"Pass me that spanner, will you?" I said, as a splodge of industrial lubricant dribbled onto my cheek.

"Sure!" a disembodied voice replied. It was immediately followed by the approach of the requested tool in a sheath of magic, which I grabbed with my own aura. I thanked the enthusiastic unicorn curtly, before once again busying myself with the innards of the Master's bootleg TARDIS.

Redheart and I had been guests of the secretive Edinbuck Oakflare facility for two days, and I had spent the vast majority of that time on my back underneath the 'fake' TARDIS console trying to bring it online. The Brigardier that Corporal Serious-face had mentioned earlier had at one point graced us with his presence, but I was in no mood to chat. Of course, I shook his hoof and smiled, sharing greetings and banalities with the forthright, moustachioed stallion. I endeavoured to make myself and my reasons for being at the facility as uninteresting as was equinely possible, in an effort to bore him and have him leave me to repairing the TARDIS. I suspect that he saw through my charming, yet clipped and dismissive responses easily enough (I was a sparsely documented agent of Ministry of Morale, after all - he'd have to have been a fool to not be suspicious of me). However, if he did have any suspicions, he didn't let any of them slip while speaking with me. I had a feeling deep in my belly that he was a good buck, both willing and capable of fighting for what he believed in. Perhaps in another time, another place, we could have been good friends.

But he was a walking corpse, I told myself. He just didn't know it yet, and there was nothing I could do to stop his fate from asserting itself. So, once our conversation had died due to my lack of meaningful input, he bade Redheart and me a good day, saluted us, and trotted off to attend to something official.

Returning to my work a short while later, I ruminated on the goings on around me. I wasn't sure of when the Last Day was going to come, but given the state of the facility and the progress of the resident researcher's creations, I was sure that it couldn't be too far off. Redheart and I had elected to avoid one another for the past forty-eight hours, sharing only the briefest of awkward, guilty glances from across the lab. On the rare occasion that we allowed our eyes to meet, I found it hard to gauge her expression. Was she disappointed in me? Was she scared? Did she have gas? I didn't know, and I didn't care. I had a future to get back to, and a plan to get there. As far as I was concerned, everypony around me was already dead. All I could do was get out of time's way and let it happen...

"Wire stripper," I said to my still-alive-but-only-for-a-little-while-longer assistant, as I used my magic to give him back the spanner (a tidy toolbox is a happy toolbox, after all... even if the apocalypse is on its way).

"No problemo!" came the insufferably cheery response, accompanied by another tool. I grumbled under my breath at the technician who was helping me, and politely took the tool from him with my magic.

"Thanks," I hissed through gritted teeth as I used both hooves to hold up an assemblage of arcane circuitry. I had become quite skilled with my Sonic Horn by this point, and as such I was able to connect the data and power cables dangling in front of my face in a matter of minutes. After that, all that was left was to screw the assemblage into place and move on to the next subsystem.

"Socket wrench," I said evenly, craning my neck so that I'd be heard clearly. "Eight millimetre."

"All I've got is a five sixteenths," came my assistant's consistently chipper reply. "That do?"

"I suppose," I grumbled, rolling my eyes. Honestly, why Equestria couldn't agree on a unified set of units was beyond me.

Under the console, I saw the shadows of the unicorn's hooves as he moved to accommodate my request (read: demand). The tool was soon moved in front of my face as before, but by a hoof this time, rather than magic. I had paid precious little attention to the annoyingly sunny technician whom Corporal Serious-face had decided to assign to me, but despite my disinterest I was certain that his coat had been green. The proffered hoof, however, was not green, and did in fact turn out to belong to Redheart, a fact that registered itself with me by way of a grimace combined with a guilty shiver.

"I found an eight millimetre..." she said quietly, as it became increasingly apparent that maintaining eye contact was as uncomfortable for her as it was for me. "I heard you saying you, um... needed one..."

"Thanks..." I replied, as I gently took the tool from her and began tightening the bolts suspended above my head.

"What is that you're, uh... doing down here, anyway?" Redheart asked, as she crawled under the console beside me.

"I'm just... plugging things in..." I stammered, unsure of how to deal with her proximity. "You know... techy stuff..."

"Y-yeah..." she replied, casting here eyes about the disorganised forest of components around her.

A protracted silence ensued, punctuated only by the sound of the wrench's ratchet mechanism clicking backwards as I tightened one bolt after another. I knew that I should have said something; that I owed her an explanation of everything that had happened over the past few days (at the very least). I opened my mouth to say something, anything, that would help her deal with what was going on, taking in a breath as I turned my head.

"Listen, I'm sorry about—" we both said in unison, before stopping in surprise.

"Oh, uh," I stammered as Redheart huffed her way into a defiant blush. "S-sorry. I didn't know you were going to— Uh, I mean, uh... Please, go on..."

"I was going to... apologise," Redheart said, her words accented with a sharp edge of reluctance. "For the hard time I gave you the other day in the sky chariot."

"Really?" I said, almost laughing (out of nervousness, mind, not amusement). "I was going to apologise to you. You were right to say those things to me, Redheart. I haven't been fair with you, and I haven't been telling you the whole truth. You... you deserve to know everyth—"

I was suddenly interrupted by a loud, two-tone klaxon that sounded as if somepony had tuned a cash register to the notes of the C major scale. I immediately shot upright where I lay, ready to jump up to the fake TARDIS's controls and plough into the time vortex before the nightmarish Cyberpony shades plaguing my every anxious thought could 'upgrade' Redheart and me. Naturally though, all I ended up doing was ramming my forehead into the console's underside, eliciting an angry bark as a sharp, stabbing pain made its way through my horn and into my skull.

"SON OF A BITCH!" I cried as I fell backward, clutching the crown of my head.

"Compass!" Redheart shouted, her hooves deftly moving to cushion my descent. "Relax! It's just an alarm test! They do it every day in government and military buildings. Don't you remember it going off at this time yesterday, and the day before?"

"Yeah, yeah, I remember," I grumbled angrily, as my sudden headache slowly subsided. "I'm just on edge, Redheart, that's all."

"I've noticed," she replied, a single eyebrow raised skyward. "You need to relax - panicking every time you hear a loud noise is terrible for your health. You'll give yourself a heart attack by the time you're thirty!"

"Still a good couple of decades to go then," I mumbled under my breath.

"What was that?" Redheart asked, as she continued to examine my head.

"Nothing," I said back, as I once again picked up the wrench with my magic. The tender moment between us had ended, and I no longer felt any compunction to reveal my knowledge of the future.

"Look, Redheart, I'm fine," I continued, moving out of range of her ministrations. "And if you don't mind, I'd like to go back to repairing my only hope of returning to my own time."

"Actually," she answered incredulously, snatching the tool out of the air, "I do mind. Wasn't there something you were about to tell me, Compass? Something important? Something that you were sure I deserved to hear?"

"No," I answered simply, without looking at her.

"Compass," Redheart said warningly, her voice rumbling with barely contained anger. "You promised to tell me! Remember how I said that I'd give you one more chance? Well this is it! Tell me what I want to know, or I'm walking!"

"I—!" I suddenly blurted, biting my lip in semi-panicked frustration at her threat. "I... really don't want to, Redheart. The things I know are inflammatory at best. At worst they're downright dangerous! I don't want to expose you to that."

Redheart let out a breath through gritted teeth, seemingly dispelling the majority of her anger at the same time. She looked me straight in the eyes and spoke softly.

"You'll just have to trust that I can handle it then," she said.

My resolve was collapsing like a flan in a cupboard. I mumbled and stuttered for another few seconds - without saying anything of substance - before I made the mistake of returning Redheart's gaze. Here eyes were set under a fiercely determined brow, but I could see far more in her face than just rampant curiosity. She was desperate to know what I knew; convinced that I was about to confirm the worst of what she had ever dared to fear; terrified that I could, with a few short sentences, bring her entire world crashing down on top of her.

And you know the worst part?

She was right.

I made my decision in that moment. I would trust her. I would tell her. And I hoped upon hope... that I would not destroy her.

I opened my mouth to speak, just as the klaxon from a moment earlier began to sound again. Together, Redheart and I looked out toward the rest of the laboratory, before turning back to one another quickly.

"Please tell me that's another drill," I said, my mouth dry.

"They never run two on the same day," replied Redheart, her eyes wide and even more fearful than before. "Never."

We scrambled out from under the TARDIS console to behold a flurry of motion evolving messily before us. Every scientist and technician (and even some military personnel, I noted) were scrambling to and fro, panicked expressions on every one of their faces. The mare I had come to know as 'Corporal Serious-face' appeared at the lab's entrance, calling for silence and calm, her voice piercing the very air with the sheer magnitude of her authority.

"That's enough!" she shouted, bringing the entire room to a halt. "Okay ponies, here's the situation: the early warning talismans have just been activated. As far as we know, the Zebras haven't taken any action yet, so this may just be a false alarm. However, just in case, we'll proceed as if this were a full scale megaspell bombardment. I want everypony to remain calm, and run your emergency procedures as planned. That means all equipment should be stowed safely, all experiments and machinery powered off, even if they're shielded against electro-magic pulses, and all personnel sealed in secure areas. Carry on."

