One Last Mission

I don’t think I was prepared for just how much ArcanaTech had fucked around with these piece of G.P.E. power armor. I expected them to still look the same from scorpion tale to metal muzzle, the upgrades unseeable to the civilian eyes. What can be said is that it was indeed mostly the same general shape that Enclave power armor had. The tail and wing slots were indeed still there but the rest of it…

… I’m still not quite sure if I was awestruck or terrified, looking at the twin pieces of power armor before me. This wasn’t just an upgrade, it might as well have been an entirely new suit type! The fabric that made up everything under the armor was still the same, but the metal was different. Approaching it, I noticed how every hair on my body seemed to suddenly stand on end at some ambient force that seemed to exude from the piece before me.

The helmet was completely sealed, more akin to that of standard Steel Ranger armor. In fact, it overall looked far more pony-like now compared to what an Enclave soldier wore, leaving me to wonder just how heavy the wing armor was and how well it was suited for flight. Pegasi needed their armor to be light and dexterous while still being effective. This seemed to only have one of those qualities.

“Built by grounders alright,” I muttered as I circled around it. I took the tailpiece and held it up, taking in how out of place it looked compared to the very pony-like look of the rest of the armor. “Built like a brick house. Does she genuinely think I’m going to get any lift in this thing?”

“Pegasus will be surprised. More mobile than one would expect.” I briefly looked at Gold. I was so focused on the NB-2s that I hadn’t noticed the somewhat similar griffon armor that he was putting on. “Arcane science grants many benefits. Among them, extremely powerful weight reduction talismans.”

“So these aren’t anywhere near as heavy as they seem,” I replied, turning back to the NB-2. I tossed the center of the tail section around in my hoof like it was a skyball, though I doubt this one would be used for sport. “No way it's that good, and it probably doesn’t seem that bad to you because you're a griffon. More weight in your body and all that shit.”

“Great. Getting called fat now.”

I ignored his nagging and turning to the other set of NB-2 armor in the room. Gemini was staring at it all with a similar look of terror and amazement, though likely for very different reasons. Briefly looking back to my own, I trotted up to the helmet. Closing my eyes, I rested my head on it and wrapped my wings around the armor’s body as much as possible. I swore that, in that moment, I felt hooves and wings wrap around me.

“I swear this: as the mare responsible for your death, and the pegasus now using your armor, the same mistakes won’t be made again.” My voice was quiet and filled to the brim with pent up regret. I leaned into the armor as those invisible limbs grew tighter around me. “I’m sorry you died here, and I’m sorry for not being able to bring your body back to your family. Know that, no matter who it is you fought for, I will carry the burden and fight for you.”

The invisible warmth left, and a chill ran through my body. I swore I heard a thank you of some kind, though it wasn’t actually audible. Opening my eyes, my hoof trailed along the mangled, unrecognizable piece of Enclave armor before me. Whatever soul had died in this, something told me they had forgiven me for what I had done. Whether it meant they were gone was something nopony could answer.

“Gemini, I’m going to ask you to wait a moment before putting yours on.” The unicorn’s head swerved, watching me from where she was. “The armor is unfamiliar to me, so let me figure out if anything about it is different or problematic before you put yours on.”

“O-okay, that’s fine.” Gemini turned back to her own NB-2, tilting her head. “Just… uh, just gives me time to realize how I’m gonna look a lot scarier than I really am in this.”

“That is part of the point, recruit. The intimidation factor keeps civilians in line or lesser threats neutralized without the need to fire a bul… oh!”

The NB-2 was designed for pegasi, meaning the wing slots were naturally fitted into the armor and simply removing them wasn’t an option. Gemini was not a pegasus, she was a unicorn. Unicorns tended to need a bit more space on their head and not their body, meaning the helmet I had wouldn’t fit her. Therefore, her helmet was made with her horn in mind.

A helmet that, when combined with the wings on the body, made her armor look suited for an alicorn. A smaller alicorn than Willow or any of Unity, but an alicorn nonetheless.

Suddenly her words had a different meaning to them, even if only slightly. Gemini was right about the armor looking several times scarier than the pony who was supposed to wear it. There was something funny about the situation, which I decided to show for the sake of hiding my jealousy and a slight wound to my ego. It was far more fitting for a pony like myself, who was actually properly terrifying, but destiny’s dice had decided to roll this way. There was nothing to be done but deal with it.

“What’s the matter Princess Gemini,” I teased coyly. “You’re royal battle armor not in your preferred colors?”

“I’m not a- but this is for-” Her head spun back and forth between the armor and myself so many times I swore it was going to come off like a screw. Finally, after long moments of sputtering, she pointed at the body of the NB-2. “Wings! I don’t have wings!”

“And they likely didn’t have enough time to work with. Twenty bits – or caps I guess – on the horn slot being hastily made and likely uncomfortable.”

Walking up to her armor, I tapped my hoof on the welded horn-piece, noting how it felt rougher than the rest of the helmet. A piece of me flashed back to getting stabbed by that feral ghoul’s horn, which brought my attention to where that wound used to be. Only then did I take notice that the bandages Willow had put on me were gone.

“It’s what you got, and trust me when I say you don’t want your face exposed in that storm. Sand is flying, it's able to give ponies papercuts.” I took a step back. “If that doesn’t work for you, think of this as a way to feel a bit more confident. Nopony will be able to see you shake in that thing. They’ll all be worried about the dangerous unicorn who dressed themselves as an alicorn to think you’re a recently freed slave.”

Gemini followed my gaze, giving the power armor a questioning look. Her mouth opened several times, but like with her earlier attempt to sing all that came out were sounds that made it seem like life was getting choked out of her. Just like with singing, she gave up and hesitantly reached a hoof out to the armor.

“You said it was scary. I was actually thinking, pretty.” She frowned. “No, that’s not right. What’s… what is a word for pretty but more than normal pretty? Like pretty enough for… I don’t know. It just doesn’t seem normal pretty.”

I cocked my head at the unicorn, and then at the NB-2. Pretty? The fuck about this ruined piece of military equipment was pretty? This was nothing like what a piece of Enclave might look like. It seemed ugly to me more than it did pretty.

“You grounders make zero sense,” I muttered, turning around. “If you think it’s pretty now, you won’t when you see the damage it is capable of. You’ll think of it differently then.” I gave her NB-2 a quizzitive lokkover. “We’ll have to attach our guns to it, I’m guessing.”

“It can do that?” Gemini asked.

“While meant for heavy weaponry, power armor can use anything,” Gold said, walking over to us with all but his helmet on. “Only makes sense. Think of it like really heavy battle saddle.”

“A snuggly, full body battle saddle,” I added, smiling. “Perhaps that is still true. Only one way to find out.”

Gemini watched as I walked back to the other NB-2 and started to enter it. The weight of the thing was felt immediately, though it was significantly lighter than I had expected. Hooves were where hooves should be, wings settled into their little slots at my side. Then, with a happy sigh, I placed the helmet over my head.

While a lot more sealed than standard Enclave armor, it was still just as I thought it was: snug like a blanket. I spread my wings, lifted one hoof off the ground, followed by another, flicked the tail, and then checked the heads up display. While it had been desecrated on the outside, the inside was absolutely perfect.

“Well, while I do not appreciate how it looks from the outside, it is perfect on the inside,” I said, looking at the scorpion-like tail attached to my armor’s end and giving it a few flicks. “And it will get the job done.”

