoping this was going to be more pleasant.

It wasn’t.

My whole form was split apart into a million pieces with a flash of blue light and I was sent hurtling through nothingness. Despite being ripped apart, I felt like the air around me was constricting, choking me and warping my body in ways it should never be warped.

The procedure was somewhat smoother than the makeshift devices the Friendship Express had developed, but that didn’t make the whole experience pleasant.

Then, as fast as the blue light had torn me apart, I slammed into the ground, my lungs feeling like they were on fire and my vision blinded as the dazzling blue light faded from my eyes.

I staggered to my hooves, finding Fleur already standing beside me, unfazed by the unpleasant experience. I blinked away the dizziness, trying to get my bearings as the world around me swam into focus.

The first thing I noticed was the smoke. It was everywhere, clouding my vision and swirling down my throat, making breathing unnecessarily difficult. Not far away, I could see ponies wielding large flamers, sending jets of fire lancing forwards and burning down what looked to be large trees.

There were lots of trees too, towering over me, even from a distance. For a second I wondered if they had brought me back to the Manehattan Gardens. But that wasn’t right. The plant life in the Manehattan Gardens was strange and mutated, growing eyeballs like berries and glowing with radiation. These trees looked normal. Untouched by the bombs that had ravaged the world.

“Welcome...” I heard Fleur say as she began trotting forwards. I followed her with my eyes, letting my gaze land on what appeared to be our destination. I felt my breath catch in my throat as I saw the massive castle-like fortress that spiralled up into the sky before me. The huge castle walls towered higher than anything I had ever seen, even surpassing the MAS tower in the Hollow Shades in height. I saw Fleur cast me a smug, knowing look. “...To Red Eyes Cathedral…”

Footnote: level up.
New perk: Grim Reaper Sprint -- At last you have reached the beginning to the final stretch of your journey. You will need to be ready to kill if you hope to survive what is to come. A kill in S.A.T.S. restores all of your AP points immediately

Author's Note

Would you look at that, Amber Aura just reached level 20. And just in time too, the next couple chapters are a doozy.

Fallout: Equestrian belongs to the wonderful Kkat.

Enjoy your day.

Chapter XXXXII: Out upon the Road to Peace

“Waging war against good ponies is bad for the soul. This may not seem important to you now, but it’s the most important thing I’ve said.”

Politics.

I had never been super big into politics. I had never needed to be. Sure my father had been the Overstallion of Stable 25, but he had never involved me in any of the more political issues he undoubtably had to deal with. I doubt he would have wanted to. I probably would have botched them all up anyway.

Out in the wasteland, things were a little different. I faced off against factions vying for control of the city, dealt with establishing trade from settlement to settlement, even fought in battle being waged to achieve one political goal or the other. Now it wasn't that I was ignoring all of that per se, Celestia knows that I had dedicated the last few months of my life trying to keep ponies alive, but the exact ins and outs of how all these political situations actually worked was all but lost on me. I just pointed my gun at things and hoped for the best, then usually got beat up really bad along the way.

So you can understand my concern about being thrust into the middle of a war council where they intended to decide upon the very fate of Manhattan itself. Something told me I was in for a crash course on just how all this politics and intrigue actually worked.

With any luck, they would figure everything out themselves and I could just sink into the background. I was an extremely overqualified mechanic. I didn't know what was best for the wasteland!

Right... Like that was going to happen.

Grimacing a little at my wobbly legs, I strode down the long hallway of the Institute, Pyre marching at my side and my friends all quietly bickering back and forth amongst themselves as they strode behind us. Scarlet had managed to join up with us as well, her wounds looking almost non-existent now that Glasswing had patched her back up. As much as I hated to admit it, Glasswing was right about the benefits he could give the wasteland if was reinstated in the Institute. I just hoped those were promises he intended to keep.

“Just remember, don’t bring up the whole Iron Hock killing his own troop and framing me for it thing,” Pyre scowled under her breath. “I know it might seem like a good idea, but we have no way of pinning it on him directly. He won’t bring it up himself. It would be too suspicious. Somepony else is going to need to bring it up for him, and though it may not seem like it, he will likely be able to twist it in a hundred different ways for his own favour.”

“Is there anypony that would want to bring it up?” I asked nervously. Right now, I was simply praying every pony forgot about the whole ordeal and we wouldn’t need to deal with any of the political backlash at all.

Pyre thought about that for a second. “Hard to say. If Dixie or Magazine want to force my hoof with something, they might try to accuse me of trying to take out the other factions. Otherwise, I can’t see the Friendship Express, Applejack Rangers or Steel Rangers having any reason to bring it up. Just be on guard if it does.”

I gave a slow nod, though I wanted to scream. Having witnessed Iron Hock commit murder in an attempt to frame one of my best friends and not being able to do anything about it was killing me. “Alright... And if it does get brought up? What do we do then?”

Pyre shook her head. “Not sure. We’ll see how he manages to utilize it and cross that bridge when we get there,” She scowled again. “It’s a simple trick he’s pulling, but effective. We’re already on thin ice, and he just put a huge fucking crack in it.”

“Is there anything else I should know?” I asked, feeling a little nervous as we slowly neared the end of the hall “I’ve never done anything like this before.”

Pyre shrugged. “Hard to say. Try not to piss anyone off... And be weary of Dixie. She seems like a sweetheart, but let her fool you and she’ll rip you apart.”

At last, we trotted into the large counsel room. The room was huge, wide enough to fit dozens of ponies and a ceiling high enough that Jinx could almost rise to her full height. A massive table had been set up in the centre of the room, nine large chairs having been set up around it. Most of the chairs had been filled already, though I noticed one chair was left open for me.

A large map of Manehattan had been splayed out across the centre of the table. I saw large areas of the map sectioned off with multicoloured lines, clearly the borders of everyponies territory. I noted the area of Fetlock was controlled mostly by the True Steels and the applejack Rangers, with the True Steels area merging into many of the roads into Manehattan and around the harbour area. A few silvery grey areas marked the location of Steel Ranger bases across the city and large black spots indicated areas clearly under Enclave control, including a large section in the dead centre of the city that had been marked with a big X. That looked like something important, probably. Definitely something to ask about later. I noticed that the Institute and the MWT Hub had been marked down as Las Pegasus Raider territory. Whomever had divided up this map clearly thought the Las Pegasus Raiders were in charge here.

There was a clear lack of territory belonging to the Friendship Express, but then again, I supposed they liked to keep their bases secret and didn’t have all that much interest in claiming new territory for their own.

Jinx sat at the head of the table, her huge form far too big to fit in a chair of her own. On either side of the large sphinx sat Magazine and a mare I had only met on one other occasion, Dixie. Pyre Blaze quickly took a seat in a chairs beside Magazine, and beside her, the familiar face of Crusader Blueberry of the Applejack Rangers, currently out of his heavy suit of power armour. Across from them sat the two other Ranger leaders, Iron Hock and a Steel Ranger stallion that I had not yet met, both were unhelmeted, though unlike Blueberry, they remained in their armour. The final two at the table were Freedom of the Friendship Express, and Glasswing, both staring at each other with a clear disdain.

They were not the only ponies in the room as well, however. Dozens of ponies, Hellhounds and Changelings had gathered around the outside of the room, standing behind their appointed leader. I noticed a few ponies I recognized such as Scribe Inkwell from the Steel Rangers Fillydelphia division, and Sprocket from the Friendship Express. My mother had taken her place behind Glasswing with the rest of the scientists as expected. I noticed a large handful of the Pegasi guards from Dashite City present as well, though they didn’t have a representative at the table. My own friends filed into the room after me and took their place standing behind me as I sat down in my assigned chair.

“Well look who finally decided to show up,” Magazine grunted, her cybernetic fore hooves crossing in front of her. “Took you long enough.”

“Amber is the only reason we’re all still here,” Pyre scowled, narrowing her eyes as Magazine. “A little gratitude would be appreciated.”

“We’re just glad you’re alright,” Crusader Blueberry said, giving me a kind smile. “I was beside myself when I heard what had happened.”

“Thanks,” I said quickly, flashing him a smile of my own. “It’s good to know some of the ponies here are glad to see me.”

“Perhaps we should begin?” Dixie soothed in her sweetly southern accent. She gave me a warm look and a quick flutter of her eyes that made my heart pound a little faster for some reason. Despite everything everypony had told me about her, I found myself liking the adorable-looking new leader of the Disciples.

“Yes. Thank you Dixie,” Jinx nodded, her golden eye rolling over all of us. She paused for a moment, seemingly soaking in the emotion of the room. “We all know why we’re here. Manehattan currently ballences on the tip of a knife. Each and every one of us has seen a glimpse of victory, and we each want it. Before we begin, is there anypony that wishes to make any objections.”

As if he had been waiting for this exact moment, Iron Hock pulled himself to his hooves, glowering at all of us. “I would like to challenge your leadership over this meeting, Jinx,” He boomed. Everypony froze at his bold proclamation. I wanted to face hoof. We hadn't even started and things were going to shit. Perfect. “You and your raiders have no right to lead this meeting.”

Jinx sneered at him, showing off her sharpened fangs. “Oh? And why is that, Great High Elder Iron Hock?” Her eyes seemed to glow dangerously as she glowered at him, beckoning him on.

“The Las Pegasus Raiders are not of Manehattan,” Iron Hock retorted boldly. “Why should you, a group of ponies from across the Wasteland have control over the fate of Manehattan?” I noticed most of the True Steels, and surprisingly almost all of the Steel Rangers and Applejack Rangers that had assembled, give nods of agreement.

The Steel Ranger paladin I did not yet know the name of, stood up as well. “Furthermore, how are we to have a fair counsel if this meeting is run by the leader of a specific faction? Especially one run by raiders,” He seemed to be glaring directly at Pyre for that last line, as if he had a personal distain for her presence, though she didn’t seem to notice. There were a few more nods of agreement, this time they were joined in by Institute Remnants and Friendship Express Operatives.

Jinx hissed, her glowing eyes still focused on Iron Hock. “And who, pray tell, would you suggest ran this meeting in my stead? Yourself?”

Iron Hock grinned. “Of course. It would only make sense,” He placed a hoof to his chest, daring anypony to contradict him. “The True Steels control the most territory within the city. It is only logical that we organize this counsel.”

There was a loud uproar from the other factions at that. A few ponies at the table pushed themselves to their hooves in objection. “Despite what you seem to believe, you do not own Manehattan,” Blueberry shot back, pushing himself up to his hooves. "And you know full well that the Enclave has managed to take more territory in a shorter period of time!"

