Fallout Equestria: Finding Hope

Chapter 5: Restless Colors

“A little bit of color goes a long way in this world of dull tones”

Our room at River Heights was amazing. It had two giant comfy beds with clean pillows and blankets. It’s own kitchen with a working stove, of course no running water in the sink though, same with the bathroom. Stardust took one bed and I took the other. I was almost sad when I saw that there were only two beds. Sleeping in the same bed made me feel safe. But apparently sleeping in a bed by myself again made me restless.

…

Three in the fucking morning and I’m wide awake. The soft blue glow of my PipBuck lights up my whole side of the bedroom. I put my hoof down and let out a sigh. Maybe if I take a walk around town for a little I can clear my head. I slowly roll off the bed, making sure I don’t make a lot of noise. I would feel terrible if I woke Stardust up this late.

Walking by Stardust’s bed I tilt my PipBuck to gently light everything up. She’s curled up in a ball outside her blanket, shivering slightly. I slowly walk over and cover her up. She grabs the blanket into her hooves and smiles a little bit. Get some rest Stardust. I know you’ll be waking me up in the morning. Before I leave I make sure to grab my pistol and its holster. We may be in town but that doesn’t mean I’ll be safe.

As soon as I step outside I begin to hear the strange noises of the city at night. Ponies and strange creatures scream and howl in the distance, mostly accompanied by gunshots right after. Alpony and the rest of Equestria used to be a peaceful place. Where ponies weren’t getting shot down for little to no reason, if they needed something they could just nicely ask their neighbor, their friend, or hell nearly anypony. But here we are now in a time where at any moment you could be killed, raped, or stolen from without anypony batting an eye in your direction. It’s your problem to deal with it when it happens. Because that’s the kind of place the wasteland is. And that’s what I’ve learned in the few days I’ve been out here.

My thoughts were interrupted by a pair of hushed voices in a nearby alleyway. I quickly duck behind a dumpster and peek over to see who it is. It’s the mayor and a... bird pony? What? I shake my head back and forth. It’s definitely real. It’s a half pony, half other creature. Maybe a cat... But cats are small. Aren’t they? Whatever this hybrid bird, cat thing is, it’s wearing a set of black armor with a white painted bird claw on the outside. They and the mayor are arguing about something, but I can’t hear a word they’re saying. But that all changes when I see the bird grab a knife and stick it to Silver’s throat.

I quickly duck back behind the dumpster. Okay I have two choices. Let Silver die and hopefully Stalk will take his place. Or save him from the bird thing and deal with him later. I rub my face with my hooves. He may not be the best pony I’ve ever met but I can’t just sit by and watch somepony get murdered. I let out a deep breath. Sometimes I hate the good pony in my head.

I stand up from behind the dumpster and yell, “Listen bird... thing, I’m gonna need you to put the knife down, and walk away from Thread!” I brace myself to grab my pistol.

The bird sheaths his knife and looks over at me. “And who the fuck do you think you are.” Based on its voice I’m guessing it’s a male bird thing.

“Why, she’s the Midnight Marauder.” Silver Thread gets his stupid smirk on his face. “I wouldn’t mess with her. She took down Gut Rot all by herself.”

The bird glances back at Silver then back at me, “Listen I don’t give a single fuck about who you are, Thread here is part of my contract not you. But if you get in my way then you’re officially my problem.” He slowly puts his claw onto a pistol holster. “Get out of here kid.”

“Sorry bird, thing, but I’m not a kid. And I’m going to do the right thing.” Simultaneously we both draw our pistols and fire. A quick jolt of pain shoots into my left hoof and my PipBuck flashes a quick warning. Luckily though, my shot was better. The bird collapses to the ground with a hole going through his eye and out the back of his skull. Red ichor begins to pool on the ground around his corpse.

“Kid that was amazing!” Silver Thread gets an appalled face as he steps over the body of the bird. “Looks like he won’t be bothering me again any time soon.”

I sit down on my flank and hold up my hoof. The bullet went nearly all the way through my hoof, but it didn’t hit bone. I’ll just sip on a healing potion and it’ll be fine. “What did he want anyways?” I say to distract myself away from the wound.

“Let’s just say I owe some money to certain ponies and they aren’t the happiest right now. But thanks to you I’m off scot free!” He looks at my bloody hoof and winces, “Uhh… are you gonna be alright?”

“Yea, I’ll be fine. I have healing potions and bandages back in my saddlebags.” I look back down at my hoof. Nearly my whole hoof is soaked in my blood. If my coat wasn’t black It definitely would be red by now.

“Well I don’t know how to thank you once again, but I do owe you one.” He starts to trot past me. “Now go and get some rest, hero!” His laugh trails off into the night behind me.

Since I didn’t feel like getting in any more trouble tonight I flew back to the hotel. On my way up to our room I may have left a single bloody line of hoofprints. As quietly as I could I opened and closed the door. I can’t wait to lay back down. Getting shot in the leg really makes some- *CRACK*

“SWEET CELESTIA FUCK ME WITH YOUR TEN FOOT FUCKING HORN!!!”

“Midnight!?” The light clicks on and Stardust’s head appears above me from her bed. “What are you doing?!”

I let out a low, pained groan, “Wishing... I was... dead...”

…

Two healing potions and one mummification of my hoof later I could actually talk straight. “The bullet actually hitting me may not have hurt a whole lot but kicking the bed it was the absolute worse. And that’s saying something.”

Stardust wasn’t the happiest pony once she learned of my three in the morning adventure. “What I don’t get is why you went out in the middle of the night without even telling me! You got yourself shot, then didn’t think to wake me up to help you! You could have gotten killed out there Midnight!” This is the angriest I’ve seen Stardust since I’ve met her.

“I’m fine Stardust. It’s just a small wound to the leg, nothing bad.” I begin to put away the leftover bandages and potion bottles. “I should be the least of your worries anyways. I can take care of myself.”

“Midnight you don’t even know who you are! You lost your memory to some machine, then woke up literally three days ago without a single sense of what's going on. The only thing you really know about the wasteland is how to shoot a gun, surprisingly well, and getting yourself shot at over and over again without any care for yourself. You worry more about the ponies around you then you do yourself…” Stardust walks over to her bed and lies down, “And I seem to be more worried about you then you are yourself…”

“I’m sorry Stardust… ” Those are the only words my mouth could make. And they’re the only words my brain could agree with… “I.. uh…” C’mon brain! Say something and stop blabbering to yourself like a fucking brainded ghoul!

Stardust slowly sits up and looks over at me, her pure white mane draping over her face, “It’s fine Midnight… I have no right to yell at you…” I hear her sniffle a little bit, “I know you're just trying to help others. And that’s something I love about you that I wished I could love about myself. Just... promise me you’ll take care of yourself a little bit more.” She looks up and brushes her mane out of her face. I notice a couple tears dripping down her face.

I walk over and slowly sit on the bed next to her. I wipe the tears from her face with my wingtip and she lets out a soft giggle. “It’s going to be hard for me to change because that’s just who I am, but I can try for you Stardust. And I know you’ll be there when I fail to keep this promise.”

“We may have only known each other for a couple of days Midnight but over this time you’ve become the best pony I’ve ever known, and I can say that I’m happy to have been your friend.” She gives me a soft smile and wipes her face with her hoof.

