Chapter 7 - The Sins of the Past
“You should not apologize for what ponies who are not you did long before you were around to stop them.”

Small.

That’s the best word I could use to describe this Stable. It was very small. The space behind the door was wide enough for Sky and I to walk side-by-side, but only with barely any room to spare. The ceiling rose perhaps twice our own height above us, making the entire area seem little more than the same cave we’d come through to get here, only metal. And very gray. A light flickered ahead of us; the whole hallway was lit across the ceiling, and the lightbulbs provided a constant, almost eerie buzz.

We were a minute inside, and I already didn’t like the place.

A metal door opened abruptly as we passed it. Inside was a (comparatively) large room filled with tables, booths, and stools at a bar. “Cafeteria,” read the sign above the door. Trotting in, I first noticed that there was some food still on the tables. Salads, soft drinks, glasses and bottles of water, a sandwich here and there. Oddly, most of it didn’t seem all that spoiled… one of the sandwiches looked fairly edible still, despite having been out on the table for at least since the incident at the Stable entrance.

The fridges appeared to have been ransacked of much of their food. Some cans of beans and the like were scattered on the floor near them, as if whoever took them was in a hurry. “Or tried to grab more than they could carry,” I mused aloud, picking up one of the cans. An expiration date on the back read as over 200 years ago. And the ponies in here still ate it? I began to worry slightly about the canned food we’d received from Ash.

A small ping came from behind me; Sky took a startled step back from the machine she had poked. It looked like a toaster, turned so that the top was facing whoever used it. I trotted over to find that in the slot lay a perfect sandwich like the one from the table. I lifted it from the tray, only to flinch as the device quickly snapped the tray back into place. Skydive gave me a helplessly confused grimace. I was certain I matched it.

“P-007-15 Sandwich Dispenser” read the label beside the device. There was a machine… that printed out sandwiches. We were three minutes in, and I was already astounded by how insane this Stable was - in more ways than one, now. Sky and I both gave a start when half of the ‘W’ fell to the floor with a clang.

“How about we… keep moving…” I suggested as I turned to leave the cafeteria. Skydive nodded, her eyes lingering on the abnormally random machine a few moments longer as she followed.

The Stable felt far more like the deathtrap Sky had before claimed it to be than the life-preserving shelter she said it was now. I could vaguely recall that a war had left the world the wasteland it is now, but nothing past that.

“Then it all ended. Megaspells fell like rain from the sky and tore the whole world to shreds. And then left it covered in lethal radiation and worse - bad enough that it’s still around a couple hundred years later. Everyone loses.” The Stables somewhat made sense, then. Nothing would’ve survived on the surface; anyone alive today most likely came from a Stable like this. Or at least their ancestors had. The door at the bottom of the stairs rushed open to greet us as we approached.

And brought a horrid stench with it. The first thing to be seen in the second floor hallway was a body. Blood caked the floor around it, as well as some of the walls. It clearly wasn’t as fresh as the corpses at the entrance, but it wasn’t that much older either. And, looking further down the hall, it wasn’t the only one. No, not it… she. This was a living pony at one point - one very recent point - not just an object. Skydive turned the mare’s corpse over. She’d been shot several times in the chest.

“Did they just start fighting?” I questioned. Sky trotted to the other body and turned it over, a stallion this time. She gave a disturbed gasp and immediately turned away. He had been sliced nearly to bits - his front legs were only barely still attached to his torso, which had what few ribs it had left exposed. I realized there was a lot more than just blood splattering the walls and floor. I turned away myself, trying to keep the contents of my stomach from joining the stains of the hallway.

“I really doubt it,” Sky quietly answered.

We both trotted down the next hallway, trying to get the image of that poor stallion’s body out of our heads. Even for a medical pony, that had to be extremely sickening. I only hoped that whatever had done that wasn’t still here. Doors opened on either side of us. The sign above one read “Maintenance”, while the other had a sign that claimed both the atrium and medical bay lie beyond it.

The stairs leading down the Maintenance wing had flooded entirely, almost up to the door. The water had a sickly green color to it; we definitely weren’t going that way. I turned and headed down the other. As we walked, I felt glad there were no other bodies - the smell was bad enough on its own. We came to a fork, a sign indicating the atrium and medical bay were in opposite directions.

“I’ll check the med bay and see if it’s down there, you head over to the atrium,” I instructed.

“Uh, why are we splitting up?” she questioned with concern, “Big metal death trap, remember? Probably best to stick together, in case of… anything.”

“If it isn’t in here or the atrium, we head back up and check the rest of the rooms - which there seem to be quite a lot of. Personally, I’d rather search quickly and get out of here as soon as possible,” I argued. “Besides, don’t you have somewhere to be as well?” She scowled at the comment, but conceded my point and headed down toward the atrium.

“Just don’t get yourself killed,” she called behind her. I was only heading to a clinic, what was the worst that could happen?

The doors to the medical bay opened, revealing… kind of what I expected, actually. The room was clean to the point of shiny (if still very gray) and highly organized. There was a spot for patients to lay down and an assortment of medical supplies in the shelves. The place looked a lot like the room I woke up in back at Crutches’ house.

“Good day!” a metallic voice suddenly appeared, nearly giving me a heart attack. “Doctor Clover is absent today, so only routine scans can be performed at this time. If serious medical attention is needed, Doctor Clover will be notified immediately. So sorry for the inconvenience!” A robot about as large as I was rolled toward me. A robotic assistant for their doctor. Convenient. “Performing routine medical scan,” the machine informed me.

“You do that,” I muttered, pushing past the robot. If there were any files or terminal logs in here about that arcane thingy, that would seriously help to speed up our search. The less time we spent in this creepy place, the better. I turned on the terminal; the filing cabinet didn’t seem to actually have any files. I suppose it was more simple to keep ev-

“Immediate medical attention requested!” the robot assistant sirened in its droning, metal voice. I jumped back from the terminal, turning to see what was wrong with it. “Messaging Doctor Clover: serious, unknown mutations detected! Patient must be quarantined! Serious, unknown mutations detected! Patient must be quarantined!” A syringe appeared from the side of the robot, clearly intended for me. Oh no it didn’t!