She turned to a group of pegasus soldiers who had clustered around her and began issuing orders, as everypony else began to run through what was apparently a well-practised set of emergency checklists. In spite of the alarm continuing to sound, the tension in the lab had been diffused significantly by the military mare's words; lessened from a blind panic to a concerned underlying thrum, and I found myself flush with admiration of her competency as a leader. Even I believed for a moment that it could just be a false alarm; that the technology was mistaken, and the only prevailing memory of the day would be a scary story of the war for the lab ponies' distant descendants.

Unfortunately, that feeling lasted only for a couple of seconds before I instinctively recalled what I knew of the coming times. I looked to Redheart, and found that she was already staring straight at me, her eyes pleading for my take on what was happening.

'Please tell me it's a false alarm,' her gaze begged. 'Please tell me it'll all be okay. Please tell me that I'll wake up tomorrow and this'll all be over and the war will end peacefully and we'll all live happily ever after...'

I stared at her for a moment, and then gently shook my head.

'I'm sorry...' I said with my eyes. 'I'm so, so sorry...'

Wordlessly, I turned to regard the ponies milling about the lab, before returning to the final set of repairs I still had to complete. Redheart stayed where she was, silent and unmoving, now secure in the terrifying knowledge that her world was circling the drain of existence.

The Last Day had begun.

The TARDIS swooped through time towards the Master, at a velocity so mind-bogglingly fast as to defy analogy. I manipulated the controls as best I could, but was too focussed on reaching my ultimate destination to manage everything simultaneously. As such, the console room was being violently thrown to and fro by the time vortex.

"Doc!" Applebloom screamed, her yellow form hanging onto a railing for dear life. "I'm gonna throw up again if ya don't stop all this shakin' about!"

"Not now, Applebloom!" I shouted back, as I queued up a pair of temporal detours on the console. "I'm trying to do a couple of dozen things at once here, and in case you haven't noticed, I'm not entirely succeed— Hang on, what do you mean 'throw up again'!?"

"Yer floor looked boring," the exhausted earth pony slurred, her mouth hanging open slightly. "Thought I'd *urp* dec'rate it..."

"Oh for goodness—!" I shouted angrily before cutting myself off and continuing with my original thought. "Nevermind, I'll clean it up later! How's Ditzy?"

"Hit 'er head and passed out about five minutes ago!" Applebloom replied. "I used one o' them there spare cables ta lash her ta one o' the beams down here!"

"What!?" I shouted, panicking as I took a moment to abandon the console and glance over the side of the control room's platform. Sure enough, Ditzy was tied safely and securely to one of the support members. I swore under my breath in Old High Gallopfreyan as I turned back to the console, suddenly highly aware of the TARDIS's new aroma as bile-scented fumes began to waft towards the ceiling. Have you ever tried cleaning vomit out of a time machine? Because I hadn't, and I was not looking forward to it.

A chime on the console signalled our arrival at the first of our detour destinations. I landed the TARDIS, and deftly flipped the shield controls to allow egress from the ship. Approaching Applebloom and helping her up, I began to yank her unceremoniously towards the door.

"Right, here's your stop," I said briskly, as I pushed her rump with my forehead.

"Wh-whut!?" she shouted indignantly, swerving off to one side so I could no longer push her. "Whut are y'all talkin' about!? Ah thought we were goin' after this 'Master' fella!"

"I'm going after the Master," I said, as I used my teeth to grip her mane bow. "I need you and Ditzy in the past so that—"

"So we'll what!? Stay outta the way!?" Applebloom growled. "You just want us to stay nice and safe so y'all can take him on yerself! Tell me Ah'm wrong!"

"I'm not going to make any apologies for trying to keep my friends safe!" I said, grunting and sweating as Applebloom's internal farmpony began to emerge, and her muscles contracted to iron loops around the safety railing. "He's too dangerous, and I need you two to... to..."

"Ta stay outta the way!" Applebloom shouted angrily. "Just like Ah said! Ya'll are afraid we'll interrupt somethin' between you two, aren't ya!? What are ya even plannin' ta do!? Talk him down!? 'Cos y'all have tried that before, and all it did was give him time ta get away!"

"It's not like that," I said quietly, as I let go of Applebloom's bow. "I need you and Ditzy to prepare Equestria... in case I fail."

The young yellow mare in front of me suddenly lost her fire, her bared teeth retracting behind her lips, and her brow readjusting to show something entirely unlike the anger it had displayed only moments earlier.

"In case... ya fail...?" she paraphrased, whispering.

"Yes..." I replied evenly. "I don't know exactly what the Master is planning, but I do know that there's a fixed point nearby; that there's some sort of major event in the near future, that he's involved somehow, and that it will probably involve a lot of balefire megaspells. So, if I can't stop whatever it is he's up to, I'll need ponies I can rely on - ponies like you and Ditzy - to help the citizens of this world: the ponies, dragons, gryphons and yes, even the zebras, to avoid horrible, pointless deaths at the hooves of a madpony."

Applebloom swallowed nervously, looking to the floor as she considered her position.

"But what... what can Ah do...?" she asked, her presence in the control room suddenly so small compared to what it had been before. "What can Ditzy do? We're just two little ponies. Sure, we're tough enough, and Ah'd like ta think we're smart enough ta boot, but how can we help save everypony?"

"The simple answer, Applebloom," I replied, hanging my head, "is that you can't. If I fail to stop the Master, then a lot of lives are going to be lost. I just don't want all life to be lost - I've already lost one planet in my lifetime, and I can't allow another to go the same way; burning into non-existence because of fear and hate."

I approached the tiny mare in front of me, and placed a hoof underneath her chin, smiling gently as I looked into her soft, moist eyes.

"What ponies like you and Ditzy can do," I began, "exceeds my abilities ten-fold. You're friends. Friends to me, to each other, and to dozens, if not hundreds, more. Your influence, given time, will be felt across Equestria, and since I'm depositing you back in your own times, you'll blend into the temporal background, meaning that the Master won't be able to find you easily. You can propagate the idea of hiding away from a possible apocalypse; impress upon the populace how awful it would be to kill the world and so many of its inhabitants, you can push for peace, and even disarmament at some point. Ponies will listen to you, and to Ditzy. And some zebras might even start to see the sense in it as well. Who knows? By the time I go to grab the Master, you might have been able to abolish balefire weapons altogether!"

Applebloom looked sceptical.

"Doc," she said. "We both know Ah won't have long when Ah go back. From the way the controls were configured earlier, Ah'd say that there was less than a week between us leavin' Oakflare, and the bombs fallin'. What am Ah supposed ta do in such a short stretch o' time?"

"Prepare those stables of yours, and get everypony ready to duck and cover," I replied. "It's all you can do. I'm afraid that the lion's share of what I just talked about will ultimately fall to Ditzy. She left Equestria before the war even started, which will give her several years to influence your society."

"One pony... between all of us and oblivion...?" Applebloom said, her voice quiet and featureless as a miniscule smirk spread across her lips. "Hm... I guess that's what it always boils down to anyway."

"Yeah..." I replied, as we both looked down upon the concussed form of the Ditzy Doo. "Always..."

Applebloom suddenly took in a sharp breath, dispelling a portion of the melancholy as she drew herself up and turned back to face me.

"Well then, Doc," she said, her eyes once again bright and hopeful, her demeanour one of youth and optimism. "Ah suppose this is goodbye."

"For now," I replied, smiling warmly. "Goodbye, Applebloom."

She extended her hoof, and I took it gladly. I was about to shake it in the spirit of camaraderie and wish her luck, but abandoned the gesture as soon as I opened my mouth - I had allowed my smile to falter for a tiny fraction of a second, and that crack in my armour had propagated instantaneously to Applebloom, whose cheerful mask slipped to reveal a swarm of fear and doubt gnawing away at her insides. In that moment, we were the same; separated only by the short physical distance between our bodies, and certain of our similitude in every other aspect.

Applebloom's hoof suddenly wrapped around my own, and she pulled me into a tight, emotion-laden embrace. I, in turn, added the strength of my own forelegs to the hug, clenching my eyes shut as I did so. We held one another as our chests pressed together, and our respective breaths shuddered and shivered behind our ribs. Applebloom knew as well as I what the risks were - she had been preparing for a holocaust for years, after all. And I... I had caused more than my fair share. We broke the embrace together, and looked into one another's eyes as our final goodbye was said without being spoken.

The brilliant, talented, sweet, loyal, honest, kind and generous mare in front of me turned, and trotted slowly out of the TARDIS, her head held high, her chest puffed out with courage.

And her eyes glistening with tears.

The lift screeched like a wounded metal animal as it descended into the depths of the Emporium's inner sanctum. I wasn't bothered by the ear splitting grinding noises it made though. Oh no - I was too focussed on panicking about the fact that my stablemates - the ponies I was relying on to do all of the talking in our coming encounters - had ended up getting blind stinking drunk!