At that moment, time seemed to freeze, not like when I was in the simulation, but my heart seemed to slow down along with the whole world around me. Like Stardust said, we’ve only known each other for less than a week but I couldn’t help but feel this strange feeling I’ve only felt once before. It’s not a bad feeling, but a good one. A great one actually.

I was thrown out of my thoughts by something rapidly shooting past my vision. “Midnight? Are you there?”

I shake my head and give Stardust a confused look, “Huh? Sorry I zoned out there for a second…”

“I asked what time it was, you still need to get some rest for tomorrow. We have a lot to do.”

I hold my pipbuck up to my face, “It’s almost five in the morning.” I let out a sigh. I barely feel tired yet. “ I really need to get some sleep or else I’m gonna die of sleep exhaustion before anything else.” I start to slide off of Stardust’s bed when I hear her make a strange noise behind me. “Uhh, you okay?”

I turn around to hear Stardust clear her throat. Her white mane is covering her eyes, “Um, you could sleep in my bed tonight if you want… It could maybe help you sleep… “

The feeling in my chest returned as she said that. But wow was I happy she asked, “Yea, just lemme grab my pillows and blank-” Before I could finish my sentence my whole body is wrapped in a soft purple glow and I’m picked up into the air and put down on my side onto the bed.

“Lift up your head.” Stardust says gently. As I do this a pair of pillows slide underneath. Stardust’s face then appears in front of mine on a different set of pillows. Her horn glows one last time as a blanket covers both of us up. A wave of warmth fills my whole body.
“Thank you Midnight…”
“For what?”
“For being my friend.”

…

Last night was THE single best five hours of sleep I’ve ever had! No stupid fucking raider attacks, no two hundred year old pony trying to eat me, the only thing here to ruin it was Stardust accidentally dropping a book on my face.

…

THUMP
“Oh my gosh Midnight! I’m so so sorry!”
“Mmph, what the hell was that…” I feel around the blanket and my hoof touches something hard. I scoop it up in my hooves and struggle to open my eyes. A purple book with the title Mastery of the Arcane Sciences, By :Starlight Glimmer. This isn’t one of the books she took from the library. It looks completely undamaged compared to those.
The book is enveloped in Stardust’s purple glow and levitates from my hooves. “Sorry, I figured I’d read a little while you were asleep.”
“You were reading about the Arcane Sciences. What are those?” Stardust raises an eyebrow. “What?”
“Midnight. It’s magic. You know. The stuff I can do with my horn. And the stuff that powers your pipbuck, and every other piece of technology in Equestria.”

“Okay I figured that as much but why isn’t it just called magic instead of Arcane Sciences.” If it were up to me I would just call it magic like a normal, not smart pony.

“During the war with the new advance in technology ponies coined the term Arcane Sciences to refer to the combination of machine and magic and the study of them. But if you want to call it magic then just call it magic because that’s exactly what it is.” Stardust opens up the book again with her levitation and begins skimming through the pages.

From the small glances of the various charts, graphs, and pictures of complex machinery I wouldn’t be able to understand any of what the book was about without several other books to help me. Stardust stops flipping through the pages on a section labeled Neuromancy. I look up at Stardust, “What the hell is Neuromancy.”

Stardust lets out a little giggle, “It’s the type of spell I need to hopefully get your memory back. I think I have all the info we would need to try it. But I don’t know how risky it is though…” Stardust must have seen my eyes go wide because she gives me a big smile.

My eyes shoot open wide, “Is this something we can try? Like, right now try?”

Stardust gives me a small nod, “I think I can do it… But no guarantees...” I practically fly into the ceiling in excitement. I get to know who I really am! Stardust stands up and sits on the opposite side of the bed. “I need you to lay down in front of me and so we can start.” I grab a pillow and lay down on my stomach in front of her. “Are you ready?” I nod my head anxiously.

Stardust’s horn begins to glow with its light purple glow. I notice her face begins to scrunch up from the strain. “Are you okay?” She nods slightly and puts her horn to my head. Instantly the room around me begins to wash away into pure white and I begin to feel a tingle fill my body. Then it all fades away to normal and the tingling dissipates along with it. Stardust drops to the bed beside me. “I can’t do it Midnight… I’m sorry...”

A deep voice appears from the entrance to our room, “I don’t know what kind of weird sex thing you two are doing, but I’m going to leave now.” I look over to see Stalk’s head poking around the corner.

“Oh no we aren’t like that! We’ve only known each other for a couple days! I couldn’t imagine doing that! Especially with Stardust!” I begin to panic as my cheeks heat up.

“Calm down kid, I'm just messing with ya. Just came to make sure you two are awake. Ya got quite a bit to do today..” He gives a little wave of his hoof and walks away. I look back over at Stardust. She still hasn’t moved from where she was. Her hooves are covering her face.

I nudge her side with her hoof and a giggle comes from under her hooves. “Are you ready to get back on our wondrous journey?”

She uncovers her face and gives me a confused look, “You’re not mad at me?”

“Why would I be mad at you? You tried to help me Stardust. The fact that you even tried means more than anything to me. So I should be thanking you if anything. So, thank you Stardust. For everything.”

…

The Robroco building from a distance looks just like a normal factory. The area around it is decently empty other than a couple of broken down wagons, but in front of the main entrance is, from what I can tell, two big piles of scrap metal. I tell Stardust it’s clear and sheath my sniper rifle on my back. As we approach the metal piles they slowly look more and more like metal ponies. Almost like Cook Cook with his metal armor.

“Uhh Stardust. What are these things?” I poke one with a hoof. They are about the size of a stallion and also have the shape of a stallion but they’re metal. On its head is a glass dome of some kind. Underneath it is a mess of wires and random circuitry.

“They’re called protectponies.” I give Stardust a blank look. “It’s a robot.”

“Whoa whoa whoa, wait. There’s different kinds of robots! That's freaking awesome!” I look back down at the protectpony corpse and poke it again. If somepony told me a week ago I could see robots, I would have never believed them.

“I sometimes forget you don’t know anything about the wasteland.” Stardust flips one of the protectponies over with her telekinesis. On this side of the robot are various scorch marks and holes that look like they melted their way into the robot. “Seems a laser weapon took them out. It was probably the pony that was originally hired to do this.”

“LASERS! There are lasers!”

Stardust facehoofs. “Okay I’m going to have to find some way to tell you about all the differences between the real world and the simulation.”

I want a laser gun. “So how does one acquire one of these laser weapons?” Stardust shakes her head and begins to walk towards the entrance of the factory. “What? It’s not everyday your science fiction dreams become a reality.”

Stardust opens the door to the factory. The smell of rust pierces my nose and nearly makes me sneeze. The first thing I notice is another metal carcass in the center of the room. This one is a lot different then the pony-shaped protectponies. This on is a large metal ball with a bunch of metal appendages sticking out from it with various tools attached to each. Three of them appear to be where it views from and three others I couldn’t even begin to know what they are. A saw. A claw. And a water gun? Why would they need a water gun?

“Those ones are called Mr.Handy’s. I believe Griffons had some inspiration for their design.” Stardust walks past me and begins to search the room. I stare at the weird shaped cleaning robots for a little longer before walking away into a different room labeled ‘Factory floor’.

The factory floor is about as big as I thought it would be for a robot factory. Various pieces of the unfinished robots cover conveyor belts. Some half finished ones dangle from magnets on the ceiling along with other shapes of robots I don’t even recognise.

