Fallout Equestria: The Light Within

by FireOfTheNorth

Chapter 47: The Pondroid and the Zebra

Chapter Forty-Seven: The Pondroid and the Zebra

“Let us in! Let us in!” I yelled as I frantically pounded on the gates to Tartarus.

Not the gates to the real Tartarus, as I’d seen in Roaring Thunder’s memories, of course. It was the settlement of the same name we were at. I had no idea whether the ponies (and ghouls and zebras and griffins) within would be able to help, but it was the closest settlement to Prophet Square, and Ache needed help as soon as she could get it. She wasn’t dead, not yet, but I had no idea how long that would be the case. I’d tended her as best I could, but my medical skills wouldn’t be enough to save her. Something was terribly wrong with Ache, but I had only a vague idea what it was. Her breathing and pulse slowed to be almost imperceptible, and she was lying across Rare’s flanks now, unconscious. At times during the hurried journey here she’d regained consciousness only long enough to jerk around erratically and spout complete gibberish. It was miracle she was even able to do that with a hole through her head. I suspected that she’d been hit in one of her non-fleshy components this time, something that wasn’t able to be automatically regenerated.

I banged on the doors again before turning around to continue firing my shotgun at the horde of mindless zombies surrounding us. Like my last visit here, we’d had to cut our way through them to reach the settlement’s entrance. Rare’s minigun and Roaring Thunder’s aerial attacks did a lot of work, but it was still a bitter fight through the crowd of feral ghouls that would’ve liked nothing better than to tear us apart. I kicked and punched the zombies as often as I fired my weapon, as close as they were able to get to us.

At last, the gates to Tartarus creaked open, and the barrel of a flamethrower poked through. Motioning to Rare, we flattened ourselves against the wall and waited until the flames sent the ghouls that didn’t get fried running. The doors were pulled open the rest of the way, and we slipped through with Roaring Thunder following close behind.

“I never forget a voice,” the raspy voice of a ghoul greeted us once we were inside, the dark illuminated only by my PipBuck lamp and the spotlight on Rare’s helmet, “The Wasteland Doctor, in’it? Or Doc?”

“Doc is fine, Sallow,” I said, racking my memory and hoping the name was right, “Do you have any surgeons here in Tartarus?”

“Got somethin’ ya can’t handle?” the ghoul asked wryly as she turned her own lamp on and stopped it on Ache’s form, “How in Equestria is she still alive?”

“It’s a long story, but she needs help right now!” I replied, stressing our haste, “A surgeon? Do you have one?”

“Doctor Shank’s the best around and she’s got the best equipment,” Sallow said, trying to get a closer look at Ache, “Three levels down, look for the pony with snakes for a mane.”

“Thanks!” I called back, already galloping through the dark.

Rare and Roaring Thunder followed close behind, the former Steel Ranger nearly running me down when I tripped on a discarded toy Cerberus. She broke the turnstiles as we ran through, though I was sure the residents of Tartarus wouldn’t mind. If they did, I’d gladly pay for it, if it meant we could get aid for Ache faster. She was mumbling now, eyes looking blankly off into the dark as she recited something too low to hear.

Two ponies in power armor, one of them a pegasus, caused quite a stir as we headed down into the settlement itself, but the assorted ghouls, zebras, and griffins wisely moved aside to let us pass. Some of the thugs shot us looks of anger mixed with a little fear as we passed, but if there would be trouble, I hoped they waited to perpetuate it until later. Ache’s mark on EFS flickered erratically as we spotted the clinic Sallow had told us of. A pony with snakes for a mane was hard to miss, even in a place where bizarre sights were everywhere.

“What’s the meaning of this, rushing in here?” a unicorn ghoul in a doctor’s coat stained with blood, ichor, and other fluids until little white remained demanded as we rushed into the clinic.

“Doctor Shank?” I asked, and got a slight nod as a response, “My friend is near fatally hurt. She needs your help!”

The ghoul looked at me critically, steely eyes behind a pair of glasses with a bent frame and a cracked lens sweeping over my doctor’s coat. I thought she was going to order us out before trotting over to where Ache was still slung across Rare’s flanks. She gasped as she took a closer look at her patient.

“It can’t be!” she gasped, “A pondroid!”

“You’ve seen one before?” Rare asked, turning her head as far back as her armor allowed.

“Not like this, but I’ve seen the schematics …” Shank trailed off before snapping to attention, “Quickly! Bring her into the back room!”

