“Good news, it seems, always comes when it’s least expected and most needed. For years now, it’s seemed a darkness has hung over Equestria and over my family, ever since the Littlehorn Massacre. The Crystal Ponies went to war for the first time in a thousand years, Golden Saber gave his life at Shattered Hoof Ridge … I think I’ve had more than my fair share of darkness for a while. Here, stationed at Fort Neighagra during a winter siege, some good news has finally come, and it may even be a sign that the wounds of the past years are beginning to heal.”

“Soon I will see Midnight Aurora, on her way to Manehattan. I’m sure the memory of Littlehorn, of her students, will haunt her forever, but perhaps she’s learned to manage that grief now. She has enough, at least, to leave the Crystal Empire again. She’s taken a job with the Ministry of Magic, which is why she’s moving to Manehattan. I know she can take care of herself—she’s a grown mare—but I still hope Twily looks out for her. It’s not a job in Canterlot, though, so I don’t know how involved she is with the branches of her Ministry. Anyway, it will be good to see her again, if only to lift the spirits of the Crystal Ponies during this siege.”

When the recording finished, I checked my PipBuck’s map and switched over to Radio Free Wasteland, which was currently playing music. We were nearly at our destination: Stable 137. Rare Sparks, Ache, and I bounced along in the back of the Clinic while Roaring Thunder drove us across the empty Wasteland. The dissidents that had escaped with me from the PRS had headed in the opposite direction when we’d taken off, bound for Neon. I’d given them directions and promised to see them again soon. I needed to find the settlements of Stalliongrad that weren’t part of the NLC yet, but first I had a promise to keep. I had the feeling that even though the alicorns had let my friends free, assuming I was dead, if they found out I wasn’t deceased, they would still want the spell I’d retrieved from the MAS Hub.

The Clinic’s wheels ground to a stop, and I knew we’d reached out destination. The alicorns had teleported me directly to Stalliongrad before, so I had never seen with my own eyes what the Stable looked like from the outside, or what building it was disguised as out here in the middle of nowhere. As Rare had told me on the way here, there wasn’t much to see. The most interesting thing about the place was the high-speed rail line that ran between it and Stalliongrad. The train was stationary on the rails here, still in remarkable condition despite the ravages of time, and it looked built to withstand anything. Somepony had wanted to get out of Stalliongrad quickly and safely if the megaspells fell. Other than that, the only other things here were a chain-link fence around the gear-shaped Stable door in a hillside with signs warning: “Stable-Tec Property; No Trespassing.”

An alicorn atop the hill teleported away when she spotted us approaching, and the Stable door rolled open as we came upon it. It was a bit odd, entering a place where we’d been held prisoner, but I had to believe the alicorns would hold up their end of the deal and leave us alone once I gave them the research on the telepathy-blocking spell. The door didn’t roll shut behind us, at least. Stairs led down from the entrance, and we didn’t see any alicorns until we reached the large room at the bottom. It was packed with them, but they made space for us, and Crimson Lance stepped out of the crowd.

“I see we were hasty in thinking you dead,” Crimson Lance said as I stepped forward to meet him, “Do you have what we requested?”

“Do you think I’d be here if I didn’t?” I asked, and presented him with a data-tape, “This is all the research the Ministry of Magic did on blocking long-range telepathy.”

“Thank you; we are most grateful that you decided to bring this to us even after we released your friends,” Crimson Lance replied, though that decision had been motivated more by not wanting to be hunted down and drug back here again, “If there is anything that you ever need, we would be most inclined to assist you.”

“Thanks, I’ll keep that in mind,” I said.

It could never hurt to have some pseudo-goddesses on standby.

“First Midnight Aurora and now Sunset Rose, although Sunset was less of a surprise. Both my daughters are now working for the Ministry of Magic, and I couldn’t be prouder. Sunset is also working in Canterlot, directly under Twily herself. I’m supposed to be in Canterlot to report in a week, so I’ll see if I can get some time away. If everything works out, Cadence can be there too, and if I can get Twily to summon Aurora to Canterlot for something, we’ll all be together again for the first time in years.”