“PLEASE SHOW SOME IDENTIFICATION”

I scream and duck behind a fallen catwalk.

“PLEASE SHOW SOME IDENTIFICATION”

I peek my head over to see one of the Mr.Handy robots. Except this one hasn’t been blown down with a laser gun.

“I REQUIRE IDENTIFICATION FOR THIS AREA” Its robotic voice doesn’t sound like Watcher’s voice at all. “IF IDENTIFICATION ISN’T DISPENSED, SECURITY MEASURES WILL BE TAKEN.”

Oh shit, “Uhhh… My name is-”

Stardust quickly jumps in front of me, “My name is Millet and this is my newest intern Midnight Note!”

“Welcome back Ms.Millet. And please get an identification card for Ms.Note as soon as possible. Oh and I am loving the new mane color Millet.” The robot silently floats away towards the main entrance door.

I look at Stardust with amazement, “How do you know who Millet is? That was amazing.”

“It was the nametag on the front desk. Honestly I’m surprised it worked.” She lets out a long sigh. “That could have ended badly.”

The floor above us begins to rumble violently and dust begins to gently sprinkle from the ceiling. “Okay what kind of crazy robot is making that noise.” I look over at Stardust and she returns the look with a worried one. “Not a good one.” Above us the rumbling continues until we hear a loud thump and it slowly fades to the other side of the factory.

I quickly look around the room to try and find the nearest staircase to the higher floor. “Midnight what are you doing?”
“A-ha! Found it.” I open a door labeled ‘upper floor’ and begin to run up the stairs. I hear Stardust scramble up the stairs behind me. Once I reach the top I pause and check my EFS.
Stardust stops next to me, breathing heavily. “What the hell are you doing?”

I stop spinning in a circle when I find both a red and blue tick. “I’m scanning for threats. There’s a red tick and a blue tick that way.” I point my hoof east.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

I let out a groan, “It’s a feature on my pipbuck. I can see the location of enemies and friendlies. Red is bad. Blue is good.”

Stardust sticks her head out of the doorway and quickly brings it back in. Red beams of light begin to shoot past her. Down the hallway the red tick begins to quickly get closer to us. “Okay we need to run past it!”

“What!?”

“Just trust me!” I quickly run into the hallway and take off into the air as close to the ceiling as I can get. The robot was nothing like I was expecting. It has a giant metal chest and appears to move on four giant metal legs with a threaded ball at the end. On its side is a giant gun spewing what seems to be hundreds of lasers in our direction. I quickly fly past it until I reach the door the blue tick is hiding behind. Stardust appears in a flash of light next to me. I quickly open the door and jump in, slamming into a bright colored mass. I hear Stardust close the door behind me.

I hear a muffled voice of a stallion below me, “Could you please get off of me?”

“Shit, sorry.” I flap my wings until I’m up on my hooves. Below me is the brightest earth pony I’ve ever seen. He has a short blue, pink and green mane with a matching tail and his coat is an extremely bright yellow.

“Who the hell are you two?” He doesn’t really sound too happy to see us. Doesn’t look that happy either

“Well I’m Midnight. And this is Stardust.” I wave a hoof in her direction. “We came to find a robot for the mayor. I’m guessing you're the pony who was hired before us?”

“Wait a second… I think I know you…” The bright stallion puts a hoof to his chin. “You’re that Midnight Marauder aren’t you?”

“Luna damn it, Why can’t I go a single day without getting recognised by somepony.” I let out a sigh. “Who are you anyways?”

“Neon. I’ve been trapped in the building for the last couple days now. I can’t escape with that sentinel out there though.”

You’ve been here for a couple days? How do you know about Midnight then?” Stardust says next to me. “You don’t have a pipbuck and there’s no radio in here.” Speaking of here, I haven’t even noticed we’re in a supply closet. A shelf of random prewar cleaning supplies and a mop bucket are really the only thing in the room.

“I’ve not been in the supply closet this whole time. Down the other way is another room. I managed to fix an old radio while I was here.” He lets out a sigh. On the shelf I notice a couple magazines labeled Playpony and Wingboner Magazine. I quickly grab them in with a wing and put them into my saddlebags.

Neon gives me a weird look, “I’m going to ignore that.” He looks back over at Stardust. “You seem to be the smarter one here. Do you have any ideas on how to stop that thing?”

“Hey!” I mean it’s true, but c’mon dude.

“Well sentinels have a thick armor plating and I doubt anything we have can get through it.” Stardust sits down and begins to look through her saddle bags. Neon does the same.

You two and your rummaging. I pull up my pipbuck’s inventory sorter and begin going through all of my belongings. It’s mostly food, Nuka-Cola, bottlecaps, and ammo.

Neon closes his bags and straps them back on extremely well for an earth pony. “All I have is my laser pistol, some ammo for it and a couple plasma grenades.”

“Wait, what are plasma grenades?” I really wish the wasteland wouldn’t stop harassing me with all this new stuff.

Neon gives me another weird look, “Grenades that explode with supercharged and heated hydrogen that’ll melt nearly anything around them. But I’ve already tried throwing one at it and it barely left a scratch.”

Well what does it take to kill these things then! I look back at the shelf of cleaning supplies. Wonderglue, abraxo cleaner and random detergents. None of these are going to he- Wait! “I got it! Neon give me those genades!”

He shrugs and tosses three of them over to me, “I don’t know what you plan to do with them, but okay.”

“Okay how do I activate them?” Neon points to the button at the top of one. “Okay cool. Stardust I need you to pour some of that glue on these.”

“Midnight what are you planning?” I figured neither of them would understand. Hell, it even took me a little bit of convincing.

“If our weapons can’t do anything to it why don’t we just bury it. Make it so it can’t do anything.” Almost simultaneously they both give me a weird look. “Just… Trust me on this.” Stardust shrugs and begins to help me glue the grenades together. “No promises how well this is going to work. And if it does you can thank me later.” I check my pipbuck’s mapping tool for a good place to lead the sentinel. Down the opposite way we came in is a more open room, perfect for smashing the sentinel. “Okay I’ll be back. Well, hopefully I’ll be back.”

“Wait, you're going alone!?” Stardust puts her hoof on my shoulder, “Are you sure.”

“Well it’s my plan and if I fail then hopefully it’s a good enough distraction for you two to get out safely. Like I said earlier Stardust, you don’t have to worry about me.” I grab the glue in my mouth and prepare myself to open the closet door.

Lead the sentinel to the end of the hallway, glue the grenades to the ceiling and fly like hell. Let's go! I open the door to the closet and quickly close it behind me. The sentinel turns and his laser weapon begins to rotate. I quickly take off into the air down the hallway. The sentinel begins to fire off his ridiculous laser gun towards me. I feel multiple shots hit my flank and begin to burn through my armor but I ignore the pain as much as I can.

Once at the end of the hallway I dive to the left into cover but the lasers don’t stop. As soon as the sentinel turns the corner I fly to the center of the room and begin to pour the glue onto the trio of grenades. I shove them into place and turn around. The sentinel begins to roll towards me as fast as it’s wheels can spin. I look back up at the grenades and hit all three buttons on each of the grenades. I wait a second to lure the sentinel towards me a little more and jolt off back towards the hallway.

The blast from the plasma grenades was a lot bigger than I was expecting and I’m glad I only got hit with the very edge of the explosion. It threw me at least ten feet down the hallway and sent the whole room the sentinel was in into the factory floor below.

