Fallout Equestria: Influx

Chapter 13: To the Edge

“Well hello everybody of the Equestrian Wasteland! It’s me your friendly neighbourhood disc-jockey… what’s a disc, hell if I know? But I’m gonna keep talking anyway.

Now, you may have all heard me ramble on about the do-good zebra mare from out west. Well guess who came and paid ol’DJ-PON3 a visit? That’s right, the Heroine of the West!

Our hero from out west, Crystal is her name, has done some wonderful feats of valour in her quest for truth with her loyal Dashite companion. Yes, that’s right; our poor hero is just another victim of the wasteland like most of us just trying to make it day to day. Despite her best efforts in trying to uncover the truth behind what ails her, she has leant a hoof to several communities. Her heroic feats include saving a filly from a burning train, taking out a foal killer, rescuing a zebra filly, and her biggest achievement so far has been saving the Marejave from the dangers of Stable 106.

Despite everything she’s done on her journey, our zebra heroine is still nowhere near in finding the answers she seeks, if you see a black stetson-wearing zebra mare with wings traveling with a purple pegasus, give them a hoof or better yet, some ammo.

This has been DJ-PON3 bringing you’re a special report on the Heroine of the West, and now, Sapphire Shores with “Setting the World on Balefire”.”

I smiled to myself as I lay on our tower room bed with little Xian curled up and fast asleep against my stomach. It was early evening and we had moved back down to the room we had used last time we were here. DJ-PON3 had just broadcasted his report on me over the radio that sat on the nightstand beside our bed. I’m glad he left out my mechanical side; after all it was him that suggested not to include it. He had told me of a few groups that might take particular interest in me for being mostly machine, either viewing me as some pre-war tech or another robot to capture and repurpose for their own gains.

Xian let out a little moan in her sleep as she wiggled a little to get more comfortable against my belly. I couldn’t help a maternal smile spread across my lips while I watched her, and felt the urge to drape my fluffy wing over her to blanket her in the warm feathers. However, my happy moment was spoiled as I remembered what Fruity and I had yet to do. Sure we could leave Xian in the safety of Silver Disc, but it is leaving her behind that hurts. She doesn’t want to be alone again and she’s grown attached to me and honestly so have I. I don’t feel comfortable leaving her on her own either, but I’d rather do that when I know she’ll be safe rather than bring her along to which she could possibly get hurt or worse, plus there is no way in Tartarus I am taking her into the Impact Crater.

“Yeah, and up yours buddy,” Fruity yelled as he opened our door and backed in. “Fucking stuck up unicorn prick,” He grumbled to himself as he closed the door.

“Fruity, hush, she’s sleeping,” I hissed as he turned around.

“Oh, sorry,” He wilted slightly. The purple pegasus placed a plastic bag onto my bed and pulled out a paper package that smelt of salt and vinegar. “Got us some chippy on the way back,” He said while he took a package of his own to his bed opposite mine.

“Thank you,” I smiled as I gently unwrapped the paper to reveal a small mountain of steaming deep fried chips. “This is a big portion,” I commented on the sheer amount.

“I got you a large one just in case Xian was hungry,” He clarified as he took into his own chips.

“Good to see they can still get potatoes to make these,” I commented as I slowly ate.

“Hmm oh yea, it would be a very bleak world without this delicacy.”

I chuckled softly. “Hehe, anyway, did that vendor Silver Disc pointed you to have any Hazmat Suits?” I asked, getting to the subject on where Fruity had been the past hour.

Fruity sighed. “No, err, well he did, just one and it wouldn’t have suited neither of us either.”

“What do you mean?”

“The suit he had in stock was meant for a unicorn or earth pony, but because of our wings the suit wouldn’t have been appropriate for us to wear,” He explained.

“Oh, well, now how are we supposed to get to Paradigm Cybernetics?” I asked with disappointment clear in my voice.

“He did however point me in the direction of a possible location to find pegasi hazmat suits that may still have some there, and it is right over there,” Fruity said while pointing a hoof to the window with a chip on the end like a pointer. I followed the direction he was pointing and gasped when I saw the tall glass and steel tower of Starlight Industries in the distance still glowering at the top thanks to its neon name sign.

“Starlight Tower?”

“Eeyup,” He nodded.

I blinked while I stared out at the tower, thinking to myself on what to do. We need hazmat suits to handle the radiation from the Impact Crater and I doubt my endoskeleton will shield my internal organs from the rads, especially from such an environment. If all goes well from going to the tower, we can go straight to the crater from there, or perhaps use the tower as a vantage point to help plan a route. Overall, I guess we’ll be going to Starlight Industries in the morning.

XXXXX

We were awoken early in the morning by an almighty boom which was followed by a high-pitched scream.

“Who the fuck is setting off explosives at this hour?” Fruity whined groggily as he sat up in bed.

I however had a shivering and frightened filly tightly hugging against my chest. She was whimpering and crying like something had scared her.

“Hey, what’s the matter?” I asked softly.

“The sky is angry,” She squeaked in zebrican.

“*yawn* what did she say?” Fruity asked as he rubbed at an eye with a wing tip.

I tilted my head while trying to understand what she meant and turned to look out the window and my entire thought process got derailed. I had thought she meant that another storm had rolled in at first but what I saw out the window made me think I was still dreaming because it looked nightmarish.

“F-Fruity, w-what is that?” I asked fearfully while pointing out the window which was being battered by rain.

The sky outside was a sickly yellowy green which made everything outside look so sick and poisonous. Every now and then, if not obscured by the buildings, we would see yellow lightning bolts ark to the ground and that was generally followed by a clap of thunder that sounded off. I can’t describe how it sounded but the sound was creepy.

“Knackers, that’s a Radstorm,” Fruity sighed.

I blinked in confusion and then turned my attention to Fruity while gently stroking Xian with a hoof to try and calm her down. “A what?” I asked for clarification.

“A Radstorm, you know,” He said while I just stared blankly at him. “Oh right, err forgot. Um, let’s see,” He paused and tapped at his chin for a moment as he thought. “A Radiation Storm or Radstorm for short, is a weather system that occurs in areas with high traces of magical radiation that accumulates in the air. It generally results in what you see out there, but each lightning strike will cause a radiation spike. Thankfully though these storms don’t tend to last too long, otherwise we’d all be knackered,”

“This new world I find myself in just keeps getting better and better,” I groaned sarcastically.

“Ha, yea it’s fantastic isn’t it,” Fruity laughed but his sarcastic laugh was drowned out by another loud bomb of thunder that made Xian whimper fearfully. “I actually nearly died the first time I encountered a Radstorm after I got booted out of the clouds. I didn’t have a PipBuck or any radiation detecting doings so by the time I made it to a settlement I was suffering from major radiation sickness.”

“You were lucky,” I remarked while I was looking out the window, watching the rain and yellow lightning.

“Heh, yea, I was but I was called a “Dumbass” and lost three hundred caps for the treatment to cure my rads,” Fruity said with a roll of his eyes.

For about an hour and a half we stayed in our room waiting out the storm. I mostly spent the time comforting Xian, who was scared so much by the storm she wouldn’t move her head from my chest despite how damp my fur was getting with her tears. There was also a lot of activity outside our door too as we could hear shouting and a lot of hoof falls. Fruity went out to see what was going on and he was quickly ushered back in by a guard that told him to remain in our room until the storm had passed for our own safety. I guess these Radstorms were really that bad.

Eventually the skies outside faded back to the usual dull grey clouds that seem to constantly blanket Equestria these days as the storm dissipated. The activity from outside our door also sounded like everything was winding back down to normal as well.

“That was the most terrifying storm I’ve ever bore witness to,” I commented as I stroked Xian’s head with a wing. Thankfully she had calmed down some since the storm had passed.

“Yeah, they can get pretty intense,” Fruity agreed.

“Should we expect another one anytime soon?” I asked while looking intently at Starlight Tower in the distance.

“I dunno, it can be pretty random for one to appear, we could go days to even weeks without one to getting several in one day,” Fruity explained with a sigh. “It’s being so close to the Impact Crater that makes the storms here so unpredictable.”

“Ugh, well we can’t just stay in here forever.”

“I agree, those tower residents might tolerate you more after you got the DJ’s seal of approval but you are still basically a zebra and many still hate them,” Fruity said with a sad sigh at the end.

“Xian, Xian honey,” I said softly with a gentle nuzzle to get her attention so she would look up at me. It pained me for what I was about to do when I looked down into her big green innocent eyes. I know she felt pretty lonely after being abandoned but I can’t take her with me on this quest. It is for her own safety. “I know you don’t like me leaving you on your own sweetie, but I have something very important to do and where I need to go is too dangerous for a filly like you. I don’t want to take you with me because I could never forgive myself if something was to happen to you out there. I would be happier in knowing you were here, safe and sound,” I explained softly to her but I felt my heart break at the sight of her tears as they welled up in the corners of her eyes.

“Y-you’ll come back for m-me right?” She asked quietly.

I pulled the saddened filly into a gentle embrace and closed my wings around her. “Oh of course I will. I came back before. I promise I’ll come back for you this time too.”

“Don’t worry Xi, we won’t leave you for long and we’ll be back before you know it,” Fruity agreed as he stood by our bed and gently rested his forehoof on her withers reassuringly.

The poor filly nodded but still looked sad as Fruity and I began to prepare for our excursion to Starlight Tower. I put the Noir Coat on first (the one that I recovered from the shop before it exploded) after making a slight adjustment so my wings could slip through the back, then I slipped my sock covered hind legs into the pair of hind leg boots that came with the assemble. Despite having been in a display case for the good part of two centuries the clothing items felt ok on my fur. Once the clothing items were on, I put on my armour pieces on top of the coat, with the chest piece first followed by the shoulder guards, then the knee guards on my hind legs and my worn black stetson atop my head to complete my outfit.

“Looking good,” Fruity smiled at me after he was all dressed up in his worn duster and brown steston hat.

I blushed slightly at the compliment. “Aww thank you handsome,” I replied with a nuzzle to his cheek.

After a quick adjustment, so that my coat’s tails rested over my flanks, I crouched next to the bed to let Xian climb onto my back. “Mr Silver Disc agreed to watch you again while we are away, you’ll be in good hooves until we get back,” I assured her as the timid filly crawled onto my back and sat on my shoulders in front of my medical box.

“Ready?” Fruity asked as we approached the door to leave.

Xian hugged against the back of my neck and whimpered but nodded. He nodded and opened the door and held it open while we left the room and then quickly trotted to my side so we could walk side by side while we headed for the lifts.

Xian wiggled her hips to get more comfortable on my back. Her tail swished and knocked against my lever-action shotgun that sat across the top of the medical box and made it shift a little, which I felt and it reminded me of something.

