Fallout Equestria: Influx

by Lex the Pikachu

Chapter 7: Lunatic Asylum

Fallout Equestria
Influx

Chapter 7: Lunatic Asylum

The door opened to a wide and long corridor with a security station off to the right which had its door wide open. My original bad feeling about this stable got even worse upon seeing the rubbish and debris filling the corridor and the broken security door laying on the floor like it had been broken down. A shattered viewing window enforced the bad feeling. It looked like there was a riot in here.

We both stared wide eyed in shock at the scene before us with the same question on our lips. "What the hay happened here?"

"Tango, where are you?" I shouted and immediately felt dumb for doing it.

"You featherbrain," Fruity sighed as he stepped into the security station and began to root around while I couldn't stop gawking at the totally ruined corridor, feeling stupid.

"Err, Crystal, what do you make of this?" Fruity asked, sounding confused.

"Huh," I shook my head to snap myself out of my stupor and stepped into the room. "What is it?"

Fruity simply pushed a stained piece of paper that looked like it was torn from a book or something towards me. I tilted my head as I read the short note that looked to have been mouth written.

"Dear Diary,

Today the air tasted different for some reason... I don't know why but the air tasted a little... pink I guess? I know that sounds odd and all but I can't explain it, the air tasted a little pink. My supper was way too hot last night, maybe I burnt my tongue and that's why the air tastes funny.

I always wanted to be a beatnik, but my pants were too tight."

I blinked in confusion and looked up at Fruity. "That was so weird," I commented. "And that last bit was random,"

"Yeah, I didn't get it either,"

We left the weird note and the trashed security room and walked along the corridor until we reached the end. The corridor ended with a doorway at the very end and to the right of the door, there was a stairwell going down. I pressed the door control for the door and it slid up into the ceiling to reveal an empty store room.

"I guess we take the stairs," I said, turning and heading down the stairs cautiously.

"This place feels wrong," Fruity whimpered, with a ruffle of his wings in agitation.

"I know what you mean Fruity, this place is giving me the creeps." I mentally added as we descended the stairs.

The bottom of the stairs was sealed off by a door, so I pressed the door control and opened it. With a soft metallic whine, the door rose up to give us access to the "Atrium" according to what the sign on the door said. I couldn't tell where the threats were in this place, there were so many red bars they all seemed to blend together which made trying to find a threat in this place unreliable. As the door opened and I stepped out into the Atrium ahead of Fruity, something felt off. I could smell or taste something funny in the air; the Stable smelt bad, like the wasteland in general but something else was mixed in the already foul smell. However, I couldn't for the life of me tell what it was.

"Hey Fruity, can you smell anything funny?" I asked, looking back to the purple stallion as he reached the bottom of the stairs.

He took a big, snotty breath in with his nose, something that reminded me of what my Dad used to do before he would spit out a big glob of snot, eww, and then shook his head but not in the manner to say no. "*cough* Yeah, I can certainly smell something different but can't tell wha... Crystal LOOK OUT!" He suddenly shouted in alarm.

"New friends," A new crazed voice chirped from behind me before suddenly, a heavy impact collided with the back of my head before I even had time to react to the flashing warning exclamation mark that had appeared. I cried out in pain; I could feel blood gently oozing down the back of my neck as my vision began to swim. My legs felt like they had turned to jelly as I turned around to see a unicorn mare dressed in a stable suit and looking totally bonkers with wide twitching eyes that reminded me of one of those old mad Twilight Sparkle posters. She was levitating a sledge hammer. I let out a groan as I collapsed and my vision went black.

XXXXX

"Oh shit no," Fruity cried out in shock as he quickly flapped his wings to balance himself on his hind legs and swung his plasma rifle out ready to engage the mad mare who had just knocked out his bio-mechanical companion. With the crazy look in her eye, he was sure she intended to knock him out too and probably do mad depraved things with them both. "Eat plasma you mad cow," He shouted in anger and pulled the hoof trigger, only for his weapon to sputter and go dark. "Oh for the love of..." He groaned in annoyance as his weapon malfunctioned yet again.

"Oh a birdie, your wings look pretty, can I have them?" She asked as she dropped her hammer and plucked a rather rusty looking breadknife off her utility belt.

"Oh heck," The stallion paled in fear as he continued to fiddle with his malfunctioning plasma rifle. "When we get through this, if we get through this, I am so doing a maintenance check on you," He screamed, "CRYSTAL, WAKE UP!"

As if answering his plea, the downed zebra's remaining organic eye shot open and a threatening red light filled her pupil. She shuddered for a moment before she pulled herself back up to her hooves and slowly turned her head as if to survey her surroundings before her mechanical and organic eyes, both glowing a deep red, focused on the twitching unicorn mare who was now staring at the zebra with a spreading smile.

"Yay she wants play some more!"

"Self defence protocol initiated," Crystal spoke in a totally emotionless and monotone voice that sounded entirely mechanical, lacking the character that Fruity had grown to know since he met her, which started a bad feeling to churn in his stomach as he watched his friend turn her attention entirely on her attacker. "Threat identified... terminating..."

The unicorn mare didn't seem to grasp that she was in danger as she hovered her rusty blade up to strike. Crystal didn't seem to even care about the blade as she began to approach the mad mare. Giggling insanely, the unicorn swung her serrated bread knife for Crystal's neck. The zebra saw the attack coming and raised her right foreleg to block the blow despite the blade cutting into her flesh by an inch.

"Silly filly, you gone and cut yourself," The mare chastised with a giggle.

With a sudden and quick flick of her foreleg, the bio-mechanical zebra sent the bread knife flying to the other side of the Atrium with a clang. The knife wrenched from the insane mare's grasp gave the zebra the perfect opening. Rearing up onto her hind legs, she twisted her torso to the right and then swung her right foreleg out as hard as she could and smashed it into the side of the unicorn's head.

"Holy fucking Luna’s sweet ass flank!" Fruity exclaimed in horror as he watched the mare's head cave in with the force of the impact to the side of her head.

The mare didn't even scream as she fell to the floor with a heavy meaty thud; she was dead as soon as the machine's leg fractured her skull and pushed pieces of bone into her brain. Fruity felt bile rise in his throat as he saw the side of the mare's head had been crushed by his friend's blow. The zebra turned to face him and when he saw those glowing red eyes he felt a cold shiver run down his spine and a lead weight of fear settle in his stomach as she began to approach him. Her gaze drifted down to his weapon before it then moved back up to his eyes. It felt like her mechanical eyes were staring into his soul and he was unable to move or look away.

"Whoa, peace," He said holding his hooves up while letting the Q-Modulator hang from its strap which unfortunately swung down and caught him in his crown jewels, making the Pegasus’s wings seize up and he fell to the floor, clutching at his tackle while letting out a high pitched cry of pain.

The machine tilted her head for a moment before turning away as if deciding that he wasn't a threat to her. At that moment however, three doors in the Atrium opened and three more stable ponies emerged, attracted by the commotion.

"Multiple threats detected..."

"Wait, Crystal," Fruity said in a painful groan as he pulled himself back up to his hooves despite the pain between his hind legs. Unfortunately, the zebra was already heading towards the closest stable dweller. Fruity shook his head and pumped his wings so he could regain his balance again on his hind legs and took aim with his rifle. He prayed the weapon would work, he had to at least offer some sort of cover for his seemingly possessed friend.

"Look at that ass," A crazed stallion said around the handle of a knife as he began to approach from behind the zebra mare.

"Demons... demons..." Another said with a crazy eye twitch.

The bio-mechanical zebra wasn't even bothering to take notice of the threats coming in from behind while she focused on an earth pony mare branding a metal baseball bat.

"Time to play ball," The mare mumbled around the handle and swung her bat. Crystal blocked it, but before she could counter the strike, the detection sensor in her electronic brain that the coding for pain alerted the machine to being stabbed in the rear. She turned her head to see that the other two targets were dangerously close and that one of them had stabbed her in her right butt cheek. While distracted, the insane Earth Pony mare took another swing and hit the zebra mare above her missing eye, ripping away a part of her flesh that revealed a metal plate that made up the top half of her eye socket along with her machine number. I-01.

I-01 turned its attention back to the mare with the bat. The mare turned her head to take another swing, but this time I-01 was ready and she simply just punched the mare in the side of the head, similar to the first mare and caved her head in causing instant death.

Fruity gawked, again, a single blow caused instant death. He had to wonder just how much strength his bio-mechanical friend had in those legs of hers. He remembered how she kicked the head of a ghoul clean off its shoulders and how she punched through the head of a sentry drone to protect him so he had an idea. He cursed as his weapon refused to work by fiddling with the dials and knobs on the top of the weapon.

"Celestia have mercy, I'm going to tear you a new one when this over," He growled at his weapon. He looked up in time to watch the mare topple over with a hole in the side of her head and Crystal's right hoof covered in blood. He could see how close the two stallions were to her rear and he knew what was coming when she pushed up with her hind legs. "Not watching," He muttered and turned around but he cringed when he heard two sickening crunches which were followed by two heavy thuds.

Turning back around there were now four dead stable dwellers and a bloodier Crystal walking towards him. He cringed when he saw that Crystal's left eyebrow had been torn off again like it had earlier that morning. He quickly holstered his rifle as the machine walked up to him and then past him.

"Hey, Crystal, where you going?" He asked as she began up the stairs but ignored him. "Crystal?"

He followed after her while calling her name but she continuously ignored him. Upon reaching the top of the stairs she turned right and walked inside the small store room.

"Crystal what's going... wait, you're not Crystal..." He looked at her and noticed the letter and number engraved into her metal eyebrow. "I-01, what's going on?"

"Self defence protocol in effect, protection of consciousness paramount, objective of self defence protocol is to neutralise any and all threats to consciousness if consciousness is incapable of defending itself and to retreat to a safe location for recovery." The machine stated.

Fruity now understood the sudden change in his friend, but it now scared him. Any time she is knocked unconscious while still in danger, then the machine will take over! At least it was just temporary, only until she wakes up. He saw the machine reach for the door control, and not wanting to be locked out of the store room, he quickly joined her inside just as she hit the button to close the door. When the door slid shut, she then engaged the manual lock override which meant if any other insane ponies tried to find them they wouldn't be able to open the door.

"Area secure, self defence protocol disengaged." She said and with that, she collapsed to the floor like a sack of potatoes.

"Bugger me!" He cried as she fell to the floor with a bang. "Well good night then, ugh, might as well try to get you to work now you piece of shit." He grumbled as he sat on his hunches and pulled the Q-Modulator around to begin tinkering with it while he waited for his friend to wake up.

XXXXX

"Ugh, my head," I groaned as I lifted my head off the floor and brought a forehoof up to rub at my sore temple on the left side of my head.

"Crystal, is that you?" Fruity asked cautiously.

"Is it me, Fruity what are you talking about? Of course it's me!" I asked with a groan as my head pulsed with a headache.

"Oh thank Celestia, it is you," He sighed with relief.

"What do you mean?" I groaned.

"You got knocked out a few hours ago," He said as he clipped the discharge barrel back onto his Q-Modulator. "But shortly after you got ko'd, the machine seemed to take over,"

"Come again?" I said with alarm and stared at him.