I throw my hooves into the air while on my back, “Hell yea! Fuck you robot!” Other than the burning in my flank, and the slight headache, that went perfectly! I grab a potion out of my saddlebags and quickly down it. The headache and burns die down quickly. I toss the empty potion bottle to the side. I don’t know what they make them out of but, I love them.

“There’s no way you actually pulled it off…” I hear Neon’s voice behind me. “Dj Pon3 was right about you. You really are something else.”

I hear a different set of hooves quickly come towards me, “Midnight you’re okay! I was so worried about you!” Stardust’s head appears above mine. Her long mane falls into my face. “Oops, sorry.” Stardust laughs and pushes her mane to the side. “You never cease to amaze me, you know that?”

“Maybe if we figure out who I am that would explain how I’m so good at this kind of stuff.” I stand back up to my hooves and stretch. I look down the hallway at Neon. He looks like he’s just seen a ghost. I trot over to him and wave a hoof in his face.

“I think you broke him Midnight.” Stardust says behind me.

I poke Neon on the nose, “Hey Mr.Neon you gonna be okay.”

“H-how?” How? How did I what? “Was everything Pon3 said about you actually true?”
I give him a slow nod, “Uhh, yeah… Why?”
“I didn’t believe any of it. I figured you were just a rumor somebody made up for a cheap thrill. And once I met you it seemed like you were barely capable of shooting a pistol. Clearly you are a force to be reckoned with.” Not sure if I should be thankful or hurt by any of this. Neon lets out a sigh. “What I’m trying to say is, thank you Midnight.”
“You're welcome Neon, but this is just kinda what I do.”
“She’s not lying actually, charging in to help ponies she doesn’t even know. Even if it costs her everything. It’s her thing.” Stardust puts a hoof around my neck. “She saved me from slavers a couple days ago. And thanks to her I’m still breathing.”
“I’m just doing what’s right, and what I need to do. That’s it.” I start to walk down the hallway towards where I’m guessing Neon held up for a couple days. I hear Neon whisper something to Stardust but I just ignore it. I don’t deserve all the praise for something I’m going to do anyways.

Surrounding the door are plenty of scorch marks from the sentinel. Even more cover the actual door. Clearly this robot was determined to stop anypony who it saw as a threat. As soon as I open the door I’m greeted with the sound of music. Must be the radio Neon fixed. The room is a bigger room than I expected. On one side are multiple tall pod looking things. In the center of the room is a long workbench with various pieces of robots, scrap metal and electronics covering most of it.

“In case you were looking for them, the robots the mayor wanted are in the pods. I already hacked the terminal. Just need to actually activate them.” Neon walks up beside me along with Stardust. “I’ve had plenty of time to tinker and mess with all the terminals and various other things in the room.”

“Are the robots even functional?” Stardust walks over to the pods.

“Well from what the terminal says only one of them actually works correctly. Sadly, over half of them are missing.” He walks over to the terminal and begins typing quickly. One of the pods lets out a low hissing noise and slides open.

“Hoofto is primed and ready for your pleasure. Please assume the position”

“WHAT THE FUCK DID THAT ROBOT JUST SAY”

…

After several minutes of arguing about keeping my very own sex robot because it would be funny and an hour long walk back to Riverdale because protectponies are super fucking slow we finally completed our mini mission. Neon used his apparent magical powers to reprogram Hoofto into a fully functioning protectpony that could protect and serve Riverdale. And surprisingly the mayor was okay with our single robot.

“Here’s your promised pay of two thousand caps. You can split it between you two as you see fit.” I grab the caps and toss them over to Neon. He scrambles to catch them in his hooves. “Now about this info you wanted. I heard a group of ponies is around the Ministry of Magic building an hour's trot southeast. Apparently they're searching every nearby building for something.” A marker pops up on my EFS. I don’t know what kind of magic this pipbuck has but I love it.

“Thanks Silver. We’re gonna head out while we still have daylight.” I start to walk out the door when Silver begins to speak about something else.

“By the way Midnight. I heard the Talons aren’t too happy about you killing one of their own. If I were you I’d watch your back and the skies.” I give him a nod and walk out of his office. Both Neon and Stardust follow.

“So how do you wanna split the caps? I’m fine with seventy five twenty five. You did most of the work and saved my ass,” Neon asks. I shake my head and he gives me a confused look.

“Keep em. In the three days I’ve been in the wasteland I have about fifteen thousand caps without even trying.” He raises an eyebrow in shock but I just shrug. “I keep getting paid for stuff I’d do for free. You seem like a good pony. So keep 'em.”

“Trust me there’s no way you’ll convince her to take even five percent. She tried to decline more than seven thousand the other day.” Stardust just shakes her head.

“Whatever, you got your money and I got the info we needed.” We start to walk down the hallway.

“So what's your plan Neon?” Stardust says next to me.

“Yeah, I’m also curious.” I open the door to outside and we all stop moving.

“You know I’ve never really thought about it. I took the job for the caps but never really knew where I was going with them.” He sits down on his flank, “Once I learned the mayor here was offering decent money for something I’m decent at doing I figured I could make a quick cap and leave. Probably go back to my useless wandering.”

I look over at Stardust and give her a shrug. She smiles in return and nods her head, “So Neon.” His ears perk up. “Wanna wander aimlessly with an amnesiac pegasus and a smart purple unicorn?”

He sits down for a moment on his flank and thinks for a second. Then lets out a sigh, “You know what? Fuck it.”

…

Our walk to the M.o.M hub was interrupted by our curiosity. About halfway to the building we passed a gun store named Royal Armaments and decided to give it a quick search.

Even from the outside we could tell the whole place was trashed and looted. But once we went inside we realized truly just how bad it was. Each of the gun cases had been smashed. Locked ammo crates were hit and thrown repeatedly until they broke open.

“So why did you want us to come in here Midnight. There’s literally nothing left to scavenge.” Neon hadn’t even bothered to try searching anything. He just found a chair and sat down on it.

“Everywhere has to have something Neon. You just have to look hard enough.” I walk into the back room and accidentally smash my face against the door.

“Yea and most places have doors. You just have to know how to use them.” I turn around and blow a raspberry at him. Despite all of the smart ass jokes, I don’t think I’ve seen Neon actually smile yet.

For the door being over two-hundred years old it held up pretty well. Apparently nopony managed to break through it either. I kneel down in front of the door and begin to try and pick the lock. I break several bobby pins before I actually manage to open it with a click that will never not be satisfying.

I hear a sarcastic whistle behind me, “Not only is she good at fighting but she can do what most unicorns fail to do with even their horns. Impressive.”

“Midnight’s full of strange talents she can’t explain. Like did you know she can even sing?” Oh no Stardust please don’t bring that up.

“No way. I’ll believe it the day a Molerat flies!” I quickly walk into the locked room. There’s no way I want to be in that conversation.

Then I see the most disappointing thing I’ve seen in awhile. Something to make my seven broken bobby pins a waste. Somepony had gone and blown a hole into the back of the store and looted everything but a black brick. I begin to rub my face with my hooves. All that work for nothing. I stop rubbing my face when it hits me, why the hell is there a black brick?