We rushed to follow the putrefying doctor as she hurried into the back, where the surgical equipment was set up. My focus was on Ache as she was laid down on the operating table, but I couldn’t help noticing the oddness of the surgical equipment here. The tech the doctor possessed seemed years or even decades ahead of what I’d seen in hospitals and clinics around the Wasteland. In many ways, it was more similar to the chair the pondroids of Harmony Tower had used to rewrite Ache’s memories than anything else I’d seen.

Doctor Shank worked furiously while the rest of us sat by uselessly. She did ask me to assist her a couple times, which I gladly did, but I was no more involved than that. My doctor’s coat, as much a symbol as it was, hadn’t been earned through intense study of medicine. I also had no idea of the difference between caring for a pony and a pondroid, but Shank seemed to know, so I left the operation in her hooves as much as possible.

“That’s the best I can do for her,” the doctor announced several hours later, “I’m sorry, but she’s not going to survive.”

“Is that it?” Rare demanded in disbelief while Roaring Thunder at the same time said, “There must be something we can do.”

“There’s nothing more,” Shank said sadly, “Not without replacement parts. She’s able to regenerate practically everything, except for a few control components wired up to her brain. One of them is damaged, and I have no way of fixing it short of replacing it. I don’t have the parts, though. I can keep her alive for a while, but eventually her body will admit defeat and begin to shut down.”

“How long can you keep her alive?” I asked.

“A day, maybe two, but I doubt she’ll last much longer than that,” Shank admitted.

“Where can we find replacement parts?” I asked, looking up at the ghoul.

“Well, the lab where she was built, of course, but I have no idea where that is,” Shank said.

“Are you sure about that,” I said softly, and she looked shocked, “You said you’d seen schematics for pondroids like her, and this equipment is from that lab, isn’t it?”

“She never told me where she got it, and she never will,” Shank said nervously, looking back and forth between my power-armored companions.

“Who?” I asked.

“Zherana,” Shank replied, “She found the lab for Hedge, and he sold me this equipment. He wanted quite a price too, but I don’t think even he realized how unique it really was. I tried to get the location of the lab from Zherana, but Hedge forbade her to tell anypony; whatever Hedge says, Zherana does. I tried everything to get her to tell me, until I realized that that was liable to get me killed.”

I stood and started to walk back toward the entrance of the clinic, Rare and Roaring Thunder watching me wonderingly.

“Where are you going?” Shank asked.

“To speak to Hedge and Zherana,” I replied, “I need to know where that lab is.”

“Are you crazy?” Shank asked as Rare and Roaring Thunder moved to join me, “You’ll never convince Hedge to change his mind. All you’ll accomplish is getting yourself killed by a zebra agent.”

“Maybe, but I don’t think so,” I said, “I got what I wanted from Hedge once, and I’ll do whatever it takes to do so again. Whatever it takes to save Ache. You just keep her alive.”

Shank was speechless as we left the clinic. I’d spoken a lot more confidently than I felt inside, but I couldn’t let that show. I had gotten what I wanted from Hedge before, and I was sure he wouldn’t be happy about that. It would be impossible to try the same trick this time, especially since he’d made a point of saying so when we’d last parted ways. There had to be something I could do to learn where the RoBronco labs were, though. There had to be!

Tirek’s Taphouse was just as I remembered it from my last visit here. Subdued patrons sipped at their drinks while the robot I’d fixed up trundled around, delivering more drinks and taking empty bottles and glasses. Zherana sat in her same corner, those eerie eyes in her rotten face missing nothing. Those eyes followed the three of us as we trotted up to the bar, approaching the ghoul standing behind it.

“You again,” the barkeep rasped unhappily, “I’m afraid I don’t have any water talismans for you to trick me out of this time, so you can take your muscle and leave, before I call my muscle.”

His eyes darted toward Zherana, who was sitting no differently than she had been before, yet somehow looked even more coiled and ready to pounce now.

“I’m not here for a water talisman,” I said, “I need to know where the RoBronco research labs are where Zherana obtained Doctor Shank’s surgical equipment.”

“Well, that’s a pity for you, then, isn’t it,” Hedge mocked me, “Zherana’s not gonna tell you unless I tell her to, and I’m not gonna tell her to. So, scram!”

“Our friend will die unless we find it,” Rare said, appealing to whatever shred of decency and compassion for his fellow pony was left in Hedge.