Sweat matted the bandages encasing my face and dark, tensely-scented patches began to grow under my armpits as we drew closer and closer to the floor of the lift shaft, and the terrifying prospect of conversation. Atom was leaning haphazardly against my side, her face a portrait of inebriation as Bulkhead, who was only managing to remain cognisant for about thirty seconds at a time, draped his head over my opposing shoulder, his drool seeping steadily into the fabric of my barding. I swallowed nervously and my breaths became progressively shorter, my attempts at rousing the intelligent, formidable conversationalists that I knew my friends could be ending with either slurred profanity or snoring.

'Oh, Goddess!' I shouted inwardly. 'How could I have let this happen!? I was meant to be watching them! I should never have trusted that mare!'

'There's no need to panic!' One said in forceful, reassuring tones.

'Yeah,' Three added calmly, 'all you have to do is improvise.'

'And how the flying fuck do I do that!?' I hissed mentally, as I propped Atom up against the lift carriage's wall and attended to Bulkhead's once again fully concussed form. 'Look at them! They're completely out of it! If this doesn't screw us over I don't know what will!'

'That's the spirit!' beamed One, as Atom wandered away and began to hungrily unscrew the carriage's maintenance hatch with her magic. 'See adversity as opportunity and you'll never have another problem as long as you live!'

'I don't think that's what he meant...' said Three, while spectating on Atom's attempts at detaching the carriage from its cables.

'Oh, it's not?' replied One. 'Well, it's good advice, regardless. You should take it, Compass—'

'If you aren't going to help me get these idiots sobered up,' I thought with a shudder, as I pulled Atom away from the lift's vitals and turned around to find Bulkhead curled up in a contended, alcohol infused ball on the floor, 'then the least you can do is to shut the fuck up and let me deal with this on my own!'

"Right, you two!" I announced loudly, before One or Three could interrupt. "We have work to do! Atom, stop playing with the machinery! And Bulkhead, you wake up, and you stay up! You both got that!?"

"Y-yeah...!" yawned Bulkhead. "You, uh... you go ahead and do... whatever that was you were... talkin' about. Just... just give me... five more minutes."

"Y-you let go of me!" slurred Atom, her drunken flailing doing little to counter my grasp of her torso. "Or sho help me, I'll... I'll pee all over your hoovesh!"

'Charming...' quipped One as the turmoil in my mind reached a fever pitch. I ceased moving as Bulkhead's snoring rang through the interior of the lift carriage and Atom continued to make vain, poorly coordinated attempts at overpowering me.

'This isn't happening...' I whispered inwardly, closing my eyes in the purest, most absolute frustration.

'Now don't worry yourself too much,' Three said soothingly. 'You'll get through this... somehow. You just have to think positively and—'

'You misunderstand,' I replied, opening my eyes to frown the deepest of malevolent frowns upon the pair in front of me. 'I wasn't sulking - I was declaring! This is not happening! I won't let it! There's too much at stake!'

I grabbed Bulkhead and Mo by their barding collars, pulling both of their faces into spittle range of my mouth.

"Now, listen!" I roared to my companions, my throat crying out for mercy from the severity of my tone. "If you two don't sober up now, you'll blow this for all of us! We'll be found out, captured and enslaved! Do you know what that means!? Do you!? They'll tie you up and laugh as they piss down your throats! They'll dress you up in humiliating clothes and whip your hides until there's nothing left! They'll shove giant rods of rubber and metal into every hole you have until you bleed! Then, just when you're all stretched and torn and you think that it can't get any worse, they'll switch over to bigger ones! Do you want that!? Or do you want to get out of here and get a chance at living those new lives of yours!?"

"Th-they'll... wh-what...!?" whispered Atom, her eyes suddenly wide and fearful.

"E-every hole...!?" whimpered Bulkhead, his lower lip trembling as he awkwardly turned around to regard his rump. "E-even... back there...!?"

"Especially back there!" I hissed, yanking their barding collars once again for added effect. "Every hour of every day! You'll never have another moment's rest as long as you live! And remember, now that you're no longer wearing your Pipbucks, your lifespans have likely increased by at least a factor of three!"

Atom and Bulkhead exchanged a fearful, sidelong glance as they abridged the implications of my words.

"So," I asked quietly, my teeth still bared in anger, "Are you two going to sober up? Or will I just go and tell the slavers they have two new playthings on their way?"

"No!" shouted Atom, her hind legs scrambling to gain purchase on the floor and hold up her body unassisted. "I—! I'm fine! See!? That cuff I frank had no elect on me whatsopepper!"

"Uh... pardon?" I said worriedly, my eyebrows slanting into a concerned frown. Atom pushed herself onto all fours, wobbling constantly as she moved, and regarded me solidly once she had achieved some semblance of equilibrium. Her tongue poked out of the corner of her muzzle and sweat began to form on her brow, signalling that the very act of standing upright was taxing her concentration to the maximum.

"Just what I said," she replied confidently. "That puff I sank at the car had absotootely no aspect on me whatsolever!"

"Oh my Goddess," I whispered, my hooves grasping either side of my head in horror. "What the hell is wrong with your voice!? I knew that damn whisky stuff was poison! It's screwed up your speech centre!"

"Low it pheasant!" shouted Atom, her eyes widening suddenly as she considered her own words. She spoke again a moment later, having resorted to physically forcing her vocal cords to comply with her will. "I mean— No! It! Hasn't! I'll! Be! Dine! I mean, fine! Compass!" she said, loud and slow, shouting over the alcoholic din. "I'm dust, I mean, just... finding it a little, uh... difficult to... you know... use words that are, um... right! It's like, rhyming's, eh... oh, what's that word? Opposite of harder... um... oh! Easier! Yeah, that's it! Timing's sleazier! Uh, I mean... Rhyming's! Easier!"

"Okay, th-that's not bad!" I replied hurriedly as Atom struggled to manually regulate her faculties. "Just keep concentrating on what you're saying, okay? Bulkhead, what about you? Are you ready to—? Bulkhead? Bulkhead! Wake up!"

The sleepy stallion had once again drooped into unconsciousness, resting his head contentedly on the floor of the lift. I shouted at him continuously, invoking several of my more florid swearwords in the process, but was unable to rouse his heavy, sleeping form.

Suddenly, just as I was preparing another volley of loud abuse, a decelerating shudder resounded throughout the lift carriage, signalling that we had arrived at the base of the shaft, and the entrance to Stone Tower's private chamber. With a gasp of panic, I jumped over Bulkhead's slumbering body, grabbing his tail in my teeth as I passed over his rump.

"Prepare your anus, Bulkhead!" I shouted, much to Atom's surprise. "The slavers are on their way with their rubber rods!"

At that, I yanked his tail skyward, eliciting a startled yelp and an undignified flurry of motion as Bulkhead was dragged, arse first, back into the land of the waking.

"AH! N-no! Not there!" he screamed as he shot to his hooves in surprise.

"Right!" I shouted, galloping into his field of vision before he could lay down again. "You're up now, so stay that way! Or else the next time somepony lifts your tail, it won't be to give you a wakeup call!"

I positioned myself at the threshold of the lift, my hoof poised and ready to operate the door control.

"Alright, you two..." I said, gulping as I turned back to face them. My gaze was met by the rapidly oscillating Atom Spark, who was endeavouring to stay upright by executing a series of tiny, jittered muscle movements every few seconds, and Bulkhead's lethargic frame, which was swaying gently from side to side as his eyes lazily blinked out of sync with one another.

"Just..." I continued, wincing at the mere sight of my companions. "Try not to get us killed."

I turned back to the door control, and with a silent, hurried prayer to the Goddesses, pushed the button.

A few minutes, and a brief jaunt through a reassuringly familiar set of corridors later, Atom, Bulkhead and I arrived at the entrance to Stone Tower's chamber. Although the signage in the lower levels of the Emporium had covered the original stable's labelling and livery, I still recognised Tower's office as the reactor room atrium, an expansive space usually reserved for a stable's gargantuan spark turbines. They were needed to produce useful energy from the reactor's raw magic reactions, and required a heavily insulated, soundproofed room to operate in, owing in part to their general noisiness, but mostly to their relative fragility when it came to moisture penetration. Stone Tower had reserved the most secluded, most shielded room in the hollow fallout shelter for his own personal use. Clearly, he did not want to be unduly disturbed.

I looked to my companions one last time before knocking my hoof against the giant pressure door, electing to forgo any more encouraging words in favour of completing our task as quickly as possible. A moment later, the metal slab slid smoothly into its recess in the ceiling with a nostalgic hiss, revealing a lushly appointed open space. The chamber was empty but for a huge darkwood desk at the far end and a number of tall bookcases lining the walls. In between each of the monolithic frames was a curious arrangement of florescent tubes, every one of which was gleefully producing a remarkably convincing shaft of simulated sunlight.

We trotted forwards slowly, our hoofsteps softened into whispered padding by the thick, red carpet underhoof. As we moved closer to the behemoth-sized desk, the solitary equinoid figure behind it looked up from a stack of clipboards laid out in front of him and regarded us lazily over the top of the half-moon spectacles he wore.