"Um yeah, after you fell down and that crazy unicorn mare started to come for me you woke up again but it wasn't exactly you..." He trailed off as he shuddered and I could see the fear in his eyes, whatever happened scared him. "The pupil of your right eye was actually glowing red, which told me it wasn't really you, plus the first thing you said as you woke up was, "Self defence protocol initiated," Fruity said while mocking a robotic voice. My eyes widened in shock and a fear of my own set in as it seemed the machine inside me could just take over me. But thankfully, before I could dwell even more on that disturbing thought Fruity continued. "You then proceeded to attack that insane mare, you clobbered her in the side of the head so hard you caved her skull in," Fruity explained while looking sick at the metal image, it was enough to make me feel sick too as I looked down at my left foreleg, noticing the blood that was dried up on my Pipbuck. "Unfortunately, after you killed that mare, three more stable ponies, just as crackers as the mare appeared and you went on and killed them in a similar fashion even though one of them clobbered you in the head with a baseball bat, but thankfully you've healed up being in here though," Fruity finished with a sad sigh.

I realised after Fruity finished that my vision was no longer split between one side being red and the other in colour. I reached up with a hoof and felt for my eye, sighing with relief as my hoof grazed over my eye lid and eyebrow. I lay there for a few moments more waiting for my headache to clear before I stood up again and as I stood, I felt a tightness around my right hind leg and I couldn't help the smile that graced my lips. I looked back and held out my right hind leg and sighed happily to see that the sock covered limb looked fuller than before. "Finally it's starting to regenerate,"

"Yeah, since we were pretty much sealed in here and safe, your body healed itself rather quickly," Fruity said as he slung his rifle. "Crystal, is it worth going back out there, down in that Stable to find this guy? I know I said it's a lot of caps, but the risk, you've already had your eye shot out and been knocked out, and I've had my wing mauled on. But something about this place feels wrong. Is it worth it?" Fruity asked in concern.

I could understand his concern. He was right, it was very risky to continue our pursuit of this pony for the five thousand cap bounty, but then we would have to find another way to get the minimum three thousand cap credit we'd need to get into the city. I didn’t know how long that would take, and where else it would lead us but right here, right now, we had a target that would be able to give us the caps we need. I want to know what became of me and the knowledge that the machine could take over me like this gave me more reason to want to pursue Tango instead of waiting longer.

"I understand your concern Fruity, but I feel the longer I leave this, the less of a pony I'm going to feel. Like you just said, the machine took over me while I was unconscious. If it can do that, I'd rather get to know what the hell happened to me now rather than later, so I'm prepared to take the risk."

"Are you really sure about this?" He asked.

"Fruity, what would you do if you were me?" I asked hopeful.

He was silent for a little while as he thought over his reply. I could see it on his face how he was debating with himself. The pegasus let out a defeated sigh and hung his head. "If I was in your ponyshoes I'd want to know sooner rather than later too. Fine, let's get this over with,"

"Don't worry, we'll get through this together," I said and went to give him a reassuring nuzzle on the cheek, but he pulled back and turned his head away. That hurt inside to see him recoil from my approach. Did I really scare him that much when the machine took over, or was that also from this morning's disturbing reveal about me? Either way it was confirmation our relationship was going be rough from here on out. With my ears plastered to the sides of my head, I released the door's manual lock and opened the door. "Let's get this over with." I sighed dejectedly.

We entered the Atrium again and I saw the horrors that the machine part of me subjected Fruity too. Four dead bodies and each of them had their heads pulverized. "I did this, I mean the machine did this?" I gasped in shock while suddenly getting the urge to start wiping my hooves on anything I could find. Fruity nodded with a frown.

"I don't want the machine to take over again, like ever," I whimpered and cringed at the sight. Suddenly, the threat detector appeared again in my vision, forcing me to look around for an incoming threat. However, as I looked around the Atrium, I didn't see anything that could be a danger. "I think that hammer to the head broke me," I grumbled to myself.

"Why, what's wrong?"

"My threat detector is warning me of a danger but I can't see anything that'll be a danger to us,"

"You have a threat detector?" Fruity asked with a raised eyebrow.

"I guess so, an exclamation mark flashes into my vision if there's a danger nearby, but in some instances I don't react fast enough,"

"Huh uh," He nodded then he smacked his lips. "The air in here still tastes funny,"

I took a deep breath. "Ugh yeah, something is wrong in here,"

"Ok, where do we start looking for this cocksucker?" Fruity asked as he licked his lips. "Weird, I can taste strawberries," He muttered quietly.

That was a good question and I lifted my left foreleg and concentrated. The local map screen appeared and showed the Atrium and the doors leading out, as well as the rooms that were also part of the Atrium. Three doors were marked on the map screen, Living Quarters, Science Labs and Maintenance. The closest door was to our left, leading us into the Living Quarters of the stable.

"I suppose we could check out the Living Quarters first," I suggested.

"Alright," Fruity agreed as we made our way across the ruined Atrium to the door.

With a nod from Fruity, who readied his rifle and aimed it at the door. I hit the door control and opened the door. The door slid up to reveal a corridor full of rubbish. Following Fruity's example, I plucked Lucky 13 from its holster and held it at the ready as we began to cautiously make our way through the corridor. I was happy to discover that the living quarters themselves each had a window to let us see into each apartment which meant we didn't have to open the doors to manually check each room. Neither of us wanted to stay down here longer than we had to, especially since this place had crazy ponies in it and something felt really wrong in here.

Each room we checked through the windows looked wrecked, but after ten apartments, we came to one that looked as clean and as well maintained as if it was still pristine, despite the obvious near two century degradation. Curious, we entered the apartment. I checked my EFS for hostile targets but surprisingly found no hostile tags in a connecting room, which I believed to be the bedroom. I pressed the door control and the door slid open to reveal a bedroom in the same pristine condition as the living/kitchen main room of the apartment and an Earth Pony mare sat on the bed rocking back and forth.

"Clean, clean, oh I love to clean," She muttered, but then looked at us then down at the floor, she gasped and then grabbed a mop that was sitting beside her bed. "Oh no, dirty," She cried and started to mop the floor at our hooves.

"It's clean..." Fruity whined.

"No it's dirty, I want to clean that bit you're on, clean," She mumbled crazily and continued to push at our hooves with the mop. In the end, she effectively curled us with the mop out the door.

"I've never been run out of a room by some crazy OCD mare before," Fruity said, stunned at what just happened.

"I don't think she can get that room any cleaner even if she tried." I added in disbelief at the surrealness.

Shaking our heads to snap ourselves out of our stupors, we continued on. For a Stable, this place seemed rather empty, but considering the door was wide open when we got here, I wasn’t surprised. But there were still enough hostile ponies in here to keep my EFS full.

We continued on until we came to a door which seemed to open automatically as we got close enough to it. Upon opening, we noticed two stallions who stood in the corridor, talking to each other. One of the stable dwellers was wearing a chef's hat.

"Bollocks..." Fruity sighed. Fruity was right to moan as the Chef was covered in blood and he had knives of various sizes all over his stable barding.

The two stallions turned and looked at us, their eyes wide and crazy like the mare’s. "This can't be good," I muttered around the mouth grip of my revolver.

"Ohhh, look Sizzle Sticks, cows," The stallion next to the Chef pointed to us and yelled excitedly.

"You numbskull, they ain't cows," The Chef said. Fruity and I let out a sigh of relief, but that was short lived because of what he said next. "They’re the biggest, fattest turkeys I've ever did see,"

"Let's eat'em," The other said.

"Hmm good idea," The Chef replied and pulled a huge cleaver from his sleeve.

"You have got to be kidding..." Fruity sighed and raised his Q-Modulator.

"Nope, they look pretty hungry," I mumbled while closing an eye to aim down the sight of Lucky 13, each of us taking a stallion each as they approached. With a nod from Fruity, we both pulled the triggers to our guns and the corridor echoed with the bang and discharge of lead and plasma. My .357 Magnum round had cleanly punched into the head of the chef's companion and he crumpled to the floor, but unfortunately still had his eyes open and the crazed look still frozen on his face. The Chef took the plasma bolt through the side of the neck, melting away half of his flesh, but it had the same effect as if slitting somepony's throat as the severed artery began spewing out blood, so much so the Chef choked and began to drown on his own blood. He fell to the floor gasping for air.

"Shit." Fruity sighed as he lowered his rifle to aim at his head and fired again. I let out a cry of shock, surprise and horror as the point blank shot didn't liquefy him like I expected. It instead caused his head to explode, showering us both in gore. "Holy balls and ass cock!" Fruity yelled in surprise as he didn't expect the explosion of gore. I began slapping and wiping myself with my tail and forelegs while shivering in disgust after the event while chanting "Gross" again over and over.

"Why did you do that?" I whined as I frantically began to look for any sign of a bathroom as we continued along the corridor.

"Ugh, *spit* Got some in my mouth..." Fruity said while spitting a glob of something out that I didn't bother to see because I didn't want to know what had got in his mouth from that episode of horribleness. "He was suffering, I missed his head the first time and I wanted to put him out of his misery quickly instead of letting him drown on his own blood. I've seen Raiders slit pony’s throats and watch them die and it's a horrible way to go so, I didn't want to subject him to that even if he was a total nutter," Fruity explained as he wiped his mouth on his sleeve.

"I see, well let's try to avoid any more unpleasantness," I sighed.

We rounded a corner and I smiled as a hanging sign pointed us to a male or female restroom on either side of the corridor. "Oh finally," I said and brought my gaze down to see which side the mare's room was on. I blinked and my vision took on a pinkish hue, maybe because of the dull lighting in this ruined stable and I saw a mare standing in the middle of the corridor that froze me solid. The mare was pink, sparkling and had a light yellow mane and tail, she turned her head and smiled sweetly at me, her sparkling blue eyes shimmering in the dull light before she turned to the door on the right side and walked through and into the mare's restroom. "Mother..." I breathed out in shock before shaking my head.

"Hey, are you ok, you look like you just seen a ghost?" Fruity asked, noting my shocked expression.

I blinked several times before returning to my senses. "Um, yeah, I thought I saw something," I said before shaking my head again. Now I can taste strawberries too. "Did you see a mare just now?" I asked while pointing ahead of us. Fruity just shook his head. Oh great, it was just me that saw her, ugh the stress of this place must be getting to me. "I need to use the little filly’s room," I moaned in agitation and headed for the mare's restroom and slowly peeked into the old dirty toilets for any sign of the mare I saw, but the toilets were deserted. "I must be seeing things," I muttered as I entered and headed for the nearest sink and turned on the tap. As I peered in the mirror it was then I realised the pinkish haze had also gone. What is going on in here? The bad feeling churning in my gut was only getting worse as I splashed water on my face to better clean off the gore from Fruity's botched kill.

"No not Mutfruit!" Fruity yelled suddenly.

I quickly ran out into the corridor to find Fruity up against a wall panting heavily as if he had a big scare.

"Are you alright?" I asked in a slight panic, water dripping off my face since I didn't get a chance to dry off.