I shoved the robot aside and galloped toward the door… only to have it slam shut in my face. Shit! I faced the wailing robot, my eyes not leaving the needle of the syringe. What did it see in that scan? An alteration caused by me being a Subjugator?

“Please remain calm, I am here to help!” the mechanical voice spoke. Like hell I was letting that thing near me. “Severe medical attention requested! Serious, unknown mutation detected!” it repeated, continuing to approach me slowly. Once it got close, I turned and bucked it back away with a satisfying clang. I heard a tearing sound as well.

The syringe had caught on my saddlebag and torn a hole in it. It didn’t matter right now; I needed to get this door back open! I pounded on the manual button to the door’s side, but it refused to open it. Damned quarantine! I needed out!

The sound of glass hitting the floor turned my attention away from the door. The robot was already right behind me again. I shoved it to the side and tried to get to the other side of the room - maybe the terminal had an override for the quarantine lock on the door. All I had to do was-

I slipped and fell to the ground with a thud. Oooh, I was going to feel that on my shoulder later. I looked back to what had gotten underhoof. A small glass ball… a memory orb! That’s what the glass sound was - it had fallen from my saddlebags. It rolled toward me, bumping into my hind leg. Shit shit shit! My consciousness was starting to slip away, and I couldn’t fight it. This was very, very bad…

It was very dark wherever I was. I - or, rather, the pony I was inside of - slowly got to his hooves. His legs were horribly sore, and it hurt just to put weight on them. He neither groaned nor complained. Batting his(our?) eyes, they started to adjust to the dark.

Okay… that was a lot of blood. And several bodies to go with it.

My… what was he? A ride? Host? Whatever he was, he passed a glance over all the bodies around him. I could feel that tightness in his chest, the same one I felt when Basset had died. The guilt that threatened to crush you. He sighed and shook his head slowly. I felt his eyes burn, but tears never came. Slowly, he got around to each body, taking… some kind of necklace from them, and wrapping them around his foreleg. Whatever they were, the burning became a little worse with each one he took.

My host peered around the room until he found a door. He gave one last glance at the bodies of what I assumed were his friends before going through it. On the other side was a short stretch of hallway leading to a rather long staircase. Faint voices sounded from above, too muffled and quiet to hear. Something about them drove my host’s heart to beat quicker, as he lowered himself to a crouch.

Carefully creeping up the staircase, they became clearer. Their voices sounded… exotic. They spoke in a strange language that I couldn’t understand. Nearing the top of the stairs, I could feel my host’s brow furrow and his muscles tighten. Two equine creatures stood beside each other - the source of the exotic voices. Beneath their cloaks, their coats were both patterned by stripes. Zebras.

He slowly crept toward the pair, their backs turned to us and preoccupied with their conversation. With every silent step, more and more tension built in my host’s muscles. His pace was a brisk trot, but - somehow I couldn’t fathom - his hooves never made a sound, until we were right behind the zebras.

There was a sharp crack as he snapped the first zebra’s neck. Before the other could properly react, my host pounced on him, pushing all of his weight - and a clear amount of anger - down on the zebra’s throat. His flailing kicks and sputtering coughs only lasted a few seconds.

Part of me wondered: why? Why had he just murdered those two? There was such a furious drive in the act; what had driven him to it? But another part of me, more quiet and repressed was… content. Certain that they had well deserved what this pony had just done to them. But why? What had they even done?

With hoofsteps silent as a ghost, we passed across the room and over to the next door. The rage had died down somewhat, but his blood still simmered under his skin. The corridors that met us were winding, but my host navigated them with practiced ease.

After a couple of minutes of silence, another voice sounded from behind a door to our left. A zebra seemed to be ranting about something in her strange language. My host only paused briefly before starting to move on… and immediately turned back to the door. Swiftly he pulled down the sliding, metal door before rushing down the zebra behind it. Three gliding steps was all it took to cross from the door to the other side of the room, before tackling the zebra and setting down on her throat. She clawed her slender hooves at my host’s, but could do little to deter him. In seconds, she choked out.

A pony’s body lay below where the zebra mare had stood. Her corpse was in the same state as those from the room we had woken up in, except bruised and broken in several places. Like she had been kicked and stomped on repeatedly.

I no longer had any sympathy for that particular zebra.

My host reached down and pulled the necklace off of her with the same gentle contrast to how he’d acted otherwise. It was her dog tag. Private Lavender. He wrapped it around his foreleg with the and proceeded out the door, eyes still burning tearlessly.

Another flight of stairs led us outside. It was a pitch black night, with equally dark clouds blocking the sky completely. Another zebra guarded the door in. My host quickly changed that with another choking tackle. This time, the zebra’s struggling kicks managed to strike my host’s hind leg directly in the knee, causing the already strong pain to flare wildly. After he was sure the zebra was dead, he let the leg give out and collapsed to the ground. The burning in his eyes was becoming worse; I started to wonder if it was the lack of tears, or something worse.

He slowly limped his way away from the building, hopefully heading in the direction of somewhere he knew was safe, not just out to the forest ahead to die. It struck me that I could be watching this pony’s last minutes alive… but who would put that into a memory orb and why? And how did it end up in that box? My mind swam with a million questions and no answers to any of them.

A voice to my left - our left - startled me out of my congestion of thoughts. “Yikes,” the male voice called out. My host reflexively jumped back and faced the sound’s direction, dropping to a combat stance. The pain in his leg felt at least as bad as when the stalker had bitten me, but he just gritted his teeth and beared it.

“You’re actually alive?” The pony behind the voice stepped out from the tree he hid behind. A bright-white coated stallion whose coat practically shone in its contrast to his surroundings. I saw a ruffle at his sides - my host caught it to. Pegasus wings. “That’s… decently impressive. There had to have been upwards of a thousand rads in there.” He lifted his foreleg toward us. There was something wrapped around it… a Pipbuck! It looked older than mine, but practically the same. I heard a rapid clicking sound as he flinched his hoof back. “Whoa,” the pegasus laughed, “practically glowing, aren’t you? You’re not gonna last much longer.” My host huffed, his throat extremely dry and aching.