“Oh Fruity.” The purple pegasus turned to look at me after we stopped at the lifts and he pressed the button to call it. “We should stop by one of the vendors before we leave for some supplies; I need some shells for my shotgun.”

“Shit, I knew I forgot something when I was looking for that hazmat suit guy,” He sighed.

“Language in front of Xian,” I hissed quietly. “She can understand you pretty well now remember.”

“Cock, sorry.”

I shook my head just as the lift pinged its arrival and the doors opened and a small group of ponies stepped out. Fruity and I quickly parted to give the exiting ponies some room to leave the lift but as they passed us I swear I heard one of them say, “Zebra trash,” under their breath.

I sighed. Fruity was right about some hating me. I stepped into the lift which groaned at my weight before I concentrated on my levitation talismans to reduce my weight enough to seem normal. There were a couple other ponies still in here along with a guard but they seemed to be keeping to themselves and not attempted to make eye contact with me or Fruity, although a couple of them seemed to be nervous with me inside with them.

“Where to?” The guard asked unexpectedly which made me jump.

“Oh, err, the Main Plaza please,” I squeaked.

He nodded and pushed the button to close the doors and with a shudder, the lift began to descend to the Plaza. The ride down to the Main Plaza was rather tense as we could feel the nervous tension between the other ponies in the lift that kept as far away from me as possible and wouldn’t dare look at me. As soon as those doors opened we were quick to get out of there and that awful atmosphere. Are zebras really that hated, even now after two hundred years since the war ended?

We quickly made our way through the top floor of the Plaza to the central column where the central lifts were. Then to the express lift that would take us to the penthouse where we would find Silver Disc. After a quick ride up to the top of Tenpony Tower, we smiled as we found Silver Disc waiting for us outside the door.

“Ah, good morning Crystal and Fruity and Xian,” He greeted with a warm smile.

“Morning,” I said with a wave of a wing.

Fruity gave a respectful nod of his head in greeting.

“Thank you for agreeing to look after Xian again while we follow up on our lead to Paradigm Cybernetics,” I said while lowering myself down to my stomach to let Xian hop off my back which she did rather reluctantly.

“It’s no trouble. She was so well behaved last time and it is the least I can do for you,” He said with a friendly smile as Xian slowly walked over to him. “And I agree with you in not taking her with you to the Impact Crater. You can’t protect her from what’s in there.”

I nodded. “Now you be a good filly for Mr Silver now ok, we’ll be back soon, I promise.”

“Don’t worry kidda, we’ll be back before you know it,” Fruity said with a flap of his wings.

The filly nodded and whimpered as she stood beside Silver, looking up on us with teary eyes. She looked so sad then. It was painful to look at.

“Oh, before I forget. Quartermane has volunteered to help guide you to Paradigm Cybernetics,” Silver suddenly piped up. “He stopped by early this morning to tell me he was going to help you and that he would meet you all at the crater’s edge.” The old unicorn levitated a rolled-up map to us. “He left this map for you to guide you to his little hideout.” I took the map with my nano-fibre tail and deposited it into one of my coat’s pockets. “Good luck out there you two.”

“Thank you so much,” Fruity and I said together, although Fruity only said the “Thank you” part.

We headed back down to the Plaza and trotted down the nearby stairs from the lift to the lower level, where the shops, bars and eateries were as we searched for a vendor that sold weapons and ammunition. Our search didn’t take too long as an old promotional cut out of a Steel Ranger standing outside of a shop was a clear indicator to what the shop sold, especially with a sign on it saying, “20% Off ammunition when bought with a Gun!”.

The door chimed with a charming little bell when we pushed open the door and entered the gun store. The inside looked like an old newsagents but its shelves now held old guns and ammo boxes of various types instead of newspapers. I groaned as my electronic brain gave me a history lesson I didn’t need on the guns that my eyes fell upon as we took in the store.

“Welcome to Hurt Locker, how may I help you?” A dull green Earth Pony with a white mane and tail said as he stepped out from behind his counter to greet us.

“Hi, um, I’m looking for 20-gauge shells and .357 Magnum rounds,” I said, listing off what ammo types I required for my guns.

“Ah, you’re in luck. I just got a fresh shipment of 20-gauge from the last salvage team that went out for me, but I’m afraid I don’t have any .357. That type of ammunition is rare to come by out here,”

“Oh, dang. Well I guess we’ll buy some 20-gauge shells,” I said with some disappointment that I wouldn’t be able to get any bullets for Lucky 13. “How many shells do you have in stock?”

“Hmm let’s see,” The Earth Pony walked over to a shelf that had a selection of shotguns and to an ammo box marked for 20-gauge and opened the lid. He muttered to himself for a moment before he pulled his head back. “I have exactly one hundred shells. I charge two caps per shell,”

“We have two hundred caps right Fruity?” I asked my companion.

He nodded as he reached into a pocket on his duster with a wing and pulled out one of our pouches of caps. “Yeah, we are still pretty loaded after that mercenary work we did,” He said.

I smiled. “Great, I’ll take all your 20-gauge shells,”

“Excellent,” He exclaimed clapping his forehooves together happily and then snatched the pouch of caps faster than any of us could blink and then dumped the ammo box at our hooves. “Pleasure doing business with you miss Stripe.”

“That’s Miss Eclair thank you very much,” I huffed in annoyed at the racial term being thrown my way again. I grabbed the ammo box with my tail and stormed out the store in a huff.

“Not cool mate, not cool,” Fruity sighed before he followed me out.

Outside the store and I filled my new coat’s pockets with the shells for my lever-action, I grumbled to myself in annoyance. “I may have not been born a Zebra but this constant racial discrimination against me for looking like one is starting to get to me,” I sighed.

Fruity gently wrapped a wing over my shoulders. “I know how you feel, us pegasi get a lot of stick too because of the Enclave but don’t let it get you down. We are better than them.”

I nuzzled his cheek. “Thank you for that, now come on, let’s hurry, I don’t want to keep Xian waiting too long.”

Fruity nodded as we headed for the station to leave the tower and then to our destination over at Starlight Tower.

XXXXX

We left the tower and made our way down to the streets below, beginning our trek to Starlight Tower. Along the way, we discovered that the fresh puddles from the radstorm were highly radioactive because when I stepped into one it made my PipBuck scream like a harpy. I wonder how resistant I am to radiation because of my endoskeleton if at all; I think I should see one of those doctor ponies back in Tenpony later to see if they can tell me.

We followed the route we took the previous day back to the tower, that included going through what remained of Rarity For You and back up Saddle Row until we were back at Check Point Glimmer in the courtyard to the tech giant’s head office building.

“Oh it’s you two again,” Bourbon said as she came out from around a destroyed statue base with a rifle being carried in her yellow magic. “Is there something else we can help you with?” The dark coloured unicorn asked as she approached us.

“Oh not really, we were just heading for Starlight Tower,” Fruity said as he stared up at the towering mass of glass and steel.

“We are looking for something that might hopefully be available inside,” I added while looking at her.

“Ah, well I’m sorry to say this but for whatever reason all access to the upper floors from the ground have all been collapsed and all elevators have also been disabled. There is no way up into the tower from the ground floor. You can be ballsy and try to jump from a nearby building and through a window or you can fly on up to that landing platform all the way up there,” Bourbon said cocking her head up to the tower while pointing her gun upwards toward the landing pad.

“Knackers,” Fruity sighed as he looked up at the landing pad hundreds of feet into the air.

“Most of the tower’s windows look intact around the lower half,” I commented while I scanned the building’s exterior.

“Bollocks,” Fruity sighed. “I think our best bet would be to fly for the landing platform as fast as possible.”

I nodded in agreement while giving my wings an experimental flap.

Fruity looked at my large wings with concern. “Have your wings and leg repaired themselves ok?” He asked.

“Thankfully they are ok. I ate some metallic objects before bed last night and I suppose it helped me repair myself while I slept,” I said with a tilt of the head. I still did not fully understand how any of that worked but I hope I’ll get my answers soon.

“I’ll leave you two to it then. Good luck,” Chocolate Bourbon said as she turned away and continued on her rounds.

“Thank you, bye,” I waved with a wing to which she just nodded as she walked on.

“Ok, that’s good,” Fruity began as he took another look at the tower. “Right ok, this tower is really tall. Hmm… I’d estimate about um, seven hundred, maybe even eight hundred feet tall. There aren’t any other buildings around that height close by so we’ll be in the open here. We’ll have to fly fast and hug the wall as close as possible to avoid being seen as much as we can until we reach the landing pad. From there I guess we’ll work it out as we go along.”

“That was nicely thought out,” He beamed at the praise but I gave a mischievous grin. “Apart from the end when you lost it.” He deflated at that but I giggled and nuzzled him which helped to perk him back up.

“Ok, you ready?” He asked as he spread his purple wings wide ready for take-off.

I nodded as I mimicked him by opening my own white and grey feathered wings ready to fly. I could feel a strong sense of energy flow through me as my mana-core activated to power the levitation talismans in my wings.

“Ok, in three, two, one!” He counted down and on one we both shot up into the air with great powerful flaps of our wings.

XXXXX

“Have you finished sorting out the different mana-core frequencies yet?” Unit 2 asked with a bored tone as he sat on the pavement outside a long time since out of business café.

“I don’t see you trying to do anything, you lazy shit,” Unit 1 fired back while she stood a few feet away with her head held high while she tried to narrow down the multiple power signatures to those similar to theirs.

“I’m not as skilled as you,” He said with a sigh.

This made the feminine robot lower her head and look at him and then spoke in a deadpan voice. “We are robots, we are not any better than each other.”

“Really Razzle, you seem better than me in everything,” He grumbled.

“Get a hold of yourself Unit 2, don’t let the mind you took confuse you,” She said with concern for her companion, fearing the mind was having an unanticipated effect on his neural processor.

Unit 2 shook his head to reign in his thoughts. “Sorry, it’s getting harder to supress these feelings.”

Unit 1 disguised as Corporal Razzle stepped over to her brother and placed a comforting hoof onto his shoulder armour. “You are not alone. I’m here to help you after all, like a sister should despite what the Commander thinks,” She said, failing to notice her own slip.

“Thanks sis.”

“Yo…” Razzle was cut off as she was alerted to an energy spike that matched the mana-core frequency identical to her own. She whirled around and looked down the street and then up at a tower in the distance with a pink neon sign that said “Glimmer”.

Buckshot stood up in alert as he too had felt the surge. “What is it?” He asked as he readied his battlesaddle.

If Unit 1 could smile she would have given him a smirk. “I’ve found the Mark 1,” She said as she then nodded her head in the direction of the tower. “It would seem her mana-core only uses its full potential when she’s flying, she’s flying fast up the side of that building over there,” She indicated the tower as she spoke.

“Well then, shall we pay them a visit?”