"Ah. Y'all have arrived, I see," he said, an unmistakable southern drawl permeating his words. "Ah'm Stone Tower, but o' course, y'all already knew that."

"Hellooo," Bulkhead said sleepily, as his eyes struggled to remain even half open. "I'm Bul—," he continued, before being interrupted by a gargantuan and noticeably drawn out yawn, "—khead.

"A-and I'm Lattice Arc— I mean, Atom Spark!" Atom said hurriedly, wobbling unsteadily with every syllable. "Teased to— Sorry, pleased to meet you, cur. I mean, sir!"

I gritted my teeth, threatening to shatter them with the force of my apprehension as the winged stallion sized up my companions. Stone Tower blinked a couple of times, staring at Bulkhead and Atom with a critically unimpressed frown.

"Is... Is this a joke?" he eventually said, glancing between the two offenders. "Have y'all seriously just come in here drunk!?"

"N-no. No, no, no, no way!" Bulkhead replied, swinging his head with every word, before hiccuping loudly. "W-we... don't even..." he said, trailing off into a gentle rhythm of snoring before he could finish.

"Wh-what my frolic— I mean, colleague means," Atom said quickly, in a vain attempt to try and salvage the situation, "is that we—"

"Enough!" Stone Tower suddenly said, slamming his hoof down on the desk for emphasis. "Ah will not be insulted like this! Ah don't care whut kinda business y'all have ta offer me! Get out o' mah office! And get out o' mah Empor—!"

"Mr. Tower!" a fourth voice suddenly called, interrupting the powerful pegasus before he could finish his sentence. With an awful, encroaching dread, I realised that the voice was in fact mine, and that I had - without any idea of what I was going to do as a follow-up - stepped in front of my stablemates to address the master slaver.

"Please, hear us!" I continued blindly, taking full advantage of the silence I had just managed to create.

Another frown - one of mild confusion this time, worked it's way across Stone Tower's brow as his keen gaze settled on me for the first time.

"It was mah understandin'," he said slowly, providing me with a not-so-subtle warning of the danger that deceiving him presented, "that you were far from being a vocal member o' yer party, Mr. Smith. In fact, my aides informed me that you were barely capable of speech when you arrived."

"That was a... precaution I felt I had to take, Mr. Tower," I said, as a last minute modification to my character's background unfurled quickly into my brain. "I apologise for the deception, but it was necessary for my protection."

"Your protection?" Stone Tower replied, his eyebrows slanting in confusion. "From whut? Just who are ya?"

"To answer your questions in order, Mr. Tower," I replied politely, "these two workers and I have just escaped from a revolt of the lower classes in our stable. They are unimportant, as they were only serving as my escorts, and are in fact from the second lowest caste of Stable 52. I however, am the Understallion of the facility in question, second only in authority to the Overmare."

"A revolt of the lower classes?" Stone Tower said, his interest evidently peeked. "Are y'all tellin' me that there's a stable out there with slaves in it!? Like mah Emporium!?"

"Very much so," I replied, continuing my cool, curt manner. I felt an entitled, self-important sounding accent creep into my words as I spoke, and I gladly nurtured it, hoping that it would lend credibility to my lies. "But unfortunately, there has recently been a... Well, let's call it an 'incident', back in the stable. That is why we sought you out, Mr. Tower - we require the assistance of another civilised pony, one who recognises that some creatures are fundamentally better than others. I apologise once again for the behaviour of these workers, and I hope that you will find it agreeable to continue our talks despite their deplorable conduct."

"Uh-huh..." Stone Tower said, regarding me evenly over the rims of his glasses.

"Alright, Mr. Smith," he said slowly, as he cast a death-stare towards my companions (who were still barely sentient due to their inebriation). "Ah'll give ya one minute. Thrall me."

'Heh. You won't even need thirty seconds,' chuckled One. 'Go get him.'

"Very well," I replied, smirking internally. "Mr. Tower, in exchange for your assistance in restoring myself and the remainder of the management caste back to the top of Stable 52's hierarchy, I am prepared to offer you a fifty-fifty ownership stake in our compliment of workers."

Stone Tower opened his mouth to respond as soon as mine had closed, unaware of the fact that I hadn't yet finished speaking. In the split second it took me to pause for breath, his expression told me that he was going to be unwilling to accept what would most likely be a couple of hundred (at the most) soft, stable dwelling slaves as payment for any service, let alone one that might involve military might.

It was lucky then that Stable 52 wasn't your run of the mill pre-war prize.

"I feel I should also point out," I continued, before Tower could utter more than a single syllable, "that the compliment in question numbers in the tens of thousands."

Tower's jaw instantly locked open, mid-word, as I spoke, his eyes suddenly holding my gaze with an unwavering, near mechanical precision.

"Wha—? Ah... Ah beg yer pardon?" he said slowly, a few seconds later. "Did you just say that you have tens of thousands of slaves...!?"

"Thirty-two thousand, three hundred and eleven." I smirked callously. "At last count."

Tower looked like I had just given him the greatest Hearth's Warming gift in the history of Equestria. I could see waterfalls of caps and collars careening contemptuously behind his eyes, a cascade of commercial ventures blossoming forth from his capitalistic core.

"So," I continued, confident that I had acquired his absolute, undivided attention, "how does that sound to you, Mr. Tower?"

The lift doors slid closed with a heavy hiss as I trotted out into the bar area. An hour had passed since the commencement of my negotiations with Stone Tower, most of which had involved me practically dictating terms to him following my revelation of Stable 52's massive compliment of fictional slave labourers. After I had assured him of my sincerity (and stayed calm, collected and cool despite his thinly veiled threats of reprisal should it emerge that I was being dishonest), he eagerly promised to furnish me with every piece of equipment and all the mercenaries that I could think to ask for.

The atmosphere in the bar area had softened somewhat since I had left it, but I still felt a distinct air of discomfort about the place, and was as such disinclined to hang around for any length of time. I opted instead to venture up to the room that Chase had reserved for us earlier, traversing the misappropriated hallways of Stable 50 up to what would have once been the habitation section.

I found myself having curious, heavily conflicted feelings of nostalgia as I wandered the corridors, looking from door to door in an attempt to decipher the hopelessly inefficient numbering system that had been used to label each room (why they hadn't just stuck with StableTec's Standardised Indexing System™, I will never know). On one hoof, I was happy to be back in an environment that I recognised - stables were, for the most part at least, built to uniform specifications, meaning that the corridors I was navigating could have easily been those I had 'grown up' in. On the other though, I was constantly aware of the nature of the place that I found myself in, a nagging sadness at its corruption constantly gnawing away at any feelings of warmth or homeliness that might have snuck their way into my conscious thoughts.

When I did manage to find my room, I was surprised to find Bulkhead and Atom chatting pleasantly over two cups of freshly brewed coffee (or what I assumed to be coffee), and an expansive improvised chemistry set taking up the majority of the room's floor. Upon my opening the door, my stablemate's conversation had ceased abruptly, and they had both immediately started avoiding direct eye contact with me, opting instead to intently study the carpet.

"Oh. You're back," Atom said sheepishly. "How, uh... How did it go...?"

"Not bad," I replied with a sigh, as I plonked myself heavily down onto one of the beds and began to remove my bandages and barding. "Pretty great, actually. Stone Tower wants to give us everything we need to 'take back' Stable 52. You should have seen his face when I told him about all the slaves we're supposed to have - his eyes practically popped out of his head!"

"Wow!" Bulkhead said, practically dropping his mug as he looked to Atom. "That's amazing! Way to go, Compass!"

"Yeah!" added Atom. "It's great that you were able to salvage the situation. Despite our... you know..."

"Your complete failure to listen to me?" I proffered harshly.

"Uh," Bulkhead said quietly, "Y-yeah. Sorry about that."

"It's okay," I sighed, as I leaned back to recline on the greyed fluffiness of the bed covers. "Besides, it seemed to turn out alri— OW! What the—!?"

The moment my hide met the mattress, the small of my back reported a sharp, stabbing pain that elicited a yelp and a burst of profanity from my mouth. Squirming onto my side, I grabbed the trespassing object and held it up to my face, sitting up again in the process.

"What the hell is this!?" I asked loudly, rubbing my backside with my free hoof. "And while we're on the subject, what are you doing with that frigging chemistry set!?"

"Oh, sorry!" Atom said, hurrying to relieve me of the object. "That used to be a toaster. We've been using it to incubate cultures."

"Cultures...?" I said, nonplussed. "Why? Of what?"

"Our mucus membrane secretions," Bulkhead answered, a happy grin spread across his face.

"You what!?" I continued, now thoroughly confused. "Are you two still drunk!? What the hell are you making bacterial cultures of your own phlegm for!?"

"Well," said Atom, "we felt so bad about how we acted, we decided to snap out of it as soon as we could. You said that the drinks we were having were alcohol based, and since we weren't showing any of the more severe symptoms of alcohol poisoning, we figured that our disorientation must be caused by our livers not metabolising it fast enough."