"The Enclave didn't send a representative, nor do they intend on negotiating with us," Iron Hock snarled. “And the meeting cannot be run by the Steel Rangers or the bloody Outcasts either! Neither of you even bothered to send your elders to this meeting,” Iron Hock’s snarl turned more vicious. “What? Are the great Rangers and Outcasts too good for us? Felt they could make a move on Manehattan behind our backs?!”

“Crossroads is currently busy preparing for the Enclave threat coming to Fillydelphia,” Blueberry shot back. “A threat that the True Steels seem to have all but ignored.”

“Indeed,” The Steel Ranger paladin grunted. “Star Paladin Sardeen is also preoccupied with the Enclave. Stern and her forces in Fillydelphia have been making large pushes against our cathedral at the Stable-Tec HQ and he could not leave it undefended, especially since the Enclave appear to have deployed a Thunderhead that is currently bound for that direction. We are expecting the Enclave to reach Filly in three days' time.”

“Whether they could make it or not is irrelevant,” Pyre interjected, growling a little at all of them. “What matters is that everypony is represented. Now, unless there is somepony better you would like to have lead this, speak up.”

"Why? I suppose you'd like to be the one running all this. Wouldn't you," The Steel Rangers Paladin growled at her.

Pyre shot him an angry look. "What? The fuck are you-"

“What about Amber?” Glasswing interrupted with a smiled, casting me a quick glance before shifting his gaze to look back at Jinx. “She is not affiliated with any specific faction and has proven to us her intentions are entirely set on preventing bloodshed.”

I felt a bolt of fear pass through me. Me? Run a war meeting? I didn’t think I was ready for that kind of pressure! I had been hoping they'd sort all this out themselves and I could just sit here quietly for an hour or so! I couldn’t lead a Stable, let alone stop a war from happening. Everypony sitting at this table was the leader of a big faction! I was just a pony that crawled out of a Stable one day and got involved in stuff way over my head. Wasn’t I, like, the least qualified pony here?

“For the first time, I think we might agree,” Freedom nodded, much to my horror. “In my time working with Amber Aura, I have seen a pony that is quite capable and notorious for making the right decision.”

Blueberry gave me a small nod and smile. “I’ll second that.”

I cast a worried look at Pyre. They seriously couldn’t be considering this, right? Unsurprisingly, Pyre was just looking back at me with an even gaze, as if trying to gauge my opinion in all this. At the clear look of terror on my face, she rolled her eyes. “I’d stand by whatever decisions Amber makes. I’d vote for her to lead us as well.”

I narrowed my eyes at her, but she just stuck her tongue out at me. Darn it Pyre, whose side were you on!

“Very well,” Jinx rumbled, her gaze still locked on Iron Hock. Clearly she wasn’t too happy about having all the power in the room yanked out from under her. She turned her head, letting her slitted gaze land on me. “Well, Amber Aura? Will you take control of this counsel?”

I gulped. “I, um… I mean, I guess so. If that’s what everypony wants.”

“Good, then it’s settled then,” Glasswing chirped, clapping his black, gnarled fore hooves together. “Shall we begin?”

I nodded. “Uh, sure. I guess we’ll start with control over the Institute, since we're all here and it seems to be the more pressing issue at this moment.”

Freedom pushed herself to her hooves. “The Friendship Express demands control over all Gen 3 synths. We want to free them. Put them into new homes across Equestria. The Institute would have them used as slaves!” She pointed an accusing hoof at Glasswing. “We demand this wrong be corrected immediately, or there isn’t much else for us to discuss here.

Glasswing leaned back in his seat, folding his hooves on the table before him. “And give you that large of a tactical advantage? What is to keep you from simply mobilizing our synths into an army?” He cast me a quick smile, clearly intended to be a reminder of our earlier conversation. The message was received. “Besides. Somepony is already in control of the synths. We couldn’t give them over to you if we tried.”

That last part was a good point. How does one hand over control of the synths without having control of them to begin with.

Freedom turned to face me. “Well Amber?” At my lack of immediate response, her face paled slightly. “Please tell me my trust in you was well placed?”

I glanced over at Glasswing for a second. He had a smug look across his face. Clearly, he was fairly confident he had persuaded me to give the Institute over to him.

I took a deep breath. “I fully intended to personally find the pony responsible and deal with him as swiftly as possible. I have a personal score to settle with him. Once that has been done, I will personally free all of the synths from the synth control myself, just as I did for Pyre and I,” I could feel Glasswing staring at me with wide eyed shock, but I refused to look at him, focusing my steady gaze on Freedom. “I will not, however, give control of the synths over to you. I won’t risk anypony having that kind of power again. You and your operatives will have a lot of work cut out for you, finding and setting confused synths across the wasteland up with a new life.”

I turned, now addressing the Las pegasus Raiders. “As promised, the Las Pegasus Raiders are free to take anything they can find and carry back with them to Las Pegasus. Upon leaving the Institute though, they will not be allowed to enter again, not without Glasswings permission,” finally I addressed Glasswing. “I will be returning the facility itself back over to Glasswing and his scientists. Though they will not get a say in what the Las Pegasus Raiders take.”

Glasswing glowered at me. “Amber, what kind of deal is that for us? There are hundreds of Las Pegasus Raiders here! They’ll strip everything! You’re handing over some of the most advanced tech in the world to ruthless murderers and giving us a hollow shell!”

“A deal is a deal, Glasswing,” I countered bluntly. “The Las Pegasus Raiders are here on the promise they will be getting a large share of the Institute's tech. If you intended to rob that from them and start a war, be my guest.”

Glasswing froze at that, not fully sure how to respond. He glanced over at Jinx, Pyre, Dixie and Magazine, all of which gave him small, smug smiles. He gave a low growl, his smile cracking. “You had better know what you’re-”

“You, as well as your scientists will be getting the Institute itself though,” I reminded him, cutting him off. “Yes, you will be taking a pretty serious hit in the production of all your projects, but I feel fairly certain that you will, in time, be able to rebuild the Institute to its former glory.”

As Glasswing struggled to answer, Freedom gave a slow nod. “The Friendship Express accepts your decision. It will be a lot of work, seeking out and helping the confused synths all across the wasteland, but I understand the necessity to keep their control out of any single ponies hooves.”

Jinx looked over the three Las Pegasus gang leaders around her. “Are the Las Pegasus gangs satisfied with this conclusion?” She asked, her teeth glinting in the clinical lights of the Institute.

Both Pyre and Magazine nodded. “We are,” Pyre grunted diplomatically. “We see this as a tactical win for Las Pegasus as well as a solid midpoint where the most ponies walk away with what they want.”

Jinx was silent for a moment before turning to look at Dixie who was being strangely quiet. “Dixie, what do you say?”

Dixie gave me a winning smile for a moment before closing her eyes and leaning back in her seat. “The Disciples are not satisfied,” There was a small uproar of anger from the other two gangs, but Dixie quickly silenced them with a hoof before continuing on in her sickeningly cute accent. “Institute tech is more a reward for Magazine and her Operators, and Pyre Blaze has little interest in the interest of the Las Pegasus gangs. She is only here to help Amber's interests. What do the Disciples and the Pack get out’a this?” She cast Pyre a smug, but strangely sympathetic look. “Do look out for your own Pack, darling. Don’t let me do your job for you.”

I noticed the Hellhounds looming behind Pyre had gone oddly silent at that, their eyes boring into my power armoured friend disdainfully.

“The Disciples joined this crusade because they were promised blood,” Pyre stated factually to Dixie. “Razor Blade got his bloodshed. He got to go down in a blaze of glory like he wanted in the fight for the synth creation centre with Iron Hock. If you were wise, you would honour his final promises.”

“But Razor Blade ain't here, is he?” Dixie soothed. “He’s dead. Dead because Amber sent a bunch’a ponies on a suicide mission for her own selfish purposes.”

I took back my thoughts about Dixie. I didn’t like her one bit.

“Razor Blade died exactly how he wanted to die, and you know it,” Magazine finally interjected, casting Dixie a scowl. “He got to die in the single biggest bloodbath since the great war. Your Disciples got to see their bloodshed.”

“Fair enough,” Dixie smirked, slowly shifting her head to look back at me. “But then what of the Pack? Surely they want something out of this? And I know my Disciples will feel quite… Under appreciated if they leave this counsel having gained nothing.”

I bit down on my lip, trying to think of an answer for her. “Is there… something you and your Disciples want?” I finally asked, suddenly feeling very cautious. “I’m sure we can work something out.”

Dixie grinned. “Indeed. It has come to my attention that in recent days, the Queens have taken control of the Balloon Station in Freeside from the Shackle gang,” Her lips twisted into a smug smirk. “I want the Flesh Rippers put in charge.”

Magazine growled. “Out of the question. The Queens are the best option Freeside has and you know it!”

Jinx had fixated her gaze on me, one of her eyebrows raised. “Well Amber? What are your thoughts on the Balloon Station?” There was a smugness in her voice. No doubt she had figured out I had played a role in the Queens taking over to begin with. How, I could only guess.

On one hoof, I hated the idea of giving control over to the Flesh Rippers. I liked the Queens, at least as much as I could like a gang of raiders, and the Flesh Rippers were vile cannibals from what I could remember. Giving the Flesh Rippers, and in turn, the Disciples, that kind of control over who got in and out of the Las Pegasus Strip did not appeal to me.

“Need I remind everypony that the Operators and their Queens already control all of the city's Securitrons and exterior defenses?” Dixie added. “That’s a lot of control. More control than the rest of us. And with the new influx of Institute tech I expect to start pouring into the city, I only see their influence growing. Control over the balloon Station is simply too much and seems like a fair trade to me.”

I raised an eyebrow at her. “But you are Jinx’s second in command, are you not? That sounds like a pretty large amount of control to me. Wouldn’t it make more sense to give it to the Pack and try and even it out?”

Dixie narrowed her eyes at me, her sweet sounding voice dropping to something a little more sinister for just a moment. “You wouldn’t be giving it to the Pack and your buddy Pyre. You’d be giving it to the Shackle gang, and the Shackle gang currently isn’t allowed access to the Balloon Station on account of letting ponies into the city without Jinx’s permission.”

I winced. I had been the one that framed them of that. Not that I really wanted the Shackle gang in charge anyway. I could still remember the vile monster Darbies. I didn’t imagine whatever pony had taken his place after I killed him and framed his death on the Flesh Rippers to be all that much better.

I felt a small smirk cross my face as an idea hit me. “Last time I checked, the Flesh Rippers killed Darbies to gain control of the Balloon Station. That sounds to me like an attempt to overrule Jinx’s direct orders.”

Dixie's eyes narrowed even more. “It does, doesn’t it? Funny how you know so much…” She allowed herself to trail off, letting a smile settle back over her face, her sweet tone returning. “Well, the way I see it, we can’t leave the Queens in charge, but you cannot give control over to the other two gangs either.”