The white pegasus gave my host another look over. His eyes caught on our foreleg. “I guess you’re the only one, then.” I heard a faint jingle as my host held up the tags. Seven of them in all. Finally, the burning eyes turned to tears. Crimson, stinging tears. Something was very wrong with the pony I was following, and no amount of grit-and-bear-it attitude was going to keep him going for more than a few minutes at this rate.

The stallion pulled something out of his jacket. A plastic packet filled with some weird blue fluid. “You may yet be in luck…” he spoke up, waving the packet at us. “As it turns out, somepony like you is needed.”

“Explain,” my host managed to choke out hoarsely. His throat was less dry now, but judging from the coppery taste, that wasn’t a good thing.

“Well, you’re tenacious as all hell by the looks. You’re still alive after a radiation bomb got set off right over your head. Exposed to at least a thousand and a half rads… and not only did you get up and walk away, but you actually dropped an entire task force of zebras to do it.” My host didn’t waste his scarce breath to respond. “...and nobody even knows you did it. You’re dead to the world as of now. There’s an organization being put up, protecting the more… relevant figureheads of Equestria. Kicker is, nobody but they are allowed to know. That means no family, no friends, no one to miss you when you ‘disappear’. According to the official statement that’ll be written, you just died. I believe I can fix that for you, if you’d like the job,” he said, waving the packet around again.

“If I… say… no…?” my host spoke, coughing violently afterward. He could barely see with the bloody tears staining his eyes now.

“Well, I did say no one else was allowed to know…” he said, pulling the packet slowly back into his coat. Bastard had more snide confidence in that statement then I liked. He was toying with this pony’s life, and using it to blackmail him.

“Fine,” my host sputtered between bloody coughs. His eyes were squeezed closed now to try and keep the bloody tears out. A hoof picked up his head.

“Then drink this fast. It’ll keep you alive.” The pegasus dumped whatever liquid was in the packet down my host’s throat. It was disgustingly chalky and thick, and I could feel him gag on it. Immediately, his throat felt relieved of the soreness. He opened his eyes and blinked away the red tears, which didn’t seem to return.

“The hell is that?” my host asked, his voice still hoarse from whatever had happened to his throat. “It’d take a lot more than a Rad-away to drop my rads that much…” The pegasus gave a hearty laugh.

“Some kind of purgative for radiation old MAS has been working on. Still in development. Does the job alright, you should be out of immediate danger, but uh… it’ll hurt like a bitch. Side effects may include convulsions, vomiting, and monster headaches.” He trotted beside my host and laughed again. “So, uh… thank me for this one later.” With that, he struck my host hard on the back of his neck. We hit the ground in a stunned heap, and his vision started fading quickly. “Name’s Avalanche, by the way,” the pegasus said casually as reality slipped away for both of us.

Everything hurt. Albeit not as bad as the pony from that memory orb had, but I wasn’t going to simply wake up from this pain. I slowly opened my eyes, remembering how I had got sucked into that memory orb in the first place. I lifted my head and tried to open my eyes, only to close them as the once-dim light suddenly felt blinding. For some reason I couldn’t seem to move my hind leg under me…

I batted my eyes and let them adjust to the light. I was still in the room, but I was on top of a patient’s bed now. I tried to get up, but I still couldn’t seem to get my leg to move when I wanted it to. The door to the room suddenly opened. Skydive walked in, a bag in her mouth. She looked at me and dropped it.

“Oh! Oh, Goddesses how long have you been up?” she asked in a panic, rushing to a table.

“Just… just a few moments. Why, what happened? How long was I out?” I asked, suddenly worried.

“Well, long enough for me to turn off the quarantine,” she responded frantically, sorting her way haphazardly through a series of syringes lined up on the table.

“What happened, Sky?” I asked again, refusing to let her dodge my question. The hind leg I couldn’t move was really feeling sore… the stalker bite was probably acting up again. I wondered if I pulled the muscle it had cut up, or if that stupid little robot had done something to it.

“Well, uh… what do you remember before you fell into the orb?” she replied, still dodging my question.

“I think I was trying to get away from a robot, and it cut my saddlebags open. The memory orb must have slipped out or something. Skydive, tell me what that stupid medical bot did.”

“Um, well… first, it poked you with a syringe,” she said, playing dumb as she lifted a needle off the table. “Like this one!” she claimed with a sigh of relief.

“Skydive…” I was getting impatient. “Stop that. And what was in that thing anyway?”

“...Med-X,” she lied obviously.

“Dammit, Sky, stop screwing around.”

“Okay, okay,” she sighed. “It’s a sedative.” She jabbed the needle into my side suddenly.

“Ow! What the hell, Sky?” I yelped.

“Sorry! Really! But you really don’t want to be awake for this. Your leg kind of, um…” she waved a hoof toward it. I glanced down at it, and-

Oh. Oh sweet Celestia… it was sliced wide open, and there was blood everywhere. Goddesses, I could see the bone! What the fuck had that robot done to me!? What… I… the sedative was starting to hit me. I was blacking out fast.

“Don’t worry, I can fix it! Just go to sleep for a bit, okay? You’ll be fine. Promise,” Skydive assured me as I lost consciousness.

It had been an empty rest. A black, dreamless sleep that felt like it went by in moments. Perhaps it was due to the sedative, or maybe that’s how sleep was supposed to feel, but in any event it felt nice. My eyes fluttered open, trying to shutter out the light after however long of darkness they’d just had. I saw Sky looking perplexedly at something I couldn’t see. She muttered to herself as her eyes darted from one thing to another.

I noted immediately that my leg was no longer hurt. I looked down to see that it had healed completely under Sky’s care, and only a bit of missing coat and a little caked blood remained to tell that the (horridly nasty) wound had ever existed in the first place.

“Wow,” I said quietly. Sky turned quickly to see I was awake again. “You’re damn good at this. How long was I out?”