"Storeroom, full to the ceiling, Mutfruit," He panted out heavily while pointing to the door in front of him marked as "Janitor Closet #07" with a shaky hoof. I raised an eyebrow and went to open the door.

"NO!" He screamed and shielded his head with his forelegs.

I pressed the door control and as the door slid up, I saw nothing but mops, buckets and out of date cleaning products.

"There's nothing here," I said and stepped back to let him see.

As he peeked out from between his forelegs he gasped as he saw the near empty room. "But, I swear, I was about to get steamrolled by a mountain of Mutfruit before I closed the door again," He cried and rushed to the door and stuck his head inside the room to look for the phantom fruit. He shook his head and sat back while rubbing his eyes. "Ugh, that Med-X must have been some strong stuff, I'm seeing shit,"

"Maybe not, I thought I saw my mum just a minute ago,"

He blinked. "Ok, let's find this guy and get the buck outta here, something is so wrong down here...." He stopped and smacked his lips again. "Why strawberries, what is with this place?"

"You can taste it too?"

He nodded, ok, that didn’t sound good.

"How are we going to find this guy in here if you can't find him with your EFS?" Fruity asked.

I held a forehoof to my chin in thought. Where could we go to find this pony easily without having to transverse the entire stable looking for him? Wait, that's it, the Overmare's Office. The main terminal bank in her office had access to all security camera feeds and would let us see into all areas of the stable where we would be able to find where he was hiding. Thank Celestia I paid attention to the Stable-Tec representative during the tour when I was taken around Stable 34.

"The Overmare's Office," I said and looked down at my Pipbuck to check the map to find it. Thankfully, the Overmare's Office is in the Living Quarters section of the Stable where we currently were and wasn't too far away, but it was on the upper level of the Living Quarters and it was the largest apartment with a window into the Atrium. "We'll need to follow this corridor until we get to a crossroad, the crossroad leads to a stairwell going up that'll take us to the upper level where we can get to the Overmare's Office." I explained while also taking note of the two other doors the crossroad would lead to, the stairs to the left when we get to it and the doors the crossroad lead to, while straight on and to the right would be to the Recreational Rooms and Science Labs.

"Alright then, let's get a move on," Fruity said with urgency as we begun down the corridor and made our way up the stairs into the second level of the Living Quarters.

The second level was just as much of a mess as the lower level. It was enough to make you wonder what had gone on down here to bring this stable to ruin.

"We need to follow the corridor all the way around to get to the Overmare's Office," I said as we passed an intersection that lead down another corridor but according to the map it would join up with the one we are currently walking along as to make a full circuit. Fruity nodded as he hovered behind me. The corridors were thankfully wide enough to allow him to at least hover so he could keep his weapon at the ready.

The apartments we passed looked larger than the ones on the lower level and I assumed it was for the richer or more important ponies of the stable to have the bigger and more luxurious rooms. However, as we came to the corner that would put us on the path right to the Overmare's Office,` a red marker on my EFS caused me to stop.

"Hostile," I warned just as a creamy yellow unicorn mare with a light purple tail and a mane done up into pigtails, dressed in a pink and white checked gingham dress and matching bonnet along with black army boots on her hind legs stepped out into the corridor. She turned and faced us and to our surprise, she looked calm and collected, not wide eyed crazy like the other insane stable dwellers we'd ran into, but the outfit was a giveaway that something was wrong with her.

"The hell...?" Fruity quietly muttered as the mare raised a foreleg which had a hoof puppet of a black and pink dragon on it. Ok this mare is definitely mad.

"They've been naughty foals haven't they Mrs Nessy?" The unicorn mare asked the puppet calmly. The mare turned the puppet to look at her with its wobbly eyes shaking about as it was turned to face her.

"Yes," The mare said, but in a higher and squeakier voice.

"What happens to naughty foals who've been naughty Mrs Nessy?" The mare asked in her normal voice as if she was having a proper conversation with the puppet.

Fruity lifted a hoof to his ear and made a circular motion with his hoof in the universal sign to say if somepony was loopy. Unfortunately, this mare was giving me a very, very bad vibe, not to mention my flashing threat warning was flashing brighter. "I think we should go the other way," I whispered.

"What she gonna do, shoot lasers out of her eyes? She's armed with a puppet."

"Auntie Glimmer fries them alive with her hex vision," The mare said again in the puppet's voice. Oh no.

Fruity raised his rifle and charged a shot as his eyes widened in shock.

"You just had to say it didn't you?" I groaned.

The mare gave a sadistic grin. "That's right Mrs Nessy," She replied in her calm tone and turned to face us again. Her horn glowed a blood red and so did her eyes. I quickly raised my revolver while also taking a step back.

"Like I knew she had hex vision," He retorted and fired a burning ball of plasma at the mad dress wearing mare. Her eyes flashed red and lightning shot forth and struck the plasma ball, causing it to explode before it could even reach her.

"Ah shit," Fruity cursed as he aimed for a second short only to drop to the floor to avoid another hex vision blast from the mare. "Holy shit, what sort of magic gives a mare hex vision!?" Fruity cried as we turned around and ran back the way we came. This mare had the advantage here, her hex vision was faster and more accurate than our weapons and in these tight corridors we couldn’t engage her head on so the best plan was to retreat.

"The other way," I said while nodding to the left hoof turn before the stairs going down. There was a loud buzzing blast from behind us as the mare fired another hex vision blast. I cried out in pain as I felt the magic lightning like shot burn through my duster tails and graze my flank, leaving a little burn. Thankfully the hex blast was just a graze. "Why can't we meet anypony nice?" I cried with a hiss of pain as we rounded the corner just in time to miss another blast.

"Why can't we meet anypony who can shoot straight?" Fruity added as we ran and jumped over the rubbish, not slowing down and stopping until we got to the intersection behind where the mare was. We stopped before the intersection and I slowly poked my head out from around the corner to see if the mare was down where we first saw her, but she was nowhere to be seen.

"She's gone," I sighed with relief.

"Good, let's hop to it before she comes back," Fruity urged. I nodded and we turned to the right and began to quickly trot towards the Overmare's Office.

The corridor was long and had several open doors that would have divided the corridor up into sections, probably to minimise fire hazards. The last door in the corridor was closed. "That door up ahead, once we get through that, the office will be at the end," I said.

"What door?" Fruity asked as he squinted.

Can't he see it? I turned back in the direction of the door and it was then I realised my vision had gone pink again. What's with the pink? Suddenly the door opened and... I must be going mad. Three ponies that looked like mother ran through and towards us but as soon as they got within an inch of us, they all disappeared like they weren't even there.

"What the hell?" I cried and slammed on the brakes. I skidded to a stop on the dirty floor while looking around frantically but my vision had returned to normal.

"What's wrong?" Fruity asked concerned.

"I saw the door open and then saw three ponies that looked like my mother run towards us but they just disappeared," I cried, panting from the shock. Am I finally cracking under the stress?

"I've said it once and I'll say it again, something is not right down here," Fruity sighed in annoyance.

He was right, something definitely isn't right down here. I shook my head hard to clear it as we came up to the Overmare's Office door. Fruity raised his rifle and nodded to me. I then pressed the door control with my tail, and the door slid up it revealed a trashed office. It looked like somepony had a huge fight in here and the skeleton slumped in the office chair behind the horseshoe shaped desk with a tattered Overmare uniform was enough of a giveaway as to who the victim was, not to mention the hole in the skull's forehead. A gun lay on the floor next to the desk with several spent shell casings around it to show that it had been used before the Overmare was murdered. Suddenly a bolt of plasma shot passed my head and hit the office chair, causing it to glow green before it turned to goo.

"Celestia on a bike, what was that for?" I cried out in shock and rubbed at my left ear as it felt really hot after the energy ball passed it. Fruity looked panicked, like he just saw somepony he was really scared of before he blinked rapidly for a moment then looked confused and looked around.

"I... I swear I just saw an Enclave Trooper standing in here with his plasma rifles ready to fire. I-I've had to avoid the Enclave ever since they cast me out as they usually shoot Dashites on sight," He sighed. I'm starting to think we are both seeing things down here now. I've seen my mother now twice that Fruity hasn't seen and he had seen things that scare him twice that I hadn't seen and why did the taste of strawberries get stronger after each time it happened?

"Are you ok?" I asked with concern.

"Y-yeah, I'll be ok, I'll just guard the door..." The pegasus sighed and sat by the door looking pretty disturbed. "I'm going to be put off strawberries for life after this," He added in a quiet mutter. I might be put off by them too after this as well as they'd be a reminder of this hell. Plus, this stable had been so full of nightmare fuel so far, I'd probably be having nightmares for weeks too.

I nodded, softly to him while I walked over to the terminal bank at the back of the ruined office. I'd never used this type of system before, how was I going to use it? Just as I thought that, I felt the familiar buzz in the back of my head as my brain was filled with knowledge regarding the terminal. I rolled my eyes as the terminal bank was simply called the "Overmare's Terminal". I sorta expected some fancy long Stable-Tec or Robronco name. Shrugging it off I sat before the terminal and began to press keys, first I pressed the power button to make sure the terminal bank was online which thankfully it was as the four screens lit up with a soft flash. Using the knowledge I had been provided, by my electronic brain, I hit the appropriate keys and then selected the security camera system, which divided all four screens into dozens of small little windows, each showing a different portion of the stable.

I slowly scanned each picture the cameras were giving, Living Quarters, Recreational Rooms, Science Labs and then into Maintenance. I was on the last terminal screen and started to think the paedophile might have slipped out of the stable without us knowing until I found him. He was in a spare materials storage room not far from the Science Lab's entrance into the Maintenance wing of the stable. He looked horrified, like he'd seen his worst fears come to light, plus he looked really beat up. I suppose he had run into a few of the insane inhabitants along the way.

"I found him," I called to Fruity who was by my side in an instant after I called out to him that I had found him.

"Now we can go pop this wanker."

I nodded. "Yeah, just give me a quick second to see if there is anything else on this thing," I said while doing a quick search for any information. Unfortunately a lot of the stored data on this terminal was corrupted or had been deleted leaving little behind but I did find one piece of information. A message that the Overmare sent out to the security ponies of the stable just two weeks after the door sealed.

"To all Stable Security staff: If any of our residents notice any unusual odour or faint taste in the air, please assure them that everything is fine. There was a slight irregularity in our filtration system but nothing to cause alarm; the systems have already been corrected and are at one hundred percent functionality again. If you notice anypony acting out in a strange manner, please report the disturbance immediately so medical assistance can be sent."

"Why does this note seem suspicious to me?" Fruity asked as he leaned closer to the screen so he could scrutinize the note more closely.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"If it's telling ponies about a fault in the air filtration system and to reassure them that the problem was corrected. Why just send this to just the security ponies?" He asked, raising a very good valid point.

"Huh, you're right,"

"Wait a minute..." He suddenly squawked in surprise as if he realised something. "A strange taste in the air, ponies acting strange," He then turned to me. "You don't think this has something to do with why this stable is so messed up?"

I gasped. "You know, you could be onto something. We've both been tasting strawberries and the ponies we've met down here have all been bonkers,"

"We better get a move on," Fruity urged as we turned and headed for the door. As we turned, I noticed a picture frame hanging on the wall that was crooked and the painting itself had long since deteriorated to nothing and behind it was a safe that was open.