I hesitated for a moment. I glanced around the room, trying to find some sort of answer. Finally, my eyes landed on one of the many Dashite City guards that were watching the meeting with wrapped interest. No doubt the fate of the Hot Balloon station involved them all greatly.

“What about the pegasi of Dashite City and the ponies of Freeside,” I finally suggested, a smile forming on my face. I spotted many of the Dashite City Pegasi straighten up with interest at that. “They have just as much claim to the station and city as you all do! Shouldn’t they get a little control?”

Every raider in the room burst with rage, clearly not pleased with that decision. “We can’t just give the station over to them!” Magazine declared, stomping to her metallic hooves. “I will not stand by while a coalition is formed between the Dashite city pegasi and the ponies of Freeside!”

“She’s trying to take our power away!” I heard a Disciple pony yell as they pulled a dagger from their side and pointed it at me menacingly.

“She shouldn’t be in charge of this meeting!” A Hellhound scowled, taking a step towards me, their huge claws scraping at the ground. “She has no intentions to help us!”

Jinx let loose a booming roar. The sound travelled around the room, vibrating the walls and making us all clamp our hooves around our ears to try and keep our eardrums from exploding. I noticed many of the Hellhounds cower to the ground, their claws frantically grasping their ears as blood trickled down the side of their heads.

“I am satisfied with this decision,” Jinx purred, giving us all a grin as we slowly recovered from the sudden ringing in our ears. “As there is no clear raider gang that can take its place, control of the balloon Station will fall to the Dashites and Freeside Ponies, so long as they first get approval for ponies entering the strip through me as the raider gangs before had to,” She glared at Dixie and Magazine. “I have decided. The gangs will fall in line,” She turned, raising an eyebrow at Dixie. “Are the disciples Satisfied?”

Dixie gave a sweet looking smile. “Of course, Jinx. The Disciples will accept the bloodshed given in the battle of the Institute as payment, and the new control over the Balloon Station is, though not favourable, understandable,” She gave Pyre a smug look. “Though, perhaps it is the Pack that you should be asking. I don’t hear them getting anything out of this deal.”

I bit down hard on my lip. Damn it, Dixie hadn't wanted anything out of this. She was just trying to make Pyre look bad in front of her gang. And damn it it was working.

“The Pack accepts these terms in order to maintain peace between the gangs,” Pyre shot back flatly. One of the hellhounds behind her growled at her response. I could see a few Pack members fidgeting anxiously. Clearly, they did not like how Pyre was handling things.

Ignoring the Hellhounds, Jinx turned her head to face Glasswing. “With that settled, we have confirmed what will happen to the Institute. Do you agree to Amber's terms?”

After a long moment of contemplation, Glasswing sighed. “Very well. I agree to the terms, but the Institute Remnants have requests of their own.”

I gave a small nod. “Which are, what?”

“The Institute wants temporary control over the Celestial States building in central Manehattan,” Glasswind declared, pointing to the central point of the map on the table. “There is a piece of tech there called the Beryllium Agitator that the Institute desires.”

I had not expected that request. In truth, I had no idea where this Celestial States building even was or what this Beryllium Agitator did. “And what exactly does this Beryllium Agitator do?”

Glasswing gave me a cold smile. It was developed by the MTW before the war. It has the ability to generate a considerable amount of energy. We few remnants of the Institute hope to create energy independence. The wasteland had proven itself to refuse to leave the Institute alone, and we wish to be left alone. I think you can see the conflict.”

It bothered me that Glasswing intended to block the Institute off from the rest of Equestria indefinitely. It only proved he had no interest in helping the world, only keeping his experiments. That said, it seemed like a fairly reasonable request, all things considered, especially when taking into account just how much we had actually taken from him to give to the other vying factions.

“I suppose that seems fair, unless anypony is opposed to the Institute taking this Celestial States building?” I said, trying to open negotiations up to the rest of the room. Almost immediately, everypony sitting at the table raised their hoof in objection. Even Pyre, which proved to me right away doing this might be a bad idea.

“That request is absolutely outrageous!” The Steel Ranger representative declared, once more pushing himself up to his hooves. “Firstly, the Steel Rangers will not sit idly by while the ponies are given access to such advanced Pre-War Tech. Especially the Institute who will most undoubtedly use it to recreate pony kinds undoing!” He stomped a hoof down on the sturdy table top, making the whole thing vibrate. “Furthermore, the Celestial States Building is far too great of a tactical advantage to simply hoof over to somepony so simply!”

Alright then… I hadn’t been expecting that outburst. I raised a hoof, silencing the large paladin. “Ooookay… Two questions. First, what’s your name again?” I felt really bad for not asking earlier.

The Ranger Paladin stared at me with an unamused look. “Are you- We’re ten minutes into the meeting that will decide the fate of Manehattan, and you’re only just asking for my name now?”

I gave him a shy looking shrug. “I just woke up from a coma, and I never really got a good opportunity to ask.”

The large Paladin sighed. “My name is Paladin Sirloin, second in command under Star Paladin Sardine of the Fillydelphia contingent of the Steel Rangers in the current absence of an Elder. As Sardine himself is unable to attend, I have been sent in his absence.”

I nodded. “Thanks. Second question. What’s the big deal with the Celestial States Building?”

Everypony at the table gave me a disbelieving, slack jawed stare before simultaneously slapping their hooves across their face. I heard a few snickers from the Las Pegasus Operators as well at the question.

“Amber, darling… How long have you been outside of your Stable again?” Dixie asked softly, raising her eyebrows at me in surprise and giving me a surprisingly sympathetic look.

I flushed a little at that. “Uh… Hard to say exactly… A little over two months… I think…”

“And you don’t know about the Celestial States Building? Surely you’ve seen it?” Crusader Blueberry asked, giving me a sympathetic look of his own. “The tall tower with the horse head on top of it?”

I gave him a small shrug. I probably had, maybe. Actually, now that he described it, I remembered passing that exact tower while on the way to the Institute, but it wasn’t something I had ever paid attention to. I’d walked all over the city by this point, but buildings were buildings. If I wasn’t planning on going into them, they didn’t really have all that much significance to me.

“It was a building commissioned by Celestia herself, long before the war began,” Pyre informed me quickly, piping up before any pony else could embarrass me any further. “It’s the tallest tower in the city, second tallest tower in Equestria after Shadowbolt Tower out in the Hoof. Once the war started, it became a military hub and a meeting place for the ministry mares prior to the construction of Ministry Walk in Canterlot. The damn place was built like a fortress, and was only defended further once the military came in and started filling it with top of the line security and military defence systems.”

Magazine raised an eyebrow at Pyre. “How the fuck do you know all that?”

Pyre shrugged. “Viscera and I tried to take control of it back when we were running the Manehattan Scourge. Didn’t end well. Half our gang got wiped out by Sentry Bots in the first few minutes of storming the place,” She turned back to me, continuing her explanation. “Point is, due to its fortifications, advanced tech within, and central location in the city and connection to every major trade route, the building would provide the single biggest tactical advantage in taking control of the Manehattan.”

Right. I suddenly had a pretty decent understanding of why no pony wanted me to just hoof control of it over to Glasswing. “So… if the Celestial States Building is so valuable, why has no pony tried to take control of it yet?”

Pyre chuckled. “I just said that I did back in the day, didn’t I?” She glanced around at everypony at the table who was suddenly looking a little sheepish. “And trust me when I say, pretty much every faction in the wastes has had their eyes set on taking it for years. The Las Pegasus Raiders were simply located too far away for it to ever be much of an advantage for us, but for everypony else? Everypony has been converging their territory towards it for generations. Any attempt to take control of the tower would not only involve crossing enemy lines, but fighting through half the city of Manehattan, and that's before needing to deal with the sentry bots inside.”

“Not to mention, the Enclave,” Blueberry added, drawing my attention over to him. “They just recently set up a base at the top of the tower with their Raptors. Some of my scouts noticed them securing large broadcast towers on top of it, though we haven’t been able to make heads or tails of the signal they’re using.”

“Hellhound control,” Star hissed. We all turned, looking at her. Star gave a small eep as all of our eyes turned to look at her, realizing that she had probably spoken out of turn. “Oop, uh, sorry.”

I raised an eyebrow at her. “No, it’s alright Star. You know what the Enclave is doing at the Celestial States Building?”

Star nodded, taking a nervous step forward. “I’d hope so. I practically designed the Hellhound mind control devices,” a few of the Hellhound behind Pyre snarled and moved to advance on Star, only for Pyre to order them back with a wave of her hoof. “Those broadcast towers, they’re casting a frequency that most ponies can’t hear with the naked ear. The sound pacifies Hellhound though. Makes them easier to control. Pair that with the mind devices themselves, and we take complete control over them.”

“Fascinating,” Glasswing breathed, his eyes shifting back and forth slightly. “Sounds like a similar model to how the Institute created teleportation via locking onto radio waves.”

I frowned, recalling how Farmer made a comment about how the Enclaves hellhound mind control devices could be used to tap into the Utopia Program. “Yeah… Very similar.”

“The point of the matter is, I refuse to stand by while the Institute tries to lay claim to such a valuable location!” Paladin Sirloin affirmed. "Enclave or not. The Institute will not gain access to the tower while the Steel Rangers have a say in this.”

“Sounds like it’s not an option anyway,” I pointed out, casting a flat glare at Glasswing. "Not without some pretty serious work and firepower.”

“With our combined forces, I have no doubt that we can deal with the Enclave located at the tower,” Glasswing snorted with a wave of his hoof. “What we want is a temporary ceasefire while we retrieve what we want. Once the Beryllium Agitator is in our possession, the tower is yours to give to as you see fit.”

“Not going to happen,” Iron Hock growled. “Tech like that belongs to the True Steels!”

“So you can, what? Power up your big gun atop Fort Strong? I don’t think so!” Sirloin shot back. For some reason, Iron Hock seemed to find that incredibly amusing. “The True Steels have enough power as it is thanks to the munitions factory you managed to get working below that facility. If there is anypony that deserves such power, it’s the Steel Rangers!”

Iron Hock narrowed his eyes at the large Paladin. “The Steel Rangers had their chance to use the technology at their disposal. Look where that got them! Broken into splitter groups and lacking any real leadership!” Iron Hock pulled himself up, practically looming above all of us. “I managed to build the True Steels up from nothing and into a force far stronger than the Steel Rangers ever were in the span of a few days! The Steel Rangers are a thing of the past! You would take all that power and have it simply waste away in some storage vault!”