"When we confirmed that," continued Bulkhead, "it was a simple matter to bio-engineer a basic micro-organism capable of independently seeking out and metabolising the alcohol molecules and replenishing the water lost by our organs. That's what we were drinking when you came in - five minutes ago, I was still struggling to stay awake, and Atom was falling over every couple of minutes. Hence the incubator being on the bed - we didn't want it to break if Atom fell on top of it."

"Huh..." I said, looking back and forth between my stablemates. "You did all that in an hour? That's, uh... Actually, that's pretty brilliant. I'd even go as far as to say it was amazing."

"Thanks," they replied, almost in unison, their grins speaking of sincere validation at my praising them. "So, what's the plan for tomorrow, then? Where do you need us?"

"The plan's going to have to wait a little while," I said, my head in my hooves. "Buckshot's in trouble."

"Yeah, we saw him break into the bar when we were getting, uh, what did you call it? Drunk?" said Atom. "Anyway, he ran into the room like a buck possessed - it was actually pretty scary. All the ponies at the tables screamed and started calling for security. Then he ran into this red-maned mare and just stopped dead. Are they threatening to hurt him or somethin—?"

"Hang on," I said, holding up my hoof to interrupt Atom. "What did you say about a red-maned mare?"

"It's like I said," she continued. "He just sort of... stopped when he saw her. Like he recognised her or something."

"Recognised her?" I replied, frowning. I remembered the mare in question well, despite only speaking with her for a few minutes. Saltira, her name was. Her mane was red; very red, and she had a flag-shaped cutie mark and an accent exactly like Buckshot's.

"Could it be that...?" I mused out loud.

"Could it be what?" Bulkhead asked, cocking his head slightly.

"Hm? Oh, nothing..." I said, shaking my head. "I can figure it out later after I've beaten Buckshot."

"When you've beaten him at what?" said Bulkhead. "I hope you're not planning on playing chess with anypony. You know how you get when you lose."

"I don't think that's what he means!" interjected Atom, her face awash with alarm. "Compass, are you saying that you're going to hit Buckshot!?"

"Well I don't have much of a Celestia-damned choice, now do I!?" I shouted back at her. "The bastards that run this place have demanded that he be punished for breaking into the bar! And I can't refuse because if I show any compassion for him whatsoever they'll know something's wrong! We're already on Stone Tower's radar for that little revelation of mine from earlier, not to mention all the promises I made to him!"

"Oh, Goddess," Atom sighed, as she placed one of her tiny hooves on top of mine, her eyes glistening. "What are you going to do?"

"I don't know!" I replied, slumping forward heavily.

"Well..." Bulkhead said slowly. "What about the other plan?"

"What!?" I said, frowning as I straightened up again. "What 'other' plan!?"

"The collars," Bulkhead replied, a little indignation of my lapse working its way into his voice. "The ones I rigged to simulate electrocu—"

"The collars!" I shouted, jumping to my hooves and galloping over to where my stablemate was standing. "You frigging genius, Bulkhead! Come 'ere!"

At that, I grabbed his head between my hooves and kissed him full on the mouth, as a brilliant blossom of hope and optimism found purchase in my bosom. Bulkhead, on the other hoof, was nowhere near as happy with the sudden embrace as I was. He recoiled from me almost instantly, coughing and covering his nose as he withdrew.

"Hey!" I shouted at him. "I'm not that bad! I was just trying to show some gratitude!"

"It's not that," he said, nearly retching. "When was the last time you had a shower?"

"Excuse me!?" I replied, turning to Atom. "Is he trying to say that I smell!?"

"Um..." Atom responded, biting her lower lip as if to stifle a giggle. "That may be what he's saying, yes."

I looked back and forth between my two stablemates for a few seconds, taken aback by their rudeness as they once again opted to avoid eye contact with me. Then, just as I was about to launch into a scathing retort, a little counter somewhere in the back of my mind reminded me that it had been at least a week since I had last bathed. Lifting my right foreleg slowly, I took an exploratory whiff, and proceeded to gag a split second later. My time in the Wasteland had matted sweat into sweat that had itself been laid over a base of sweat, turning my ordinarily manageable body odour into a maelstrom of male; a true offence to the olfactory senses.

Basically, I stank.

"We would have told you earlier," Atom said apologetically, "but it's been all go since you came back to the stable, and we really haven't noticed till just now."

"If it makes you feel any better," Bulkhead began, shrinking slightly when I turned to stare at him, "Atom and I are both a little ripe as well." An indignant glance framed by a single raised eyebrow from the tiny female effectively silenced Bulkhead from that moment on, and I was allowed a further silence in which to speak.

"Well," I replied, sighing as I tried to ignore my new found stench, "at least Stone Tower didn't notice."

I checked the clock built into my PipBuck and turned towards the bathroom, throwing my barding into the automated laundry hamper as I went.

"Right, you two," I said over my shoulder. "Order one of those meat platter things from the kitchen and clean out that chemistry set you've put together. When I come out of that shower, we'll have work to do."

Atom and Bulkhead simply frowned confusedly at one another, as the StableTec Laundromatic in the corner silently started its wash cycle.

A short while later, I had managed to attend to my hygiene concerns and was feeling a little more equine as a result. The shower, although old and lacking slightly in the water pressure department, was up to the standard I had become accustomed to during my residence in Stable 52. Hot water had cleansed me of my various excretions and eased the tired muscles of my legs, back and neck, leaving behind a pleasant, damp fuzziness as I wrapped an overly laundered, threadbare towel around my midriff. Stepping out into the bedroom, my nose was immediately met by the unmistakable scent of cooked meat, as Atom and Bulkhead curiously prodded the platter that had apparently just been delivered.

"Oh, good," I said. "It's here. Okay, Atom, Bulkhead, I need a bottled distillation of the contents of that platter. And make it small, I'm going to have to keep it hidden."

"You want a what?" Atom asked, wrinkling her nose at the prospect. "But that'll stink to high Heaven! You'll basically have a little bottle of meaty stench."

"That's exactly what I'm after," I replied, as I pulled open the Laundromatic's 'out' drawer to reveal my freshly washed and pressed stable barding. "Can you manage it?"

"Well... yeah," replied Bulkhead, as he readied a number of beakers and began to tentatively feed the contents of the platter into a funnel (which, I believe, had started its life as a lampshade). "It'll be easy. I just can't imagine what you would need the scent of burnt meat for."

"It's for Buckshot," I said, as I pulled my barding over my forelegs.

"And he, uh," Atom said slowly, her compact little hooves deftly manipulating knobs and valves on the improvised equipment. "He... likes concentrated meat smell...?"

"He likes meat, yeah," I replied, as I pulled the zip up with my teeth. "But the stuff in the bottle doesn't have to be edible, mind."

"Then..." Bulkhead said, his sentence punctuated by the bubbling of the liquid in the diffuser. "Why do you even want it?"

I took a breath to respond, but before I could explain my reasoning, there was a rapid series of knocks against the door that startled the three of us into silence.

"Finish up!" I hissed. "Quickly!"

"It's done, it's done! Here!" replied Atom, as she passed me a small vial of transparent, still-warm liquid.

Another fast trio of knocks rapped against the metal.

"Okay," I said, pushing the vial deep into the freshly pressed pockets of my barding. "Now clean this up! We can't let whoever that is see—!"

At that, there was a familiar hiss as the room's door slid open, revealing the greasy little unicorn from earlier. He looked concerned as he regarded the scene before him, no doubt wondering whether he should run for the Emporium's security forces or politely ask for an explanation. Fortunately for us though, Atom was quick-witted enough to pre-empt any questions he might have had.

"A-as I was saying, sir," she said, almost without missing a beat. "We've nearly finished that draught you wanted to give Mr. Tower. It should be at full saturation any time now."

"Good," I replied, my overly posh, self important accent flourishing comfortably as I spoke. "If it's of the quality I enjoyed back in the stable, I might just forgive your disgraceful behaviour earlier. You never know, I might even refrain from demoting you two to the slave caste."

"Th-thank you, sir," responded Bulkhead, bowing as he played along.

I turned to the unicorn (whose expression had now relaxed somewhat) and addressed him in the same fashion as one might address an especially poorly mannered beetle.

"Now," I said loftily, as I let my gaze bore into him, "I trust that you have an excellent reason for overriding the lock on my room."

"I-I, uh..." he stuttered, sweat once again forming across his greasy brow. "It's, uh... t-time for th-the beating, sir."

"Ah, yes," I replied, turning back to Bulkhead. "Give me the buck's collar remote."

"Y-yes, sir," said Bulkhead, as he passed me the remote for the modified collars from his saddlebag. "It's channel two for the buck's collar, sir."

I took the device into one of my barding pockets and turned back to the unicorn (uncomfortably bypassing my natural reflex of saying 'thank you' after receiving something from somepony).

"Take me to him," I said, as the door slid closed behind me, the unicorn struggling to keep pace with me.

I managed to quite comfortably avoid any questions from the deplorable little administrator pony during our trot up to the slave quartets, mostly by staring daggers at him any time he opened his mouth. It's not like it was any great feat either - I didn't need to pretend to dislike him.