"One second," I said, curious to see what was inside. I nudged the door open the rest of the way and sighed with disappointment as it was empty save for a torn up pile of decayed papers. I reached in with a hoof and pulled one of the torn slips out to see what was on the piece of paper. The decayed piece of paper was almost unreadable, but the Stable-Tec logo was still clearly visible on it. Curious, I reached in and plucked another random slip of torn paper, this was just a small section and seemed to have a title in bold print. "Stable-Tec Directive:..." The paper was torn before I could read what the directive was.

"What have you found?" Fruity asked from beside me suddenly, making me jump and cry out in surprise.

"Gah, don't do that!" I shouted at him for scaring me. My scare and jump caused enough of a draft to cause the slips of paper too scatter and tumble out of the safe and fall to the floor.

"Hehe, sorry, um, what did you find?" He asked with an embarrassed blush from scaring me.

I groaned. "Ugh, nothing, but whatever that paper was, it must have been this Stable's instructions as the pieces I looked at had the Stable-Tec logo and something about a directive but cut off before it told me. It looks like somepony tore it up for some reason though," I said and turned around and began to walk with him towards the door. "Anyway, we better find Tango, deal with him and leave,"

"I second that."

The walk back to the stairs was uneventful, thankfully, and we didn't run into that crazy mare again either, which was a plus. We descended the stairs back down to the first level on the Living Quarters, facing the door to the Science Labs. As we stepped into the intersection my threat warning flashed brighter and a red marker appeared directly in front of us.

"Hang on, hostile target in front of us," I warned, stopping Fruity before he could walk ahead.

Suddenly, the door to the Science Labs began to glow red hot in the middle.

"Oh this can't be good..." Fruity sighed.

The glow intensified as the heat grew, soon the metal of the door began to warp before it started to melt and run. A clear hole was being burnt through the door by an intense glow of magical energy. We had to shield our eyes from the sheer brightness of the glow as the hole grew bigger in the door.

"What the bloody hell is going on?" Fruity cried out in annoyance.

Just as we thought we were going to go blind from the brightness of the light despite our attempt to shield our eyes the light stopped and the sound of magic also ceased, leaving nothing but the sizzle of super heated metal as it cooled.

I lowered my foreleg while Fruity shifted his wing from his face. Our eyes widened in shock at what stood in the hole melted into the door to the Science Labs. It was the puppet holding, dress wearing mare. She was staring at us holding the puppet to her chest with it looking at us while shaking it. Fruity and I were stunned into silence at finding the mare standing before us inside the melted door as we couldn't comprehend how she did it.

"Mrs Nessy is very cross," The mare began in her calm voice while also sounding deeply offended and still staring at us. "You shouldn't have run away from her, what are we going to do with them Mrs Nessy?" She asked and then she raised the puppet up to face level with her and turned it to face her. She turned her head to look at the puppet and wiggled the puppet to simulate the puppet whispering to her and then she make a gasping expression, opening her mouth wide in shock at whatever the mad mare seemed to have heard from the puppet, before she fixed her gaze back on us and tilted the puppet ever so slightly so its googly eyes also looked at us. The motion of having the fake set of eyes as well as the mare now giving us a sinister smirk sent chills down my spine.

"We can't possibly do that," She said in mock shock before her voice turned dark and sadistic. "Who'd clear up the mess?" She asked, to which her horn glowed blood red again with magic but instead of her eyes glowing, the puppet's eyes began to glow instead as they charged up for a hex vision blast.

"Oh shit..."

"RUN!" I screamed and turned tail, practically shoving the pegasus up the corridor to the door to the Recreational Rooms.

Just as we rounded the corner, I heard the roar of the hex vision shoot pass us from behind. That mare was a whole new level of crazy and I really do not want to know what her craziness suggested to her through that puppet! I could feel my heart thundering in my chest, and if I had ribs I could make the comment that my heart was trying to break out my chest with how hard it was thumping inside.

We came to the closed door and hit the door control, quickly running through when the door had opened enough. The door automatically closed behind us, but Fruity turned back to the door.

"What are you doing?" I cried frantically as I skidded to a stop.

"Slowing her down," He replied as he reared up onto his forehooves and bucked the door control on the wall, destroying the control system to permanently seal the door. He then grabbed a lever sticking out of the door with his mouth and pulled it, with a heavy clunk a series of locking clamps clamped down around the edges of the door.

"Hopefully that’ll slow her down," The purple pegasus said as he rejoined me and we swiftly trotted down a flight of stairs to enter the recreational rooms of the stable.

"What did you do?" I asked.

"I engaged the manual locking system, heh, you showed me how to do that actually, well, I-01 did..."

"I zero... huh?" I asked with a raised eye brow while we began to walk up a corridor.

Fruity sighed. "It’s... your machine name, you engaged a manual lock on the storeroom door while the SDP was active,"

"Oh..."

An awkward silence developed between us after the subject of me being controlled by the machine came up. I sighed dejectedly, feeling down at being reminded that I'm less of a mare than I really am again. The silence continued between us, the pair of us unable to find a way to break the awkwardness that arose between us as we walked down the corridor. The corridor was lined with windows and doors, all leading and looking into different rooms for various activities. I turned my head to the right and looked through the grimy windows as I walked passed and I saw a mane saloon, a cinema, library and even a spa.

I blinked my eyes as I walked passed a door, and when I opened my eyes again, I noticed that everything had taken on the pinkish haze again. Oh no, not again. Fearful of what I could end up seeing, I decided to stop and stare at the wall, or in this case the window I had stopped at, but as I stared at the window, my eyes widened as the window swirled until I could see the Crystal Empire from the northern mountains. This was a view of the empire I could easily remember as it was a view I would often see from the train as it passed through the mountain pass when I travelled to the empire as a filly to visit my grandparents. I could clearly see the protective dome of magic that protected the empire. The dome made it look like there was this one spot of sun shine in the middle of the frozen tundra. Suddenly, the dome flickered before disappearing leaving the empire exposed and I suddenly realised what I was seeing. Confirmation to my realization came when three balefire missiles appeared in the sky heading for the empire. No no no! This hallucination was making me relive my nightmare from a different perspective. Shining Armour's shield formed and deflected the first missile just like in my nightmare. His shield shattered, and the second missile hit the palace. From my perspective on the mountain, it was horrifying, watching the dome of green fire grow before exploding outward, the shockwave obliterating everything in its path, leaving nothing but a smoking crater of green fire behind.

"NO!" I screamed in distress and promptly punched my right forehoof through the window, shattering the window and ending the hallucination.

"Holy bucking shit!" Fruity shrieked as he jumped back from me as I thrust my hoof through the window. I blinked several times, staring at the now shattered window and my foreleg. My foreleg was now covered in small cuts and the sleeve of my duster had been torn in several places along its length. I felt a hoof on my shoulder and Fruity started to shake me. "Crystal, are you ok, Crystal, hello?" I was completely oblivious to him as I stared at my injured foreleg, my breathing heavy as the memory of my nightmare replayed itself in my head as I stared at the slow trickle of blood oozing from the cuts while my leg throbbed in light pain.

Fruity groaned. "Ugh, don't tell me I'm gonna need to smack you upside the head with something to snap you out it,"

I heard a metal crack and then a grunt as if the pegasus was lifting something. I quickly turned around to face him holding my damaged foreleg up to stop the incoming blow I expected was coming. "I'm fine Fruity!" I shouted, just as he held the pipe he had in his mouth up high while standing on his hind legs.

"Oh shit," Fruity mumbled around the metal pipe and then he fell backwards onto his back and spat out the rusty piece of metal. "What the hell was that about, you just froze up all of a sudden?" He asked with a whine as he laid on his back.

I sighed. "I... I had another hallucination, this one made me relive a nightmare I had the other night," I sighed sadly.

"A... nightmare?" He asked with a raised eyebrow as he rolled himself back to his hooves.

I nodded. "I'll tell you about it later,"

"It must have been something really bad to make you freak out like that," He said sadly as we continued down the corridor. "So, where are we going?" He asked to change the subject.

I was grateful for that and lifted my pipbuck, forcing me to walk on three legs, which wasn't too difficult, oddly enough, and concentrated on bringing up the map. The screen flashed and the local area map appeared showing the corridor we are walking along and all the different rooms connecting to it for all the different recreational activities. At the very end of the corridor which was around a left hoof turn is the Stable's Apple Orchard, why it was in this section of the stable I didn't know, and on the other end of the orchard was a door to the Science Labs.

"There is a door to the Science Labs on the other side of the Apple Orchard around the bend here," I said while using my left foreleg to point to the upcoming left turn. The pegasus nodded as we trotted along the corridor. We turned the corner and abruptly stopped as around five stable dwellers were milling about in hallway.

"OH CELESTIA NO, NOT MORE ENCLAVE SOLDIERS!" Fruity shrieked in terror and backpedalled around the corner to hide from them.

I knew he must have come under the influence of a hallucination because, why else would he have screamed about the Enclave? But his scream alerted the lunatics, and I quickly grabbed my revolver with my maw and held it ready while spreading my legs to block the corridor.

I narrowed my eyes as I focused on the approaching crazies, each one branded a bladed weapon of sorts and all of them were looking at me with murderous intent. I had to take them out, there was no other way. Fruity was of no help while the hallucination had him paralysed in fear. It was up to me to protect him. I concentrated and targeting reticules appeared in my vision, which also took on a reddish hue. A reticule appeared around the heads of each of the approaching loons and then everything seemed to slow to a crawl as I took aim on my targets. A message appeared in my vision telling me that SATS had activated and I used the targeting spell to line up a head shot for each of the approaching ponies. Well, that's what I was going to do until I got to the fourth pony and SATS said I didn't have enough spell points to power the spell any further. Three out of five would do, taking out the other two manually wouldn't be too difficult. Accepting my lined up headshots with the spell from the pipbuck, I pulled the trigger in quick succession, turning my head ever so slightly when I pulled the trigger for the next target as time resumed normally. Lucky 13's bullets tore a hole into the heads of each of the targeted lunatics, instantly killing and putting them out of their crazed lives. With three down, it left only two, one of which charged at me seeing that I had left myself open after my SATS assisted shots.

I turned to aim for the charging stallion but he was too close. He drove his kitchen knife deep into my chest. I let out a scream of agony, dropping my gun in the process as I felt the blade dig deep and get lodged between the regeneration talisman and the chest cavity it sat in. With the stallion’s momentum carrying him forwards against me, he crashed into me, pushing me back a little on the dirty floor. The blade against the cavity wall acting as leverage and his weight pushing against it felt like his knife was going to pry my talisman from my chest. The insane survivor bounced back off of me and fell to the floor with a pained groan and thankfully so did his knife that clattered to the floor harmlessly but my talisman felt like it had been dislodged. I groaned in pain and lifted a forehoof to my chest and gave a soft thump. I let out a cry of pain as an audible click echoed in the hallway. “Regeneration Talisman Reconnected.”