As I expected, it didn’t work. Hedge started to laugh and Zherana stood from her seat, expecting a confrontation. Patrons took shelter or scattered, one of them running into the serving robot, as Zherana casually approached us. Roaring Thunder was watching her, but no violent move was made by either of them.

“There must be something we can do to change your mind,” I said, trying not to sound too much like I was pleading, since that would probably just cause Hedge to laugh more, “Anything.”

“Anything, you say?” Hedge said thoughtfully, rubbing a chipped hoof under his chin and causing skin to flake off, “No, I won’t take that risk again. Who knows what obscure thing you may be capable of? Zherana, what was it that you said about those RoBronco labs when you returned from them again?”

“Anybody who attempts to enter them without me will surely meet an agonizing death,” Zherana said, her voice clear, unlike most ghouls, but also incredibly cold.

“So, I suppose I could just have her tell you where they are after all, and you can go and get yourself killed,” Hedge considered, “That would be good for me, but not really a good deal for you. I’m a businessghoul with a reputation to uphold, so that wouldn’t reflect well on me, though, to give you such a raw deal. No, it has to be something fair to you that would also give me everything I want. I’m not much in the mood for business deals after our last interaction. Are you a betting pony?”

According to my PipBuck, my luck was only average, equivalent to a coin flip. That was still an improvement over the days when it had been listed as that of a sickly albatross or spilled salt, but I didn’t think it accurately represented my luck. It seemed that I came out on top more often than not, which was not the case with a flipped coin. That said, I wasn’t feeling too lucky at the moment, with Ache on death’s door, but if this was the only way to save her, I had no choice but to take Hedge’s bet.

“When I have to be,” I replied, and Hedge smiled.

***

“I think Shank was right, you are crazy,” Rare Sparks commented later.

She was probably right, but it was too late to back out now. We were on the lowest level of Tartarus now, standing next to a pit that the locals referred to as the Pit of Doom. Once, it had been filled with water, as had the passageway we were in, meant to represent a river to the afterlife. The Pit of Doom, as legend went, was a deep pit in the river where abandoned souls would try to drag others down and stop their journey. Skeletal ponies were painted on the pit’s walls, reaching up.

Since the river and the pit had been drained, it was now used for fights. Hedge’s bet was against me winning a fight here against a creature called Leviathan. That seemed a little frightening, but not as frightening as it did after hearing the conditions he imposed on the fight. I reluctantly dropped my saddlebags and all my weapons into a pile next to Rare. I was to be allowed to keep my armor and clothing, but I wasn’t allowed to enter the pit with any weapons of my own.

“Are you sure about this?” Rare asked, “I heard Leviathan has been here for years and never been defeated. I’m guessing it’s not something you can pummel with your bare hooves.”

“I looked into the rules,” I assured her, “I’m not allowed to bring anything in except what I’m wearing, but there will be weapons available, attached to Leviathan, along with other supplies. I know it’ll be a hard fight, but I have to do this for Ache.”

Reluctantly, I removed my PipBuck and added it to the pile. That was an additional stipulation that Hedge had made as part of the bet. If I lost the bet, he would take my PipBuck as his winnings. Apparently, seeing me die to Leviathan wouldn’t be enough of a reward, and the master of the fights agreed. Because the fight was what we were betting on, I had to put up something outside of it to serve as my wager, and my PipBuck was all that Hedge would accept. Despite the Stable jumpsuit, armor segments, and doctor’s coat on me, I felt naked without my PipBuck. I’d had it practically since my first moments I could remember, and I relied on it constantly in the Wasteland. I hoped I didn’t rely on it too much and was still able to fight Leviathan without the benefit of it, especially without SATS and EFS.

My wager was my PipBuck, and Hedge had wagered Zherana. Given that the zebra ghoul had said nopony would survive the RoBronco labs without her, he’d seen it as reasonable to agree that if I won our wager, then he would give her to me. Zherana seemed to see no trouble in transferring a life-debt from one pony to another. I really didn’t have much desire for a servant (this whole thing smelled too much like slavery to me), but if it took agreeing to this to save Ache, then so be it. I could always “free” Zherana after we’d gotten what we needed to save Ache.