I turned around to face Gold and Gemini. The griffon nodded and put his helmet on, sealing him in it just like myself. Gemini took a step back, eyes the size of dinner plates as she looked at me. It seemed seeing the actual thing moving was what had finally put fear into her. If I didn’t know the cause behind why she was so skittish, I would have smirked maliciously.

Then I realized she wasn’t able to see my face, so I did it anyway.

“Seems to work like every other set of armor I’ve used. Time for you to hop in yourself, Princess.”

The way she stammered and hid behind her mane in embarrassment told me the nickname was perfect. All recruits earn them eventually, and they are almost always due to little incidents such as this. Gemini should be glad that it was Princess and not something more demeaning… like Syrup.

You overload your pancakes one time and nopony ever lets you hear the end of it.

“I, uh, right,” She replied, nodding her head as she shuffled up and placed her hooves on the armor’s back. “So… how do I open it up?”

I blinked, then groaned. Of course she didn’t know how to open power armor; she didn’t even know what heartwarming was till hours ago! I turned to Gold, the griffon looking back to me with a hint of disappointment. While I couldn’t see it with his helmet on, I was certain he had the same look of disappointment on his face.

“Help me with this and I’ll apologize for the weight comment.”

“So you were calling me fat.”

I ignored the remark, and he seemed to be okay with that. With delicate instruction and constant supervision, we guided the young unicorn before us into the NB-2 armor. It took longer than I expected, but not so long that it aggravated me. Once everything except for her head was out of the way, we found ourselves with an issue that I very much should have expected. An issue in the form of a gray unicorn’s sea green mane hanging far too low out of the armor.

“We’re going to have to cut it.”

Her pupils looked to the few strands of her covering her face, and then back to me in shock. “Wait, what? Why?”

“We leave it at this, and when you put your helmet on you're going to feel rather uncomfortable. You’ll be swimming in your own mane, and it is more than like strands will get caught in the middle of it.” I reached a hoof out to her mane but didn’t touch it, keeping my eyes on her. I wasn’t even touching her and there was this look of discomfort in her eyes. For the moment, my outreached hoof went back to the floor. “Gemini, I know you don’t like contact, and I understand why. However, I need your permission for Gold and I to cut it, assuming he has a knife on him anyways.”

“I do. Don’t use it much, but there just in case,” Gold stated, showing me a sheathed knife attached to his armor’s front left leg.

“Do I… I mean I know you said….” Gemini scuttled to the right till she was up against the stable walls. “H-how do I know it won’t go further than that? How do I know you won’t just…”

“I don’t swing that way and Gold doesn’t either.” The griffon gave a nod. “Neither of us are going to hurt you. Again, I understand why you don't like it. If you want, you can cut it yourself… assuming you are comfortable with it.”

As Gold took out the rather rusty combat knife he had with him, I already knew the answer I was going to receive. He tossed it up, catching the tip of the dagger in between his talons, and held the handle out towards Gemini. Everything about her face as she stared at the rusty knife screamed confliction. She wanted to grab it in her magic, do it herself, but there was also a clear fear. Fear that she would mess up, that she’d perhaps miss a spot.

That she would cut herself.

“I know you- it’s just… promise me that will be it.” Gemini said, pupils flicking back to me in fear. “Like, do that pinkie promise thing Sharpshot showed us… yesterday.”

“Yesterday?” I asked. I looked at the clock on my MentaBuck. She was right, it was two seventeen in the morning now. “How long was I out?”

“Who knows. Hard to tell when no sun or moon above you,” Gold answered. He brought his knife to his chest, having flipped it around so he was grabbing the handle again. “Anyways. pinkie promise? This time without hitting self in eye?”

“If I manage to do that, I’ll have to talk with Lucky Heart about her quality assurance team,” I replied, only half jokingly.

My armored left hoof went right below my neck, my posture subconsciously going to attention. I eyed Gold, something he didn’t see but definitely seemed to feel. After a nod between us both, we said those terrifying, accursed words.

“Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye,” we responded, my wings unfurling upon saying the word “fly”.

Gemini still seemed conflicted, but she lowered her head and gave us the okay. I took off my helmet, letting it hang limp in front of me as I walked up to Gemini. I motioned for her to sit, and like a trained animal she obeyed without hesitation. I sat down too, only taking my eyes off her to see Gold doing the same, looking to me for instructions.

“You’ll be the one to actually cut her hair.” I instructed. I didn’t see if he nodded, instead looking back to the unicorn we were acting as barbers for. “Gemini, no matter what the reason might be, don’t stop looking at me.”

“Wh-why?”

“Just trust me. Gold, you can start.”

I didn’t watch Gold at all, all my attention focused on distracting the distressed unicorn in front of me. A distressed unicorn whose breathing quickened as she felt Gold gather up her mane in his talons. Quickly thinking, I raised my right hoof and brought it out to the side, watching her eyes follow it for a time as it made slow circles. It didn’t keep her attention for long, but it was long enough for me to notice a far shorter mane touch the side of her face.

Thus did Gold and I settle into a nice simple rhythm as he worked from the top of Gemini’s mane to the bottom of it. Her breathing was never steady, and each time she felt her mane get grabbed her body stiffened and shivered a bit, but all I had to do was shift my position or wave my hoof to draw her attention momentarily away. She really was like a foal in that aspect… which she probably was. I had never gotten her age.

“There. Should do it.” Gold said after a time, resheathing the knife.

Gemini’s entire body seemed ready to go limp, her forelegs going out a bit further to brace herself. It hadn’t been cut to Enclave military standard, but it was significantly shorter than it once was. The unicorn looked at the clumps of green mane on the ground, and then eyed where they had once been attached to her.

“It’s… so much shorter.”

Gold nodded. “Might have missed strands here and there. Unicorn should be good overall.”

“Definitely not professionally done, but you work with what you got. You look good with a short mane though,” I said, smiling. “Now, Princess, let us make sure your helmet fits.”

Gemini’s face turned just a little bit red, something that made her all too eager to do as I requested. With fumbling haste, Gemini took the NB-2 helmet and placed it over her head. Nopony would be none the wiser that a rather terrified filly was what laid underneath it, currently blushing from being called royalty. Instead they would see an alicorn, powerful and destructive. It… didn’t fit with Gemini’s voice.

“So, uh, the little horn piece is a bit scratchy,” she said., a hoof rubbing the aforementioned part of the armor. She then took the helmet off, taking several large breaths in. “I really don’t like how closed in it feels. Having my head covered makes me feel…powerless?”

“Trust me when I say that, with your completely on, you are more terrifying to the average grounder than any raider.” I allowed a bit of smugness to roll through me, pacing back and forth like the proud soldier I was. “Though I completely understand not liking the helmet. Grounder armor is made as if its meant to go up against a tank blast, typically ending with it failing miserably. Enclave power armor is designed for maneuverability, flight, and most importantly the ability to not get hit.” I raised a hoof up, posing for them both. “The perks of not being tied to gravity, right Gold?”

“I don’t like flying.”

“Yeah exa-” I gave the griffon an expression that radiated shock and betrayal. “you don’t like what?”

“I don’t like flying.” He parrotted, looking back at his wings. “Prefer being on ground. Always have, always will. My sister always said I was weird.”

While I didn’t personally know his sister, I had to agree with them that, yes, that was indeed weird. Actually, weird wasn’t the best description. Bafflingly backwards was a better way to describe it. A griffon, a creature with wings just like myself, didn’t like flying?

“That makes no fucking sense.”

“To you perhaps.” Gold shrugged. “Not to me.”

…

With purposefully heavier hoofsteps, I climbed out of the NB-2 armor and stormed past both the unicorn and the griffon. “I got somewhere else I need to be.”