“But of course,” Razzle said as she and her brother began for the tower.

XXXXX

I knew from my past life before all this that pegasi could fly fast but I never knew just how fast. We had been able to cover the distance between the ground and the landing pad within a minute, which astonished me. Furthermore, I felt that niggling feeling of wanting to race Fruity as I followed behind him all the way up. I had to restrain myself from trying to overtake him despite the little voice in the back of my head screaming at me to push myself harder, to beat him and gloat. Another thing I noticed was that I produced a teal green and golden orange contrail behind me as we sped up the side of the building; I noticed it in the reflections of the windows that were still intact. I only know of a hoofful of pegasus ponies that were fast enough to do that and one of them was the ministry mare Rainbow Dash. Does this mean I have the magic of some top flyer in me? Just what did that upgrade station do to me?

“Phew, we made it,” Fruity smiled in relief as he panted heavily for breath.

“Yeah, thankfully,” I agreed, thankful that the flight was uneventful. “Are you ok?”

“Phew yeah, just haven’t flown that fast in a while. I’ll be alright,” He wheezed.

The view from up here was amazing; we could see all of western and southern Manehattan. It was incredible to see just how much of the city still lived from up here. We could see in several areas where lights still blazed in the dark of the constant cloud cover. The lights were a beacon to areas where ponies still lived in the city. I smiled, happy to know ponies were still clinging to life in other areas in Manehattan than just in Tenpony.

The landing platform was rather large, big enough for several chariots or one of those new Vertibucks they had made in the later years of the war. There was however an unusual sight on the landing pad that greeted us when we landed. Sitting almost dead centre on the landing pad was a jet black chariot that bore the insignia of the Ministry of Image, a stylish I on top of a crescent moon with three diamonds to the left side of the I and moon.

“I didn’t know Rarity looked into the technology side of things,” I said after noticing the chariot.

“I don’t think it’s actually hers. I mean this thing is clean and still has its wheels, but it doesn’t look like it’s been here that long either,” Fruity observed cautiously.

“Then there could be somepony here?” I asked as I looked over to the building ahead of us.

“Probably. I think we need to be cautious, you know, just in case.”

I nodded in agreement and gave the chariot a wide berth (just in case). A bridge connected from the platform and to the building with a pair of wide glass doors that laid wide open as if inviting us in. A sign on the wall read “Sky Reception” with an arrow pointing ahead. It is not surprising that this building would have two receptions, one for the ground and one for top where ponies would come and go from the landing pad would arrive and go from.

We stood in the rather spacious reception room amidst what had probably been the remains of the chaos that had befallen the tower when the evacuation broadcast sounded. The waiting chairs were all over the place, some of the coffee tables were displaced or flipped over, papers and old magazines littered the floor, a lot of the ceiling tiles had fallen through with wires and cables dangling down in places, and plenty of other debris littered the corners.

“They really need to fire their cleaning staff,” Fruity joked.

“I think Starlight actually had those Ms Nanny robots to do all that,” I said while looking around for a possible direction to go. One hallway was caved in to the left of us which left us with the back corridor that led us deeper into the tower.

“Where the bloody hell are we even going?” Fruity asked as we followed the corridor.

“I dunno, I’m as clueless as you,” I quipped. “Where would they have Hazmat Suits, in a place like this?”

“Err, um, let’s see,” Fruity rubbed at his goatee with a wingtip as he thought. “Hmm, probably close to a lab, we’ll need to…” He was cut off just as we turned a corner and found ourselves in a hallway with some elevators but just as one of the lifts thrummed to life.

“Err, somepony is coming,” I whimpered.

“Knackers, hide,” Fruity urged and we swiftly hid ourselves behind the opposite corner shrouded in shadow but with a hole in the wall behind us that let some light in that cast a shadow into the hallway.

Fruity rolled the Q-Modulator off his back and primed it ready to fire just as we could hear the sound of the lift getting closer and closer. Fearing we may have a fight on our hooves when those doors opened, I opted to follow Fruity’s example and used my nano-fibre tail to get my now fully loaded lever-action shotgun off my back and cocked ready to fire. After another agonising minute of waiting the lift finally dinged to signal it had reached its floor and the door slid open.

“Stay calm and still Crystal,” Fruity whispered despite his own light shaking of anticipation.

“Clear!” A somewhat familiar voice called out that was followed by heavy metallic hoofsteps.

“Come now Wirbelwind, it is not necessary for you to defend me like the soldier you used to be,” Chided another familiar voice. “We are friends after all.”

“Ugh, I’m sorry Scrap, old habits die hard,” The voice we now know as Wirbelwind replied. I’m sure I’ve heard that name before.

“It’s ok, after how long you served in the Enclave I can’t expect you to just drop everything just like that, but I would prefer you not to treat me like one of your old commanders when we are alone and away from the work force,” The other voice said.

“I’ll try, it’s just that you command such a presence with your image I find it hard to not fall back on my old training.”

“They drilled the “Respect the chain of command” into you pretty hard didn’t they?”

“They were very strict yes,” Wirbelwind sighed. “Wait a minute, we are not alone here. Who’s there? Identify yourself!” He barked along with two chimes which we assumed were energy weapons charging up.

“Crap. Fruity, we’re adding a shadow and our little movements can be seen,” I whispered.

“Bollocks to buggery,” He sighed.

“Come out nice and slow,” Wirbelwind commanded.

“I would do as he says please,” The other voice said calmly but with authority and his voice was followed by a loud click and clank before a motor revved.

“Ok, ok, we’re coming out, please don’t shoot,” I shouted back fearfully.

We slung our weapons and slowly stepped out into the corridor and immediately our eyes widened in surprise as we didn’t expect to see the giant earth pony that was standing behind a power armoured pegasus again.

“Motor Runner,” I greeted with a sigh of relief which Fruity shared despite being nervous and tense in the presence of the Enclave armoured pegasus.

The giant earth pony blinked in surprise at us knowing his name. “Do I know you?” He asked as he gazed at us, we could see it in his eyes as he tried to remember. I suppose he wouldn’t recognise me right now since I didn’t have a pair of wings the last time we met and I’m wearing a different outfit. “Wait, you’re that zebra and pegasus that took care of Tango Jack for me, aren’t you?”

I smiled and nodded.

He smiled and relaxed his stance, his chainsaw foreleg withdrawing and returning to its normal state. “You can stand down Wirbelwind, these two ponies are on good terms with me.”

The armoured pegasus hesitated for a moment before disarming his armour’s built-in plasma weapons. “Yes sir.”

“It is good to see you again Ms Éclair, you as well Mr Fruity,” Motor Runner said softly as he fully stepped out of the lift and in a few strides of his long legs stood in front of us. “I hope you are getting by ok in the wasteland.”

“As well as we can be,” Fruity said with a grimace when he looked over to me, specifically my wings.

“You did not have wings the last time we met or were they hidden under your duster?” Motor Runner asked with his attention on my wings.

“I had an accident that gave me them,” I answered vaguely with a frown. “I really don’t want to talk about it.”

“Hmm fair enough,” The large well-groomed stallion must have sensed that it was a sore subject as he backed off and changed the subject. “What brings you to Starlight Tower?”

“Oh, we are looking for some pegasi hazmat suits,” Fruity replied.

“Ah, I believe there are some in a storage room near one of the labs on the same floor we had just been.” Motor Runner said as he gently rubbed his chin with his cybernetic forehoof. “Hmm, am I right Wirbelwind?”

The addressed pegasus stepped forward, Fruity tensed and took a step back, and nodded. “That is correct, but the security for that floor is active. You’ll have to be careful as you’ll be dealing with ceiling turrets of both ballistic and energy variants,”

“What about the security station, can’t we just turn them off with the terminal there?” Fruity asked.

“Unfortunately not. The security station is sealed because the floor above has collapsed into the room preventing all access.”

“Bollocks,” Fruity groaned.

“Why can’t anything be simple out here?” I whined.

“That is the way of the wasteland my dear Crystal, if it was easy we wouldn’t have to fend for ourselves so dearly,” Motor Runner said with a shake of his head.

“What did you come here for?” Fruity asked. The armoured pegasus bristled, like he was expecting something bad to happen.

“Calm yourself Wirblewind, we do not need to worry about these two,” Motor Runner said calmly to his smaller friend. “Don’t mind him, he’s been a loyal friend of mine since he became a Dashite, now,” Motor Runner coughed to clear his throat. “We came here looking for information on Particle Accelerators. I have a few powerful ones in my possession that require some work but I needed to find information and schematics so my restoration teams can restore them. We found what we were looking for and are now heading back home.”

“Oh, cool,” I said, not really understanding what a particle accelerator was but it sounded important.

“What would you need hazmat suits for, not planning on going somewhere dangerous are you?” He asked.

“Um, heh actually we are,” I said with a nervous chuckle. “We found out where I might find out about my past and it happens to be in the crater, that’s why we need the suits,” I explained.

“I see, well I wish you the best of luck in your journey and be very careful down on Floor 93. We only destroyed the security in where we needed to be, so the rest of the floor’s security will be active.”

I nodded in thanks.

“Sir, we better go now if we want to avoid another storm,” Wirbelwind said with concern. “Since my armour is incomplete I can only take so much during a RadStorm,” He was helmetless afterall.

The large purple stallion nodded. “Yes, it is best we make our leave. Good luck Crystal and Fruity. If you get what you need and go to the crater, watch yourself and be on your guard at all times, it is not a very hospitable place,” And with that the tall and handsome stallion turned and began to walk away, his long legs taking him away quickly. Wirbelwind nodded to each of us before he followed after his friend.

We watched as the two ponies left before we turned and entered the lift they used and pressed the button for Floor 93 like Motor Runner had informed us was a good floor to check. As the elevator began its journey down Fruity spoke his mind.

“I wonder what he needs particle accelerators for?” He asked nopony in particular.

“I don’t know but, um, what’s a particle accelerator?” I asked.

“Huh, oh, a particle accelerator is a device that uses electromagnets to accelerate particles to high speeds,” The pegasus shivered in a grimace as he seemed to remember something. “That reminds me, one of the Enclave Thunderheads was fitted with an experimental Particle Accelerator Cannon. I don’t know the details of it since I just overheard an off-duty soldier talking about it one night while during my shift.”

What Fruity just said raised more questions, and considering they were about the Enclave and his history with them, I decided to wait till a later date to question him about what was on my mind. Right now though we had to focus on the floor full of security so we could recover a pair of hazmat suits.

“Can’t this thing go any faster?” Fruity complained while he watched the floor number dwindle down as we approached our floor. “There’s a thought, why are these lifts working when the ones on the ground aren’t?”

“Huh, oh, um I would say because the tower it so tall the elevators can only go so far up so they would need another set of elevators to go the rest of the way,” I replied.

He nodded in understanding as he started to prance in place.