I look down at the brick to notice that it’s a gun case! I stick my head out of the hole and see the unfortunate skeleton of a unicorn. I’m not sure how they died but it sucks for them. I got myself a new gun!. I sit down in front of it and begin to unlatch it. Whatever is inside can’t be that big. I could probably fit about half of my rifle into it, but that’s about it. It is decently taller than any gun would be though, which is pretty intriguing.As I go to lift the lid I realize that it’s locked. But nothing can withstand the power of bobby pins and a screwdriver!

Yes it can. It really, really can. I had used at least three quarters of my bobby pins before I gave up. And by the time I broke my twelveth one I about threw it against the wall in anger. I made enough room in my saddlebags for it and decided that I’d have to unlock it once I get a little bit more practice in.

I get up and walk out of the room. From across the room Stardust speaks up, “What took you so long Midnight? Anything good?” Stardust must have gotten bored too because she pulled up a chair next to Neon and sat.

“A gun case with something inside. Too bad the lock’s too tough to open. I put it in my saddlebags for later. Did you find anything?” I sit on the floor in front of both of them.

“I found three rounds for your pistol, and two rounds for my gun.” This whole thing was a bust.

“Told you it was useless to come in here. We’ll find better stuff to scavenge at the M.o.M building anyways.”

“Listen here Mr. Pessimist I’ll have… Why is there a group of ponies outside?” Both Neon and Stardust turn around at the same time. I sigh and stand up, “Guess we better go see what they want.” I walk out of the gun store, Neon and Stardust follow.

From what I can tell the ponies aren’t raiders, but they also don’t have the best intentions either. Most are armed with shoddy guns and makeshift melee weapons. Barely a threat to a bloat sprite honestly.

A dark blue and black unicorn stallion walks in front of the others. “That case and whatever else you three stole is the property of us. And we’d like our property back, peacefully.”

“You gotta be fucking kidding me right now, right?” I look over at Stardust and Neon, both look just as unimpressed as I am. “Listen, there’s one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, of you, and three of us.”

The unicorn keeps his serious attitude, “Your point is?”

I couldn’t help but let out a laugh.“Yea, I don’t really have a point actually.” I look over at Neon and Stardust, “I’ve had enough killing for a while. So let's just hurt them. A lot.”

The poor bastards never saw it coming.

…

“Is this really the M.o.M building? For something so official I thought it would be a lot bigger... And more put together.” I could hear it in Stardust’s voice how disappointed she was with the size of the building. The main entrance to the building had completely collapsed and the whole building itself was only the size of a small apartment building. I don’t understand how such an important building could be so miniscule compared to everything else.

“My pipbuck says this is the building, and so far this thing hasn’t lied.” Except for the fact that it somehow has a fucking flashlight. “Wait, where’s Neon?” I spin around in a circle to check my EFS but only Stardust appears.

“I think he went around the back of the building, not sure why though.” As I walk around the building his blue tick comes into view on my EFS. I call down the alleyway for him, careful not to be too loud.

His colorful head pops around the corner, “I found a back entrance.”

“Nice. Stardust! Neon found the entrance!” I yell behind me. She comes trotting around the corner.

“We’ll need your expertise to get in but it’s nothing you can’t handle.” Neon gestures towards the door with a hoof.

Too bad he was wrong. This lock is just as tough as the black case. Except this time I decided not to waste more than half my bobby pins on it. “Okay new plan.” I look over at Neon. “I would back up if I were you.”

I back up and brace myself for the impact. “Midnight NO!” Too late. I had used my wings for an extra burst of speed, and wow did it work great! The door easily caved in without any problem and tore off of all of its hinges. As well as it worked it does have its flaws. Red flashing lights begin to fill the hallway and a pair of turrets fold out of the walls.

A couple shots fire off into my chest before a light purple shield covers my whole body. I quickly draw my pistol and fire rounds into both of them. Each of them explode into little pieces of metal shrapnel. Luckily I have armor or I would definitely be in a lot of pain.

“Are you okay Midnight?” I hear Neon say from the entrance.

I look down at where the bullets hit. Multiple spots of blood begin to seep through the cloth. “Little bit of stinging but nothing bad.” That’s when it hits me that neither Neon or Stardust has armor. “Why don’t either of you have armor?” I look at Stardust, “You’re the one who made me wear this in the first place.”

Neon just shrugs, “I could never afford it.”

“It’s because you’ve gotten yourself shot more than I have seen anypony else in the wasteland. You need it or else stupid decisions like this one will get you killed.” The flashing alarm surrounding me is a good reminder of my good decisions.

“I’m not gonna say you’re wrong but you two should definitely get some kind of protection. Especially if you're traveling with me.” It’s not like I don’t have the caps to buy them both armor. Hell I could probably buy out the whole River Heights building if I wanted to.

Neon just shrugs it off and walks past me into the building. Stardust holds out a hoof to help me up. “Where did you learn that shield spell?”

“From one of the books I got back at the library. Your strange sleeping habits gave me time to read in the morning.” I pull a healing potion out of my bag and drink it down. Tossing the bottle to the side.

I turn around and start to follow where Neon went down the hallway. I begin to run when I start to hear shots fire off ahead. Two red ticks appear on my EFS along with Neon. One of the red ticks disappears. Right after, the second red tic goes down.

I quickly ran into where the main entrance would have been. Two piles of red hot metal sit under smoking holes in the ceiling. I look over to see Neon sitting at a terminal typing casually. “Nice job with the turrets Neon.”

He doesn’t look away from the terminal, “Turrets aren’t that bad. At least these ones don’t have armor piercing rounds.” Armor piercing rounds? What’s the point in even wearing armor if the bullet’s just ignore it!

“What’s all on the terminal? Anything good?” Stardust says as she walks past me.

“I was hoping for something to turn off the alarm. Nothing here but the ramblings of a secretary. Most are corrupted anyways.” He hops off of the chair and starts to walk up a set of stairs off to the side, “I’m gonna go check up here.”

I hop over the desk and sit down in front of the terminal. Neon was right. Most are just a mess of corrupted symbols. Luckily there are a couple of legible ones. I decided to start with the oldest one on the list.

Entry #5

Today Twilight actually came to this branch of the Ministry buildings. Every time she’s in Alpony she never makes it a point to come to her own Ministry. I never question it. It’s not like this is the most impressive building ever made. The cause for her recent visit is because somepony had an interview for a job or something. I wasn’t really paying attention but from what I heard this new unicorn has some real talent! Nearly as good as Twilight herself is what everypony around the office has been saying.

A couple of the eggheads upstairs said that as soon as they went into Twilight’s Office they heard a bunch of loud bangings and magical noises. I don’t blame them for not looking though. Who knows what that mare is doing.

Entry # 32

It’s been a while since I’ve made one of these hasn’t it? Figured it was about time I made another. Today they’re remodeling the main entrance to make it look more “flashy” because people kept saying this place didn’t look like a Ministry building. But what am I complaining about? I get a whole two weeks off! I was thinking about taking a train over to Manehattan and doing some well deserved dress shopping and getting the girls back together!

In the middle of reading the last one Stardust decided to try and take the magazines I found back in the Robronco building. I didn’t catch much of the last entry. But it was talking about how the secretary was quitting because somepony died. But I cared way more about getting my magazines back.

“Can pegasi really do that with their wings? I guess that’s a perk to having them isn’t it?” I try to grab the magazine out of her telekinetic grasp but I nearly fall on my face. “Calm down, I’ll give em back. I just saw you snag them and I didn’t want you to have all the fun.” She turns the magazine around to show me the picture of the pegasus doing some lewd things with her flank and wings. “Just calm down and look with me.”