I could tell that we were nearing the slave quarters in six entirely different ways - one for each of of my major senses. There was an unmistakable stench in the upper levels that I hadn't been able to detect in the lower ones. It stank of fear and sweat, mixed with notes of urine and faeces, and the state of the corridors began to remind me of either a sewer or a prison (I couldn't decide which was more prevalent). The light was dim and patchy, the crystals casting it no doubt having been reassigned to the gaudy chandeliers of the lower levels, and the walls were stripped, bare and unwashed, their tarnished surfaces playing host to a myriad of weapons and 'disciplinary tools'. As we moved further in, I was able to actually taste the scents I was encountering, the air seeming to thicken into a haze of abuse and anxiety. I could hear the distant screams and echoing sobs of the poor souls trapped behind the walls even as the various unfriendly enchantments and spells that littered the local ether made my metallic horn itch and sting.

We soon neared a portal - a huge, steel door, obviously designed to intimidate rather than contain. The lock was entirely mechanical, and its oversized features were caked with rust and spatters of blood. The slavers could have easily stuck with the StableTec pressure doors, and all the subtle magical reinforcement and arcane ingenuity that went into their design and manufacture.

But they hadn't. The piece before me was not meant to be a divider between rooms, secure or otherwise. It was a symbol. Barely functional as a door, but infinitely useful as a psychological weapon, this slab of metal was the slaver's message to their captives:

You will never escape. You will never be free. Compliance is your only hope. Your only hope to avoid death.

I winced as the rusty edifice swung open at the magical command of the unicorn beside me, a painful shiver running down my spine at the horrific creaking sound its hinges produced. The space beyond the door was too dark to immediately see into, and it took several seconds for my eyes to adjust to the low light level inside. The presence of an odd, free-floating shape was immediately apparent as my irises opened to the scant flow of photons before me. I found myself leaning forward and squinting as the image resolved itself into my mind, and I was forced to stifle a gasp, harshly gritting my teeth together as I realised what I was seeing.

There, hanging by his forelegs, was Buckshot. His rear hooves dangled just off of the floor, a trickle of blood snaking its way from the bruises covering his face all the way down his body and onto the ground below. He rotated slowly, swinging lightly from side to side, as laboured, heavy breaths were drawn through his swollen nostrils, his head resting - either out of fatigue or pain - on his chest.

I was reminded of the administrator's presence a moment later as he nervously cleared his throat. Over the subsequent few milliseconds, the urge to step on the little louse of an equine beside me transformed into a deep, boiling rage and I found that it took every single fibre of my sanity to keep me from murdering him brutally, right there and then.

"So, uh, sir," he said, as flames flashed up and down my back. "If you'd like to pick an implement to discipline your slave, I'll inform the other owners that they can take their seats in the viewing gallery."

"The... viewing... gallery...!?" I hissed, as I set him ablaze with my eyes. "What viewing gallery!?"

"Th-the, uh, the one that the other owners are going to watch you through, sir," he replied, melting under my gaze. "Th-they were all, um, going to watch you discipline your slave due to the nature of the, uh, incident... Didn't I, um, mention that e-earlier...?"

"No," I said, as a single muscle in my cheek had a fit of rage at the hedonistic, despotic filth I was surrounded by. "You did not."

"Oh..." he responded a second later, as he began to surreptitiously shift his slick little form back towards the lift. "Well I do apologise about that sir if you'll excuse me I have things to do if you need anything just use the intercom!"

And with that single, fluid outpouring of anxiety, he was gone, safely ensconced in the steel box of the lift. Oh, how I wished I could override the safety brakes and liquefy that despicable little bugger! But vengeance was not my goal, at least not yet - I had ponies to save! Galloping forward to Buckshot's suspended form, I grabbed his head between my hooves and begged him to awaken.

"Buckshot!" I shouted at him, my internals contorting with agonising unified flurries of anger and fear. "Buckshot! Wake up! Oh my Goddess, please be okay! Buckshot! Buckshot!"

A single cough and a flutter of his eyelids gave me room to breath as my coltfriend's consciousness returned. I exhaled loudly in relief as a shiver escaped Buckshot's mouth, a vile cacophony of recent memories and physical sensations visibly flooding his mind with pain.

"S... Sis..." he murmured, almost too quietly to hear. "Sal... tira..."

"Buckshot!" I repeated loudly, ignoring everything but my own panic. "It's me, Compass! Wake up! Please!"

"C... Compass...?" he whispered throatily a moment later. "Oh, th... thank Luna... Ah'm s-sorry for the... trouble. I c... I couldnae..."

"Shh," I replied softly, as I pressed my hoof to his lips and continued in a low whisper. "Don't speak now - they'll be here soon. They want me to beat you, Buckshot. Do you understand? I need your help to fool them, otherwise we'll all be found out. Can you do that for me? Can you help me fool the slavers?"

"Ah... Ah'll manage," he said. "Whit's yer... plan...?"

"When the collar buzzes, pretend you're getting electrocuted," I replied, as I busied myself with the chain holding him to the ceiling. "That's all you have to do - just leave the rest to me, okay?"

"Can do..." he responded, his eyes blearily adjusting to the room's light level. "Hey... Whit ye doin' wi' that chain...?"

"Waking you up a little. Sorry for this, by the way," I said, as the manacles holding Buckshot aloft suddenly dropped, allowing his stretched and tortured form to do the same. An almighty crack and a cry of anguish pierced my ear drums as he hit the floor and immediately began to writhe in agony.

"ARGH! YA STUPIT BASTARD!" he cried, his eyes wide and fierce now. "THAT WIS FUCKIN' SORE!"

"W-well there's a lot more where that came from," I replied (almost) coolly, as I quickly fished the collar remote out of my barding pocket.

"Och, Compass, not now!" Buckshot said as he began to painfully rise to his hooves. "There's a time and a place for that sort o' tal— ACK!"

My hoof throbbed as it ricocheted with a soft thud off of Buckshot's ribcage. Now, at that moment, it appeared as if I had just kicked my coltfriend in the chest for no good reason. But that was only from his point of view. From mine, however, it was a perfectly sensible action, seeing as how the mirrored glass that covered one side of the room had just lost its reflectivity, revealing the fatter and more red faced of the ponies I had seen in the bar area earlier.

Buckshot clocked their presence shortly after slumping to the ground from the impact of my strike (but not before he shot me the king - no, the god - of all death glares). He turned back to face me, and gave me the tiniest nod, indicating that he was ready to lie for his life. At that, I calmly stepped over him, and addressed the creatures behind the glass, taking care not to let my seething aggression for them bubble over and leave the relatively safe confines of my mind.

"Fillies and gentlecolts," I began slowly, choosing my words carefully. "My name is Smith, and I am told that the animal behind me disrupted your good selves earlier this evening. Now, being the owner of the slave in question, I can but apologise for his infraction, and invite you to witness his punishment."

There was a general nodding motion from the assembled slave owners as they showed their mutual satisfaction with my words.

"To that end," I continued, "I hope that you find what I'm about to do pleasing to watch."

'You bunch of terrible bastards...' I concluded internally.

Turning back around, I braced myself for the ordeal that I knew he and I were about to endure... and promptly froze stiff. I realised in horror that I had absolutely no idea what my next step was going to be! I'd never tortured another living being in my life, and I somehow doubted that I was about to discover a hidden talent for it. Staring desperately into Buckshot's eyes, I felt my own widen in fear as my folly was laid bare in front of me.

"Ye..." hissed Buckshot suddenly. "Ye'll never break me, ya bastard! Ye hear me!? Ah'll fight ye till mah dyin' breath!"

A brilliant wash of relief flooded my breast as my genius companion took the lead. With those simple few words, Buckshot had provided the prompt that I so desperately needed, allowing me to continue my deception simply by responding to his fabricated objection.

"Oh, really?" I said, smiling surreptitiously at his ingenuity. "Well then, at least we have a starting point for our little session."

I looked over my shoulder at the assembled despots, and spoke to them conspiratorially as if they and I were in on some great joke.

"You'll like this," I said, smirking as I raised the collar remote into view. There was a collective gasp (and, disgustingly, at least one lick of the lips) from behind the glass when it became clear what I was holding.

"Not to worry, everypony," I continued. "This won't trigger an explosive. As annoying as this beast is, he's far too good at what he does to be disposed of, and I find that floggings dull combat responsiveness. To that end, I've had one of my servants from the stable install a little surprise in each of my collars. Observe."

At that, I deftly dropped the remote into my mouth and, at the same time, shifted the tiny vial Bulkhead had given me out of my pocket and onto the ground (such that the movement was hidden from those behind the glass). A breath later, I bit down on the button and crushed the container under my hoof. A burst of motion assaulted my eyes as Buckshot suddenly began to spasm before me, contorting and writhing better than a professional actor ever could. The stench of my stablemate's distillation hit my nostrils and I sighed internally, silently relieved that my ridiculous luck (and choice of companions) had once again saved my hide.