“Are you ok?” I asked with concern.

“Yeah, just… don’t like being stuck in tight spaces for a long time.”

I sat next to him and wrapped my foreleg around his shoulders and hugged him close. I smiled softly as I felt him relax a little. “Don’t worry Fruity, I’m here with you.”

“Thanks, Crys.”

I kissed his cheek just as the lift slowed down and then came to a shuddering stop. Once it stopped and settled it dinged and the doors opened. I smiled and let Fruity out of the lift first. The pegasus took a deep breath and sighed in relief.

“Glad I’m out of there.”

I nodded and looked around. The lift had dropped us off in a T-junction, corridors stretched out ahead of us and on either side, giving us three separate directions to go.

“Um, where do we start?” Fruity asked.

I opened my mouth to make a snarky comment when I noticed a direction marker on my EFS. “I might have something,” I said and turned my head to the right until the direction marker was dead centre with my compass. “I have a direction marker on my EFS pointing that way,” I announced while pointing at a wall between the right and middle hallways.

Fruity turned to face the same direction. “So the suits could be around the north-eastern corner of the building?”

“It seems it,” I replied with a nod.

“Alrighty then, let’s hurry up and get this over with.”

With a nod we began to walk down the right hallway. As we began down the corridor we passed doors that led into labs for testing an assortment of different things. Some of the doors even had hazard warnings for corrosive and harmful materials, but they were not the labs we needed to check so we had no need to enter them. We soon came to a ninety degree turn and as soon as we stepped around to start following the corridor up, we heard a mechanical clunking sound and then a deep beep from above further ahead. Ahead of us in the top corner of the corridor before a doorway was a black dome-like device that had opened up, a central piece dropped down with a yellow light and a barrel of sorts which extended out when it beeped. The yellow light turned red at the exact same time my threat warning flashed in my HUD and the ceiling device began to fire bullets at us in a rapid stream.

“HOLY FUCKING CELESTIA’S FAT FLANK!” Fruity cursed as we scrambled to take cover back around the corner we just came from.

I slipped onto my rump as I made a quick turn as bullets whizzed by. Just as I picked myself back up I felt a sharp burning sting on my forehead and I yelped as I jumped behind the safety of the wall. Fruity galloped for the corner before letting out a cry of pain as bullets impacted him in his right hind leg. He fell onto his side before making it completely behind the wall so I grabbed him with my forehooves and pulled him to safety as quick as I could.

“Shit, what the hell was that?” I cried in shock.

“Argh fuck,” Fruity groaned as he sat up. “Ceiling turret, can’t believe we forgot about the security being active.”

I mentally facehooved. “Yeah, um, are you ok?” I asked with worry for my coltfriend.

“I’ll be right as rain once I down a healing potion,” He replied as he opened a wing and tucked his head under it so he could stuff his muzzle into his duster’s pocket. He groaned and grimaced in pain for a moment longer before he pulled his head back with a small bottle in his mouth, and with the use of his tongue he removed the cork and let the magic healing liquid pour into his muzzle. With a satisfied sigh, he sat back and watched as the few wounds on his leg heal.

The purple pegasus smiled at me. “We were lucky there, that turret nearly got us by surprise,” He said before he tilted his head as he looked at me.

“What is it?” I asked when I noticed him staring.

“You got a hole in your hat,” He said as he reached up and plucked my stetson off my head and showed me were a small circular hole sat at the base of my hat where the wide brim began. His eyes then widened with shock as he stared at my uncovered forehead now. “Fuck me Crystal; it’s a good job your skeleton is made of metal now, damn!”

“Huh?” I asked confused and reached up and felt at my forehead with a hoof and froze when I felt a small metallic object lodged into my forehead. “I… I been shot in the head,” I squeaked and quickly rubbed at the wound until the bullet popped out and fell to the floor.

“Yeah, thank Celestia turrets use low calibre bullets,” Fruity remarked nonplussed by the event.

“I could have died!” I shrieked as I held a hoof over my chest as I could feel my heart hammering in my chest from the sudden terror at the thought I could have been killed from taking that hit.

“Whoa, whoa easy,” Fruity urged as he grabbed my shoulders. “Calm down Crys, you’re fine, you’re not hurt, breathe.”

I panted but nodded and took a few deep calming breaths before my racing heart finally began to slow down and my breathing was brought back under control.

“I hate to remind you of this, but your skeleton is made of metal and it’ll take something stronger than what those turrets have to pierce it, but that doesn’t mean you should just be a bullet sponge.”

I gave Fruity a flat look. As if I’ll be willing to put myself in the line of fire like that. I may be able to withstand low calibre rounds but it doesn’t mean I’ll lose my sense of mortality. I’m still organic at heart, literally and figuratively speaking as well.

The pegasus didn’t seem to notice the look I gave him as he turned around and back to the corner. He pressed himself flat against the wall and edged his way to the corner and slowly peeked his head out to look around.

“Turret is still active; we’ll need to destroy it if we are to progress further.”

Beep!

“FACK!” Fruity yelled and quickly pulled his head back just in time to avoid a stream of bullets.

I rushed over to him. “Are you alright?!” I asked in worry.

“Yeah, yeah,” He breathed out in relief. “Fucking hate ceiling turrets,” He muttered as he prepared his Q-Modulator. The plasma assault rifle thrummed to life and glowed brightly with energy as Fruity stood on his hind legs and held the weapon in his forelegs. He used his wings to balance himself as again he walked close to wall and prepared to lean out with his rifle. “Crystal, can you act as a decoy to draw its attention?” He asked.

“I beg your pardon?” I shrieked.

“It’s not because of that I swear. That bloody thing will be pointing this way as soon as I step out to shoot it. If you run out quickly to draw it away from the corner, I can blast it before it can lock on, I promise,” He urged.

“If it shoots me, I’m gonna slap you,” I threated and gulped as I prepared to run into the corridor. What the hell am I doing?

“This is so thrilling,” I swear I heard that voice say in the back of my head.

“Ready?” Fruity asked as he held his weapon ready to fire.

“As ready as I’ll ever be,” I groaned. I could feel my heart beat hard again in my chest with the anxiety of what I was about to do.

“NOW!” Fruity yelled.

I let out a scream as I ran into the corridor with my eyes closed and began to run up towards the door. I heard the turret whir as it repositioned and tracked my movement.

“Gotcha bitch!” Fruity shouted smugly as he released a burst of plasma bolts into the ceiling mounted turret.

I skidded to a stop when the turret exploded and fell from its mount and crashed onto the floor in front of me with a resounding clang.

“Oh thank the goddesses,” I sighed in relief that he destroyed it before it fired at me.

Fruity slung his rifle and stepped up beside me. “There we go, that wasn’t so bad now was it,” He said with a dumb smile.

I extended a wing and gave him a light clip to the back of the head.

“Ow what was that for,” He whimpered.

“Using me as cannon fodder,” I grumbled.

He rubbed the back of his head as he gave an apologetic chuckle. “Hehe sorry but it was the only thing I could think of for us to get passed it.”

“Let’s try to avoid that next time shall we,” I sighed.

He nodded as he then approached the destroyed turret and began to root around inside it. He used a combination of his wings and hooves to rip out a pair of circuit boards, and then a small box that was a little deeper inside.

“What’s all that?” I asked.

“These,” He said as he held up the circuit boards. “Are its targeting system. It can sell for a good price and this,” He then gestured to the small box. “Is the ammunition feeder. By taking this out we get all the rounds within the turret itself,” He used his hooves to pry open the lid and then pour the bullets onto the flat of his hoof. “And this thing contained… fifteen, ten millimetre bullets. Kinda useless for our current loadout but again we can sell these.”

I nodded in agreement. Once he was finished pilfering the destroyed turret for anything useful we continued on. The corridor took another right turn beyond the door and we stopped just before the corner.

“Does your EFS pick up anything?” Fruity asked as he prepared his weapon again.

I looked down to the bottom left of my HUD and saw two red bars on my compass, the direction putting them down the corridor. I nodded. “Yes, two hostile targets down the hallway.”

He nodded as he held his weapon. With a deep breath in and a slow exhale he stepped out around the corner. I watched with baited breath as he quickly raised his weapon and fired a burst of plasma fire down the corridor at a target I couldn’t see while still being behind cover. His burst of plasma was shortly followed by a small explosion to signal that a turret got destroyed but that still left one more hostile target. My threat warning flashed and I quickly grabbed Fruity by his tail and yanked on it hard, pulling him quickly back behind the safety of the corner wall just in time to avoid a stream of red energy beams that began to hit the floor where he stood.

“Faust that was close,” Fruity sighed. “And OW!”

“What is that?” I asked with wide eyes as I watched the red energy beams lace the floor for a good minute before it stopped, leaving the old laminated floor sizzling.

“There were two turrets at the end of the hall, both are arcane laser turrets,” He grumbled. “I hate those ones the most, armour can get quickly chewed to pieces by the intense energy beams and they can turn ponies to ash if a good percentage of the beams hit in quick succession.”

I felt even more nervous about dealing with high end security now. Just how far did ponies go to protect what was theirs?

Fruity leaned his head out to find the turret but quickly pulled his head back and it was a good thing he did as arcane lasers quickly followed and began to burn into the floor again.

“Cock and bollocks!” Fruity cursed. “Damn thing must have a sensor; it’s still pointing this way!”

“What about distracting it?” I asked nervously.

“Not this time, the lasers will be something that’ll tear you apart. I can’t risk that,” Fruity said as he gave me a serious look.

“How are we going to get passed it?”

“Heh, by blindly shooting around the corner,” He said as he stepped away from the corner and gestured for me to sit there instead. “I think you’ll have to do it, your tail can hold the gun without exposing any part of you. Keep the weapon as low to the floor as possible as to try and avoid its sensor.”

I gulped and nodded as I sat down by the corner as instructed. I then took Lucky 13 out of its holster with my nano-fibre tail, and threaded the hairs around the grip and trigger to hold it securely before snaking the gun across the floor so it was pointing down the corridor. I took a deep breath to steady my nerves as I slowly leaned my head out so I could see my target, just enough to let me see the turret. It was nestled in the far-left corner at the end of the hall before another door; it looked just the same as the other turret apart from the barrel being a laser emitter. I tilted the revolver up and to the side so it was pointing in the turret’s general direction before I pulled my head back behind the wall and began to squeeze the trigger with my tail. The small but powerful revolver fired off round after round. I could hear how one round obliterated a ceiling tile while another imbedded itself in the far wall but the third struck the turret as there was a resounding clang. My fourth shot was a miss as well but my fifth and sixth shots both hit, and I think my final bullet must have hit something vital because the red marker disappeared from my EFS.

“The red marker is gone,” I announced.

“Good shooting Crys,” Fruity praised.