“Sit down Iron Hock,” Sirloin drawled, glaring at him. “Your so-called True Steels, zealots of the Rangers true oath, think you’re so pure, but you’re nothing but a bunch of fanatical raiders!”

Iron Hock slammed his chair back, sending it clattering to the floor behind him. The massive minigun at his side spun up, the large magical energy weapon on his back popping open and aiming at Sirloin's head. “Do you want to start a war, Paladin?! I’d be happy to oblige you!”

“You started a war with the rangers the moment you broke your oath and attacked Fort Strong! Slaughtered the ponies who once called you brother!” Sirloin retorted venomously, spitting at Iron Hock as he too turned and let his minigun spin up. “Don’t act like we are the ones that started this war!”

“Ponies, please! Let’s sit down and talk this through!” Crusader Blueberry interjected, raising his voice to be heard over the two shouting Rangers. “Let’s all talk this out! That's why we're here. There is no need for violence!”

Iron Hock snarled, his eyes darting hatefully back and forth between Sirloin and Blueberry. After a second, he gave both of them a snide look and let his magical energy weapon retreat back into his armour. “Very well… We’ll talk. The True Steels want control of the territory around the Celestial States Building as well as the Fluttershy Medical Centre out in Fetlock. I want to make it very clear that I have no interest in negotiating these terms.”

Blueberry winced. “What! You can’t be serious! The Fluttershy Medical Centre is our only line of defence between Fort Strong and Stable 29! Giving that over to you would be opening us up for attack on both every front!”

Iron Hock sneered. “The Applejack Rangers can’t hold onto the Fluttershy Medical Centre anyway, not while most of your forces are out in Fillydelphia and Neighvarro dealing with the Enclave threat. You’re spread too thin. Best you hoof it over to me now and save your soldiers stationed there from the death I will grant them if they stay.”

“Woah, woah, slow down!” I burst, finally managing to get a word in with the warring rangers. I glanced over at Iron Hock.“I won’t give you the Medical Centre, but perhaps we can come to another compromise?”

Iron Hock glowered at me. “Picking favourites now, are you Amber? I should have known you would never give me a fair council!”

I raised my hooves up in front of me defensively. “In my defence, I didn’t vote for myself to run this, all of you ponies did,” I stood up, looking over the map on the table carefully. I followed along the Applejack Ranger and True Steel borders, looking for something I could use. “Perhaps a change in less important territory? I notice the Applejack Rangers currently have a base of yours near Tenpony Tower surrounded. Perhaps they can withdraw in exchange for some of your territory?”

Iron Hock paused, tapping a metal clad hoof to his chin. “Hmmm. Perhaps. We have been needing to send more forces out there than we can spare to maintain control over that area,” His eyes seemed to widen as he spotted something on the map, making him straighten up a bit. Whatever it is he saw though, he kept his mouth shut. “Very well. I will consider that an amicable trade, depending on what the Applejack Rangers want in return, of course?”

I let myself relax a little. That had gotten a little too close to all out war for my liking.

Blueberry gave a small nod at the suggestion. “Giving you more ground there would also allow you to more easily flank Stable 29 as well, no doubt. Though it is better than letting you take the medical centre, and we’ve lost too many troops trying to guard that area as it is…” He paused, looking over the map himself. “Alright. We’ll withdraw from that area, so long as you give us highway 22,” He pointed to a large road connecting Fetlock to Friendship City.”

Iron Hock practically baulked at the request. “So you can cut off trade to Fort Strong and flank us from both sides?! Do you think I’m an idiot!”

Blueberry’s eyes widened at the suggestion. “What! Of course not! We need access to Friendship City! There are still ponies trapped there after the Enclave attack and the True Steels have shown no interest in helping them!” Blueberry sat back, glaring at Iron Hock coldly. “Besides, if we withdraw, that gives you the ability to flank Stable 29 as well. It seems like a fair trade to me.”

Iron Hock took a long moment to think all of that through before nodding. “So be it. For the sake of the ponies of Friendship City, I’ll allow it.”

“Of course, this still leaves the matter of the Celestial States Building,” Magazine groused.

“My demand still stands,” Iron Hock affirmed. “The True Steels want access to the territory around the tower.”

“As does mine,” Glasswing cooed, shooting Iron Hock a small scowl while his back was turned. “I want the Beryllium Agitator.”

Jinx raised one of her huge paws, immediately drawing all of our attention over to the massive sphinx. “The Las Pegasus raiders want the Celestial States Building tower and surrounding area. The Institute may take the Beryllium Agitator if they must, but the tower itself will be ours.”

There was a moment of shocked silence as everyone digested Jinx’s request, then everypony in the room burst into shouting. I had to clamp my hooves over my ears to keep from going deaf as hundreds of voices all started shouting at and over each other. I cast a worried glance with Pyre. What had happened to trying to solve all of this peacefully? Surely Jinx knew asking for control of the tower was just going to cause more problems?

“The Raiders have no right to take the tower! Manehattan belongs to the True Steels!” Iron Hock was roaring, his weaponry once more popping open, this time aiming at the huge sphinx.

“If the Raiders take the tower, the Operators demand control over the Beryllium Agitator!” Magazine shouted, her gatling laser pointed at Glasswing who was currently expressing his own outrage over the sudden turn in the conversation.

“Manehattan doesn’t need the Las Pegasus Raiders getting a hoofhold out here!” Freedom spat, reefing out her revolver. “I’ve seen what the Las Pegasus Raiders have done to villages out in Neighvada! We don’t need that here in the city!”

“That tower rightly belongs to the True Steels!”

“The Applejack Rangers deserve the tower more!”

“We don’t want your raider filth in our city!”

“You want to start a war, ranger scum!?”

“We’ve got enough problems without you bringing your kind to Manehattan!”

“Fuck you raiders!”

“SILENCE!”

Everypony froze, glancing over at Pyre Blaze who had pulled herself on top of the table and was glaring down at all of us with disdain. “What are you all? Foal? Now sit down before one of you actually does something stupid!”

Slowly, everypony took a step back, those who had been seated taking a long moment to glare at each other before returning to their seats.

“Good, now…” Pyre started, hopping off the table and returning to her own seat. ”Right now, the Celestial States building is under Enclave control. None of us have the right to give it over, despite what you all seem to think,” She cast an angry scowl at Jinx. “Besides, there is a much more pressing issue to deal with right now. One that all of us seem to be dancing around.”

Freedom nodded. “Indeed. It seems foolish of us to sit around this table discussing territory when the threat of the Institute synths are still at large,” she stood up, pointing at multiple locations all across the city. “I’ve been getting reports from my operatives about synth activity all across Manehattan. They’ve been cutting off caravans, gathering around larger settlements. A large gathering of them has formed in the ruins of the Ponypalooza Hotel, meaning they’re invading both True Steel and Applejack Ranger territory. I’ve even gotten reports of them being as far west as Neighvada. If they're out there, how long until they go after Las Pegasus itself?”

“Not to mention we still don’t know who’s controlling them,” Glasswing growled, giving Freedom a biting look.

"I'm pretty sure I know," I confessed, looking around the room. "Leaden Excellent, the name you found the synth control had been directed to, it was an alias used by Silver Ace, the same pony that create the Utopia Program, started this whole mess. He's the pony behind all of this."

Pyre nodded. “But knowing who is responsible still leaves us with a huge problem. This synth army is massive, bigger than any other force we’ve ever seen. Likely big enough to pose a serious threat to all our forces combined. And if what all the reports we have been getting are true, then the trajectory of these synth attacks shows that they’re making a move towards the centre of Manehattan themselves.”

My ears shot up at that. That I hadn’t heard about the synths Silver Ace was controlling yet. “Wait? They’re making a push for the centre of the city? Why? Unless…” I trailed off, trying to connect as many dots together as I could. It didn’t take long to come to the same realization as everypony else. “They’re after the Celestial States Building as well!”

“Most likely,” Magazine agreed. “As we said before, taking the tower would give them a huge tactical advantage over the city. I doubt any of us would stand much of a chance if they took control of it.”

I shook my head. That didn’t make sense. Silver Ace was inside of the Utopia Program, he would have no interest in taking territory in Manehattan. What would have been the point if he had control over the entirety of Equestria? He wanted the Celestial States Building for another reason, which meant…

“He wants the Beryllium Agitator,” I surmised quitely, glaring at the large X in the centre of the map which I had come to realize represented the Celestial States Building. “I don’t know why, but he wants it. It’s the only thing that makes sense.”

“More reason for the institute to take it,” Glasswing smiled, as if this revelation was some big win for him. “Though this facility was of course designed to allow synths the ability to teleport in, we are not without safeguards. Once the Beryllium Agitator is within the Institute, we can put up a transmission block around the whole facility, preventing synths from teleporting in.”

I nodded grimly. I didn’t like the idea of giving Glasswing and his scientists access to a supposedly unlimited power source, but if Silver Ace wanted it, I sure as fuck wasn’t going to let him have it. “Alright. If we can reclaim it, the Beryllium Agitator is yours.”

“And the tower itself?” Magazine asked curiously, spending a moment to glare at Glasswing distastefully. Clearly she wasn’t happy about not getting the Beryllium Agitator for herself. “Who gets the tower?”

“Right now it’s more important to make sure other ponies don’t have the tower. If anything, I feel it is best to have the Las Pegasus Raiders take control of the tower first, as an outside, neutral faction, and try and create some sort of order to the surrounding area before we make any further moves,” Pyre answered for me. “The Enclave and the synths pose a huge threat to all of us. Allowing either to maintain or gain control of the tower would be tactical suicide.”

“Create order for who? All of us, or just you and your Pack raiders?” Paladin Sirloin scowled at her.

Pyre froze, shifting her head to glare at the large paladin and narrowing her eyes behind her tinted visor. “Excuse me?”

“Of course you would want control of the tower,” Paladin Sirloin growled at her. “Don’t think the Steel Rangers haven’t noticed. You’ve been acting as a mediator, but we all know the truth. You’re planning something, and you’ve got your puppet Amber here speaking out her ass to cover for you ‘cause you know you’re on thin ice.”

“Sir!” Scribe Inkwell exclaimed from behind him, taking a step forwards, but Paladin Sirloin cut her off by raising his hoof, his eyes glaring into Pyre’s.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Pyre scowled back. “I have so far done nothing to provoke the Steel Rangers, yet you treated me with distaste since the start of this meeting. My only goal here is to make sure we all walk out of this in one piece.”

Sirloin scoffed. “Right. One piece like that True Steel you had murdered?”

I felt my heart skip a beat in my chest. Damn it! We had been doing so well. I had begun to think we would actually manage to get through this whole ordeal without that getting brought up. Apparently not.

Pyre glowered at him. “There was no proof to prove that True Steel was killed by a member of my Pack, and you know it.”