“A couple hours. Not very long…” she said cryptically as she turned back to whatever she was looking at. “If you’re gonna try to stand up, take it slowly. Last thing we need is you falling and hurting that leg again.” I took her advice as I lowered myself off the patient’s bed (it was more like a table, really) and onto the floor. My previously-injured leg felt completely fine. I moved it around and shifted my weight on it a bit to be certain, and sure enough it felt like it had never been hurt.

“It’s perfect,” I told her, “you’re brilliant, you know that?” She muttered something along the lines of a thanks, but never averted her gaze. I trotted over to see what had her so enthralled. “What are these?” I asked. There were X-rays and photos of what appeared to be my leg, but also several graphs I couldn’t decipher the meaning of.

“A complete diagnostic and biological scan of your leg, courtesy of the medical drone that cut you up.” She gave a frustrated sigh and leaned her head down onto the table. “And none of it makes sense.”

“What’s wrong with it?” I questioned, growing concerned yet again.

“Well, where I thought you were just toughing the pain out like the stubborn thing you tend to be, it turns out that your leg had actually ‘healed’ the bite from that night stalker. And it’s completely impossible. Look,” she pulled over a picture of my sliced-open leg that the robot had taken, “See the bone there?” I nodded regrettably. I was disturbed enough to see it the first time. “All the little strands of red you see criss-crossing it here, that’s not blood. That’s sinew and muscle. Your muscles actually regrew themselves around the shattered bone and acted as cartilage to support your leg.” I just nodded emptily. Muscles regrowing sounded freaky to me, but aside from that, I didn’t see quite what she was getting at.

“That just… doesn’t happen. Ever. I’ve never seen or heard of anypony being able to do this before. I mean, it’s excellent, don’t get me wrong. But it’s just so strange. On top of that, some of the muscles seem different as well.” She pointed a hoof at the red strands wrapping my bone, “They’re frayed in several places, almost like they were ripped or burnt or something.” I had an idea of how that actually happened now. But why would he heal me…

“What really gets me are these, though,” Sky cut off my train of thought before it could get anywhere. She pulled over the pair of graphs, riddled with numbers and percentages beyond my knowledge of meaning. “What these basically say is that your body has a massive chemical imbalance, and what the machine seemed to conclude was that it stemmed from an extraneous organ.” Again, she somewhat lost me.

“I’m… not exactly versed in biology. Explain?” I requested.

“Um,” she sighed, thinking of a way to put it. “You have an extra organ hiding somewhere in your body that’s producing all sorts of extra chemicals and hormones that should be throwing your body way out of whack. It doesn’t really explain the off-and-on-again burning touch - in fact, it raises more questions than it answers - but it could be where your strength is coming from, like how come you can stomp the head clean off a gecko. But it should entail other… adverse… effects as well, none of which I’m seeing in you. In any case, the only troublesome part of this is why the drone chose not to try and remove it. If I had to guess, it either thought it was benign - unlikely, since it got all these readings - thought it was vital to keep in place, which I doubt is the case, or it might be too close to one of your vital organs to risk operating on.”

“It’s not gonna kill me, though, right?”

“No,” she answered, “no it won’t. The worst effect it could have - should be having - is that it’d make you hungry pretty much all the time. As it stands, you don’t eat much more than me.”

“Well, then there’s nothing to do about it. If it’s not doing anything, we can wait until we find out how to get rid of it.” I stood up and headed toward the door. “Shall we continue? We’ve had enough delays as it is.” Skydive rolled up the graphs and pictures and put them in her bags.

“I did find something while I was out there. You know, a whole minute before you set off sirens and started getting dissected by a robot,” she mocked. “Anyway, you’ll want to see what’s in the atrium.”

Walking felt strangely better than it had in the days past. All the dull aches were gone - the ones that were prominent, such as the stalker bite, as well as pains I only now realized had been there in the first place. As we headed toward the atrium, I began to wonder: how much pain was I actually in? Physiologically, I was different from a normal pony. But I woke up in this state without any memories of past experiences. This state of being was all I knew; for all intents and purposes, I could be in complete agony and not even know it.

Worse yet, according to those scans, I had an ‘extra organ.’ My body was all kinds of fucked up and I knew it, but just how deep did the alterations go? Was I still a pony at all, even on a fundamental level, or was I something else altogether? I burned who I touched, regenerated my muscles to help mend my bones, and I could shatter somepony’s skull with little effort. Being a Subjugator meant part of me was an animal, which was likely the explanation for most if not all of these problems. While I didn’t have the visible physical changes like Tamber, I faced a different issue: the animal part of me was intelligent. Highly so, and had a thirst for inflicting as much misery upon me as it could. Simply by being, it made me a threat to anyone around me.

The atrium doors opened, and I let the thoughts die out.

The room was actually big! Likely accounted for by the fact that it took up two floors, but the open ceiling that showed the floor above felt like a breath of fresh air in the otherwise claustrophobic space.

Tables ringed the room’s walls, each displaying something different. Large, white boards stood upright at each table, littered with pictures, graphs, numbers, and all kinds of information. I stepped over to the closest one: The Thermovore read the top of the data-ridden board. “Autonomous battery charging unit will utilize intake geodes to consume superfluous heat - biological, electrical, or otherwise - and recycle it into Spark Batteries.” I got the gist of it, but the wording was so needlessly complicated it made my head hurt. Looking at another table, all the information was displayed in the same fashion.

“The Stable had a science fair?” I asked. Several of the tables still held prototypes of their respective inventions. There had to be at least fifty tables in here. If the upper floor was the same way… how many ponies in the Stable did this?

“Something like that I guess,” Skydive replied, turning on a terminal in the back. I trotted over to see what was on it. The green flickering screen showed several options, the top of which being a list of previous submissions into the fair. I asked Sky to open it. The list was massive! It had more than I could have imagined in it - radio devices, refrigerator upgrades, several weapons, even that crazy sandwich machine we saw upstairs. Some of the things listed here made even that seem commonplace: a mechanical mouse designed to explode and rebuild itself definitely took the top of my list.