I smiled and let out a sigh of relief, and then holstered my spent revolver and stood up. We trotted down the corridor until we came to the door. Fruity spent a minute looting the destroyed turrets for junk and some extra micro-mana cells before we opened the door. Once open, we found ourselves inside a relatively large laboratory, the wall to the left of us was entirely made of glass and we could see outside into the ruined city. I felt grateful to the ponies that built this place for installing sturdy windows; Celestia knows the chaos we’d be under with strong winds blowing through here. The lab seemed pretty boring and bare, like everything was put away and cleared before the evacuation took place, but there were two things that did catch our interest. Two pedestals close to the glass wall, a good ten hooves apart from each other and surrounded by an arcane containment field, and floating inside these containment fields above the pedestals was a smooth green crystal about the size of my hoof above one and a jagged blue crystal in the other.

“What are those?” I asked in curiosity as I approached the containment fields. However, as I got within five hooves of the green crystal’s containment field my PipBuck began ticking and I quickly jumped back. “Whoa, radiation spike!”

“Wow really, from what?” Fruity asked as he joined me.

I simply pointed at the green crystal.

“Huh, I guess that’s why they are behind those shields, just how many rads did you take?”

“I don’t know, I didn’t look.”

“Why don’t you go check it out?” He asked.

I gasped in shock. “You want me to see just how much radiation those things give off?”

“I’d do it myself but I don’t have a PipBuck and I can’t simply borrow yours since it’s fixed to your leg,” He explained as he lifted a wing and dipped his head back into a pocket for a moment before pulling back. “I do have a Rad-Away so you’ll be cured of any radiation you take.”

“You better get it ready, I don’t want to be glowing like a lava lamp and melting through the floor,” I whined and approached the green crystal’s containment field. Why am I doing this? My PipBuck began ticking again and my HUD began to display Rads per second in the top right corner of my vision. As I entered the radiation it started at one rad per second but by the time I reached the shield, it was reading five rads per second. “Five rads,” I called back to Fruity before I quickly made my way back.

I shivered after getting out of the radiation. Being close to that green crystal made me feel uneasy, like there was something sinister about the crystal. I gulped down my nerves and approached the blue one, I began taking rads well before I got as close to it like the green one which told me the blue one was stronger, and boy was it! By the time I got to the shield I was taking twenty rads; and I quickly turned tail and ran back to Fruity so I could get out of that heavy radiation. I yelped as I felt a slight electric shock run up my spine when my tail slapped against the shield as I turned quickly.

“You ok?” Fruity asked as he gave me a glowing orange pouch.

“Yeah, just got a slight shock from the shield, and thank you,” I said with a smile as I took the pouch and drank down the tangy orange fluid. I sighed with relief as I felt the medicine settle and purge the little accumulation of radiation I attained.

“WARNING, INTRUDERS DETECTED IN TIBER CRYSTAL LABORATORY!”

“Ponyfeathers,” Fruity cursed as he whirled around looking for threats as a warning siren sounded after the alert.

I did the same but I couldn’t see anything in the room that would easily stand out as a turret and I didn’t see any red markers on my compass either, but we’ve been detected so something might turn up.

“I don’t see anything,” Fruity said looking around while on his guard.

“Me neither,” I agreed while examining the room. As I scanned the room, I saw my direction marker hovering over a door to the left on the far side from the door we came in from. “There, that door, that’s where we need to go,” I pointed out with a wing.

“Ok, let’s get the hell out of here before something shows up.”

I nodded, but as we made for the door a ceiling tile dropped to the floor from the very centre of the room which made us pause.

“What was that?”

“Hostile!” I warned with my wings flared as I stared up at the hole in the ceiling now.

As we stared up at the ceiling, a reflective dome descended from the hole. It reminded me of one of those large old CCTV camera units from a department store that looked like a giant half sphere. However, this thing had a pure reflective surface; and as we stared at it, confused to what it could be, an electric hum began to fill the air.

“F-Fruity, what is that?” I asked, afraid of what the dome like device could be as the surface began to shimmer with electricity.

“Err… Oh no.”

“What, what is?” I asked with wide eyes.

“Tesla Coil, run, hurry, NOW!” Fruity urged and he barged into my side to get me moving.

As we began to run for the door that my direction marker had indicated, the dome was glowing brightly and crackled with power. Suddenly, a bright arc of electricity shot down from the Tesla Coil and began to tear across the floor before it dissipated.

“Oh shit!”

We jumped over tables and chairs as we made for the door. Fruity made it to the door first and threw it open.

“Quickly, inside, hurry!” He urged frantically but then his eyes widened in alarm. “Crystal look out!”

I did the stupidest thing possible and turned around. I gasped in shock as an electrical arc from the trap was barrelling towards me. I found myself frozen in fear as the arc jumped from the floor and collided with my armoured chest piece, but as it hit, it stopped. However, despite the hit only being on my armour and lasting for but a moment, it seeped through the armour, my skin and into my endoskeleton and I could feel how my body responded. It spasmed hard and I felt like someone was poking me with a million white hot needles at once. When the sensation subsided, I opened my eyes and “System Error!” briefly flashed across my vision before it disappeared.

“Crystal, shit, get your curvy flank in here now!”

I groaned as I quickly turned and ran into the room. Fruity quickly shut the door behind me to prevent the Tesla Coil from sending an arc in after us.

“Fuck!” Fruity exclaimed as he grabbed my shoulders and looked me over with worry in his eyes. “Are you ok, are you hurt?” He asked worriedly.

“I… I feel ok, although my power cell is fully charged now,” I assured him. I felt a little shaken but other that and being fully recharged, I felt fine. Suddenly my vision flickered for a brief moment like a lightbulb on its way out. Ok, may be I’m not fine.

The room we found ourselves in was pretty small. It was nothing but a storeroom for the hazmat suits used by the scientists that once worked in Starlight Tower, and there were quite a few of them here, all hung up on coat hooks. Most of them were yellow with bubble like helmets apart from two of them. The two that stood out were white and these white ones had extra pouches on the sides to suggest they were pegasi suits.

“I guess we found them,” Fruity said as he pulled down one of the white ones. “Heh, these kinda look like the Enclave Environmental Suits but without Enclave markings.”

“They do?” I asked while I reached for the other one.

Fruity nodded as he began to fold up the suit and then slipped it into one of his magic pockets.

As I picked my suit off the hook my vision went fuzzy all of a sudden. “System Error!” Appeared again across my vision and instead of seeing in colour when everything cleared up again, I was seeing everything in shades of electric blue. I stood frozen with my eyes wide, not sure what to make of my sudden change in visual quality, but before I could dwell on it any further my vision flashed and I was able to see again in full colour again as “System Restored” flashed across my vision.

“Hey, you ok, you’ve been staring into space for a little while now,” Fruity asked as he poked my flank.

“I… I think something’s wrong,” I whimpered worriedly.

“What do you mean?” He asked with worry.

“My eyes, they lost colour for a moment and I saw it flash “System Error” and “System Restored” before everything went ok again.”

Fruity’s ears wilted sadly. “I’m not much of a technical pony. If something technical like that has gone wrong with you Crystal, I… I don’t think I could help you.”

I gently hugged him. “Hey, don’t worry about that Fruity. I think I have a self-repair function. It did say “System Restored” after all. I guess I just need to keep my body topped up with whatever it needs to run the functions and I should be able to just repair myself like my wings and fetlock have repaired themselves,” I told him. “I hope,” I added mentally.

He gave a weak smile. “Ok, but if you continue to have problems, maybe we should pay the doctors at Tenpony a visit. I know there is one doctor that specialises in cybernetics or some other doings like that there.”

I nodded in agreement and folded up the suit I picked and slipped it into my new overcoat’s magic pocket. Now we just need to get past the Tesla Coil, oh joy.

Fruity opened the door a crack and peeked out. “Oh, it looks like the Tesla Coil is about to blow up, it’s smoking up a storm,” He said and then opened the door fully. Sure enough, the dome like device was smoking badly as it discharged electricity in random directions. I suppose not being used for nearly two hundred years and then suddenly being forced to use a lot of power didn’t agree with its circuitry. “I guess we can wait for it to blow itself up.”

I nodded before my vision started flickering again. I whimpered in worry as the system error message appeared again while my vision felt like it was flicking on and off, like somepony was rapidly turning a light switch on and off. It lasted for about a minute before it seemed to sort itself out and the system restored message appeared again. I think that Tesla Coil affected me more than I realised.

The Tesla Coil released another arc of electricity that tore across the floor that then jumped from the floor and struck the shield that contained the blue Tiber Crystal. The trap then exploded shortly after the discharge that hit the shield, but it left a sizeable arcane crack in the shield’s surface and it began to spider web, like the radiation from the blue crystal was overwhelming the now compromised shield.

“We better get out of here before that shield breaks,” I cautioned.

“Yeah, I don’t want to glow in the dark,” Fruity said and with a nod we quickly ran out and crossed the torn-up lab. As we ran across the lab we noticed that the Tesla Coil had set a couple of tables on the far side on fire and it was slowly spreading, but it wasn’t of any of our concern so we ignored it and continued into the corridor to head back to the lifts.

When we reached the door where we encountered our first turret, I ground to a halt as my vision began to flicker again but this time it was really bad. It was so bad that I couldn’t really see because it was flashing so badly.

“Crystal, what’s wr… bloody nora, I can literally see your eyes flashing!” Fruity exclaimed when he turned around after he noticed I had stopped.

“I don’t know what’s wrong, but it’s so bad,” I squeaked in a panic.

The flashing got even worse that eventually everything went black and I found myself totally blind but before everything went dark the words, “System Reboot Initiated” flashed across my eyes.

“Oh damn, your eyes just dulled, what happened?” Fruity asked in concern.

“I CAN’T SEE!” I screamed fearfully in his face. Being blind like this felt similar to how I did back during when I was being upgraded where I was trapped in my head and had no sense of sight, sound or touch. At least I still had everything else at the moment but being unable to see, just total darkness was still very terrifying.

I felt two strong hooves grasp my shoulders and gently squeeze. “I’m here, don’t worry, we’ll get through this. I promise,” Fruity reassured me although he sounded like he was panicking himself.

“Please don’t leave me,” I practically sobbed, fearing he’d leave me on my own here and now that I currently had lost my sight. I mentally had to scold myself for thinking he would do that. He wasn’t that sort of pony and if he felt for me like I felt for him he wouldn’t even dream of such a thing.

“I’m not going anywhere, it actually hurts that you’d even think that,” He said in a hurt tone.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it, I’m just panicking.”

“Well, come on,” He pulled away from me because I felt his forehooves leave my shoulders and then I felt his tail brush over my nose. “Hold my tail and I’ll lead you,” He said as he continued to brush his tail across my nose. His second pass made me let out a squeaky sneeze but on the third I clamped my jaws on his tail. With his tail in my mouth I could easily smell his musky male scent with a hint of mulberry. It was kinda pleasant to be honest.