A makeshift metal grate had been constructed over the Pit of Doom to keep the fighters in the pit, impermeable except for a trap door on one side. I trotted over to the hole, where a griffin tied a rope around me and lowered me down. When word had gotten out that I was going to be fighting Leviathan, quite a crowd had come to watch. Ghouls, zebras, griffins, and even a few pegasi crowded around the Pit of Doom to observe. I tried to ignore the griffins making bets on how long I would survive; none of them were higher than ten minutes, and that didn’t instill a great deal of confidence. I untied the rope as my hooves touched the floor, and the griffin pulled it back up before shutting the trap door. Now all I could do was wait, and I faced the direction my opponent would most likely come from, a set of doors on one side of the pit.

“Bring out Leviathan!” a griffin with a chipped beak yelled with very little ceremony.

The crowd began to chant the beast’s name over and over, an incredibly unnerving experience. Rare Sparks and Roaring Thunder watched worriedly. I had the feeling that if things started to go wrong, they would probably try to break through and save me. Not that I wouldn’t be grateful to be saved, but we would likely have an incredibly difficult time making it out of Tartarus alive. The way the individuals surrounding the Pit of Doom were acting, they looked like they took these fights very seriously and wouldn’t take kindly to interference.

The doors began to creak open slowly, and a growl came from behind them. I didn’t need EFS to know something was back there. I could hear its steps as it lumbered toward the darkened entrance and eventually emerged to cheers. Based on my very limited knowledge of the world before the megaspells, Leviathan could best be described as a crocodile, albeit an abnormally large one with stone-like scales. It was big, really big, its head as large as I was. I also picked up subtle differences that marked it as having been mutated by radiation, just like most creatures in the Wasteland. SATS, if I’d still been able to cast it, probably would have identified the beast as a radcroc, or maybe a glowing radcroc, given the sickly green light coming from between some of its rocky scales. Really, the only identifier I needed for the beast was Leviathan.

Leviathan was distracted only a moment by the cheers before crawling toward me. Long rows of teeth were revealed as it opened its jaws and vanished with a snap as it tried to close them around me. I jumped aside, tucking my tail so it wouldn’t get caught, and ducked around toward the beast’s right foreleg. Crates were strapped to its legs and back, holding the gear I’d need to kill this thing. I knew without a doubt that I’d need to find a weapon quickly if I wanted to defeat Leviathan; my hooves would do nothing to that rocky exterior. I smashed open the crate, and a satchel with some medical supplies and shotgun shells fell out. Quickly, I snatched them up and looped the satchel around my neck before darting away to avoid a swipe of Leviathan’s claws.

Leviathan’s tail whipped around, and I backed up, nearly into its waiting jaws. As a foot came down behind me, I galloped toward that swinging tail. I had to time my jump just right to clear it. The tail swung at me and I jumped, but Leviathan flicked the tail up, and I went flying to the tune of yells from the audience. I landed on Leviathan’s back, bouncing across the scales and taking on bruises, before falling off the other side.

A claw darted out at me, the tip slicing through my Stable jumpsuit and down my left hindleg. I rolled away, my blood trailing across the floor, to avoid a snap of Leviathan’s jaws. A healing potion was in the satchel, and I quickly drank it down, throwing the empty vial into Leviathan’s open mouth as my leg magically mended itself.

I ran toward the wall as Leviathan rolled toward me, intending to crush me with its bulk. I was a little disappointed that the crates on its back weren’t broken open by the roll, but I darted toward the beast’s hindleg. Leviathan moved that foot and its claws toward me, and I pulled up short before jumping over them and smashing the crate. I kept moving as I snatched up the flare gun and its ammunition that fell out, heading toward Leviathan’s tail to try to get around the creature.

Loading the flare gun, I fired it at Leviathan’s head. Apparently, it’d seen that trick before and squeezed its eyes shut to keep from being blinded by the flare before whipping its tail around at me. This time, though, I was able to dodge and get under the tail. I wasn’t able to avoid being hit on the backswing, though. As I flew through the air, I fired off another shot of the flare gun at Leviathan’s head. As it opened its eye, the flare struck it, and Leviathan gave a pained roar.

Leviathan tried to twist around to get a look at me with its good eye as I scrambled back to my hooves. That fall had broken a bone or two, and I drank another healing potion. There was only one left in the satchel now. As soon as Leviathan spotted me, it propelled itself toward me like an oncoming train. I jumped to the side as jaws snapped shut and narrowly missed being shredded by the beast’s claws.