Looking further down on the catalogue, one entry caught my eye in particular: Arcane Resonance Repetition and Absorption Disruptor Upgrade. It wasn’t exactly what was listed on my Pipbuck, but it was too close to be a coincidence.

“This,” I pointed to the item. Skydive selected it, opening further information on it. It had been installed into the Stable’s security software… which, of course, wasn’t accessible from this room. “Is anything else about it on here? I’m pretty sure this is what Lamia sent me after.”

“Let me check,” she replied, backing out of the inventions log and back to the main screen. Nothing else relevant to the inventions seemed to show up; judge panel roster, absences, and… “Last place entry?” Sky read aloud as I got to the last option on the terminal. “Seems a bit harsh. They don’t even have the pony who came in first listed here, but they’re calling out the one in last.” She opened the menu. “New Stable 57 Overmare to be appointed: Steel Heart for last place entry of Reforming Rodent.”

“What,” Sky blurted. I mean, I had somewhat assumed (perhaps ‘hoped’ is a better word) that the self-destructing mouse was the least sane or useful thing here, but was there something worse she’d seen?

“What’s wrong?” I asked, her astonished expression not fading.

“They chose their Overpony as whoever came in last. The most important pony, in charge of every life in the Stable, was the one who contributed the least useful thing.” Oh. Wait, they put exploding mouse girl in charge of their damn Stable? “Who the hell came up with that idea?” Sky spoke my thought for me.

“The log said that the Arcane Disruptor thing was installed into the Stable’s security software, but this terminal can’t get to it. Any idea where there might be a terminal that can?” I asked, hoping to stay on topic so we could try and ignore this Stable’s clear lack of sanity. Clever inventors they might have been, but this Stable’s inhabitants were all out of their minds.

“Probably in the security wing, if not the Overmare’s office. The way this Stable is turning out, though, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was back up in the cafeteria.”

“Let’s head to security then, see if we can just get the thing and get out of here already.” Skydive nodded in agreement.

More bodies. We’d moved down to the next floor after looking through all the other rooms. The hallway here was littered with corpses and caked with half-dried blood. The smell had me gagging and struggling to breathe as little as possible.

The multitude of bodies weren’t in nearly as grisly of state as the one upstairs. Most if not all of them seemed to have been shot. I noticed one of the bodies wearing something different than the others. He was armored - ‘security’ was printed on his barding. A pistol lay beside him. Looking him over further, his barding was burnt in several places. Patches of his coat were missing where the armor didn’t cover, revealing burnt flesh. Had the Stable’s security turned on it’s own people? Or was he running from the same thing everypony else was?

My attention was pulled away from the dead security pony at an unfamiliar noise. It sounded like the robot from the medical bay, rolling along on powered wheels. It was heading toward us. Skydive heard it as well, quickly drawing her pistol. As the robot rolled around the corner ahead of us, she took aim to fire at it.

It turned to the blood spatter on the wall, completely ignoring us. A brush emerged from the center of the machine and began to scrub at the wall. Sky and I both sighed in relief. Whatever it was that had caused those burns and the horrific injuries upstairs was still down here somewhere, and the longer we spent here - the further we explored - the more likely we were to run into it. I could only pray we had at least this much of a warning if we did.

As we proceeded down the next hallway, one of the doors on the right was open. Peering inside, it appeared to be a storage closet. Bottles of glue and rolls of tape lined a couple of shelves. A lone terminal sat on the desk in the back. In spite of everything, curiosity got the better of me; I opened one of the messages on the terminal.

“Getting sick of the overmares/stallions ‘losing’ the keys to the office. Steel Heart just came up to me for the seventh fucking time about her key having ‘vanished’. (Clever bitch had it dissolved in acid, I could still smell it in her room.) I’m done reforging these keys, we don’t have the metal to spare as it stands. I’m making myself a copy as well, and if she destroys hers again, she won’t be getting another. Luna knows that office only really has one use anyway…”

Exploding mouse pony continued to confuse me more and more with everything I read or saw about her. I selected the second log.

“Getting called down to the maintenance wing every couple of days now, it seems. Damned pipes are leaking all the time now. Today, every single one of them burst completely. And, of course, who do they call when something gets fucked up? What’s the point of having more than one pony in Maintenance if I’m the only one who does anything? I swear, this time I’m making a machine to repair these fucking pipes for me for the damned contest. I’m so tired of cleaning up water and welding pipes back together because we’ve got no ‘spare’ metal. May as well live down there at this point.”

The rest of the messages on the terminal were missing. A small notice at the top of the screen informed me they were automatically deleted after a few days. There was nothing entirely useful laying about in the room, unless we needed an excess of glue or tape for anything.

“Cinder,” Skydive called from further down the hall. I stepped away from the terminal. She had found the Overmare’s office… and it was locked. It used the same door as every other room thus far into the Stable, but this one refused to open. The terminal beside it asked for a password; like we could ever guess what it was. I spotted a small slot beside the door. “Manual lock,” read the label next to it. Huh, maybe that closet was useful.

“Do you know where the maintenance wing is?” I asked, “I think I might be able to get the door open.”

“Back down the hall near the Atrium. It was flooded, remember?” Well shit. Still, we needed the key to keep going. If that maintenance pony was anywhere to be found, it was probably in that wing if not already “cleaned up” by the robots still roaming the halls. Looks like we were headed for a swim.

The water in the maintenance wing was up to the top of the stairs. Eventually it was going to put the whole Stable underwater at some point, assuming the leaks were still present. I cringed a bit at the somewhat green color.

“You’re on your own for this one,” Sky informed me. “My wings will slow me down too much in the water. Who knows how much hallway is between you and the key you’re looking for.” I nodded. Drowning wasn’t on either of our agendas; I hoped it was very close.

“I’ll be alright. Hopefully,” I said with little confidence. After the medical bay, I wasn’t so sure anymore. I stepped down into the water, only to have my Pipbuck start making noise. A crackling click sound started coming out of it and a warning popped up on my EFS.

It was irradiated. Perfect.