“Eeyow, careful, that’s my tail, not a chew toy,” He whined.

“Sorry,” I mumbled with a mouthful of tail.

He began to walk forward, and his tail tugged in my mouth which prompted me to start walking forward. He kept at a slow pace and when we came to the right hoof turn to take us back to the lifts, he called out to me to let me know of the turn so I wouldn’t keep on walking forward and smack my nose into the wall. Shortly after we made the turn my vision flashed again and everything came back into focus and was clear again. As if to clarify that everything was well again the words “System Reboot Complete” flashed across my vision.

I let go of Fruity’s tail and let out a happy cheer that I could see again. “I can see, I can see!” I squealed in delight, even flapping my wings and rising up off the floor to the point I bumped my head into the ceiling.

“Heh, well that’s a relief,” Fruity said with a relieved smile. “Come back down and let’s get outta here.”

“System Error,” Flashed in my vision again and suddenly I fell out of the air and crashed into the floor like ton of bricks. I must have hit the floor with my full seven hundred and fifty-pound weight as I felt the floor buckle a bit beneath me and I swear I felt my hind leg bust and dangle through the ceiling of the floor below us.

“Faust above, I know I said come back down but jeez?” Fruity chastised as he jumped away to avoid me landing on him.

I groaned as I struggled to free myself from the small crater I made. “I dunno what happened. It was like the thingies that make me weightless so I can fly suddenly turned off.”

“That Tesla Coil must have knackered more than just your eyes; maybe we should go back to the tower?” Fruity suggested.

I shook my head. “No, we’ve come so far and I couldn’t break Xian’s heart by going back hurt like this only to leave and leave her behind again since we would still need to go to the crater. Once we get back down to the ground we’ll be fine, at least it’s not my eyes now right.”

“I still think we should go back in case something more serious goes wrong with you, but I understand not wanting to hurt Xian’s feelings. Are you really sure about this?” He asked while giving me a hard look.

I nodded just as I got the system restored message. “Not to mention we have that Quartermane fella waiting for us to near the crater’s rim.”

Fruity sighs. “Ah yes the old bloke, I don’t approve of this but you’re right, not like we can just call him using your PipBuck’s broadcaster. I don’t think you even know how to use it either do you?” I shook my head since I’ve never once had to use it so I actually won’t know what to do with it. “Then we can’t contact the tower either since we can’t tune into the tower’s frequency, which I don’t know either, and since you don’t know how to use your broadcaster it’ll be more trouble than its worth. Ugh, ok let’s move quickly and as soon as something happens we’ll stop until it corrects itself ok?”

I nodded in agreement and we continued up the corridor. Again the system error flashed across my vision and when I kicked off the floor while walking, I suddenly found myself floating upwards.

“Eep, Fruity, little help,” I squeaked as I flailed around helpless as I slowly rose into the air as if I was in space.

Fruity turned around and looked confused when he didn’t see me but then gasped when he saw me nearly touching the ceiling again. “Um, need a hoof?”

“Yes, please, get me down before I end up putting a hole through the floor again,” I whined.

Fruity flew up to me and grabbed my forehooves with his and gently pulled me back down so I could put my own hooves back on the floor. Once back on the ground he had to rest a wing on my back to keep me grounded.

“Good thing we’re inside,” He sighed.

I nodded grimly.

Again the system restored message flashed across my vision and I could feel my body getting its weight back as the talismans turned off. We made it to the lifts and boarded it and then hit the button for the top floor. We had little patience to stay in this tower any longer, especially for another malfunction to occur.

“Warning, Blue Tiber Crystal containment shield failure imminent!” Blared an alarm that made us worry.

“Oh, that can’t be good.”

“Malfunction detected in Tiber Crystal Lab security doors, containment door failure… Warning all personnel must evacuate upper half of Starlight Tower, Repeat, all personnel must evacuate upper half of Starlight Tower!”

“Knackers!” Fruity groaned while he began to rapidly press the button for the top floor as if to hope it’ll make it go faster.

“Um, what is a Tiber Crystal?” I asked. We probably would have had a look to see if we could have found anything on them in the lab, but considering the cleanliness of the lab plus the situation we found ourselves in, we couldn’t.

“Bollocks if I know, but if that blue one is causing such alarms then they can’t be anything healthy.”

I agreed and bit my lip in nervousness as I looked up at the rolling floor numbers while we waited for the elevator to take us to our floor. While I sat on my rump, it flashed the system error again in my vision and then suddenly the lift shuddered and groaned and the rolling floor numbers slowed down.

“Oh don’t take the piss, what now?” Fruity grumbled.

“I’m sorry,” I whimpered.

He looked at me and his sour expression softened. “It’s not your fault, but I don’t know if this lift can take your full weight.”

I gulped as I could hear the elevator groaning and whining as it struggled to haul us up with my levitation talismans temporarily offline. I found myself mentally chanting, “Please don’t fall, please don’t fall,” over and over again as it slowly dragged us up.

After a good couple of minutes of the lift struggling and giving us the terror ride of our lives with its shuddering and groaning it finally stopped on the top floor and we jumped out as soon as those doors opened.

“Oh thank fucking Faust for that,” Fruity cheered in relief as he hugged the solid floor.

“You got that right,” I sighed while flopping onto my chest and belly. My legs felt like jelly after that nerve wrecking ride, and as if to further take the mick my vision flashed the system restored message again. This is getting irritating. When we picked ourselves back up I felt the power to my wings stop which meant that the levitation talismans were offline again and like before when I went blind it told me that the system was rebooting. “My levitation thingies are being rebooted now,” I told Fruity as we headed for the reception room.

“Warning, containment shield failure imminent. Evacuate, five minutes until total containment shield failure, repeat, five minutes until total containment shield failure!”

“We better get back onto the landing pad like now and I hope your malfunction sorts itself out before we get doused in a shit ton of radiation,” Fruity exclaimed.

“Me too,” I agreed with worry while we ran out onto the large platform and into the pouring rain. Wonderful.

XXXXX

Units 1 and 2 sat in the courtyard of Starlight Tower looking up at the large platform that jutted out from the side of the spire like tower. They were fully aware that their prey was now standing on the platform but was yet to jump off.

“What is taking it so long?” Unit 2 asked in a rather bored tone.

“I’m not sure, something doesn’t about this doesn’t feel right,” Unit 1 remarked as she lowered her head and looked around for anything out of the ordinary, or perhaps something they missed when they came upon the checkpoint nestled in the courtyard. The bodies of Bourbon and Custard Cream still lay where they fell when Bourbon tried to attack them. The old mare attacking them had surprised them at first, but they soon understood why when the memories of the ponies they had in their heads surfaced to reveal that the Gunners were not generally liked by a lot of ponies and are usually shot on sight like Raiders. Though a part of Unit 1 or Corporal Razzle felt pity for the two mares they had to put down, especially for the younger one.

“Come on, do something,” Private Buckshot whined.

“Patience brother, they’ll come down eventually, and when they do, we’ll be waiting for them,” Corporal Razzle stated matter-of-factly.

“That’s true, now that we have its mana-co… WHAT IN THE FLYING FUCK IS THAT?!” Buckshot suddenly shouted in alarm as his vision, audio receptors and pretty much all his other senses were being assaulted by vast amount interference.

“I don’t know what just happened up there, but these radiation levels are way too high even for us,” Unit 1 cried as she cringed back from the assault on her own senses. “Ahhh, retreat, retreat,” She ordered.

The two overwhelmed infiltrators quickly ran out of the courtyard and away from the tower until the radiation subsided enough that it wasn’t affecting their instruments.

“What the hell just happened?” Buckshot growled in annoyance.

“I don’t know, it felt like some sort of radiation bomb… but the radiation levels are subsiding,” She said as she looked up at the tower. “It’s now just concentrated around the upper half of the tower; however it is still at lethal levels up there.”

“And our target?”

There was a pause before Unit 1 replied. “Gone…”

“Fan-fucking-tastic.”

“Shut up Buckshot, none of us knew that was going to happen nor did we know we wouldn’t be protected against that much radiation. We may need to recalibrate our sensors to find it again but we know the frequency. I-01 won’t get too far away from us, not this time,” Razzle reassured her seething brother.

“You’re right. Hmm. So, which way?” Buckshot asked while he calmed down as he accepted his sister’s proclamation.

“They didn’t fly back this way, we would have seen them, so they flew either north or east. To regain I-01’s signature again we’ll head in a north-easterly direction.”

“Right sis. Right behind you.”

With a nod from the lighter armour coloured robot the two began to walk in the hope of finding the escaped Mark 1.

XXXXX

“My head is getting wet because of the hole in my hat,” I whined as I could feel the rain seeping through the hole the turret put through my hat and soaking into my hair.

“We’re pegasi, a little rain isn’t that bad,” Fruity said with a smile which quickly faded. “Has your levitation talisman thing finished with its reboot, we don’t have time to piss about up here?”

“No, it hasn’t alerted me yet,” I sighed.

“Cock!” Fruity grumbled while drawing out the word. I could understand his annoyance since we, well I, can’t exactly leave until it’s finished.

“ONE MINUTE UNTIL CONTAINMENT SHIELD FAILURE!”

“Oh fuck…” Fruity groaned. “Crystal, we need to go, like NOW!”

“I know, I know… come on, come on you piece of…” I stopped as my vision flashed with the message for the reboot being completed. “Oh thank the goddesses, its finished.”

“Great, let’s leg it bef…”

There was a loud crash from deep inside the tower that sounded like a large glass pane shattering, and suddenly a wave of energy washed over us both as it tore through the tower and out into the open air. My geiger counter started to tick like crazy, and if my HUD was to be believed, I was taking two hundred rads a second. The extremely high radiation was so great that it must have been overwhelming my circuits because my vision was filling with static and all sound was coming in fuzzy and distorted.

“Fruity, we need to get out of this radiation,” I shouted, mainly so I could actually hear myself.

“I’m only here, no need to shout, but yeah, let’s get the fuck out of here. I feel like I’m gonna puke my guts out,” He groaned.

We wasted no time in diving over the edge of the platform and spread our wings. I sighed with relief as I could feel the power return to my wings. I caught the air and began to glide alongside Fruity. We immediately banked right and began to fly north in the direction of the crater’s rim where we were to meet Quartermane.

By the time we descended down so we were not in open air and flying just above the street lamps, we made it just a couple of blocks away from the tower. My PipBuck had stopped clicking which meant we were no longer in the hot zone. We decided to land at an intersection and take a breather. We consumed a pouch of Rad-Away each since the exposure of those extreme rads had given us a hefty dose.