When I looked back up I found the downed stallion had picked himself back up and the other pony had begun to flank me. My vision was still under the reddish hue as I looked between the two mad ponies as they circled me, reticules highlighting they heads again I focused on them. While my attention was on the stallion that had rammed me, the other stable dweller took his chance and dove at my rear. My threat detector flashed brighter at the incoming threat and I hopped to the side to avoid him, but unfortunately, his bladed weapon cut along my right hind leg, cutting my dirtied blue striped sock and damaging the semi-regenerated flesh beneath it.

“Argh, damn it, these are a Coco Pommel original!” I shrieked in outrage as my favourite set of socks got damaged. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised considering the situation. With the stallion now at my side, I quickly grabbed his tail with my nano-fibre tail and yanked him back hard; hard enough to pull him off his hooves and make him fall onto his barrel. To keep him down, I put my right hind hoof down on his back, applying enough pressure with my mechanical strength that he squirmed and moaned in pain.

The remaining stallion had retrieved his knife but also he had picked up my gun and was pointing it at me, giggling insanely as he held my own gun against me. “I win,” He giggled around the mouth grip and pulled the trigger. I closed my eyes and braced myself in fear of the inevitable. There was a loud bang as my gun fired. I thought that was it, game over, I failed and screamed with my anguish. However, death did not show himself to claim me, but a strong biting pain exploded in the middle of my forehead as something red hot smashed into my forehead. I cried out in pain as it felt like I just cracked my head on something solid, like when you accidently hit your head when bending over near something, that kind of unexpected pain. I stepped back, shaking my head and using my right forehoof to wipe at my head as I could feel something stuck in my fur and there was also a light trickle of blood from the impact. The pony I had stepped on scrabbled back up to his hooves and moved to a safe distance by the time I put my hoof down with a bullet in my hoof. It was compressed, like it had hit a solid object and it was then I realised it was me it had hit. My endoskeleton must have been strong enough to withstand a .357 magnum round. I sighed deeply with relief that I was going to be ok and that it would take more than that to kill me, but it also worried me. I suppose this worry was again with the question of, just how strong is my endoskeleton?

“She’s a demon,” The stallion who stabbed and shot me gasped, his eyes wide in terror. He dropped my gun and turned tail and ran away, disappearing into a room down the corridor. He was no longer a problem as his EFS tag had turned white to show he had become none hostile due to the terror plaguing him. I was then left with the stallion I had pinned earlier. Making sure I didn’t have a repeat of being shot by my own gun I quickly picked it up with my nano-fibre tail and after fumbling around with it for a moment with the hairs to hold it correctly I held the gun and pointed it the lone stallion.

“If you have any sense at all left in you, run,” I shouted at him. He unfortunately didn’t listen; he instead plucked another knife from his belt, mumbling something I couldn’t understand around the grip of his weapon. I sighed. “So be it, it’s not like I didn’t give you the chance,” He pushed off the floor and started to run at me and I fired the revolver, the shot went wide and missed the stallion by an inch. I side stepped to avoid his attack, but I misjudged his speed and he slashed down across the right side of my flank and part of my thigh, again cutting into my partly regenerated leg and socks. “Not again..” I moaned and jumped back to get some distance. I sighed dejectedly, my EFS’s weapon readouts alerting me to one round left in the cylinder. I had to make my last shot count or this would have to get bloody.

I held the gun again with my tail, pointing it at the stallion that had now turned around to face me again, his blade dripping with the blood from my flank. I grit my teeth in pain as my forehead and flank stung from the damage. He mumbled something again and charged. I waited, the reticule around his head was split up into four corners but were closing together the closer her got and when the corners joined to make a complete square I pulled the trigger with my steel like hairs in my tail and the customised revolver fired its last round. I cringed as the bullet was slightly off course as it punched into the stallion’s left eye. The shot was fatal and his body spasmed as it fell to the floor with a thud. “Oh Celestia,” I sighed in disgust from seeing his eye explode.

“Are they gone?” Fruity asked as he peeked out from around the corner as the commotion ended.

“Yeah, they’re gone,” I sighed sadly as I reloaded Lucky 13 and then holstered it.

“I’m sorry I…” He stopped as he looked around. “Oh piss and balls… this stupid stable and these visions,” He cried out angrily.

“It’s ok Fruity; I knew you’d fallen victim to another hallucination again,” I said giving my friend a reassuring smile. “It’s not your fault,”

“But still, I shouldn’t have ran like I was trying to hide from the tax collector,” He sighed. The purple stallion suddenly gasped in shock. “Holy high Luna on a tricycle are you ok?” He asked looking wide eyed at my forehead.

“Yeah I’m fine, head’s thicker than I thought,” I replied with a light smile, hoping to relieve the tension a little.

He gave a light smile as we continued on and we soon found ourselves at the Apple Orchard. It was a huge room, almost the size of a hoofball field with dozens of trees all laden with the bright red fruit. Judging by the piles of rotten apples littering the orchard floor, nopony has been maintaining this place for a while. I guess the automated systems had been keeping these trees alive, just the personal touches from the ponies had been neglected.

“Once we get through here we can get to the Science Labs,” I assured Fruity. “Unfortunately this will put us on the opposite side to where we wanted to be,”

“Well at least we will be there, I’m not going back that way to run into “little miss kill you with my eyes”,” Fruity groaned. “Besides, we might as well grab some fresh apples while we are here,” He said while licking his lips.

We entered the large internal orchard and we felt the heat of the sun on our backs again as if we were back outside. I couldn’t help but look up and smile at the familiar feeling. I noticed Fruity also look up with me as he must have been curious about the heat change too. Above us was what sat suspended above the trees like a miniature sun was the Stable’s “Solar Generator” and to make the whole experience of being outside all the more real, the ceiling of the orchard was lined with holographic tiles to simulate a day or night time sky. The colour of the holographic ceiling and the glow of the artificial sun told us it was late afternoon and we had been down here a while now.

“Why don’t you buck us a tree so we can stock up on some apples?” Fruity suggested.

“How about no,” I retorted while gesturing to all the brown mush littering the overgrown and unkempt grass around the trees. “I don’t want to pick up any good apples out of the rotten muck,”

“Ah, good point, I’ll go pick us some then,” He said and took to the air and began to hover around a nearby tree.

I smiled as I watched him hover freely in the wide open space of the orchard. I couldn’t help my mind wandering, to wonder what it must be like to be able to fly. In my day dream of flying I didn’t realise I put myself under his hovering flight path around the tree as he plucked apples. He’d pick one, keep it or then throw it if it was bad.

“Noting good about this one,” He sighed and dropped it as he passed right over me.

I snapped out of my day dream just as his shadow passed over me and as I looked up.

SPLAT!

An apple rotten to the core landed directly on my muzzle and exploded in a gooey mush all over my face. It got in my nose and in my mouth and dear sweet Luna the decayed fruit tasted revolting. In a totally unladylike manner, I spat and blew the rotten apple from mouth and nose before wiping my face furiously with my hooves to scrape the brown mush off my face and out my fur.

“What are you doing?” Fruity asked a minute or two later, hovering in front of me with his forelegs cradling a dozen delicious looking red apples.

“You dropped a rotten apple on me…” I whined while wiping what was left of the gunk from my face. I was thankful that none of that brown mush got in my mane or on my hat. I don’t think I’d be finding a working washing machine anything time soon.

Hearing that he accidently dropped a bad apple on me he frowned and then apologised. However, a smirk crept onto his face, but I had to give him credit for not bursting into laughter as I could see he wanted to laugh, but he refrained himself from doing so.

“I need to find a bathroom,” I whined.

“C’mon then,” He said while landing on his hind hooves and while balancing, opened the medical/carry case on my side and dumped about six apples inside it and then closed the box. He quickly pocketed the other apples he had and returned to all four hooves. “We have an equal share of the apples now, so let’s go,”

I nodded with a smile as we headed for the far end and the corridor leading away from the orchard. It took us a good couple of minutes of walking along the long wide apple farm room before we reached the end. I positively reeked by the time we stepped into the corridor.

“Oh wow, you smell terrific,” He snarked while holding a hoof to his nose. I could only just groan. My sense of smell was practically shot by the vile odours and I still had the nasty taste lingering in my mouth.

Looking left and right, the corridor turned out to be very short, ending in a couple of doors on either end. At the end, and to our left was the door to the Science Labs and to the right were a set of doors facing each other. The symbols on them made me squeal with delight. They were bathrooms. I ran up to the closed door marked for the mare’s room and pushed the door control, my smile at being able to wash this gunk off faded as the door didn’t budge. I tried again and the door refused to move.

“Huh, what gives?” I cried in annoyance and grabbed the door’s manual release with my mouth. I pulled, but the door still refused to move but the magic in my mouth softened the metal handle and I ended up biting through it and falling back onto my rump with a spearmint tasting metal bar in my mouth.

“I guess the manual locks are engaged,” Fruity suggested as he tried the male restroom with the same result. I whined pathetically while chewing on the metal bar. Why do I have such rotten luck?

“We better keep going,” I said, gulping down the minty metal.

“Eeyup,” Fruity agreed as we began for the Science Labs door.

“Mrs Nessy is very cross,” We heard drift across the air to our ears making us freeze in terror at the familiar calm voice. “Two naughty foals ran from her, have you seen them?”

“She must me asking that pony I spared,” I whispered to Fruity before looking across the orchard to try and see the nutcase on the other side.

“We better get the hell out of here, like now!” He urged.

“She’s a demon, she’s a demon, she’s a demon,” I heard the pony I spared cry in fear.

“Oh, telling lies, that is naughty isn’t it Mrs Nessy?” I faintly heard. There was a pause before I heard her voice again to which I assumed she did her puppet voice and that I failed to hear it. “That’s right Mrs Nessy,” That was then followed by a loud zap and the pony I spared screaming in agony as he was set aflame by the crazy mare’s hex vision.

I felt a surge of anger rise up inside me. I spared him, he wasn’t going to hurt anypony else, he had enough sense to know when to quit. I let him live and this mare; this psycho accuses him of lying and just torches him. I turned to face the orchard.

“Whoa hey, we haven’t got time for this,” Fruity urged.

Suddenly, an arching beam of red lightning came rushing at me from across the other side of the orchard. “Oh crap!” I cried and dived to the concrete floor of the corridor to avoid the hex vision. “She has a hell of a range!” I whined and quickly scrambled back away from the orchard and behind the safety of the wall and joined Fruity by the door to the Science Labs. “Open it, open it!” I urged quickly. Despite how much I would have wanted to have given that murdered Stable dweller justice, that hex vision was still incontestable in this stable. Even at a range I was at a disadvantage. If I was to run into this nut job again, killing her would have to be by taking her by surprise, otherwise it would be frying time and that was a dreadful thought.

Fruity opened the door to the Science Labs and we quickly entered our destination in the stable and closed the door quickly. I engaged the manual lock on the door to seal it and turned to my purple pegasus friend.

“Can you weld the door shut?” I asked while pointing to the plasma rifle slung under his uninjured wing. He gave a nod and reared up onto his hind legs, using his wings to balance himself as he took hold of his rifle and aimed at the door. He fired three plasma bolts at the door, striking around the middle on both sides on its locking clamps and also at the top, the superheated plasma causing the metal to warp and melt before fusing together as they re-solidified to permanently seal the door.