As far as any of the ponies watching were concerned, I was torturing my 'slave' with a series of strong electric shocks. And to anypony who might enter the chamber or approach Buckshot or I afterwards, it would even smell as if that's what we'd been doing. I slackened my jaw after a few seconds, making sure that the distinctive click of the remote was audible to everypony present. Buckshot immediately ceased his motions and collapsed to the floor, his chest heaving with long, ragged breaths as he played his role to perfection.

"Now," I said, as I closed in on his still contorted face, "have we had enough, yet? Are we going to be a good little colt and behave ourselves from now on?"

"Y-ye can... g-go f-fuck yersel'!" he hissed back at me, his teeth chattering in a perfect imitation of an adrenaline rush. "Ah'll d-die... first!"

"You'll live exactly as long as I tell you to live, you little shit!" I replied with a growl, as I squeezed the remote again.

Buckshot began to spasm once more, flexing every muscle in his body to an extreme extent as he pretended to resist the imaginary torture. I was starting to really get into my character, and I found that the perverse smile I had forced myself to wear at the outset was now straining my cheeks with its intensity. I was overjoyed with how well our deception was progressing, the various responses from the slave owners behind the glass driving my overconfidence to new, previously unattainable heights.

As I was marvelling at my own ingenuity, a cry from Buckshot suddenly brought my surroundings back into focus. Unlike me, he had obviously been concentrating on the goings-on around him, and had been gauging the facial expressions of our observers to figure out how much they were buying into our ploy.

"S-STOP!" he suddenly screamed, his hooves clutched desperately around his neck as his face contorted in an expression of pure agony. "PLEASE! FER THE LOVE O' LUNA, STOP! I'LL DO ANYTHING! JUST PLEASE STOP IT!"

At that, I released the collar control for the final time, and nonchalantly replaced the device back in my barding pocket. On cue, Buckshot flopped to the floor, his chest heaving and his breath ragged. His mouth hung open as he gasped, aching with every tiny motion of his body.

"And that, fillies and gentlecolts," I said smugly, as I walked over Buckshot's body, "is how you discipline a slave. I do hope that my property's admonishment has been sufficient for you."

With a bow, I turned away from the window and, after delivering one last kick to Buckshot's side for good measure, left the torture chamber in my wake. The slimy unicorn I had come to hate so much was nowhere to be seen, so I was able to chance one final glance back in Buckshot's direction before a pair of leather-clad handlers rushed past me to secure my 'property'. For no more than a second, I was able to meet Buckshot's gaze, just spying the tiniest semblance of a wink. With an equally surreptitious nod back, I let out a slow, relieved sigh, secure in the knowledge that, for a moment at least, we were winning.

I arrived back at the Emporium's bar area a short while later, and did my best to avoid the inevitable invitations from the slave owners that had come to see my show. The fattest of them (whose expressions of delight as I 'tortured' another living soul repulsed me to my core), patted me on the back, saying that he hadn't enjoyed something as much as that in years, and that I showed 'great promise', whatever that meant. I grimaced at the inference, and found myself trying desperately to mask his awesomely foul breath as he laughed heartily in my face. Once I had placated him, he wobbled off to continue whatever despotic plans he had for the evening, and I suddenly found myself in the company of one of the mares from behind the glass. While the other slave owners had either politely applauded my technique or curtly thanked me for punishing my slave on their behalf, this mare behaved differently. She seemed to have been positively enraptured by my performance in the torture chamber, and pulled me into a corridor just off the bar area as soon as she was sure we wouldn't be seen. Once we were alone, she began to circle me slowly, speaking in soft, soothing tones as she recounted my actions to me in a tone that could only be described as romantic. She moved her body in such a way that my eyes were always drawn to her hindquarters, and she swirled her tail past my nose on more than one occasion, practically forcing her deeply perfumed, arousing scent upon me. The whole experience left me dizzy, like she was hypnotising me into a soft lull with her presence. It all came to a head when she pushed me up against the corridor wall, and made a grab for my... well, you can probably imagine what she went for. I squealed at her touch, galloping out into the bar again as fast as my hooves could carry me. (Not that it wasn't an unwelcome touch, you understand. On the contrary: her hooves felt like they were made of clouds, and her voice was like silk. It's just that I couldn't let myself fall into the trap of arousal again, not when I was in so deep.)

After my somewhat undignified exit from the corridor, I headed quickly back to bar area, where I began desperately looking for a hiding place from the crazy, sadistically-charged mare following me. By now, it was quite late at night, and the Emporium's social areas were deserted, meaning that I wouldn't be able to blend into a crowd, so, thinking on my hooves, I darted towards the closest door, burst through it, and shut it again with as much urgency as I could manage.

I stood perfectly still for several minutes, my ear held tight against the wood. I was able to hear the lonesome, moody trudging of the mare outside, and breathed a sigh of relief as her hoofsteps began to grow more and more distant. Finally, once she was out of earshot entirely, I turned around and leant against the door, only to yelp in panic as my eyes met the steely gaze of Mayday, the Emporium's secretary. Looking around hurriedly, I realised that, in my haste, I had come barging into the hall that housed Stone Tower's private lift.

"I-I, uh... I'm s-sorry... to, uh, barge in like this!" I stammered. "I-I w-was just... Um... H-hello...?"

The mare didn't move. She just sat there, staring at me. Never blinking, never moving. I doubted she was even breathing.

"What the hell...?" I whispered as I closed in on her, experimentally extending my hoof to touch hers. I recoiled the moment I made contact - she was ice cold! Her hide had all the complexion of a living pony, and her eyes were moist and lifelike, but there was no doubt about it: she was stone dead! Somehow, in the last few hours, she had been been paralysed and left to die as a statue in her chair.

I frowned, turning towards the lift as my breath quivered. Mayday's murder was just so... gruesomely neat - something stank here, and it was even more rotten than the Emporium's primary 'business' of buying and selling lives. In a heartbeat, I resolved to investigate (after all, my path to Stone Tower's inner sanctum was now clear of obstacles). I trotted lightly into the carriage, and pushed the lowermost button on the panel. The doors slid shut in front of me, and the lift began its long, screeching descent into the depths.

When the doors slipped open again, I stood very still, my eyes closed, such that I could tune my ears to the ambiance of the lower levels. When no anomalous screeches or hoofsteps were forthcoming, I took in a steeling breath, and let it out as I began my trek towards Stone Tower's office. I retraced my previous route easily enough, and quickly found myself once again outside of the stable's old turbine chamber. Pressing my ear up against it, I was able to discern that there was nothing going on inside the room (nothing noisy, at least). Just in case though, I readied my slave owner character, and primed my vocal chords for the pompous accent that I had developed earlier that same day. With my hearts beating their way out of my chest, I gently pushed the door open, hoping that there would be nopony on the other side.

'No such luck, mate,' One said in a mental instant, as my eyes suddenly met Stone Tower's. He was fixing me with a stern stare from the other end of the chamber but, partly in thanks to my preparation a moment earlier, I had just enough presence of mind to avoid squeaking in panic.

"Ah, Mr. Tower," I said, my voice only cracking a little. "I was hoping that you'd still be awake. I apologise for barging in here at this late hour, but I... I..."

I squinted at the chocolate brown pegasus at the other end of the room as he continued to stare at me. Unblinking. Unmoving. Breathless.

"Him as well...?" I began, as I closed in on his desk from across the room. "What in the name of Luna's going on here...?"

I moved delicately to his side to look for a trickle of blood or an entry wound, but found neither in the chamber's scant light. The sunlight-simulating lamps that lined the walls of Tower's office had been reconfigured to breathe a gentle, silver glow down into the cavernous space, bathing the room in faux-moonlight. As such, everything in my field of view cast deep, dark shadows that threw off my natural perception of contrast.

After a few moments of frustrated fumbling, I closed my eyes and concentrated, managing to coax a minor illumination from the tip of my horn. With its glow now lighting my view, I was able to examine the corpse in front of me further, and moved behind it to further my investigation. Stone Tower's hooves were well kept: clearly hooficured to perfection on a regular basis, and entirely free of ordinary floor-level artefacts like dust and mud. His fetlocks, similarly, were trimmed and neat, as were his tail and mane. Like I had surmised previously, there was no evidence of an entry wound or any other sort of damage to his body. But, just like his secretary far above, Stone Tower was stone cold, although his hide, hair, face and even his eyes still bore an uncanny resemblance to those of a live equine.

I brought my hoof to my face to help me ponder the situation: with Stone Tower now dead, how was I going to find Sage, and get everypony out of this place? I sincerely doubted that an organisation as well established and organised as the Emporium would fall apart with the demise of single pony, even if it was their leader. There was no doubt in my mind that, when his corpse was discovered in the morning, there would be a power struggle for the right of succession, but even if it erupted into armed conflict, and even if I disarmed the collars with Tower's terminal, the cells would still be locked, and the guards would still be the ones with the guns. This eventuality was either a great blessing (in that it would distract the slavers long enough for me to free everypony), or a massive problem (in that it would put the whole facility on high alert and thereby make escape all that harder).