Rare, Ache, and I trotted down the ruined streets of Stalliongrad while Roaring Thunder flew above us, keeping a lookout for any raiders or Black Skulls waiting to ambush us. With the alicorns’ intervention, the number of mercenaries in the NLC’s employ was cut down considerably. However, they certainly weren’t defeated yet, and the NLC controlled forty-two raider gangs (according to the report I’d found in the LuxuriMane factory) with advanced weapons. We couldn’t be too careful.

In this area, there was too much rubble to take the Clinic with us, so we’d had to leave it behind for the last stretch to Neon. I hoped we wouldn’t need anything from it, but if we did, I’m sure Roaring Thunder would gladly fetch it if he could. The pegasus had been more standoffish than usual since we’d been rejoined. I suspected he was sore about being captured by the alicorns, but there was no way to tell for sure without speaking to him, and he didn’t give me much of an opportunity.

The settlement of Neon at last came into sight, or I assumed it did, given the multicolored glow over a block of buildings. A skywalk passed over the street ahead of us, and the windows had been replaced with police barricades with small openings to shoot through. Three arches spanned under the skywalk, but two of them had been plugged with auto-carriages and building debris. The center arch had a scrap-metal gate, but it was currently closed. A few ponies were stationed atop the skywalk as well, guns at the ready.

Outside the gate stood a large group of ponies, many of whom I recognized. Roughly half of them had escaped from the Stacks with me, and I’d seen the other half around Railyard. Of the two groups, the Railyard survivors looked the worse off, most of them injured. All the ponies looked weary and frustrated, and given the current situation with the gate, I could guess why. Most of them recognized me, and I didn’t have to push very hard to make my way through to the front of the crowd. There I found four very familiar faces: Willow and Meridian from the Stacks, and Gully and Gustav from Railyard.

“Doc!” Willow and Gully both exclaimed at the same time.

“It looks like some of you made it out of Railyard,” I addressed Gully and Gustav, “I was afraid the PRS army would wipe you out.”

“Made it out is right,” Gustav huffed, “We lost more than half our population, and our home is gone. Mom … she stayed and fought until the bitter end. I wish I could have, too.”

“Scattershot is dead?” I said with surprise, though it explained why she wasn’t here at the gate with the other leaders, “And Gertrude?”

“No, she and I left together, but she took off before we got here,” Gustav said, clearly worried about his sister, “She was acting strangely, upset, but I think she’ll be alright.”

“I’m glad all of you made it here safely,” I told Willow, “Is Scrap around?”

“Somewhere,” Meridian answered, “He’s scouting around, looking for some place to stay.”

“What’s the problem with getting into Neon?” I asked, looking at the closed gate and guards on the wall.

“They’ve kept us all locked out of here ever since we arrived,” Gully said, “Maybe with your patented Wasteland Doctor charms, you can convince them otherwise.”

“First I’d have to convince them to let me in,” I said, looking uncertainly at the imposing wall.

The crack of a gunshot overhead drew my attention upward. Apparently, Roaring Thunder, in scouting out the settlement, hovered too close to the wall and one of the guards had opened fire. The shot bounced off his armor and he pounced at the guard, knocking him to the ground. The other sentry was shocked but managed to turn her gun on the pegasus.

“Roaring Thunder, no!” I yelled.

We needed these ponies on our side, both to take in the refugees from Railyard and the Stacks and also to fight the NLC in Stalliongrad. We weren’t going to have much luck with either of those goals if Roaring Thunder killed one of their townsponies. He was merely holding the guard down, an armored hoof on his throat, while he stared down the other sentry.

I almost didn’t want to look away when a rattling came from the gate nearby, but I had to know what was going on closer to me. A door opened in the gate and a stallion stepped halfway through it so that his hindhooves remained planted in the settlement. He was wearing a robe studded with Hearth’s Warming lights, some of them glowing or flickering, powered by a microspark pack on his back.