“You do?” They both asked. I deemed the idiotic question unworthy of an answer.

If only the place I needed to be was going to put my mind at ease.

As soon as I was out of sight of Gold and Gemini I had intentionally slowed my steps to make the walk to the infirmary as slow as possible. Agonizingly slow in some aspects, but it helped me stall for what I might be about to see. My heart felt all too present against my ribcage, and far too fast for how slow I was moving. It was silly in some aspects, because a piece of my brain knew the heritage tests would come back as one hundred percent pegasus, but the rest of me didn’t. It left a horrible, agonizing question in my head.

If I truly did have some unicorn in me, then what did that mean for… everything? I had lived my entire life with the knowledge that I was better than the ponies on the surface, uncorrupted down to my genetic code. Since coming down here I had flaunted about how much better I was then the ponies around me. The grounder ghost saying I was of the same blood as her, and the ghoul and alicorn that backed her claims up were just the wastelands ways of trying to destroy everything I knew with lies.

Yet in that moment, when I should have been certain beyond a matter of doubt that I was as pure as a pegasus could be, I didn’t feel confident. Instead fear coursed through me like the lifeblood that my heart pumped. A heart that maybe was a little different then other pegasi, or perhaps that honor belonged to my lungs? Was there some clear mark on me that now signaled “half-grounder” that I had gone my entire life not recognizing? Maybe even that useless appendix was somehow irradiated.

Why was I worried? Why could I not stop worrying? Everything should have been fine and yet that piece of me that said I was fine was so quiet compared to the piece of me terrified at what might be there. It felt at times like I wasn’t actually moving, that my hooves were bolted to the floor and the corridor before me was endless. I wished that the latter part was true at least, as it meant that I would never reach that dreaded infirmary.

Yet, somehow, I reached it.

It took every ounce of my strength just to open the door inside, with it thudding back to the ground as if tar had covered it. Three ponies were talking inside, all three of them recognizable. The first two were Careful Procedure and Aleph Null, who I had expected due to them having apparently being decently long friends (how she dealt with a ghoul in her life was beyond me) and the ponies I needed to talk to at this moment. The third was an unwelcome and far more familiar face.

Fucking Sharpshot.

“You’re… about time you woke up,” he replied, his voice snapping for genuine relief to his standard arrogance in milliseconds. The fact that genuine relief even existed though was quite a surprise. “Got worried we would need true love’s kiss to break your little sleep spell.”

I narrowed my eyes on him, that surprise quickly swept under the rug and replaced it with loathing. “Where the fuck have you been?”

“None of your business. Off doing what I wanted to do without hearing you complain for a couple of hours.” He turned away, pursing his lips. “Really gonna miss it. Was rather nice.”

“Doctor Heart was updating his medical knowledge. He is quite well learned for a waster,” Aleph explained, giving his fellow ghoul a side glance. “You don’t see many like him out there. Till today I thought we were the only true practitioners of our art.”

“Yeah yeah, I’m the biggest fucking surprise in this tartarus pit since the Goddess showed up. Don’t act like it’s some old world miracle.” Sharpshot bit his lip. “Ponykind ran out of those a long, long time ago.”

I groaned at his incessant whining. In the same way he had enjoyed not hearing from me, I had enjoyed not hearing from him. Of all my companions to be present for this, he was easily the one I wanted around the least. The obvious thing to do was shoo him out in some fashion so that he didn’t learn why.

Unfortunately, Careful had forced herself into being the center of attention with a single, loud clap. The pure joy on her face as she looked at me said everything.

“Well, you are here for the test result’s right?” She asked.

Sharpshot tilted his head at his fellow doctor, intrigued. “Test results? Do you think she got knocked up or something?”

“I can assure you I most certainly was not,” I scoffed. “Haven’t done anything like that since the day before getting branded.”

“So… you’re saying there is a–”

“She isn’t pregnant, Doctor Heart,” Careful said. “Missus Rhapsody had a hereditary test done.”

Sharpshot looked shocked at Careful’s explanation. His eyes focused back on me, and I gave him a nod. If my stomach didn’t feel coiled like a snake around prey, his bewilderment might have been amusing. Instead the fact he knew why I was here only made that feeling worse.

“I told her I would get the results quickly.” She gave me a closed eye smile. “I’m happy to say that they are indeed in. The perks of two centuries focused on science.” Opening her eyes, her smile turned more sly. “Far better than the needless killing of your lot.”

“We get it, y’all don’t give a fuck for us “wasters” and our more dirty lifestyle,” Sharpshot said, throwing a hoof up in the unicorn’s direction. Then he turned his attention back to me. “You’re really that desperate to prove me and Dead Hooves wrong?”

I gave him a nod. “Of course, because I don’t trust you and DH could merely be thinking of some other pegasus named Star Chart.”

“Is this because of the little argument that spawned between us when you told my wife and I to shut up.”

I leered at the cloth-covered ghoul, only for him to look off to the gray stable ceiling as if it held far more interest. The urge to bite down on some part of my lips was strong, but I managed to hold myself back just enough. He wanted me to get angry, the smug aura he gave off made that extensively clear. I wouldn’t let him win.

Not at getting the better of my temper, but at being right about who I truly was.

“Doctor Procedure, the results,” I requested in a firm, militaristic manner.

Her horn lit up, floating some papers over to me with an innocent smile on her face. I snatched them midair with a hoof, dispelling the magical hold on them in the process. A smile of my own showed her how thankful I was before looking down at the results. My mind briefly entertained itself with how I would rub my petty victory in Sharpshot’s face…

… and then the twisting in my stomach tightened into a vice grip.

“Doc, this is a joke… right?” I asked, eyes shaking working their way up to Careful’s face.

A look of concern graced her features. “I can assure you it is not. That would be an absolutely horrible thing to do to a patient, especially one so important to Minister Heart.”

“But… how? How?” I asked, voice rising in crescendo with my terror. “For Luna’s sake mare how the fuck can this be accurate? There shouldn’t be- I mean if this is true… how?!”

The papers dropped out of my wing, drawing Sharpshot’s attention to the cause of my distress. I felt that shit eating grin of his rising under the fabric covering his muzzle as he looked from it… to me. My eyes went unfocused, darting anywhere they could in hopes that something would do… something! Yet at the end of it all my eyes found their way back down to the floor; to the papers; to the proof that I was not who I thought I was.

Sixty three percent pegasus, thirty one percent unicorn, four percent zebra for some damned reason, and two percent of something these ponies only put with question marks. I didn’t care what the question marks meant, I didn’t care about the little bit of striped blood that ran through my veins, and somehow that cursed thirty one percent didn’t matter either. What mattered was the sixty three percent. The sixty three percent that I knew. The sixty three percent that I had proudly worn as if it was one hundred my entire life.

It was only sixty three.

“Well, what do you know,” Sharpshot said, words dripping with superiority. “Turns out the biggot was targeting themself. Am I right, fellow grounder.”

“Shut the… don’t call me that,” I replied, softly. Another anxious step back. “That’s… I’m not a grounder. I swear upon the council, the husband, my foals my….”

The mere thought of Rainy and Clear made my entire being seize, my vision leading nowhere as my hearing was taken over by a slight ringing. I was part unicorn, and that meant they were part unicorn, and possibly also had that same small amount of zebra in themselves too. My foals weren’t pure pegasi, I wasn’t pure pegasi, one or both of my parents weren’t pure pegasi, Star Chart… Star Chart was not a pure pegasus. The ground didn’t seem to exist, my very being feeling like it was stuck in some void, falling downwards, unable to spread wings.