I proceeded down into the disturbingly green water. Having my eyes open in it stung horribly, but I needed to see where I was going. At the very bottom of the stairs the door was shut. I slammed the manual switch beside it, praying it would open despite being submerged for some time. I started to sigh in relief as it opened up without a hitch, realizing quickly that it was a mistake.

Breaching the surface, I gasped for precious air. My lungs weren’t used to this. My eyes burned terribly and I could taste the disgusting, irradiated water. If I accidentally tried to breathe under the water, it would almost certainly damage my lungs badly. Skydive stood at the base of the stairs looking concerned.

“I’m fine,” I assured her, pulling my dripping mane out of my face. “Door was shut, had to open it first.” I gave myself a few moments to catch my breath. “If I’m not back up in twenty seconds, get ready to come get me. Twenty-five, and I’m in trouble. I don’t think I can hold my breath that long.” She nodded. One deep breath, and I went back under. I didn’t want to stay in this irradiated filth a second more than I had to.

Through the door was a (thankfully) small corridor leading to a room much like the closet downstairs. A pair of terminals sat on either end, destroyed from the water getting into their systems no doubt. I spotted a body in the water, giving me a start and almost causing me to choke on the water. As quickly as I could I searched over the body, praying this was the maintenance pony, that he had the key. I felt my lungs burn and cry for air as an agonizing pressure built in my chest.

My hoof brushed against something metal inside one of his pockets - a keyring! With no time to waste, I pulled it away and began to swim. My chest felt like it was a moment from exploding, I couldn’t hold my breath much longer. I passed through the door and into the short hallway… and my lungs gave in. I coughed out what little air was in them and reflexively inhaled the stagnant, radioactive water. My legs flailed in all directions as I struggled to get up to the surface, but there was only the ceiling of the hallway above me.

Everything was going dark quickly. My head kept hitting the ceiling, trying to breach the surface for a breath of air, but my lungs were already filled with water. Something tugged on my foreleg, pulling me toward it. There was little I could do to resist, even my panicked flailing had died down. The force dragged me through the murky green before pulling me up - into air again! My ears were ringing loudly, and my body had all but given out from being starved of oxygen. Vision blurred as a sharp pain hit my chest, causing me to cough violently. And again, forcing water out of my lungs.

I sputtered as the water kept getting forced from me until there was none left in my lungs. Violent fits of coughing racked my body, but I was breathing again. Thank Celestia, I was breathing again…

For a while I sat there, taking shuddering breaths and coughing painfully. My throat felt raw and burned, no doubt the radiation in the water doing a bit of damage. Eventually I opened my eyes, blinking away the blurriness to see Sky standing over me. She watched me with careful concern, water dripping from her mane and unfurled wings.

“Sit for a while. Catch your breath - and keep coughing, it gets more of the water out of your lungs.” It wasn’t like I had much of a choice in the matter. I tried to thank her, tell her I was grateful that she ignored me when I asked her not to come with me down here. I couldn’t. Every time I tried, it just provoked another coughing fit.

“I know,” she said after a few failed attempts. “You’re welcome. Let me grab some Rad-away from the medical wing quickly, I heard your Pipbuck clicking. Seriously hope that key card thing still works, Cinder.” With that, she trotted off into the medical bay. I looked down at the key I dragged up with me. The tiny piece of metal - which looked nothing like a key - had the same width as the slot next to the Overmare’s office door. It had to be the key. I closed my eyes again, smiling as I coughed again.

Celestia and Luna had some mercy after all.

The door to the Overmare’s office whooshed open a moment after I slotted the key in. The room inside was larger than most of the rest I’d seen, save the Atrium - which it had a window looking out toward. Shelves lined one of the walls, filled with books from end to end. A large, semi-circular desk sat in the center, dominating the room.

Skydive trotted over to the desk, going straight to the terminal. I instead turned to the shelf full of books. The ones near the back of the room caught my eye - they weren’t cleanly bound like the rest, and seemed to be a lot more worn. “Sundancer,” read the first one I picked up. I opened it and leafed through a couple of pages. It was a journal from one of the Overponies.

“This is all wrong. I didn’t want this, nopony wanted this. Why are they doing this? This Stable was supposed to save us!” The rest of the pages, cover to cover, were scrawled on with panicked drawings and sentences too scribbled-over to read. I picked up another journal, but it didn’t have any pages left that weren’t ripped to pieces. Another. “SAVE ME!” was all that was written on the first page. Only one journal among them was actually readable: Steel Heart.

“Idiots! The lot of them! Imbeciles, morons, asinine curs! Why should I be punished for their short-sighted witlessness? It was a concept! A fucking concept! I was denied the materials I needed to make a functioning model, so I used what I had. It wasn’t supposed to be a stupid mouse, it’s not my fault they wouldn’t read the fucking display!” Drawn beneath was a sketch of a strange looking robot. Beside it was the same robot being blown apart by a pony wearing Stable 57 barding (labeled ‘fucker’) with a missile. Below the two, it was back together again - killing the pony that blew it up. I turned the page.

“I won’t let them have their way. I’m getting out of this. They can’t punish me for their mistakes! They’re going to learn what happens when they cross somepony far more intelligent than themselves, the hard way.” Skydive looked frustrated as she kept working at the terminal. I turned the page again.

“It took them two weeks to fix the lock to the door. They’re still trying to repair the key. Too bad I ruined the datacrypt, it’ll never work again. They created a spare, but I can get rid of it too. I shouldn’t push them, though - I need time to work with some of the wires. It won’t do any good to get them sending guards in here to check up on me.” Sky was muttering to herself now as she kept fiddling with the terminal.

“Slipped up. One of the guards caught me messing with the door. He saw the wires and immediately overrode my terminal, disabled the bios and reset my password. The fucking idiot changed it to ‘ruffles’, his mother’s stuffed cat. When I claimed higher intelligence, I didn’t expect this large of a gap. In any event, I can now lock the door from inside. Time to raise hell.”

“‘Lost’ my key in some of the cleaning fluid from storage. Who would have guessed that Abronco, some bleach, and a bit of Wonderglue could make such a potent reaction? Oh, hah, me. They’ve put guards outside my room 24 hours a day now. They think that they’ve solved all their problems now that I can’t leave. The day is coming fast… I don’t have much time. But I don’t need much time, either. I only have to be late by a short while, and I win.” She was making less and less sense with each page.