My eyes darted over to Iron Hock who was sitting back in his chair and watching this unfold with a smug grin. He glanced over at me, catching my stare. Our eyes locked, my Amber eyes glaring into his eyes. Then he winked at me and turned his head away.

“I will confess that I had my rangers interrogate him a few short hours before his death,” paladin Sirloin admitted. “We had reason to believe he had valuable information regarding much of the True Steel movement up in Fetlock. We had hoped it could be of use to us in regaining a hoofhold in Manehattan. The True Steel was less than cooperative, though I have no doubt you managed to get more information out of him with your more violent methods!”

I had had enough of this. I pushed myself up to my hooves, glaring at Paladin Sirloin. “Pyre Blaze was not responsible. None of the Pack were!”

“I have concrete proof that says otherwise!” Sirloin barked at me, standing up himself. I flinched slightly when I realized he stood a good foot taller than me, and that was before counting in the impressive bulk of his power armour. Fuck, why did I have to be so small?

“Concrete proof? Like what?! The fact that they were killed with a Hellhound claw? There were dozens of dead hellhounds all over the Institute after the battle. Anypony could have picked a claw up off the ground!” I retorted. “That doesn’t prove anything.”

Sirloin nodded. “Had that been the only thing, I would have agreed. But unfortunately for your friend, it is not,” He tapped a hoof to the side of his helmet, clicking on his built-in radio. “A few hours ago we picked up an encrypted message sent by Pyre Blaze to a Hellhound of her Pack that has since gone missing. I think you’ll be fairly interested in what it says.”

“Get the information we need out of that True Steel. I don’t care what you have to do to do it,” Pyre’s voice echoed out of the recording. The voice was distorted slightly from the radio’s static, but it was very definitely Pyre’s voice. Both Pyre and I froze, glancing at each other in concern. We had not anticipated this. “We need to know what the True Steels are planning if we hope to create a hoofhold in Manehattan and take control of Celestial States Building. Don’t get caught. We can’t let Jinx know what we’re doing. Ha! I can’t wait to see the look on that stupid sphinx’s face when she gets what’s finally coming to her…”

There was silence as the audio recording cut out. I glanced worriedly at Pyre, not sure how to take that. From the look of shock and fear that crossed her face, I could tell she wasn’t quite sure what to do about it either.

“You had one of my ponies killed,” Iron Hock growled, pushing himself to his hooves and pointing an accusing hoof at Pyre. “I should gun you down where you stand!”

“I… I didn’t,” Pyre stammered, her gaze still locked on Paladin Sirloin. “That voice wasn’t… I mean… I wouldn’t have-”

“I should have known. This was all a big stunt, wasn’t it?” Magazine hissed, whirling on Pyre. “You thought you could march back to Las Pegasus and one up the Las Pegasus gangs! Though you could take us out and seize control for yourself!”

“No, I- I couldn’t have-” Pyre stammered, getting up from her seat and backing up as both the Disciples and the Operators began advancing in towards her. The Hellhounds behind her closed in, blocking her off. She glanced up at Jinx’s desperately. “Jinx, I wouldn’t- There’s something bigger going on here! I-”

Jinx just met her gaze coolly, not bothering to comment further.

“She betrayed the Las Pegasus raiders once before! Who’s to say she wouldn’t do it again!” An Operator raider shouted, whipping up the angry raiders into a bigger frenzy.

“Please! Sit back down! We can talk all this out!” I shouted, trying my best to be heard over the hubbub. Everypony ignored me, their blazing eyes burning into Pyre.

“We should skin her alive!” A Hellhound howled, raising their massive claws and advancing on Pyre.

Pyre spun and glowered at the Hellhounds. “I killed Viscera! I am the leader of the Pack! You will fall in line!” She ordered, her hooves stomping the ground in front of her.

“And yet Viscera still lives!” Another Hellhound hissed. “Lives because you didn’t have the balls to kill her!”

Another Hellhound pounced forwards, their huge claws bashing Pyre across the front of the chest and knocking her back against the table. “You don’t care about the Pack!” They growled, showing off their impressively long fangs. “You just care about yourself! I think it’s time for a new change in management!”

Mirras wings burst open at her side as she flashed forwards and flew straight into the assailing hellhound's face. “Get away from my mom!” The hellhound gave a small shout of surprise, stumbling back before jumping forwards and pinning Mirra to the ground with a single paw. He loomed over her, thick drool dripping from his scowling maw.

My own new shotgun swung up instantly at the sight of my friends being attacked, both Brisk and Xayah pulling out their own weapons a second later and moving to stand beside me. The True Steels saw the motion and quickly whipped around to face us, their own impressive weaponry coming to bear and aiming towards us.

“Get off of her!” Pyre snarled, the ends of her flamers flickering with crimson light as she glared down the Hellhound that was pinning Mirra to the ground. “If you want to take control of the Pack, then come and take it from me! But leave my daughter out of it!”

More and more ponies were pulling out their weapons. I saw the Friendship Express pull their guns on the frantically mobilizing Institute scientists while further down the room, the Steel Rangers and Applejack Rangers glared at each other down their iron sights. The Disciples and Operators came to a stop around Pyre, their own weapons out and aiming towards her threateningly.

“Perhaps it's time a new pony takes up the mantle of leader of the Pack,” Dixie suggested, giving Pyre a small grin. She turned, giving the Hellhounds a thin smile. “What say all of you? The Operators are eggheads, and the Pack has fallen from grace. But there has always been one gang that has offers bloodshed when the other gangs falter, has there not? Perhaps it is time to make a change!”

Magazine growled, spinning on Dixie. “You would dare try and take control of two gangs! I’ll have you and your Disciples gun down before I allow you to take that kind of power you bitch!” At her words, her Operators turned, swinging their weapons away from Pyre and towards Dixie and her raiders.

“Join the Disciples? Stupid pony. The Pack stronger than the Disciples!” A hellhound scowled, their large claws twitching at their side as if wanting to flash out and start digging into pony flesh and their maw snapping violently at Dixie. “We will always be loyal to the Pack!”

Other hellhounds looked less certain. The hellhound pinning down Mirra was giving Dixie a thoughtful look, a smug, tooth filled grin stretching its way across their maw.

“Back off Dixie,” Pyre seethed, her eyes never leaving the Hellhound pinning Mirra. “The Pack is mine, and if you want to stay in the good graces of the Las Pegasus Raiders, you will accept Jinx’s decision!”

Magazine pushed herself between the two of them, her large gatling laser spinning up slightly. “Both of you, back off!” She glowered at Dixie. “Pyre will get what she deserves, but you will fall in line!”

“Silence!” Jinx roared, finally pulling herself to her hooves. Everypony froze, glaring up at the huge beast. All three gang leaders turned their heads to look up at her, waiting to see what she was going to say. After what felt like an eternity, Jinx bowed her head. “Stand down Magazine. This is between Pyre and Dixie.”

I felt my gut drop. Jinx couldn't just let this happen! This couldn’t be happening! It just couldn’t.

“Please! Stop this! Please!” I shouted, trying to draw everyponies attention back to me. Once again, I was all but ignored. “This is just what Silver Ace wants! He’s hoping we’ll tear each other apart before we have a chance to stop him! If he wins we’re all fucked! Don’t any of you care!”

“And why would we be fucked, exactly?” Paladin Sirloin scowled, turning his head to look at me. “I don’t think you’ve ever exactly explained that. Do you even know what this... this Silver Ace pony is planning to do?”

My voice caught in my throat. “I… Well… He’d…” My mouth snapped shut, knowing full well that I didn’t have a single clue of what Silver Ace was planning. “He- He took Luna Prime from my Pipbuck! I don’t know why he wants it, but if he wants that then-”

Iron Hock scoffed. “Luna Prime? You speak of things we don’t even know of. What is to say that this Silver Ace even exists at all? Perhaps you are the one that took control of the synths and you’re using this Silver Ace as a cover for yourself!” He snorted, a small burst of steam escaping his nostrils. “Awfully convenient, that everything this Utopia Program controls was taken over by somepony else shortly after you entered the program yourself.”

My mouth fell open. He couldn’t seriously believe that! After everything that had happened!

Thin, razor sharp blades slid out from the ends of Dixie’s hooves as she slowly trotted towards Pyre, a sweet looking smile across her face. “Please, stay still sweetheart. I’d hate to get blood everywhere,” A Hellhound lunged at Pyre from behind, their large claws wrapping around her and holding her in place as Dixie advanced.

Blam! Blam! Blam! Blam!

I winced as a stream of bullets blasted over my head and pounded against the ceiling, spent bullets bouncing off the metal roof and clattering to the table. Everypony froze, turning to face Brisk as he strode forwards, the end of his minigun red hot from firing.

“Are you all really so stupid?” Brisk spat at them all, venom in his tone. He hopped up onto the table, standing in front of everypony. “If any of you truly think Pyre Blaze sent that message then you either don’t know her or have your head so high up your own ass that you can’t see what’s right in front of you!”

“But what abou-” Iron Hock started, but Brisk cut him off.

“We'll deal with you in a second, now shut up!” Brisk growled at him, before once more turning to face everypony. I took a moment to enjoy the look of shock that crossed Iron Hocks usually smug face as Brisk's outburst. “I’ve had the pleasure of travelling with Pyre for almost two months now. And when I say pleasure, I truly mean that. Pyre is a lot of things, complicated certainly, hell, when I first met her, I thought she was just a raider, wanted nothing to do with her. Fuck, I mean I lost count of the amount of times I wanted to put a bullet between her eyes. Maybe the biggest mistake I ever made was waiting too long to treat her like a friend. Pyre Blaze is a lot of things. Brave, brash, a little annoying at time. But she's also noble and selfless when it matters most and she's put more work into becoming a better pony than any pony else I've ever known. But there is one thing that Pyre Blaze has never been, and that’s hungry for power. Do you really think she gives a single damn about taking the tower for herself? That she would want to usurp Jinx? What would that actually get her aside from all of you trying to kill her and her own gang turning on her? Nothing!”

Iron Hock opened his mouth again, but once more, Brisk cut him off. “I know. There’s a message with her voice on it that has her saying a bunch of crazy shit, but that doesn’t mean jack shit!" Brisk scowled. "There is currently a whole army of synths flooding through the streets of Manehattan. An army that can literally take the shape and voice of anypony they damn well like. Do you really think they can’t easily fake a message like that?”

My ears shot up straight. That would explain the voice in the recording, but that revelation suddenly put something else into question as well. That True Steel had been murdered by Iron Hock, not by one of Silver Ace's synths; I had seen that with my own two eyes. But Iron Hock had no connection to the synths, right? He couldn’t have created that message.