I feel my face set on fire. If my coat was any other color than black It would have turned completely red. “Stardust put that away! I’ll let you look at it later...”

She sighs and turns it back around to her. “Fine, but I’ll keep you to that.” She closes the magazine and levitates it back into my saddlebags. All around us the flashing red lights stop. Neon yells something from up the stairs but I can’t make any of it out. “We better check on Neon.” Stardust says and begins to walk ahead of me.

“Stardust why were you even wanting to look at the magazines in the first place. You could have just asked. And there's only mares in them anyway!”

Stardust glances back and giggles, “Who said I wasn’t into mares?”

I slow down a little bit as a little pony in my head begins to cheer. What are the chances that my best friend is also into mares! My brain begins to think of all the possibilities but I shut it down before it gets too wrapped up in thoughts that it doesn’t even know if they are real or not. I put it as one of the things I need to figure out, but this one is a little bit higher on the list.

As I break out of my lesbian thoughts I realize that Stardust is already in the other room. I briskly fly up the rest of the stairs into the hallway. At the end of the short hallway is a giant pile of rubble from the ceiling collapsing. Stardust calls me over from a room off to the right. A small sign on the wall says that this room was once the Ministry’s lab. I walk in the room and nearly trip on another piece of rubble. I’m really not sure how this place is still together.

Neon is typing at a terminal once again and Stardust is looking at a bunch of old lab equipment. Occasionally putting weird looking tools into her saddlebags. “Anything on the terminal Neon?” I call over to him.

“Mostly just old formulas. I was able to use it to hack into the Ministry building’s security though. This one has a lot more access to the mainframe of the building than the secretary’s terminal.” I understand literally half of that. I’m useless when it comes to terminals. I decided to take a look around the room myself.

Most of it is old lab equipment that I have no clue what it could be used for. But I did find some healing potions and a couple bags of something my pipbuck labeled as Rad-Away. I made sure to put them in my bag for later. The only other interesting thing I could find was an old lab coat with the Ministry’s logo on it. Other than a weird colored stain on one of the legs it looks practically brand new.

“Stardust you want this?” Her head pokes up from behind one of the lab tables.

Her magic envelopes the lab coat from my hoof and she begins to fumble it on. She hooks back on her saddlebags and does a little spin, “How do I look?”

“Like an Egghead.” I hear Neon say from the other side of the room. Stardust sticks her tongue out and looks back over at me.

“It fits you actually. Makes you look even smarter than you already are.” She gives me a little smile and goes back to what she was doing.
“Hey Midnight can I ask you something?” Neon stands up from the terminal and walks over to me. “Have you noticed that there is a big lack of skeletons around the whole building? And not to mention we are the first ponies to trip the security in this place?”
“You know now that you mention it, I haven’t found a single one.” And we were told this is where we can find the strange ponies we were looking for. “Let’s search the rest of the building and check the area. If the mayor was lying then we’re going to have to have a talk with him once this is over.”
“Too bad this is the only other room that we can get to in the whole building. All the others have collapsed.” He lets out a sigh. “Looks like the mayor’s idea was a big bust.”
“What about the hole in the ceiling in the hallway? From the outside it looked like this place had more than two floors.” Stardust asks. If I were to guess the third floor is probably where Twilight’s office was. That would probably be the best place to look in this whole place.
“I mean if you know a way to get up there then sure.” I give him a blank look. “What?”
“I can fly. She can teleport.” I say and continue to give Neon a blank look.
‘Oh yea.” He facehoofs, “I’m not used to being around others.” I know that feeling.
“Stardust are you done in here? We got one more floor to check out before we bail.” Stardust stands up from a different table that I didn’t even know she was behind.
“Yeah. I think I got everything that I want from here.” As she walks around the table I notice how one of her bags is nearly filled with stuff.
I walk out into the hallway and under the hole in the ceiling. Stardust walks up next to me and disappears in a flash, reappearing again above me. “Okay now how am I supposed to get up there.” I look at Neon and up at the hole, then back at Neon.
I bet I can lift him up there. “Here I’ll carry you. I’m pretty sure I can.”
“Yea, no. I’m not getting on your back.” He starts to walk backwards.
“Nah I’ll wrap my hooves around your back and fly up. C’mon, it won’t be that bad.”
He walks up next to me and lets out a sigh, “I can't believe I’m agreeing to this. Just get it over with.”
I fly into the air above him and wrap my hooves around his chest just behind his forehooves. I start flapping my wings as fast and hard as I can and we begin to slowly float into the air. About a foot into the air I already begin to feel strain on both my wings and hooves.
“Please hurry!” Neon yells.
“Maybe if you weren’t so heavy!” I flap my wings faster until we are above the next floor. At that point I lose control of my wings and hooves and drop myself and Neon onto the floor. I roll onto my back, panting heavily. “That's definitely the hardest thing I’ve ever done.” Whew!
“And it’s something we are never ever doing again!” Neon stands up and dusts himself off. He looks over at Stardust. “Why couldn’t you just teleport me up?”
“Uhh, because not every unicorn can do that. When I first teleported Midnight and me at the same time I passed out from burnout. Not to mention just teleporting myself is decently challenging on its own.”
“Fair enough.” He looks back at me, “We are never going to do that again!”
“You know what. I’m fine with that.” I stand back up to my hooves and look around the room, stretching in the progress. It’s significantly larger than every other room in this building. But at the same time it feels so… empty. The only furniture is a couple couches on one of the walls and a desk at one end of the room. But other than that the room is just an open room with a couple of smashed out windows and a giant hole in the floor.
“Uhh Midnight, Neon… come look at this” Stardust is looking through a doorway. Me and Neon glance at each other and walk over. Just past the doorway is a stairway leading down into pure darkness. At the bottom I can make out the shape of multiple pony figures.
“Is that what I think it is?” Neon says next to me.
I turn on my pipbuck’s flashlight and point it down the staircase. A pile of at least twenty skeletons of ponies covers the entire floor. Many of them are still wearing their lab coats, a few of them wearing old suits. They had nowhere to go when the bombs fell. It was either stay together and die or leave the building to die on your own. Poor souls. I need to walk away. It’s beginning to be too much for me.
I walk over behind the desk and sit down. On top of the desk is multiple rotted stacks of papers and a flipped over picture frame. I grab the frame with my hooves and almost stab myself with a shard of glass. It’s a picture of six ponies and a small purple dragon who look like they’re having the time of their lives. I instantly recognise the blue pegasus from my figurine. And only know Twilight because of Stardust. The pink and orange earth ponies, white unicorn, and yellow pegasus are all mysteries to me.
I’m not sure why I did this but I took the picture out of the frame and put it into my saddlebags. Something inside me told me I’ll need it. But not what for. I search the desk and find more rotted papers. In one final hope I glance under the desk and find a *sqwee* safe!
About five bobby pins later and it opens up nicely. Inside is a small bag of pre war coins that I don’t see why we would have any use for. And along with some more papers is a strange crown and another one of those glass balls.

I peek my head over the desk. “Hey Stardust! What is this thing?” I put the crown thingy on top of my head.

Stardust squeaks really loud and runs over to me, “A recollector! I can’t believe you found one!” She grabs it off of my head with her hooves, “I never thought I would get the chance to hold one in my hooves.”