“Dammit,” Sky shouted, hitting the terminal. “I can’t remember how to try and cheat the password out of these things, and it won’t let me in without it.” She looked distraught, and went back to typing away at it.

“Try ‘ruffles’ and see if that works.” She sighed and typed it in. Judging from the look she gave me afterward, it worked. She looked like she was going to say something, but then just shook her head and started going through the terminal. I went back to the journal.

“They’re coming early. I had to lock the door already, and there’s still an hour left before the deadline. I doubt they can cut through it or create another key in time, but they’re trying to get that little piece-of-shit kid to break the door open for them. I can’t… I can’t, I can’t let them do this to me. I only wanted to help! It’s not my fault they couldn’t see what I had really made! IT’S NOT MY FAULT!” Tears stained the page and made it hard to read. I turned to the next one.

“That fucking maintenance bastard made a second key already. He’s coming. There’s no way out. This wasn’t how it was supposed to happen, I was supposed to make this work! No, no, there’s one way out. I still have that stupid example I made. I can still do this. However pyrrhic, I will still succeed.” There was only one thing written on the last page.

“ROT IN HELL!”

“Oh… oh, Celestia, that’s…” Skydive backed away from the terminal. I set the book down and trotted over to her quickly.

“What’s wrong?” She just pointed at the terminal, at a loss for words. I moved over to it and started reading down the list. Overmare instructions, list of security updates, access commands for the Stable armory (sounded like a place we needed to visit), emergency Stable security programs, and…

Open sacrificial chamber. “Son of a bitch.”

That explained all of the panic in the journals. Hell, that explained just about everything up to this point. They were sacrificing their own people to the Stable. Why? What kind of fucked up place would promise to save ponies from the death outside, only to make them send their friends and family to die once they’re locked in? I was beginning to see what drove the few who escaped to suicide.

I checked the emergency commands tab, on the verge of smashing the terminal before I could get the information I needed. I preferred the Stable when it was messed up in a strange way. The thought of all the ponies in here competing to see who they would give up. Who had to die for everypony else. There was such a mix of emotions in me, I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to find whoever decided this was a good idea and drag them into the Stable, make them see every single pony they killed with it. I wanted them to be killed and fed to the damned Stable, and I wanted their deaths to be agonizing. But just as badly, I wanted to go to the ponies of the Stable who perished and help them. I could have gotten them out before this happened if I’d been here sooner, just a few days sooner if the dates on the terminal entries were right.

“Stable emergency access disabled, mainframe access required. Please log in from mainframe below.”

“I don’t remember seeing a mainframe set up anywhere,” Sky spoke, reading over my shoulder. “I must have missed it. The stairs are on the other side of the floor, I think.” I closed my eyes and sighed. That wasn’t what it meant.

“No they aren’t,” I muttered. I was going to regret this… I hit the button anyway. The desk trembled and groaned before parting in two and rising. I walked around it and stared into what lie beneath - a set of stairs.

“It doesn’t have to be down there,” Sky voiced worriedly, “I might have just missed it back down that way. We don’t have to go down there.” I shook my head and started down the stairs. “Cinder, who knows what’s down there waiting? I don’t know about you, but I haven’t forgotten the pony upstairs with his body in pieces. What if whatever did that is down there?”

“Sky.” She stopped. She was starting to panic, and if she was scared to go down here… well, it stood to reason that I should be too. But I came too far to stop without making sure. I didn’t hardly care about the tech Lamia was after anymore - I felt I owed it to the Stable’s ponies now. To make sure I knew what happened, make sure they weren’t forgotten. They went through too much to be lost to the desert before they could even leave.

“The Stable wanted them to stay,” I explained. “It was designed so they would continue throwing away their lives. Whatever threat they were under should they stop, what would the point be if they could just leave? On that thought, where better to put the key to the exit then the last place anypony would dare to go?” Skydive frowned morosely.

“I know. I just… I don’t like it.”

“Neither do I. But this is it; we go down there, check the mainframe thing for what Lamia wanted, get it or don’t, and we get the hell out of this nightmare. One last room. Do you think you can make it?” She closed her eyes. A few moments passed in silence before she started to shake her head… then stopped, and nodded slightly.

“Thank you,” I told her as I opened the next - hopefully last door.

The hall on the other side was horrendously bright, surrounded on both sides by high-powered lights. I was forced to squint, my eyes already sore from before. On top of that, a disconcerting static kept crackling through speakers all around us. Occasionally words would get through, but it mostly skipped and buzzed like a broken record.

Skydive had clenched her pistol in her teeth, fully loaded and with an extra clip in easy reach. Whatever it was down here, it was going to be scarring. Physically, I suspected, as well as mentally. I shuddered to think of what happened to the ponies after they were thrown down here.

At the end of the hall, the lights finally dimmed down. A decently large room sat before us, empty save for the shattered remnants of a glass screen hung from the wall, as well as a broken piece of plastic and metal hanging down from the ceiling.

The static picked up in volume, and words came through more coherently than before. “krrrzt- for the- zzzztzzzt- sad, or scared- brrrzzzzzzzrt-” Sparks came from overhead. Whatever was supposed to be happening, the system had been destroyed by something.

The door behind us slammed shut suddenly, and I heard the thunk of a lock falling into place. Shit! I galloped to the door and smashed the button but it refused to open. Sky groaned and rolled her eyes. To either side of us, the walls shuddered and moaned with the sound of metal grinding against metal.

They parted slowly. Behind them was just about everything I was afraid would be. Machines filled the smaller side-rooms, and red lights blinked to life on my EFS - somehow they had been blocked by the walls before. Large guns were mounted to the ceiling on either side, three apiece. I could barely hear the gasp of panic from Skydive over the walls finishing their retreat into their pockets. To our left was a terrifying sight - a hovering robot equipped with all of a chainsaw, blowtorch, clamp, and several loose appendages the use of which I couldn’t begin to fathom.