I jumped toward Leviathan now, from the creature’s right side, the one with the burned eye, and used the remains of the crate I’d broken on its foreleg to propel myself onto its back. Leviathan knew I was there the moment I set hooves on its rocky flesh, and the glow between the scales increased. I had the feeling that I was being exposed to a significant dose of radiation, even if I didn’t have my PipBuck to warn me.

Seeing that that didn’t deter me, Leviathan began to roll to try to shake me off or crush me. I scrambled to stay atop the beast, my hooves slipping on its smooth belly as it turned all the way over. When Leviathan came to a stop, I was on the beast’s back again. I rushed toward the nearest crate and opened it, pulling out its contents. Within, there was a metal apple and a strength-augmenting shoe, its case stenciled with the brand Power~Hoof. Both went flying from my magical grasp as Leviathan shook me off.

The spectators cheered as Leviathan turned and barreled toward me, jaws open. I fired the final flare into its mouth as I ran toward the Power~Hoof. The flare went off in Leviathan’s mouth, singing the tender flesh but not accomplishing much more than making it madder. I grabbed the Power~Hoof in my magic as I ran but had to pause to fit it onto my foreleg. Perhaps, with this, my hooves would finally be of some use in fighting this thing.

A huge foot came down on me and began to drag me back toward the beast’s open mouth. Giving the Power~Hoof a test, I struck out at one of Leviathan’s toes. The stony scales shattered with a single strike, and the next few pulverized the flesh and broke bone. Leviathan released me with a roar, and I scrambled away from the oncoming jaws. I circled around before charging the beast, more confident now.

Leviathan swung at me, but I jumped over the claws and launched myself from a supply crate onto the beast’s back. It tried to shake me off, tail whipping around, as I made my way up to its head. Its good eye looked up at me as I pummeled the top of Leviathan’s head with the Power~Hoof in between trying to balance. Rocky scales gave way after a few strikes, and I continued pounding until I was striking the beast’s skull.

Leviathan suddenly reared up onto its hindlegs, and I was thrown unexpectedly into the air, nearly touching the grate at the top of the Pit of Doom. As I fell, I was swatted by a swing of Leviathan’s tail and smashed against a wall. The last healing potion wasn’t able to fix everything, but it did enough that I was able to rise and face my foe.

Leviathan charged toward me, and I prepared to leap aside again. As I stepped back, my hoof bumped into the metal apple I’d lost earlier. Picking it up, I concentrated on my target before removing the stem and throwing it. I didn’t have SATS to guide me, but I’d gotten pretty good at throwing these things, and the metal apple went right where I wanted. It went off as it fell into the hollow formed at the top of Leviathan’s skull by my attacks.

I still had to jump aside to avoid being run over, but it was Leviathan’s corpse sliding toward me now, not barreling at me ready for a meal. The glow between the creature’s scales faded as purplish blood flowed down from the wound on its head. Breathing heavily from my ordeal, I looked up at the audience. They had gone silent when I’d killed Leviathan, but now burst out into cheers when it was clear that I’d finished the giant crocodile off.

I headed over to where a rope was lowered to help me back up. My left hindleg hadn’t healed entirely after that last throw, and I was limping slightly as I trotted over. Once I was out of the Pit of Doom, I could use my own healing potions. Several ghouls and griffins tried to congratulate me, but I only cared about one thing. Hedge and Zherana were standing over where I’d left my saddlebags and weapons, Rare Sparks and Roaring Thunder carefully watching them. Hedge looked livid; he had obviously expected me to die. His eyes widened as Zherana trotted up to me without speaking a word to her about doing so.

“My life is at your service,” the zebra ghoul said as she executed a complicated bow, “I am yours to command without question.”

“Zherana, get back here!” Hedge yelled furiously.

“My bond now lies with the Wasteland Doctor, as you have agreed,” Zherana said as she smoothly rose and turned to face Hedge, “Unless you intend to renege on your agreement. I was certain that this would not be the case. After all, you are a ghoul of your word.”

The last part was exactly what he’d said to me when he’d parted reluctantly with the water talisman stolen from Crate City. Zherana knew that he’d either have to break his word or part with her—a difficult choice for the seedy ghoul who nevertheless had the reputation of always keeping his promises. Hedge fumed and looked on the edge of ordering her to come back (and probably also kill me), but he reigned in his temper.

“Of course not,” he said through his teeth, looking ready to burst.