Wings that weren’t like so many of my Enclave brothers and sisters. They no longer felt comfortable or right, and for a second my mind imagined the added weight of a horn on the top of my head. The void took me, my body collapsing into a spiraling heap that lost all thought.

Then, for a reason I didn’t understand, the void was gone.

Careful, Aleph, and Sharpshot all stood over me, but only two actually seemed concerned. Sharpshot had that “told you so” look in his eyes, all too satisfied with my state. As Careful and Aleph helped me into a sitting position, he just stood there taking in his victory. A victory that quickly came back to my head as I saw the scattered papers on the floor.

A victory that made me… impure.

“Are you okay, Missus Rhapsody?”

I don’t know whether it was Careful or Aleph that said that, and I didn’t answer. My head was still trying to figure out… everything? It certainly felt like everything. I had spent my entire life thinking of myself as Singing Rhapsody, a pure pegasus and pride of the Enclave. Simple, easy to understand, and most importantly welcomed by those around me. Ironsight, Iron Anchor, every soldier, officer, or councilor that I had met knew that lie.

That was all it was though, wasn’t it? An elaborate lie that had been placed into my head the moment I left my moms womb. A lie that had all consumed me, shaping me into this belief I was like so, so many other pegasi in my life. Did I really want to believe that every single insult aimed at the surface… also meant I was now insulting myself?

Careful leaned in. “Rhapsody?”

“It has to be wrong.”

She blinked dumbly at my response. “What?”

I wish to say my next course of action was done without thinking, but the truth is I knew full well what I was doing. I needed an out from the truth placed before me, given how horrible and eye opening it was. I needed a reason to return to that lie and keep it going like this was some mad god’s joke.

So I grabbed Careful’s shoulders, and forced her muzzle up against mine in absolute terror.

“Please tell me it can be wrong. Please please please say it can. It has to be. It has to be!”

The voice that left my body was one of a terrified filly, not some full grown mare. It was pathetic, ridiculous, and yet at the same time it was somehow me. I no longer felt like the almighty, unbreakable Lieutenant Colonel Singing Rhapsody, standing proud and looking down on the ponies of the surface.

Instead I was just… Singing Rhapsody, a filly hiding trauma and insecurity under layers of protocol, training, and even more trauma. That worked its way into the very way my body was now acting, pupils the size of pin needles and breathing exhilarated in panic and confusion. My hooves shook in a manner more akin to what somepony would see from Shining Gemini instead of Singing Rhapsody.

All of which led to the most unbelievable sight: Sharpshot expression morphing from one of gloating victory to terrified discovery.

“Please say it. Please say it. Please for the sake of Luna and all the true alicorns to ever existed just fucking say it!” My begging was terrifying the doctor before me, causing both herself and Aleph to stammer back in confusion. Without her shoulders to hold onto, my forelimbs fell forward, the only thing before me being the result of the heredity tests.

Sixty-three percent. Sixty-three.

The number looped around in my head like the hook of a song that refused to leave the brain. Sixty-three. All I could think about was those numbers and what it meant for myself. That number was me. I didn’t want it to be me, but it was. A pony was able to change their opinions, personality, gender, and so much more, but that core never did. The core of a pony never changed.

That sixty-three percent pegasus, thirty-one percent unicorn? That was me.

Sharpshot took a brave step towards me in that moment of weakness, holding a hoof out. “Rhapsody, look–”

“Don’t you dare talk to me,” I spat, the slightest feeling of rage returning to me as the ghoul’s voice hit my ears. I lifted my head just enough to meet the sorrow in his eyes with fear created disgust. “You wanted this. Con-fucking-grats.”

“No.” He shook his head. “This isn’t what I wanted.”

“Bullshit!” I shot up, wings going wide in an attempt to make myself feel stronger than I did at the moment. “You’ve been waiting for this, I fucking know you have! That moment you knock me down and… and learn I’m the same fucking filth as you and your entire damned world! So go on, revel in your victory! Just do it while keeping that irradiated trap of yours shut!”

Sharpshot’s eyes went wide. “Are… are you crying?”

My anger faded, wings only half folding back up as I felt something warm and wet on my face. It didn’t feel like a tear running down my face, but the aftermath of a flood of them. One wing came and wiped a bit of it off, allowing me to see the remnants of a tear trail now staining the very tip of my wing.

This was the first time I had cried without Anchor. In my mixture of fear, confusion, insecurity and the hurt that lay underneath all of it, I turned to Sharpshot a look of anger fitting something more akin to a teenage filly than the thirty-six year old I was.

“Fuck off!” I shouted, before immaturity took over and sent me running from the room.

Adrenaline carried me around the research station’s many halls until I finally couldn’t run anymore. The emotional hurt didn’t leave, but festered like an illness that refused to leave my body. When I stopped running, I didn’t feel powerful or okay, I just felt exhausted. An exhaustion which led my hooves collapsed under me, and the tears returned more powerful and sickening than I had ever been.

When Anchor touched my body, and I found myself once again able to cry, I was relieved. It was like all the stress and heartache within me was being vented out in the form of the tears that ran down my face. I loved it, and cherished it so deeply that I had long linked crying with relief. Relief unlike what any hobby or bit of sexual fun ever compared to.

This crying I was now experiencing was not that. It was ugly, sad, downright depressing to the point that the few ponies that found where I was immediately turned and left. I was a fucking mess, and I hated it. I didn’t like being a mess; I had been that the first eighteen years of my life, with Ironsight as the only highlight in a sea of familial drama and abuse. Returning to it was an unpleasant reminder that the trauma never fades. It’s just dealt with.

Between my tears and the mess of conflicting and unnamed emotions that I had become, a hoof found its ways to my saddlebags. For the first time since I had left the hotel, I become instantly aware of the buck and party time ment-als I had been carrying on me. Neither would get rid of the pain, and while I was certainly in the right mind to take the escape they offered me neither were what I wanted. Ment-al’s made the mind clearer, focused, and the last thing I wanted was the kind of high they offered.

Which led me to realizing the only thing that might offer it to me that I had come across was that horrible white powder I had burned in some barrels along the road. How accurate was the name? Did it really make ponies feel like they were on cloud nine?

“No. No no no no,” I quietly blubbered out, shaking my head. “That doesn’t help. It… it can’t. It can’t… nothing can.”

My hoof touched an odd non-drug shaped lump in my saddlebag. Bringing it out, I was met by the innocent, proud smile of Minister Twilight Sparkle. I had forgotten she was just sitting in there, doing nothing but look pretty. Now her lifeless eyes were staring at me, and for some unrecognizable reason I felt… something, come out of it. A feeling, perhaps a fully formed emotion.

The emotion a pony felt when they wanted to put their hoof on your shoulder and tell you everything is going to be alright.

I shoved her back in the saddlebag and out of my sight. The tears had stopped falling, but they didn’t help like they usually did. I looked at the fluorescent lights above me, the clop of hooves getting closer and closer. Whoever they were didn’t matter to me, and I prayed to Celestia and Luna that they moved on without a single word spoken. Unfortunately this was not the case, because it wasn’t some random ArcanaTech pony who had found me.

It was Sharpshot.

“Didn’t think I would find you for a bit there. Made a pretty convincing disappearing act,” He replied, nowhere near as cocky or smug as his usual self was.

The attitude change didn’t matter to me. “Fuck off. I want to be alone.”

“Yeah, and that sounds like a fantastic idea for you right now.” Again, no cockiness from the ghoul, just frustration. “You look ready to drown yourself in the entire wasteland supply of Wild Pegasus right now. Need I tell you what will happen if you do.”