The ceiling guns turned to face us. Several shots loosed from beside me - Skydive was already firing. One of them exploded in a shower of sparks as the rest began to open fire. Red streaks of searing light poured from them, sizzling as they struck the ground. Black burns marred the metal surface wherever they landed. I couldn’t reach them; I’d need to rely on Sky’s pistol for that. I prayed she could drop them all before she was hit.

A jet of flame crossed between me and her, startling me into focus. She could take the turrets, but I had to keep the other robots off of her while she worked. The nightmarish machine’s flamethrower washed over me, causing me to panic and backpedal into the wall. Eventually the torrent of flame subsided, leaving me facing the machine as it lifted one of its other limbs and aimed it at me. I jumped to the side, dodging what it fired at me. It was a sickly green color, whatever it was, and and left behind a disgustingly strong smell.

Tzzat! I staggered forward as something shocked me from behind. I had no time to react as flames burst toward me again. I felt heat, but not pain… I wasn’t burning. I had forgotten - I didn’t burn when I got coated in napalm, the case was the same with the flamethrower. I turned away, looking away from the blinding fire toward what had shocked me from behind. Another robot, this one moving by treads. It had a claw in addition to a small gun on its other arm. That had to be what shocked me. Another shower of sparks fell from the ceiling - Skydive was working as quickly as she could.

I felt as though time slowed as I began to take in what of the situation I could. I couldn’t afford to lose my head in this fight, but I could afford a moment, if only, to think. The machine behind me would switch to its projectile weapon if I got outside the flamethrower’s range. I couldn’t tell how quickly it was moving toward me - if it was at all - due to the flames clouding my vision. So long as I stayed within that range, I was ironically safe. The robot in front of me, I only knew of its shock attack. It had hit me somewhere on my hind leg; I had no idea what would happen should it score a more direct hit on my torso or head. It presented a more present threat than the one behind me.

Assuming the worst, the hovering robot hadn’t moved and I was just on the edge of its flamethrower. I’d need to be fast if that was the case, but I could bring down the robot on treads, or better: use it as a shield against the projectile weapon. All I needed was a weak spot…

It had a brain. Luna’s grace, it had a fucking brain in a glass case where its ‘head’ should be. Please, please don’t tell me that was one of the ponies’ brains, this Stable was already a horrid enough ordeal...

I didn’t have time to stay on that train of thought. It was most likely the best way to disable the robot. I braced myself for one last moment, time’s flow coming back to normality, and took off as fast as I could. I used my inertia to carry me into it as the robot fired off its electric gun again, hitting me square in the chest. I landed on it’s metal body awkwardly, losing control of my own for a second as I was struck. It was enough, however - I was greeted by the sound of shattering glass as we both crashed to the ground. I landed on my already-sore chest, grunting in the flash of agony.

The jet of fire had subsided before I collided with the brain-robot. The other machine was probably already aimed and ready to fire, I had to move now! I used my hind legs and lurched forward, still with my chest on the ground. I hadn’t regained control of all of me yet, I couldn’t stand. I heard a sizzling splat, the smell of rotten eggs and vinegar confirming that it had shot at me. I didn’t know how long I had before it fired again. I had to use the collapsed robot for cover until I could time it.

I felt something wet drip onto my shoulder, followed quickly by an intense burning. I rolled away from the downed machine and clutched my shoulder screaming. Some kind of green goo had fallen off of it - residue from whatever that nightmare of a robot was shooting at me. I wiped it away as fast as I could manage, moving so as not to be an easy target. The burning refused to stop even after I got rid of all of it.

I looked toward it, only to see it turning away from me. It was starting to aim at Sky, who was half-collapsed on the floor already. No!

I took off toward it at full gallop, causing it to turn its attention back to me. I leapt forward at it, only to have the clamp appendage latch onto one of my forelegs. I struggled to move, to get free of the crushing vice, but I couldn’t free myself from it. Instead I used my other foreleg and started to pound on it. It pulled the chainsaw toward me, making me flinch my leg back. So terrifyingly close, I craned my neck out of the way just before it thrust the whirring blade into my throat. I couldn’t keep maneuvering away from it with my leg caught.

In a fit of panic, I tried to throw myself forward. I intended to somersault forward, carrying it with me, but I only fell to the ground. I felt the bones in my fetlock being crushed by the clamp. Worse still, I felt the rush of air as the sawblade drew toward my caught foreleg. No no no…

The teeth of the blade started to dig in. I howled in absolute agony - there was nothing I could do to get away. As long as that leg was caught, I was at its mercy. If I was going to get away, I… I had to lose it. I… oh, Celestia, it was ripping me to shreds! I couldn’t even think straight through the pain anymore. I cried out, begging in my head for somepony to stop this - Sky, anypony! Goddesses themselves could’ve heard me at this point.

Again I felt a static shock, less pronounced - maybe dulled by the intense pain I was already in - but it covered me. In an instant, the sawblade stopped its gruesome spinning. The clamp released me, and the robot collapsed, myself along with it. A pair of faint gunshots resounded, Skydive hopefully killing it permanently.

I had no will left to stand up. I just let myself lie on the cold, metal floor. Tears streamed from my eyes, the pain having died down much from when I was actively being sliced apart, but with every heartbeat I felt the searing agony surge. I couldn’t stand it… I needed something to dull the pain. Or just knock me out altogether - what I wouldn’t give for that sedative again…

“Cinder,” Sky called out. There was pain in her voice. She had been hit, but she had the medical supplies. If she could get it, we might have enough to save ourselves. “I can’t reach my saddlebags. I got hit… I think I can shuffle them off, but I need to use something on my knees first before I can get to you. Hang in there, okay?” I grunted, I could hardly form words without crying out.

“I’ve got you!” another voice yelled out. Who was that? Someone else was here? I couldn’t turn my head to see them. I was blacking out from the blood loss… I couldn’t stay awake any longer…

Footnote: Level up!
Quest perk added: Forged in Flame*: Your crippled limbs will mend themselves over time, but only while they are “broken.” You’ll still want to use a healing potion or see a doctor to fix them fully.