“Wasteland Doctor, your arrival has been awaited,” the strange pony announced, “Please, enter into Neon.”

“Only you,” he clarified as Ache and Rare stepped forward with me and Gustav made as if was thinking about trying to sneak in as well.

The robed pony kept the doorway blocked until I reached him, then stepped back and let me pass into Neon. The moment I was inside, a guard shut and locked the gate behind me. I hoped I hadn’t made a mistake by coming alone, but Neon was supposed to be a safe settlement to visit. I realized, though, that that information had come from the ponies of Railyard, who were currently stranded outside of the town. I would have to be content with trusting that if anything went wrong my friends would come in and try to save me.

“Please, follow me, the Great Illuminated wishes to speak with you,” my guide told me as he led me away from the gate.

It was incredibly obvious from my first moment in the settlement why it was named Neon. Neon lights and signs covered every available surface, glowing in a hundred eye-straining colors. They must’ve scavenged for signs all over Stalliongrad and beyond in order to collect so many in one place; it was baffling. Neon had once been a square of shops with four entrances like the one I’d come through, surrounding a green. The green was now home to a massive tower of terminals, many of them still glowing with green light. Strings of Hearth’s Warming lights hung from the tower out to the surrounding buildings, adding even more colorful light to the settlement.

Many of the ponies I saw trotting by were dressed similarly to my guide, but many more had normal Wasteland attire or none at all, except for a necklace with some discarded bits of tech. I’d seen something similar to this before, in Stable 109, where I’d freed Rose. Ponies bowing to the tower of terminals all but cemented that Neon was a town of technology-worshippers.

My guide led me into a theater with DEuS iN MachINIs on the marquee. Lights were strung everywhere and there were stacks of defunct Wartime technology piled on the floor. Ponies in robes similar to my guide’s worked at tables next to some of the stacks, attempting to dismantle or repair the tech. My guide beckoned me not to linger, and I followed him into the theater proper and down an aisle to the stage.

“The Great Illuminated!” he announced with a deep bow as another pony showed himself on stage.

This unicorn was wearing robes like the others, but his were not adorned with lights or bits of tech; there was no need. Over his robes was a coat made of data-tapes that clacked together when he walked. On his head was a crown of sorts made out of power cables and record-player needles. He was much older than the other ponies I’d seen here, and his silvery beard, mane, and tail stood out against his black coat.

“Thank you, Flashbulb,” the Great Illuminated said, causing my guide to stand up, before looking at me, “So, you are the Wasteland Doctor, another who brings god wherever he goes.”

The pony on stage lifted his foreleg to show the PipBuck there. His was a less advanced model than mine and it looked nonfunctional. I had the sudden fear that he might try to take my PipBuck from me. It wouldn’t be the first time in the Wasteland that somepony wanted the wonderful piece of technology I’d gotten just for being in Stable 85 for a brief stretch of time.

“Alas, the god in the machines rarely speaks to me anymore through this, but I still must wear it faithfully,” the Great Illuminated said, focused intently on his PipBuck, “What has brought you to Neon, Wasteland Doctor?”

“Just Doc is fine,” I told him before he continued using the name that DJ Pon3 had bestowed upon me, “I was hoping to speak with you about the ponies outside your gates. They’ve been forced out of their homes and need some place to live.”

“They cannot live here, not unless they profess their devotion to the god in the machines, which they’ve made abundantly clear they will not do,” Flashbulb cut in, scrunching up his nose in disgust.

“He is right,” the Great Illuminated said as he stepped down from the stage to face me, “We cannot allow nonbelievers to live in our holy city. We cannot help them.”

“If you leave them outside, sooner or later they’re sure to be attacked by raiders or the Ponies’ Republic of Stalliongrad or worse,” I said, but the Great Illuminated seemed unmoved, and I sighed, “Is there anything I could do for you that would change your mind?”