I choose not to answer, closing my eyes and pleading that he went away. Instead the clop of his hooves signaled him getting closer, not farther away. The ghoul sat down beside me, and I felt his magic open up the saddlebag I had placed the statuette of Minister Twilight in. A half-hearted chuckle left his lips as he pulled her out. For some reason that is what got me to open my eyes.

“Funny seeing you here, little Miss Sparkle,” He said to the statuette. “Where did you find her?” I kept my mouth shut, which led him to roll his eyes. “There are only so many of the real ones out there in the wasteland. The feeling I get just holding this with my magic tells me it's real. Congrats on starting your collection.”

“Why are you here?” I ask. Sharpshot lowered the statuette till it was touching the floor, his magic fizzing out as he looked at me. “To gloat? To shove it in my face that I’m no better than you? Go on, say it. I’m not moving.”

“All this, just because you're a little bit less of a pega than you thought?”

“Guessing you find it funny.”

“I don’t.” I finally turned to him. “Making ponies angry, seeing what makes them tick, that is funny. You’re not angry right now.” He placed his hoof on the statuette’s horn, using the old world figurine to trace the inside. “You're confused. You're confused because a fundamental piece of your very identity was just turned on its head and you don’t know how to act. Am I correct?”

“And I’m dead certain you wanted it,” I muttered back. “You’ve been waiting till you found out I was related to Star Chart, and probably even more so when I blew up at you yesterday for insinuating that I could… be this.” I motioned to my body, my hoof finding itself stuck in midair, knowing what I had just admitted. “This body isn’t what the Enclave wants. We got other pegasi like my… myself up there, but we aren’t treated well. Second class citizens; the unwanted trash; the irradiated mistakes. All different names, but all impure in the eyes of the council.”

“I wonder how shocked they would be to hear that one of their own was one of the things they hated oh so much.” Sharpshot laughed at me, my head falling a little bit. “You fooled everypony so well that they were none the wiser. Bravo soldier mare, bravo.”

My wings unfurled and hid my face, something they hadn’t done in years. That fragile, uncertain pony that was the true Rhapsody was coming back so quickly it just further heightened my fear. Emotional stiffness subsided into a conglomeration of different, conflicting feelings that were far from pleasant. There were so many I didn’t have a name.

“So this is the true mare behind all that soldier-ness?” Sharpshot asked, leaning forwards so that he could see past my wings to my face. “Gotta say, not what I expected.”

“Well I’m sorry if you were expecting me to take everything with more grace!”

I stomped both of my forehooves on the ground, wings parting just enough so that I could give the stallion before me the look of terrified rage I wanted. Sharpshot didn’t flinch, instead just watching me like a parent who was disappointed in their foal.

“Yes, I’m confused about my identity. Really, really confused. Imagine going your entire life hating something because everypony around you has told you that it's bad, and then imagine being told you are a part of that something. I’ve been seeing myself as a symbol of Enclave pride since I was eighteen, having just completely boot camp, and now I learn everything about myself is a lie. I’m not that symbol of pride, I’m not what I should be. I… I don’t know what the fuck I am right now and it fucking scares me.”

“You are right about me being no different. Dead Hooves was right about her being some distant ancestor that I never knew I had! That means I’m connected to a fucking cannibal, and yet somehow that doesn’t explain who I am. The more I think of my life above the clouds, the more I start to doubt how real everything was. Was my love for Anchor real or was it some other lie my brain was telling me? Would Ironsight still see me as a friend if he knew? Who the fuck am I? Who?! I have no idea and that’s… that’s fucking terrifying!”

My forehoofs had lost connection to the ground, pulling them close to myself as the fear inside me started churning anew. My vision seemed to be everywhere and nowhere at the same time, every cell of my body suddenly far more sensitive to touch than it had been previously. The void from earlier begged to swallow me once again.

“Then perhaps it is time to figure it out.”

That sentence was what pulled me out of it, or at least it did enough for me to understand everything else around me. Sharpshot suddenly felt a lot clearer to me than everything else, the ghoul pulling the mask on his face down to give me a sad smile. His horn lit up, and the statuette of Twilight Sparkle floated over to me. A held out my hooves to it, Sharpshot’s magic fizzing away and dropping it into them as I did. Despite how much more vibrant the unicorn was compared to the cloaked ghoul before me, the latter was still more interesting.

“I’m going to go through each of your questions one after the other, show you how you are being a paranoid nutjob, and tell you how I think you should take this all. I’m not you though, so it’s your choice how much of this you take in.” He cleared his throat, an act that felt extremely odd to me considering how infrequently he showed his own face. “Let’s start off with you mentioning your husband. I can assure you that, if he is a good pony, he would still love you.”

“But I’m part-grounder which mea–”

“He. Would. Still. Love. You.” Each word he spoke was matched by a step, ending with a poignant point at myself. “If he doesn’t, then fuck him. His loss, and you wouldn’t want him around anyways. That sort of toxicity in a relationship only leads to one or both sides hurting each other.” The hoof pointing at me went back to himself, pounding his chest three times with the side of it. “Take it from somepony who has been married for over a century now. A good, healthy relationship is formed on trust, honesty, and loyalty, right hun?”

His eyes flicked away from me to what initially seemed like an empty hallway. My own eyes widened as my wings fell back to my side, watching as Willow let go over her invisibility. Her face was overwhelmingly cheery for the situation she had found herself in, rubbing one foreleg with the opposite forehoof in embarrassment. The only sign that she regretted being there before she spoke was her flattened ears.

“Sorry, I know this wasn’t the best conversation to eavesdrop on,” she replied, sheepishly. “Sharpy is right though. After all the stress of military life and raising two foals, if he doesn’t love you unconditionally by now he isn’t worth it. I’d even be willing to go ahead and rip him apart for you, if needed.”

“Not the time for crazy, Willow,” her husband chastised. She simply giggled and sat on the opposite side of the hallway right across from myself. “The basic parts of what she said are right though. If he would abandon you just because you are a bit more hornheaded than originally thought, he isn’t worth having around.”

If I hadn’t felt as vulnerable as a newborn, I might have gotten angrier at him. Instead I allowed the words he and Willow said to sink in. They were, as much as I hate to admit it, right. If Iron Anchor was even half the stallion I saw him as, he would stay at my side no matter what…

… but then I remembered the Enclave’s propaganda. It had been burned so heavily into everypony that the purer the pegasus, the better. Was he free enough from those lies to not have them dictate his thoughts on the true me? On his foals, who were no different.

“Now, Ironsight, the sonuva bitch that is half the reason you are down here in the first place,” Sharpshot continued, not caring at all for my inner conflict. “The pony who wanted to destroy the surface… again. The pony who managed to find a way to make radiation kill an alicorn and ghoul. The pony you were perfectly okay with doing all that before your friends-turned-enemies brought you down here.”

My head dipped, and I managed to call upon a tiny piece of the anger that laid inside me. “You done.”

“Maybe….” He stared at the ceiling for a moment, contemplating. He then closed his eyes and nodded. “Okay, yeah, don’t have anything more to add there. Mainly want to say that he doesn’t seem like a pony you can trust… unless he takes you being part-unicorn well. He’s clearly a supremacist, and sooner or later he might have found out about what you are anyway.” He opened his eyes, growing a tiny bit more smug. “I’m certain that wouldn’t have ended well for you.”

Willow held up her right forehoof “Or perhaps learning you are part-unicorn is the wake-up call he needed! That’s a far more optimistic point of view.”