He couldn’t help but notice some of the members of the crowd eyeing him hungrily. He’d gotten away with a lot over the years because he had Zherana to do his dirty work and frighten off competition. He would have her no longer, which made him vulnerable. Add to that the number of enemies he’d likely made, and things weren’t looking up for Hedge. I didn’t much care what happened to the ghoul at the moment; there were more important matters at stake.

“Take us to the RoBronco research labs where they made the pondroids,” I told Zherana.

***

As soon as I was able to heal up and drape myself with weapons again, we left Tartarus. Night had fallen by now, but I wasn’t going to waste any time, not when Ache’s body could decide to give out at any moment. It was a long trek through the tangled and raider-filled ruins of Vanhoover to reach the RoBronco labs in the southern part of the city. We had no time to fight raiders, yet they refused to leave us alone. Every time we were drawn off course just to keep from being shot in the back or ambushed later, I was keenly aware of the time we were losing.

While Rare Sparks, Roaring Thunder, and I were all concerned about Ache, Zherana was cold as ice through the whole ordeal. To an extent, it made sense, given that she had never known Ache like we had, but I expected her to show at least some emotion, at least for being out from under Hedge, but that wasn’t the case. She didn’t seem to dislike us, but then again, she didn’t seem to care either way. She talked to us, though only when I asked her questions. Indeed, she had not liked working for Hedge, but due to the bond she wouldn’t disclose the details of, she wouldn’t leave him either. It seemed even if he had tried to send her away, she wouldn’t have obeyed, though transferring her to me was all right. I thought I knew very little about Equestria before the megaspells, but I knew even less about what the Zebra Empire had been like. Given what the zebras in Tartarus had told me on my first visit, though, Zherana was a stranger among strangers, an outlier.

Tales that she’d once been an agent of the empire seemed likely after we’d seen her fight raiders. She flipped and dodged through the air, killing them with only her hooves or lengths of wood or pipe, when they were handy. Her skill in fighting without weapons put even Ache to shame, even if she didn’t have the pondroid’s incredible strength. When I asked Zherana if she really had been an agent during the War, she admitted it freely. She also said that she was skilled in many weapons besides fighting unarmed, but nopony had offered her one. I let her borrow my sniper rifle for a while, a weapon I hadn’t used in a long time, and decided to let her keep it after she picked off raiders long before we ever came in sight of them again and again.

At last we reached the entrance to the RoBronco labs, a furniture store that also sold writing utensils, for some reason. After shoving a few sofas aside to reveal a trap door, Zherana led us down into the bunker beneath the store. As we reached the bottom of the stairs, the once-zebra waved for us to wait as she stepped forward. An orange light suffused her, sweeping back and forth across her body until a chime sounded and the door ahead of her slid open. Still waving for us to wait, she stepped through and tapped on a keyboard with her hooves before beckoning us forward.

“The entry was keyed to my bio-signs,” Zherana explained when I asked, “Anybody else who tried to enter would have been shot full of holes, incinerated, dissolved, and vaporized for good measure.”

It seemed a bit extreme, but given the grate on the floor and the appearance of sliding panels on the walls, I didn’t doubt that she was telling the truth. A long hallway led deeper into the bunker, some of the lights flickering. After the rebellion of the pondroids and the flight of the scientists, I had expected the labs to be abandoned, but a few hostile pips appeared on EFS.

“I see them,” Rare Sparks said as I brought them up.

“I thought this place was abandoned,” I said to Zherana as she continued to lead the way, looking unperturbed.

“When I left, it was,” Zherana said, leaving the implication that it hadn’t been abandoned when she’d arrived.

A clatter up ahead revealed itself as a robot shaped like a dog that charged around the corner, metal toes sliding on the floor. Its metal jaws hinged open to reveal the barrel of a magical energy weapon within. A broad red beam shot out at our group, and we ducked to the side to avoid it. Pieces of ceiling panel melted and fell to the floor where the beam struck. I drew my magical energy rifle and Roaring Thunder took to the air as soon as the beam stopped, but Zherana was already nearly on top of it. Knocking enough legs out to topple the automaton, she jumped onto its back and pinned it so it couldn’t rise. With her teeth, she tore out the exposed wires on the back of its neck, and the machine stopped struggling.

“The computer core is decaying,” Zherana said as she rose, sparing the robo-dog only a glance, “It must have activated the fabricator.”

“Where is the computer core?” I asked.

“This way,” Zherana said, before trotting off toward more of the hostile marks, moving in on us now.