“Phew, that’s better,” Fruity sighed with relief as the tangy orange medicine did its job.

“Yeah, but um, I don’t think any pony will be exploring that tower anytime soon,” I added with a sigh. “I hope Bourbon and Custard Cream are ok.”

“Yeah, me too,” Fruity agreed and shook himself to rid himself of some of the water that accumulated on his duster and hat from the rain. Once he had flung most of it all over and on me like a dog that did’t like water, he began to look around before his eyes widened in alarm. “Ahh piss!”

“Are you ok Fruity?” I asked with worry, ignoring how drenched I felt.

“This could be bad,” He said as he approached a wall with some graffiti on it.

The wall in question had a very visible and large emblem painted on it, almost as if it was a gang tag. The emblem was a red coloured cog with an equine skull painted inside it, slightly tilted to one side. “What’s that?”

“This Crystal, is the mark of the Crimson Skulls. A very dangerous Raider group or was, they seemed to disappear overnight some time ago. Rumour has it that a Stable Dweller came into the gang one night, killed their boss, took over the gang and moved them to Sparkle World; but like I said, it’s just a rumour. To be honest I don’t know what actually happened to them, and there is no telling if there are still raiders using this territory since barely anypony ventures this far north these days.”

“How bad were they?” I asked with a worried gulp.

“Bad enough that they controlled a lot of the northern territories of Manehattan,” He explained as we began to tread through the old raider territory and the deserted shanty town, built up within the street made up of wooden shacks.

“If they were so big, how did they disappear so quickly?”

“Raider’s follow a simple balance of power structure. If you show you are the biggest, baddest, meanest son of a bitch out there and can kick pony ass left, right and centre, you’d get raiders wanting to follow you if you kept that up and showed your strength. The guy that led the Crimson Skulls was one mean motherfucker. He was ruthless and I kid you not, he had a suit of power armour. No pony with half a brain would dare challenge him until that Stable Dweller. If the rumour is total bullshit and the gang didn’t follow the dweller, then losing to him would have destroyed the gang’s confidence in each other, and likely caused it to splinter off and spread out to form their little raider bands elsewhere.”

“I guess that’s plausible,” I muttered while I watched where I was walking. Despite this place supposed to be devoid of raider scum they still left behind a great deal of their crap. Did raiders have a fetish for hooks and chains? Lampposts and walls seemed to be littered with chains and hooks, and unfortunately a good number of them still had skeletons hung up on them.

“Which way to the rim?” Fruity asked as we came to another intersection, this one decorated with cages hung from the traffic lights that spun the width of the road and hung up from the top of the lampposts.

“Um, up the left road, it should put us on a direct route but my direction marker is pointing straight head. I suppose it is pointing us to where Silver said we’d meet Quartermane.”

“Alrighty,” Fruity nodded and as we took a step to continue on, until a gruff voice spoke up.

“Well, well, well, if it isn’t the flying rat that killed our boss and his striped bitch,” The voice sneered.

We froze and I then became aware of about five hostiles surrounding us but they were concealed. I knew which directions they were in thanks to my compass but I couldn’t see them.

“Flying rat, heh, that’s a new one,” Fruity said with a roll of his eyes. “Come out and face us cowards,” He challenged.

A door opened as a dirty unicorn with a mohawk mane style stepped out. He was wearing some kind of makeshift armour, mostly metal but it looked cobbled together and had a frame-like piece with a wire mesh that went over and around his head. Raiders may be idiots but you have to hoof it to them, they can certainly build some interesting looking pieces of gear.

“Just you?” Fruity asked as he went to shrug his rifle off his back but the unicorn lit his horn and narrowed his eyes threateningly.

“I wouldn’t do that if I was you, rat,” He growled. “You killed our boss, now we want revenge on your sorry ass. So we’re gonna have a good old fashioned fight so I can crush you. You so much as touch your gun, or your bitch over there makes a move or goes for her guns, and my boys will put some sniper rounds in your backs,” He threatened.

“Heh, now that you mention it you do look sorta familiar, alright, I’ll play your game,” Fruity said puffing out his chest confidently.

“Fruity,” I whimpered worriedly.

“Don’t worry, he’s a raider, what’s he gonna do?” He asked with a smirked while he had his head turned to regard me.

My eye’s widened in alarm when I saw the raider’s horn glow. A metal baseball bat popped into existence next to him and floated in his green magical aura.

“FRUITY!” I screamed but I was too late. Fruity had turned around to face his opponent only to take a swing from the bat to his face. He cried out in pain and flipped over his back and landed on the floor with a pained cry.

“Fruity,” I cried in worry and began to run to him before a bullet smacked into the tarmac in front of me.

“You so much as move to help him, we’ll riddle you so full of holes it wouldn’t be funny for later,” The unicorn growled as he slowly approached Fruity with his bat held over his shoulder and then grinned maliciously. “Did you really expect me to play fair, you pathetic piece of shit?”

“You suck,” Fruity groaned painfully as he tried to get up.

“Big words from a sky walker reject,” The raider said before he swung his bat and hit Fruity on his haunch, the hit making a wet slap from the rain and sending him sprawling.

My pegasus friend cried out in pain as his back legs gave out and he collapsed to the floor again in a large puddle.

“Stop, please,” I begged with a sob.

“Shut your mouth wench,” The raider roared at me before he turned his attention back to his prey.

“Hehe, how does it feel featherbrain, feel good playing the hero now huh?”

Fruity let out a growl of pain and anger as he looked up at the raider just as he took another hit from the bat.

I felt utterly helpless. I know my endoskeleton is bullet proof to a degree but I don’t know to what extent and I don’t know what weapons this asshole’s friends are using. Plus if I throw caution to the wind and step in despite the risk of the bullets hurting me, they could turn around and kill Fruity which is something else I cannot risk. I want to stop him but without putting Fruity at risk as well I can’t do anything. Argh…

I helplessly watched as the unicorn tormented my coltfriend and beat him with the bat for a good couple of minutes, and left him looking battered and bruised. The unicorn dropped his bat which was stained with some blood where a couple of his hits had split Fruity’s skin.

“Time to die, you flying rat,” He growled.

“Suck… my… dick,” Fruity groaned out through his pain.

The raider didn’t reply, he raised his head while channelling as much magic as he could into his horn for what I assumed would be an offensive magical beam.

“NO PLEASE DON’T” I begged.

“STEEL RANGER!” One of the hidden raiders shouted suddenly.

The unicorn immediately stopped his charge, his eyes wide with worry as he turned his head to one of the buildings at the corner of the intersection. “WHAT?!”

“THERE IS A FUCKING TIN CAN COMING THIS WAY!”

“SHIT, OK BOYS LET’S GET OUTTA HERE,” The unicorn shouted before he looked at me with hate in his eyes. “You were lucky this time bitch, but we’ll leave your sorry asses to the Steel Ranger. Have fun,” And with that, he turned tail and fled back into the building he came from.

As soon as that foul pony was gone and out of sight, I immediately ran over to my broken friend. I had tears of emotional pain streaming down my cheeks as I sat beside him and threw off my shotgun and medical box as I went to tend to him. I opened the box and quickly plucked out a couple of healing potions and a couple of bandages that sadly got wet in the rain. While gently cradling Fruity’s head with one forehoof, I gently poured one of the potions into his mouth and then gently applied the bandages to the worst of the lacerated areas of his body. He looked horrible, with a swollen shut eye, busted lip, broken nose, several lacerations to his body, multiple missing feathers and possibly a broken bone or two. The raider didn’t hit him hard enough to kill, but it was hard enough to cause serious pain and discomfort. It’s like what Fruity had told me about Raiders: they like to torture their victims. I assumed from what I watched that he wanted him alive until the end so that he could do whatever it was he was doing before he got disturbed.

“Oh Fruity, please be ok,” I cried as I cradled him while I waited for the first healing potion to take effect.

He groaned in discomfort before gasping as the potion finally began to take effect. I watched the smallest of the cuts seal, and the swellings from where he was hit and in his eye go down. He breathed easier as he opened his eyes and looked up at me.

“Ugh, thank you, you’re a life saver,” He smiled warmly.

I smiled happily that the potion was doing its job and leaned down and kissed his partially healed nose. “I was so worried. I’m so sorry I didn’t help you,” I cried.

“No, don’t worry about it, they had us where they wanted us,” He groaned. I lifted the other bottle to his lips and let him drink down the potion to help heal more of the damage. “Ugh, Fruity you plonker you should have seen that coming,” Fruity chastised himself.

I hugged him softly as I sniffled. “Don’t blame yourself, you couldn’t have known he would do that,” I tried to defend him.

“He was a raider, he’d sell out his own mother if it meant saving his sorry ass,” Fruity sighed. “But we got bigger problems, we need to get out of here before that Steel Ranger gets here,” He urged as he tried to stand but found himself locked in my iron grip hug.

“You haven’t healed properly yet and aren’t the Steel Rangers the good guys?” I asked.

“Maybe back in your day they were, but now, they are just assholes,”

I blinked; surprised that the soldiers that were meant to defend Equestria were one still here and two now considered assholes. What changed?

“Why would they be seen as assholes now?” I asked in confusion.

“I’ll tell you later but right now we need to move, if he sees either of us he’s likely to kill us,” Fruity urged as he wiggled in my grip.

I began to feel the ground shudder from heavy impacts that were soon followed by metallic thuds from down the road that would lead us to the rim of the crater. I didn’t want to let Fruity up until the potions had finished all the healing they could do, but with the growing worry about the possibility of what this Ranger might do I let him go so we could make our escape. However, before we could try to find someplace to hide in or run to, a large black and grimy suit of power armour stomped onto the intersection.

“Shit…” Fruity groaned.

I tilted my head as I took in the Steel Ranger, his armour looked old, and I mean old, like it has been out here for a long, long time because despite the black paint it looked very rusty and full of grime and the model of the armour. I recalled seeing this on the news as being among the first suits Applejack had made from the Ministry of Wartime Technology, but I’m sure before I supposedly died she released a newer model than this one. Furthermore, when I looked at his helmet I noticed a hole, and that a unicorn horn was poking through it.

“Ah, perfect, bout time you two showed up, I was getting bored waiting out here,” The Ranger said, his voice sounding muffled by his helmet.

“What, wait… Quartermane?” Fruity gaped.

“That’s right.”

We both breathed a sigh of relief as the Ranger revealed himself to be the pony we were going to meet near the rim and was not a threat. Thankfully the raiders didn’t and fled at the sight of the power armoured pony, which was good for us since were in between a rock and a hard place.

“You showed up just in the nick of time there buddy, thanks,” Fruity said appreciatively.

“Yeah, a minute longer and Fruity might have been killed or probably both of us,” I added.