“Sure, I guess.” Sharpshot shrugged. “Hate to say it hun, but I’m gonna have to disagree on that. Ponies like that don’t really change unless something earth-shattering happens.” He pointed at me once again. “An example of that lies before us right now.”

I looked off to the side, looking for a counterpoint. I found nothing. “I… yeah, this has definitely been a lot to take in, and unfortunately I’m gonna have to agree with Sharpshot on this.” I felt myself shrink a slight bit. “How am I gonna talk to him in two days?”

“Hey, lying for a single conversation is better than lying to yourself for the rest of your life,” Sharpshot replied. “Besides, it's not lying if you never tell him. It's just… avoiding the topic.”

“I guess you are right… So what now?” Both of them tilted their heads at me. “I mean, I don’t think I can continue how I was. As much as I want to, I certainly can’t hold myself above you ponies anymore.”

Sharpshot’s face shifted, the expression of solemn understanding and sadness turning into a more clear hate. “So you still want to be that same, ignorant foal you’ve been acting as this entire time.”

My mouth opened to respond – to say that yes, I would have continued to act as I had for most of my adult life because it was a beautiful, if sickly unjust, lie – but something about Sharpshot kept my voice silent. He stepped up to me and placed a hoof on my head, applying just enough force to keep me from getting up without extra effort. Effort that, in my current state, I lacked the will to call upon.

Then he just… leered at me. No words, no gesture to show whatever it was he was trying to get across, he just stared down at me like an Enclave councilor would to half breed. Disgust mixed with disappointment blended with an unhealthy dose of discontent were the ingredients that made up his stare.

“Rhapsody, I’m only going to say this once so you better perk up those ears, shut up, and listen,” he said. “I’ll put it frankly, you are no different than Ironsight. You are a supremacist, looking down on everypony not you for the sole reason of them being different. Up till now you’ve flaunted what you believed to be the pegasi body “perfected” in front of all of us as if you were making ready to have a statue built. You were more than willing to let every. Single. One of us. Die. I figured that it might have made that switch labeled “realization” in your head switch the other way.”

He leaned it, no change in his expression even as his words gamed a serpentine quality to them.

“Except now, when faced with the idea that you were wrong about yourself, your heart wants to change nothing. You want to embrace your little “ignorance is bliss” belief when ignoring what you are would have possibly gotten you killed! Here I am hoping that maybe, maybe Star Chart’s family line might have proven to be better but your just like that fucking cripple you call an ancestor. You want to know what to do now? Wake up, realize the roses are dead, and start. Fucking. Over!”

With no restraint and my entire being focused on looking into his eyes, I had no time to react as the hoof holding my head suddenly thrusted down. My world was suddenly filled with not just emotional and mental pain, but the physical variety of it as well. My hooves held my muzzle, ears ringing as if a gun had just gone off right next to them.

“Sharpy, what are you–”

“Not now Willow!” My eyes clenched shut, I only heard the clop of hooves moving away. When they stopped and Sharpshot spoke up again, I knew who that bit of movement belonged to. “I can’t miss Rhapsody. The only reason you didn’t die on that street is because I was targeting your tail and not you. Knowing now everything you do, consider yourself on a short leash.”

I opened my eyes, vision blurry from the force of the blow he had left on me. I somehow managed to find the blobs of brown and red that made him up.

“Make it clear that it was worth using my life saving skills instead of my life taking ones on you, and I won’t put a bullet between your eyes.”

Then he walked off, the blurry form of Willow taking up my vision as she brought me back into a sitting position. As my vision became clearer, the worry in her eyes became more substantial. She glanced at her husband, her lips unsure whether to push back into a snarl or simply curl downwards.

“I… why? Why?!” She yelled telepathically at the ghoul. He didn’t turn around, continuing to walk without care. “Yes, a lot of what you say is true but… but… Sharpy…,” Her back half collapsed, head hung. “Why are you being this hostile? Singing isn’t a good pony,” for some reason, that jabbed at my heart “but she didn’t deserve all that. Nopony deserves all that… please answer me, Sharpy.”

He didn’t, refusing to even look his wife in the eyes and walking out of sight. Willow’s face told all, shoving confusion and sorrow together. Their earlier mentions of being in a healthy relationship felt hypocritical, the only wrong thing in a sea of truth. The only lie in Sharpshot’s entire argument.

Yes, deep down I wanted to continue that lie, to hide my newfound insecurities away and be an imperfect, perfect picture of what a pegasi should be. How possible was that though? Every insult thrown at grounders now included myself. So much of the Enclave was built around the belief of pegasus purity that I can’t say I would have felt safe. Going back was an option, but I was smart enough to know it would simply hurt me in the long run. That left only one option: Sharpshot’s option.

Wake up, realize the roses are dead, and start over.

How did I start over when the idea of telling anypony I was wrong about myself felt… terrifying? No way in tartarus was I explaining my heritage to Ironsight, and since Gold and Gemini weren’t around I wanted to make damn sure they didn’t. So much would change upon admitting what I was to others that telling the truth felt impossible.

That was too much change. Too much.

Eyes briefly cast down to the floor, to the sight of the Twilight Sparkle statuette that had been in my hooves before Sharpshot had slammed my muzzle into the metal floor. The words “be smart” felt bigger, bolder, scarier. Yet in them I realized a simple yet powerful truth: I didn’t need to do this all at once. A complete one-eighty felt impossible but little changes that added up over time? Maybe I could do that. It was worth a shot at least, right?

“Thank you,” I whispered to the statuette. Willow looked at me, unaware that I was speaking to an inanimate object. As I scooped up Twilight in my wing and placed her in my saddle bag, I slowly moved my head upwards till it was looking Willow dead in the eyes. “Your husband’s a real piece of work, Willow.”

The deepening sorrow in her eyes told me this whole change thing was immediately off to a bad start.

“Moments like these, I wonder if Dead was right about the two of us,” She said. “That Sharpy isn’t good for me. I never really understood why she hated him, or why he hated her. Does painting her as some villain help him deal with the fact he killed her?” She shook her head. “I’m sorry, Singing. No matter how bad you are, you didn’t deserve all that.”

Again, her backhooved apology made me wince. “I’m… really not a good pony, am I?”

“Yep. You’ve kind of been a piece of shit since I met you.” Another stab to the heart, and from one of the only groun– wastelanders that I didn’t hate. “You're egotistical, a bit of a bitch, yet under all that I see a pony that can shine brighter than they allow themselves to. I had a bit of a talk with Gemini while you were getting your check up earlier and… she doesn’t see you the way Sharpy and I do.”

I blinked twice, mouth hanging open desperately wanting to ask what she meant. Unfortunately her harsh truths had left me completely speechless. Fortunately, she continued to talk despite it.

“I won’t deny that I inquired about you a bit. The picture I have of you now is really different from the one from when we left those labs two days ago.” She raised her left forehoof. “Back then I merely saw a mare who, while rather awful in how they saw ponies, was also a mother. A mother doing their best to help their foals.” Then her right forehoof. “Now I can recontextualize that. You aren’t just a mother who separated themselves from their family, you are a pony who has been through things. Things that you don’t need to tell me or anypony else, but they led you to be the parent you never got yourself.”

“You didn’t pry Gemini open too much, right?” She lowered both forehooves and looked at me. “She isn’t exactly emotionally stable.”

“Of course! Call me crazy all you want, but I can be sensitive… sometimes.” Her eyes darted off down the hall. “I’ll admit I’m not the best at this all and I’m probably boring you with how long I’m taking getting to the point, but I try when I feel I need to. That isn’t the topic of this conversation, however.’