“Hopefully that’ll slow her down,” Fruity sighed.

I nodded hopefully as I looked around. We were in a hall that branched off around a corner behind us and in front of us was sealed off by a security gate cutting us off. From where we stood, we were on the opposite side of where Tango Jack was hiding and we’d have to get to the other side to find him. A quick examination of the gate revealed an electronic lock that required a card key to unlock or a remote access terminal link from a security station according to the small glowing green screen next to the gate’s card reader. With no other, choice we followed the only path open to us.

The corridor around the corner ended in a dead end and there was nothing but a single door set in the bare concrete wall gave us any further direction. Looking up for any other signs, we saw that the door was actually a security station. I guess it made sense to have a security station here, they wouldn’t want to have unauthorised ponies getting into the science labs through the recreational rooms. It also meant we’d find our way through the gate inside so we pushed open the door to a mess of an office.

“Whoa, it’s like a weather pony set off a tornado in here,” Fruity remarked as we surveyed the carnage of the wrecked security office.

The office was covered in papers and other miscellaneous junk. It certainly looked like somepony left in a hurry. I walked over to the desk against the back wall and pressed a key on the terminal. Thankfully, it turned on and was still logged in. I found the option to open the security gate and activated it and as I backed out to the main screen I noticed a note that caught my attention.

“Stable-Tec Killers!”

Curious of the note about the company I worked for before the end of the war, I accessed the note.

“I can’t fucking believe it. The Overmare, Stable-Tec, they’re responsible for all this! I knew something was fishy about the note she sent two weeks after the door closed. Shortly after we got that notice, residents began to complain about a strange taste of strawberries in the air and in all honestly so could we. As requested by the Overmare,, I and the security staff reassured the residents that everything was fine and that there was nothing to worry about but boy were we wrong. As the weeks and months passed residents began acting oddly, sometimes even violently. Every single one of them that medical treated to the best they could all said they were hallucinating and that they were getting worse every time they had one. I found it odd that I, the security personnel, medical and the Overmare were not suffering these hallucinations or any mental break downs so I began to investigate in this.

What I found was disturbing. This stable, despite its science labs lacked the equipment to perform chemical analyse so the medical pony’s couldn’t perform blood tests on the residents to see if there was anything in their blood. Unfortunately, as I investigated, things deteriorated further and the hallucinating ponies became violent, attacking the security and medical staff. In one night, what seemed like a large riot we lost almost a third of the medical staff and a quarter of the security team before we managed to lock up and seal the crazy ponies up. I don’t know what was going, on but we couldn’t handle the entire stable turning crazy like that so I decided to confront the Overmare about this as she seemed to be turning a blind eye to all of it.

The Overmare, she was behind what happened down here. When I confronted her, she wasn’t at all surprised about the attack and instead seemed rather pleased. It sickened me to hear that, and when I asked her for help she said. “No, everything is going according to Stable-Tec’s instructions,” I couldn’t believe what I heard but my biggest concern was to save the ponies of the stable that were left, so I demanded she open the Stable door. She refused. I said I would open the door myself from her terminal and she pulled a gun on me. I had no choice; she was going to kill me just for trying to save those who were still sane down here, so I shot her. I took a round to my chest but the security armour stopped it from getting in too deep. With her dead and out of the way, I used her terminal to get the passkey to unlock the stable door’s locking mechanism, and before I left, I used her key to open the safe to see what Stable-Tec wanted her to do. I was horrified and confused.

Stable-Tec had placed canisters throughout the stable’s ventilation system, each with a remote device to activate the canister. The canisters all contained a psychoactive drug that would cause the pony breathing it in to begin hallucinating, which, with prolong exposure, would cause mental instability, exactly what had occurred with the residents down here. The Overmare was to trigger these canisters two weeks after the door closed and record the residents’ mental degeneration and how the security and medical ponies dealt with the growing mental problem of the ponies with the limited medical resources the stable was provided with. I also found that the shots we of security and medical had been given before entering was the antidote to the drug, so that explains why we have been unaffected. Plus, why this stable lacked chemical analyse equipment so we couldn’t make one ourselves.

I simply can’t believe what Stable-Tec and that bitch of an Overmare have done to us, they were supposed to save us not kill us in this horrific way! I’m gathering whose left and we are leaving, even now after so many months there are still some residents who are still sane, hallucinating but are still mentally stable. The doctors have said that the drug will work its way out of their systems eventually once we are outside. I know leaving isn’t probably the best idea considering the radioactive fallout from the war but dying out there would be better than in here and going crazy.”

The long note came to an end, leaving me gobsmacked and horrified to learn about what happened in this stable. I stepped back with my horrified expression and sat down hard as my mind raced at what I just learned. Stable-Tec, the company that employed me, that I looked up to for helping so many ponies, that I sold things for, did all this!

“Crystal, are you alright?” Fruity asked in concern as he read my expression while pushing his hat up a little. I didn’t answer, too shocked at what I just learned to reply. He turned to the computer and began to read the note still on the screen. “Are you taking the piss?” He shouted in surprised anger. “The reason I’ve been shitting myself at what I’ve been seeing is because the pricks at Stable-Tec flooded this stable with hallucinogenic drugs?” He cried and stomped his hooves.

I shook my head after recovering enough from my stupor and stood back up. “We need to move quickly, the longer we stay down here the worse these hallucinations will get,” I told him.

“What the flying fuck is wrong with those twats?” Fruits seethed in anger.

“How do you think I feel?” I asked with my own hurt and angry growl to my voice, which to my ears carried a light electronic edge, as we left the security office and followed the corridor back to the security gate. “I worked for them before the bombs fell,”

The Science Labs were similar to the Recreational Rooms, in which we had windows letting us see inside each lab as we walked past. The labs looked nothing special, from what we could see with what was left intact and not wrecked or smashed, it seemed it was just general science studies that were carried out in here.

“Can’t believe they even made it so they couldn’t even fix the problem themselves,” Fruity sighed.

“I know, I can’t believe it either, this has come as a big ass shock to me,” I said sadly. “When we get out of here and get back to my house, I’m going to go through my records on my home terminal; I need to know if I sold any places to any ponies for this stable.” I really hope I didn’t, though I don’t even recall ever being told by Stable-Tec that there was even going to be a Stable out here by the eastern hills. Either they never told me, or it was built in the five years I couldn’t account for.

We rounded a corner that put us on a long corridor that would take us all the way to the side of the labs that we needed to be on and, thankfully, I spotted a sign hanging from the ceiling to indicate restrooms.

“Oh thank Celestia,” I said happily and quickly made my way into the mare’s room.

“I’ll just wait right here then,” Fruity said from the door as it closed. “It’s not like we have a psychoactive drug making us go insane or anything,” He shouted sarcastically.

“I’m sorry Fruity,” I said with a raised voice so he could hear me after I turned on the hot water tap at the row of sinks. “But I can’t go a second longer with this rotten apple on my face,”

“Hurry your mechanical flank up,” He urged.

I ignored the mechanical comment while I splashed water on my face and rubbed with my hooves. I sighed with relief as I felt the almost dried mush get washed away and when I opened my eyes to see if I missed any of it there was a pinkish haze over my vision.

“Oh no, not again,”

With my muzzle dripping wet I held my gaze firmly at my reflection. “Nope, not looking anywhere, not going to look at anything,” I said to myself. However, I didn’t need to as my reflection began to change. My cheeks began to droop and sag, my nose stretched, my lips drooped and my eyebrows spread apart. It was like the skin on my face was stretching. I lifted a hoof to my face and pushed at my cheek, to me it felt normal but to my reflection my cheek pushed back up and squashed like it was made of putty before drooping again and this time it tore off and dropped out of sight leaving a big gaping hole in my cheek. Then like my cheek, the rest of my drooping flesh dropped off of me one by one until a shiny black metal skeletal face with glowing, deep set, red eyes stared back at me. A simple etching could be seen on its left eyebrow. “I-01”.

I stared at what lay beneath my skin, scared that this was what I was now. “Fear, distrust, suspicion, will plague you all your life,” The machine said in a robotic version of my voice, which made me jump. “Nopony will love a machine that was built to be a spy,” With that, the rest of the flesh in the reflection began to tear off as I screamed.

Fruity burst in just as the pink haze lifted and looked as if to attack somepony. “Crystal, what’s wrong?” He asked worriedly.

“I, I, I, I had a horrible vision,” I cried, tears welling up in my eyes now that the reflection had faded back to reveal my now clean grey striped muzzle and blue eyes.

“Damn this stable,” Fruity muttered. “Are you ok?” He asked in concern.

“I will be once we get out of here,” I replied with a sniffle.

“You got that right,”

We left the bathroom and continued at a brisk pace. I could tell Fruity was worried as he knew he was about to have an hallucination himself as so far we’ve had one within moments of each other. Sure enough, as we rounded a turn to put us on in the corridor where the storeroom is with our target, Fruity froze as we passed through the threshold of an open hallway door and began to look around in confusion.

“Crystal, where’d you g…?” He suddenly stopped before finishing his question as he looked around in a panic. “How the fuck did I get back in my old boozer?” He asked in complete bafflement.

The hallucinations must’ve been getting strong enough now to wrap the very essence of the stable now. I dreaded to think of what my next one would be if we didn’t get out of here soon. I didn’t know what to do as my friend suffered his hallucination. The best I could think of was to keep him safe until he came out of it, so I frequently checked my EFS and looked up and down the corridor so I could be sure none of the insane survivors found us, especially that dress wearing hex vision nut.

Fruity suddenly backpedalled with a terrified shriek and passed under the threshold again and then stopped. “Huh?” He gasped, panting hard from his fright as he looked around at the grimy stable walls and then back at me. “I was in my old cocktail bar just then, it… it felt so real and then… Enclave burst through the door,” He explained, his breathing returning to normal.

“Are you ok?” I asked in concern.

“Couldn’t be bloody better,” He sighed.

I went to nuzzle him for reassurance, but stopped myself as I remembered how he pulled away from me back in the storeroom after I woke up after my SDP episode. I sighed quietly, hoping he wouldn’t notice as I turned away and continued down the corridor towards the storeroom that Tango Jack was hiding in.

“He’s in here,” I whispered as we came to the door to the storeroom.

“Let’s do this,” Fruity said quietly and I nodded in agreement and opened the door. The door slid up to reveal a room full of shelves and boxes of medical supplies and other scientific items and curled up pathetically between two boxes was Tango Jack. He was shivering and whimpering. I suppose he had some really bad hallucinations down here and the injuries I could see; he’d had some nasty run-ins with the local population. I walked into the room with Fruity close behind and as I stepped to the side to let the pegasus through the door, Tango lifted his head and looked at him in wide eyed terror.

XXXXX

Tango lifted his head from under his forehooves upon hearing the door slide up and the clip clop of hooves approaching. Fearing some of the local insane inhabitants had found him, he looked up to be sure but as his eyes met purple fur, the pink haze fell upon his vision. His eyes widened in horror as he watched the pegasus he could only see change into an Earth Pony and begin to grow in size, growing taller and taller until he was as tall as Princess Celetia was and his messy mulberry mane and tail became well-groomed and jet black.