We moved through the labs as quickly as we could, sticking to the hallways except when it was advantageous to duck into a room to draw in the robo-dogs. There was some equipment left over from the scientists’ experiments, but some of it also looked to have been damaged. The riot of the pondroids had done that, by the look of things, rebelling against their creators by wrecking the instruments used to make them. Nowhere did I see anything that resembled the parts Doctor Shank would need to fix Ache, though.

At the center of the facility, we entered a large circular room with a cylindrical tower running up through the middle of it. Catwalks bridged the gaps between the walls and the tower in several places at several levels. According to Zherana, the computer core was in the top part of the tower. To get there, though, we’d need to get past the robo-dogs running around the lowest level.

At my direction, Roaring Thunder picked me up and flew me to the top of the tower, saving a lot of time. As we ascended, I fired down at the robo-dogs, helping Rare out where I could. Zherana tore a path through the automatons before jumping to the lowest catwalk. Again and again she jumped until she reached the top catwalk just seconds after Roaring Thunder set me down on it just outside the tower. The door was locked, but I was able to pick it with a few attempts. Within was the command center of the labs, and I quickly reprogrammed the security system to target the robo-dogs. As turrets deployed from the ceiling throughout the facility and engaged the automatons, I also shut down the fabricator to keep it from making more of the machines.

With that problem taken care of, we were able to explore the facility freely. It was a shame we didn’t have the time to investigate more thoroughly—I saw terminals that would give me knowledge everywhere—but we had a mission. Zherana led us to the labs dedicated to fabricating pondroids, specifically the top-tier ones (Mr. Bucke and Ache). There were no spare parts lying around, but there were schematics on one of the terminals, and I found the one for P-8CH. A miniature fabricator was in the room, and I used it to create the part in Ache’s brain that had been damaged. I fabricated some other components that looked important, just in case she was ever injured severely again someday.

Now that we had what we needed, we retraced our steps back up and out of the labs, Zherana securing it tightly behind us, to keep out raiders and other scavengers who might abuse the technology here. By the time we left the furniture shop, the clouds were beginning to lighten with the dawn. It was as if I could feel Ache’s time running out, like sand through an hourglass. Back to Tartarus.

***

“Well, the good news is that she’s going to live,” Doctor Shank reported after the surgery, “Her flesh should be able to repair itself now.”

“And the bad news?” I asked. Nopony ever mentioned good news unless there was bad news to accompany it.

“The component that was hit contained her memory database,” Shank said, “She’s going to forget everything she’s ever known, probably everything she was programmed with, too.”

I was afraid of this, given what I’d seen of the schematics back in the labs. It was a risk we had to take, though. At least she was alive, even if she wouldn’t remember us. I’d gotten along fine without my memories, so maybe Ache would too, though it seemed cruel that she would lose them so soon after the gaps in her memory had finally started filling in.

“Everything?” Roaring Thunder asked.

“I’m afraid so,” Shank said, “Her mind will be like that of a newborn foal.”

“There must be something we can do!” Rare Sparks exclaimed.

“I’m afraid not,” the doctor said with a shake of her head, the few strands of her mane she had left coming along reluctantly, “Even if I had the equipment to transfer memories into her, the module she had is too damaged for me to risk it.”

I’d thought about tha,t too. That chair the pondroids of Harmony Tower had used to wipe Ache’s memories had been seized by the PRS, but even if we could get it, it only stored the memories the other pondroids had wanted her to forget. If we put those memories and those alone into her, who knew what kind of pony would come out? Not our Ache, and her memories were in the component torn nearly in half lying in a metal pan now. Trying to transfer memories from that would at best leave gaps, and at worst kill her as it corrupted her systems.

“I know you did the best that you could,” I told Doctor Shank as I rose, “Perhaps this is for the best. Ache can live a normal life now, or as normal as one can in the Wasteland. Doctor Shank, will you look after her for us? At least until she’s managed to grow up again.”

Doctor Shank looked surprised by my request, but after thinking it over for a few seconds, nodded.

“Yes, I can do that. Tartarus has enough oddity that she won’t stick out, or if she does, then nopony will care,” she said.

“Thank you,” I told her, before looking at Ache lying peacefully on the operation table, “We’ll be around to visit, I assure you.”

Level Up
New Perk: Charge! – Opponents are more easily knocked down by running into them.
New Quest: After the Goodbye – Go on without Ache and continue to fight the NLC.
Medicine +6 (100) [Max Level Reached]
Unarmed +14 (76)