“Sooo what does it do exactly?” It looks like a normal crown of some kind.

She sets it back up onto my head, “It allows non unicorns to view memory orbs!” She must have sensed how that meant nothing to me. “If a pony wants to keep a recording of a memory they can extract it and put it into an orb.”

I hold up the orb I found in the safe, “I think I have two others in my saddlebags too. I’ll have to view them when I get back.”

Stardust lets out a happy squee. “We’ll have to look through them when we get back to the room! I’m so excited!” I take the crown off of my head and put it and the memory orb away into my saddlebags.

I get up and walk to the big windows at the end of the room. Neon is already there looking out. From where we are I can almost see River Heights. But it doesn’t compare to the giant white tower looming over the center of the city. Its height put's skyscrapers to shame.

Suddenly, all around the building explosions begin to rock the floors and wall around us. Neon nearly falls to the ground next to me. Behind me I hear Stardust yell, “What is happening!”

I look out the window towards the ground. Large clouds of smoke are slowly floating up outside. “I think somepony is blowing up the building!” I yell as loud as I can. A large piece of rubble falls from the ceiling and blocks our only way out. Along with a different chunk on the other side.

Neon yells next to me, “How the hell are we going to get out now!?”

I look around the room before stopping at the giant set of windows. I pull out my pistol and fire a couple of rounds into it. “We need to jump!” Stardust grabs a larger piece of the rubble in her magic and throws it through, shattering a giant chunk of the window and spilling glass onto the ground below.

Neon backs up shaking his head, “What do you expect me to do! I can’t jump!”

“Teleport out of here Stardust!” She nods and teleports away in a flash. “I’m so sorry Neon!” I quickly say. I quickly scoop him up onto my back. Almost instantly he begins squirming and screaming. I brace myself and jump out of the window, beating my wings as fast as I can to slow our fall. Behind us the building makes an extremely loud crash and begins its final stages of collapsing. About ten feet from the ground my wings give out and we crash to the ground below.

Stardust helps us to our hooves and yells at us to back up. We get about a half a block away before we stop to catch our breaths. The Ministry building finally gives out and fully collapses to the ground. A large cloud of dust begins to rise from the ground into the sky.

Next to me Neon finally catches his breath, “Don’t you DARE, jump out a window with me on your back again! What did we just talk about!”

“If it wasn’t for me you’d have been in that mess!” I point a hoof over at the now gone Ministry building, “ You should be thanking me!”

Stardust cuts between both of us, “Okay you two! We have more important things to be yelling about than jumping out of the building. Somepony purposefully blew up that building! You know, the one we were just in!” She sits down and puts a hoof up to her chin, “Now the only ponies who knew we were coming here are Stalk and Silver Thread. We know Stalk wouldn’t do anything so Thread is our main culprit.”

I rub my hooves on my face, ”I guess we’ll go talk to Thread then!”

…

Stalk met us at the main gate as we approached, “Are you three okay? Everypony here heard the explosion. Hell I’m pretty sure I could almost see it fall!”

“Where’s Thread at Stalk. I need to have a few words with him.” I sigh and continue talking, “I think he’s the one that tried to kill us Stalk…”

Stalk lets out a groan. “Of fucking course he would!” My eyes go wide when Stalk says that. I didn’t think he would believe me that fast. “I knew he had to be up to something! I think he’s in his office. Let's go talk to him.”

Stalk turns around and begins to head down the street towards the mayor’s office. We follow right behind. As we walk, I notice that there are ponies actually walking around town now that it isn’t being attacked or isn’t three in the morning. As we walk most ignore us but some give us strange looks.

Neon walks up beside me and lowers his voice to a whisper, “What are you gonna do?”

I sigh. I honestly have no idea, “We’ll see when I get there. I’m really not in the mood for his bullshit right now.”

We walked into the main hallway of the building. The mayor is talking with an earth pony stallion about something. Clearly the stallion isn’t happy about something. “Listen, all I'm saying is have your caravans bring it out and I’ll pay you the caps. I don’t understand what’s so hard about that!”

I ignore the stallion and walk straight up to Thread, “Hey Thread! We need to talk!”

He turns his head with a nervous look on his face, “One mome-”

“Now Thread!” Stalk yells next to me.

The ghoul looks back over at the stallion and apologizes, “We can continue this talk in a minute.”

We all walk up a set of stairs to Thread’s office. Thread walks behind his desk and has a seat. He leans forward onto his desk and rests his chin on a hoof, “Now what was it you wanted. You four have interrupted business that I would love to get back too quickly.”

Stalk speaks of first, “That explosion that happened a little bit ago, what did you have to do with it?”

I say something next, “In case you somehow don’t know. The Ministry of Arcane Sciences is now reduced to rubble. And it had nearly taken us down with it!”

Thread leans back in his chair and puts a hoof on his chest, “Are you saying you think I tried to kill you? What kind of pompous buffoon put that idea in your head!”

Stalk takes a step closer to Thread’s desk, “You did you moron!” His voice is slowly getting louder and louder, “You’re the one who told them to go out there! Nopony else but me knew they were leaving!”
Thread slams his hoof on his desk. A couple of the papers he had flew onto the floor, “Yes, I told them everything I knew, AND sent them out there. But why, of all ponies, would I send them to their deaths!” He points a hoof at me. “I know she would come back and kill me in an instant. They’ve been nothing but helpful ever since coming here!” He pauses for a second to catch his breath, “Why would I get rid of my greatests assets?”
I guess he does have a point… And I guess I do have plenty of other ponies who want me dead anyways… I let out a sigh, “Sorry Thread, we don’t have enough evidence to prove it’s you… “ I pause for a moment and notice everypony else looking at me, “What I do know is that you need to stop being such a shady asshole about everything. You’re a mayor. Not the leader of a gang. Now I’m going to go back to our hotel room. And you’re going to go continue whatever business you were doing and we’re going to forget any of this conversation ever happened. Okay?”
All at once everypony nods their heads and agrees. I walk out of the room. Only Neon and Stardust follow.
Stalk stops at the doorway, “I’m gonna stay and talk to Silver Thread here for a moment, I’ll talk to you three later.” He closes the door and all three of us are left alone in the hallway.
By the time we’re almost outside, Stardust is the first to say anything, “So what changed your mind Midnight?”
“I think that he knows he can’t kill me, he tries to play it cool but I’m sure of it that he’s terrified of me.” I shrug, “ I guess that’s a perk to being good at what I do.”
Neon laughs as we walk outside, “And what is it you’re good at?
“Killing… I guess. It sounds worse now that I’m saying it out loud…” I mean it’s true though. My first couple days out here and I’ve killed more ponies than most could in a couple days.
I see Stardust nudge Neon with a hoof and raise her eyebrows. Neon just shrugs. “You’re also good at singing Midnight. And you’re an extremely talented flier!” Stardust tries to reassure me.
“Yea I guess… “ I’ll have to think more about it later. For now I need something to keep my mind off of things. Hopefully one of those memory orbs could do the trick for now.

…

After a brief explanation from Stardust on how to view the memory orb. I had to make the decision of which one I should look at first. Stardust explained that the memory could take quite a while depending on what it’s about.
With all three out in front of me, I couldn’t remember where I got them from. I should’ve labeled them as something beforehoof. “Go with the middle one.” Neon yells from the kitchen. Eh. Why not?
I touch the crown to the orb and everything around me rapidly fades away.

oooOOOooo

The feeling of being in a body that wasn’t my own really messed with me for a second. I can feel the fact that I’m in a unicorn's body and that it is indeed a mare. We… Wait. We? I guess that works. We are outside of what I believe was the Ministry building that just fell to the ground an hour ago in the real world. Except this time the entrance is actually accessible and not covered in rubble.