I knew how things worked in the Wasteland. If you wanted something, you had to offer something in return.

“Actually, there is something that you seem suited for,” the Great Illuminated began, but was interrupted by Flashbulb.

“You cannot be thinking of allowing heathens into Neon!” he said, distraught, “What of all the teachings of the god in the machines? You cannot buy your way into the Iridescent Temple!”

“Silence, Flashbulb!” the Great Illuminated commanded forcefully, “I suggest nothing of the sort. The RoBronco factory nearby . . . it is defensible, and it must contain many holy relics, but it is filled with beasts beyond our capabilities. If the factory is cleared out, the ponies outside the gates may live there. We will provide them with food, supplies, and our purified water. They are our neighbors in need and we will share with them, as is right.”

“Sounds like a good deal to me,” I said, “So, what kind of creatures live in this place?”

“Scuttlers?” Rare asked as we trotted toward the RoBronco factory, “What are those supposed to be?”

“I have no idea,” I admitted, “The important thing is that we need to clear this place out so the ponies from Railyard and the PRS have somewhere to live.”

Rare Sparks, Ache, Roaring Thunder, and I were leading the way to the RoBronco factory, but we weren’t alone. A group from each camp outside Neon were following. There was no reason for the four of us to do all the work ourselves when we wouldn’t be the ones living here. The former Railyard residents and those from the Stacks couldn’t commit all their forces, though. With the ponies of Neon still shutting them out of their town, they weren’t able to resupply on weapons and ammo, and they had to keep some back to defend themselves if raiders or the PRS decided to attack them before their new home was ready.

It wasn’t difficult to find the RoBronco factory; it was just a couple blocks away from Neon, as was typical with Stalliongrad’s ramshackle intermingling of building types. The building towered up as a cement-and-steel block eight stories tall, hardly touched by the century-and-a-half of elements it’d been exposed to, not to mention the megaspells. High on the building’s side was a gigantic glowing sign of the company’s name, something the ponies of Neon would without a doubt want to add to their collection. No power lines, even fallen ones, led to the manufacturing complex, suggesting that it had its own microspark reactor.

The entry doors to the factory were held shut with a metal pipe though the handles. I shoved it out before entering the building, my friends and the groups of refugees following. Lights flickered on as our movement triggered them, and a crackling came from the factory’s PA system.

“Welcome to RoBronco Factory Juniper, our tenth plant and first in northern Equestria,” a distorted voice spoke through the overhead speakers as we cautiously split up in the building’s lobby, “If you are here for a job application, please proceed to the right and use windows A through F. If you wish to purchase RoBronco products for home use, please proceed to the right and use windows G through J. If you wish to purchase RoBronco products for business, please proceed to the left and speak to anypony at desks 1 though 4. If you are here for a meeting in the executive offices, please proceed to the left and take the lift up to Floor 8. For all other issues, the receptionist to the left at desk 5 can assist you. Have a pleasant day.”

As the Railyard ponies headed left and the ponies from the Stacks headed right, my companions and I went straight ahead through two sets of doors, the second of which had large “NO ENTRY” warnings on them. A hallway followed with doors evenly spaced on either side and signs directing us to the working part of the factory. My EFS had red marks aplenty, and they needed to all be gone before we returned to Neon. That was difficult when we hadn’t seen these mysterious “scuttlers” yet. I had a feeling we wouldn’t have to wait too long, though, not with how things usually worked out.

Exactly as I’d expected, we hadn’t even made it down the hall before one of the creatures appeared. We were warned of its presence before it was visible by the sound of chitinous legs scuttling against a surface. When it appeared, it was ahead and above us, crawling out of a doorway and clinging to the ceiling. The scuttler had many legs and a long, segmented body with pincers at the front and a scorpion’s tail at the back. It was if a centipede and a scorpion had interbred and then grown to twice the length of a pony. The scuttler made a rattly hissing sound as it noticed us.