“M-Motor Runner,” He gasped in fear of the tall cyberpony.

The hallucination of Motor Runner turned his head down at him and gave a dark smile as he stood in the way of the door. The duster changed to a black suit with a white undershirt and red tie to complete his look and when his form was complete the hallucination of Motor Runner lifted his cybernetic foreleg and pointed at him.

“You can’t hide from what you fear,” He said in his calm voice, yet it carried a threatening tone.

Suddenly the entire storeroom began to quake like the whole stable was being hit by an earthquake. He cried and held his head to protect himself from possible falling boxes but nothing fell. While the room shook, great cracks began to erupt across the walls and around the doorframe until there was a continuous crack that encircled the entire storeroom.

“What’s going on?” Tango cried fearfully as the quaking intensified.

Motor Runner’s dark grin grew as he stared down at the terrified stallion. “What scares you the most has arrived,” He said, and then suddenly, the ceiling of the storeroom was wrenched off like somepony had grabbed a hold of one end and just tore it off like a bottle cap. Tango looked around wide eyed as there was nothing but an empty void around him, it was like the storeroom was floating in another dimension or something but his thoughts were halted when there was an almighty crash in the far corner of what remained of the storeroom next to the door.

A giant steel hoof had crushed what was left of the wall in the corner of the room and shortly after the first, a second giant hoof smashed down on the opposite corner. “No, no, no, no, it’s not possible,” Tango shrieked as his attention was then drawn back to Motor Runner or rather the ghostly object rising up behind him. A massive blue holographic sail like mane with steel like spines rose up high behind the stallion, followed by two large military green ears with black insides, a black snout with an air intake vent followed and two massive mechanical yet pony like in appearance eyes turned down to stare at Tango as the giant robot head rose higher and higher. Once the giant machine’s head raised high enough a massive gatling gun pivoted down and aimed at the terrified stallion. The giant forehooves were connected to two great legs that met up with the machine’s torso that held the machine up at its full height while it stared down at Tango, even bringing its giant particle cannons to bear on him. To Tango Jack, the appearance of the giant war machine was made even more terrifying by ghostly whisper or flame effect that seemed to surround the entire thing.

“You fear what you can’t hope to stop or comprehend, you fear this giant robot and it will kill you,” The hallucination of Motor Runner darkly smirked as the machine’s gatling gun began to rotate which made Tango Jack curl up into a pathetic ball and scream in utter terror.

XXXXX

I looked at Fruity and he just shrugged his wings. As soon as Tango laid eyes on the pegasus he proceeded to freak out and now he was curled in a tight ball as if trying to hide from something. Fruity nodded to him in the manner that said “Go on,” and I sighed. Well, this was why we were here after all. I pulled Lucky 13 from its holster and approached the whimpering stallion that was now muttering somepony by the name “Krogoth” over and over again and pointed it at him once before hiding under his hooves again. I stared him while I worked up the courage to put this foal molesting sicko to sleep for good but seeing him looking so pathetic, so scared and so defeated, I couldn’t do it. I grunted and put my revolver away but an idea came to mind as I thought about what I saw about him. I stepped up close and bent down so I could whisper into his ear while I used my nano-fibre tail to reach around and to pluck the pendent I needed for proof from his neck.

“You don’t deserve to die, that’ll be an easy way out for you, a blessing for somepony in this place, no, you get to live, but you get to live with the fear, to be haunted every waking day with the things you’ve done and suffer for it, good bye,” I whispered and turned my back on him and started to trot away with his pendent in my tail.

“We’re supposed to kill him aren’t we?”

“Yes, but he doesn’t deserve the easy way out, let him suffer,” I said with a growl. “Besides, Motor Runner said he wanted the pendent as proof of the kill, he has no reason to doubt us if we give him this,” I said while holding up the gold pendent I had snagged from the terrified stallion.

“I see the wisdom in that, does that mean we can leave now?” Fruit asked hopeful.

I nodded.

“Thank fucking Faust for that,” Fruity cheered.

We left the foal molester in the storeroom to suffer with his hallucinations and set off at a brisk pace following the corridors in the Science Labs towards the Atrium. Now that we had what we came for, there was nothing else keeping us here, so we needed to leave as soon as possible. We took a left turn from the corridor that would take us into the Living Quarters where that mare melted through the door and this put us on a path that would take us straight passed Medical and to the Atrium.

We opened the door back to the Atrium and quickly made for the stairs.

“Auntie Glimmer says” We froze as we heard the familiar voice of the hex vision mare using her puppet voice behind us. “Game over foals,” She said in her normal voice as we turned from the stairs to find the mare with her puppet raised and staring at us.

“Shit, can’t make a run for it or owt like in here, it’s too open,” Fruity whispered.

“And she’d blast us before we could make a move,”

“It’s time for your punishment,” The mare said calmly, her horn lighting up.

“Fruity, use your Q-Modulator to distract her, I’m going to flank her from behind, the Atrium is open space, we can fight her in here,” I whispered. He nodded and flapped his wings, cringing as his injured wing must still hurt and grasped his plasma rifle in his hooves.

“Hey, Miss Bat Shit Crazy, you couldn’t hit a flaming turd if it hit you in the face,” Fruity taunted as he raised himself in the air and aimed his rifle to draw her attention.

“Such bad manners and language, looks like Mrs Nessy and I will have to be very thorough with you,” She said and red lightning shot from her eyes.

I took that as my chance and begun to quietly circle around the mare as she blasted her hex vision at Fruity who dodged and returned fire with his own burning balls of green plasma. The mare didn’t bother to dodge; she simply shot the slow moving balls of plasma out of the air with her hex vision before firing back at him. How much magic does this crazed lunatic have? I pulled Lucky 13 from its holster as I closed in on the mare, glad that Fruity was doing a good job keeping her busy.

“Is that the best you can do, ow my wing, ugh have you got nowt better than that?” He taunted. “OH SHIT!” He cried as he just barely avoided a blast of red lightning.

I got behind the mare and pushed the muzzle of the revolver against her skull. “Game over indeed,” I mumbled. There was movement in the corner of my eye, turning my right eye to look I saw that the mare had lifted and turned her puppet to look at me and its eyes were glowing red. Oh cock! I quickly pulled the trigger with my tongue, blasting her brains out, but not before feeling a searing lance across the right side of my face, forcing me to stumble backwards slightly and scream in a burning pain.

“Warning, right optical unit offline,
Warning, right audio receptor offline…

Cause… Magical Overload…

Status… Repair system engaged…”

“Oh shit, Crystal are you alive?!” Fruity asked as he landed by the dead body of the puppet mare.

“I’m fine,” I replied with a sigh. “I think her attack numbed the right side of my face because I can’t feel anything, how bad is it?” I asked while turning my head so I could see him better with my left eye since I was practically blind in my right. I know her attack had blinded me and also deafened me on my right side as well as shot my nerves as I couldn’t feel any pain at all despite being hit in the face with a magical blast.

“You have a nasty looking burn from your nose going across your eye and up to your ear. Your eye looks like it’s been melted shut. It’s a good thing you can’t feel owt, that kind of burn would be excruciating,” Fruity replied.

“Can you get me a healing potion from my saddle pack please?” I asked.

“Sure,” He nodded softly and took a potion from my pack and hoofed it to me. “Why do you even need these, don’t you have a regeneration talisman or something that heals your injuries?” He asked as I popped the cork and downed the purple fluid.

“Oh Fruity please, don’t treat me like I’m just a machine now that you know what I am,” I said with a hurt voice, my facial expression also reflecting that too. “I’m still flesh and blood despite the endoskeleton,” I cringed as I could feel a strong burning pain return to the right side of my face as the healing potion went to work fixing the burned flesh.

“I’m sorry,” Fruity frowned and looked down with an ashamed look. “I didn’t mean that,”

I sighed, my ears wilted as I looked up at him. “I forgive you, I deserve some negativity from you from how I treated you before,” I said sadly. “C’mon, let’s get out of here,” He nodded and we left the Atrium and begun to ascend the stairs.

“Um, something just occurred to me,” Fruity said as we climbed the steps. “How is that psychoactive drug affecting you with you being part machine and all?”

That was actually a valid point. Hmm, why was the drug affecting me with me being more machine than pony? Wait, my heart and lungs were organic so I breathe air like another pony and my brain was still organic too, despite there being a computer in it as well. Going off what I learned in school about pony biology, oxygenated blood from the lungs goes into the heart and is then sent off through the arteries to the rest of the body. I suppose since the drug was airborne my blood wasn’t only taking oxygen to my brain which was the only way I, myself, could explain how I could be experiencing these hallucinations and I explained that to Fruity.

“Makes sense,” He said with a nod as we stepped out into the long corridor that would take us back to the stable door.

“Hey, my threat warning just disappeared, we’re no longer in any danger!” I exclaimed as I noticed the exclamation mark that had been a constant in my vision since we started our little adventure down here had just vanished.

Fruity turned and looked back at the stairwell. “Go back down the stairs and tell me if it comes back,” He said with a thoughtful expression.

I nodded and started down the stairs again. About halfway down, the exclamation mark returned and I quickly bolted back up the stairs. “It came back about half way down,” I told him.

“I think I have an idea about that,” He said as we started down the long corridor.

“Oh?”

He nodded. “Yeah, we only started having those hallucinations after we were actually got down there and when you had your, what did you call it, SDP episode? It brought you back up here and it told me that it would retreat to a safe location to protect your consciousness, not to mention I’d been awake the entire time and didn’t experience a hallucination. So, what I think is, that threat detector of yours was picking up the drug in the air this entire time,”

I blinked as I thought about what he said; it made sense since the threat detector had been active since we got down there. “You know, I think you’re right,” I said in agreement.

Fruity smiled and puffed out his chest with pride. I smiled as well at seeing his reaction to me agreeing with his assumption.

Finally we came to the open door to the lobby of the stable door. “At last, we can finally leave this lunatic asylum,” Fruity cheered.

We passed through the door and suddenly a pink haze fell over my vision, stopping me dead. Why was I suffering another hallucination, when we’re out of the drugged air? Wait, there was still enough in my system to make me have another. Oh no. I looked up to focus on the stable door but as I did, I seemed to have a bright light shine in my face. The light was so bright, I couldn’t see anything at all, but as quickly as the light appeared, and it faded. I didn’t find myself in the stable like I remembered myself being just a moment ago, instead I was standing in the middle of a crystal road I remembered well from my foalhood and the sight of the crystal palace directly in front of me was all the confirmation I needed.

“Crystal Palace Boulevard,” I breathed out in shock as I looked around. I remembered this street because it was a hub for shopping and meeting ponies. When I visited my grandparents, we always came to this street. The only things out of place were that there was not a single pony walking the street, and that behind me there was a stable door archway.

“How could you do it Crystal?” A very familiar female voice asked. I whirled around to my left to see my mother wearing a very disappointed look on her voice.

“This was our home!” The same voice came again, this time from my right. Turning to the voice I saw my mother again there too.