Willow’s hoof reached out to me, causing me to flinch in preparation for her to hurt me just like her husband did. Instead, I felt the slightest touch of her hoof against my chest.

“This is about you, and how those qualities you have don’t need to be changed. They just need to… shift and find themselves in a new context. A better you is what I’m looking for, not a new you.”

“A better me,” I repeated. My gaze went off into nothingness for a moment, before sighing. “That’s kind of what I was thinking anyway. I… I’m not sure about all this still.”

“I can understand. I mean, I know being nice was certainly a challenge for me when I first met Dead Hooves,” She explained, pawing the ground sheepishly. “You can do it though. I know you can, Singing.”

“Th… thanks,” I replied. Allowed silence to take over for a minute, then stood up. “Well, I think I have some doctors to apologize to. Good first step, right?”

Willow smiled brightly, giving me a nod.

Perhaps it was the fact they hadn’t dealt with me for the number of days Willow and Sharpshot had, but Aleph and Careful took my apology really well. I won’t deny it being hard, as well as being excessively more emotional than I would like to admit, but the simplicity of it was welcomed. It was an incredibly tiny but necessary step towards that personal shift Willow had mentioned. One I conquered far better than the next.

Granted the next step was optional but I felt I had to do it. The papers that had caused this entire outbursts were still there on the floor, and I deemed it necessary to both read them over and discuss the findings with Careful and Aleph. Willow stayed at my side, both of us finding comfort in the other at that moment.

“The point is that your mixed heritage actually makes you physically healthier than what a pureblooded pegasus would be,” Careful said, ending off a rather long explanation full of science I don’t make much sense of even today. “Still questioning this,” she motioned at my body, “is still a bad thing?”

“I know there is a lot of science and such behind it, but it’s all just… it’s hard to believe,” I replied. A piece of me hated how vulnerable and weak I sounded to the ponies before me, but Willow was certain this was an important thing to do. So I continued on with it despite everything. “I mean, the Enclave always said there was science proving the opposite too. It’s hard to believe it when–”

Aleph silenced me with a raised hoof. “Did they ever give reasons behind it? Did the public ever get more than just the results? Any scientist worth a damn would make sure to back up their results with an explanation.”

“They… they didn’t.”

The nebula ghoul didn’t grow smug like Sharpshot found out he was correct. Instead he frowned, and if he was already frowning from the heaps upon heaps of Enclave propaganda they were uncovering and proving wrong it grew deeper. Each time it did, another small part of myself shattered to pieces. I didn’t even need an explanation at this point to know my beliefs were again wrong.

“I don’t understand. I really don’t understand,” I said. “There are some I get; keeping secrets can keep pegasi safe. Yet so much of it all is lie after lie after lie and it never seems to stop. I’m a lie, the good in being pureblooded is a lie. There has to be something that isn’t a lie. It can’t all be wrong. It can’t.”

“Unfortunately, it can,” Careful replied. “After a time it becomes worthless asking how much is true, because that little bit of truth is wrapped up in so many lies that grasping onto it means nothing. A nation built on lies is a nation destined to fall. “ Her eyes drifted from me to Aleph. “Lies meant not to keep a populace safe, but controlled. Obedient, unquestioning, conditioned. After all you have told me of the Enclave, those are the best words to describe it.”

The truth didn’t make me angry or upset, but exhausted. The metaphorical building that represented my world had been torn down brick from brick, revealing hypocrisy after hidden truth somehow managing to rot it. Upon joining the council I had imagined that I was above the propaganda that the rest of the Enclave were led to believe, but that no longer seemed true. Each member of the council from myself to Harbinger to Ironsight was nothing more than a puppet under some long created falsity. A falsity that the other two still believed.

Was I… lucky?

It felt sickening to think. Never before would I have called a Dashite lucky, especially given the state of the surface and the heightened chances to die compared to above the clouds. Now that I knew that safety was kept by detrimental lies the idea of living up there felt the slightest bit wrong. Just wrong enough where, despite the large portion of me wishing to return to my family, I’m not sure I could.

I’m really sorry Anchor. I love you and I’m sure you love me, but the feelings of betrayal now went both ways. Both the council and those who put me down here to begin with were now enemies, even if the former didn’t know it… or maybe they did. It didn’t matter.

“If you do want a bright spot, we can confirm your family has a rather splendid history dating back to before the Last Day,” Aleph explained, piercing through my thoughts in the same way the horn of his could pierce my flesh. My first encounter with nebula ghouls was still a bit too fresh in my mind to look at it and him and not feel slightly on edge. “Though I guess I would like to first ask if you are aware of it.”

“Nope. Farthest I know my family line goes back to is a pegasus named Star Chart,” I answered. My wings shifted uncomfortably behind me. “Though given the zebra and something else mentioned in those charts, I can’t blame her for all my heritage.”

Aleph nodded. “Quite right. That’s probably the most correct thing you’ve said since this conversation started.” Another backhooved compliment, another reflective wince from my body. “Anyways, the aforementioned bright spot. With the limited database we have of ponies from materials taken from Trotson’s Ministry of Image and Ministry of Morals hubs, we were able to find a distant ancestor. An ancestor with connections to the Shadowbolts.”

My eyes lit up, the past hour or two of emotional turmoil temporarily subsiding. A shadowbolt in my family history? That might have been more prestigious than being connected to an Enclave hero in terms of bloodline, purity be damned.

Willow was a bit more perplexed at it all, however, tilting her head. “I’m sorry that name is new. What are the Shadowbolts?”

“You’ve heard of the Wonderbolts I’m sure. Before the war they were stunt flyers, and in the current day they are considered the best of the best in the Enclave military. You piss off the council enough, consider yourself dead,” I explained to the alicorn. After getting a nod to show she understood what I was saying, I continued. “During the war, the Wonderbolts traded out their stunt flyer identity from something more militaristic. Much like today’s Wonderbolts they were considered the absolute elite of Equestria’s air forces. The name was changed back when the Enclave was founded to distance ourselves from all of you, given it was the Ministry of… Awesome, that gave them that title.”

“A societal traitor naming your elite fighting force. That would certainly give it some bad blood,” Careful replied, mostly mumbling to herself. “They also tended to test experimental military equipment if my old teacher’s classes on wartime Equestria were correct. Quite fitting, considering the power armor you are wearing getting field tested through you.”

“Really? So that makes Rhapsody some kind of modern day Shadowbolt!”

Willow wrapped a wing around me, pulling me close to her against my own will. I pulled away as quickly as I was able, moving to the left until I’d managed to place enough distance between the alicorn and myself for my own comfort. There was not enough space in the room for complete comfort, though what I did get was manageable.

“I, uh, still don’t know if I like Minister Dash enough to find being called one a good thing, but I’ll take it as a compliment nonetheless,” I informed the big blue and white pony to my side. She simply smiled, making it unclear whether she understood my discomfort or not. “Anyways, I’m connected to a Shadowbolt.”

“Yes. I’m sure the name Spitfire is at least passingly familiar to you, Missus Rhapsody?” Aleph asked. At first I only nodded, it took several seconds for what the nebula ghoul was saying to click. I don’t think there was enough room on my face for how wide I wanted my eyes to be when it did become clear. “I wonder how she would feel, knowing what her descendant is like.”

“I’m connected to a soldier as acclaimed as Admiral Spitfire?” I questioned back. No head motions were needed to answer it, just knowing smiles. The floor was suddenly far more interesting. “Huh. Makes a mare wonder how her parents managed to seem like exact opposites.”