Like lightning, it pulled its body across the ceiling and down onto a wall toward us. I fired my combat shotgun at the beast, and Ache also opened up with her submachine gun. Its armored skin repelled our attacks, but not long enough for it to reach us before its shell cracked and our bullets sank into its flesh in just the right places. The scuttler fell limp to the ground in front of us, its pincers and legs here and there twitching slightly before its brain fully shut down.

Hissing came from around us as the creature died and the red marks on my EFS began to move. Scuttlers poured out of the rooms on either side of the hallway both in front and behind, and we quickly found ourselves firing in all directions. One room seemed to be home to a larger amount than the others, and I threw some metal apples through the doorway, quenching the tide momentarily. As one of the scuttlers jumped at me from the wall, Rare bucked out with her hindlegs and knocked it away, its shell broken by her armored hooves. I had armor of my own (albeit not as strong as Steel Ranger armor) and tried to present those parts of my body that were protected to the scuttlers whenever they got close enough to reach me before I could kill them. So far, they hadn’t been able to penetrate the body armor with their pincers and stingers, though they’d certainly tried.

At last, the flood of mutated insects fell to a trickle, with just a few emerging from rooms down the hall. Rare took point as we went forward, firing her grenade launcher whenever the scuttlers began to pile up. Roaring Thunder brought up the rear, ducking into rooms to check for scuttlers we hadn’t caught and putting them down with the magical energy weapons in his armor whenever he found them. From the way he nearly hovered, I could tell that he wanted to be able to fly, to use that advantage, but there was not enough space in the hallway to allow it.

The set of doors at the end of the hall were covered in warnings that we were about to enter an assembly area. Passing through, we found ourselves on a factory floor littered with half-assembled robots. It was hard to tell with all the red pips on EFS from the scuttlers, but it seemed that none of the automatons were active. The last thing we needed was another problem to deal with. There were plenty of scuttlers scattered around the factory floor, and I wondered where they’d come from, or if they were elsewhere in Stalliongrad too.

Roaring Thunder took off as soon as we were on the factory floor, with its higher ceilings, and began to pelt the scuttlers with magical energy blasts. I joined in with my magical energy rifle, and Rare fired her minigun at the scuttlers. The hissing was overwhelming as every scuttler in the room became enraged and converged on us. I threw metal apples in all directions, destroying conveyer belts, tool chests, and robot components alike as I splattered the bugs around the room. I hoped that the ponies of Neon wouldn’t be upset about damaging the tech they considered to be holy relics, but it was the price they had to pay for this disinfestation. It pained me to see valuable information lost when maneframes or terminals were destroyed, but my life came first, and I wasn’t going to lose it here to these mutated bugs when I still had more important things to take care of.

A scuttler managed to wrap itself around Ache and jab her with its stinger. I fired at the creature with my SMG, tearing it in half, and she stomped on its head segment with her hoof, the impact ringing against the floor as she used her full strength. She didn’t seem affected by the venom meant to incapacitate or kill a normal pony. Apparently, it didn’t work on her synthetic fluids and organs as well as on the real thing.

I pulled out my ripper as the scuttlers closed in, but even it had a hard time cutting through the carapaces of these creatures. That didn’t stop me from trying, or from swinging my sword around like some crazed ancient knight on a mission, sending ichor and exoskeleton flying through the air as I moved from one scuttler to the next. I was thoroughly drenched in bug paste by the time there were no more scuttlers moving in the room, except for their death twitches. I took advantage of the victory a moment to wrap up the cuts I’d taken from pincers with bandages. We still had a long way to go before we were done here.