The armoured old stallion nodded. “I heard a commotion while I was walking back towards the tower and thought I’d check it out just in case it was you two. Good thing that I did,” He said as he stood before us. While in the suit of power armour he looked twice as big as a normal pony with how big and bulky the suit looked. Plus the minigun he held in a battlesaddle gave him a menacing appearance.

“You were going back?” I inquired.

“You took so long that I thought something had happened. I was heading back to the tower to see if I might run into you two on the way back, or at least find out if there was a change of plan from Silver once I got back to the tower,” He explained.

“Oh.”

“Sorry Quartermane, we uh, we ran into some complications while in Starlight Tower that slowed us down,” Fruity replied.

I nodded with a sigh. “Yeah, still active security, one of which kept us trapped in a room for a while, and…” I opened my mouth to continue but stopped myself before saying something I shouldn’t. “How much do you know about me?”

He tilted his helmeted head at my question and stared for a moment before he answered. “Are you asking if I know that you’re a robot or not?” I stiffened with my eyes going wide, not sure how to take that response. “Don’t worry, I’ve met plenty of cyborgs in my travels and you can trust me. Silver wouldn’t have told me if I couldn’t be trusted to keep that knowledge to myself.”

“Well that’s a relief. We don’t want everypony knowing her true nature, especially those Steel Ranger jackasses,” Fruity stated with a stomp of his hoof.

“Before we continue, let’s get out of this rain,” Quartermane suggested, and with a nod from us we turned and followed the large armoured pony back up the road the way he came from until we stopped at an old Spark-Battery Charging Station.

The building was small with a large extended roof covering the drive-throughs for the vehicle charging stations, all of which have long since been scavenged, leaving behind a hole in the floor. We followed Quartermane to a shutter door on the side of the building, and with a single hoof pull he threw the door up with a metallic clang as it rolled up. The maintenance shed inside was well maintained and held an assortment of junk and spare parts, as well as a large yellow frame which Quartermane walked in between. There was a beep from his armour before the back hissed and rose up off his back. The legs split down the middle and opened outwards. The sides around his barrel pulled back a little and rotated down to give the old stallion room to step out of his suit of armour.

“Ahh that’s better, make yourselves at home,” He said once he was fully out of his armour.

I elected to stay stood up since the rickety old wooden chairs he had lying around wouldn’t support my weight if I sat on them. I didn’t trust my talismans right now either. Fruity sat on one of them the wrong way around, crossing his forelegs on the top of the backrest and resting his chin on crossed forelegs.

“So you got slowed down by the security?” Quartermane asked as he prompted me to continue since we were now out of the rain and not being soaked.

“Since you know what I am, I had been hit by a Tesla Coil in a lab in there and it caused me to malfunction in my eyes and my wings, preventing me from being able to see and fly.”

“Ah yes, I could see how that would slow you down considerably,” The dark coloured old stallion agreed.

“Wait a minute,” Fruity suddenly piped up as his head shot up from his forelegs. “Those were both newly added to you from your upgrade, all your new stuff fucked up,” He said

I blinked at Fruity’s comment as I hadn’t thought of that before but he was right, my eyes and wings were both newly added and they were the only things to go wrong.

“New tech is never as good as the old tech,” Quartermane chuckled to himself.

“I hope I’m ok now though,” I sighed. I really didn’t want to go through another random malfunction.

“You are lucky it was a Tesla Coil that got you. If it was a Disruption based trap or weapon, then it would have had a much more potent effect on you,” Quarterment said with a serious tone.

I nodded with a gulp as I remembered our run in at the MASA HQ when Fruity had thrown a Disruption Grenade into a room to destroy a sentry drone; the blast’s shockwave sent my visual sensors into a tizzy.

“Hey Quartermane, got any alcohol? I could do with a drink,” Fruity asked.

“Sure, but I don’t think you’ll like it,” He said as the dark stallion’s horn glowed and a cabinet drawer opened. A brandy bottle floated out and over to Fruity, who then took it out of the air with his fore hooves.

Fruity pulled the cork from the bottle and sniffed the contents before he pulled his head back and wrinkled his nose in revulsion. “Phew, what’s in this?” Fruity asked as he held the bottle away.

“Brandy,” Quartermane answered.

“Good…” Fruity said but was cut off as Quartermane wasn’t finished.

“Meth, Pernod, paint stripper, Mr Sheen, brake fluid and Drambuie,” Quartermane lists off the rest of his cocktail’s ingredients. I was just left shocked and amazed by them.

“Drambuie… ooohoohoohoohooooo!” Fruity chides playfully while he made limp-wristed gestures with his hoof at the older stallion.

“Yeah, yeah alright, you gotta put something in it for the fillies haven’t ya?”

Fruity took another sniff of the lethal cocktail and pulled back again. “Phew jeez!” He then looked at Quartermane in astonishment. “How are you alive?”

The old stallion taps his nose. “I may very well not be,” He replied cryptically.

Fruity looked at him with a raised brow before he puts the bottle down. “You know what, I’m good thanks.”

Quartermane laughed to himself before he gathered some tools in his magic and went to his armour to start doing some maintenance on it.

“When you are ready, we’ll move out.”

XXXXX

Units 1 and 2 head been walking in the rain for a good couple of hours in their north-easterly direction before both of them turned their heads to the left, back to a northerly direction.

“Do you feel that sister?” Buckshot asked as he stopped walking.

“I do Buckshot. That’s a Mana-Core signature that belongs to a Mark 2,” Corporal Razzle replied.

They changed direction and began to head in the direction of the energy signature.

“Wait, I’m picking up a second, weaker signature further north… could the stronger signal be the rogue unit?” Buckshot asked.

“If it is, we will deal with it if it gets in our way, come on,” Razzle urged as she broke into a run to close the gap between them and their target.

XXXXX

We had spent about an hour in the recharging station waiting for the rain to stop, and once it did we set off again. Fruity and I had donned our hazmat suits and were covered head to tail in our white environmental suits. Not a single part of our bodies was exposed and it was kinda weird having my head in this half bubble helmet.

Quartermane was in his suit of armour again, but this time he had attached a jetpack to the back that would allow him to fly for as long as he had enough fuel. It was surprising that he was able to do that. I didn’t think jetpacks even existed for power armour but I can’t see them actually being useful in battle back during the war.

We had spent a further hour walking towards our destination and eventually a wall of rubble came into view up ahead that blocked the road.

“There it is ponies. The crater’s edge,” Quartermane announced. “We’ll be there in a few minutes.”

I felt butterflies in my stomach from the nervousness of being so close to finding my answers.

“Hey Quartermane. Silver said you were an explorer right?” Fruity asked as we walked alongside him.

“That’s right.”

“Ever heard or seen anything called a Tiber Crystal?” He asked. Oh yeah, we were curious about those earlier.

“As a matter of fact I have, why do you ask?” The armoured unicorn asked, sounding surprised by Fruity’s question on the poisonous crystals we encountered.

“Well in Starlight Tower, we found two containment shields that held two of them, a green and a blue one. The shield that held the blue one failed and doused the building in high levels of rads. We were wondering if you knew anything,” Fruity explained and I nodded to show my own curiosity.

“So that’s what that massive radiation spike was. Well, I haven’t actually seen the crystals myself but I did find documentation that talked about them,” Quartermane began. “Shortly after the Littlehorn incident, a Zebra was confronted and killed on the banks of the Tiber River on the Badlands side of the Everfree Forest. He carried with him two specialised capsules that held a crystal each. According to the documentation recovered, the Zebra was to infiltrate Equestria and plant these crystal seeds into Equestria’s two largest food production farms, and allow the poison that they radiate to poison Equestria’s food supply. His targets were Sweet Apple Acres and Appleloosa’s Apple Orchard. Since the document the zebra held didn’t have a name for these crystals, the Equestrian Military that stopped him decided to call them “Tiber Crystals”, after the river they were recovered from before they were shipped to Starlight Industries for testing and analysis.”

“Wow, shit,” Fruity said in surprise. “I wasn’t expecting them to be anything that serious, damn!”

“Those Zebras stepped over the line with Littlehorn. They still were going to use chemical weaponry even after that horrible act?” I asked in shock.

“Yeah, that was a catastrophe,” Fruity agreed solemnly.

“Both sides did things that were horrible to each other, we all know how it ended for all of us in the end,” Quartermane sighed as we came up to the wall of rubble between two destroyed buildings. “Now, we climb, or we fly up.” And with that, the jets on his jetpack ignited and a powerful thrust began to lift the armoured unicorn off the ground and ascend the rubble.

Fruity and I looked at each other before we took wing and followed him up. The buildings on either side of us were very damaged and the tonnes of rubble nestled between them wasn’t helping them. We ascended about a hundred feet before we landed on the top of the rubble. I decided to keep my talismans active, despite not being sure if they would be ok to stay active, as I didn’t trust the loose rubble under my hooves. Quartermane found a rather sturdy spot that thankfully supported the weight of his power armour fairly well.

“Crystal, Fruity,” He said before he gestured with his foreleg to the sight before us. “Welcome to the Impact Crater,” He said while sweeping his foreleg out.

From atop the rubble wall we could see that it wasn’t just between these buildings, but this wall was actually a ring of rubble that looked to have been blow away from the point of impact and settled at the very edge. Inside the crater, it looked like an entirely different environment to what was outside. The buildings were all mangled and twisted; the ones closest to the point of impact were literally blown down, almost flat to the ground and up against their neighbouring buildings, creating jagged slopes of concrete and steel. The very centre from where we could see was just flat and open; there was nothing there apart from the hole that was glowing brightly with a bright green baleful glow. To top off the horrible look of this place, a rad storm seemed to be raging over the central area of the crater, showering it in a green haze and yellow lightning.

“Dear sweet Luna, this place looks like something straight out of a horror movie,” I gaped in shock.

“No shit,” Fruity agreed.

“I’m sorry to say this but Paradigm Cybernetics is on the far side of this crater, if you still want to go then there are two ways about it. One we skirt around the edge, it’ll take longer and leave us open to more enemy attacks but it’ll keep us out of the radiation zones and out of sight of the more dangerous creatures. Two, we head in on the shortest route to get there as soon as possible, your suits should keep the rads at bay but the closer we get to the point of impact, the more likely we are at running into the more dangerous creatures. What’s your choice?”

I stared into the storming centre of the crater for a minute, trying to decide on what to do before I turned to look at Fruity for guidance. “What do you think?” I asked.

“I don’t know, both options suck,” He replied, and to be honest, I agree.

“What would you do Quartermane?” I asked him.

“Personally, I would go the shortest route, despite the longer route being the safer; we’d be under threat more than the shorter. If we move fast enough on the shorter, there is a chance we might even avoid the more dangerous creatures. We just need to be careful and observant.”

“Ok, we’ll trust you, we’ll take the short route,” I said. I just hope I don’t regret this.