Careful clearly found my sudden sheepishness hilarious, considering she didn’t bother to hold back her laughter at it. “It should be noted your connection to the Admiral is not direct, but you do indeed share a bloodline with her. We figured it was close enough that you would want to know.”

“She did have, what, three husbands?” I whispered to myself. “That’s fair enough. She had to have had a foal with at least two of them, so I’ll take it. Even if it was one of the assholes she divorced.”

I stood there for a time, glowing in a slightly renewed sense of pride. It was nowhere close to what the heritage test, Sharpshot, and the two doctors before me had destroyed, but it was better than nothing. Being connected to a pegasus as prestigious as Admiral Spitfire was a nice blanket to comfort me from the invisible glass shards that seemed to surround me. The only thing I can glad say I don’t share is her luck with stallions. Thank Luna for striking gold with Anchor.

“Anyways, as wonderful as this conversation was, I have somewhere else I need to be,” Careful explained. “Got myself a little date with a cute stallion.”

“Best of luck with them, Doctor Procedure!” Willow cheered. “I hope they are as wonderful as you think they are.”

“Aw, thanks.”

With that she left us with Aleph, who then did the same for work related reasons. With nopony else around to distract her, that distance that I had put between myself and Willow suddenly started to close. The alicorn had the look of a filly trying to be way too sneaky, every single moment she moved more than clear. Once I was within reach of her wingspan, she scooped me up in one and pulled myself to her.

“See? You’re doing better already! You’ve started your shift into becoming a better pony.”

“I… I guess? I think I’m just riding high on the one good discovery that this mess brought.” I went rigid. “I-I mean–”

“Hey, your world got turned upside down. You're dealing with shit as best you can.” As her wing pulled me even closer, her opposite forehoof was wrapped around my neck. I was pulled into a hug against my will. “Just you wait Singing, soon you’ll be the happiest you were in your entire life! A lawful Shadowbolt among a lawless wasteland!”

“Still not sure about the whole Shadowbolt thing, Willow.”

“Just give it a try. Maybe as a sort of “fuck you” to the Enclave for all the lies.”

I knew she was trying to make me feel better, but it just made me feel worse. Despite knowing so much of that life was a lie, a piece of me still held on. There was still one good thing about the Enclave, and that was knowing they would protect Anchor and my children in my absence. It was the only truth I had of that life.

A few hours later, the five of us had all reunited at what had once been the entrance into the stable. It certainly didn’t look like it anymore, given that there wasn’t a door to be seen. The natural cave walls that made up at least half of its walls and ceiling helped a bit with the overwhelming gray, even if it was just being replaced with a darker gray, and where I assumed the stable door used to be was now a solid wall. We looked trapped in, but apparently that wasn’t the case.

That stallion that called me “P-1” when I had just woken up in the research station? Artificial Synthesis. He had given me a rather simplified version of how it worked while the other four talked with ponies they had met while I was out.

“ArcanaTech was founded with the results of Project Nebula, a look into using the stars as a safer, less irradiated option for energy. When the world ended, we used our newfound knowledge of stars and the blackholes they create on death to make our own safe haven.”

While his voice wasn’t stuttery, there was a clear tremble in his body. It was most likely due to the anger I had spoken with when he called me a new more befitting test subject then a pegasus. For all that had happened since then and now – the horrid, inconceivable truths I had learned of my home most of all – putting that bit of fear in him still felt good. It was a tiny bit of control after a few hours of vulnerability, and it relaxed me.

“As we found out, it is possible to replicate the sensation of teleportation using blackholes. The big problem was having them lead to where we want it to go but once it was complete? There was very little need to step outside again. The need was completely eliminated when we figured out how to hook up our inside greenhouses to the S.P.P. tower, using its weather altering capabilities to grow things typically impossible with the client.”

“That isn’t too different from how the Enclave does it,” I replied. A hoof went to my throat at mentioning the Enclave, the side of me more disgusted at their actions finding the act of addressing them revolting. “We have to use clouds for most of our plants though. Typically we save stuff like potatoes or herbs for the few peaks that pierce the cloud layer.”

He beamed like I had never seen a unicorn beam before. “You’ve found ways to grow plants on clouds? Fascinating! I must ask, do cloud grown foodstuffs taste like anything?” I shook my head to answer, the slightest hint of disappointment working their way onto Synthesis’ face. It quickly disappeared and was replaced by a shrug. “Disappointing, but that makes sense. They would likely be made of far more water than their ground grown counterparts.”

“Yeah, and I don’t think I could go back to that food if I wanted to. Even if most of it isn’t as fresh as what I had here, surface food is…,” the word I wished to say refused to leave my muzzle “it’s good.”

“I’ll make sure the chefs know.” Synthesis looked down, his eyes passing over the NB-2 power armor that I was once again wearing. The way he puffed his chest out made it a clear mark of personal pride. “I never thought I would get the chance to make something like this, you know. It’s not often ArcanaTech makes anything that can fit in the late Minister Applejack’s field of expertise.”

It was my turn to frown, looking down at the hunk of metal I was wearing. “It feels wrong.”

“How so?”

“This armor used to look so different, and in some ways it feels like I’m wearing somepony’s tomb.” I lifted my hoof to my right shoulder, examining the metal that encased it. “I was there five years ago, when the pegasus that once wore this was killed. A piece of them still resides here, I think Not their whole spirit, just a piece of it.”

Synthesis had the gall to narrow his eyes at me as if I was some crazy old hag. “You can just say you feel guilty.”

While I hadn’t been looking for a way out of the conversation, I got one. Hoping it would make the stallion think a bit, I promptly turned away and walked back over to my actual companions. Gemini and Gold wore their power armor, but only the latter wore their helmet. Willow and Sharpshot, on the otherhoof, were instead garbed in as much clothing as possible to help shield their bodies; they didn’t need the radiation protection that we more normal creatures did, just something to keep the storm from scraping them up.

What we did share was a sufficient amount of firepower. I gave the semi-auto rifle to Gemini since her pistol wouldn’t fit into the armor’s battle saddle. Sharpshot had his zebra rifle and that abomination of his, having at some point discarded the sniper rifle that had broken my shoulder (apparently it was too normal for his liking). Willow had been given her sickle back, something that I felt she was far too happy about. Then there was Gold, who was easily the most armed out of anycreature present with double shotguns, a knife, and Roche Limit.

It would have been ridiculous, but then there was me. I still had my novasurge, battery replenished and looking as good as the day it was given to me, but its lightness made me infinitely more aware of the weight on the saddle’s left side. Gold had said they would get the Atomizer back into working condition, and apparently those repairs had happened while I was out. Carrying around a highly experimental piece of weaponry was definitely one way to put myself on par with the old griff.

“Guess we’re all ready, then?” My question was answered with a nod, Gemini a bit more hesitantly then the rest. Briefly turning back to Synthesis, I waved a hoof to him. “Send us up!”

I have no idea what he did, but the next few moments brought about an uncomfortable deja vu. The void once again overtook my sense, the only solace in my heart being the knowledge I hadn’t trapped myself in my own emotions this time. The only sense I seemed to keep is hearing, because a voice called out to me. Barely coherent, but the voice was there.

It’s words were the more standard blessing that most pegadi gave. Pegasi who hadn’t been raised like I had, with the belief Celestia and Luna were pegasi ascended. Pegasi far more pure than myself.

“Winds guide you, Sergeant Major.”

It had been five years since I held that rank. Synthesis was wrong; a ghost haunted my new armor. That knowledge filled me with dread…

… and I was all too right to feel it.