After a long and grueling trek through the RoBronco factory, the service lift came to a stop on the seventh floor. We’d run into the other teams a couple of times and had slowly worked our way upwards. While the others were taking care of the front part of the building, we worked mostly on the back half, which seemed entirely to be factory floors. I was somewhat relieved to see that the ceilings were even higher on the seventh floor than below, stretching all the way to the building’s roof. The reason was evident: the eighth floor executive offices only took up the front half of the building, and they contained windows that looked down on this factory floor. The equipment here was much larger than below, built for constructing larger robots. Why they hadn’t built the larger things on the lowest floor to make it easier to transport, I didn’t know, but I suspected it had something to do with the pony in charge wanting to look out from their office on the most impressive products.

The scuttlers here were on to us from the moment we arrived, and they darted across the floor to greet us. I preemptively threw metal apples at them as they approached, but they dodged them without slowing down their slithering, something I hadn’t seen any of the others do before. I jumped back as a magical energy beam shot past me, and I tried to figure out where it had come from. Roaring Thunder was still hovering behind us, so he couldn’t be the source. As he fired down at the scuttlers, some of them fired back up at him. I realized that these scuttlers had an added weapon the others hadn’t. Running along their backs were segmented metal bands, some of which had magical energy weapons mounted to them. From everything I’d seen, the scuttlers were just dumb animals, so somepony had attached these devices to the creatures and given them the ability to fire them. Who would do such a thing, though?

I fired my magical energy rifle, beams shooting both ways now, and Rare Sparks opened up with a barrage from her grenade launcher. As the scuttlers closed in on us, she switched to her auto-shotgun and I to my ripper again. Ache darted around between us as we fought off the creatures, striking with her hooves often and using her body to shield me from stingers. If only I had Steel Ranger armor like Rare did. Supposedly I had a suit waiting for me back in Vanhoover, but that depended on Elder Sagebrush to keep her promise, which I had the sinking feeling that she wouldn’t.

As the last scuttler fell, I tried to shake the bug juice off of my ripper and checked to make sure the microspark cell didn’t need to be replaced. I bent down to take a closer look at the devices on the backs of the nearest scuttlers and realized that a red light was blinking rapidly on all of them. Worried that they were about to detonate, I stepped back, but I misjudged where the danger lay.

“Coming online,” a synthetic voice announced, and my head snapped around to the source.

A massive robot was breaking free of the construction equipment around it. Its structure was almost identical to others I’d seen in Equestrian Army sites around the Wasteland, just much, much larger. Thick, splayed legs ending in tracks supported a body on which was mounted a conical head and various weapon systems. These included missile launchers, miniguns, and flamethrowers, judging just by what I could recognize.

“Trespassers will be persecuted with utmost prejudice,” the tank-sized robot announced before firing on us.

I jumped behind a safety barrier as the robot launched missiles at me. Scraps of metal and bits of cement flew over me, and I ducked down to try to avoid them. Casting SATS, I looked up over the barrier briefly as the barrage paused. Ache was running toward its legs, zigzagging to avoid the grenades launched at her. Rare fired her minigun at anywhere that hadn’t been covered in armor plating yet while trying keep clear of the minigun fire directed back at her. Roaring Thunder flew around the automaton, firing his magical energy weapons at it whenever he could. Missile pods were attached to the robot’s head, and they continuously fired at the pegasus as the head spun around.

I spotted an unarmored portion of its head while it spun, and I fired my magical energy rifle at it, turning the electrical components to slag. It rolled along the floor, knocking aside construction equipment, until I threw a metal apple at one of its legs and Rare fired her grenade launcher at another, disabling the tracks. Ache climbed up onto the robot and began detaching or sabotaging its weapons, making it easier for the rest of us to fight it without fear of being hit by its attacks. Roaring Thunder dove in and used his wing blades to slice apart exposed control cables, and the robot shambled to a halt. Miniguns on its back rotated toward the pegasus, but Rare destroyed them before they could fire, and he looked at her in surprise. We didn’t let down our guard until the control center in the head had been destroyed by all our respective weapons, though.

“Well done, Steel Ranger,” Roaring Thunder complimented Rare, the first instance of such I’d witnessed.