Unless…

I slowly shifted my gaze, glaring at Iron Hock. A small memory from just a few hours ago nagged at the back of my mind. I opened my mouth, almost hesitant to speak. “Iron Hock, you were in the Synth control centre during the battle for the Institute… Why were you accompanying Razor Blade and his Disciples instead of leading your own troops into battle?”

Iron Hock froze. His head turned, his eyes looking into mine for a second. “I don’t know what you are suggesting.”

“But you were there,” I shot back bluntly. I looked around, seeking answers in those around me. “He was, wasn’t he?”

Scarlet nodded. “Yeah. He came in shortly after the Disciples joined up with us.”

Star gave a low scowl. “And he stayed behind to help Razor Blade hold the Coursers off,” She turned to stare at Iron Hock. “Funny how you made it out of there when Razor Blade did not.”

All the Disciple Raiders shifted their gaze to glare at Iron Hock at that comment. I saw Dixie finally take a step away from Pyre, her eyes burning into the True Steel’s Elder.

Iron Hock’s gaze was still locked on me, not bothering to look over at Scarlet or Star Breeze. “Are you trying to imply something about me, Amber Aura?” There was a thick hint of malice to his tone, as if daring me to imply what was going through my head. "I would suggest that if so, you tread very carefully."

“It just seems strange to me that Silver Ace managed to get control of the synths while he was currently all the way out in Stable 25,” I sat back down in my seat, folding my hooves in front of me. “So then, what exactly did he promise you if you helped him? Weapons? Caps? Control of the wasteland?”

I saw Iron Hock flinch at the last comment. “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Iron Hock seethed, the muscles in his face tensing in rage. “Now be silent you ignorant bitch!”

I nodded smugly. “Control of the wasteland then. I suppose he could actually give it with his army of synths and the Utopia Program.”

“Steel Rangers would never work alongside synths,” Paladin Sirloin growled at me. “Those freaks are an abomination! The walking embodiment of everything we hate. Technology that’s gone too far!”

“But Iron Hock isn’t a Steel Ranger anymore. Isn’t that right, Iron Hock,” Blueberry scowled. “You like to act like you’re true to the Steel Rangers’ oath and code, hell you called your little splinter group the True Steels for fuck sakes, but you’re more like the Applejack Rangers than the Steel Rangers. You’re all about using tech, not hoarding it. You’d have no problem working with synths, would you?”

“I said shut up! All of you!” Iron Hock boomed, slamming his fore hooves down violently on the table. “This is all madness and heresy! Do you all want to start a war with the True Steels?! Because we can go to war!”

“You’d want that, wouldn’t you,” I snapped back, my eyes narrowing. “That’s what all of this is about, right? Silver Ace asked you to turn all of us against each other so that we wouldn’t be able to stop him. He knows that all of us together actually pose a serious threat, and you know it too. He offered you the whole fucking wasteland and all you’d have to do to get it was to tear appart the ponies standing in your way. You’d have no reason to say no. That’s why you killed your own soldier, why you framed Pyre, tried to drive a wedge between the raiders and gave control of the synths over to Silver Ace. I wouldn’t be surprised if you killed Razor Blade as well."

As if my words were the sound of a gun signalling the beginning of a race, the Disciples rushed forwards, lunging towards Iron Hock. Dixie vaulted over the table, knocking Brisk back to the floor as she rushed to get at Iron Hock. The blades on her hooves flashed out, pushing up against the larger ponies throat.

“Give me a good reason why I shouldn't skin you alive!” Dixie hissed at him. For once, the sickeningly sweet tone was gone from her voice, giving me a quick glimpse of the monster that lay below her pretty facade.

Iron Hock pushed away from her, a loud clunking sound signalling a rocket sliding into place at his side. “True Steels! Show these wasteland savages their place!”

I stumbled back as all of my senses were torn asunder by the sudden booming of gunfire and screams as the whole room broke into chaos. Bullets and rockets streaked across the room, knives and claws slashed through flesh, explosions flared across my vision. A massive shockwave from a rocket that blasted from Iron Hock’s side slammed into me, knocking me to the ground.

A True Steel rushed at me, the large minigun at their side whirring up, only for Xayah to step between us and send a bullet lancing through their visor. The True Steel collapsed to the ground an inch away from me, blood dripping from the shattered glass over their eyes.

I pulled myself up, narrowly avoiding a volley of bullets that blasted at the spot I had just been laying. I glanced around, trying to make sense of the sudden chaos, but it was hard to make out anything with the overwhelming amount of gunfire and smoke. The True Steels seemed to have organised themselves into a defensive position by the doorway, the Steel Rangers and the Applejack Rangers flanking them from either side. The Las Pegasus Raiders had formed a large semicircle around them and were closing in, Dixie and Magazine leading the charge.

Jinx strode forwards, her head bowed slightly to keep from scraping across the ceiling. The raiders parted for the large sphinx as she walked, making her approach feel more intimidating than it already was, and it was already plenty intimidating. Pyre trotted along beside her, her flamers blasting off bits of flame at any True Steel that dared to fire upon them. I noticed Mirra sitting nervously atop her back. I was glad to see she was unharmed.

“Iron Hock!” Jinx boomed, her voice sending chills down my spine, even through the overwhelming sound of blaring gunfire. “What do you have to say for yourself?”

“The wasteland belongs to the True Steels, beast!” Iron Hock spat back, before placing his heavy power armour helmet back over his head, obscuring his face. “What hope do you really think you have against us? Against Silver Ace and his synths!”

“Wong answer,” Jinx mused, her claws flashing forwards at the heavily armoured elder. Iron Hock jumped to the side, Jinx’s massive claws ripping up the ground where he had stood. The magical energy gun on his back swivelled to fire at her, sending a rapid fire volley of burning blasts of light into Jinx’s side. Her hide was ripped open, blood oozing down her side and matting into her purple fur.

Jinx didn’t seem to care much however, her body whipping back around and her thick tail slamming into Iron Hock’s chest hard, sending him staggering backwards, ramming into the doorway. He quickly stomped back to his hooves, though his conviction seemed less strong than it had seconds before.

“You and your True Steels’ will stand down,” Jinx snarled, looming closer to him. Two True Steels rushed at her, but she quickly knocked them aside with a swipe of her paw, her sharp claws cleaving one of them in two. “You cannot win here. Stand down or face execution.”

Iron Hock glowered at her for a moment. I could see his expression shifting back and forth between anger and understanding. Finally, he huffed, standing up a little straighter. “We will stand down if you let us leave the Institute peacefully.”

Jinx hesitated for a second, her eyes glowing for a moment as she created a small magical shield to deflect a rocket that streaked towards her. “Very well. You stand down, you live.”

Iron Hock took another moment to think that over before nodding. “Cease fire ponies!” At his words, all the True Steels ceased firing, all of them taking a step back into a tighter defensive formation around Iron Hock. Iron Hock fixed Jinx with a stern glare. “You will allow us safe passage out of the Institute.”

“Jinx, this is madness!’ Magazine protested, her gatling laser aimed at Iron Hock’s head. “We can’t seriously let him go! Not after what he’s done! We can easily take them!”

Dixie gave a grim nod, her own eyes digging daggers into Iron Hock. “He killed Razor Blade. The Disciples demand retribution.”

“He walks,” Jinx replied simply, raising a paw to silence them. She took a step forwards, her massive shadow passing over the gathered True Steels. “And they will never return to the Institute.”

Iron Hock sneered. “Understood, beast,” Without another word, he spun around, stalking his way out of the room, his True Steels marching close behind him.

Jinx turned, looking back at Pyre. “Have some of your Hellhounds escort them out. I don’t want there to be any accidents on the way. Have them seal the door behind them.”

Pyre nodded, turning to her Hellhounds and relaying the command. A few Hellhounds looked hesitant to follow her orders, but Pyre quickly reminded them this was a command directly from Jinx. It didn’t take long for ten of the Hellhounds to follow the True Steels out.

“Why…?” paladin Sirloin asked, his gaze following Jinx as she stalked back to her seat at the head of the table. “Why let him live after all of that? We could have taken them. They were vastly outnumbered.”

“Outnumbered, yes. But with the True Steels, they are rarely out gunned,” Jinx replied. “We could have killed them, sure, but how many ponies would we have had to lose to do so? A fight in close quarters against explosive weaponry is a costly battle. Each rocket they fired could take out a whole squadron of men,” She leaned back, lapping up a bit of the blood that soaked her paws. “Furthermore, killing Iron Hock would have accomplished nothing. The True Steels are well established enough that they will continue to operate, even without a leader. Look no farther than the Steel Rangers to see this. Or even my own gangs in Las Pegasus. Iron Hock will get what’s coming to him, of this I assure you. I will not allow some pony to kill my second in command and get away with it. But now is not the time for brash action. Now is the time for strategy.”

“He will come back and attack the Institute,” Blueberry harrumphed. “I worked alongside Iron Hock for years back when we were Steel Rangers. He would never allow such advanced tech like what’s in the Institute to fall into the hooves of anypony but himself.”

“Certainly, but not now,” Jinx soothed. “The Institute is far too defensible. He knows that any attack he launches on this place will fail. I doubt he would have accepted my invitation to retreat otherwise. Iron Hock will not return to the Institute until he is certain that his victory over it is a guarantee. He is arrogant, but his is not a fool.”

“But he will head for the Celestial States building,” Freedom growled. “With us all here, he’ll probably take his chance to take as much territory around that area as he can now before heading for the tower itself.”

Jinx nodded. “No doubt. And now that we know he likely has the help of the Institute synths on his side, I have no doubt he will manage to succeed in taking the tower.”

“Fuck, the True Steels were already bad enough,” Paladin Sirloin groused. “With the munitions factory below Fort Strong in operation, they possess far more fire power than we are capable of dealing with. If they’re working with this Silver Ace and his synths as well…”

“Then we’re going to be in a lot of shit,” I surmised, trotting over and getting back into my seat. As I sat back down, a realization hit me. “Silver Ace and Iron Hock put a fair amount of work into ripping us all apart, and they didn’t do that just for fun. They might outnumber and outgun us right now, but together, together we are a force that has a genuine shot of stopping them. But we have to work together. No more fighting amongst each other,” I shot a glance at everypony at the table. They all seemed to shrink back a little at my gaze. They had seen first hoof how easily we could get ripped apart, and just how bad it could get if we did.

“Fine, so we will work together,” Freedom grunted, casting Glasswing an unapproving look. “For the sake of the synths and ponies of Equestria, the Friendship Express is here to help.”

“As is the Institute. Or what’s left of it,” Glasswing agreed. “It’s about time we try to reel in what we started.”