“This was where you were born,” I turned to another again to my left and next to the first.

“These were neutral ponies and didn’t deserve to be wiped out,” Another to my right said.

“And worst of all, your grandparents still lived here,” Said another to the left.

“Did they deserve to die?” Another to my right asked. I was being surrounded by copies of angry and disappointed copies of my mother; it broke my heart to see the hurt and disappointment on their faces.

“You are no daughter of mine if you are capable of this,” A final one said directly in front of me.

“No it’s not true!” I cried, but my cry was drowned out when the Crystal Palace exploded in a tremendous explosion of balefire when a large missile struck it. I screamed in emotional pain as I watched the multiple copies of my mother burn and turn to ash before I stepped back enough and passed through the threshold of the stable door archway. As soon as I passed under the door the hallucination ended and in front of me was the lobby to the stable door again. I panted hard as my mind reeled at the assault it just had. Yes, I feared greatly I was used in some way or another. I had no idea what could have happened in the five years I’d been supposedly dead, so if I had been used for something that could have led to the deaths of many, I dreaded to think of what my mother would think of me.

“KEEP THAT THING AWAY FROM ME!” I heard Fruity shriek in alarm and as I looked up to see him he whirled around and began to gallop towards me as if to escape somepony or something. He must be having a hallucination as well. Wait, he’s heading right for me and under the influence of the hallucination he can’t see me.

Unfortunately, my realisation came too late as before I could dodge, the fleeing Pegasus crashed into my chest with his shoulder. I let out a soft grunt from the impact and slid back a few inches while Fruity let out a painful cry as he fell to the floor after he effectively rugby tackled me.

“Ah-ah-ah-ow,” He cried as he held his should while on the floor.

“Are you ok?” I asked as I held out my hoof to help him up. He took my hoof and I pulled him back to his hooves but he resumed holding his shoulder again once he was on his hooves.

“Considering I feel like I ran head first into a concrete wall, yea, I’m good,” He replied with a sigh at the end. “These hallucinations are getting out of hoof,”

“Tell me about, I just had multiple copies of my mum tell me how disappointed they were in me,”

Fruity frowned. “I just relived the day that happened to me,” He said while nodding to his exposed flank. His duster tails must have fallen away from his flank after he crashed into me and revealed his dashite mark.

“I’m sorry, that must have been a horrible day for you…” I said softly.

“No fucking shit,” He said with a sarcastic laugh. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, that whole thing just shook me up a bit, and I didn’t mean be so snarky with you there,”

I gave a slight smile at his apology. “It’s ok,” I then nodded to the huge steel door that separated us from the outside. “C’mon, let’s get out of here,”

Fruity nodded and we re-entered the lobby. I suppose we were both as ready as ever to leave and put this Tirek forsaken place behind us.

"I so need to get bladdered after this," Fruited sighed. "Just to forget all the nightmare fuel we've seen,"

"I think I'll join you in that," I agreed.

I for one, never, ever, ever want to come back here. I wouldn’t wish for some poor soul to lose their mind coming here looking for shelter or goods or like us, for a bounty. My eyes widened, now that I could feel my right eye again thanks to the healing potion, but still couldn’t see out of it. I turned to Fruity.

“Fruity, we gotta seal this stable up, we can’t have some innocent pony coming here and succumbing to the drug like the residents here,” I said with concern.

“How would we seal this place up?” He asked while gesturing to the thirteen ton steel door firmly lodged into place.

“We’ll have to disable the door control switches,” I said while pointing to the lever the pegasus had pulled to close the door.

“We just smash it right?” He asked. I nodded. “I have just the thing,” He said as he stuffed his head into his pocket for a minute before pulling back out with two Micro Mana Cells in his maw. He quickly sat on his haunches and spat the two cells out into his hooves. “If we rupture the casing on these cells, it’ll destabilise them and they’d want to release their energy. Eventually, that would result in an explosion close to that of a grenade and would destroy the door controls, permanently sealing the stable,” Fruity explained.

“That’s great, how do we do that?” I asked.

“Well, a hard enough impact would do it, but since you’re so heavy and strong, you stomping on them would be all we need,”

“Oh, ok,” I nodded to him and he placed the cells on the floor. I lifted a forehoof and brought it down hard onto the small yellow battery like power cells. There was a loud crack that echoed down the long corridor as my hoof made contact with the small hard object. I lifted my hoof and Fruity leaned in close to inspect the damage if any.

“Good, there’s a sizeable crack in the casing and I can already see a light starting to seep out, do the same with the next one while I open the door,”

I nodded and Fruity rolled the damaged cell between the cables trailing down the back of the control panel and then pulled the lever to begin opening the door. As I stomped on the second cell the large mechanical locking arm descended from the ceiling and connected with the huge slap of steel, and with a teeth grating screech and an almighty pull, it yanked the giant steel door out of its shut position. I was thankful I was still half deaf as I was sure that metallic screech would have made my ears bleed.

“Dear sweet Celestia that was loud,” Fruity whined while holding his eyes, unfortunately he had all the decibels ringing down his ears.

“Here, the other cell,” I said as I rolled the other one too him. He nodded and picked it up with his wing and joined me at my side as we waited for the door to roll to the side.

“I so want out,” Fruity moaned.

“Me too,” I agreed.

The mechanical arm released the door and returned to the ceiling, and the huge steel cog door rolled to the side to grant us our freedom from the insane asylum of the Marejave. As the door rolled into its resting place to the side, it revealed a Desert Ranger standing on the other side. We froze mid step as it caught us off guard to suddenly run into a Ranger out here. He looked to Fruity first and then slowly turned to me, as I looked at his helmet and at his glowing red lenses, I felt an icy chill run down my spine.

“Good evening I-01, I’ve been expecting you.”

Author's Note:

To my American and other foreign readers outside the UK who are not familiar with British slang. This is to clear up any confusion with the words "Owt" and "Nowt" as "Owt" means "Anything" and "Nowt" means "Nothing".

Finally done. Chapter edited by my friend Alicorn~(CF).

Tango Jack had once accompanied Motor Runner to the Hangar and when he saw the Krogoth and its weapons it left an impression in his subconscious where he developed a fear of the "unstoppable" machine and his fears were confirmed when Motor Runner turned on his crew.

I hope you all enjoyed this chapter. I also took inspiration from Red Dwarf with the scenes featuring Auntie Glimmer and Mrs Nessy as the Mr Flibble scenario was just perfect for this stable. :D

Comments

[Tempestus]

Noted a few typos towards the end, but I must say that this was probably the best chapter thus far. I also loved the mentioning of Lauren Faust, a kind of thank you for reinventing MLP I suppose? Really looking forward to getting answers concerning Crystals five year memory gap.

[Lex the Pikachu]

5941987 can you tell me which words wete typos please so i can correct please

[Tempestus]

5942750 Three instances of owt... I don't know if those where typos or not but I couldn't think of any words to put in their place and you swapped an r with a t in the word "there" (That was the first typo I saw, the first owt is not far away down the line from it).

Happy to help and really looking forward to the next chapter.

Your friend, Tempest Knight

[Lex the Pikachu]

5943399 British slang, "Owt" means "Anything" and "Nowt" means "Nothing"

[Tempestus]

5943782 Ah, I am American so I am rather unfamiliar with British slang, thanks for the clear up. Stay Brony.

[Charedfirescale]

Holy shit

[Lex the Pikachu]

5961842 Crystal feels normal, despite knowing she's a machine, she has her heart, her lungs, her need to eat and even her reproductive organs, she was created not to be a full on machine, but a bio-mechanoid or cyborg depending on how you look at it.

[Lex the Pikachu]

Chapter 6 Hot Pursuit has been updated with an Illustration of the Mark 2 Vault.

[Cloud Striker]

Sounds interesting. I'll add it to my "Read later" list. Maybe I'll even get some inspiration for my own project. ;)

[Lex the Pikachu]

5976859 hope you'll enjoy it

[Hard Cider]

Wow, I just relies that I-02 has some semblance of a personality. Soon, he shall learn what it is like to love, to lose, to fear, then fall in love again. Oh, how tragic that is the life of the automaton, to be a puppet to fulfill its creator will, wither malevolent or otherwise. Bring on the awkward romance for I-02!!!! Meh . . . twas an interesting idea.

[Lex the Pikachu]

6007962 Glad you like that :D. Yeah, due to what he was designed to actually be he didn't have a pre-programmed mental state so he was free to learn and develop as he went along, unlike the normal Mark 2 units.

[Hard Cider]

AN irrelevant thought i find hilarious . . . .

I-02 in all his mechanical glory dressed us as a Japanese school girl notice Crystal, "notice me senpai".

fc03.deviantart.net/fs70/i/2014/022/f/1/notice_me_senpai___wallpaper_by_thetinytaco-d739vzx.jpg

fc00.deviantart.net/fs70/i/2014/028/b/c/notice_me_senpai___wallpaper_v2_by_thetinytaco-d744ct7.jpg

rs1img.memecdn.com/notice-me-senpai_o_3100589.jpg

41.media.tumblr.com/cd602acb4f4f84223e30c5bf78bc618f/tumblr_mu47v5rl231sffvg7o1_500.jpg

global3.memecdn.com/senpai-kun-please-notice-me_o_2124751.jpg

What a weird thought . . . . why woun't you leave me alone!?

[Lex the Pikachu]

6116008 Well from BS he is a 57 year old Stallion and traveled Equestria for you know what so, why not

[Fellguard]

i honestly can't wait for the next chapter! This story will keep me satisfied until project horizons gets updated. But overall apart from the few typos this is a great story. :)

[Lex the Pikachu]

6124647 what typos are you refering to?

[Fellguard]

6125068 around the end when Fruity pulled the lever for the stable door you put level. there's also a few times when a word was repeated but i'm not sure where. but just to restate myself this is a amazing story keep making more!

[Lex the Pikachu]

6126082 Ah, i'll be sure to correct that

[Goggles5150]

Can't wait to read more keep up the hard work

[S0MB3R]

Love your story keep up the good work

[Lex the Pikachu]

6166608 I am glad you are liking Influx, Chapter 8: Back to Square One is currently in making right now :D

[Lex the Pikachu]

6203766 If magic worked miracles the war would never have happened in the first place. Magic can't do everything.

[Mr_Perlimpinpin]

More?

[Lex the Pikachu]

6229137 Chapter 8 is in the works but progress is slow due to work

[Lex the Pikachu]

6249099 She is based on him

[ibeachu]

This story could seriously benefit from an editor.

[Largefish8]

yay...a mr flibble reference

[Lex the Pikachu]

9700750
For such a scenario, that Red Dwarf reference fit well ;p

[KatieBreeze]

Today the air tasted different for some reason... I don't know why but the air tasted a little... pink I guess? I know that sounds odd and all but I can't explain it, the air tasted a little pink. My supper was way too hot last night, maybe I burnt my tongue and that's why the air tastes funny.

Scribbledy bibbledy hoodelly hoo. Wing wang bricka bang choo choo choo. Upsideup popsicle tastes like blue Ghosts in the hall go boo boo boo!

“Thank fucking Faust for that,” Fruity cheered.

HAH! Ok that's a good one