I rubbed my forehead, sighing in annoyance at the poor timing of whatever righteous individual or group had managed these assassinations. I mean, could they not have just waited!? Or - even better - sought out and consulted me!?

"Oh, Goddesses..." I grumbled aloud, as I extinguished the light at the tip of my horn. "This is going to complic— Wh... what the...!?"

My hoof fell back to the ground as my eyes zeroed in on a tiny, glowing crack that had only just become visible to me, the light from my horn having obscured it before. Now, ordinarily such an anomaly would be nothing but a curiosity; a little odd something that had a real, easily understandable explanation mired somewhere in the laws of physics. You know - something mundane, like a radioactive leak, or an exotic fungus, or any number of other, ultimately boring things.

This crack, on the other hoof, was different. Firstly, because it was regular, straight and deliberate; more of a slot than a crack. And secondly, because it was on the back of Stone Tower's neck!

Immediately, I grabbed one of the many extravagant quills from the desk, and stamped on it with my hoof to flattened its nib. Pushing my new tool gingerly into the slot, I gasped and fell backwards as the back of Stone Tower's head, with a click and a hiss, literally split open, revealing the glowing, pulsing innards of an equinoid android. I found myself unable to move; unable to do anything but boggle at the amazing sight before me. There were only a few components that I could recognise straight away, the others eliciting naught but a dim shadow of recollection in the dark backwaters of my mind. At the opposite side of the 'skull', I was able to see the mechanisms that animated Stone Tower's face, the pads of fake hair follicles, and the artificial orbs that were his eyes, their surfaces covered in imitation blood vessels. (There were no optic nerves, you see. It appeared as if Tower's eyes were designed to rotate using tiny wheels positioned around the periphery of his eye sockets.)

'This is unbelievable!' I thought to myself. 'Somepony has gone to a lot of trouble to imitate this stallion. Why would they do that?'

'Seems pretty obvious to me,' said One. 'Power. Why trouble yourself with messy power struggles or revolutions when you can just dispose of the leader, and install a realistic, programmable copy in his place? That way, you can maintain the status quo, but have everything your way.'

'That does make a lot of sense...' I replied, still staring into the back of Stone Tower's head. 'But who could have done this? I mean, the hardware in here is making my Doctor sense tingle, which means that he recognises it. I wouldn't be surprised if Two made an appearance any second to give us an ultimatum of some sort.'

'That's a worrying thought,' Three said, joining in on the deduction party. 'If this technology is troubling our Doctor-parts, then that means that there's probably something alien nearby. We need to be very careful from now on.'

At that, I bit the tip of my hoof and shivered with worry.

'Not now...' I whispered into myself. 'Why is something like this cropping up now of all times!?'

I stayed very still for a moment, intent on collecting my thoughts and controlling my breathing, lest I panic and lose what little calm I was still holding on to. A number of seconds passed. Then a minute. Then two. My breaths, previously short and rushed, slowed to a manageable pace as my mind settled into a more serene state, like the surface of a still pond.

"So," came a voice. "What now...?"

'Honestly,' I thought to myself, 'I have no idea. I mean, I have exactly zero leads on who might have built this—'

'Uh... Compass...?' One said, his mental voice quivering with realisation.

'Hm?' I replied, still trying to reason out the 'who' and 'what' of my immediate situation. 'What is it, One?'

'Th-that voice,' One continued, panicked and shaken. 'It wasn't one of us...!'

"Wh-what...!?" I whimpered audibly.

"Ah said," the voice repeated, as the pair of imitation eyes suddenly swivelled around in their sockets to stare at me through the skull. "What now?"

"AH!" I screamed, falling backwards over my own hooves as Stone Tower's head folded itself back up into its original shape. With a series of hisses and servo whines, the robotic pony turned to face me, his legs dangling over the edge of his chair as the chair's legs themselves came to life and began to propel him toward me. Unwelcome comparisons were drawn in my mind to my home stable's murderous spider bots, and I found my heart dropping into my stomach in panic as my rear legs kicked out toward the approaching robot.

"Heh heh heh," the machine's imitation southern accent chuckled as it continued to advance, my kick having done absolutely no damage whatsoever to it. "Ya'll are gonna have to do a lot better than that, little colt!"

"H-how can you be here!?" I stammered, as I wriggled backwards, still helplessly laid out on my back. "Wh-what are you!?"

"Don't trouble yerself, boy," it said languorously. "You'll be dead in a few minutes anyway! Security's on its way."

At that moment, a series of realisations cascaded through my mind at the speed of light, dictating my subsequent actions in a tiny fraction of a second.

Now, since this series of decisions didn't rely on any internal discourse, I'll explain my reasoning. First: I was about to die, so I couldn't very well stay there on the floor and be shot, now could I? Second: There were tens of thousands of ponies relying on me up in the Emporium's upper levels, back in Trotfell, and in the currently location-less Stable 52, so once again, I couldn't just lay down and expire. Third: Stone Tower said that he had called security, which meant that he was somehow unequipped to handle me on his own. Fourth: I had the Screwdriver, and Stone Tower was none the wiser. Conclusion: Flip open my horn and improvise.

And so I did. Tearing the bandages from my face, I whipped my head to one side, flipping the leaves of my Screwdriver-horn open, and blasted a repulsive charge straight into the chest of my assailant. While he (or should that have been 'it'?) was still reeling from the blow, I charged up another spell, and wrapped the door at the chamber's far end in a solid layer of immobilisation magic. Nothing short of a balefire bomb blast was getting into the room!

I pushed myself up onto my hooves, confident that I now had the advantage, and blasted the pony/chair robot in front of me with another targeted blast of magic, propelling it into the far wall.

"I'm not the one who's going to die tonight," I said, my teeth bared. "I've sealed us in here, and I'm not letting you go until you tell me what the hell's going on! Now, who's controlling you? And where's the real Stone Tower?"

"Th-that... horn...!" the robot whispered to itself, its eyes zooming in to intently study the crown of my head. "The join is perfect! Minimal scarring! Obviously no reduction in mental capacity! Full integration with the arcane cortex—!"

"Hey!" I shouted indignantly. "Stop that! Tell me what I want to know or you'll be sorry!"

"Heh heh," the robot chuckled again, as it rose back onto its chair legs. "I doubt that, boy. I think that you'd better do whut I say, otherwise there might be... undesired consequences for ya."

"And just what is that supposed to mean?" I asked, my horn charged and ready to unleash another volley.

"It means," Robo-Tower said, "that at this very moment, your companions and slaves are being rounded up by the security forces upstairs. All Ah need ta do is think the right thought, and they get the order to execute the lot o' them via the internal intercom. In mah voice, no less."

My face fell as the robot expertly out-manoeuvred me, leaving me in the intellectual equivalent of a dust cloud behind a sprinter. Of course it would be able to communicate via the stable's built in network of electronics! I should have dampened the useful portions of the electromagnetic spectrum as well! You bloody idiot, Compass!

The android finished righting itself, and crawled towards me, its arcanely actuated, wooden legs making a soft tap against the carpeted floor. I sighed despondently, hanging my head in defeat as the machine continued to approach.

"D-don't..." I began softly, my throat suddenly dry and uncomfortable. "Don't hurt them... Please..."

"You have very little ta worry about, boy," the robot said as it circled me. "As long as ya cooperate, everything'll be fine..."

"I'll... I'll do whatever you want," I said slowly. "Just, please... don't hurt my friends."

"Huh," Robo-Tower said, as he disconnected himself from his chair-base. A light drone signalled the closure of the panels that made up the rear of his flanks, and he trotted calmly in front of me, now propelled by four, entirely normal-looking legs. He soon drew level with me and stared intently into my eyes. "Pupil contraction and vascular response indicate that ya'll are sincere," he said. "How about that, eh? I find exactly what the old buck is looking for, and he's as compliant as a whore on pay day!"

"Old... buck...?" I mouthed, frowning. "Who are you talking about?"

"The real Stone Tower, o' course," the robot replied, as a hydraulic whir sounded behind me. "Ah'm just his stand-in. Ah run this place, and search for suitable subjects while he continues his work in the lower levels."

"Suitable subjects...? Lower levels...?" I said confusedly, as the robot led me toward the back of the room. There, in the far wall, was a large, rectangular hole where the central bookcase had been just a few moments previously. It had slid away to one side, revealing a deep, poorly lit concrete stairwell behind it. Looking down into the Emporium's even deeper depths, I shivered in fear at who - or, indeed, what - I was about to meet.

"Go," Robo-Tower said simply. "Ah'll be staying here with mah hoof on the trigger. Ah hear even a single thing going wrong down there, and yer friends are dead. Got it?"

"I get it..." I answered through gritted teeth, as I stepped into the stairwell. With another whir, the bookcase replaced itself behind me, and I was left alone, in the belly of the beast, unarmed and entirely unprepared for what was to come.

"Allons-y..." I whimpered.

Footnote: LEVEL UP!

New perk added: Panicked Punisher
You have a natural aptitude for causing pain and distress which, although useful at times, concerns you greatly. This perk adds five points to your Strength and Unarmed skills, but also robs you of a Charisma point.