“The Applejack Rangers as well,” Blueberry nodded, giving a quick salute. “We took an oath to protect the ponies of the wasteland, and we have no intention of abandoning that oath now.”

Sirloin gave a grunt of approval. “Indeed. The Steel Rangers will not stand by while synths run rampant across the wasteland, nor will we excuse the irredeemable actions of Iron Hock and his zealots.”

I turned my gaze to look at Jinx and the three Raider gang leaders. Dixie gave me a grim nod. “The Disciples will fall in line. Iron Hock must pay for what he did to Razor Blade.”

Magazine smirked. “So far, you’ve been the greatest thing to happen to the Operators, Amber Aura. Everywhere you go, you have brought us fortune. The Las Pegasus Operators stand with you.”

I cast Pyre a quick glance. My friend just gave me a smug shrug. “Do I even need to say anything? I stand beside you. You know that I always will.”

“It would seem the Las Pegasus gang's vote is unanimous,” Jinx smirked. “The Las Pegasus raiders are at your disposal.”

“But what exactly are we supposed to do? Even all together, we’re spread too thin to take on this kind of threat,” Paladin Sirloin noted. “The Steel Rangers hardly have a hoofhold in Manehattan since the attack on Fort Strong and the lost of Elder Cottage Cheese, and the Applejack Rangers can hardly hold onto Fetlock as it is.”

“Not to mention the Enclave threat,” Blueberry added. “Most of our forces are currently preparing for the battle in Fillydelphia. We don’t have nearly enough pony power to make any sort of push for the centre of Manehattan, let alone the Celestial States Building.”

“And synth attacks are still going strong across the city, and there are still large gatherings of them around Tenpony Tower,” Freedom pitched in. “They aren’t attacking yet, but if they’re going to make a move to take the city, they’re going to launch full scale attacks on those soon. We can’t leave those ponies defenceless.”

Everypony turned to me, as if expecting me to have the answers to their questions. I looked back and forth, trying to think up a plan. There was so much to do, and even with all these ponies at my disposal, I didn’t know if there would be enough to do it.

After a long second, I sighed. “You’re all right. With the True Steels and synths dividing the Steel Rangers and Applejack Ranger forces out in Fetlock, we won’t be able to stand much of a chance, and if Silver Ace does launch an attack on Tenpony Tower to keep us distracted... and he will... we can’t just leave everypony to die. They have defences there, sure, but not for the kind of firepower Silver Ace’s synths can throw their way…”

I took a deep breath, closing my eyes and stealing the moment. I could feel my hoof tremble as the gravity of everything seemed to weigh down on me. I had the fate of the whole of Manehattan resting in my hooves right now. My choices were going to be critical.

“We’re going to need to divide and conquer, clear up as many issues as we can before amassing together and taking the fight to them,” I ordered, puffing my chest out a little. “We need to make sure that Tenpony Tower is safe first. If we don’t Silver Ace will launch an attack on it the second we make a move. Tenpony is on the way to Fetlock, so the Applejack Ranger can supply protection to Tenpony while on their way there. My friends and I, along with the Friendship Express and the Institute remnants will supply them with back up,” I turned, looking Freedom and Glasswing over. “I figure you both would be the best to bring along to deal with synths.”

Freedom nodded. “We have Operatives in Tenpony that can help us out as well.”

“And what of the rest of us?” Paladin Sirloin mused, cocking his eyebrow and giving me an intrigued glare.

“The rest of you will need to make a push for the Celestial States building,” I replied grimly. “I doubt we’d be able to take the tower, not with the True Steels and synths at full might and the Enclave setting up base there, but we can at the very least slow them down until our issues out in Fetlock have been dealt with.”

Sirloin nodded, leaning back in his seat. “Understood.”

“Once Tenpony tower is safe, we’ll move onto Fetlock,” I continued, looking back at Blueberry, Freedom and Glasswing. “If we can free up the Applejack and Steel Rangers there, we might be able to amass enough ponies to make a genuine assault on the Celestial States building.”

Jinx gave a long, slow nod. “The Las Pegasus Raiders will do what they can to secure the territory around the tower and keep our enemies' control of it minimal until you are able to take out the True Steel threat and bring back reinforcements,” she stood, her eyes sweeping over all of us. “So..." She paused again, her eyes sweeping back and forth between all of us. When at last she spoke, her voice was low and even. "Is everypony in agreement?”

For a long moment, everypony was silent. No pony wanted to speak, feeling the end of the war council finally drawing to an end and understanding just what the implications of ending this meeting were. Manehattan was heading into war, there was no doubt about that now. I doubted any pony at this table had ever seen the amount of violence and bloodshed that we were certainly to see unfold in the coming hours.

Finally, everypony nodded, at last sealing the fate of Manehattan.

To war it was…

“AAAHHHHHHH!!” I screamed in exasperation, stomping back and forth as I tried to get as much nervous energy out of me as I could. I paused for a second, glaring at the pristine Institute wall in front of me before leaning my head back and letting out a long, exasperated scream of anxious anguish again. “AHAHAHAHAHAHAH!”

“Amber, you did great in there. You handled the situation better than any pony could have asked of you to do,” Xayah tried to assure me as she watched me from where she stood beside Brisk. “No pony could have expected Iron Hock to pull what he did.”

“Yeah,” Brisk agreed optimistically, giving me a smile that showed off his missing tooth. Wait, missing teeth. I had knocked a second out a few weeks ago. “If it wasn’t for you, every faction would have gone to war with each other or whatever. You managed to unite most of the ponies together to help us fight Silver Ace. That seems like a pretty big win to me.”

I stopped my pacing and turned to them, my eyes wide. “What part of going to war sounds like a big win! It’s a Pyrrhic victory at best. We’ve officially declared war on the True Steels, who are working with Silver Ace I should mention! We are hopelessly outnumbered, the Enclave is launching the single largest attack Equestria has seen since the great war tomorrow, and to top it all off, Pyre almost got killed!” I paused, letting the memories of the meetings flood into my mind. My mind got flooded with a second wave of things that had gone wrong and I threw my hooves up into the air in exasperation. “And we still don’t fucking know what Silver Ace is planning, why he wants this Beryllium Agitator or what he needs Luna Prime for!”

“Well, it sounds bad when you put it like that, but on the bright side, Pyre only almost got killed and didn’t actually get killed,” Brisk pointed out, smiling a little. His faux cheer dropped when he saw my ears droop, replacing his goofy grin with a more stern, understanding look. “Look, I get this isn’t all ideal, but everypony knew going into that meeting that shit was going to hit the fan sooner or later. No pony was going to get exactly what they wanted, and it was made pretty clear from the beginning that at least one faction was going to go get the short end of the stick and declare war. The fact that it was only one faction and not all of them is a serious achievement.”

“Indeed,” Xayah agreed. “All things considered, and noting that you had not expected to lead that meeting going in, you did a remarkable job.”

“But a war?” I moaned, sitting down on my haunches and staring at my hooves. “I can’t deal with a war! This is way bigger than anything we’ve dealt with before!”

“We made it through the Hollow Shades Massacre and siege on Dashite City,” Brisk pointed out. “If we could do that, then we can do it again, right?”

“Those were hardly wars,” I pointed out. “They were large battles, sure, but this is way bigger. It’s not just one settlement that suffers if we lose this, it’s all of Manehattan, probably the whole wasteland. If we lose-”

“When have we ever been known to lose?” Xayah countered smugly. “You have always lead us to victory, and you always will you foolish pony.”

I gave her a flat glare. “Um, we failed to save Stable 25. We failed to kill Viscera when she attacked up in the MWT hub. We weren’t even there to stop the Enclave from completely wiping out Oasis. We failed to stop Fluer from taking the A.A.S.S. from us. Hell, we still don’t have the A.A.S.S. anymore. Keeping that out of our enemies hooves is a ship that sailed long ago, and that was like, literally our main goal for the longest time. We fail all the time! Hell, we fail more than we win it seems.”

“And yet we are still alive and fighting,” Xayah pointed out. “And we will until we don’t fail.”

I sighed, leaning back and resting on the cold ground. “I’m just scared. Ponies have kept talking about how war is coming to Manehattan and lots of ponies are going to die for weeks and now it’s actually happening. What if Luna Prime gets activated again! or one of you dies! Or all of you die! Or-”

“What makes you so certain Silver Ace will even be able to activate this Luna Prime?” Xayah asked, arching an eyebrow.

Brisk nodded. “Yeah, didn't that megaspell and the big bone dragon thing connected to it get like… blown up by a gazillion balefire bombs?”

“First of all, a gazillion isn’t a number, and second of all, I doubt Silver Ace would have transferred it from my pipbuck for no reason. Do you really want to count on him not being able to activate it?”

Xayah and Brisk just cast each other a nervous glance, clearly coming to the silent agreement that counting on anything was probably a pretty bad idea at this point.

“Hey, how is everypony doing in here?” I heard Scarlet chirp up. I looked up to see Scarlet and Star Breeze poking their heads into the doorway. Scarlet’s gaze dropped down and landed on me lying on the ground. “Yeesh, that bad, huh?”

“Amber does not think she did well in the meeting,” Xayah informed them in her methodical tone. “We are trying to tell her that she is foolish for having these thoughts and that everything will be okay.”

Scarlet gave a grim nod, trotting over and sitting down next to me. “Yeah, you did great, Amber. Really, you did. I know things look bad right now, but trust me, it could have been so much worse.”

“I mean, things are pretty fucking bad though,” Star muttered under her breath. Scarlet shot her a stern glance. Star just rolled her eyes. “What? It is! I’m not saying she did bad! Just that things are shit! Things are always shit down here! Do you want me to lie to her!?”

“At least try to make it not sound like everything is shit.”

“But everything is shit!” Star protested. At everypony's grumpy glares, she relented. “Alright, fine. The wasteland has a bright future full of sunshine and rainbows. There! Are you all happy now?”

The door slid open again, this time making way for Pyre as she trotted into the room, carrying Mirra atop her back. “How’s my favourite war starter doing?”

“I will always be amazed at how you manage to make my life harder,” Brisk snorted at her, more laughing to himself than actually being annoyed.

"Hey, you're the one that said I was brave and selfless in the meeting," Pyre smirked at him. Her smile faded slightly. “Now I hate to interrupt whatever is going on in here, but I need to borrow Amber for a moment,” She said, bending her legs a little so Mirra could more easily climb off and join up with the rest of my friends. “Jinx wants to see her. It seemed important.”

Nodding, I hauled myself up to my hooves and trotted over to Pyre, giving my friends all one last wave before following her out. Pyre led me down the halls of the Institute silently, clearly picking up on the fact that I wasn’t in much of a mood for talking.