“You didn’t do so bad yourself, fly boy,” Rare said jokingly, but Roaring Thunder stiffened.

“Fly boy,” he repeated, and let himself relax some, though not to the extent he had been before, “That is something I’ve not heard in … a long time.”

“During your time in the Thunderbolts during the War?” Ache asked, and the pegasus stiffened a second time.

“Hmm, yes,” he said, this time his posture not relaxing, “We still have work to do here, unless my suit’s EFS is incorrect.”

I was just as curious as Ache to find out about our companion’s past, but I didn’t want to push him if he didn’t want to talk about it. Celestia knows it had taken enough time just for him to be cordial with Rare. He was an odd pony with hundreds of years of baggage. I hoped that someday he’d fit in with as much ease as Rare and Ache.

According to EFS, there were no more enemies in our half of the building, so we headed toward the front. We could’ve entered the seventh floor first, but I was curious to see what was in the executive offices, so I climbed the stairs to the eighth-floor entrance. The door was locked but not difficult to pick, and we were soon in the executive offices.

Plush carpet and wood-paneled walls replaced the austere quality of the working portion of the factory. This was a place for the ponies who made the decisions in RoBronco, and a place for them to wine and dine clients. I knew the second part for sure because one of the rooms held plenty of food (all expired years ago) and wine (all still perfectly fit for consumption).

The main office, with a circular window that I still thought of as Overmare-style, looking out on the factory floor, was especially fancy. The head of the factory would sit behind a circular desk looking out on the long, narrow room filled with chairs and couches. I sat down in the chair behind the desk and messed with the dials set into its surface, wondering if they still worked. I nearly jumped back when several terminals rose out of the desk, and keyboards flipped into position in front of them. Clever to save space when not using them.

The main desk was not the only place that terminals were hidden. Ache and Roaring Thunder both found several others within the cabinets along the walls as they examined the room. Ache sat down in front of one and began typing away, but the pegasus continued his sweep, searching for any scuttlers or security robots waiting to ambush us.

I hacked into the terminals in front of me and perused the information stored in the maneframes. There wasn’t much of interest for me to discover, it seemed. Most of what I found was just financial records or parts orders. While going through them could probably tell me something about the operation of RoBronco factories during the War, it wasn’t something that held my attention. I was almost glad for the excuse to leave when I heard Ache gasp.

“It can’t be,” she said breathlessly as she stared at the terminal screen.

“What can’t be?” Rare asked, mirroring my thoughts as I got up from the executive’s desk and trotted over.

“I managed to find some logs relating to the Artificial Pony Project, the project that eventually led to my creation,” Ache explained, “It seems that I was not the only success of the project. Another pondroid with my capabilities was created after me. Subject P-8KE, they designated him.”

“What happened to this pondroid?” I asked as Roaring Thunder rejoined us, “He didn’t end up with you and the others in Harmony Tower, did he?”

“No, it seems he escaped before the riot. He’s still around, too. You see that date?” Ache asked as she pointed at the screen with a hoof to where 06.17.1503 was displayed, “That’s only three days ago. Three days ago, he was at the RoBronco offices in Vanhoover!”

“I wonder who he is, and if anypony’s seen him?” Rare wondered.

“I need to see him,” Ache said before turning to look me in the eye, “I need to meet P-8KE. I know we still have work to do here in Stalliongrad, but this may be my only chance to meet somepony like … me!”

“I understand,” I told Ache after thinking for a bit, “Looks like we’re going back to Vanhoover.”

Level Up
New Perk: Get the Hay Out of Dodge – You are adept at getting out of tight spots quickly. +1 to Agility.
New Quest: Do Pondroids Dream of Electric Sheep? – Return to Vanhoover and find P-8KE.
Agility +1 (7)
Explosives +6 (96)
Lockpick +2 (68)
Medicine +2 (70)
Melee Weapons +6 (98)
Repair +3^* (75)
Speech +3 (98)

^{*The Tinkerer}