The foyer is a lot cleaner with no rubble, the floor is spotless of any dust and this time the turrets aren’t firing at anypony. The secretary's desk looks about the same, except this time there is a living pony typing at the terminal. A peachy pink earth pony mare with her blonde mane tied up in a bun looks up from our work to greet us.

“Oh! Good morning Twilight Sparkle! It’s great to see you again.” Wait a Luna damned second! I’m in Twilight Sparkle’s memory! Stardust is going to love this one! The secretary continues, “What brings you all the way to Alpony!?” The mare sounds extremely excited to see Twilight. And to be honest I would probably be the same way!

Feeling another pony talk is one of the weirder things that I’ve ever felt. “I was told an extremely talented unicorn was wanting a position in the Ministry and I had a little bit of time so I figured I would come meet her here myself.” Twilight continues walking toward the staircase up to her office.

“I hope everything goes well. I’ll be sure to send her up when she gets here!” The secretary goes back to typing on her terminal. I’m guessing she’s typing the entry that I had read earlier today.

“Thank you Peach Tart!” The cute secretary looks over and gives us a sweet smile before continuing typing at her terminal.

Twilight walks up the stairs past the lab and barely glances over. Multiple ponies in lab coats are concentrating on their work hard enough that they don’t even notice Twilight walk by. She continues down the hallway to the set of stairs that was blocked off before.

Twilight’s office looks a million times better than it did when we visited it. It’s actually well lit and has more furniture than before. I wonder what happened to all of it? Twilight walks over to her desk and has a seat. A light purple glow emanates from her horn above us and a small picture frame levitates from what I’m guessing is her saddlebags. I feel Twilight smile for a second before putting her focus onto various papers on the desk. I can’t understand what any of them mean.

“Uhh Twilight Sparkle?” Twilight looks up from her work towards a mare’s voice. A lilac mare with a purple and teal striped mane walks up to us. “I’m here about the interview. Your secretary told me to come right up.” The mare seems surprisingly calm to be talking with Twilight.

Twilight sits up quickly and walks around her desk. She holds out a hoof to the mare, “I’m so glad you could make it! I’m Twilight Sparkle!”

The mare grabs Twilight’s hoof and shakes it, “I’m Starlight Glimmer! It’s so great to finally meet you! I’ve heard so many great things!” Starlight’s name sounds familiar to me but I can’t seem to recall from what though.

“And I’ve heard great things about you as well. The couple recommendations I got spoke very highly of you. It’s gonna be great to finally see what you can do!” Twilight’s horn glows and a book levitates from her desk, “Now I have a couple spells I want you to try before we continue with the interview.” She opens the book and begins to quickly flip through it with her telekinesis.

Starlight Glimmer giggles a little bit, “Twilight I can assure you that I can perform most of the spells in Starswirl's beginner book.”

“It’s not about the difficulty of the spell but how well you can cast it.” Twilight stops flipping through and stops on a page about summoning a door. Why anypony would need a random door summoned out of nowhere is beyond me. “Here, could you do this one?” Twilight looks over and in a small flash of light a tall purple wooden door appears.

Starlight scoffs, “I can do way better than that!” Her horn begins to glow and summoned from thin air is a large metal set of double doors right in between us. Starlight opens the door and peeks her head through, “Any other filly spells you want me to try Twilight?”

“Alright then, how about a more advanced spell? Most unicorns don’t have the ability to do this!” She closes the books and levitates it behind us. Almost instantly she teleports to the other side of the room. “Teleportation, not the easiest thing to do but the hardest thing to master!”

“Oh come on Twilight! You can do a million times better than that!” Starlight proclaims before vanishing in a blue flash.

Twilight looks around the room for a second, but Starlight is nowhere in sight. A couple seconds later Starlight reappears, but this time she is soaking wet, “Did you know it’s downpouring in Hoofington right now?” Twilight’s eyes open wide in surprise. To be fair, I would probably do the same thing

Twilight’s horn begins to glow again, “Fine! Let's go straight to the advanced spells!”

Starlight get’s down in a ready stance, “Let’s do this!”

oooOOOooo

The memory orb ended so abruptly I was almost sad that it did. I was wanting to watch more crazy unicorn magic. And it was crazy cool to be seeing everything before the balefire bombs dropped. Not everything is falling apart or home to the worst ponies or creatures imaginable.
A purple hoof waves in front of my face, “Uhh, Midnight! You okay there? We have company.” Stardust says above me on her bed.

I shake my head and look around the room. The earth pony stallion from Silver Thread’s office is here. I look around to check if anypony else decided to pay us a visit but it appears it’s only him. I stand up and sit down on our bed, “What is it you want?”

“Not even going to introduce yourself. Where are your manners?” I roll my eyes, and before I can say anything else he continues talking, “I am Ambrit. I am a proud member of a group called the Historians.” About midway through his sentence he stood up and bowed.

“Fine. I’m Midnight Note. I figured my friends already said something about my name. Now what is it you wanted?” Being in the memory had fixed my mood a little bit but now I’m dealing with more annoying ponies.

From the kitchen Neon walks in and gives me a box of the Flim Flam Mac and Cheese. Then he goes and sits down across from Ambrit. “He needs us to go deliver some package all the way to the east. It would probably take us a couple da-”

Ambris begins talking over Neon, “Due to the mayor not accepting my caps, I need you three to deliver this package to my colleague all the way at the Bluewater Crystal Mine to the east.” He grabs a small box wrapped in linen and tied with straw out in front of him. “You will receive part of your payment now and the rest when you deliver the parcel.”

Neon looks at me and shrugs, clearly he must feel the same way I do about him. I look over at Stardust, “What do you think? For now we don’t have any next goal we need. The M.O.A hub was a bust and we’ve learned no leads to who I am.”

“I mean we might as well right? Maybe we can get some more answers on the outer parts of the city.” She shrugs, “It will be a lot of walking but also a bunch of places we can stop and ask around at.”

I look back over to Ambrite, “I guess we’ll do it. Just leave the caps and the package on the table and we’ll leave in the morning.”

Ambrite stands up and places his package and a small bag onto the table. He turns around and bows again, “Thank you for agreeing I shall make my leave now and I hope to get word of your delivery. And I hope to see you once again as well. I bid you adieu!.” He quickly walks out of our room before we can say anything else.

I put my face into my hooves. I’m glad he’s gone. I fall backwards onto my side of the bed. Maybe a good night's sleep could keep my mind off of all of this.

“So where do I sleep?” I hear Neon ask.

I sit up and look at him then at the other bed, “Right there.” I point at the bed with a hoof.

Neon raises an eyebrow, “You two sleep in the same bed? Weird.” He walks over and lies down on his bed.

I’m too annoyed with everything to say something clever to him. I just wave a hoof and cover myself up with the blanket. “I’m going to sleep now. Goodnight you two.”

Stardust is the only one to say goodnight back.
_____________________________________________________________________
Footnote: Level up! Sanity:86%

Experienced Gunner - You are more familiar with guns than you realize! +10 points to all Guns skills!