After a long time of walking, I realized we weren’t heading in the direction I had expected. “Wait. Where are we going?” I asked, skipping a little to make sure I didn’t fall behind Pyre’s long strides.

“Outside,” Pyre answered back bluntly. “Jinx is waiting for you on the roof of the overpass between the MWT Hub and Ironshod.”

True to her words, we made out way out of the long tunnel connecting the Institute to the MWT Hub before making out way up to the roof where Jinx was waiting for us, gazing out at the wasteland beyond with her golden, slitted eyes.

“Thank you Pyre,” Jinx cooed as we stepped out onto the slick surface, not bothering to look back at us. “You may leave. I wish to speak with Amber Aura alone.”

Pyre nodded, leaning in close so that only I could hear her. “I’ll be just downstairs if you need me,” She whispered, before turning and trotting out.

I stood there for a long moment, the wind whipping at my mane as I waited for the large sphinx to speak, but Jinx seemed to be more interested in her reflection on the metal surface of the broken skyscraper.

Finally, unable to take the silence anymore, I cleared my throat. “You wanted to see me Jinx?”

“I know why Pyre convinced you to recruit the Las Pegasus Raiders help, you know,” Jinx soothed, still not bothering to look at me. “What she actually hopes to achieve through all this. Magazine and Dixie think she’s trying to become Overboss. I understand why they think this. Most of her actions would suggest such a thing to a pony that doesn't know better. But I know the truth. She wants to reform us. Show us the… hmmm… what’s the right word… Light? Like she has seen. Like you have shown her,” She finally turned her head, one of her immense golden eyes looking me over. “She isn’t going to succeed. Reforming all of them as she hopes would take years, if it were even possible at all.”

I narrowed my eyes at her a little. “I hope you didn’t call me up here to complain about Pyre. You know that no matter what, I’ll always stand by her.”

“Of course,” Jinx replied bluntly. “I wouldn’t dare waste either of our precious time on something so unchangeable and irrelevant.”

“Why did you let Dixie challenge Pyre in the meeting like that,” I blurted, giving the large sphinx a hard glare. “You would have known full well that Pyre didn’t kill that True Steel, but you let Dixie almost start a civil war amongst the Las Pegasus Raiders anyway. Why?”

Jinx sighed. “I’m not omnipotent, Amber. Though I may seem it, I can be just as easily fooled as every pony else. True, I can see glimpses of the future or the past, but these glimpses are riddled with inconsistencies and contradictions. Sometimes I am just as blind to the world as you. For all I knew, Pyre very well might have killed that pony and you were simply covering for her and blaming it on another faction as a political move. It would hardly have been the first pony Pyre would have killed. And when Sirloin played out that message with Pyre’s voice, what else was I to do. I control the Las Pegasus gangs, but only to a point.”

“But Dixie was going to start a civil war! Had Brisk not stopped her, Pyre would have died and you would have had one less raider gang!” I protested. “Clearly that called for you to intervene! Flash your teeth and claws and scare them off, tell them to deal with the issue once the threat of war is gone! Something!”

“I did intervene. I told Magazine to back off,” Jinx hissed. She straightened up a little and sighed. “Imagine if I had sided with Pyre, Amber, after near irrefutable proof that she intended to betray me? Had Iron Hock played his cards a little better, perhaps I would still be unsure if that message was real or not. I would have had more than just a civil war on my paws, I would have a full on mutiny.”

I sat down hard, my mind reeling. Her logic was there, but… It was a cold, calculating logic that looked out for no pony but herself. I was reminded, not for the first time, that Jinx was not my friend. Despite Jinx’s more diplomatic nature, she was still the queen of raiders.

“The Pack...” I started slowly. “What is going to happen to them?”

“Pyre was already losing their favour. Many members of the Pack had been searching for a reason to overthrow her ever since she replaced Viscera,” Jinx informed me, her gaze looking almost sad for some reason. “Many members of the Pack are loyal, and will likely stick by Pyre for now, but many of the more… bloodthirsty… among them have already begun to break away from the Pack and side with Dixie and her Disciples. This meeting was a clear and decisive victory for Dixie, if for no pony else. The Disciples have not had this much power since they first came to Las pegasus.”

I gave a slow nod, not sure what to do about that. “Pyre really does have a long way to go before the Las Pegasus raiders are reformed, doesn’t she… Things are only getting worse.”

Jinx nodded. “No doubt removing Viscera from the picture was a big win for Pyre, but no, reforming the raiders of Las Pegasus will take a far more work than Pyre can give. She will fail. She will either once more succumb to the life of a raider or die trying to undo it,” She paused, shifting her gaze once more to the jagged Manehattan skyline. For a long moment she was silent. “But for what it's worth, despite the simple fact that she'll fail, I hope she succeeds.”

A small jolt of surprise passed through me. “You… you do?”

Again, Jinx gave a solemn nod. “I told you back at Dashite City, did I not? I once tried to leave this life of raiding behind. But old habits die hard. I like to think that maybe one day, under somepony better than I, the empire I built can be something better.”

That was a… surprisingly noble and strangely emotional sentiment from Jinx that I had not been expecting. Jinx was complicated. Just when I thought I knew her, she through a statement like that at me and everything I thought I knew got thrown out the window.

Not knowing what else to say, I followed her gaze, my Amber eyes rolling across the broken city landscape before finally landing on a tall building protruding from the centre of the city. The Celestia States Building, I recalled. Gazing upon it now, from all the way up here, I understood why everypony was so surprised I hadn’t heard of it. It was massive, almost triple the height of every other building in the city, with the massive figurehead of a pony built atop it. From all the way out here, I could see the small back shapes of Enclave Raptors swarming the top of the tower.

Letting my gaze shift downwards a little, I spotted what appeared to be dozens of fires smouldering across the city, the crimson light giving the gridded city streets a hellish glow, a clear sign that the True Steels had begun their march towards the centre of the city, eradicating anything in their path. The city had become a war zone already, and we hadn’t even entered the fray.

“So this is how a war begins,” I breathed, my eyes rolling over the devastation. “Not with two armies charging towards each other across the battlefield, not even over the heated debate of politicians, it starts here, in the calm before the storm. The silence and peace that precedes the bloodbath,” I paused again, lost in my own thoughts. “I guess it was all for nothing after all. It didn’t matter what we did. We were bound for war no matter what.”

“You managed to keep the Las Pegasus gangs in line and prevent the Friendship Express and Institute Scientists from killing each other,” Jinx pointed out. “Plus, you managed to get the Applejack Rangers easier access to Friendship City. That likely will save many lives, so no, not everything was for nothing. War was inevitable, but a winnable war was not. You’ve given us a fighting chance. That’s more than most can say.”

As we stood on the precipice of the overpass, a huge shadow passed overhead. I looked up, my eyes wide as I made out the huge shape of a massive, black airship as it slowly flew over us, blotting out the sky above entirely. I saw Enclave Raptors deploying from its huge hull, flashing out and raining fire down upon the streets of Manehattan below.

“What is that thing?” I muttered, my eyes fixated on the huge ship. It was at least fifty times the size of an Enclave Raptor, large enough to practically be a flying city all on its own.

“Enclave Thunderhead,” Jinx mused, her gaze turning skyward as the huge Thunderhead passed overhead. “The Enclave is preparing for their final assault on Fillydelphia and the last stages of Operation Cauterize. They will kill any pony that they deem a threat to them. Considering the resistance and losses they've taken over the past few days, I would guess that's every pony in the city at this point. They will likely stop at the Celestia States building to regroup before heading to Filly, which means taking the tower is going to be a lot harder, but that also puts another obstacle in Iron Hock and Silver Aces path as well.”

“Do you…” I paused mid sentence, not sure if I really wanted to ask the question. “Do you really think you can keep the tower out of their hooves? I mean, you could take on that Thunderhead, right? Nothing can kill you.”

Jinx grimaced. “We will see, but I too have my limitations. Remember that it took all I had to keep only one Enclave Raptor at bay during the siege on Dashite City, and even then I barely escaped with my life. I am just as capable of dying as everypony else, Amber. Do not forget that.”

I nodded, my gut twisting. “So is that all you wanted to talk to me about?” I finally asked, not able to bear looking at the burning city any longer. "Talk about Pyre and how screwed we are in these coming battles?"

“No. There is one more thing,” Jinx sighed, turning away from the city completely and resting down on the ground before me. “You mentioned something back in the meeting, something I did not at the time have the ability to address... You mentioned Luna Prime.”

I felt my heart thud heavily in my chest. “You’ve heard of it?”

She shook her head slowly, her eyes practically burning into me. “No, I have only felt it. During the war, somepony convinced Twilight and Luna to start digging in the Hollow Shades. They found something down there. Something that should have stayed buried. I felt it then, a strange power that I could hardly recognize. Older than Equestria itself. I felt it again a month ago, the day the MAS tower in the Hollow Shades was destroyed.”

“The same day Kamari tried to activate Luna Prime,” I noted, my brows furrowing in worry. “You think the Luna Prime megaspell is connected to whatever Twilight dug up?”

Jinx raised an eyebrow at me. “Do you not?” She let her smug smirk fade. “But I believe there is more to this than even that. I felt it again, when you were inside the Utopia Program. That strange force, it moved.”

I went rigid. “It… Moved?” What the fuck did that even mean?

“Not far. Only a few inches. But that’s more than it had moved in two hundred years,” Jinx told me. “Pyre told me about what you saw inside the Utopia Program. That there was a beast in there. Something dark. Something longing to escape. A pony of Shadows.”

A chill passed through me at the memory of the eldritch beast dwelling within the darkness of the Starswirl the Bearded wing. “I’ve been thinking about that thing as well…” I confessed nervously. “I keep seeing it in my mind. As if it's calling to me. Beckoning for me to free it. You don’t think it was the- the same pony of Shadows you mentioned to me before? Back when we were in Las Pegasus?”

Jinx cocked her head slightly to the side. “Would you doubt me if I said I did? The connections are far too similar. The description, the connection to the Hollow Shades, the very feel of its energy. When you and Pureblood interacted with the thing within the Utopia Program, the thing in the Hollow Shades moved in turn. If that thing really is the Pony of Shadows like I fear it is… Well…” She looked back at the city of Manehattan, her eyes rolling over the rising pyres of flame and smoke billowing from the winding streets and the huge silhouette of the Enclaves Thunderhead as if loomed over the waiting city. “Well if it is… Silver Ace and the war for Manehattan may just be the least of our concerns.”

Footnote: Maximum level reached

Author's Note

I hope you enjoy fantasy politics, 'cause this chapter had just a little bit of that. (Okay, a lot of that)

Fallout Equestrian belongs to Kkat

I hope you all have a great day!